# Actual Freedom ~ Commonly Raised Objections Commonly Raised Objections ## Richard is Insane RESPONDENT: When you as you say was for 11 years enlightened, you was in an ASC, and to my opinion you still are. RICHARD: Only three weeks you strongly believed I was in an ASC ... what has happened in the meanwhile to change your strong belief into an opinion? RESPONDENT: Feelings have a location in the human brain. You have altered your brain for some reason. RICHARD: We have been down this path before (four times in fact): • [Respondent]: ‘You said that you felt a brain change’. • [Richard]: ‘More specifically: I said that there was a physical sensation in the brain-stem (at the base of the brain/nape of the neck)’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44a, 11 June 2003). And: • [Respondent]: ‘Did you ever thought that you might altered your brain? • [Richard]: ‘No ... all the activity occurred in the brain-stem’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44a, 11 June 2003). And: • [Respondent]: ‘You admitted that something happened in your brain ...’. • [Richard]: ‘No, I acknowledged that something happened in the brain-stem’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44a, 11 July 2003). And: • [Respondent]: ‘So after the change took place in your brain ...’. • [Richard]: ‘Why you choose to ignore what I have to report I cannot know ...’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44b, 17 July 2003). Apart from that ... why do you say ‘for some reason’ when I make it crystal clear that this is what happened when the identity in toto became extinct as a direct result of setting out to have what was experienced in the initial four-hour PCE happen twenty four hours of the day seven days of the week? RESPONDENT: You know that mental diseases are not detected by magnetic topographies etc., unless a severe trauma happened to the brain. RICHARD: No, I do not know that ... what I do know, however, is that for all of their RI scans (Radio Isotope), CAT scans (Computerised Axial Tomography), CT scans (Computed Tomography), NMR scans (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance), PET scans (Positron Emission Tomography), MRA scans (Magnetic Resonance Angiography), MRI scans (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), and fMRI scans (functioning Magnetic Resonance Imaging), no researchers have been able to locate the identity within the body which maybe 6.0 billion people feel they are. RESPONDENT: I mean one schizophrenia for example, not that you are schizophrenic, can not be detected with instruments. The diagnosis can only be made by observation of the symptoms. RICHARD: Just for the record, then, here are the symptoms I have been diagnosed as having by two accredited psychiatrists: 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. Does this throw any light upon whatever it is you are getting at? RESPONDENT: Human being is a feeling being. RICHARD: And therein lies the root cause of all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides and so on ... specifically the ‘being’ or ‘presence’ (aka the identity) the feelings automatically form themselves into. RESPONDENT to Richard: :-) I bet Peter and Vineeto recognised your alexithymic behaviour in Adam very well indeed. That’s because that’s what he has, and so do you. PETER: Your bet is wrong. As it so happens I have just posted something to No 12 which is of relevance to your arrow in the dark. I post it again because lurkers seem to have an aversion to reading – The reason I pricked up my ears and listened to what Richard was saying was that he was the first Guru I discovered who was ordinary and not super-ordinary, who was down-to-earth and not other-worldly, who was approachable and not living in an ivory tower, who was straightforward and not devious, who was upfront and not evasive and who lived what he talked. It was such a breath of fresh air compared to the Gurus I had been sussing out before that I found myself intrigued. Initially, of course, I regarded him as a Guru and what he said as spiritual-talk, but the genuineness of what was on offer and its innate sensibleness meant that I was able to question not only the spiritual teachers I had followed but the revered spiritual teachings themselves. It was soon evident that I had simply been suckered into believing in God, albeit the fashionable Eastern God-man variety. Although I was on the spiritual path when I met him, it was Richard’s sincerity, and the very down-to-earthness of what he offered, that was instrumental in me continuing on regardless of the initial fear of going down a path never travelled before. Peter, The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List, No 12, 25.6.2001 I also find it curious that your good friend No 12 has spent a good deal of time with Richard and was so un-threatened by his condition that he afterwards relentlessly demanded even more of his time. And despite his avowed cult-busting, he then repeated the request yet again in November last year. He has obviously missed something in his direct personal observation that you seem to have picked up via whatever medium it is that you pick things up by. ’Tis a pity you don’t bother to read what it is you are riling against – it would do wonders for the quality of your rile ... and the accuracy of your arrows. RESPONDENT: There exist people that suffer from anhedonia. Is a fact. Does the brain of these people are different from yours as you operate now? RICHARD: First of all, anhedonia is usually defined as the inability to affectively feel pleasure (from the Greek ‘an-’ [‘without’] plus the Greek ‘hedone’ [‘pleasure’] which is akin to Greek ‘hedys’ [‘sweet’] from the Latin ‘suavis’) and what is usually overlooked is the inability to affectively feel pain ... as in the pleasure/pain principle so often mentioned in mystical texts. It has nothing to do with physical pleasure/pain. Second, usually anhedonia is a central feature of a psychotic disorder ... for example: • ‘anhedonia is a core clinical feature of depression, schizophrenia, and some other mental illnesses. (www.medterms.com). • ‘anhedonia: certainly one cardinal feature of depression, and perhaps THE cardinal feature. (www.mentalhelp.net). Third, from the descriptions I have heard and read it is a psychiatric condition for them ... and not a liberating condition. You may find what Ms. Kristina Luna has to report at the following URL illuminating in this regard: http://juns.nursing.arizona.edu/articles/Fall%202002/luna_anhedonia.htm Here is the abstract, summary, and conclusion, of that article: • ‘Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that plagues all cultures and is known to be present in all socio-economic groups. Patients exhibit a wide range of symptoms, which can be classified as either positive or negative. Positive symptoms include hallucinations, delusions, erratic behaviour, pressured speech, and looseness of associations. Negative symptoms include flattening of affect, poor grooming, withdrawal, and poverty of speech. The failure or inability to experience pleasure, also known as anhedonia, is a fairly common negative symptom, but one that is little understood by many in the psychiatric field. By attempting to explain the aetiology of anhedonia, I