Richard’s Selected Correspondence Richard’s Reports Regarding 30+ Months of Severe Mental Agitation RESPONDENT: I understand that, but I do not yet understand how such perplexity can be experienced as suffering when there is neither physical pain nor affective distress. RICHARD: I did not experience such perplexity as suffering ... I specifically say it was [quote] ‘disconcerting’ [endquote] in that above passage which I provided as an in-context example, in response to your query about being disconcerted when first freed from the human condition, and in no way mean by that what the word ‘suffering’ can mean. Here is what being disconcerted means to me: • ‘disconcert: to throw into confusion’. (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary). Thus that last sentence could have been written like this: • [example only]: ‘That this confusing perplexity was only cerebral was evidenced by no sweaty palms, no increased heartbeat, no rapid breathing, no palpations in the solar plexus ... none of those things connected with ‘being’. [end example]. As for that intense brain agitation – the neuronal excitation – I have elsewhere described it as [quote] ‘altogether unpleasant’ [endquote]. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘... primarily the main symptom was a saturated sensuosity of such brilliance and vividity (as in psychedelic), which satiation can be likened to a television set receiving 4 or 5 channels all at once (inasmuch thought, and thus speech, was unable to keep up with the resultant cacophonic ‘white noise’), that the brain cells themselves were undergoing a non-volitional (chemical) excitation of such a magnitude as to be almost impossible for awareness to sustain itself (as in too much to bear). It is altogether unpleasant, to say the least’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 53a, 20 November 2003). RESPONDENT: You seem to have suffered a lot during that period, yet you also say that actual freedom is the end of all suffering. RICHARD: Perhaps if I were to take the liberty of replacing one word in your sentence with what I wrote, in response to your query about being disconcerted, it may become more clear? For example: • [example only]: ‘You seem to have been (mentally) astonished, astounded, surprised, uncertain, baffled, puzzled, perplexed, nonplussed, and so on, a lot during that period, yet you also say that actual freedom is the end of all suffering’. [end example]. RESPONDENT: Is there any real-world analogues that would convey the nature of that suffering? RICHARD: There are no real-world analogues that could convey the nature of that disconcerting perplexity as it was only cerebral (as evidenced by no sweaty palms, no increased heartbeat, no rapid breathing, no palpations in the solar plexus ... none of those things connected with ‘being’). The intense brain agitation – the neuronal excitation – is akin to having what is colloquially known as a bad trip on acid (lysergic acid diethylamide). RESPONDENT: Had you experienced anything like it before? RICHARD: I had experienced the neuronal excitation before, during some of the many PCE’s, but never to that extent (let alone duration). RESPONDENT: Are you still able to suffer in that way? RICHARD: As I now have 13+ years experience, of being a flesh and blood body only, there is no foreseeable reason why such disconcerting perplexity would ever come about again. Nor for anybody else, either, as the validity of both a virtual and an actual freedom from the human condition is now established. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 106, 29 December 2005). RICHARD: The psychiatric assessment was for the official record (I find it cute that an actual freedom from the human condition is classified as a severe psychotic disorder) and I wanted that fact on record. (...) * RESPONDENT: So you are saying that it was done merely as an expose of the psychiatric/ psychological profession and their conventional wisdom? RICHARD: Not only that, no ... I covered many angles in my study of what other humans have made of weird and/or wonderful experience ... psychiatry and psychology were as equally valid an avenue to explore as physics or metaphysics, palaeontology or cosmogony, archaeology or sociology, philosophy or theology and so on. And I discovered that psychiatric medication and psychological counselling are designed to bring those who are suffering from any of three main psychotic categories (Bi-polar Disorder, Schizophrenia and Clinical Depression) and any neurotic sub-categories, back to a state of as near-normal functioning as possible (and ‘normal’ is categorised by Mr. Sigmund Freud as ‘common human unhappiness’). Therefore, I know for a fact that no psychiatric or psychological treatment would meet what any ‘I’ is wanting – peace and harmony and satisfaction and fulfilment and so on – because I found out, experientially (as I did in other fields) what was the extent and range of other human’s experience and solutions. Psychology and psychiatry has failed just as dismally as philosophy and spirituality. RESPONDENT: Just what does your examination accomplish? RICHARD: It demonstrates that psychiatry and psychology do not have the answer to the problem of the human condition. And worse ... it actively works against anybody becoming free of the human condition with its attitude of helping to bring the ‘sick’ client back to a state of as near-normal functioning as possible. (Richard, List B, No. 36, 24 September 1999). RICHARD: As I sit here now, I am well-pleased with life, the universe and with being a human being. I see that extracting myself from the Altered State Of Consciousness and finding out an alternative way of living, outside of any psychic consciousness at all, is the optimal choice, a freely selected way to live no matter how *macabre and gruesome* this transition phase is proceeding. I am experiencing it as an act of clear intelligence and sensible wisdom. I am utterly confident; it is the confidence which easily helped ‘me’ in those moments of guilt and panic about having wanted to dissolve the Altered State Of Consciousness and this current period of existential angst following the disintegration of the psyche. I am experiencing life from the vantage point of being a totally fascinated person … and a fascinated person is someone who can be extremely interesting to be with for those who dare. I do not experience myself to be the traitor I may appear to be in those other people’s eyes for no longer agreeing with their borrowed ‘wisdom’. This actual freedom is what is of the utmost importance. What a great privilege I have given myself to go this way … it is all so self-evidently excellent. And I have the sure knowledge that my companion wanted me to be like this as much as ‘I’ wanted to. (Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Nine p. 75) [emphasis added by Vineeto] RESPONDENT: How did Devika/ Irene create an ‘impenetrable psychic force-field?’ Was this done via influencing the minds of others around you in some way that blocked access to you, and thus the ‘direct route?’ Or is there some ‘psychic’ phenomena outside of individual minds, although in the real world only, that allowed this blockage to occur? RICHARD: G’day No. 25, It was Devika who established an impenetrable psychic force-field, to protect me from other people, inasmuch it initially took form in the days and weeks following on from the definitive event/ the pivotal moment of becoming (newly) free in 1992 whilst out in an abandoned cow-paddock planting tree seedlings, as it was not until five years later that her transmogrification into Irene took place (and that happened, fundamentally, because of a fear of intimacy so vast as to best be called dread). She created it in her psyche (which, just as for all feeling-beings, is the collective psyche) as distinct from her mind – which is the brain in action within the skull – in a valiant attempt to lessen the impact of the collective psychic forces insistently impinging upon any of the lingering remnants of the psyche, which this flesh-and-blood body had just been stripped of, as she was personally distressed almost beyond measure by the monumental anguish which her constant companion of the past six years was then enduring. She was so successful in this endeavour that she was able to function as ‘the guardian at the gate’ (her words) and thus vet all persons who came near me, existentially, and would only ‘let in’ (her words) those whom she personally approved of; rather ironically, in view of what has eventuated since September 2010, she barred Vineeto from admission back in 1997. (Richard, List D, No. 27, 6 February 2012). ALAN: In relation to your own experiences, you have said you experienced dread and angst after the dissolution of your ‘soul’ in 1992. Who was feeling this dread? RICHARD: It was all a severe mental agitation seeking resolution in terms of either ‘the known’ (psychiatry) and/or ‘the unknown’ (mysticism) and it is indecision that causes anxiety. It is a classic example of the cause of panic ... two conflicting choices cancelling each other out creates either a freezing up – unable to think – or a deluge of racing thoughts (you will find this in any psychiatric text-book). That this disconcerting perplexity was only cerebral was evidenced by no sweaty palms, no increased heartbeat, no rapid breathing, no palpations in the solar plexus ... none of those things connected with ‘being’. If I were to look in a mirror during that period and ask ‘who am I’ there was no answer – not even ‘the silence that speaks louder than words’ that I had been experiencing for eleven years – yet the answer to ‘what am I’ was patently obvious and undeniable ... I am this body. The cognitive anguish was in determining the validity of uncharted territory – 5,000 years of recorded history and perhaps 50,000 years of oral tradition made no mention of this dimension of human experience – for I was irreversibly plunked fair-square in the midst of either ‘insanity’ (the psychiatric model) or ‘the unknowable’ (the metaphysical model). In the context of metaphysical human experience this condition is only achievable after physical death: the Buddhists call it ‘Parinirvana’ and the Hindus call it ‘Mahasamadhi’. This was no ‘dark night of the soul’ – which I knew from 1981 – this was something else ... beyond either psychiatric or mystic human experience. It was pretty freaky stuff for a mere boy from the farm – who was he to set himself up to be the final arbiter of human experience – and what was I doing in this territory anyway? What had I become? No self or Self (Depersonalisation)? No reality or Reality (Derealisation)? No feeling or Being (Alexithymia)? No beauty or Truth (Anhedonia)? In the context of physical human experience this was a severe mental disorder ... a psychotic condition according to the DSM-IV (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders – fourth edition – the diagnostic criteria used by all Psychiatrists and Psychologists around the world for diagnosing mental disorders). On top of that was the obvious fact that everybody else other than me – especially the revered and respected ‘Great Teachers’ of antiquity – were insane ... which is a classic indication of insanity in itself. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Alan-a, 25 February 1999). RESPONDENT: Richard, it is always good to find your email in my hotmail mailbox. There is one important point that hit me in your response: [Richard]: ‘After my break-through into actual freedom I went through thirty months of mental anguish thinking that I had lost the plot completely (although physically everything was perfect). No one could help me as nobody had traversed this territory before’ [endquote]. How did you experience the mental anguish from the perspective of actual freedom? RICHARD: As a severe cerebral agitation ... it all happened only in the brain cells. There was perfect sensate experiencing: the direct, startlingly intimate sensuousness of the eyes seeing, the ears hearing, the skin feeling, the nose smelling and the tongue tasting all of their own accord (deliciously unfettered by a ‘me’ or an ‘I’) yet the cognitive faculty was face-to-face with the stark fact that it had been living a deluded dissociative state for eleven years ... and that religion – fuelled by its spirituality and mysticism – was nothing short of institutionalised insanity. That this disconcerting perplexity was only cerebral was evidenced by no sweaty palms, no increased heartbeat, no rapid breathing, no palpations in the solar plexus ... none of those things connected with the existential angst of being a contingent ‘being’. If I were to look in a mirror during that period and ask ‘who am I’ there was no answer – not even ‘the silence that speaks louder than words’ that had been experienced for eleven years – yet the answer to ‘what am I’ was patently obvious and undeniable ... I am this flesh and blood body. In psychiatric terms the neurons were agitated: energised and excited with an excess of dopamine in the post-synaptic receptors, described as being similar to the effect of amphetamines, cocaine or LSD ... yet nothing could be done about it with psychiatry’s extensive arsenal of anti-psychotic drugs. Initially I had no alternative but to seek resolution in terms of either ‘the known’ (psychiatry) and/or ‘the unknown’ (mysticism) ... and I knew from eleven years experience that no mystic could be of any assistance whatsoever. I was truly on my own. The mental anguish was in determining the validity of uncharted territory – 5,000 years of recorded history and perhaps 50,000 years of oral tradition made no mention of this dimension of human experience – for I was irreversibly plunked fair-square in the midst of either ‘insanity’ (the psychiatric model) or ‘the unknowable’ (the metaphysical model) ... which is something else entirely. In the context of metaphysical human experience this condition is only achievable after physical death: the Buddhists call it ‘Parinirvana’ and the Hindus call it ‘Mahasamadhi’. This was no ‘dark night of the soul’ – which I knew from 1981 – nor ‘real-world’ insanity ... this was something beyond either psychiatric or mystic human experience. It was pretty freaky stuff for a mere boy from the farm: who was he to set himself up to be the final arbiter of human experience ... and what was I doing in this territory anyway? What had I become? There was neither self (psychiatric diagnosis: Depersonalisation) nor any Self (metaphysical analysis: Atheistic Materialism); there was neither reality (psychiatric diagnosis: Derealisation) nor any Reality (metaphysical analysis: Atheistic Materialism); there was no affective feelings (psychiatric diagnosis: Alexithymia) nor any ‘State Of Being’ (metaphysical analysis: Atheistic Materialism); there was neither a pleasure centre for beauty (psychiatric diagnosis: Anhedonia) nor a centre for ‘Truth’ (metaphysical analysis: Atheistic Materialism). In the context of known human experience this was a severe mental disorder ... a psychotic condition according to the DSM-IV (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders – fourth edition – which is the diagnostic criteria used by all psychiatrists and psychologists around the world for diagnosing mental disorders). On top of that was the obvious fact that everybody else other than me – especially the revered and respected ‘Great Teachers’ of antiquity – were all quite seriously mad ... which is a classic indication of insanity in itself. I do consider it so cute that freedom from the human condition is considered a mental disorder. RESPONDENT: It must have been quite interesting since the mental anguish happened in the perfection of this moment back then ... to nobody in particular and thus the situation must have, as paradoxical as it might sound, been quite pleasurable. RICHARD: Hmm ... ‘interesting’, yes; ‘pleasurable’, no. It was extremely uncomfortable and very disconcerting, perplexing and bewildering. It was also distressing for my companion and caused considerable disturbance in her ... she was a constant witness to my endeavour to come to grips with what had happened and what was going on. Despite the fact she was a qualified nursing sister this was beyond her ken and altogether too much to handle in the first few months. I must emphasise the immediacy and urgency of the dilemma: how could I be right and 5.8 billion peoples then currently alive (and maybe 4.0 billion once living) be wrong? This was an outrageous supposition to contemplate – as I remarked in my previous E-Mail I thought that I had lost the plot – yet all about people were hurting and being hurt: bickering, quarrelling, arguing, fighting and then applying band-aid solutions such as the cycle of guilt, remorse, repentance, forgiveness, empathy, trust, compassion through to love ... until next time. There were all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like to account for ... and all the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours, and the Saints and the Sages and the Seers, did not have peace-on-earth on their agenda. Obviously someone had to be the first ... and this fact was thrilling to the nth degree. It meant that an actual freedom from the human condition, here on earth in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body had been discovered and could be demonstrated and described ... no one else need ever take that route again (and I would not wish upon anyone to have to follow in my footsteps and run that full gamut of existential angst to break through to what lay beyond). I always liken it to the physical adventure that Mr. James Cook undertook to journey to Australia two hundred plus years ago. It took him over a year in a leaky wooden boat with hard tack for food and immense dangers along the way. Nowadays, one can fly to Australia in twenty-seven hours in air-conditioned comfort, eating hygienically prepared food and watching an in-flight movie into the bargain. No one has to go the path of the trail-blazer and forge along in another leaky wooden boat. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 7, 14 June 2000). RESPONDENT: Richard, you wrote: [quote] ‘I see that extracting myself from the Altered State Of Consciousness and finding out an alternative way of living, outside of any psychic consciousness at all, is the optimal choice, a freely selected way to live no matter how macabre and gruesome this transition phase is proceeding.’ (www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/selectedwriting/sw-asc.htm). I am intrigued by the words macabre and gruesome ... RICHARD: The word ‘macabre’ comes from the Old French ‘macabré’ • ‘macabre: grim, gruesome; orig. in ‘dance macabre’ cf. ‘danse macabre’ [dance of macabre = danse macabre]. (Oxford Dictionary). The following probably best describes its morbid connotation: • ‘danse macabre: a medieval dance in which a skeleton representing death leads a procession of others to the grave; synonym: dance of death. (UltraLingua English Dictionary). My use of the word ‘gruesome’ is to convey the sense of a grisly/ ghastly morbidness or a macabre preoccupation with death: • ‘morbid thoughts/ details: gruesome, grisly, macabre, hideous, dreadful, horrible, unwholesome. • ‘a morbid person: death-orientated, death-obsessed, death-fixated’. (Oxford Dictionary). RESPONDENT: .... [I am intrigued by the words macabre and gruesome] and I’m curious as to which aspect of your new condition made you choose words that are usually (AFAIK) associated with fear, revulsion or horror, even though fear could not have been present. RICHARD: Yes ... and I have elsewhere used the words ‘mental anguish’ to depict the cranial agitation which went on for 30+ months after the identity who used to inhabit this flesh and blood body expired. Here is an explanation of why: • [Richard]: ‘... in 1992, when the break-through into this actual world occurred, the following thirty months or so were a time of intense brain agitation – neuronal excitation – which I have described before as being ‘mental anguish’ (not to be confused with emotional anguish) so as to convey the intensity of the cognisance that no body in human history had ever lived this up until now. That this disconcerting perplexity was only cerebral was evidenced by no sweaty palms, no increased heartbeat, no rapid breathing, no palpations in the solar plexus ... none of those things connected with ‘being’. If I were to look in a mirror during that period and ask ‘who am I’ there was no answer – not even ‘the silence that speaks louder than words’ that I had been experiencing for eleven years – yet the answer to ‘what am I’ was patently obvious and undeniable ... I am this body. The cognitive agitation was in determining the validity of uncharted territory – 5,000 years of recorded history and perhaps 50,000 years of oral tradition made no mention of this dimension of human experience – for I was irreversibly plunked fair-square in the midst of either ‘insanity’ (the psychiatric model) or ‘the unknowable’ (the metaphysical model). In the context of metaphysical human experience this condition is only achievable after physical death: the Buddhists call it ‘Parinirvana’ and the Hindus call it ‘Mahasamadhi’. This was no ‘dark night of the soul’ – which I knew from 1981 when enlightenment happened – this was something else ... beyond either psychiatric or mystic human experience. It was pretty freaky stuff for a mere boy from the farm – who was he to set himself up to be the final arbiter of human experience – and what was I doing in this territory anyway? What had I become? No self or Self (Depersonalisation)? No reality or Reality (Derealisation)? No feeling or Being (Alexithymia)? No beauty or Truth (Anhedonia)? In the context of physical human experience this was a severe mental disorder ... a psychotic condition according to the DSM-IV (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders – fourth edition – the diagnostic criteria used by all Psychiatrists and Psychologists around the world for diagnosing mental disorders). On top of that was the obvious fact that everybody else other than me – especially the revered and respected ‘Great Teachers’ of antiquity – were insane ... which is held to be a classic indication of insanity in itself. I do consider it so cute that freedom from the human condition is considered a mental disorder’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 18, 1 January 2001) RESPONDENT: Was it mainly the shock of being unable to locate any ‘self’ whatsoever? RICHARD: No (that was expected): it was mainly two things: not having any feelings whatsoever – with the apparent, if erroneous, interpretation of being sociopathic (popularly known as psychopathic) – and having been insane, night and day, for eleven years (along with the intimate comprehension that all the revered wisdom of humankind was lunatic) ... with the corresponding, if erroneous, implication that the current condition might possibly be an even deeper insanity. There is, of course, a third alternative to either sanity or insanity (insanity is but an extreme form of