"To hell with the Greater Community of which I am a part! I want mine!"

Therein lies the voice of a self-driven culture, a self-fascinated and dominated world. As it is a self that alone can know progress, it is also a "self" that becomes the centerpiece in a world dominated by the Myth of E-Progress (where and when Soul is backdropped). The two go together, and reinforce each other: progressivism and self. Only the "self" can ever appear to progress for a time. Soul and spirit transcend the domain of progress, the domain of time and linear sequential patterns of development.

We could even state that a world-culture that is fascinated with the notion of E-Progress is a world-culture fascinated with its many selves-with the self in fact. A "cult of personality" develops. Which means that soul and spirit are in the backseat as the self drives it-self as the engine of development; marching onto Eternity with nary a glance over its shoulder to notice the whispers emanating from the developmentally disabled children behind it: soul and spirit.

We are building better "selves" through progress. This is fundamental --- progress has nothing to do with soul and spirit. It is not a requirement that soul or spirit have any say in "how" the engines of progress are driven by the many selves. In fact, and quite to the contrary, soul and spirit could be considered to be progress-less. How so? Well, for one, that which is already the case can not be considered to be progressive. It already Is. That which is already full cannot be more full. That which is already empty cannot be more empty. That which is cannot be is + 1. Only a lacking being, which is the 'self', can ever entertain the idea of progress.

The modes of self-ism can be extrapolated onto soul and spirit where they do not apply at all. The laws of the self can falsely be believed to apply to soul and spirit; however, this is not the case. The nature of the self is not the nature of the soul nor the nature of the spirit. Reductionism does not work when taken in regard to the Trinity of self, soul, spirit. What applies to the self cannot be said to apply without qualification to soul and spirit. And yet, spiritually and metaphysically, religion and self-help all project self-emergent properties onto soul and spirit as if these properties apply and have sway in relation to soul and spirit as they do for the self. But they do not. Soul and spirit cannot progress, if they could they would not be soul and spirit but self. Only the self is progressive. And a culture of progressives is a culture of sefl-ism. A Culture of Personalities.

There is a similar understanding of irreducibility as it applies to the various fields of science and investigative inquiry. Ken Wilber has written much about how one realm cannot be reduced to another --- how each realm exhibits rules and laws specific to that realm and that realm alone. In his grand tome Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, Wilber points out that one level cannot be reduced to another --- which is the reductive fallacy. Not even within the realm of the self can we reduce the laws of biology to chemistry, or derive the laws of psychology from biology alone. This non-reductive principle applies even more so when we get into associating self with spirit and soul. In talking of biology and chemistry we are talking of realms of the self --- that which is manifest, which can be said to exist and can be said to "matter", "develop", "unfold", "explicate". The realms of self are not the same or even in kind at all similar to the realms of soul and spirit. Applying self-generalizing statements to the realm of soul or the realm of spirit is to erroneously place self-constraints and definitions where they do not apply, at all. In short, again, context is crucial for understanding applicability of and the nature of. There is no simple off-handed statement we can offer that says, "If it is like this here, then it must also be so there".

Reductionism has limitations. The lowest factor does not always commonly apply. Each realm exhibits inviolate tendencies which are not exhibited elsewhere. Each spectre of Being is supported, but may not manifest that support in full. We cannot turn it all inside out and still maintain our-self as an appropriate and conducive function of the Trinity. There are limits.

 

11

You and I --- our children and our grandchildren --- we are all subject to being manipulated. We also learn how to manipulate --- to get the Other to respond to us, maybe even "how" we want them to respond.

Yesterday, while I was outside shoveling the snow from the driveway, down the street from me, there was a young boy encouraging the people within the passing cars to honk their horns as they drove by. This is also something that I used to try and get the truckdrivers to do while passing by in their big rigs --- blow that horn! It is quite an innocuous example of getting a response from our world, but without the child compelling the horn-honking of passing motorists, there is no horned response from the world. The child learns that it can get some horns to honk --- if not all.

In the same way that the child wants to get a response from the world by hearing the horns of passing cars, so too are advertisers seeking to get a response from consumers. By noticing an increase in sales of an advertised product the advertisers know they have gotten a response. Politician's too, function in the same way --- by marketing/advertising for votes. Yes, everything has apparently been turned into a commodity. We are now, unlike ever before, in the midst of the commodification of the World. Everything is marektable, for sale, a commodity to be pushed peddled, bought and sold. It's all up for grabs folks! From the most Blessed Sacrament of the Sacred to the most debased vice in the realm of the profane. All is commodity. The market has subsumed all that we know under its heading. All can be considered a commodity ripe for exchange.

Whether we know it or not --- and it is better to know it, thereby offering us a bit of immunity --- there is someone else seeking to meet their self-chosen ends through making us do what they want us to --- and right now. It surely is not a pretty fact but it is a fact no less. The truth of the matter is that we are manipulating each other, and even more blatant --- each others children --- just so we can have more whatever it is we are seeking to gain through our manipulation. Purchasing power. Market share. Exchange value. Loyal consumer. More. Progress. Mythic.

We are effectively hawking and pushing our wares on each other from infancy to grave; with little to no concern or responsible motive at all behind it. Like, how necessary is to gain at anothers expense? Social Darwinism in the Market; in the school; a get mine-world through you; where the main concern is that we have the ability to do what we do. Seize the market; corner the exchange; pocket the profit; take all you can while the getting is good. Consume and prosper.

 We can. So this must mean it is all right. But is it? Is it all right to know someone elses weakness and to prey on that weakness for our own gain? Is it all right to know the psychology of developing children and to prey upon children with that information because they will surely pester their parents to purchase for them what is being peddled in the open market? Is it really all right to manipulate just because we can? Is that what the Truth is --- the ability to get others to do what one wants? Is that a sure sign of the Truth? It is for science. It is for industry. It is for capital. It is in the Market.

Being that capitalism is based upon industriousness and information --- which are fruits of science --- it turns out that ones manipulation capacity becomes directly proportional to the apparent truth that one possesses over and against that which another possesses. My ability to profit means having something that others do not, or making others feel as if I have something that they do not possess. So, they have to pay me for it. I profit. Another happy consumer.

It follows that the truth I have, a truth that you don't have, allows me to profit from your lack. If you don't know it --- too bad for you... and oh so good for me. I am just providing for your lack... that is all. Lack of Beauty? Fill that hole in the Market. Lack of Meaning? Fill that hole in the Market. Lack of Spirit? Fill that hole in the Market.

Fill that hole in the Market.

Capitalism is taking advantage of. Capitalize: the taking advantage of a situation. The best form of capitalism is that which creates holes or lacks in consumers and then is able to provide for the filling of that hole or lack. First, through propaganda, manufacture a 'lack' in the subject targeted, then offer a product to plug the gap of the lack. This = profitability. Create a lack. Manufacture a solution. Capitalize. Reinvest in lack creation. Produce more. Consumption is up. Market soars.

Icarus flew too high too.

Because capitalism doesn't believe in cycles anymore but in the Myth of Eternal Progress, great opportunities only come around once. Each point on the line of linear progressivism is a one time affair. Progress doesn't come back around. The Myth of E-Progress has canceled payment on seasons and cycles. Therefore, we can note that capitalism, as a system, dictates that one must always be out front pushing the envelope, stretching the mark, breaking waves, leading the pack, bushwhacking through the digital jungle of information so as to get an advantage over ones competitors. And by having that advantage one can then capitalize on that advantage. Time collapses. The frontier becomes information, limits are negated, push, push, push the wave of the future now; push, push, push --- the wave of the future. E-Progress waits for no one. The Market rides on.

Even in something so apparently beneficial as psychotherapy we discover the language of capitalism and industry wielding the tongue of domination over both therapist and client alike. James Hillman, himself an author and psychologist, writes about what he sees as "The notion of transformation that dominates therapy: [to] transform something useless into something useful." Production. Efficiency. Market capitalization of the Psyche. This is such a profoundly capitalistic and industrial notion: a profoundly modern statement. Mould Nature so as to capitalize and turn a profit. A productive psyche is want we want, an efficient subject. It just shows how language infiltrates so many distinct spheres. Capitalistic jargon is so pervasive and so insidious that until we look at the language that we use to speak about ourselves as subjects, we will continue to miss out on the myths that so drive our collective experience of the lifeworld.

It is true that there is something that, as patients, bothers us; we have a symptom that is afflicting us, that doesn't fit into the plans our "ego" has for us. So, let us capitalize on this situation and turn our disadvantage into an advantage. Let us be industrious. Let us transform the landscape both within and without so that we can all be more prosperous and productive. So, even as subjects we are commodified --- just a heap of parts that we can trade, mold, shape, reduce, recycle, and reuse in the free market. Out with the old in and with the new and improved. Bigger, better, leaner, meaner, faster --- improved. The Myth of Eternal Progress. Inside out.

 

12

Would you say that if I "know" more than my competitors do, then it is a sign of me having the truth? Or is it just a sign that I have more pertinent information than they do as it relates to our mutual context --- and the ends that we are both attempting to converge on? Can we say that having more and better information as it relates to a particular context is the truth? In other words, is it really "truth" when someone has an advantageous amount of information, which allows them to both predict and to control an outcome? If I have information that allows me to capitalize in an area that we are both involved in, is that a sign that I have more truth? Isn't there a difference between information and truth? I suspect that there is. It is also my suspicion that we have grown to equate the holder of information as the possessor of truth. Magicians have information about "how" to manufacture illusions. But it does not result in "The Truth"; it results in the magician being able to pull the wool over your eyes, i.e., to deceive you and your senses. We can state almost the same thing about what takes place in the marketplace: by having information that a competitor or a consumer does not have, this in no way assures that there is a direct one to one correspondence with "The Truth"; it merely means that the information possessed allows one party to take advantage of the other parties lack of that information --- either a competitor or a consumer.

There is no direct relationship between Truth and information. That should be highlighted: there is no direct one to one relationship between Truth and information. Truth and information are not necessarily conjoined. They can be; but do not necessarily have to be.

There is certainly no abiding Truth in the ability to manipulate circumstances for one's own gain, yet this is--as we have seen --- often what Truth has been connoted with.

1. Desire an alteration.
2. Find the pertinent information necessary to bring about the desired alteration in conditions.
3. Call that information the Truth.

The capacity to alter certain conditions, to meet, or most closely approximate what is desired, has been designated by an overwhelming majority as a sure indication of the Truth. Now, expanding on the above outline, a little secret about "how" we have worked the "truth pursuit".

First, we begin with a desire to alter a condition; then we look for the methodology/information that allows for us to alter that condition. After much trial and error we find that methodology/information which allows for us to alter that condition to be more in line with what is desirable, i.e., what we want. Finally, that method of alteration is called a sure indication for us having arrived at and acquired the "objective truth". So, the "Truth" becomes the ability to change our world for our own uniquely peculiar and self-justifiable reasoning and rationale.

Once we have the "Truth" we are finally free, because now we "know" and we can "change" anything we don't like because we have the "Truth". Truth and manipulation go in hand in hand for us. If we cannot change something then we must not have the "Truth". If we can change conditions then we have the "Truth".

 

13

Imagine that I know more than you do. Now, also imagine that I want to get something from you. Maybe you are too passive for your own good, and I am able to make you do what I want. I use you to achieve my desires. So, does this make me a signifier of one who has the Truth? Or do I signify one who has the Power, the Ability, the Capacity --- but not necessarily the Truth?

The notion that there is a direct correlation between "the ability to" and "the truth of" shows us that we want Truth and Power to go together. If it gives us no Power over circumstance then it is not a Truth that we want. We'll go look elsewhere thank you very much! For us, at present, Truth = the Power to know or to do. When we "do not know", or "do not know what to do", we lack Truth and the Power to act decisively. On the other hand, when "we do know", or when "we do know what to do", then we feel, think, and believe that we have the Truth and also the Power to act with and on that Truth.
  
For starters, "we want the truth that allows us to possess the power to change and alter the life world". In other words, we only want the particular truth that relates to the fulfillment of our desires and the negation of our aversions. (By most religious standards this was a sure sign of a runaway "ego" and utter "selfishness".)

If the desire is to control certain forces that allow us a more comfortable existence, then is that "The Truth", or is it just a demonstration of our ability to manipulate and control those forces so as o give us more bodily and psychological comfort? It may be appropriate at this time to draw a distinction between knowledge (or information) and truth, between understanding and possessing information and the wisdom of implementing information already possessed --- the knowledge already gathered. In most, if not all, avenues of ongoing research into life, we have the understanding of various forces, as well as the protocols in relation to those forces, which allows us to knowledgeably repeat certain cause/effect chains of initiated results. Repeatability is key along this avenue of inquiry; being that it is a sign of Truth. Meanwhile, in another part of town, the ongoing research into life supplies us with the wisdom that pertains to our relationship with various forces and protocols, which allows us to truthfully and respectfully adjust ourselves in relation to the various cause/effect chains of a lifeworld. The former avenue allows us to control and manipulate --- with or without wisdom. The latter may or may not lead us to control or manipulate, depending upon the circumstances --- depending upon the context. The former avenue is not always wise or truthful --- because the "will to power" and the "desire for control" supersede any notion or representation of wisdom and truth. The latter avenue (of wisdom) is not always about manipulation and control, as wisdom and truth have little to nothing to do with control and manipulation, per se. Unfortunately, the above distinctions are not always noted.

The religion of science, based upon the ability to manipulate and control various forces, has come to be equated with the Truth. Most assuredly, however, it is not that. Manipulation and control of forces can have little to do with Truth, and everything to do with the freedom and capacity to control and manipulate --- and that is all. The ability to control and manipulate forces, flows, and fields is not an indication of the Truth... it is sign of access to ability, to capacity.

The myth of equating the ability to manipulate and control forces and processes with the Truth is and has been, by a preponderance of the evidence, quite pervasive. The high priests of scientism have been nothing if not convincing with their understanding that equates control of forces with understanding of the Truth.

 

14

What is the Truth, then? If science is not a demonstration of truth but just another example of manipulation and control, then where is and what is a sign of the Truth?

It is my hope that we explore this question, and others akin to it, as we continue to move with the rhythms of an incoming tide --- that tide that beckons us unto the Laws of Form; Laws that will increasingly serve to counter-balance and leverage the overwhelming reliance on the Laws of Force and Function that have been uncovered and implemented for numerous generations now.

 

15

For physical scientists the chief weapon in the war for Reality is mathematics.

--- Tony Rothman and George Sudarshan

There is a certain elitism that exists in regards to highly specialized languages --- such as those the various branches of physics tend to employ. Many translations must take place in order to bring the abstract mathematics down to earth, to where they can be understood by more than just the physics and mathematics intelligentsia. That certain symbols and codes can seem, to the majority of us, to be tightly guarded secrets, kept from the unknowing ones, is no surprise. The language of understanding in relation to higher math and physics is quite an initiatory experience, as demanding as any-and is certainly elitist, in a sense. Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers have written that "Galileo, and those after him, conceived of science as being capable of discovering global truths about nature. Nature not only could be written in a mathematical language that can be deciphered by experimentation, but there would only exist one such language." How's that for elitist jargon? Mathematical language: the only objectively true language. Hhmmmm... And this "one such language" is, I am sure, only to be revealed and made accessible to humanity by the high priests of science themselves. All hail the kingdom of numbers and equations, theorems and proofs!

"Would you like to confess your mathematical sins of omission, my son?"

Both Rothman and Sudarshan, in their book Doubt and Certainty, tell us that "To the extent that physics employs mathematics as a language... all physical theories... must have holes in them, must eventually make assertions that do not correspond to provable mathematical statements." Furthemore, they state that just "Because we can make a precise mathematical description of phenomenon, we fool ourselves into thinking we have described the physical world." My guess is that Rothman and Sudarshan are talking about those who rely on mathematics as their "chief weapon in the war for Reality".

The trouble with long years of indoctrination into any system is that it can lead to myopia. In other words, one begins to "see" and "interpret" the whole of the world through the lens of the system we have been indoctrinated into. If we are not required to gain familiarity with the specialized codes and canons of math, is Reality different for us than it is for them who have the secret codes, who know the "one language"? Certain mathematicians and physicists alike assume that they are grasping something crucial that the rest of us just don't get. What is this something? What are these secrets that we of the non-priestly caste are unaware of? Is our Reality fundamentally different because we do not see the hidden mathematics beneath the surfaces of "things"? I think not!

It is in the nature of all forms of elitism to want those in the "realms of the unknowing" to feel as if they are less than. (Remember? Create a lack in the subject? Then tell them that the price is an as yet unknown knowledge.)

A simple omission of some form of knowing based upon a certain language is no indication of a lack of the most cherished of all human attributes, which is Love. This is an inscription that could well be placed over all Halls of Knowledge, all Academies of Understanding. In the Spirit of Paul, in his letters to the Corinthians almost 2,000 of our years ago:

If I had the gift of being able to speak in many languages without learning them, and could even speak in every language there is in all of heaven and earth, but had not love; I would only be making noise. If I had the gift of prophecy and knew all about what is going to happen in the future, truly knowing everything about everything, but had not love; what good would it do? Even if I had the gift of faith and could speak to a mountain and make it move it would still be worth nothing at all without love. If I gave all I have to the poor, and was burned alive at the stake for preaching the Good News, but had not love, it would all be for naught...

For there are three things that alone remain --- faith, hope, and love --- and the greatest of these is love.

It is quite true that we can haggle over codes and canons and perform great feats of ingenuity, but if we have not love, then what do our efforts amount to? Piles of bones and fragments of rotting flesh, corpses and discarded parts; these the left-over remnants from the 'truth pursuit'; that 'will to power' that knows not love, but a growing greed bent on controlling events, conditions, circumstances for pure profit and material gain. Where are we without love? What testament is left to the children in a loveless world of pure knowledge, of definite terms, of circumscribed codes that decimate the wordless understanding, the hunch out of nowhere, the song of wind and melodious tone of lapping wave? What song has mathematics written or physics uncovered? What poet has built a bomb? What mystic has manufactured dioxin? What Heart has seen fit to lay waste to the Other so as to prove the effectiveness of yet one more Tool of Power, yet one more demonstration of Truth?

And yet it is often the most innocent amongst us who is the object of the piercing bullet-blows thrown out by those clutching to their hold on a Power that for them = Truth.

A crucifixion an hour.

Kill
the innocents.
Rent asunder
the quiet.

Trample
the meek.
Punish
the silence.

A crucifixion an hour.

This our "will to power".
bought with a
crucifixion an hour.

"You better get them before they get you.
Mount your attack. Make your stand.

Rage... Rage...
Rage against that
forsaken land

This our will to power:
How many?

What is equal to
A crucifixion an hour?

Our evolved codes and canons are what allows us the capacity for the abstract manipulation of forces and fields --- an abstract manipulation that becomes increasingly concrete through the process of translative applications. Mathematics serves to re-present the world. In mathematical processes one abstracts the magnitudes and forces of the natural and concrete, roughs them up and around in an equation, and then through many measures re-applies these results concretely, i.e., in the actual world.

One of the saddest, if not most tragic, aspects of the hanging of our fate on the coat hanger of science, is that it is all perceived as being unalienably just so. In other words, science has given us such great powers of altering the given world, and this seductive power becomes unquestioningly applied with very little foresight. Little if any skeptical inquiry is taken into account. All critics of science are brandished the tag of being "Luddites", as backwards leaning Neanderthals, retro-romantic regressives, back to Eden fools who are profoundly ungrateful as well. Science has become the sort of bully of the postmodern age; as Church/religion was during the period of the Inquisitions. (And just wait --- the bully has been seen working out at the quantum gym. Science is all set to apply those ripped and lean muscles of propaganda to the task of re-forming biology, psychology, sociology, physiology, and your most intimate of intimates --- that neuro-you lurking in the cranial cavity.

If you despise anything about who you are and what you have become then pay a visit --- not to the priest or the rabbi --- instead go see those who wear the white coats of science and wield the scalpel, the laser; who push the drugs and walk hand in hand with commerce. For the right price we can make appearances change, we can re-make you. Change your identity. Alter your sexual orientation. Try on a new lifestyle like a pair of stylish pants.

But what about those sticky fundamentals --- those essentials that are what Life is, in fact? What are the limits of alteration and progress in relation to self, in relation to the subject? I suspect we will find out very shortly, for I hear iron clanking in the gym across the way. Yup, apparently the bully has his sights set on all of those sticky and stubborn fundamentals.

The "will to power". A crucifixion an hour. Small price to pay for power, isn't it? After all it's just another Body. Big deal.

"Let us see here, what will we have to remove and later from this time so that you can feel power-full again. Oh, yes. This will have to go for sure. Now, this will only hurt for a minute. I promise. And you won't remember a thing, so just relax... Yes... that's it... there... there...

"You won't remember a thing... You won't remember a... won't remember... "

 

16

The tools are many. The tools that we invent allow us to re-make the world. I am not sure if we own the tools or if the tools end up owning us. Most likely it is a bit of both, for we cannot help but be changed and altered ourselves by the tools that we use. Maybe a good idea for a space-faring billboard --- one that tells the cosmic traveler what the Earth is about from a human perspective --- would be "Tools 'R Us". We are entooled beings. Just imagine your life without tools for a moment. From the automatic coffee maker to those computers where this text can be read, and the one where this text is being written --- indeed, Tools 'R Us.

By now, it is apparent that our various languages are tools as well. Each language becomes a tool of communication, or a tool of expression, or even a tool of definition as in mathematics. Tools 'R Us. Oh, how we love our tools. The curling iron, the eyebrow pencil, and the lipstick applicator. The jig-saw, the belt-sander, and the router. Tools. Words. Equations. Symbols. Melodies. Sonnets. Hammers. Philosophies. Theories of everything and nothing. MRIs and CAT-Scans, joysticks and mouses, modems and mansions, dolls and houses. Tools for comfort and tools for luxury. Tools of entertainment and tools of industry. Tools 'R Us. Extended appendages of self-improving self and Other. Extended prosthetics to alleviate for the missing limbs and the absent senses. Tools extend the self out into the world. Tools allow for deeper penetration and more scopic vision. Tools allow us to hear sounds we would not otherwise be able to. Tools extend the Being-human out farther, in deeper. Tools are extensions of self. Attached sensory empowerment.

For the first space-faring tribe to hit Earth, they should know that here on Earth "Tools 'R Us."

"Welcome to Home Depot. May I help you?"