hope to increase the awareness of this often overlooked concept. (...) In summary, the inability to experience pleasure, or anhedonia, is one of the defining negative characteristics in the deficit syndrome of schizophrenia and also depression. I described how two different theories try to account for the origin of anhedonia. Although the aetiology of anhedonia is still unknown, its negative symptoms are quite obvious and their severity can be measured with standardized scales. I then used social learning theory to analyse the case study of a patient with Anhedonia. Finally, I discussed five nursing interventions that are appropriate when treating those afflicted with anhedonia and schizophrenia. (...) To conclude, it is extremely important for health care providers to be aware of schizophrenia and assessing for anhedonia. By discussing the negative symptom of anhedonia, I hope to increase the awareness of this little understood concept. If and when I encounter schizophrenics during my nursing practice, I intend to utilize the appropriate nursing interventions, such as assessing for anhedonia, establishing a therapeutic relationship, providing a safe environment, and encouraging pleasurable and safe activities. Most importantly, I hope to educate those who are lacking information on schizophrenia and its symptoms. (©The University of Arizona College of Nursing). As [quote] ‘the aetiology of anhedonia is still unknown’ [endquote] and anhedonia is [quote] ‘little understood by many in the psychiatric field’ [endquote] I cannot answer your query as to how the brain of those people operates differently from the brain in this skull other than to say that it appears to be a psychological condition and not a physiological condition (given that therapy can reverse the process somewhat). RESPONDENT: I mean what is the difference of these patients and you? RICHARD: In a nutshell: they are not free from the human condition ... they are more deeply entangled than the norm, in fact. RESPONDENT: You said that you felt a brain change. RICHARD: More specifically: I said that there was a physical sensation in the brain-stem (at the base of the brain/nape of the neck). RESPONDENT: Did you ever thought that you might altered your brain? RICHARD: No ... all the activity occurred in the brain-stem. RESPONDENT: The absence of feeling is a kind of disorder because feeling is a natural and valuable feedback loop. RICHARD: The affective feelings are most certainly natural – as is the hot-blooded killing of one’s fellow human being – so much so that I make no secret of the fact that what I am reporting is indeed unnatural. For just one example: • [Respondent]: ‘When the melon is ripe, it falls from the vine. It is a natural event, not a forced one. • [Richard]: ‘It would be less traumatic to cease ‘being’ before ripening ... plus, due to an enhanced narcissism, it was more difficult once fallen. It is an unnatural event, not a laissez-faire one. (Richard, List B, No. 12p, 9 November 2002). Speaking from the on-going experiencing, for just on a decade now, of living life sans the ‘feedback loop’ you prize so highly I can unequivocally testify that operating and functioning in the everyday world of people, things and events freed of any and all instinctual passions and their cultivated derivations is inconceivably easy and efficacious ... and unimaginably superior to the primitive way human beings have had to operate and function as and by for millennia. But if you continue to see it as ‘a kind of disorder’ you will not be on your own ... there are others who also see it that way. RESPONDENT: When some people are confronted with horror, with overwhelming psychological trauma, they unconsciously cope by disconnecting. The intellect becomes isolated from the heart centre in some way. It may be that something happens to the brain. RICHARD: The psychiatric name for this which you describe is alexithymia. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘Apperception is the direct – unmediated – apprehension of actuality ... the world as-it-is. • [Respondent]: ‘This is similar to what I was saying to Respondent No. 20 but you use a different term, apperception. Do you understand apperception as different from choiceless awareness? • [Richard]: ‘Oh yes, most definitely (...) literally, I have no feelings – emotions and passions – whatsoever ... and have not had for five years. This is why I have been diagnosed as ‘alexithymic’ by two accredited psychiatrists ... which is not strictly correct for alexithymia means not able to feel feelings. Other people can see such a person being angry, for example, but he/she will not be aware of this. It is not a case of him/her denying their feelings – or not being in touch with their feelings – but is a morbid condition. It is most common in lobotomised patients. This is all the result of finding the source of ‘myself’ ... I discovered that ‘I’ was born out of the instincts that blind nature endows all sentient beings with at birth. This rudimentary self is the root cause of all the malice and sorrow that besets humankind, and to eliminate malice and sorrow ‘I’ had to eliminate the fear and aggression and nurture and desire that this rudimentary self is made up of ... the instincts. But as this rudimentary self was the instincts – there is no differentiation betwixt the two – then the elimination of one was the elimination of the other. (Richard, List B, No. 12, #Alexithymia). RESPONDENT: Have you seen the movie ‘The Deer Hunter’? There is a character who after being tortured as a prisoner is finally freed. But he no longer cares or feels anymore. He keeps playing Russian roulette for money until he loses the game. No doubt in excruciating conditions that can happen. RICHARD: I did see the movie, many years ago, but being a fictional work there is not much that I can recall of it ... other than it being a laboured and designed-to-shock capitalisation on a particular war’s notoriety, that is. RESPONDENT: I am not an expert in the area but one can see in oneself that an absence of feeling is almost always associated with avoidance or denial mechanisms. What we need is not to be unconscious of feelings but to be more aware of what we feel even when there is an aversion to what we see. RICHARD: There is something far, far better than what you are proposing ... psychologising has its place in the real-world but in the final analysis all psychologies are predicated upon being something like what might be described as ‘a well-adjusted ego balancing the conflicting demands of society and self’ and, as such, depend upon stabilising strategies, coping mechanisms, management techniques and the like (and it has been said, however truthfully, that the psychiatric profession has one of the highest suicides rates of all professions). In short: there are no solutions to be found in the real-world ... the only solution is dissolution. RESPONDENT: It is not possible to transcend what we deny or avoid. RICHARD: As transcendence involves sublimation that is a questionable point ... but, be that at is may, an actual freedom from the human condition is far, far better than the transcendence of it anyway. The pristine purity of this actual world is impeccable ... nothing ‘dirty’ can get in. RICHARD: (...) the human species has been doing its thing for at least 50,000 years or so – no essential difference has been discerned between the Cro-Magnon human and Modern-Day human – and may very well continue to do its thing for, say, another 50,000 years or so ... it matters not, in what has been described as ‘the vast scheme of things’ or ‘the big picture’, and so on, whether none, one or many peoples become actually free from the human condition (this planet, indeed the entire solar system, is going to cease to exist in its current form about 4.5 billion years from now). All these words – yours, mine, and others (all the dictionaries, encyclopaedias, scholarly tomes and so on) – will perish and all the monuments, all the statues, all the tombstones, all the sacred sites, all the carefully conserved/carefully restored memorabilia, will vanish as if they had never existed ... nothing will remain of any human endeavour (including yours truly). Nothing at all ... nil, zero, zilch. Which means that nothing really matters in the long run and, as nothing really does matter (in this ultimate sense) it is simply not possible to take life seriously ... sincerely, yes, but seriously? No way ... life is much too much fun to be serious! (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25g, 22 December 2004). RESPONDENT No. 53: [snip link to a news item about a recent seismic sea-wave] Yeah fun, fun, fun for every one. Let’s bury the dead .... such fun! Let’s dig out our dead ... fun, fun, fun! Perhaps we should hand them Richard’s method as they bury their loved ones. Perhaps in addition to food, clothing, building materials, etc, we should give them one copy of Richard’s Journal on how to have fun whilst losing your life and your loved ones lives. RICHARD: Death is a fact of life/of being born – over 54,000,000 people die each year – and yet, just because of a topical news item, all-of-a-sudden life is not fun? Further to the point, were your platitudinous ‘loved ones’ comments anywhere to be seen yesterday, when maybe 148,000 of those 54+ million people died, leaving x-number of peoples burying their dead ... let alone the day before, when another 148,000 or so people died (and the day before that, and the one before that one, and so on, and so on)? Nope, nowhere to be seen at all ... which indicates that this opportunistic e-mail of yours is, perhaps, nothing more than a cynical cashing-in on the (newsworthy) misfortune of others for the sake of your own promotion. RESPONDENT: Your inability to discern the difference in impact between individuals dying daily of old age, accident, disease, or ignorance, and this on-going horror as millions of human beings try to deal with a mass tragedy on a scale never experienced in our lifetimes reveals you to be a callous and mentally dissociated sick human being. RICHARD: Hmm ... another opportunist exploiting the current-time suffering of others, eh? Before this bandwagon lurches any further along the bandwidth trail I will draw your attention to the following: • [Richard]: ‘I have been examined by two accredited psychiatrists and have been officially classified as suffering from a pronounced and severe mental disorder. My symptoms are: 1. Depersonalisation. 2. Derealisation. 3. Alexithymia. 4. Anhedonia. (...) 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 years now. It has also come to mean being cut off from one’s feelings – as in dissociation – yet *the psychiatrists ascertained that I was not dissociating*. [emphasis added]. (Richard, List B, No. 26a, 24 November 1998). As it seems as if amateur diagnoses, determined solely by e-mail, might just become the order of the day may I suggest that you leave the psychologising to the psychologists and the psychiatry to the psychiatrists? For your information: even though there is no ‘horror’ here in this actual world I am not oblivious to the impact such calamities can have upon the denizens of the real-world ... and I have written about this before. For just one example: • [Richard]: ‘... I do not suffer from disassociation. I am well aware of the incredible anguish and animosity that everybody experiences and acts out in their daily life ... I watch the news bulletins on television and interact with people on a daily basis. (Richard, List B, No. 31, 8 March 1998). And in regards to ‘on a scale never experienced in our lifetimes’ I only need to point to the events of 1939-45 where the estimates of the number of dead are of such an unknowable magnitude as to be couched in terms of ‘give-or-take’ 10,000,000 human beings either way of an estimated 55,000,000 ... with a further estimate of at least 11,000,000 people, at the war’s end, being classified as DP’s (displaced persons). Or, for a non-war instance: the number of citizens dead at the hands of autocratic governments in the last 100 years (via genocide, politicide, mass murder, extra-judicial executions, starvation/ privation, and so forth) is statistically estimated to be a probable 174,000,000 peoples ... as a mid-estimate formed from the possible low-range/ high range estimates. And the scale of that mid-range figure (174,000,000) is not only hard to digest it is difficult to properly comprehend just how many persons – men, women, and children – this is. For example, if all of those citizens killed by governments, in the twentieth century alone, were to have inhabited a country of their own then it would be the world’s sixth most populous nation. Or, for another illustration, if one were to sit on a chair in a room and have that amount of people come in one door, go by at a walking pace without stopping, and exit through another door, for 24 hours a day 365 days a year, it would take about six years for all to pass by. Put graphically: assuming that the average height of these murdered citizens was little more than five feet, because of the many children killed, their corpses would encircle this planet about four times. Whereas the battle-field cadavers (38,000,000) for the same period would barely girdle the earth once. RESPONDENT: I wonder if the readers of this site realize that when Richard glowingly puts up his diagnosis by psychiatrists of psychosis and depersonalisation that this is not a light fickle assessment. RICHARD: I was not aware that I was ‘glowingly’ putting up the psychiatrist’s diagnosis ... are you sure you are not reading something into it here that simply does not exist outside of your imagination? RESPONDENT: This is a very serious affliction which is encompassed by delusions of thinking oneself to ‘not exist or to be perfect’. RICHARD: You apparently know more about the matter of depersonalisation than the psychiatrists I consulted as neither of them ever said to me that I had delusions of thinking myself to ‘not exist or to be perfect’ ... can you provide the source from which you obtained this quote? RESPONDENT: Does anyone see how analogous this is to thinking oneself is Christ or Napoleon? RICHARD: No ... such delusions of grandeur as you refer to here are in a different category entirely to depersonalisation. RESPONDENT: Richard, have you given any thought that your past state (enlightenment) and present state might have been caused by what is known as Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE) or any other affection of the Temporal Lobe? (snip). RICHARD: No 25, have you given any thought to doing a site-search, not only before asking a question, but also before copy-pasting such random, by no means exhaustive or precise, collections of available information pointing to a possibility that it accords with the descriptions of my experience (now snipped)? It is this easy: type, or copy-paste, the following into the box provided at ‘Google’. jamais vu site:www.actualfreedom.com.au Or even this: TLE site:www.actualfreedom.com.au Here is an example of what that very useful function of the search engine finds (in 0.06 seconds): • [Richard]: ‘... that [jamais vu] is how I first described what I would now call pure consciousness experiences back in 1980-1981. (...) while jamais vu (‘never seen’) is not so common as déjà vu (‘already seen’), it can be just as compelling. Jamais vu is the opposite of déjà vu: instead of being extra familiar, as in déjà vu, a familiar situation seems totally unfamiliar. The world of people, things and events are experienced as for the first time ... there is little or no connection between long-term memory and perceptions from this moment. When a person is in this state nothing they experience seems to have anything to do with the past; everything suddenly becomes novel, totally new. The sense of knowing people or things or events – and knowing how to relate to them – simply vanishes. Details one has seen a thousand times suddenly become engaging; the background is as equally important as the figure that occupies centre-stage. Or, as someone wrote on a now-defunct mailing list some time ago: ‘jamais vu is a feeling that you have never seen anything around you; it seems like everything around you is new and you’ve never been there before – as opposed to déjà vu when everything seems like you’ve lived it before – and you feel that you’ve never done this particular thing before, even when you know you have’. [endquote]. This odd, uncanny, surreal experience can happen to people who temporarily lose their memory or, more commonly, in an epileptic seizure (psychiatrically known as ‘temporal lobe epilepsy’ or TLE). For example, one such epilepsy sufferer wrote: • [quote]: ‘I wonder, along with the doctors, if these mighty episodes which are so intimate yet so strange and autonomous for us epileptics, are after all just the random detour of chemicals and brain voltage caused by circuitry problems. Quite a few of us who have already-seen’ would dare to see even more; would actually follow that dangerous, disappearing, inbound road consciously and witness for the first time what is usually jamais-vu and hidden, and I mean the steady dark frolic of neurons and the ghost that is called ego’. (http://neuro-www.mgh.harvard.edu/neurowebforum/GeneralFeedbackArticles/YellowBrickRoad.html) Incidentally, there are four types of déjà vu that clearly delineate between associated, but different, neurological experiences. These are déjà vecu (already experienced), déjà senti (already felt) and déjà visité (already visited) and déjà entendu (already heard). Déjà vecu is the most common déjà vu experience and involves the sensation of having done something or having been in an identical situation before and knowing what will happen next. These sensations are not only experienced as the outstanding sensations – seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching – but can also include the proprioceptive sensations. So ‘jamais vu’ was my original nomenclature ... and yet another way of describing the pure consciousness experience is with the psychiatric terms ‘depersonalisation’, ‘derealisation’, alexithymia’ and ‘anhedonia’ ... which descriptions I have scattered throughout my correspondence. The article ‘Attentiveness And Sensuousness And Apperceptiveness’ may be well worth a visit in this regard. The characteristics already detailed (‘depersonalisation’, ‘alexithymia’, ‘derealisation’, ‘anhedonia’) are the result of expressing actual freedom in the psychiatric models of the human condition – which reflects the ‘human’ struggle to understand this fundamentally simple process called consciousness – and are inherently arbitrary in that they do not exist as separate items. The extinction of identity in its totality with its ensuing loss of reality coupled with the inability to affectively feel pleasure along with the ending of the feeling faculty all takes place in the space of a few glorious moments. Peace-on-earth is the certain result ... because it is already always just here right now. Then one is this universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Alan-b, 25 July 2000). * RESPONDENT: Yes ... of course. Jamais vu is identical to a PCE. RICHARD: Surely you are not suggesting that everybody – absolutely everybody – who has had, or is having, a pure consciousness experience (PCE) has had/is having a temporal lobe epileptic (TLE) episode? RESPONDENT: The passage you posted is in no way showing that you are not suffering from TLE or any other Temporal Lobe disorder. (snip). RICHARD: And the copy-pasted short collection of symptoms and/or the random, by no means exhaustive or precise, collection of available information you posted, both this time around and the previous, is in no way showing that I am suffering from TLE or any other temporal lobe disorder. Whereas the passage I quoted shows that I am, and have been for many a year, well aware of TLE ... do you really think I would not have considered such a thing before this exchange? * RESPONDENT: What I’m suggesting is that altered and pure states are triggered by this part of the brain (which is involved in processing emotion and sensation) ... RICHARD: As the temporal lobes are situated on each side of the brain, at about the level of the ears, you may find the following to be of interest (from the quote you provided in the previous e-mail): • [Richard]: ‘The night before [the 6th of September 1981] I could hardly maintain myself as a thinking, functioning human being as a blistering hot and cold burning sensation crept *up the back of my spine and entered into the base of my neck just under the brain itself*. (...) something turned over *in the base of my brain – in the top of the brain-stem*. I likened it to turning over a long-playing record in order to play the other side ... with the vital exception that it would never, ever turn back again’. [emphases added]. (Richard, Articles, a Brief Personal History#1). There are many, many more descriptions all throughout my portion of The Actual Freedom Trust web site describing the very same thing ... for instance: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘When you ended the second self (or when it ended), was there any physical brain sensation? • [Richard]: ‘Yes ... an intense pressure-pain in the base of the brain/nape of the neck which continued, with varying intensities, for 30+ months’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 66, 3 April 2004). Here is another: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘And an actual freedom from the human condition results in a reduced amygdala activity or even ends it? • [Richard]: ‘If I may ask? Why the focus upon the amygdalae (two almond-shaped organs in from and just to the back of and below the ears) when I specifically report that the pressure-pain happened in the base of the brain/nape of the neck? (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 66, 13 April 2004). And another: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘You said that you felt a brain change. • [Richard]: ‘More specifically: I said that there was a physical sensation in the brain-stem (at the base of the brain/nape of the neck). • [Co-Respondent]: Did you ever thought that you might altered your brain? • [Richard]: ‘No ... all the activity occurred in the brain-stem. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44a, 11 June 2003). And again: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘You admitted that something happened in your brain ... • [Richard]: ‘No, I acknowledged that something happened in the brain-stem. Viz.: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘You said that you felt a brain change’. • [Richard]: ‘More specifically: I said that there was a physical sensation in the brain-stem (at the base of the brain/nape of the neck)’. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Did you ever thought that you might altered your brain? • [Richard]: ‘No ... all the activity occurred in the brain-stem. I was saying what I meant and meaning what I said. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44a, 10 July 2003). And yet again (this one is a classic): • [Co-Respondent]: ‘So after the change took place in your brain, you are experiencing another world. Or if you like the world in a different way. Not necessarily everybody else is experiencing it this way. So the difference between before the change and now, is due to your brain. If was possible to reverse the process then you should be like before. That means that your brain is creating your world. • [Richard]: ‘This is the information I have suppled to you: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘You said that you felt a brain change’. • [Richard]: ‘More specifically: I said that there was a physical sensation in the brain-stem (at the base of the brain/nape of the neck)’. And: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Did you ever thought that you might altered your brain? • [Richard]: ‘No ... all the activity occurred in the brain-stem’. And: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘You admitted that something happened in your brain ... • [Richard]: ‘No, I acknowledged that something happened in the brain-stem’. Yet what is your response to these three clear and unambiguous replies? Viz.: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘So after the change took place in your brain ...’. You even asked if I could explain what happened scientifically so I referred you to two areas of the brain-stem I had gleaned some information about from an ad hoc reading of scientific texts: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘... but could you explain scientifically what? • [Richard]: ‘As far as I have been able to ascertain from an ad hoc reading of scientific texts it was most probably in the Reticular Activating System (RAS), in general, and quite possibly in the Substantia Nigra, in particular (arguably the seat of consciousness) that the identity in toto expired’. Why you choose to ignore what I have to report I cannot know, of course, yet it may very well be that the reason why lies at the end of your paragraph (above) where, after three assumptions, a preliminary judgement, and a speculation, your final conclusion is to be found: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘... your brain is creating your world’. As this is the theme you have been running all through these e-mail exchanges it may help to put it this way: when the identity expired, in toto, ‘his’ world (the reality ‘he’ pasted as a veneer over this actual world) also ceased to exist ... there is no ‘your world’ in actuality. There is only this actual world (...)’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44b, 17 July 2003). There are more ... but maybe that will do for now. * RESPONDENT: The passage you posted is in no way showing that you are not suffering from TLE or any other Temporal Lobe disorder. (snip). RICHARD: And the copy-pasted short collection of symptoms and/or the random, by no means exhaustive or precise, collection of available information you posted, both this time around and the previous, is in no way showing that I am suffering from TLE or any other temporal lobe disorder. RESPONDENT: Is it all just a big coincidence then? RICHARD: There is no ‘coincidence’ – be it either big or small – outside of your imagination. For example: • [Respondent]: ‘Extensive day-dreaming as a child is a good indication of TLE (you were known as a ‘dreamer’ at school, teachers brutally had to wake you up). You would have to be referring to the following (re-posted only five days before your first e-mail in this thread): • [Richard]: ‘The various people I have discussed these matters [remembering a PCE] with have invariably recalled similar ‘Technicolor Land’ experiences in childhood ... sometimes referred to as a ‘nature experience’, a ‘peak experience’, a ‘jamais vu experience’, or even an ‘aesthetic experience’. And not only have I witnessed children having such an experience, and spoken with them about while it is happening, but recall having the same myself on many an occasion: often in early childhood there would be a ‘slippage’ of the brain, somewhat analogous to an automatic transmission changing into a higher gear too soon, and the magical world where time had no workaday meaning would emerge in all its sparkling wonder ... where I could wander for hours at a time in gay abandon with whatever was happening. They were the pre-school years: soon such experiences would occur of a weekend (at school I became known as ‘the dreamer’ and had many a rude awakening to everyday reality by various teachers) ... so much so that I would later on call them ‘Saturday Morning’ experiences where, contrary to having to be dragged out of bed during the week, I would be up and about at first light, traipsing through the fields and the forests with the early morning rays of sunshine dancing their magic on the glistening dew-drops suspended from the greenery everywhere; where kookaburras are echoing their laughing-like calls to one another and magpies are warbling their liquid sounds; where an abundance of aromas and scents are drifting fragrantly all about; where every pore of the skin is being caressed by the friendly ambience of the balmy air; where benevolence and benignity streams endlessly bathing all in its impeccable integrity. (...)’