sanity) ... but that was only determined in hindsight. RESPONDENT: (Having no answer whatsoever to ‘who am I?’ must be pretty freaky, no matter how much preparation and/or anticipation is involved). RICHARD: No (that was quite matter-of-fact): it was the stark realisation that nobody – absolutely no person anywhere alive or dead – could possibly help me (as in providing confirmation/ affirmation or elucidation/ explanation, and so on, through precedent) ... I was truly on my own in this. For just one example ... in lieu of any other option I booked myself into a local hospital (a small-town hospital) on the weekend when the neuronal excitation first started occurring and the nursing sister on duty – who, incidentally, gave me the expression ‘mental anguish’ – took it upon herself to give me a 10 mg injection of diazepam (which sent me into deep sleep) until a doctor could be located: upon coming to, at 2.00AM, with no change whatsoever in the intensity of the cerebral agitation I (groggily) found the duty doctor, a learned man of Indian heritage, leaning over me and earnestly informing me that it was all to do with kundalini arising and that self-realisation could be imminent ... and gave me a cassette-player with meditative (atonal) music on it and (borrowed) words of wisdom. Needless is it to say that I booked myself out of the hospital forthwith (at 8.00AM that very morning)? RESPONDENT: Or was it perhaps the shock of the intense physicality of post-psychic existence? RICHARD: Actually, an incident occurred much later on which threw a lot of light onto the neuronal excitation itself (and thus to all the useless introspection detailed further above and elsewhere) ... I have described it this way: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘... what ‘process’ was going on for (...) thirty months in 1993-4 when you were ‘unstable as all get out’? • [Richard]: ‘The medical diagnosis was that there was an excess of dopamine in the post-synaptic receptors ... an excitation of the brain cells, which was happening of its own accord irregardless of events, and thus not under voluntary control. These days I am in agreement with that determination as some considerable light was thrown upon it all a few years ago when I drank three cups of strong coffee (I only drink decaffeinated coffee nowadays) in a two-hour period and it set-off a psychotropic episode lasting 5-6 hours ... an episode indistinguishable from what was occurring in (...) 1993-1994. I have since found out that caffeine is a chemical cousin to cocaine (chemical not biological) ... and, as a similar episode occurred a couple of years ago as a result of having a dental injection to anaesthetise the jaw, I now make sure the dentist uses a procaine mixture which does not contain adrenaline, which most such mixtures do, because its effect is also psychotropic. I am also hypersensitive to alcohol ... even a liqueur chocolate has a deleterious effect’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 50, 24 September 2003) I go into in far greater detail here: (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 53a, 20 November 2003). RESPONDENT: Does the sheer immediacy of the flesh and blood and eyeballs and tongues and sex organs etc seem ‘gruesome’ in its intense physicality after all those years of thinking of oneself as a person and/or a spirit? RICHARD: No, not at all ... the sheer immediacy of the flesh and blood and eyeballs and tongues and sex organs, etcetera, was a delight (that was the strange part about it all as obviously nothing was actually amiss). RESPONDENT: Or was it something else? RICHARD: Yes, put expressively, it was akin to having what is colloquially known as a bad trip on acid (all physical) ... primarily the main symptom were a saturated sensuosity of such brilliance and vividity (as in psychedelic), which satiation can be likened to a television set receiving 4 or 5 channels all at once (inasmuch thought, and thus speech, was unable to keep up with the resultant cacophonic ‘white noise’), that the brain cells themselves were undergoing a non-volitional (chemical) excitation of such a magnitude as to be almost impossible for awareness to sustain itself (as in too much to bear). It was altogether unpleasant, to say the least. RESPONDENT: Also, do you think the macabre and gruesome nature of the transition phase is an inevitable consequence of going through psychic disintegration ... RICHARD: No, not at all ... it was mostly idiosyncratic (pertaining to this flesh and blood body’s physical make-up). RESPONDENT: ... or did the fact that you had been in an altered state for the preceding 11 years make it more macabre and gruesome than it would be for a ‘normal’ person? RICHARD: Definitely ... which is why I advise that nobody should attempt to follow ‘my’ footsteps – to go through enlightenment/ awakening and beyond – but to be a pioneer instead: • [Richard]: ‘... all the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours, and the Saints and the Sages and the Seers did not have peace-on-earth on their agenda. Obviously someone had to be the first ... and this fact was thrilling to the nth degree. It meant that an actual freedom from the human condition, here on earth in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body had been discovered and could be demonstrated and described ... no one else need ever take that route again (and I would not wish upon anyone to have to follow in my footsteps and run that full gamut of existential angst to break through to what lay beyond). I always liken it to the physical adventure that Mr. James Cook undertook to journey to Australia two hundred plus years ago. It took him over a year in a leaky wooden boat with hard tack for food and immense dangers along the way. Nowadays, one can fly to Australia in twenty-seven hours in air-conditioned comfort, eating hygienically prepared food and watching an in-flight movie into the bargain. No one has to go the path of the trail-blazer and forge along in another leaky wooden boat’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 7, 14 June 2000) And (further on in the same e-mail) the modified version/ addendum: • [Richard]: ‘... put succinctly the replication of my condition presently calls for pioneers, people with the necessary derring-do to pilot a one-seater aeroplane by the seat of their pants to this pristine wonderland, and not for those who will follow in their wake in air-conditioned comfort, eating hygienically prepared food and watching an in-flight movie into the bargain. And nobody knows who that pioneer aviator is until that person actually lands here ... not even me’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 7, 14 June 2000) (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 60, 6 February 2005) RESPONDENT: Are you aware of the fact that in putting yourself in this extraordinary position (the presentation of yourself as not only the one currently alive human being that has achieved something extraordinary but also the one and only human being that has achieved this in human history) you are prey to the greatest illusion that one possibly can create with regard to the process of self-deception? RICHARD: Yes ... in 1992, when the break-through into this actual world occurred, the following thirty months or so were a time of intense brain agitation – neuronal excitation – which I have described before as being ‘mental anguish’ (not to be confused with emotional anguish) so as to convey the intensity of the cognisance that no body in human history had ever lived this up until now. That this disconcerting perplexity was only cerebral was evidenced by no sweaty palms, no increased heartbeat, no rapid breathing, no palpations in the solar plexus ... none of those things connected with ‘being’. If I were to look in a mirror during that period and ask ‘who am I’ there was no answer – not even ‘the silence that speaks louder than words’ that I had been experiencing for eleven years – yet the answer to ‘what am I’ was patently obvious and undeniable ... I am this body. The cognitive agitation was in determining the validity of uncharted territory – 5,000 years of recorded history and perhaps 50,000 years of oral tradition made no mention of this dimension of human experience – for I was irreversibly plunked fair-square in the midst of either ‘insanity’ (the psychiatric model) or ‘the unknowable’ (the metaphysical model). In the context of metaphysical human experience this condition is only achievable after physical death: the Buddhists call it ‘Parinirvana’ and the Hindus call it ‘Mahasamadhi’. This was no ‘dark night of the soul’ – which I knew from 1981 when enlightenment happened – this was something else ... beyond either psychiatric or mystic human experience. It was pretty freaky stuff for a mere boy from the farm – who was he to set himself up to be the final arbiter of human experience – and what was I doing in this territory anyway? What had I become? No self or Self (Depersonalisation)? No reality or Reality (Derealisation)? No feeling or Being (Alexithymia)? No beauty or Truth (Anhedonia)? In the context of physical human experience this was a severe mental disorder ... a psychotic condition according to the DSM-IV (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders – fourth edition – the diagnostic criteria used by all Psychiatrists and Psychologists around the world for diagnosing mental disorders). On top of that was the obvious fact that everybody else other than me – especially the revered and respected ‘Great Teachers’ of antiquity – were insane ... which is held to be a classic indication of insanity in itself. I do consider it so cute that freedom from the human condition is considered a mental disorder. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 7, 1 January 2001) RESPONDENT: Richard, regarding the cerebral agitation you experienced after waking up from enlightenment: Was it caused by excess dopamine ... RICHARD: Yes (although I do not describe it as waking up). RESPONDENT: ... or was it caused by not knowing how to interpret what had happened to ‘you’? RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: Did the elevated dopamine subside to a more manageable level over 2 years ... RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: ... or did the agitation quickly subside when you were able to make sense of what had happened? RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: I remember(?) reading that you experienced something like this in 1981, but it was only a passing reference. Have you written about it in detail? RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: If so, where can I read about it? RICHARD: Here is one instance: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘... what ‘process’ was going on for six months in 1981 and thirty months in 1993-4 when you were ‘unstable as all get out’? • [Richard]: ‘The medical diagnosis was that there was an excess of dopamine in the post-synaptic receptors ... an excitation of the brain cells, which was happening of its own accord irregardless of events, and thus not under voluntary control. These days I am in agreement with that determination as some considerable light was thrown upon it all a few years ago when I drank three cups of strong coffee (I only drink decaffeinated coffee nowadays) in a two-hour period and it set-off a psychotropic episode lasting 5-6 hours ... an episode indistinguishable from what was occurring in 1981 and 1993-1994. I have since found out that caffeine is a chemical cousin to cocaine (chemical not biological) ... and, as a similar episode occurred a couple of years ago as a result of having a dental injection to anaesthetise the jaw, I now make sure the dentist uses a procaine mixture which does not contain adrenaline, which most such mixtures do, because its effect is also psychotropic. I am also hypersensitive to alcohol ... even a liqueur chocolate has a deleterious effect. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 50, 24 September 2003). And here is another: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Richard, you have said that caffeinated coffee sets off a psychotropic experience for you. Can you elaborate please? • [Richard]: ‘As I understand it, and I am not a pharmacologist, caffeine is a chemical cousin to cocaine (having never ingested the latter I cannot provide an experiential comparison) in that its chemical sum formula is similar: • caffeine: (chem.) a crystalline alkaloid, C8H10N4O2, which is found esp. in tea and coffee plants and is a central nervous system stimulant; caffeinism: n. headache, sleeplessness, and palpitations caused by excessive intake of caffeine. • cocaine: an alkaloid, C17H21NO4, which is present in the leaves and other parts of the coca shrub and is used as a local anaesthetic and as a stimulant; cocainism: n. (the condition due to) excessive use of or addiction to cocaine. (Oxford Dictionary). A psychiatrist (who, unlike a psychologist, has a medical degree) once explained to me that my on-going day-to-day experience is because of an excess of dopamine in the post-synaptic receptors – similar to the effect cocaine or amphetamine or lysergic acid diethylamide produce – hence my understanding is that to ingest caffeine on top of this moment-to-moment experiencing is somewhat similar to overdosing on those substances ... primarily the main symptom is a saturated sensuosity of such brilliance and vividity (as in psychedelic), which satiation can be likened to a television set receiving 4 or 5 channels all at once (inasmuch thought, and thus speech, is unable to keep up with the resultant cacophonic ‘white noise’), that the brain cells themselves undergo a non-volitional (chemical) excitation of such a magnitude as to be almost impossible for awareness to sustain itself (as in too much to bear). It is altogether unpleasant, to say the least. Some peoples I have spoken to about this have initially been rather envious (given that having a cup or two of strong java, then, is the equivalent of dropping a tab of acid (or snorting a line of coke) until I explain that to OD on LSD (aka ‘have a bad trip’) on maybe a thrice-daily basis is not a particularly pleasant way of living a life. As I have not taken either amphetamine nor methamphetamine, which are also classified as central nervous system (CNS) stimulants, I cannot make an experiential comparison there either but I have read, for example, that methylphenidate (such as ‘Ritalin’) – also a CNS stimulant – is a dopamine reuptake inhibitor ... which means that it increases the level of the dopamine neurotransmitter in the brain by partially blocking the transporters that remove it from the synapses. Consequently I have found the following to be of interest as I am also hypersensitive to adrenaline: • dopamine: an amine that occurs esp. in nervous and peripheral tissue as a neurotransmitter and a precursor of noradrenaline, adrenalin, and melanin. (Oxford Dictionary). Here is an example of what dopamine can do in a normal person: • Dopamine in the basal ganglia plays a critical role in the way our brain controls our movements. Thus, shortage of dopamine is a cause of Parkinson’s disease, in which a person loses the ability to execute smooth, controlled movements. In the frontal lobes, dopamine plays a role in controlling the flow of information from other areas of the brain. Dopamine disorders in the frontal lobes can cause incoherent thought and even schizophrenia. One of the most effective treatments for schizophrenia is the use of antipsychotic drugs which act as antagonists at dopamine D2 receptors. Shortage of dopamine in the frontal lobes may lead to poor memory. Dopamine also acts in the limbic system, which controls our emotions. Overabundance of dopamine in the limbic system is believed to cause paranoia. In addition, dopamine is involved in the chemistry of pleasure. Release of dopamine into that part of the limbic system known as the ‘pleasure centre’ (an area just below the thalamus) causes pleasure. Although meant to reward vital activities such as eating and sex, this same mechanism is responsible for the craving connected with addiction to drugs, cocaine for example. Dopamine is also a hormone released by the hypothalamus. Its main function is to inhibit the release of prolactin from the anterior lobe of the pituitary. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine). As there are no emotions/ passions operating in this flesh and blood body – no affective faculty at all – there is no ‘pleasure centre’ (which should read ‘pleasure/ pain centre’) for dopamine to act upon hedonistically ... thus there is no craving whatsoever such as to occasion addiction. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Is this [caffeine setting off a psychotropic experience] true for all humans? • [Richard]: ‘Not that I am cognisant of ... the normal symptoms of caffeine intoxication are restlessness, nervousness, excitement, insomnia, flushed face, diuresis, gastrointestinal complaints, muscle twitching, rambling flow of thought and speech, cardiac arrhythmia, and psychomotor agitation. • Caffeine (...) causes the release of the hormone epinephrine, which in turn leads to several effects such as higher heart rate, increased blood pressure, increased blood flow to muscles, decreased blood flow to the skin and inner organs, and release of glucose by the liver. In addition, caffeine, similar to amphetamines, increases the levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain. (...) Caffeine intoxication can lead to symptoms similar to panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. (http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine). Some years ago, whilst undergoing caffeine intoxication, I attended an out-patients clinic and had all the vital signs tested – blood pressure, pulse rate, and so on – all of which were found to be normal and nor were there any palpitations, agitations, and so on, either ... let alone anxiety and/or panic. Caffeine, of course, is also present in brewed tea (2.5-3.5mg per ounce), cocoa/ hot chocolate (0.5mg per ounce), caffeinated soft drinks (3-8mg per ounce), Guarana, (2.5mg per ounce), Yerba Mate (280-425mg per ounce), sports/ energy drinks (10mg per ounce), and chocolate (25mg per ounce) ... and, as a matter of interest only, chocolate is very mildly psychoactive since, as well as caffeine, it contains theobromine, tryptophan, and small quantities of anandamide (arachidonylethanolamine), an endogenous cannabinoid compound found in the brain of mammals (the name anandamide is taken from the Sanskrit word ananda, which means ‘bliss’). An affective reaction, in other words, is the main attraction. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 53, 20 November 2003). Before the incident with the caffeine overdose here is an example of how I described the 1993-94 experience: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘How did you experience the mental anguish from the perspective of actual freedom? • [Richard]: ‘As a severe cerebral agitation ... it all happened only in the brain cells. There was perfect sensate experiencing: the direct, startlingly intimate sensuousness of the eyes seeing, the ears hearing, the skin feeling, the nose smelling and the tongue tasting all of their own accord (deliciously unfettered by a ‘me’ or an ‘I’) yet the cognitive faculty was face-to-face with the stark fact that it had been living a deluded dissociative state for eleven years ... and that religion – fuelled by its spirituality and mysticism – was nothing short of institutionalised insanity. That this disconcerting perplexity was only cerebral was evidenced by no sweaty palms, no increased heartbeat, no rapid breathing, no palpations in the solar plexus ... none of those things connected with the existential angst of being a contingent ‘being’. If I were to look in a mirror during that period and ask ‘who am I’ there was no answer – not even ‘the silence that speaks louder than words’ that had been experienced for eleven years – yet the answer to ‘what am I’ was patently obvious and undeniable ... I am this flesh and blood body. In psychiatric terms the neurons were agitated: energised and excited with an excess of dopamine in the post-synaptic receptors, described as being similar to the effect of amphetamines, cocaine or LSD ... yet nothing could be done about it with psychiatry’s extensive arsenal of anti-psychotic drugs. Initially I had no alternative but to seek resolution in terms of either ‘the known’ (psychiatry) and/or ‘the unknown’ (mysticism) ... and I knew from eleven years experience that no mystic could be of any assistance whatsoever. I was truly on my own. The mental anguish was in determining the validity of uncharted territory – 5,000 years of recorded history and perhaps 50,000 years of oral tradition made no mention of this dimension of human experience – for I was irreversibly plunked fair-square in the midst of either ‘insanity’ (the psychiatric model) or ‘the unknowable’ (the metaphysical model) ... which is something else entirely. In the context of metaphysical human experience this condition is only achievable after physical death: the Buddhists call it ‘Parinirvana’ and the Hindus call it ‘Mahasamadhi’. (...). It was extremely uncomfortable and very disconcerting, perplexing and bewildering. It was also distressing for my companion and caused considerable disturbance in her ... she was a constant witness to my endeavour to come to grips with what had happened and what was going on. Despite the fact she was a qualified nursing sister this was beyond her ken and altogether too much to handle in the first few months. I must emphasise the immediacy and urgency of the dilemma: how could I be right and 5.8 billion peoples then currently alive (and maybe 4.0 billion once living) be wrong? This was an outrageous supposition to contemplate – as I remarked in my previous E-Mail I thought that I had lost the plot – yet all about people were hurting and being hurt: bickering, quarrelling, arguing, fighting and then applying band-aid solutions such as the cycle of guilt, remorse, repentance, forgiveness, empathy, trust, compassion through to love ... until next time. There were all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like to account for ... and all the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours, and the Saints and the Sages and the Seers, did not have peace-on-earth on their agenda. Obviously someone had to be the first ... and this fact was thrilling to the nth degree. It meant that an actual freedom from the human condition, here on earth in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body had been discovered and could be demonstrated and described ... no one else need ever take that route again (and I would not wish upon anyone to have to follow in my footsteps and run that full gamut of existential angst to break through to what lay beyond). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 7, 14 June 2000). And before the incident with the caffeine overdose here is an example of how I described the 1981 experience: • [Richard]: ‘I had a constant pressure-pain in the base of my skull for six months after my 1981 experience (and for thirty months after my 1992 experience). This pressure-pain waxed and waned in intensity and would produce a convulsive jerking of my left leg for periods varying from five minutes to an hour. I have had flashing lights ‘zapping’ in front of my eyes; I have had ‘rushes’ of energy surging up through my diaphragm; I have had intense tingling sensations on the surface of my skin; I have had liquid sounds ‘gurgling’ through my brain; I have had singing in my ears; I have been telepathic; I have been telemetric; I have accessed the ‘Akashic Record’; I have ... the list goes on and on. They all amount to nothing in the end – they are but physical, emotional, mental and psychic adumbrations that indicate merely that a ‘process’ is going on. It is important to not get hung up on these manifestations and to go with what is happening to the very end. (Richard, Konrad Correspondence, A Dialogue One, 22 February 1998). I see that I expanded upon this list in an e-mail to you last month: • [Richard]: ‘... I had many bizarre things happen such as electrical bolts of lightning dazzling on the eyeballs; pressure-pains in the base of the neck; surges of power travelling up the spine and up over the back and the top of the head down to the forehead; convulsive twitching of limbs; energy surges from the pit of the stomach up through the diaphragm into the chest cavity through to the throat producing intense nausea; a vivid blue light, an internal blue of rapturous bliss, behind the eyebrows; an all-knowing cyclopean eye in the sky watching my every move and many, many other weird things – none of which are important in themselves (some people get caught up in them, and manifest psychic powers, thus never proceeding to the final goal) as what is important is to take them only as a sign that a process is underway and thus proceed with all dispatch via one’s active consent. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 60, 3 December 2003). Given the part dopamine plays in the chemistry of felicitous feelings you may find the following to be of related interest: • [Richard]: ‘... What the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom is on about is a virtual freedom wherein the ‘good’ feelings – the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) are minimised along with the ‘bad’ feelings – the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) – so that one is free to be feeling good, feeling happy and harmless and feeling excellent/ perfect for 99% of the time. If one deactivates the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on) with this freed-up affective energy, in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on), then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception). Delight is what is humanly possible, given sufficient pure intent obtained from the felicity/ innocuity born of the pure consciousness experience, and from the position of delight, one can vitalise one’s joie de vivre by the amazement at the fun of it all ... and then one can – with sufficient abandon – become over-joyed and move into marvelling at being here and doing this business called being alive now. Then one is no longer intuitively making sense of life ... the delicious wonder of it all drives any such instinctive meaning away. Such luscious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté – the nourishing of which is essential if fascination in it all is to occur – and the charm of life itself easily engages dedication to peace-on-earth. Then, as one gazes intently at the world about by glancing lightly with sensuously caressing eyes, out of the corner of one’s eye comes – sweetly – the magical fairy-tale-like paradise that this verdant earth actually is ... and one is the experiencing of what is happening. But refrain from possessing it and making it your own ... or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared. (Richard, Articles, A Précis of Actual Freedom). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 60, 16 January 2004) RICHARD: G’day No. 25, No. 29, & No. 4, It is no secret that I had two major ‘nervous breakdowns’, and at least one minor one (where I became catatonic and was rushed to a local hospital’s EU), the first of which occurred ‘with sudden onset’ (one of the diagnostic symptoms) at sunrise on the 6th of September, 1981, and the second, also ‘with sudden onset’, in the late afternoon of the 30th of October, 1992, in an abandoned cow-pasture. The first breakdown resulted in a severe psychotic disorder – so severe, in fact, as to entail massive delusions of grandeur (another diagnostic symptom) and megalomania such as being the ‘Parousia’ and the next ‘Maitreya’, for instance, with acute dissociative and solipsistic thought patterns plus major reality impairment (object estrangement, space dislocation and time distortion) – which persisted, night and day, for eleven years before culminating in the second breakdown, resulting in an official diagnosis as having become depersonalised, derealised, alexithymic and anhedonic (diagnosed as a chronic, thus incurable, psychotic disorder that began with a 30+ month period of a macabre and gruesome ‘mental anguish’ (yet another diagnostic symptom) that baffled both psychiatrists and psychologists) and which has persisted for all 20+ years through to the present day. Just why certain peoples are getting so all huffed-and-puffed about a comparatively minor anxiety disorder, such as what post-traumatic stress is, simply denies comprehension ... especially so when that secular approach, in the presentation of actualism/ actual freedom, is something I have already posted at least two emails about to this very forum (in fact, just a few months before I went to India). Viz.: #7318 From: richard.actualfreedom Date: Tue Nov 7, 2009 12:57 am Subject: Re: Peculiar Information # 5 • [Richard]: [...]. I am gradually putting together a personal web-page – a more biographical account (plus many snapshots taken at various stages of my life going back to childhood) in a secular way of presentation – which goes into the personal details of my childhood experiences, my military experience, my marriage experiences, my parental experiences, my artistic experiences, my latter-day lifestyle and so on and so forth. I have long had the intention of presenting my discovery in that manner – in a secular way – so as to have more emphasis on the philosophical/ psychological features and a marked de-emphasis on the mystical/ metaphysical aspects. (I have, on occasion, verbally presented my story to peoples of a materialist/ humanist persuasion, without recourse to any metaphysicality at all, and they have had no difficulty in their comprehension of it when delivered in that manner)’. (Richard, List D, No. 14, 7 November 2009). Here is part of a follow-up response of mine to some quite rare encouragement feed-back. Viz.: #7459 From: richard.actualfreedom Date: Tue Nov 10, 2009 4:18 am Subject: Re: Peculiar Information # 5 • [Rick]: Excellent idea, Richard, and thank you for continuing to ‘reach out’ to all of us like through the secular approach you mentioned. I for one will be really, really looking forward to this. • [Richard]: G’day Rick, I appreciate your words of encouragement. It is a secular approach only in its way of presentation as the content is no different, in essence, from what I already have online. Indeed, I started my new website by copy-pasting paragraphs from here and there on my portion of The Actual Freedom Trust website and then adding to it, or subtracting from it, whatever seemed suitable. In other words, although there is some new material (mainly of an autobiographical nature) it is essentially no different to that which is already available. (Although I am noticing how it is beginning to take on a life of its own, as it were, as I add a bit here and a bit there and delete something here and something there, and so on). (Richard, List D, Rick, 10 November 2009). Also, here is a timely reminder: • [Respondent No. 50 (List AF)]: (: Are there doctors that are interested in keeping track of you besides psychiatrists? • [Richard]: Nobody from the medical profession is keeping track of me these days (the psychiatric tracking you refer to was only for three years in the early-to-mid ‘nineties). The last thing the psychiatrist said to me back then was that *this is beyond psychiatry*. [emphasis added]. (Actual Freedom List, No. 50, 30 September 2003). While I am at it, here is a bit of humour, just for fun. Viz.: • [Richard to Respondent No. 4]: For obvious reasons I will not be responding, either in the negative or the affirmative, to any such queries about any living person having a genealogical linkage ... what I will say, though, is this: I do find it cute that both you and your elder sibling are saying, in effect, that peace-on-earth is a disease, an illness, with an unidentified cause. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 60d, 23 May 2005). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 4, 9 January 2013). RESPONDENT: Richard, regarding the cerebral agitation you experienced after waking up from enlightenment: Was it caused by excess dopamine ... RICHARD: Yes (although I do not describe it as waking up). RESPONDENT: ... or was it caused by not knowing how to interpret what had happened to ‘you’? RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: Did the elevated dopamine subside to a more manageable level over 2 years ... RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: ... or did the agitation quickly subside when you were able to make sense of what had happened? RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: I remember(?) reading that you experienced something like this in 1981, but it was only a passing reference. Have you written about it in detail? RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: If so, where can I read about it? RICHARD: Here is one instance: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘... what ‘process’ was going on for six months in 1981 and thirty months in 1993-4 when you were ‘unstable as all get out’? • [Richard]: ‘The medical diagnosis was that there was an excess of dopamine in the post-synaptic receptors ... an excitation of the brain cells, which was happening of its own accord irregardless of events, and thus not under voluntary control. These days I am in agreement with that determination as some considerable light was thrown upon it all a few years ago when I drank three cups of strong coffee (I only drink decaffeinated coffee nowadays) in a two-hour period and it set-off a psychotropic episode lasting 5-6 hours ... an episode indistinguishable from what was occurring in 1981 and 1993-1994. I have since found out that caffeine is a chemical cousin to cocaine (chemical not biological) ... and, as a similar episode occurred a couple of years ago as a result of having a dental injection to anaesthetise the jaw, I now make sure the dentist uses a procaine mixture which does not contain adrenaline, which most such mixtures do, because its effect is also psychotropic. I am also hypersensitive to alcohol ... even a liqueur chocolate has a deleterious effect. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 50, 24 September 2003) And here is another: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Richard, you have said that caffeinated coffee sets off a psychotropic experience for you. Can you elaborate please? • [Richard]: ‘As I understand it, and I am not a pharmacologist, caffeine is a chemical cousin to cocaine (having never ingested the latter I cannot provide an experiential comparison) in that its chemical sum formula is similar: • caffeine: (chem.) a crystalline alkaloid, C8H10N4O2, which is found esp. in tea and coffee plants and is a central nervous system stimulant; caffeinism: n. headache, sleeplessness, and palpitations caused by excessive intake of caffeine. • cocaine: an alkaloid, C17H21NO4, which is present in the leaves and other parts of the coca shrub and is used as a local anaesthetic and as a stimulant; cocainism: n. (the condition due to) excessive use of or addiction to cocaine. (Oxford Dictionary). A psychiatrist (who, unlike a psychologist, has a medical degree) once explained to me that my on-going day-to-day experience is because of an excess of dopamine in the post-synaptic receptors – similar to the effect cocaine or amphetamine or lysergic acid diethylamide produce – hence my understanding is that to ingest caffeine on top of this moment-to-moment experiencing is somewhat similar to overdosing on those substances ... primarily the main symptom is a saturated sensuosity of such brilliance and vividity (as in psychedelic), which satiation can be likened to a television set receiving 4 or 5 channels all at once (inasmuch thought, and thus speech, is unable to keep up with the resultant cacophonic ‘white noise’), that the brain cells themselves undergo a non-volitional (chemical) excitation of such a magnitude as to be almost impossible for awareness to sustain itself (as in too much to bear). It is altogether unpleasant, to say the least. Some peoples I have spoken to about this have initially been rather envious (given that having a cup or two of strong java, then, is the equivalent of dropping a tab of acid (or snorting a line of coke) until I explain that to OD on LSD (aka ‘have a bad trip’) on maybe a thrice-daily basis is not a particularly pleasant way of living a life. As I have not taken either amphetamine nor methamphetamine, which are also classified as central nervous system (CNS) stimulants, I cannot make an experiential comparison there either but I have read, for example, that methylphenidate (such as ‘Ritalin’) – also a CNS stimulant – is a dopamine reuptake inhibitor ... which means that it increases the level of the dopamine neurotransmitter in the brain by partially blocking the transporters that remove it from the synapses. Consequently I have found the following to be of interest as I am also hypersensitive to adrenaline: • dopamine: an amine that occurs esp. in nervous and peripheral tissue as a neurotransmitter and a precursor of noradrenaline, adrenalin, and melanin. (Oxford Dictionary). Here is an example of what dopamine can do in a normal person: • Dopamine in the basal ganglia plays a critical role in the way our brain controls our movements. Thus, shortage of dopamine is a cause of Parkinson’s disease, in which a person loses the ability to execute smooth, controlled movements. In the frontal lobes, dopamine plays a role in controlling the flow of information from other areas of the brain. Dopamine disorders in the frontal lobes can cause incoherent thought and even schizophrenia. One of the most effective treatments for schizophrenia is the use of antipsychotic drugs which act as antagonists at dopamine D2 receptors. Shortage of dopamine in the frontal lobes may lead to poor memory. Dopamine also acts in the limbic system, which controls our emotions. Overabundance of dopamine in the limbic system is believed to cause paranoia. In addition, dopamine is involved in the chemistry of pleasure. Release of dopamine into that part of the limbic system known as the ‘pleasure centre’ (an area just below the thalamus) causes pleasure. Although meant to reward vital activities such as eating and sex, this same mechanism is responsible for the craving connected with addiction to drugs, cocaine for example. Dopamine is also a hormone released by the hypothalamus. Its main function is to inhibit the release of prolactin from the anterior lobe of the pituitary. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine). As there are no emotions/ passions operating in this flesh and blood body – no affective faculty at all – there is no ‘pleasure centre’ (which should read ‘pleasure/ pain centre’) for dopamine to act upon hedonistically ... thus there is no craving whatsoever such as to occasion addiction. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Is this [caffeine setting off a psychotropic experience] true for all humans? • [Richard]: ‘Not that I am cognisant of ... the normal symptoms of caffeine intoxication are restlessness, nervousness, excitement, insomnia, flushed face, diuresis, gastrointestinal complaints, muscle twitching, rambling flow of thought and speech, cardiac arrhythmia, and psychomotor agitation. • Caffeine (...) causes the release of the hormone epinephrine, which in turn leads to several effects such as higher heart rate, increased blood pressure, increased blood flow to muscles, decreased blood flow to the skin and inner organs, and release of glucose by the liver. In addition, caffeine, similar to amphetamines, increases the levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain. (...) Caffeine intoxication can lead to symptoms similar to panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. (http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine). Some years ago, whilst undergoing caffeine intoxication, I attended an out-patients clinic and had all the vital signs tested – blood pressure, pulse rate, and so on – all of which were found to be normal and nor were there any palpitations, agitations, and so on, either ... let alone anxiety and/or panic. Caffeine, of course, is also present in brewed tea (2.5-3.5mg per ounce), cocoa/ hot chocolate (0.5mg per ounce), caffeinated soft drinks (3-8mg per ounce), Guarana, (2.5mg per ounce), Yerba Mate (280-425mg per ounce), sports/ energy drinks (10mg per ounce), and chocolate (25mg per ounce) ... and, as a matter of interest only, chocolate is very mildly psychoactive since, as well as caffeine, it contains theobromine, tryptophan, and small quantities of anandamide (arachidonylethanolamine), an endogenous cannabinoid compound found in the brain of mammals (the name anandamide is taken from the Sanskrit word ananda, which means ‘bliss’). An affective reaction, in other words, is the main attraction. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 53a, 20 November 2003) Before the incident with the caffeine overdose here is an example of how I described the 1993-94 experience: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘How did you experience the mental anguish from the perspective of actual freedom? • [Richard]: ‘As a severe cerebral agitation ... it all happened only in the brain cells. There was perfect sensate experiencing: the direct, startlingly intimate sensuousness of the eyes seeing, the ears hearing, the skin feeling, the nose smelling and the tongue tasting all of their own accord (deliciously unfettered by a ‘me’ or an ‘I’) yet the cognitive faculty was face-to-face with the stark fact that it had been living a deluded dissociative state for eleven years ... and that religion – fuelled by its spirituality and mysticism – was nothing short of institutionalised insanity. That this disconcerting perplexity was only cerebral was evidenced by no sweaty palms, no increased heartbeat, no rapid breathing, no palpations in the solar plexus ... none of those things connected with the existential angst of being a contingent ‘being’. If I were to look in a mirror during that period and ask ‘who am I’ there was no answer – not even ‘the silence that speaks louder than words’ that had been experienced for eleven years – yet the answer to ‘what am I’ was patently obvious and undeniable ... I am this flesh and blood body. In psychiatric terms the neurons were agitated: energised and excited with an excess of dopamine in the post-synaptic receptors, described as being similar to the effect of amphetamines, cocaine or LSD ... yet nothing could be done about it with psychiatry’s extensive arsenal of anti-psychotic drugs. Initially I had no alternative but to seek resolution in terms of either ‘the known’ (psychiatry) and/or ‘the unknown’ (mysticism) ... and I knew from eleven years experience that no mystic could be of any assistance whatsoever. I was truly on my own. The mental anguish was in determining the validity of uncharted territory – 5,000 years of recorded history and perhaps 50,000 years of oral tradition made no mention of this dimension of human experience – for I was irreversibly plunked fair-square in the midst of either ‘insanity’ (the psychiatric model) or ‘the unknowable’ (the metaphysical model) ... which is something else entirely. In the context of metaphysical human experience this condition is only achievable after physical death: the Buddhists call it ‘Parinirvana’ and the Hindus call it ‘Mahasamadhi’. (...). It was extremely uncomfortable and very disconcerting, perplexing and bewildering. It was also distressing for my companion and caused considerable disturbance in her ... she was a constant witness to my endeavour to come to grips with what had happened and what was going on. Despite the fact she was a qualified nursing sister this was beyond her ken and altogether too much to handle in the first few months. I must emphasise the immediacy and urgency of the dilemma: how could I be right and 5.8 billion peoples then currently alive (and maybe 4.0 billion once living) be wrong? This was an outrageous supposition to contemplate – as I remarked in my previous E-Mail I thought that I had lost the plot – yet all about people were hurting and being hurt: bickering, quarrelling, arguing, fighting and then applying band-aid solutions such as the cycle of guilt, remorse, repentance, forgiveness, empathy, trust, compassion through to love ... until next time. There were all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like to account for ... and all the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours, and the Saints and the Sages and the Seers, did not have peace-on-earth on their agenda. Obviously someone had to be the first ... and this fact was thrilling to the nth degree. It meant that an actual freedom from the human condition, here on earth in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body had been discovered and could be demonstrated and described ... no one else need ever take that route again (and I would not wish upon anyone to have to follow in my footsteps and run that full gamut of existential angst to break through to what lay beyond). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 7, 14 June 2000). (Richard, The Actual Freedom List, No. 60, 16 January 2004). RESPONDENT: As Richard chooses to remain anonymous, it is impossible to observe his behaviour in every day life and make any conclusions about it. RICHARD: Whereas those who have observed can (and that includes accredited psychiatrists/ psychologists). RESPONDENT: So far, I have not seen any of this information. Is it on the web site? RICHARD: Yes ... for instance: • [Richard]: ‘... it is openly displayed on my portion of The Actual Freedom Trust web site that I was examined by two accredited psychiatrists (one of which was over a three-year period), face-to-face in their rooms, as well as by an accredited psychologist for the same three-year period, person-to-person in my own home, and repeatedly and consistently found to have no emotional/ passional response/ reaction whatsoever (amongst other official findings). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 41, 6 May 2004) And for another instance: • [Richard]: ‘... I have not been reticent about having been closely examined, over a three-year period by both an accredited psychiatrist and psychologist, and found to be having the following symptoms: 1. Depersonalisation (no sense of identity) as in no ‘self’ by whatever name. 2. Derealisation (lost touch with reality) as in reality has vanished completely. 3. Alexithymia (inability to feel the affections) as in no affective feelings whatsoever. 4. Anhedonia (inability to feel pleasure/ pain) as in no affective pleasure/ pain facility. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 46, 9 August 2003) There are many more instances ... but maybe that will do for now. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 77, 23 October 2004). RESPONDENT: Has anyone ever gone crazy from using the AF method? RICHARD: Yes, I have been duly diagnosed by two accredited psychiatrists as suffering from a severe and chronic psychotic disorder ... the symptoms of which are as follows (with the official description parenthesised): 1. Depersonalisation (no sense of identity) ... as in no ‘self’ by whatever name. 2. Derealisation (lost touch with reality) ... as in reality has vanished completely. 3. Alexithymia (unable to feel the affections) ... as in no affective feelings whatsoever. 4. Anhedonia (inability to feel pleasure/ pain) ... as in no affective pleasure/ pain facility. Moreover, I have that most classic symptom of craziness ... that everyone else is crazy but me. RESPONDENT: ... is there a link where you talk about your psychiatric experience? RICHARD: No ... copy-paste the following, as-is, into the search-box at a search engine of your choice: accredited psychiatrist site:www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/ Then left-click ‘search’ (or tap ‘enter’) ... you should get about 31 hits. RESPONDENT: If not I am very curious to know how you ended up being professionally diagnosed as ‘crazy’. RICHARD: The official term for insanity these days, due in no small part to the medicalisation of psychiatry, is mental illness/ mental disorder ... and it was mainly because of such medicalisation that professional diagnosis came about. As briefly as possible: at one stage during a thirty-month involuntary and incessant excitation of the brain cells (officially diagnosed as being ‘an excess of dopamine in the post-synaptic receptors’) after becoming actually free from the human condition I vaguely recalled, from my art-college days, that a person experiencing what was colloquially known as a ‘bad trip’ on lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) could be brought down with an injection of some medication or another so I popped into the nearest medical centre to where I was then residing and an elderly general practitioner (with very shaky hands) referred me to a specialist as a matter of course. For more details about that neuronal agitation copy-paste the following, as-is, into the search-box at a search engine of your choice: excitation of the brain cells site:www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/ You will get you about 17 hits. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 111, 6 May 2006). CLAUDIU: As a feeling-being, I can tell you that the phrase ‘the genitor’ most certainly implies an ‘identity’, and a sense of ownership – as in, ‘this actually free consciousness is *my* consciousness; *I* (as identity) created it’. RICHARD: Whereas the 30+ month-long process whereby the totally new way of being conscious (a completely original consciousness), for all humankind to avail themselves of, came into existence was entirely involuntary (as in ‘not due to conscious volition’ according to the Oxford Dictionary). For instance (written in May 2006): • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Has anyone ever gone crazy from using the AF method? • [Richard]: ‘Yes, I have been duly diagnosed by two accredited psychiatrists as suffering from a severe and chronic psychotic disorder ... the symptoms of which are as follows (with the official description parenthesised): 1. Depersonalisation (no sense of identity) ... as in no ‘self’ by whatever name. 2. Derealisation (lost touch with reality) ... as in reality has vanished completely. 3. Alexithymia (unable to feel the affections) ... as in no affective feelings whatsoever. 4. Anhedonia (inability to feel pleasure/ pain) ... as in no affective pleasure/ pain facility. Moreover, I have that most classic symptom of craziness ... that everyone else is crazy but me. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘ ... is there a link where you talk about your psychiatric experience? • [Richard]: ‘No ... copy-paste the following, as-is, into the search-box at a search engine of your choice: accredited psychiatrist site:www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/ Then left-click ‘search’ (or tap ‘enter’) ... you should get about 31 hits. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘If not I am very curious to know how you ended up being professionally diagnosed as ‘crazy’. • [Richard]: ‘The official term for insanity these days, due in no small part to the medicalisation of psychiatry, is mental illness/ mental disorder ... and it was mainly because of such medicalisation that professional diagnosis came about. As briefly as possible: at one stage during *a thirty-month involuntary and incessant excitation of the brain cells* (officially diagnosed as being ‘an excess of dopamine in the post-synaptic receptors’) after becoming actually free from the human condition I vaguely recalled, from my art-college days, that a person experiencing what was colloquially known as a ‘bad trip’ on lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) could be brought down with an injection of some medication or another so I popped into the nearest medical centre to where I was then residing and an elderly general practitioner (with very shaky hands) referred me to a specialist as a matter of course. For more details about that neuronal agitation copy-paste the following, as-is, into the search-box at a search engine of your choice: excitation of the brain cells site:www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/ You will get you about 17 hits’. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 111, 6 May 2006). Put succinctly: it was that ‘thirty-month involuntary and incessant excitation of the brain cells’ – otherwise known as ‘neuronal agitation’/ ‘cerebral agitation’ – which brought the totally new way of being conscious (a completely original consciousness) for all humankind to avail themselves of, into existence. (Hence that epithet ‘genitor’ being a most apt descriptor inasmuch it explicitly conveys the radical nature inherent to the genesis of this epoch-changing consciousness). As it was altogether a ghastly/ horrendous period – I refer to it as being ‘macabre and gruesome’ in ‘Richard’s Journal’ for instance – I was well-pleased that none of that daring handful of pioneers, circa late 2009/ early 2010, underwent anything of that nature. (So as to convey some idea of what it entailed I have, on occasion, likened the intensity of that involuntary and incessant synaptic reconfiguration to what it would be like, after having physically gashed an arm or leg deeply, to then spend the next 30+ months dragging the sharp point of a sewing-needle back-and-forth through that gash 24/7, without any let-up whatsoever, and with all of modern medicine’s arsenal of drugs only exacerbating/ magnifying the intensity). CLAUDIU: It was only until you mentioned that it is the actual flesh-and-blood body that generates consciousness that I (think I) understood what it is you were saying. RICHARD: I am pleased to know that you comprehend that most salient fact. Regards, Richard. (Richard, List D, Claudiu, 23 February 2012). RESPONDENT: What are your specific reasons for stating that nobody else need go through such a difficult adjustment to becoming free? RICHARD: As I have already provided such ‘specific reasons’ on this very forum I am disinclined to continue doing your leg-work for you ... a search for what I have written about that incessant synaptic reconfiguration in conjunction with the word ‘genitor’ would be as good a way as any of finding out. Such as at these URLs for instance: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/actualfreedom/message/10929 (Richard, List D, Claudiu, 9 February 2012). http://groups.yahoo.com/group/actualfreedom/message/10951 (Richard, List D, Rick, 11 February 2012). http://groups.yahoo.com/group/actualfreedom/message/11150 (Richard, List D, No. 37a, 17 February 2012). http://groups.yahoo.com/group/actualfreedom/message/11273 (Richard, List D, Claudiu, 21 February 2012). http://groups.yahoo.com/group/actualfreedom/message/11394 (Richard, List D, Claudiu, 23 February 2012). For example: • [Richard]: ‘... it was that ‘thirty-month involuntary and incessant excitation of the brain cells’ – otherwise known as ‘neuronal agitation’/ ‘cerebral agitation’ – which brought the totally new way of being conscious (a completely original consciousness) for all humankind to avail themselves of, into existence. (Hence that epithet ‘genitor’ being a most apt descriptor inasmuch it explicitly conveys the radical nature inherent to the genesis of this epoch-changing consciousness). (Richard, List D, Claudiu, 23 February 2012). For another example (which includes a reiteration of that ‘apt descriptor’ explanation): • [Richard]: ‘... as the flesh-and-blood body typing these words – being sans the entire affective faculty/ the identity in toto – is being conscious (aka sentient) in a completely new/ totally original way (never before in human experience/ in human history has any body been able to be conscious/ able to be sentient thus sans the very psyche itself) then that epithet [‘genitor’] is a most apt descriptor inasmuch it explicitly conveys the radical nature inherent to the genesis of this epoch-changing consciousness’. (Richard, List D, Claudiu, 21 February 2012) (Richard, List D, No. 25a, 25 May 2013). RESPONDENT: Also, if I may ask, how did you experience being disconcerted without the affective faculty? RICHARD: Just because there are no affections whatsoever it does not mean it is not possible to be (mentally) astonished, astounded, surprised, uncertain, baffled, puzzled, perplexed, nonplussed, and so on, on occasion. Here is an in-context example: • [Richard]: ‘... in 1992, when the break-through into this actual world occurred, the following thirty months or so were a time of intense brain agitation – neuronal excitation – which I have described before as being ‘mental anguish’ (not to be confused with emotional anguish) so as to convey the intensity of the cognisance that no body in human history had ever lived this up until now. That this disconcerting perplexity was only cerebral was evidenced by no sweaty palms, no increased heartbeat, no rapid breathing, no palpations in the solar plexus ... none of those things connected with ‘being’. If I were to look in a mirror during that period and ask ‘who am I’ there was no answer – not even ‘the silence that speaks louder than words’ that I had been experiencing for eleven years – yet the answer to ‘what am I’ was patently obvious and undeniable ... I am this body. The cognitive agitation was in determining the validity of uncharted territory – 5,000 years of recorded history and perhaps 50,000 years of oral tradition made no mention of this dimension of human experience – for I was irreversibly plunked fair-square in the midst of either ‘insanity’ (the psychiatric model) or ‘the unknowable’ (the metaphysical model). In the context of metaphysical human experience this condition is only achievable after physical death: the Buddhists call it ‘Parinirvana’ and the Hindus call it ‘Mahasamadhi’. This was no ‘dark night of the soul’ – which I knew from 1981 when enlightenment happened – this was something else ... beyond either psychiatric or mystic human experience. It was pretty freaky stuff for a mere boy from the farm – who was he to set himself up to be the final arbiter of human experience – and what was I doing in this territory anyway? What had I become? No self or Self (Depersonalisation)? No reality or Reality (Derealisation)? No feeling or Being (Alexithymia)? No beauty or Truth (Anhedonia)? In the context of physical human experience this was a severe mental disorder ... a psychotic condition according to the DSM-IV (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders – fourth edition – the diagnostic criteria used by all Psychiatrists and Psychologists around the world for diagnosing mental disorders). On top of that was the obvious fact that everybody else other than me – especially the revered and respected ‘Great Teachers’ of antiquity – were insane ... which is held to be a classic indication of insanity in itself. I do consider it so cute that freedom from the human condition is considered a mental disorder’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 18, 1 January 2001). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 106, 27 December 2005). * RESPONDENT: Also, if I may ask, how did you experience being disconcerted without the affective faculty? RICHARD: Just because there are no affections whatsoever it does not mean it is not possible to be (mentally) astonished, astounded, surprised, uncertain, baffled, puzzled, perplexed, nonplussed, and so on, on occasion. Here is an in-context example: [Richard]: ‘... in 1992, when the break-through into this actual world occurred, the following thirty months or so were a time of intense brain agitation – neuronal excitation – which I have described before as being ‘mental anguish’ (not to be confused with emotional anguish) so as to convey the intensity of the cognisance that no body in human history had ever lived this up until now. That this disconcerting perplexity was only cerebral was evidenced by no sweaty palms, no increased heartbeat, no rapid breathing, no palpations in the solar plexus ... none of those things connected with ‘being’. [snip remainder]. RESPONDENT: I understand that, but I do not yet understand how such perplexity can be experienced as suffering when there is neither physical pain nor affective distress. RICHARD: I did not experience such perplexity as suffering ... I specifically say it was [quote] ‘disconcerting’ [endquote] in that above passage which I provided as an in-context example, in response to your query about being disconcerted when first freed from the human condition, and in no way mean by that what the word ‘suffering’ can mean. Here is what being disconcerted means to me: • ‘disconcert: to throw into confusion’. (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary). Thus that last sentence could have been written like this: • [example only]: ‘That this confusing perplexity was only cerebral was evidenced by no sweaty palms, no increased heartbeat, no rapid breathing, no palpations in the solar plexus ... none of those things connected with ‘being’. [end example]. As for that intense brain agitation – the neuronal excitation – I have elsewhere described it as [quote] ‘altogether unpleasant’ [endquote]. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘... primarily the main symptom was a saturated sensuosity of such brilliance and vividity (as in psychedelic), which satiation can be likened to a television set receiving 4 or 5 channels all at once (inasmuch thought, and thus speech, was unable to keep up with the resultant cacophonic ‘white noise’), that the brain cells themselves were undergoing a non-volitional (chemical) excitation of such a magnitude as to be almost impossible for awareness to sustain itself (as in too much to bear). It is altogether unpleasant, to say the least’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 53a, 20 November 2003). RESPONDENT: You seem to have suffered a lot during that period, yet you also say that actual freedom is the end of all suffering. RICHARD: Perhaps if I were to take the liberty of replacing one word in your sentence with what I wrote, in response to your query about being disconcerted, it may become more clear? For example: • [example only]: ‘You seem to have been (mentally) astonished, astounded, surprised, uncertain, baffled, puzzled, perplexed, nonplussed, and so on, a lot during that period, yet you also say that actual freedom is the end of all suffering’. [end example]. RESPONDENT: Is there any real-world analogues that would convey the nature of that suffering? RICHARD: There are no real-world analogues that could convey the nature of that disconcerting perplexity as it was only cerebral (as evidenced by no sweaty palms, no increased heartbeat, no rapid breathing, no palpations in the solar plexus ... none of those things connected with ‘being’). The intense brain agitation – the neuronal excitation – is akin to having what is colloquially known as a bad trip on acid (lysergic acid diethylamide). RESPONDENT: Had you experienced anything like it before? RICHARD: I had experienced the neuronal excitation before, during some of the many PCE’s, but never to that extent (let alone duration). RESPONDENT: Are you still able to suffer in that way? RICHARD: As I now have 13+ years experience, of being a flesh and blood body only, there is no foreseeable reason why such disconcerting perplexity would ever come about again. Nor for anybody else, either, as the validity of both a virtual and an actual freedom from the human condition is now established. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 106, 29 December 2005). RICHARD: I am not busy thinking abstract thoughts, either, for I am too engaged in being here now and doing this, to want to distract myself with other matters. When one’s life is free from turmoil and strife – created by the sense of identity as ego and soul – what else is there to think of, anyway? Yet all this while – for a twenty-month period following the dissolution of the Altered State of Consciousness – there has been almost constant panic and dread as the process of depersonalisation and derealisation and alexithymia take effect upon this body. This existential angst – that anxious dread that comes as a result of activating the desire to disclose oneself as the contingent ‘being’ one fears one is – is a wearing process. Depersonalisation is an apt description of being bereft of any identity whatsoever … there is nothing at all to answer back when I ask that time honoured question: “Who am I?” … not even a silence that “speaks louder than words”. So too is derealisation an appropriate term, for the grim and glum ‘normal’ and mundane reality of the everyday real world as experienced by 5.8 billion people has vanished forever … along with the loving and compassionate ‘abnormal’ and heavenly Greater Reality of the metaphysical Mystical World as experienced by .0000001 of the population. And alexithymia is the term used to describe the condition of a total absence of feelings – usually exhibited most clearly in lobotomised patients – which has been my on-going condition for many, many months now. Thus all the excruciating angst happens only in the brain-cells; which leaves the remainder of this body free to totally enjoy this sensate delight of the actual world … and nowadays I know myself – and the ‘Human Condition’ – through and through. (Richard’s Journal ©The Actual Freedom Trust 2004, Article Ten, p. 79) RESPONDENT: Hi Richard, Appreciate the response. You say that that you have suffered two major nervous breakdowns. The first one led to enlightement. RICHARD: G’day No. 29, First, a technical point: a breakdown does not lead to something; a breakdown is the onset of something – as per that ‘with sudden onset’ wording above – and that ‘something’, a mental disorder of some sort, can be either mild or severe and either acute (of short duration) or chronic (long-lasting) and either curable or incurable (inasmuch palliative care is prescribed to help manage the symptoms). So, the first major breakdown was the onset of a very severe psychotic disorder – so severe, in fact, as to entail massive delusions of grandeur and megalomania, such as being the ‘Parousia’ and the next ‘Maitreya’, for instance, with acute dissociative and solipsistic thought patterns plus major reality impairment (object estrangement, space dislocation and time distortion) – which persisted, night and day, for eleven years. Now, at the time I did not know that it was a mental disorder – let alone a very severe psychotic disorder – even though there was something suss about it all; it was only in that 30+ month period afterwards it gradually became clear to me that spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment was insanity ... albeit an institutionalised insanity. Viz.: • [Co-Respondent]: There is one important point that hit me in your response: • [Richard]: ‘After my break-through into actual freedom I went through thirty months of mental anguish thinking that I had lost the plot completely (although physically everything was perfect). No one could help me as nobody had traversed this territory before’ [endquote]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 7, 11 June 2000). How did you experience the mental anguish from the perspective of actual freedom? • [Richard]: As a severe cerebral agitation ... it all happened only in the brain cells. There was perfect sensate experiencing: the direct, startlingly intimate sensuousness of the eyes seeing, the ears hearing, the skin feeling, the nose smelling and the tongue tasting all of their own accord (deliciously unfettered by a ‘me’ or an ‘I’) yet the cognitive faculty was face-to-face with the stark fact that it had been living a deluded dissociative state for eleven years and that religion – fuelled by its spirituality and mysticism – was nothing short of institutionalised insanity. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 7, 14 June 2000). RICHARD: (...) Now, lest there be any confusion generated by my own words I will take this opportunity to add that I have oft-times stated how I do find it cute that peace-on-earth, in this life-time and as this flesh-and-body, be considered, by sane peoples, to be insanity. (...) Even more to that point is that those same sane peoples, who consider me insane, consider insanity (albeit institutionalised) to be the solution for all the ills of humankind – as in, all the ills of sanity – and deliberately leave it out of the DSM IV because of ‘religious sensitivities’. (...) Furthermore, I characterise that third alternative, to either sanity or insanity, as salubrity (and the third alternative, to either being sane or being insane, as being salubrious). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 29, 10 January 2013). RETURN TO RICHARD’S SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE INDEX RICHARD’S HOME PAGE The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one. Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997- . All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity