# 6Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On Sanity, Insanity and the Third Alternative 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). RESPONDENT No. 11: [...] I cannot seem to find any irregularities on a daily basis. Or even a weekly basis for that matter. RICHARD: [...] P.S.: For what it is worth: only a person having had a frontal leucotome/ a transorbital lobotomy could have no irregularities in mood on a daily basis/ a weekly basis (and even then that would be questionable). (Richard, List D, No. 11, 28 November 2009). RESPONDENT: I had not previously considered irregularity of mood as a possibility sans the affective faculty. RICHARD: A frontal leucotome/ a transorbital lobotomy does not remove the affective faculty; it severs the nerve fibres connecting the frontal lobes to the thalamus and has a dulling/ dampening effect on mood; in some the effect of the severance was pronounced enough as to have a new word coined – alexithymia – so as to refer to the fact that, although the person concerned could not feel their affections, the affective faculty was still intact. (Just like the words depersonalisation, derealisation and anhedonia, the word alexithymia is the only way in which the psychiatric profession can come to terms with what is actually beyond psychiatry; an actual freedom from the human condition, being outside of or beyond human nature, cannot be properly fitted under any classification anywhere along the entire sanity-insanity range as it is the third alternative to either sanity or insanity). RESPONDENT: Richard, On this list we have the presence of The Bodhisattva (he thinks he is God) and his Holy Brother, who is assuredly enlightened, and, oh yes, there is also The Man of Truth, who came and left, and other assorted Beloved Friends and Vermin who all are claiming enlightenment. And you, Richard, are one of two in the whole world who knows the actual. We are a hodgepodge of souls, we are. RICHARD: This is the whole purpose of this Mailing List, is it not? To discuss together; to investigate; to explore; to seek; to separate out the wheat from the chaff; to find out through candid conversation, just what is going on. How can this be done if we all hide our lights under a bush. I consider anyone who dares to come out with what they see or consider themselves to be, to be very, very brave. Especially when there are some people who seem to get their rocks off by trashing whatever someone dares to put in print. It is just as well that this forum is somewhat anonymous. RESPONDENT: I wonder what the ‘insane world’ is doing tonight? 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. Ain’t life grand! * RESPONDENT: I observe what the world is doing; what I am doing. I wonder at the observation. I wonder if we will ever see the insanity so completely that we will stop doing the insane. Do you ever wonder if that is possible? RICHARD: If I may point out? You are not observing what the world is doing, what you are doing, at all ... if I may take the liberty of rewriting your paragraph as an example? Viz.: • [Example]: I observe what the world is doing; what I am doing. I wonder at the observation. I wonder if we will ever see the sanity so completely that we will stop doing the sane. Do you ever wonder if that is possible? RESPONDENT: Thanks for the rewrite, Richard, but I wonder what you are saying. RICHARD: You can not stop doing what you are not doing. RESPONDENT: OK, I understand that part, but what about stopping doing the sane? I do not understand what you mean. RICHARD: Just as the world (people in general) is not insane neither are you ... and just as what people in general are doing is sanity so too is what you are doing sane. RESPONDENT: Richard, are you OK? RICHARD: I am excellent, thank you ... how are you? RESPONDENT: Are you telling me that when I see bombs dropping and people with their limbs blown off that what I am seeing is sane ... RICHARD: Yes ... the bombs dropping, and people with their limbs blown off, is nothing other than sanity in action. And sanity prevails all over the world: for instance an estimated 2.5 million sane peoples have been killed in the civil war in the Congo (aka Zaire) by their sane fellow human beings ... perhaps it is because it is not being displayed 24/7 on television screens there seems to be very little outrage. Or maybe it is because without the good ol’ US of A to yet again mercilessly whip around the block there is no outlet for the outrage? RESPONDENT: ... or are you telling me my eyes are lying? RICHARD: No, it is you who creates the lie (eyes see what is as-it-is). * RESPONDENT: Something has been lost in your terseness – which is not one of your strong points. :) RICHARD: Ha ... damned if I do and damned if I do not, eh? Okay, perhaps this will fill in what has been lost: if you start with a lie (not seeing what is as-it-is) what state will transformation of that result in? RESPONDENT: Nope. It’s still lost. RICHARD: If, in observing what the world (people in general) is doing, what you are doing, you see insanity (as in ‘I wonder if we will ever see the insanity so completely that we will stop doing the insane’) then you are not observing what is as-it-is. In other words: if you start with the false (seeing sanity as being insanity) what state will transformation of sanity (what is as-it-is) result in? RESPONDENT: Insanity? That is just a guess. RICHARD: Aye, the truth is but an institutionalised insanity ... meanwhile back at the example: • [Example]: I observe what the world is doing; what I am doing. I wonder at the observation. I wonder if we will ever see the sanity so completely that we will stop being sane. Do you ever wonder if that is possible? Yes (I have not been sane for many, many years). * RESPONDENT: You are saying that insanity is the lie, and what we see is what we get? RICHARD: Yes ... where the lie of seeing insanity, when observing people in general and oneself in particular, is no longer blocking observation then sanity can be seen for what it is ... one sees the fact of sanity. It sucks big-time. RESPONDENT: I take it that you mean ‘institutionalised sanity’ – what the world as-it-is now means by ‘sanity’. RICHARD: No, what I mean by ‘sanity’ is the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of being sane, being of sound mind or in one’s right mind, or being in possession of one’s faculties, and not being in a state of mind that precludes normal perception and behaviour and which prevents ordinary social interaction (to be insane is to be suffering from psychosis, a severe mental illness, a derangement, a disorder, that involves a loss of contact with reality and is often marked by delusions, hallucinations, and altered thought processes). RESPONDENT: In which case, yes, it sucks big-time, so by *your* definition ... RICHARD: If I may interject? The definition ‘institutionalised sanity’ is *your* definition, not mine. The ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of being sane is how people naturally are ... it is the state of being peoples everywhere are born already being and could be described as the sanity of blind nature’s genetically endowed instinctual survival passions (passions such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire). You are talking of socialisation ... being made fit to live in a society, the process of adapting and forming or acquiring the necessary values and behaviour modifications necessary for the stability and cohesiveness of the social group of which a person is a member (what is generally known as conditioning on mailing lists such as this). A conditioned sanity, in other words. RESPONDENT: ... [so by *your* definition] looking at what it means to be sane, insanity is by far a better state of mind. You are only the second person who I have heard that took this view. My dad, finally after many years saying the world was insane, realized that the world was sane and he was insane (so he said). I neither thought that he was sane nor insane, but just ‘different’ and very vocal about it (maybe a little crazy, on second thought). Now, I just don’t know. RICHARD: Speaking personally, for the first 34 years of my life I was sane (the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday sanity of people in general all over the world) and peace-on-earth was nowhere to be found; for the next 11 years I was in a transformed state of being (which I gradually came to realise was an institutionalised insanity) called The Absolute or Truth, God, Being, Presence, Self, and so on, which was exemplified by love – Love Agapé – compassion, bliss, rapture, ecstasy, euphoria, goodness, beauty, oneness, unity, wholeness and a timeless, spaceless, formless immortal otherness which was a peace that passeth all understanding ... yet all the while peace-on-earth was still nowhere to be found. By ‘institutionalised’ I mean altered states of consciousness that have become institutions over the aeons: instituted as being states of consciousness which are universally accepted as the summum bonum of human existence ... a model to either live by, aspire to, become, or be. RESPONDENT: It makes me sad to realize now that I didn’t know him very well at all, but, then, I was very frightened by him. To me, that was his biggest failing in life – not knowing how to treat children. How are you with children, after you became insane? RICHARD: For most of the 11 years I was more than loving with children, more than compassionate, as I was love, I was compassion ... or, better put, there was only love, there was only compassion. At least one of the children in my care, custody and control at the time (I was a single parent for a number of years) bears the legacy of that era to this very day due to the powerful influence of such intense affection. RESPONDENT: If you are indeed insane, then you would by necessity relate to children as though were sane, unless, of course, they are insane, too. You couldn’t treat them any different than you would treat anybody else. RICHARD: Ahh ... these days children are, like everybody else, my fellow human beings and fellowship regard epitomises all interaction: with the cessation of the institutionalised insanity, and its pathetic intimacy, an actual intimacy lies open all around. It is impossible to not like somebody, whatever the mischief is they get up to, as an actual intimacy does not switch on and off and operates unilaterally in regards every man, woman and child without exception ... nobody is special because everybody is special simply by being alive as a flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: Today’s children are becoming even more indoctrinated than we were, as the world is more and more institutionalised every passing day. It really is them that we need to address. But how? RICHARD: By example rather than just by precept ... in other words: when you observe what the world is doing (people in general) and what you are doing – and you wonder at the observation – do you wonder if you will ever see the sanity so completely that you will cease being sane? Do you ever wonder if that is possible? * RICHARD: Where the lie of seeing insanity, when observing people in general and oneself in particular, is no longer blocking observation then sanity can be seen for what it is ... one sees the fact of sanity. It sucks big-time. RESPONDENT: I take it that you mean ‘institutionalised sanity’ – what the world as-it-is now means by ‘sanity’. RICHARD: No, what I mean by ‘sanity’ is the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of being sane, being of sound mind or in one’s right mind, or being in possession of one’s faculties, and not being in a state of mind that precludes normal perception and behaviour and which prevents ordinary social interaction (to be insane is to be suffering from psychosis, a severe mental illness, a derangement, a disorder, that involves a loss of contact with reality and is often marked by delusions, hallucinations, and altered thought processes). RESPONDENT: In which case, yes, it sucks big-time, so by *your* definition ... RICHARD: If I may interject? The definition ‘institutionalised sanity’ is *your* definition, not mine. The ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of being sane is how people naturally are ... it is the state of being peoples everywhere are born already being and could be described as the sanity of blind nature’s genetically endowed instinctual survival passions (passions such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire). RESPONDENT: It [sanity] is still *your* definition as there is no proof that nature endowed us with fear, aggression, and the desire to murder and maim. RICHARD: How can it *still* be my definition when the first definition was *your* definition and not mine? Besides which, I based the ‘ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of being sane’ definition on the Oxford Dictionary anyway (just as I did with the word psychosis) ... here is what I cobbled both definitions together from: • ‘sanity (see sane): soundness of mind. • ‘sane: in one’s right mind; in possession of one’s faculties. • ‘insane: a state of mind that precludes normal perception and behaviour, and ordinary social interaction; psychotic. • ‘psychotic: a person with a psychosis. • ‘psychosis: a severe mental illness, derangement, or disorder involving a loss of contact with reality, freq. with hallucinations, delusions, or altered thought processes. (Oxford Dictionary). And, as other dictionaries have similar descriptions, they are certainly not *my* definitions – obviously peoples all over the world understand quite well what sanity and insanity (and psychosis) means – and, as sanity is the norm all over the world, it is self-evident that the vast majority of people are born sane. It is sanity which is the problem world-wide ... it is what you are seeing when observing the world (peoples in general) and yourself. RESPONDENT: It is still *your* definition to redefine the ‘insane’ as sane. RICHARD: No, I did nothing of the sort ... you classified what you see, when observing the world (peoples in general) and yourself, as being [quote] ‘insanity’ [endquote] and all I did was point out that what was really going on was sanity in action (and, further to the point, that sanity sucks big-time). * RICHARD: You are talking of socialisation ... being made fit to live in a society, the process of adapting and forming or acquiring the necessary values and behaviour modifications necessary for the stability and cohesiveness of the social group of which a person is a member (what is generally known as conditioning on mailing lists such as this). A conditioned sanity, in other words. RESPONDENT: Yes, and which on here is usually referred to as ‘insane’, with the exception of Respondent No. 21, Respondent No. 12, and Richard. You may call murder, war, and destruction ‘sane’ just because it is accepted by society; because that is the way people are, but you could just as easily call it ‘insane’ and make a case that way, also. RICHARD: No, I could not ‘just as easily’ call it ‘insane’ as the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday usage of the word ‘insanity’ means a state of mind that precludes normal perception and behaviour, and ordinary social interaction, or to be suffering from psychosis, a severe mental illness, a derangement, a disorder, that involves a loss of contact with reality and is often marked by delusions, hallucinations, and altered thought processes ... which is not the state of being which peoples in general all over the world are living in. No way am I going to buy it that every man, woman and child on this planet is in a state of mind that precludes normal perception and behaviour, and ordinary social interaction, or is suffering from psychosis, a severe mental illness, a derangement, a disorder, that involves a loss of contact with reality and is often marked by delusions, hallucinations, and altered thought processes ... and, going by what you ask (further below), as to whether I insist that a psychosis, a severe mental illness, a derangement, a disorder that involves a loss of contact with reality which is often marked by delusions, hallucinations, and altered thought processes, is a better aspiration than the institutionalised insanity of the altered states of consciousness which have become institutions over the aeons, neither do you. You are not insane ... and what you are doing is not insanity. * RESPONDENT: ... [so by *your* definition] looking at what it means to be sane, insanity is by far a better state of mind. You are only the second person who I have heard that took this view. My dad, finally after many years saying the world was insane, realized that the world was sane and he was insane (so he said). I neither thought that he was sane nor insane, but just ‘different’ and very vocal about it (maybe a little crazy, on second thought). Now, I just don’t know. RICHARD: Speaking personally, for the first 34 years of my life I was sane (the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday sanity of people in general all over the world) and peace-on-earth was nowhere to be found; for the next 11 years I was in a transformed state of being (which I gradually came to realise was an institutionalised insanity) called The Absolute or Truth, God, Being, Presence, Self, and so on, which was exemplified by love – Love Agapé – compassion, bliss, rapture, ecstasy, euphoria, goodness, beauty, oneness, unity, wholeness and a timeless, spaceless, formless immortal otherness which was a peace that passeth all understanding ... yet all the while peace-on-earth was still nowhere to be found. By ‘institutionalised’ I mean altered states of consciousness that have become institutions over the aeons: instituted as being states of consciousness which are universally accepted as the summum bonum of human existence ... a model to either live by, aspire to, become, or be. RESPONDENT: And you insist that a better aspiration would be [‘to be insane is to be suffering from psychosis, a severe mental illness, a derangement, a disorder, that involves a loss of contact with reality and is often marked by delusions, hallucinations, and altered thought processes’]? RICHARD: No ... the better aspiration would be being as happy and harmless as is humanly possible whilst being a ‘self’. The best aspiration, of course, is for ‘self’-immolation in toto so as to enable the already always existing peace-on-earth into being apparent ... to be living as a flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware in the pristine perfection of this actual world – the ambrosial world of sensory delight – where peerless purity lies open all around. When ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself) becomes extinct all its states of being, ranging from sanity through to insanity, also cease to be ... there is no ‘presence’ whatsoever here in this actual world to be either sane or insane. I just find it cute that the solution to all the ills of humankind be considered insanity by sane people (most of whom live by, or aspire to become, the model provided by the insanity of the altered states of consciousness which have become institutionalised over the aeons by being universally accepted as the summum bonum of human existence anyway). I kid you not: for just one example many years ago I went to see an accredited psychiatrist and established right from the beginning that he be an atheistic materialist – he said emphatically upon being questioned rather rigorously in this regard that everything was material and modifications of same including consciousness itself – because another psychiatrist I had previously seen was exigently talking about guardian angels looking after me within the first five minutes of our discussion ... yet when regaling this second psychiatrist of my on-going experiencing of life in this actual world his eyes opened in awe as the full import (of what he heard) struck home and he said ‘you may very well be the next buddha we have all been waiting for’. Such is the grip that the ‘Tried and True’ has on people. * RESPONDENT: Today’s children are becoming even more indoctrinated than we were, as the world is more and more institutionalised every passing day. It really is them that we need to address. But how? RICHARD: By example rather than just by precept ... in other words: when you observe what the world is doing (people in general) and what you are doing – and you wonder at the observation – do you wonder if you will ever see the sanity so completely that you will cease being sane? Do you ever wonder if that is possible? RESPONDENT: Right now, I’m wondering why I ever thought I could carry on a conversation with you. Just because the sorry state of affairs on this planet is insane is no reason for you to call it ‘sane’. RICHARD: Yet I do not call insanity sanity ... the sorry state of affairs on this planet is sanity in action (otherwise you are saying that every man, woman and child on this planet is in a state of mind that precludes normal perception and behaviour, and ordinary social interaction, or is suffering from psychosis, a severe mental illness, a derangement, a disorder, that involves a loss of contact with reality and is often marked by delusions, hallucinations, and altered thought processes ... which is patently absurd). RESPONDENT: I can understand your point of view: ‘if this is sanity, let me be insane ... let me go out of my mind’. RICHARD: No, that is not what I have been saying at all: what I have been asking is whether it is possible for you to see sanity so completely that you will cease being sane ... end of story. Here in this actual world all is salubrious and irreprehensible ... just consider, for a moment if you will, that it is only a sanity-based analysis which would determine that permanent happiness and harmlessness be insanity (it speaks volumes about the nature of sanity that it does so). I know I have said it many times before but I will say it again for emphasis: I do find it cute that peace-on-earth, in this lifetime as this flesh and blood body, be considered a chronic and incurable psychotic mental disorder. RESPONDENT: I can even sympathise with going out of one’s mind, as this mind is really ‘screwed’, but perhaps this mind has been made insane, which you call ‘sane’. RICHARD: First of all, it is not only me that calls the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of mind sane ... as most of the peoples on this planet do I am merely following the convention for the sake of both consistency and clarity in communication. But more to the point: as the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of mind is not insane it is pointless to speculate how something which does not exist came about. RESPONDENT: Again, it really doesn’t matter if we were born or made ‘sane’ or ‘insane’, as the facts speak for themselves ... RICHARD: If I may interject? What facts are you talking about? You deny both biology and the evidence of your own experience as a simple country girl from Arkansas. Viz.: • [Respondent]: ‘... there is no proof that nature endowed us with fear, aggression, and the desire to murder and maim’. It is blatantly obvious for those with the eyes to see that animals are born with instinctual survival passions such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire – it is particularly apparent in what is called the higher-order animals – such that it takes a peculiar myopia to hold fast to the antiquated Tabula Rasa theory. A stubborn refusal to face the fact, in other words, of our animal heritage. Having been born and raised on a farm being carved out of virgin forest I interacted with other animals – both domesticated and in the wild – from a very early age and have been able to observe, and have maintained a life-long interest in observing, the correspondence the basic instinctual passions in the human animal have with the basic instinctual passions in the other animals ... to see the self-same feelings of fear and aggression and nurture and desire, for example, in other sentient beings renders any notion of having been born a clean slate simply ridiculous. And even in these days of my retirement, from my comfortable suburban living room, I can tune into documentaries on this very topic: only recently a television series was aired again about observations made of chimpanzees over many, many years in their native habitat and I was able to identify fear, aggression, territoriality, civil war, robbery, rage, infanticide, nurture, cannibalism, grief, group ostracism, bonding, desire, and so on, being displayed in full colour. I have to hand a National Geographic article on chimpanzees in the wild in which Ms. Jane Goodall uses words such as ‘war and kidnapping, killing and cannibalism’ and ‘affectionate and supportive bonds’ and ‘pleasure, sadness, curiosity, alarm, rage’ and ‘chimpanzees are creatures of extremes: aggressive one moment, peaceful the next’ when describing what she observed over 20-plus years ... here is an excerpt describing cannibalism (she gave each chimpanzee a name): • ‘Gilka had been sitting with her infant when suddenly Passion, another mother, had appeared and charged her. Gilka had fled, screaming, but Passion, chasing and attacking her, had seized and killed the baby. Passion had then begun to eat the flesh, sharing her gruesome meal with her own two offspring – adolescent daughter, Pom, and infant son, Prof. The following year Gilka gave birth for a third time. To our utter dismay, this baby met the same fate. The circumstances were more dreadful, for it seemed that Pom had learned from her mother: This time it was the daughter who seized and killed the infant. Again the family shared the flesh. A month later Melissa’s tiny new baby was killed, again by Pom, after a fierce fight between the two mothers. (...) In three years – 1974 to 1976 – only a single infant in the Kasakela community had lived more than one month’. (page 594ff: ‘Life and death at Gombe’ by Jane Goodall; National Geographic, May 1997). The text for a photograph has this to say: • ‘Meticulous records kept on the Gombe chimps have revealed a complex range of behaviour, including charging displays, sometimes triggered by a sudden downpour. Similarly excited by a waterfall, a male (right) assumes the upright stance and bristling hair characteristic of some displays. When angry, aroused, or frustrated, chimps also display by stamping, throwing things, and screaming. (page 600: ‘Life and death at Gombe’ by Jane Goodall; National Geographic, May 1997). And another photograph depicting out-and-out war: • ‘Warmongering apes mobilize on the southern border of their range in the Kasakela region of Gombe Park (left). The object of their hostility is a small number of chimpanzees who broke away from the Kasakela group to establish a separate territory in the park’s Kahama region. The warfare began in 1974 (...) By 1977 all adult males of the Kahama community had been killed or had disappeared, the first known extermination of one chimp community by another. (page 611: ‘Life and death at Gombe’ by Jane Goodall; National Geographic, May 1997). I am only too happy to send you the full article if that would be of assistance. RESPONDENT: ... for the definitions are not the thing, and the definitions will not free us. RICHARD: It may just be possible that, upon sober reflection, you will find it does matter how you were born after all. * RESPONDENT: *Your* definition of sanity is based upon what you think you aren’t – or are. RICHARD: No, the definition of sanity which I provided is the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday meaning as per the five dictionaries I looked up the word in ... to keep on insisting that it is *my* definition adds nothing to the discussion and leads to unnecessary repetition. RESPONDENT: What kind of reliable proof is that of anything? RICHARD: How about the ‘proof’ of the collected experience of billions upon billions of peoples over the ages collated under the heading ‘sanity’ in, not only dictionaries, but encyclopaedias, scholarly books, academic treatises, peer-reviewed journals and so on? Not only are you on a hiding to nowhere redefining sanity as meaning insanity ... you will never be free if you start with a lie. * RICHARD: I am not saying that the natural fright-freeze-fight-flight reaction is a disorder (aka insanity) ... on the contrary: [Richard]: ‘The ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of being sane is how people naturally are ... it is the state of being peoples everywhere are born already being and could be described as the sanity of blind nature’s genetically endowed instinctual survival passions (passions such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire)’. [endquote]. The ‘energy of the organism’ response you are talking of is the instinctual survival response. RESPONDENT No. 12: So you are saying there are disorders we call insanity and there is also the disorder of what we consider sanity. But you have not demonstrated how an instinctive survival response is connected to the disorder of so-called ‘sanity’. Isn’t the problem that in man the survival response gets carried over into the psychological realm? Otherwise, when an actual physical threat is over, the survival response subsides as well. RICHARD: I am not talking about ‘so-called’ sanity – I am talking about sanity – and I am not saying that sanity is a disorder (thus there is no such connection you speak of the demonstrate). There is no carry-over of the survival passions into the psyche ... the psyche is the survival passions (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’). The problem with sanity is that intelligence is crippled by the survival passions. RESPONDENT No. 12: Why the nit-picking about sanity not being disorder, but being a crippling of intelligence? Crippling implies disorder, no? Likewise to say that I am ‘my’ feelings is exactly what is meant in saying that the survival response is carried over into the psychological realm. It means that identity gets structured in the known which is a thought-feeling complex. A threat to the known or the background gets misinterpreted as a threat to the organism. So there is psychological fear or anger related to a threat to self-image, etc. RICHARD: I never implied that sanity is a ‘disorder’ (hence no nit-picking) as I clearly said that the survival passions cripple intelligence ... the word sanity describes a state of being (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself) which is not a disorder whereas the word insanity describes a state of being (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself) which is a disorder. I am, of course, using the word disorder in the psychiatric sense ... psychiatric disorders. How can there be a carry-over of the instinctual passions (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’) into the psyche when the psyche is the instinctual passions (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’)? Or, to put that another way, how can ‘me’ get carried-over into ‘me’? It really does not matter whether ‘I’ am sane or whether ‘I’ am insane as ‘my’ very presence cripples intelligence ... ‘me’ being insane means ‘I’ cripple intelligence much more than normal (sometimes much, much more). As for ‘a threat’ ... everything is a threat to ‘me’. ‘I’ am doomed. (Richard, List B, No. 12r, 19 April 2003b). RESPONDENT: If Richard were arguing in a court of law, I wouldn’t know if he were arguing ‘for’ or ‘against’. RICHARD: Neither. I have always said there is a third alternative ... even only recently I made this clear: • [Richard to Respondent]: ‘... the better aspiration would be being as happy and harmless as is humanly possible whilst being a ‘self’. The best aspiration, of course, is for ‘self’-immolation in toto so as to enable the already always existing peace-on-earth into being apparent ... to be living as a flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware in the pristine perfection of this actual world – the ambrosial world of sensory delight – where peerless purity lies open all around. When ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself) becomes extinct all its states of being, ranging from sanity through to insanity, also cease to be ... there is no ‘presence’ whatsoever here in this actual world to be either sane or insane’. (Richard, List B, No. 19l, 18 April 2003). RESPONDENT: You’d probably have a hung jury every time. RICHARD: You have taken the sane ‘me’, arbitrarily declared ‘me’ to be insane by redefining what ‘in one’s right mind’ means, and are attempting to make this sane ‘me’ sane ... which is nonsensical. Because when a sane ‘me’ transforms (upon seeing itself to be insane so completely as you would have it do) you will wind up being an insane ‘me’ ... albeit in an institutionalised insanity revered by many. You then get to speak nonsensically – such as both the opposites being true (Richard, List B, No. 10, 18 April 2003) – and bow humbly at all the applause. RESPONDENT No. 19: I observe what the world is doing; what I am doing. I wonder at the observation. I wonder if we will ever see the insanity so completely that we will stop doing the insane. Do you ever wonder if that is possible? RICHARD: If I may point out? You are not observing what the world is doing, what you are doing, at all ... if I may take the liberty of rewriting your paragraph as an example? Viz.: [Example]: I observe what the world is doing; what I am doing. I wonder at the observation. I wonder if we will ever see the sanity so completely that we will stop doing the sane. Do you ever wonder if that is possible? RESPONDENT No. 19: Thanks for the rewrite, Richard, but I wonder what you are saying. (Richard, List B, No. 19l, 13 April 2003). RESPONDENT: Yes, his rewrite lost the order from which you wrote and put confusion into it. RICHARD: Did it not occur to you that my rewrite lost the confusion from which the paragraph was written and put order into it? Or are you suggesting that people in general (aka the world) are born insane and that a transformation into sanity is what must happen to enable peace-on-earth? Are you sane? * RESPONDENT: Nope nope not at all Richard, and you? RICHARD: I have not been sane for many, many years now. RESPONDENT: By the way dummy, it is the opposite. RICHARD: What is the opposite ... and opposite to what? RESPONDENT: The opposite, if you say the world is sane