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 66, 11 December 2000, Re: PCE). What you say is ‘extensive day-dreaming as a child’ is actually ‘many an occasion’ of experiencing ‘the magical world where time had no workaday meaning’ (aka PCE’s) ... just because various school-teachers classified me as being a dreamer, upon rudely awakening me to everyday reality, does not mean that those PCE’s were day-dreams. Here is the very next example you proffer as ‘a good indication of TLE’ (immediately after the first example above): • [Respondent]: ‘Experiencing unprovoked panic attacks to the point that one feels he is going to die (your experience back in 1981, the pillows and all the dread, feeling that you were going to die the next morning)’. [endquote]. I was neither experiencing ‘panic attacks’ nor was the intense fear/stark terror I did experience ‘unprovoked’ ... see for yourself (from the quote you provided): • [Richard]: ‘I lay back on my pillows to watch the rising sun (my bedroom faced east) through the large bedroom windows. All of a sudden I was gripped with the realisation that this was the moment! I was going to die! An intense fear raced throughout my body, rising in crescendo until I could scarcely take any more. As it reached a peak of stark terror, I realised that I had nothing to worry about and that I was to go with the ‘process’. In an instant all fear left me and I travelled deep into the depths of my very being’. (Richard, Articles, A Brief Personal History). Incidentally, what you say is ‘the feeling’ I was going to die ‘tomorrow’ was actually a revelation six weeks prior ... see for yourself (from the quote you provided): • [Richard]: ‘About six weeks prior to 6th September 1981 I had a revelation that I was going to really die this time, not become catatonic again, and that I was to prepare myself for it’. (Richard, Articles, A Brief Personal History). And here is the third example you provide as ‘a good indication of TLE’ (immediately after the second example above): • [Respondent]: ‘The hippocampus involves both intense positive and negative experiences (some patients with hippocampus disorders report laughing without any reason)’. I was not ‘laughing without any reason’ ... see for yourself (from the quote you provided): • [Richard]: ‘All of a sudden I was sitting bolt upright, laughing, as I realised that this that was IT! was such a simple thing ... all I had to do was die ... and that was the easiest thing in the world to do’. (Richard, Articles, A Brief Personal History #1). * RICHARD: [The ... information you posted ... is in no way showing that I am suffering from TLE or any other temporal lobe disorder] whereas the passage I quoted shows that I am, and have been for many a year, well aware of TLE ... do you really think I would not have considered such a thing before this exchange? RESPONDENT: So did your psychiatrist at the time? RICHARD: There were no psychiatrists (or a psychologist for that matter) ‘at the time’ ... the following is from the passage being discussed (above): • [Richard]: ‘... that [jamais vu] is how I first described what I would now call pure consciousness experiences back in 1980-1981’. The psychiatric assessment (and the psychological monitoring) occurred 13-14 years later. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘No one has been able to observe any trace of a feeling – an emotion or a passion or calenture – in me since 1992. I have been examined by two accredited psychiatrists (and by one of them every three months for more than three years) and found to have alexithymia – amongst other detailed psychiatric findings – which means no affective faculties whatsoever. Also, a psychologist has been following my condition at three-weekly intervals since March 1994 ...’. (Richard, List B, No. 19a, 21 July 1998). Although, in light of the following, why you would ask such a question anyway has got me beat: • [Respondent]: ‘... TLE is not included on the DSM IV psychiatric manual (it’s a neurological condition), so the psychiatrist consulting you at the time didn’t have all the necessary ‘tools’ to conduct a correct investigation and thus come with an informed diagnosis’. (‘Jamais vu’; Friday 17/12/2004 1217AM AEDST). And: • [Respondent]: ‘I repeat that such disorder is difficult to diagnose and is NOT included in DSM IV, the manual currently used by all psychiatrists around the world’. (‘Re: Jamais vu’; Fri 17/12/2004 10:42 PM AEDST). The following one, coming as it does from the very-same post as your ‘I repeat ...’ admonition, is a real doozie: • [Respondent]: ‘Perhaps you should arrange a meeting with a psychiatrist because if your condition is indeed linked to (Right) Temporal Lobe damage, the + 4 million words on the website might prove to be more harmful’. (‘Re: Jamais vu’; Fri 17/12/2004 10:42 PM AEDST). * RESPONDENT: (...) Perhaps you should arrange a meeting with a psychiatrist because if your condition is indeed linked to (Right) Temporal Lobe damage, the + 4 million words on the website might prove to be more harmful than harmless. RICHARD: Ha ... nice try, No. 25, nice try indeed. RESPONDENT: I wish it to be just that, a nice try. RICHARD: Well, your wish is granted as that is all it is ... no amount of words, no matter how eloquent or erudite they may be, could possibly bring about a *neurological* condition (aka an *organic* disorder) in anybody. Here is an example of what does cause TLE: (Temporal Lobe Epilepsy) Causes: • Approximately two thirds of patients with TLE treated surgically have hippocampal sclerosis as the pathologic substrate. • The etiologies of TLE include the following: • Past infections, eg, herpes encephalitis or bacterial meningitis. • Trauma producing contusion or haemorrhage that results in encephalomalacia or cortical scarring. • Hamartomas [a focal malformation that resembles a neoplasm, grossly and even microscopically, but results from faulty development in an organ]. • Gliomas [any neoplasm derived from one of the various types of cells that form the interstitial tissue of the brain, spinal cord, pineal gland, posterior pituitary gland, and retina]. • Vascular malformations (ie, arteriovenous malformation, cavernous angioma). • Cryptogenic: A cause is presumed but has not been identified. • Idiopathic (genetic): This is rare. Familial TLE was described by Berkovic and colleagues, and partial epilepsy with auditory features was described by Scheffer and colleagues. • Hippocampal sclerosis produces a clinical syndrome called mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE). MTLE begins in late childhood, then remits, but reappears in adolescence or early adulthood in a refractory form. • Febrile seizures: The association of simple febrile seizure with TLE has been controversial. However, a subset of children with complex febrile convulsions appear to be at risk of developing TLE in later life. Complex febrile seizures are febrile seizures that last longer than 15 minutes, have focal features, or recur within 24 hours. (www.emedicine.com/neuro/topic365.htm). RESPONDENT: For now the evidence points in the opposite direction ... RICHARD: There is no ‘the evidence’ – be it either for now or earlier – outside of your imagination. RICHARD: I have been examined by two accredited psychiatrists and have been officially classified as suffering from a pronounced and severe mental disorder. My symptoms are: 1. Depersonalisation. 2. Derealisation. 3. Alexithymia. 4. Anhedonia. Also, I have the most classic indication of insanity. That is: everyone else is mad but me. I just thought I might share that with you, as I consider that it may be important for you to know that you are currently engaged in a correspondence with a madman. RESPONDENT No. 19: Richard, I’m going to let my light out from under the bushel and tell you what I see: You are still ‘crazy’, and I still have affection and/or compassion for you. RICHARD: As I am a person devoid of either latent or active enmity, I require no restorative affection whatsoever to create the illusion of intimacy in my human interactions. And as I am also a person devoid of either latent or active sorrow, I require no antidotal compassion whatsoever to create the illusion of caring. Thus, in an actual freedom, intimacy is not dependent upon cooperation. I experience an actual intimacy – a direct experiencing of the other – twenty four hours of the day irrespective of the other’s affection and/or compassion ... or mood swings. If this is being crazy – if this is a severe mental disorder – then it sure beats the sanity of the real world ... which is a sanity that produces wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide. RESPONDENT No. 19: Maybe No. 4 will come around to loving you, also. RICHARD: Hmm ... my posts are written in appreciative response to a fellow human being who is spending the most precious gifts they have – their time and sincerity – to communicate with me about the sense they have made, so far, of life, the universe and what it is to be a human being living in the world as it is with people as they are. To put it another way: I always value another human being simply for daring to be here on this fair earth – and therefore actively doing this living business – irregardless of where they are coming from. Ain’t life grand! (Richard, List B, No. 19b, 22 November 1998). RESPONDENT: So this would also imply that one trying to make sense of a madman might also be mad. RICHARD: Such a person is maybe not quite mad yet ... but somewhat inclined towards madness? Yes. RESPONDENT: This bring ups the issue of verifying sanity. RICHARD: Yes, Mr. Sigmund Freud defined sanity as ‘ordinary human unhappiness’ (or some such statement). The standard psychiatric definition of normal every-day sanity usually reads some thing like: ‘A well-adjusted personality coping adequately with the conflicting demands of self and society’. RESPONDENT: How do you verify this Richard, are you independently claiming sanity? RICHARD: Goodness me, no ... I left sanity behind years and years ago. My condition is well-described by the four symptoms. 1. Depersonalisation is an apt description of being bereft of any identity whatsoever ... there is no one at all to answer back when I ask that time-honoured question: ‘Who am I?’ ... not even a silence that ‘speaks louder than words’. 2. Derealisation an appropriate term, for the grim and glum ‘normal’ and mundane reality of the everyday real world as experienced by 6.0 billion people has vanished forever ... along with the loving and compassionate ‘abnormal’ and heavenly Greater Reality of the metaphysical Mystical World as experienced by .000001 of the population. 3. 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 years now. It has also come to mean being cut off from one’s feelings – as in dissociation – yet the psychiatrists ascertained that I was not dissociating. 4. Anhedonia literally means unable to feel pleasure – affectively feeling pleasure – as in the feeling of beauty when viewing a sunrise or listening to music and so on. My condition is classified as a psychotic condition in the DSM – IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders) which is the diagnostic criteria used by all psychiatrists and psychologists around the world for diagnosing mental disorders. I mean it when I say: ‘I have the most classic indication of insanity. That is: everyone else is mad but me’. The sanity of the real world – which is a sanity that produces wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide – is a sickness, a blight upon this fair earth. Thus, whichever way it is defined, I am not sane ... I have oft-times been told that only a fool – a simpleton – can be happy and harmless in the world of people, things and events. The doorway to an actual freedom has the words ‘Warning: do not open ... insanity lies ahead’ written on it. I opened the door and walked through. Once on the other side – where thousands upon thousands of atavistic voices were insistently whispering ‘fool – fool – fool’ – I turned to ascertain the way back to normal. The door had vanished – and the wall it was set in – and I just knew that I would never, ever be able to find my way back to the real-world ... it had been nothing but an illusion all along. I walked tall and free as the perfection of this material universe personified ... I can never not be here ... now. This universe is so enormous in size – infinity being as enormous as it can get – and so magnificent in its scope – eternity being as magnificent as it can get – how on earth could anyone believe for a minute that it is all here for humans to be forever miserable and malicious in? It is foolishness of the highest order to believe it to be so. Surely, one can have confidence in a universe so grandly complex, so marvellously intricate, so wonderfully excellent. How could all this be some ‘ghastly mistake’? To believe it all to be some ‘sick joke’ is preposterous, for such an attitude cuts one off from the perfection of this pure moment of being alive here in this fantastic actual universe. To defend the belief that this life is forever fatally flawed – defend to the point of idiocy – is actually a cowardly attempt to stay hidden inside ‘humanity’. To skulk behind a sick social contract is a desperate ploy to remain ‘human’. If one takes one’s intellectual ability back from the decrees of the cultured sophisticates – to which one has surrendered – one has taken a courageous step. One has cast oneself out of the biggest group there is ... humanity. If one stays within the group, for its perceived safety and security, one is selling out to the system because of a pusillanimous character. Thus one secretly despises oneself, with disastrous consequences ... one has to be numbed to such a degree that defies credibility in order for nothing but psittacisms to come from their mouths. Humankind is so stultified – stupefied by the centuries of socialisation overlaying the instincts – that only madness can be allowed ... and it masquerades as an ailing ‘normal’. The precarious status-quo is defined as being sanity ... and anything outside this description is classified as insanity. Such a blatant ignoring of the facts begs the question as to just who is salubrious. Without fear and aggression, one has dignity for the first time. RESPONDENT: Richard is not the only person I know who claims to have no emotions, feelings, or love. I recently met a physicist who said he had no feelings, absolutely none. However, that came about after he drove intentionally head-on into the path of an oncoming truck in a failed suicide attempt. I don’t know him that well, but he is now well respected and working at the university. He did say that he had lost his mind at that time. I don’t know what the correlation is, but it does seem that insanity does have some effect on the complete loss of feelings. RICHARD: There is, of course, no ‘correlation’ whatsoever ... and, furthermore, we have discussed this before, you and I, on more than one occasion. Viz.: • [Respondent]: ‘Why do you think one must to be void of feelings and emotions in order to not be abusive, a rapist, a murdered or suicidal. • [Richard]: ‘Often people who do not read what I have to say with