then you would say you are insane, and the opposite is true as well, get it? RICHARD: No, but then again I am not insane (Richard, List B, No. 19l, #instituionlized). ... therefore, when someone asks me a question, I answer honestly. Get it? RICHARD: I never implied that sanity is a ‘crippling of intelligence’ (hence no nit-picking) as I clearly said that the survival passions cripple intelligence ... RESPONDENT: You said that the sane psyche or the ‘me’ is the survival passions and those passions cripple intelligence. RICHARD: My mistake: I meant to say I never implied that sanity is a ‘disorder’ (as that is what your question asked). Perhaps if I put it this way: just because the survival passions – or ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being which is ‘being’ itself – cripple intelligence they alone do not cause insanity (aka a disorder) as disorders have various triggers. RESPONDENT: It seems you are more interested in being the authority than in communicating clearly. RICHARD: Apart from that odd mistake (above) not only have I been communicating clearly I am also consistent with that clarity ... if you look back up this page you will see that three times you have tried to have my words say that sanity is a disorder and three times I have said that it is not. I am not a psychiatrist and, although I have had considerable experience discussing these matters with psychiatrists and have read-up a little on the subject plus had face-to-face discussions with people afflicted with various disorders, I would in no way consider myself to be an authority on psychiatric disorders. The main authority for me on that topic is the DSM–IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders) which is the diagnostic criteria used by all psychiatrists around the world for diagnosing psychiatric disorders. * RICHARD: ... the word sanity describes a state of being (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself) which is not a disorder whereas the word insanity describes a state of being (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself) which is a disorder. I am, of course, using the word disorder in the psychiatric sense ... psychiatric disorders. RESPONDENT: You are saying that what we call sanity is a different kind of disorder as it involves passions that cripple intelligence. RICHARD: I am not talking about ‘what we call’ sanity – I am talking of sanity – and I am not saying that sanity is ‘a different kind’ of disorder any more than I am saying it is a disorder ... nowhere in the DSM-IV is sanity described as a disorder in any way, shape, or manner. As the word ‘disorder’ is the modern-day (or politically-correct) word for insanity then, in effect, you are trying to have my words read that sanity is insanity via a replacement word ... how is it going to aid clarity in communication to lump the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of being sane into the same category as psychiatric disorders (such as as the paranoid schizophrenia you mention, further below, for example)? If one starts with a lie (seeing sanity as insanity) one will end up living a lie through then seeking sanity (aka order) in some other realm ... the doorway to freedom, as it were, does not have the word ‘sanity’ written on it. One already is sane ... that is the problem. * RICHARD: How can there be a carry-over of the instinctual passions (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’) into the psyche when the psyche is the instinctual passions (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’)? Or, to put that another way, how can ‘me’ get carried-over into ‘me’? RESPONDENT: The psyche is what accounts for thinking-feeling-evaluating in the organism. The organism is biologically programmed to sense and respond to physical threats. Where identity is established in the known, in self-image, the fight or flight response gets triggered by a perceived threat to the image as if the threat was an actual danger to the survival of the organism. RICHARD: You are referring to ego-‘me’ only ... whereas I am talking of ‘me’ in toto – which includes ego-‘me’ of course – with particular emphasis upon the root cause of the problem ... ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself). With no ‘being’, or ‘presence’, to stuff-up the works intelligence operates unimpeded. * RICHARD: It really does not matter whether ‘I’ am sane or whether ‘I’ am insane as ‘my’ very presence cripples intelligence ... ‘me’ being insane means ‘I’ cripple intelligence much more than normal (sometimes much, much more). As for ‘a threat’ ... everything is a threat to ‘me’. ‘I’ am doomed. RESPONDENT: Intelligence is far more crippled by the psyche that can not distinguish between an actual physical threat and an imagined danger, as with paranoid schizophrenia for example. RICHARD: Everything, be it real or imagined, is a threat to the psyche ... the psyche, be it sane or insane, is doomed. * RESPONDENT No. 19: If Richard were arguing in a court of law, I wouldn’t know if he were arguing ‘for’ or ‘against’. RICHARD: Neither. I have always said there is a third alternative ... even only recently I made this clear: [Richard to Respondent No. 19]: ‘... the better aspiration would be being as happy and harmless as is humanly possible whilst being a ‘self’. The best aspiration, of course, is for ‘self’-immolation in toto so as to enable the already always existing peace-on-earth into being apparent ... to be living as a flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware in the pristine perfection of this actual world – the ambrosial world of sensory delight – where peerless purity lies open all around. When ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself) becomes extinct all its states of being, ranging from sanity through to insanity, also cease to be ... there is no ‘presence’ whatsoever here in this actual world to be either sane or insane. RESPONDENT No. 19: You’d probably have a hung jury every time. RICHARD: You have taken the sane ‘me’, arbitrarily declared ‘me’ to be insane by redefining what ‘in one’s right mind’ means, and are attempting to make this sane ‘me’ sane ... which is nonsensical. Because when a sane ‘me’ transforms (upon seeing itself to be insane so completely as you would have it do) you will wind up being an insane ‘me’ ... albeit in an institutionalised insanity revered by many. You then get to speak nonsensically – such as both the opposites being true – and bow humbly at all the applause. (Richard, List B, No. 19l, 21 April 2003). RESPONDENT: You both apparently fail to see the relationship between preventing people from capitalizing on violence and establishing an environment where there is no significant threat of violence. To end violence in oneself is not to end violence in the world any more than curing a disease in one organism can end that disease globally. If a disease is ‘what is’ it has to be contained or there is no physical security from which to even consider eradication of the disease. RICHARD: As this thread originated in a discussion about the war currently being displayed 24/7 across television screens (never mind the 24 major and 22 minor wars occurring elsewhere around the world) with associated comments casting aspersions upon the military mind it may help to point out that military personnel are not insane. This I can report from personal experience: when I went to war as a young man I was thoroughly examined by an accredited psychiatrist, as are all military personnel, and adjudged sane, as are all military personnel, and whilst at war I remained sane, as do most military personnel ... it was not until 15 years later, as a civilian, that I went insane. All I have been doing throughout this thread is to clearly and consistently set the record straight on this sanity/ insanity topic so that the root cause of war (and all the other ills of humankind of course) can be exposed to view in the bright light of awareness ... and one cannot see the fact of sanity whilst pre-viewing it as insanity (aka a disorder). And the fact of sanity is that sanity sucks big-time. RESPONDENT No. 19: You are saying that insanity is the lie, and what we see is what we get? RICHARD: Yes ... where the lie of seeing insanity, when observing people in general and oneself in particular, is no longer blocking observation then sanity can be seen for what it is ... one sees the fact of sanity. It sucks big-time. (Richard, List B, No. 19l, 14 April 2003). JAMES: I think I’m getting a glimpse of what you’re saying. For example, the reasons for going to war with Iraq sounded very sane. So are you saying ‘Observing The World As-It-Is And People As-They-Are’ is observing sane people in a sane world? RICHARD: Yes ... sanity is the norm all over the world. JAMES: I had a glimpse of insanity yesterday. I was driving on the turnpike and there was nothing else but the car, the highway, the trees, etc. All that existed was actuality. RICHARD: Exactly ... there is nothing other than this actual world. I do find it cute that being happy and harmless – to be living in the already always existing peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body only – is considered to be a chronic and incurable psychotic mental disorder ... here are the symptoms: 1. Depersonalisation (no identity). 2. Derealisation (reality has disappeared). 3. Alexithymia (absence of affective feelings). 4. Anhedonia (unable to affectively feel pleasure/ pain). ‘Tis no wonder it is avoided like the plague, eh? RESPONDENT: You obviously know the truth, though ... 11 years night and day ... you know the Truth. RICHARD: Aye ... and ‘The Truth’ sucks. RESPONDENT: And you can’t actually deny that philosophy doesn’t work for the enlightened ones – you know that they have peace. RICHARD: I beg to differ ... they have demonstratively shown to still be subject to anger and anguish from time to time. RESPONDENT: So instead you dismiss them as having a mental illness – ‘disassociative identity disorder’. RICHARD: Yet you just agreed (at the top of the page) that it is indeed dissociation. Here, let me copy and paste your response so that you do not have to search for yourself. Viz.: • [Respondent]: ‘I think you’re wasting your time hanging out here though, none of us disassociated people are going to help you with your crusade. (You’re right, it is disassociation, but its a warm one not a cold one – its not blocking to keep everything out, it’s letting everything in, through and out, and not attaching to any of it)’. • [Richard]: ‘Good ... I am pleased to see that someone is honest enough to fully acknowledge that the enlightened state is indeed a dissociative condition. And, of course it is ‘a warm one’ ... I never said it was ‘a cold one’. My experience, for eleven years in the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’, was an on-going ecstatic state of rapturous, ineffable and sacred bliss: Love Agapé and unconditional Divine Compassion poured forth for all suffering sentient beings twenty four hours of the day. It was a truly euphoric state of being’. (Richard, List C, No. 9, 4 July 2000). May I ask? What is your agreement worth? RESPONDENT: And as further proof that the philosophy is flawed you point to all the evil in the world. RICHARD: Indeed ... may I remind you of what you have already detailed (further above)? • [Respondent]: ‘An enlightened being sees that they are all of those actions and that none of them have the slightest importance. They are the perpetrator and the victim, and both are merely holographic images in this play called manifested reality. When we go to the theatre the action we see is actually taking place, but its not Real. The actors are not really angry at each other, its just a big pretence, an act. The same goes for this manifested reality, it’s actually happening but its not Real’ [endquote]. Your justifying/ excusing of the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages is specifically why there is still no global peace-on-earth. Because peace-on-earth is just not on their agenda. * RESPONDENT: Richard, you’re sounding more and more interesting all the time. I apologize for jumping to conclusions about your motivations and your state of being – its just that when you only see snippets of somebody’s actions its easy to confuse ‘enlightenment’ or post-enlightenment with lunacy. RICHARD: As the ubiquitously called ‘straight’ people (regular society) in the West consider that anyone dabbling in things mystical are the ‘lunatic fringe’ (conveniently ignoring the fact that their ‘God On Earth’ is one of them), I am sure that they must find it quaint that one lunatic coming from an ‘enlightenment’ point of view would ‘confuse’ another lunatic’s ‘post-enlightenment’ with ‘lunacy’ (thereby implying that the ‘enlightenment’ point of view is not ‘lunacy’). Ain’t life grand! RESPONDENT: Richard, I have been reading your correspondence on your website. The actual freedom issue has been on my mind. Sometimes on the back burner, sometimes on the front burner – but it has been there. I am investigating my life vigorously as some major changes seem to be lurking around the corner. I think that, amazing as it is (quite against the odds?), a feeling-less life could be actually perfect! RICHARD: Excellent. It is initially difficult to comprehend living life sans feelings ... as a child, a youth and as a young man I was particularly sensitive in comparison with my then peers – I felt everything keenly, acutely – and always preferred the company of females to males anytime. I was easily hurt by others and had difficulty hurting anyone or anything – boys pulling wings off flies at grade school sickened me to the stomach – and all the killing I did as a farmer’s son was quick and efficient in that I ensured it was as painless as is possible (I have no objection to killing per se). The rough and tumble of typical manly pursuits such as competitive sports did not interest me at all ... and I felt like a fish out of water during my six years in the military. I felt life deeply, passionately and it is no wonder I fell for the summum bonum of human feelings: the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’. 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. * 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 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. RESPONDENT: It is yet another beautiful hot day in New Jersey. Please send us some cold from the Down Under (via email attachment perhaps). RICHARD: Ha ... as this is a sub-tropical area it never becomes freezing in winter so there is not much cold to give away (and as Byron Bay is on the coast there are no frosts even). Mostly the winter days are of a dry, clear air with blue skies and 16-18-20 degree Celsius temperatures ... although it lightly rained off and on today and it has been quite chilly this last couple of weeks by average standards. Enough to have a cosy heater at night and an electric blanket on low. The wet season is in summer with torrential downpours and flooding, usually ... very spectacular. New Jersey, eh? Sleet and snow and ice in winter ... some people are made of more hardy stuff than me. GARY: Richard, would you mind answering a question for me? I am intrigued by what you said about being officially diagnosed psychotic. It also appears that you saw a psychiatrist and/or psychologist for a fairly long period of time. My question: what impelled you to seek psychiatric assessment and undergo treatment? Were you under compulsion from family members? Did you question your own sanity? These are some questions that occurred to me. RICHARD: Oh no, I was not and have never been ‘under compulsion’ by anyone else but my own desire to know – once and for all – what life was all about. I certainly did ‘question my own sanity’ and 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. But the penultimate question was: who was I – a mere boy from the farm – to set himself up to be the arbiter of human experience? How could all those ‘great’ people be in error and Richard correct? So yes, I ‘questioned my own sanity’ ... yet not only my sanity but the sanity of all human beings (both living and dead). And both psychology and psychiatry could not answer my question either ... in the final analysis it was up to me. 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. As for ‘undergoing treatment’ ... 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’). No psychiatric or psychological treatment would meet what I was wanting – I was looking to go beyond both normal and abnormal – thus I was not seeking to ‘undergo treatment’ but rather to find 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. GARY: But why were you looking to go beyond, surpass, both normal and abnormal? RICHARD: Because (a) I was normal for 34 years ... and it is the pits; and because (b) I was abnormal for 11 years ... and it sucks. GARY: Also, in my opinion, modern psychiatry and psychology are for the most part a failure because they do not help people to deal very fundamentally with what is troubling them and are often merely concerned with helping people to adjust, cope, and adapt to a sick, crumbling, and corrupt society. RICHARD: Aye, as I said (above) psychiatric medication and psychological counselling are designed to bring a psychotic or neurotic person back to a state of as near-normal functioning as possible. That they ‘do not help people to deal very fundamentally with what is troubling them’ is because they do not know themselves ... and it is not because a society is ‘sick and corrupt’ (no society is ‘crumbling’ because all cultures throughout 5,000 years of recorded history and maybe 50,000 years of pre-history have always been ‘sick and corrupt’). A society – any culture, anywhere in the world, anywhen through the aeons – is ‘sick and corrupt’ because each and every person who makes up that society is ‘sick and corrupt’. This condition is called ‘The Human Condition’. GARY: Anyone who questions the perceived subject/ object split is, in effect, declaring to all and sundry that he/ she is insane. RICHARD: Given that sanity is defined as something like ‘a well-adjusted personality coping with the conflicting demands of both the inner and outer worlds’ then you are right on the ball with this statement. GARY: Unless they are a university physics professor, or a marginalized spiritual teacher. RICHARD: Yes ... it struck me about twenty years ago that it is up to the nobodies of this world to go where no person has gone before. RESPONDENT: Richard, you have been diagnosed as psychotic. RICHARD: Oh yes, it is official ... I find it so cute that a freedom from the human condition is classified as a severe mental disorder. It would appear that mental order (sanity) is stringently defined as having the ability to successfully keep instinctive drives, furious urges, impulsive rages, inveterate hostilities, evil dispositions – all malicious and sorrowful tendencies – under control with the aid of compensatory nurturing, sympathising, empathising, being compassionate, being loving, keeping hope alive, having faith, being trusting and so on, so as to produce a ‘well-adjusted personality’ ... and never, ever do something so sensible as to eliminate the entire instinctual package. And so, 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 go on for ever and a day. RESPONDENT: You are feeling great, wonderful, you’ve overcome all the human limitations, life is bliss to you. RICHARD: Well ... no. That is more of a description of how it was during my eleven years of delusion when in an Altered State of Consciousness known as ‘Enlightenment’. There is no ‘Good’ or ‘Evil’ here where I live. I live in a veritable paradise ... this very earth I live on is so vastly superior to any fabled ‘Arcadian Utopia’ that it would be impossible to believe if I was not living it twenty four hours a day ... it has been my constant condition since 1992. It is so perfectly pure and crystal-clear here that there is no need for ‘Love’ or ‘Compassion’ or ‘Bliss’ or ‘Euphoria’ or ‘Ecstasy’ or ‘Truth’ or ‘Goodness’ or ‘Beauty’ or ‘Oneness’ or ‘Unity’ or ‘Wholeness’ or ... or any of those baubles. They all pale into pathetic insignificance ... and I know them well because I lived them for that eleven years. RESPONDENT: You may also know that one of the surest signs of severe mental illness is the inability to see and admit the serious symptoms. RICHARD: Indeed ... that everybody else is mad but me is the classic indication of insanity. RESPONDENT: The person who is really mentally disturbed is the last to admit it, because he has a strong sense of being right versus everyone else being wrong or just dim. RICHARD: Hmm ... I long ago abandoned ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ because far too many of my fellow human beings have been killed because of what is ‘right’ ... or savagely punished because they were ‘wrong’. It is far better – and much more understandable – to appraise one’s actions being either ‘silly’ or ‘sensible’. It is simply silly to drive on the wrong side of the road, for example, because of the obvious danger to one’s own life and limb and others ... not ‘wrong’ with all its judgemental condemnations of one’s implicit wickedness and badness. It is sensible to find out why one is driven to perform socially unacceptable acts, for instance, rather than to refrain from committing these deeds because such restraint is the ‘right’ thing to do. Because ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are emotive words loaded with reward and punishment connotations ... which is poor motivation for salubrious action anyway. Then one has dignity for the first time in one’s life. RESPONDENT: The grandiose feelings, feelings of being super-human give you great comfort in the world where the only certain thing is uncertainty. RICHARD: Not so ... physical death is one certainty that immediately springs to mind. RESPONDENT: If/ when you come back from your hallucination ... RICHARD: No, I persevered – I went forward instead of back – and so on through the hallucination so as to arrive here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: ... you will have a long and painful journey to make. RICHARD: Unlike your friend that you wrote about some time ago I had the gumption – and intellectual honesty – to see through the hallucination that I was ‘God on Earth’ or a manifestation of the ‘Supreme Intelligence’ and proceed on into the ‘Unknowable’ so as to find out for myself just what the nature, disposition and character of that which so many peoples have been ‘hollow bamboos’ or ‘channels’ or ‘open vessels’ for was. I penetrated into the ‘Mystery of Life’ ... and here I am. RESPONDENT: You will have to admit that you are no more or no less than any of us. RICHARD: Why? Are you of that school of thought that says: ‘You can’t change human nature’? RESPONDENT: You will feel pain that is beyond words. RICHARD: You are starting to sound like you are wishing ill upon me ... is this your compassion in action? RESPONDENT: I just hope you’ll have help. RICHARD: May I ask? Just what is your beef about enabling peace-on-earth? Why do wish so ill upon someone daring enough to break through that which has kept humankind in thralldom for aeons? Do you have a vested interest in suffering? Do not 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 make you sit up and take notice and start to ask questions about what is going on? Why do you wish such doom and gloom upon me? * RESPONDENT: Richard, I do not wish doom and gloom to you RICHARD: Okay ... maybe it is the way you arrange your sentences, then. For example: • [Respondent]: ‘If/ when you come back from your hallucination, you will have a long and painful journey to make. You will have to admit that you are no more or no less than any of us. You will feel pain that is beyond words’. [endquote] certainly reads like the verdict of a magistrate ... like a sentence upon me. Viz.: ‘you will have a ...’ and ‘you will have to ...’ and ‘you will feel ...’. In any context it reads like, if not wishing doom and gloom, at least extreme pessimism. May I ask? Do you belong to the school that maintains that ‘you can’t change human nature’? RESPONDENT: I wish you somehow broke through your illusion of going past enlightenment into some sort of super inner centre of life. RICHARD: What makes you so sure – so positive – that going past enlightenment is an illusion? Is enlightenment the Summum Bonum for you? And that, therefore, anyone going beyond enlightenment is, by definition, in an illusion? If so, are you interested in exploring this point for its validity? Or you have some other reason for being so convinced of the correctness of your conclusion? RESPONDENT: And if you do come back, you will feel pain when you remember where you were mentally. That is what I was trying to convey. RICHARD: Whoa-up there ... here you go again, giving lie to your sentiments expressed (above) that you ‘do not wish doom and gloom’ to me. If you do not so wish, then what am I to make of your ‘you will feel pain’ pronouncement? Are you wearing a black cap? 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: Why did you want the fact on record? RICHARD: Amongst other reasons: so that peoples with some remnants of commonsense left would be able to see the absurdity of the whole mental health profession ... to a certain extent the psychiatric/ psychological profession has become as powerful as the fundamentalist clergy of yore. To put it simply, a person who is said to be ‘egotistical’ is considered to be ... well ... not a nice person, and power-hungry egotist (megalomaniacs) who become dictators can plunge whole nations into bloody war. Ergo: eliminate the ego and the entire problem is dissolved. However, such a person is officially classified as ‘depersonalised’ and is diagnosed psychotic. Now I ask you: is it not the dictator who is psychotic? I could go on through the other symptoms but I said I would put it simply ... I am only too happy to elaborate. 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. RESPONDENT: It demonstrates that you have mental disorders, can you prove otherwise? RICHARD: Why would I try to prove otherwise? I do have a mental disorder ... and a severe psychotic disorder at that. RESPONDENT: Did you have a series of examinations taken before and after your ego-death, to demonstrate that a change had occurred? RICHARD: Yes ... I was psychologically assessed as being normal (‘a well adjusted personality’) by acknowledged experts in the field well prior to 1981 as well as these ‘after the event’ assessments we are discussing here. RESPONDENT: Is it possible that it was done as a form of proof that you could offer to non-believers of your egoless state? RICHARD: I do not want any one to merely believe me. I stress to people how vital it is that they see for themselves the root cause of the humans condition. If they were so foolish as to believe me then the most they would end up in is living in a dream state and thus miss out on the actual. I do not wish this fate upon anyone ... I like my fellow human beings. Of course, if they believe my words to be false they close the door on their own freedom from the human condition. * RESPONDENT: How do we know that you, Krishnamurti, Buddha, etc are not really examples of self-induced mental illness? RICHARD: I cannot speak for Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti or Mr. Gotama the Sakyan, but I have been examined by two accredited psychiatrists and have been definitively diagnosed as having a ‘mental illness’ ... and a severe psychotic disorder at that. And in my case it was definitely ‘self-induced’ in that the ‘I’ that was deliberately and consciously and with knowledge aforethought psychologically and psychically self-immolated. And now I am this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. RESPONDENT No. 63 (to No. 25): I’m participating in a discussion list and suggesting that some of its members are full of bullshit. PETER: Over the years we have had many people who have come to this mailing list with this motive. It appears that for whatever personal reasons ... RESPONDENT: And they are ‘personal reasons’ indeed. PETER: ... [It appears that for whatever personal reasons] they are moved to fabricate distortions, concoct falsehoods, contrive exaggerations, broadcast innuendo, disseminate gossip, seed insinuations, create suspicion, encourage ambiguity, cast aspersions and, if that doesn’t work, revert to rudeness and even hostility ... (Actualism, Peter, Actual Freedom List, No. 63, 16.1.2005). RESPONDENT: It’s been a strange experience seeing this as I’ve never seen such extreme behaviour on another list. RICHARD: Not only is ‘such extreme behaviour’ a feature of this mailing list it is quite typical of what happens in some face-to-face interactions as well ... my previous companion oft-times observed that the more I continued to talk factually, with a fellow human being sitting with me on my veranda, about the actuality 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, the more insane their responses became (and she used the word ‘insane’ advisedly as, still having a psyche intact, she was able to discern the quality of the psychic currents swirling all about). Further to the point: not only has my current companion also similarly observed this she has experienced the same for herself ... ‘tis not for nothing I stress that actualism is not for the faint of heart/ the weak of knee. It does indeed take nerves of steel to plumb the stygian depths of the human condition. RICHARD: There is, of course, a third alternative to either sanity or insanity (insanity is but an extreme form of sanity) ... RESPONDENT: How do does on come to say that insanity is *but* an *extreme* form of sanity? RICHARD: Because normalcy is a mild form of lunacy. RESPONDENT: If one would arrive at a so-called extreme form of sanity then it might be progressively (as in comparatively) described as: sane [more/ less] sane as [reference to examples] …, [the most/ least sane] as … [reference to examples] …, (thus are both possibilities; the negative extreme form of sanity and the positive extreme form of sanity covered) yet the exclusion of any category of sane persons (to whatever degree), is only achieved by the addition of the prefix ‘in’ as meaning not, hence sanity in whatever form can never be *in*sanity. RICHARD: Hmm ... and can you conduct similar word-magic on normalcy/ lunacy? RESPONDENT: In other words the prefix of the word ‘in’ would exclude any form of sanity, thus it would follow that insanity is the only option to label Richards condition. RICHARD: Ha ... some people seem to never be able to let go of a fanciful notion once it takes hold, eh? RESPONDENT: It could be that my logic is not impeccable in this matter and it would be appreciated if you or (someone else) would point that out. RICHARD: ‘Tis not a matter of logic: almost anyone having taken psychology 101 for the first time knows the unnerving experience of having, at the very least, some of the symptoms of the various categories of psychosis ... a bipolar disorder (popularly known as being manic-depressive), for instance, is nothing other than an extreme version of normalcy’s highs and lows. It is this simple: actualism is an entirely new paradigm – unlike materialism/ spiritualism such states of being as normalcy/ lunacy no longer exist upon an actual freedom from the human condition – and, like any new paradigm, it requires thinking outside of the box (to use a popular colloquialism). 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 a search engine of your choice: 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 June 2000). * 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: 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: ... why is it that an accidental PCE (everyone has experienced and remembers at least one, making for an estimated .... umm ... 100 billion ‘za best’ experiences) cannot become permanent the same way as enlightenment or an ASC? RICHARD: For the same reason an intentional PCE cannot become permanent ... the persistence of identity (who is only in abeyance in a PCE). * 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 2004). * 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. * RESPONDENT: TLE or any other temporal lobe affection not being included in DSM IV, they have missed taking into account a possible cause for your condition. RICHARD: Golly ... psychiatrists (and psychologists for that matter) can, and do, have a mind of their own ... they are not necessarily ruled by a manual which is not at all scientific in its formulation (specific mental disorders get included/ excluded from that manual by the vote of a select group). RESPONDENT: Is it clear now? RICHARD: It is about as clear as mud ... do you think there is some kind of demarcation dispute, as it were, between the psychiatric profession and the neurological profession (so much so that I ought to hot-foot it to a neurologist on the basis of your amateur diagnosis)? RESPONDENT: Why were you taking that drug (psylocibin) for? RICHARD: I was not ‘taking’ psylocibin ... I (mistakenly) took it on the advice of an (erstwhile) associate under the (misguided) impression it was similar in effect to tetrahydrocannabinol (only much stronger). For your information: having personal acquaintance with a person who has suffered from epilepsy all their adult life I was sufficiently well-enough informed about such neurological conditions before both 1980-81 and 1994-97 to make my own appraisal ... even so it was a possibility I raised with the psychiatrist whose expertise you questioned in that other thread and had extensive and free-ranging discussions about same (just as I canvassed many other possibilities with them and they with me). All-in-all it was a most informative and productive association for the entire three-year period ... for example, I subscribed to an on-line university-based ‘Consciousness Studies’ forum at their suggestion after they had initiated discussion into matters pertaining to consciousness in general and pure consciousness events (aka altered states of consciousness) in particular. They were most bemused that various professors, and the ilk, on that forum were of the opinion that consciousness per se did not exist. SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE ON SANITY (Part Two) 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