both eyes gain the impression that I am suggesting that people are to stop feeling ... which I am not. My whole point is to cease ‘being’ – psychologically and psychically self-immolate – which means that the entire psyche itself is extirpated. That is, the biological instinctual package handed out by blind nature is deleted like a computer software programme (but with no ‘Recycle Bin’ to retrieve it from) so that the affective faculty is no more. Then – and only then – are there no feelings ... as in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) where, with the self in abeyance, the feelings play no part at all. However, in a PCE the feelings – passion and calenture – can come rushing in, if one is not alert, resulting in the PCE devolving into an altered state of consciousness (ASC) ... complete with a super-self. Indeed, this demonstrates that it is impossible for there to be no feelings whilst there is a self – in this case a Self – thus it is the ‘being’ that has to go first ... not the feelings. It is impossible to be a ‘stripped-down’ self – divested of feelings – for ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’. Anyone who attempts this absurdity would wind up being somewhat like what is known in psychiatric terminology as a ‘sociopathic personality’ (popularly known as ‘psychopath’). Such a person still has feelings – ‘cold’, ‘callous’, ‘indifferent’ – and has repressed the others. 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 feel well, feel happy and feel perfect for 99% of the time. If one minimises the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings – happiness, delight, appreciation, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on – in conjunction with sensuousness – then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness. If it does not ... then one is way ahead of normal human expectations anyway as the aim is to enjoy and appreciate being here now for as much as is possible. It is a win/win situation. (Richard, List B, No. 19e, 26 December 2000) Only a couple of days ago the following exchange occurred: • [Respondent]: ‘Being devoid of feelings and love is not a solution to the world crises ... • [Richard]: ‘Indeed not (such a person is described as having a sociopathic personality) as it is only via the extirpation of ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul does the dissolution of the world crises occur (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’). It is impossible to be a ‘stripped-down’ personality (a personality ‘devoid of feelings and emotions’). (Richard, List B, No. 19e, 25 December 2000) I cannot do anything other than say it again: often people who do not read what I have to say with both eyes gain the impression that I am suggesting that people are to stop feeling ... which I am not. My whole point is to cease ‘being’ – psychologically and psychically self-immolate – which means that the entire psyche itself is extirpated. RESPONDENT: Respondent No. 40 may have a point about your brain being damaged ... RICHARD: Here is ‘a point’ for you (only a factual point this time): 160,000,000 people with no brain-damage were killed in wars alone in the last 100 years by people with no brain-damage. RESPONDENT: I agree, Richard. That is gross. RICHARD: Indeed it is ... however, it is what it means, or what it indicates, which is important (and not just say that it is ‘gross’ and leave it at that) for it shows that people with no brain-damage are the problem. * RESPONDENT: ... and the thing is that a brain so damaged cannot know that it is damaged. RICHARD: There is a psychiatric term for what you describe: anosognosia. RESPONDENT: Now I’m not saying that your brain is damaged in that way ... RICHARD: Then why did you say it? RESPONDENT: Back in 1970, I moved into the mountains, much as you moved to the island to ‘search for the truth.’ I experienced a three month period in which I lived in a veritable ‘garden of eden.’ I really liked everyone; I had no feelings of malice or sorrow towards anyone or anything. The world was truly a magical place. However, what was magic to me seemed too strange to my family and psychiatrists, and I ended up on the ‘6th Floor’ because the word ‘no’ was not in my vocabulary. My brother finally convinced me that if I didn’t take my medication, I would be put ‘someplace’ where I would have to take it. That scared me. I asked my mother to bear with me; that I knew that I was not ‘all right’ but that I would be by Saturday. I had no clue as to why I said ‘Saturday’ – I never knew what was going to come out of my mouth until I heard it myself. Well, Saturday came, and on that day, there was an audible (to me) ‘snap’ inside of my head as the two parts of the brain came together. I was then back in ‘this’ world. Somehow, the brain had become unbalanced – perhaps functioning only on the right side – I don’t know. This was a testimonial. RICHARD: And I appreciate that you write your testimonial ... it clarifies what you wrote a couple of years back where you abruptly lost interest in exploring (and thus understanding) what I say. • [Respondent]: ‘And find alexithymia? No thanks, I was released from the ‘6th Floor’ 28 years ago, and I’m not anxious to go back’. (Message No. 00713 of Archive 98/06). Most countries have their version of your ‘6th Floor’ (in this neck of the woods it is called ‘Richmond Clinic’) and the words ‘psychiatric ward’ strike fear into the heart of the erstwhile explorer. Thus peace-on-earth remains un-enabled ... thanks to the psychiatric profession this time. For what it is worth, my second wife had a three-week experience such as you describe many years before she met me ... and she too reports of an ‘audible ‘snap’’ (for her an ‘audible click’ in the base of the brain) which precipitated her return to the ‘real world’ when she decided to no longer be on her own in a world where no one could understand what she spoke of or who could relate to her ... or her to them. Even though it be the very place, where the peace-on-earth that most peoples say they long for, lies open for all to live in. * RESPONDENT: ... but I do know that a brain that has had a terrible shock to it, may have to adjust its thinking to accommodate what it can accept in order to survive without going totally stark raving mad. RICHARD: But as I am already what you call ‘totally stark raving mad’ according to official diagnoses by accredited psychiatrists ... where does that leave your amateurish psychologising? In the same place as your amateurish scientism, perchance? RESPONDENT: More than likely and right along the side of actualism. RICHARD: I have never made a secret of the fact that the doorway to an actual freedom from the human condition has the words ‘insanity lies ahead’ blazoned upon it ... which is why peace-on-earth has never been enabled before in human history. People everywhere are wasting time looking for a door marked ‘sanity’ or ‘peace’ (or some similar name). Actual Freedom Homepage This Topic Continued
Commonly Raised Objections – Index | Frequently Asked Questions – Index
Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless Design, Richard's & Peter’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997- . All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity