# Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions Frequently Asked Questions ## What is Actual Intimacy? RICHARD: However, it is even more fun to go hand-in-hand with a fellow human being ... it is actual intimacy in action. RESPONDENT: Sounds to me like you are having the sexual time of your life, you and Eve, if this is not that state of Love that you have no need for. Richard, do you Really know where you are? RICHARD: Yes. As you have explained to me before that you do not read all the E-Mails that come in you may have missed a post of mine to another on the Mailing List. Perhaps this paragraph may go some way towards making it all clearer: Have you never been deep in a rain-forest ... or any wilderness, for that matter? Have you ever, as you have travelled deeper and deeper into this other world of natural delight, ever experienced an intensely hushed stillness that is vast and immense yet so simply here? I am not referring to a feeling of awe or reverence or great beauty – to have any emotion or passion at all is to miss the actuality of this moment – nor am I referring to any blissful or euphoric state of being. It is a sensate experience, not an affective state. I am talking about the factual and simple actualness of earthy existence being experienced whilst ambling along without any particular thought in mind ... yet not being mindless either. And then, when a sparkling intimacy occurs, do not the woods take on a fairy-tale-like quality? Is one not in a paradisiacal environment that envelops yet leaves one free? This is the ambience that I speak of. At this magical moment there is no ‘I’ in the head or ‘me’ in the heart ... there is this apperceptive awareness wherein thought can operate freely without the encumbrance of any feelings whatsoever. It is not my ambience nor yours ... yet it is here for everyone and anyone for the asking ... for the daring to be here as this body only. One does this by stepping out of the real world into this actual world, as this flesh and blood body, leaving your ‘self’ behind ... where ‘you’ belong. This ambience delivers the goods so longed for through aeons. IRENE to Peter: Intimacy can only exist between 2 people who are equally honest and dare to own up to their feelings as well as their thoughts, ideas, ideals, dreams, intimations and so forth. RICHARD: Whereas in an actual freedom, intimacy is not dependent upon cooperation. I experience an actual intimacy – a direct experiencing of the other – twenty four hours of the day irrespective of the other’s honesty, daring ... or moods. It is an estimable condition to be in! RESPONDENT: And wrt to your report of actual intimacy. How was it different from your enlightened state. What’s the essential difference? RICHARD: The essential difference is that, with the absence of the entire affective faculty/ identity in toto, there is no separative identity such as to necessitate the (affective) intimacy of union/ oneness. RESPONDENT: I remember you saying it’s an actual physical intimacy. By that what do you mean. Let’s say both of us are in a room at the opposite ends of the room, does the Space between us NOT exist for you? RICHARD: Space most certainly exists here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: Can you please explain? RICHARD: As this flesh and blood body only what one is (‘what’ not ‘who’) is these eyes seeing, these ears hearing, this tongue tasting, this skin touching and this nose smelling – and no separative identity (no ‘I’/ ‘me’) means no separation – whereas ‘I’/ ‘me’, a psychological/ psychic entity, am inside the body busily creating an inner world and an outer world and looking out through ‘my’ eyes upon ‘my’ outer world as if looking out through a window, listening to ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ tongue, touching ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ skin and smelling ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ nose ... plus adding all kinds of emotional/ psychological baggage to what is otherwise the bare sensory experience of the flesh and blood body. That identity (‘I’/ ‘me’) is forever cut-off from the actual ... from the world as-it-is. RESPONDENT: I have similar questions about the distinction between ‘feeling intimacy’ and ‘actual intimacy’. Could you define exactly what you mean by those terms – as well as just exactly what you would say is going on when there is a ‘feeling intimacy’? RICHARD: So as to circumvent coining new words I chose to make a distinct difference between the word ‘actual’ and the word ‘real’ (plus the word ‘fact’ and the word ‘true’) whereas the dictionaries do not: thus when I talk of the actual world, as contrasted to the real world, whilst both words refer to the physical world I am making a distinction in experience. I usually put it this way: what one is (what not who) is these eyes seeing, these ears hearing, this tongue tasting, this skin touching and this nose smelling – and no separative identity (no ‘I’/ ‘me’) inside the body means no separation whatsoever – whereas ‘I’/ ‘me’, a psychological/ psychic entity, am busily creating an inner world and an outer world and looking out through ‘my’ eyes upon ‘my’ outer world as if looking out through a window, listening to ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ tongue, touching ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ skin and smelling ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ nose. This entity, or being, residing in the body is forever cut-off from the actual – from the world as-it-is – because its inner world reality is pasted as a veneer over the actual world, thus creating the outer world reality known as the real world, and experiences an affective intimacy (oneness, union, unity, wholeness) wherein the separation is bridged by love and compassion ... instead of an actual intimacy (direct, instant, immediate, absolute) where there is no separation whatsoever. In other words, no separative identity in the first place means no division exists to be transcended. RICHARD (to No. 14): As libido is null and void for me then being sexually active or not is purely a matter of preference. What this means in effect is that sexual congress, because of its utter proximity, has more to do with intimacy than anything else. Now, here is where it becomes quite an intriguing matter because, and as a generalisation only, women tend to place more emphasis on intimacy than men. Indeed, many a woman has bewailed the dearth of men prepared to make the big commitment required for such connubial accord. Yet they are deathly afraid of intimacy – the fear of intimacy is a subject most women have talked to me about – for it means loss of self. And therein lies the rub: the survival instincts can kick in big-time, especially during sexual congress, and the very opposite of the longed-for intimacy takes place (as in pulling-back, turning-away, closing-off, shutting-down, and so on). (Richard, List D, No. 14a, 9 November 2009) RESPONDENT: Very apt observations and understanding. Further more, the survival instincts, can kick in also because of the predator/ prey tendencies that men, inadvertently, display and their aloofness for intimacy. RICHARD: In normal men (and as a generalisation) ... yes, of course. Had I been born a female my response would have been couched in terms of how it is for a man/ for men, in regards to sexuality and intimacy, during sexual congress with a woman actually free from the human condition. RESPONDENT: If you will indulge my question: is it possible still to have actual intimacy, even if the partner (man/ woman) is evidently inhibited by self and survival instincts? RICHARD: Actual intimacy – no separation (no separative self whatsoever) cannot wax and wane/ come and go/ switch on and off here in this actual world (the world of the senses). Upon an actual freedom from the human condition an actual intimacy is the norm with every body and every thing regardless of whatever their or its current situation and circumstances might be. (Some peoples have looked at me blankly upon being informed there is an actual intimacy with, say, an ashtray or a polystyrene cup or a pebble or whatever). In terms of human sexuality, and due to its utter proximity, sexual congress sans identity/ affections is the exquisite experience of two flesh and blood bodies sensuously delighting in being sensually and sexually aroused. (As there are no identities in actuality I actually interact only with flesh and blood bodies; at times this can be quite disconcerting, to say the least, for any identity feeling itself to be other than illusory). Because it can take an incredible amount of willpower for a pulled-back or turned-away or closed-off or shut-down identity to override (psychosomatically) its bodily arousal, its body’s natural sexuality, the body’s sensual delight, that exquisite experience can continue until such over-riding succeeds in its quite perverse anti-intimacy aim and arousal diminishes, sexuality declines and sensual delight falls away to nought. In short: although reciprocity is never needed there is, of course, a preference for sexual enjoyment and appreciation be mutual. * RICHARD: Put briefly: unless or until such a woman comes into my purview being single, in this respect, will remain my ongoing status. (Richard, List D, No. 14a, 9 November 2009) RESPONDENT: You do not prescribe to fellow humans, but do you recommend the above sensible approach rather than ‘experimenting’ with fellow human beings to explore sexuality or actual intimacy? RICHARD: Oh, no ... not at all (that above approach is only in regards to an actual freedom from the human condition). No, on the contrary, exploring sex and sexuality is enormously beneficial: there is no better way, in my experience, for a man and a woman to approach such intimacy than sexual congress. For instance, back when I was a normal man I came close to the loss of self already mentioned on several occasions (in my first marriage) only to instinctively pull-back, out of instantaneous fear at such imminence, as it intuitively seemed she would thus take over my mind and make me her slave for ever and a day. It was not until after the four-hour PCE, which initiated the process resulting in an actual freedom, that it became obvious to me what such loss of self actually meant. Accordingly, I deliberately set out to induce a PCE via giving myself completely to her – totally and utterly – whilst hovering indefinitely on that orgastic plateau which precedes an orgasm (something which I had discovered whilst pubescent). And then ... !Hey Presto! ... no separation whatsoever. (Incidentally, rather than that intuitive fear of thus being her slave coming true it was quite instructive to have her then relate how she had been fantasising about a current heart-throb pop singer all the while I was giving myself to her totally). RESPONDENT: I am aware that PCE and EE are much more possible during sexual intimacy and congress hence the urge to experiment. RICHARD: Yes, indeed so. Both my third wife (de facto) and my second wife (de jure) were very keen to experiment. For instance, my third wife initially set out to explore her ‘wild side’ (to use the jargon) as she was most appreciative of being with a man with no limits – no limiting fear in regards the vast extent, and a near-insatiability at times, of female sexuality. Curiously enough, in the end it was her very own fear (of female sexuality) which set the limits. But, until then rampant sexuality took place morning, noon and night – all throughout the period of writing those millions of words to my fellow human beings – and much was uncovered/ discovered about female sexuality. She has a scale of quality in regards sexual experience: good, very good, great, excellent and magical. Good sex relates to togetherness. Very good sex relates to closeness. Great sex relates to sweetness. Excellent sex relates to richness. Magical sex relates to actuality. To explain: togetherness is the companionship of doing things together – be it shopping, cooking, having sex, whatever – and pertains to the willingness to be and act in concert with another. A closeness is where the personal boundaries are expanded to include the other into one’s own space; this is a normal type of intimacy. A sweetness is when closeness entrées a lovely delight at the proximity of the other (although it can veer off into affection, ardency, love, oneness). A richness (aka an excellence experience) is where sweetness segues into a near-absence of agency via letting-go of control and one is the sex and sexuality (the beer and not the doer). Magical sex is where sex and sexuality are happening of their own accord – neither beer nor doer extant – and pristine purity abounds (an immaculate perfection). Ain’t life grand! * RESPONDENT No. 14: My female partner said after some months of practice: ‘Your libido are too much to me!’. But we still married and happy together. So, if you permit one correlated impertinence: Why are you single now? RICHARD: As libido is null and void for me then being sexually active or not is purely a matter of preference. What this means in effect is that sexual congress, because of its utter proximity, has more to do with intimacy than anything else. Now, here is where it becomes quite an intriguing matter because, and as a generalisation only, women tend to place more emphasis on intimacy than men. Indeed, many a woman has bewailed the dearth of men prepared to make the big commitment required for such connubial accord. Yet they are deathly afraid of intimacy – the fear of intimacy is a subject most women have talked to me about – for it means loss of self. And therein lies the rub: the survival instincts can kick in big-time, especially during sexual congress, and the very opposite of the longed-for intimacy takes place (as in pulling-back, turning-away, closing-off, shutting-down, and so on). (Richard, List D, No. 14a, 9 November 2009) RESPONDENT: [...] [...] Greetings, Richard Thank you for your responses. RICHARD: G’day No. 6, I trimmed this email to focus on the essentials (fear of intimacy and fear of sexuality). If there is any section you want to re-introduce please do so. RESPONDENT: I am aware that PCE and EE are much more possible during sexual intimacy and congress hence the urge to experiment. RICHARD: Yes, indeed so. Both my third wife (de facto) and my second wife (de jure) were very keen to experiment. For instance, my third wife initially set out to explore her ‘wild side’ (to use the jargon) as she was most appreciative of being with a man with no limits – no limiting fear – in regards the vast extent, and a near-insatiability at times, of female sexuality. RESPONDENT: Yes. That is what most women will look forward to. RICHARD: Aye, yet when that opportunity is freely accessible – as an ever-available living actuality – all manner of weird behaviour can take place (to the point of utter bizarrerie). Now, obviously I am not going to go into details as my reports are circumscribed by the fact that the persons concerned are both readily identifiable and still alive (I have no such constraints when talking about just myself) but as the subject is of primary importance – man-woman sexuality and intimacy is the genesis of family and thus the very core of civilisation itself – there is too much at stake for me to take my unique insight to the grave/ pyre/ whatever. To explain: I have had three wives – with each marriage spanning more than a decade – as three different persons (a normal person, a mystical person and a freed person). In my first marriage I was both a normal person (at first masculinist then later feministic) and a spiritually enlightened/ mystically awakened person. In my second marriage I was first an enlightened/ awakened person then later an actually freed person. My third marriage was solely as a person actually free from the human condition. Hence me being well-placed to know what nobody else can know. Plus, in the five celibate years between my first and second marriages, I was the single parent of young daughters (at first two girls then later one girl) and gained much understanding at that grass-roots level. Also many women during that period – at least a score if not more – most insistently proposed, via blatant sexuality, either a ménage a deux or a ménage a trois. (Love Agapé is the most potent aphrodisiac ever to be invented). Lastly, as a boy I only had girls as playmates (all the children in the near neighbourhood, in the remote farming community where I was born and raised, were female) and all through my life I have always preferred female company ... to the point of much mocking and ridicule for being thus considered effeminate (to use a more polite word). Most importantly: I like women – they are simply marvellous creatures when at their best – and, being such victims of their own emotions and passions, are both ripe for and deserving of liberation. Especially so as, where the women go, there go men too (eventually). RESPONDENT: And social conditioning pulls tight strings on this ‘wild side’ and mankind finds it most threatening – to social institutions of family, religion, marriage etc. RICHARD: Indeed ... and womankind, having internalised what mankind finds most threatening, can be the most fierce advocates of those ‘tight strings’ (both to themselves and to their kind). However, there more to it than what mankind finds most threatening ... much, much more. * RICHARD: Curiously enough, in the end it was her very own fear (of female sexuality) which set the limits. RESPONDENT: Interesting. I am curious about the use of the expression ‘fear (of female sexuality)’ – because being with a man without any limits – as in limiting fear as you put it above, is liberating from the fear that female sexual identity suffers videlicet body image, self-esteem, social/ cultural/ moral conditioning induced guilt and shame of being wild etc. RICHARD: My third wife was already liberated from the social/ cultural moral conditionings (such as induced guilt and shame and so on) when she set out to explore her ‘wild side’ ... she was most uninhibited in that respect. What emerged, of course, was her ‘dark side’ (hence my ‘fear of female sexuality’ phrasing when characterising what eventually set the limits). Yet behind or beyond even that lay a much greater fear (giving rise to even greater weird and bizarre behaviour). As it is of such importance I obtained her permission to speak about it (she is currently out of the country for an indefinite period). One fine weekend some time ago we went on a boat-trip upriver; we were at anchor in a semi-remote spot and something happened to her, whilst having sex, which she unknowingly locked-away for nearly two years. And it was during those two years that the pulling-back, turning-away, closing-off, shutting-down, and so on, began to occur more and more (much to her mystification as her sexuality had been rampant). What first came out, during an intense conversation some twenty or so months later, was how she had seen that were she to further explore sexuality and intimacy via sexual congress with me she would surely go insane ... literally (as in a lock-up psychiatric ward). Yet underneath or behind that very real fear lay a fear so vast it can best be called dread (the remembrance of the ‘going insane’ fear gave access to what it was concealing or covering-up). Some three months or so later the final truth emerged: the sex was so wonderful, on that occasion upriver, it was frightening ... and frightening to the nth degree. For here all is immaculate perfection. * RICHARD: [...] my third wife initially set out to explore her ‘wild side’ (to use the jargon) as she was most appreciative of being with a man with no limits – no limiting fear – in regards the vast extent, and a near-insatiability at times, of female sexuality. RESPONDENT: Yes. That is what most women will look forward to. RICHARD: Aye, yet when that opportunity is freely accessible – as an ever-available living actuality – all manner of weird behaviour can take place (to the point of utter bizarrerie). RESPONDENT: However, I think, I am beginning to understand pulling back/ turning away: it is like crossing a rubicon, an experience of it can be physically felt as an empty space/ throbbing right under the belly (the uterus contracting). But of course, the person in question may be able to corroborate on this much more. RICHARD: Of course (she is currently out-of-country at the death-bed of someone, in the final stages of a terminal illness, whom she has known all her life). But you are correct – it is indeed like crossing ‘a boundary, a limit; esp. one which once crossed betokens irrevocable commitment; a point of no return’ (Oxford Dictionary) – and it is only upon such a crossing that the actualism process, as distinct from the actualism method, can start whereupon an inevitability thus set in motion begins to gather a momentum all of its own accord. Then one is on the ride of a lifetime! CLAUDIU: Could you go into more detail as to what intimacy experiences are, how they differ from excellence experiences, and what role they play in being out-from-control/ in a different-way-of-being? Did they feature in feeling-being ‘Richard’s wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom? • [Richard]: In other words, someone genuinely out-from-control is constantly (i.e., consistently) ‘feeling excellent’, come-what-may, by the very nature of what that term refers to. [...] Moreover, as ‘not being out-from-control’ also implies ‘not having a near-actual caring’ either [...]. (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 24 January 2016). Incidentally, this may be a good a time as any to publicly state that, based on re-evaluation derived from recent correspondences, as during the time I previously considered I may have been out-from-control, I was not consistently feeling excellent, come-what-may, I can now say I have never genuinely experienced being out-from-control... and, as such, nor can I say I have ever experienced a near-actual caring. RICHARD: G’day Claudiu, In the same way that excellence experiences (EE’s) were a notable feature of feeling-being ‘Richard’s virtual freedom experiencing circa March-September 1981, although of course not named as such back then, so too did intimacy experiences (IE’s) play a similarly significant role even though increasingly overshadowed by the insistent emergence of love – and, especially, Love Agapé – in the later months due to a marked lack of precedence and, thus, of any praxeological publications (nowadays made freely available on The Actual Freedom Trust web site) on the distinction betwixt the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté and the affectional intimacy of romance lore and legend. Just as the term ‘excellence experience’ came from feeling-being ‘Grace’ – who was exacting in evaluating ‘her’ differing ways of being a ‘self’ so as to not illude herself that ‘she’ was more progressive than was really the case – so too did the expression ‘different-way-of-being’. What gradually became more and more apparent was that a prevailing feature of ‘her’ differing ways of being was the degree of intimacy involved. The gradations of ‘her’ scale were, basically, good, very good, great, excellent, and magical perfect – whereby, in regards to intimacy, ‘good’ related to togetherness (which pertains to being and acting in concert with another); ‘very good’ related to closeness (where personal boundaries expand to include the other); ‘great’ related to sweetness (delighting in the pervasive proximity, or immanence, of the other); ‘excellent’ related to richness (a near-absence of agency; with the doer abeyant, and the beer ascendant, being the experiencing is inherently cornucopian); and ‘magical’ ‘perfect’ related to actuality magicality (neither beer nor doer extant; pristine purity abounds and immaculate perfection prevails) – all of which correlate to the range of naïveness from being sincere to becoming naïve and all the way through being naïveté itself to an actual innocence. [naming errors stemming from the original 10th of November 2009 post corrected]. The term ‘intimacy experience’ became part of the actualism lingo after a particularly instructive event in late spring, 2007, when at anchor upriver whilst exhorting feeling-being ‘Grace’ to no longer reserve that specific ‘way-of-being’ for those memorable occasions when ‘she’ was alone with me and to extend such intimacy to also include ‘her’ potential shipmates in order to dynamically enable the then-tentative plans for a floating convivium – which were on an indefinite hold at that time – to move ahead expeditiously (this was in the heady context of feeling-being ‘Pamela’ having already entered into an on-going PCE a scant five days beforehand due to ‘her’ specifically expressed concerns to me over the lack of intimacy between actualists). At some stage during this intensive interaction feeling-being ‘Vineeto’, who had been intently following every nuance, every twist and turn of the interplay, had what ‘she’ described as a ‘shift’ taking place in ‘her’ whereupon the very intimacy being thus exigently importuned came about for ‘her’ instead. To say ‘she’ was astounded with the degree of intimacy having ensued is to put it mildly as ‘her’ first descriptive words were about how ‘she’ would never have considered it possible to be as intimate as this particular way of being – an intimacy of such near-innocence as to have previously only ever been possible privately with ‘her’ sexual partner in very special moments – when in a social setting as one of a number of persons partaking of coffee and snacks in a sitting room situation. Intuitively seizing the vital opportunity such intimate experiencing offered ‘she’ took over from me and commenced interacting intensively in my stead – notably now a one-on-one feeling-being interchange – and within a relatively short while feeling-being ‘Grace’ was experiencing life in the same, or very similar, manner as feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ (hence that 4th of December 2009 report Richard, List D, No. 14a, of mine about how these intimacy experiences are potentially contagious, so to speak, for other sincere actualists as the atmosphere generated affectively-psychically can propagate a flow-on effect). As for your query regarding how the intimacy experience (IE) differs from an excellence experience (EE): qualitatively they are much the same, or similar, insofar as with both experiences there is a near-absence of agency – the beer rather than the doer is the operant – whereupon naïveté has come to the fore, such as to effect the marked diminishment of separation, and the main distinction is that the IE is more people-oriented, while the EE tends to be environmental in its scope. In other words, with an EE the ‘aesthetic experience’ feature, for instance, or its ‘nature experience’ aspect, for example, tends to be more prominent, whilst with an IE the ‘fellowship experience’ characteristic, for instance, or its ‘convivial experience’ quality, for example, comes to the fore. In either type of near-PCE – wherein the experiencing is of ‘my’ life living itself, with a surprising sumptuosity, rather than ‘me’ living ‘my’ life, quite frugally by comparison, and where this moment is living ‘me’ (instead of ‘me’ trying to live ‘in the moment’) – the diminishment of separation is so astonishing as to be as-if incomprehensible/ unbelievable yet it is the imminence of a fellow human’s immanence which, in and of itself, emphases the distinction the most. For instance, the degree of intimacy experienced with minera, flora and fauna upon strolling through some botanical gardens with either near-PCE occurring – as in, with rocks, trees and birds, for example – is to the same gradation as when in a social setting such as a typical sitting room situation (as in, with ashtrays, flowers and humans, for instance) yet it is the ‘fellow human being’ element which exemplifies the already astounding diminishment of separation which ensues upon the blessed onset of this near-innocent intimacy of naïveté. And that latter point – the felicitous advent of naïve intimacy – is another way the IE differs from the EE inasmuch if a near-PCE is initiated via intensive interaction with a fellow human being/ with fellow human beings it takes on the properties of an intimacy experience (IE) whereas if the near-PCE is triggered via interacting intensively with the world at large (as in, an aesthetic experience, a nature experience, a contemplative experience, for example) it takes on the properties of an excellence experience (EE). The role they play in an out-from-control/ different-way-of-being virtual freedom (entitled ‘The Dynamic, Destinal Virtual Freedom’ on that web page to distinguish it from the still-in-control/ same-way-of-being virtual freedom entitled ‘The Pragmatic, Methodological Virtual Freedom’) is, essentially, in enabling the actualism process to take over. In effect, the actualism process is what ensues when one gets out from being under control, via having given oneself prior permission to have one’s life live itself (i.e., sans the controlling doer), and a different way of being comes about (i.e., where the beer is the operant) – whereupon a thrilling out-from-control momentum takes over and an inevitability sets in – whereafter there is no pulling back (hence the reluctance in having it set in motion) as once begun it is nigh-on unstoppable. Then one is in for the ride of a lifetime! • [Claudiu to Richard]: “Could you go into more detail as to what intimacy experiences are, how they differ from excellence experiences, and what role they play in being out-from-control/ in a different-way-of-being? Did they feature in feeling-being ‘Richard’s wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom?” (Message № 21810). • [Respondent to Richard]: “In addition to that I would also like to ask about “real intimacy” and “actual intimacy”, I mean, is that intimacy you are talking about related to “real intimacy” or would it be “near-actual intimacy” or something like that?” (Message № 21811). • [Claudiu to Respondent]: “Just to clarify, since the phrase “real intimacy” doesn’t appear on the Actual Freedom Trust website—by “real intimacy” do you mean something like “intimacy in the ‘real’ world”, or, affective intimacy, as in, say, “the affective intimacy of love”? (Message № 21813). • [Respondent to Claudiu]: “Yes and yes, if you’re not actually free then I assume any intimacy will be affective anyway, that’s why I’d like clarification”. (Message № 21814). • [Richard to Claudiu]: “In the same way that excellence experiences (EE’s) were a notable feature of feeling-being ‘Richard’s virtual freedom experiencing circa March-September 1981, although of course not named as such back then, so too did intimacy experiences (IE’s) play a similarly significant role even though increasingly overshadowed by the insistent emergence of love—and, especially, Love Agapé—in the later months due to a marked lack of precedence and, thus, of any praxeological publications (nowadays made freely available on The Actual Freedom Trust web site) on the distinction betwixt the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté and the affectional intimacy of romance lore and legend. [...elide ten paragraphs re the felicitous advent of naïve intimacy...]”. (Message № 21835, Richard, List D, Claudiu, 24 January 2016). * RESPONDENT: Hello, Richard, there are lots of references to “actual intimacy” on your website but there is no mention of “real intimacy”. Is “real intimacy” the same as “The affective intimacy of love” mentioned below? Richard’s Selected Correspondence On Love, Love Agapé and Actual Intimacy. “The affective intimacy of love—the delusion that separation has ended via a glorious feeling of oneness—is but a pathetic imitation of an actual intimacy (where there is no separation in the first place). The expression ‘love is a bridge’ is quite apt”. “This entity, or being, residing in the body is forever cut-off from the actual—from the world as-it-is—because its inner world reality is pasted as a veneer over the actual world, thus creating the outer world reality known as the real world, and experiences an affective intimacy (oneness, union, unity, wholeness) wherein the separation is bridged by love and compassion ... instead of an actual intimacy (direct, instant, immediate, absolute) where there is no separation whatsoever”. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Love). I have copied a few dictionary definitions for “intimacy” below. OneLook Dictionary Search. [www.onelook.com/?w=intimacy&ls=a]. Quick definitions from Macmillan (intimacy) noun: a close personal relationship... more... something personal or private that you say or do... more... the sexual act: this word is used especially by lawyers or the police. Quick definitions from WordNet (intimacy) noun: close or warm friendship (“The absence of fences created a mysterious intimacy in which no one knew privacy”). noun: a feeling of being intimate and belonging together. noun: a usually secretive or illicit sexual relationship I would like to ask you if you can elaborate more on the difference between regular plain “intimacy” aka “real intimacy” and “actual intimacy”, so as to clarify for instance what kind of intimacy is involved in “The Intimate Ambiance Experiment”. I have to admit I have listened to very little of the recordings but it appears to be the intimacy of friends talking. I have the impression that most people still can’t tell the difference. Personally, I still desire the intimacy of close or genuine friendship where one can be honest about one’s true feelings and talk about anything. Also, there is something else related to intimacy I’d like to ask, which is, what is the difference between friends and associates? Because I know you say you don’t have friends, but associates instead, and I still value friends, especially of the genuine kind. RICHARD: G’day [No. 46], I incorporated considerable detail relating to “near-actual intimacy” (as per your “in addition” query re-presented further above) into my response to Claudiu’s request—as in, “the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté” & “an intimacy of such near-innocence” & “the felicitous advent of naïve intimacy” & “a near-PCE...intimacy experience”, for example—whilst bearing in mind your “yes and yes” reply, to his clarifying-with-live-links email to you, on the assumption that the word ‘yes’ means ...um... ‘sim’ (i.e., ‘resposta affirmativa’) in Brazilian Portuguese. Look, the reason why that “real intimacy” term of yours does not appear on The Actual Freedom Trust web site is essentially no different to why a term such as, say, ‘real sincerity’ also does not feature even though countless peoples fake sincerity, as a matter-of-course, throughout many of their interactions with their fellow human beings—developing that particular skill-set is considered an essential part of on-the-job training, for instance, in matters of commerce (e.g., used-car salespersons) and politics (e.g., ambassadorial attachés) for some obvious instances—inasmuch the distinction between such unreal sincerity and a real sincerity (just as is the case with unreal intimacy and real intimacy) is not the focus of what is on offer on the website. Indeed, the entire focus is upon how being alive, as a conscious/ sentient creature on this verdant and azure planet, is experienced during perfection experiences which are known, for convenience in communication, as pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s)—as contrasted to how life is experienceable when either an ordinary state of being is operating or a non-ordinary state of being, a.k.a. an altered state of consciousness (ASC), is operational in its stead—and rather than coining new words, when reporting/ describing/ explaining such experiencing, it was far more practicable to instead exploit an anomalous distinction, which exists in everyday usage of the English language (however, not in Brazilian Portuguese, though), between the word ‘real’ and the word ‘actual’. Viz.: • [Respondent № 25]: “And now, if my grandmother would ask me if God exists, I would tell her that it does, He’s real but it’s not actual. Ha-ha-ha! And then she’ll ask me what actual means, I suppose that’s where the <go> starts”. • [Richard]: “Back when I was a father, when my then children would ask me if Santa Claus was real, I would say yes but not actual like a table is, for instance, as their mother was full-on into the traditions and such diplomatic answers, rather than an outright no, made for relative domestic harmony and they had no difficulty whatsoever in grasping that concept (and applying it to witches riding broomsticks as well and fairies at the bottom of the garden and so on). Curiously enough many years later (for I was a normal family man back then) that diplomatic response came in handy when endeavouring to come to terms with the existential dilemma I was living at the end of the enlightened period ... hence the term ‘actual’ in actual freedom. If a child can grasp it anyone can (even though dictionaries draw no such distinction)”. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25b, 19 July 2003). This anomalous usage is only possible because the word real (from Late Latin reālis, from Latin rēs, ‘thing’) has increasingly come to mean, in everyday usage, more or less whatever is perceived, felt or intuited to be a reality for the percipient, the feeler, or the intuiter thereof (e.g., “you create your own reality”)—and corresponds to a similarly self-centrically subjective usage of the word truth (e.g., “that’s your truth”) as distinct from the word fact—whereas the word actual definitively refers to that which exists, or occurs, as a matter of verifiable fact and has thus far remained intact, as such, despite the veritable onslaught objectivity has been assailed with since relativity infected mainstream academic thought due to mathematicians having taken over physics, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with their abstractive mathematical models. Furthermore, as the term ‘real world’ is a regular feature of everyday English usage (e.g., “life in the real world”)—and especially so in a pejorative sense, as in, “welcome to the real world”, for example, or “life’s tough in the real world” and “it’s dog-eat-dog in the real world”, for instance—it readily lends itself to being contrasted to the unadulterated actual world (i.e., the world of the senses, the sensate world, the world where flesh-and-bodies already reside) where being alive, as a conscious/ sentient creature, takes place on a paradisaical terraqueous globe, as an everyday actuality. Thus, by the prefacing of the word ‘intimacy’, in this instance, with the word ‘actual’—so as to refer to how intimacy is experienced in actuality (where flesh-and-bodies already reside)—the necessity of explaining what newly-coined words mean is thereby obviated. Viz.: • [Respondent № 110]: “Perhaps it would help me if you explained what felicity is”. • [Richard]: “One way to put it would be to say that the felicity being discussed—the felicity inherent to perfection—is what the feeling of happiness is but an affective substitute for ... and to then say that when I went public to inform my fellow human being of my discovery I chose to not coin new words, as that would be counter-productive, but to instead make a distinct difference between the word ‘actual’ and the word ‘real’ (plus the word ‘fact’ and the word ‘true’) whereas the dictionaries do not. Suppose I had used the letters ‘qwerty’ (the first six letters on a standard keyboard) to refer to what is inherent to perfection; would it not have led to being asked what that means? For example: • [example only]: ‘Happiness is dependent upon felicitous events whereas qwerty, being inherent to perfection, occurs all the while regardless of infelicitous events’. [end example]. Besides which ... anybody having had a memorable PCE knows exactly what I am talking about”. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 110b, 13 June 2006). Therefore, what you are effectively asking—via your “is ‘real intimacy’ the same as ‘the affective intimacy of love’ mentioned below?” wording—is whether or not intimacy, for feeling-beings, is the same as the intimacy of love. Yet, because intimacy can be referred in several ways (i.e., via its denotation, its connotations, and its consuetude) by feeling-beings—as indicated by those quick dictionary definitions you provided—then your query makes about as much sense as its obverse would (i.e., whether or not the intimacy of love is the same as intimacy). As the word ‘intimacy’ refers to the state or condition of being intimate—a word which comes from Latin intimātus, ‘to make familiar with’, past participle of intimāre, intimāt-, ‘to make known’, from Latin intimus, ‘innermost’, ‘deepest’; from intus, ‘within’—perhaps some more extensive dictionary entries than those quick ones will throw some light upon what it is you are wanting to know about intimacy per se and the intimacy of love. Viz.: • intimacy (n.): 1. (a) intimate friendship or acquaintance; close familiarity; an instance of this (middle seventeenth century); [e.g.]: “So great was their intimacy that rumours of a stronger tie—amorous, even marital—persisted”. (A. Fraser); (b) (euphemistic), sexual intercourse (late seventeenth century); [e.g.]: “She stayed the night at his father’s house; intimacy took place on that occasion”. (Westminster Gazette); 2. inner or inmost nature; an inward quality or feature (middle seventeenth-late eighteenth century); 3. (rare): intimate or close connection or union (early eighteenth century); 4. closeness of observation or knowledge (early eighteenth century). [origin: middle seventeenth century from intimate (adjective) + -acy]. ~ (Oxford English Dictionary). • intimacy (n.; pl. intimacies): 1. the state of being intimate; close union or conjunction; [e.g.]: “Explosions occur only... where the elements concerned are... distributed among one another molecularly, or, as in gunpowder, with minute intimacy”. (Herbert Spencer, 1820-1903, “Principles of Psychology”, § 35); 2. close familiarity or fellowship; intimate friendship; [e.g.]: “Rectory and Hall, | Bound in an immemorial intimacy, | Were open to each other”. (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1809-1892, “Aylmer’s Field)”; “The peculiar art of alternate gushing intimacy and cool obliviousness, so well known to London fashionable women”. (Peep at Our Cousins, iv.); (synonyms): familiarity, etc.; see acquaintance. [from intima(te) + -cy]. ~ (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia). And here are their entries for ‘intimate’ in exhaustive detail: • intimate (n. & adj.): A. (n.): 1. a characteristic example of a human type (only in early seventeenth century); 2. a very close friend or associate (early seventeenth century); B (adj.): 1. (a): of or pertaining to the inmost nature or fundamental character of a thing; essential; intrinsic; now chiefly in scientific use (early seventeenth century); (b): entering deeply or closely into a matter (early nineteenth century); 2. proceeding from, concerning, or relating to one’s deepest thoughts or feelings; closely personal, private (middle seventeenth century); 3. involving very close connection or union; thoroughly mixed, united (middle seventeenth century); [e.g.]: “There is an intimate interdependence of intellect and morals”. (R. W. Emerson); 4. of knowledge: resulting from close familiarity; deep, extensive (middle seventeenth century); 5. (a): united by friendship or other personal relationship; familiar, close; also, pertaining to or dealing with close personal relations (middle seventeenth century); [e.g.]: “An intimate friend, a really kindred spirit to whom I can confide my inmost soul”. (L. M. Montgomery); “Having children in common they had something more intimate than could ever be shared by friends and lovers”. (A. N. Wilson); “Waking up with someone seemed more intimate than making love in some ways”. (J. Krantz); (b): familiarly associated; closely personal (late nineteenth century); [e.g.]: “These diminutive intimate things bring one near to the Old Roman life”. (H. James); (c): having or seeking to create an informal, warm, friendly atmosphere (early twentieth century); [e.g.]: “The armchairs had been arranged in intimate groups”. (W. Boyd); 6. (a): (euphemistic), having sexual intercourse (with, together) (late nineteenth century); [e.g.]: “Some of them were what newspapers call intimate together, without having undergone marriage”. (R. Macaulay); (b): pertaining to or involving the sexual organs or bodily orifices (early twentieth century); [e.g.]: “There was a long, fairly passionate embrace with a certain amount of intimate caressing”. (K. Amis); “And intimate searches (of body orifices) will be conducted by police officers”. (Times); (adv.): intimately (middle seventeenth century). [origin: early seventeenth century from Late Latin intimatus, past participle of intimare, from intimus, (n.): ‘a close friend’, (adj.) ‘innermost’ + -ate, suffix forming adjectives and nouns]. ~ (Oxford English Dictionary). • intimate (adj. and n.): I. (adj.): 1. inner; inmost; intrinsic; pertaining to minute details or particulars: as, ‘the intimate structure of an organism’; ‘the intimate principles of a science’; [e.g.]: “Enough beauty of climate hangs over these Roman cottages and farm-houses—beauty of light, of atmosphere and of vegetation; but their charm for seekers of the picturesque is the way in which the lustrous air seems to illuminate their intimate desolation”. (Henry James, “Italian Hours”); 2. pertaining to the inmost mind; existing in one’s inner thoughts or feelings; inward: as, ‘intimate convictions or beliefs’; ‘intimate knowledge of a subject’; [e.g.]: “They knew not | That what I motion’d was of God; I knew | From intimate impulse”. (John Milton, “Samson Agonistes”, 1. 223); “His characteristics were prudence, coolness, steadiness of purpose, and intimate knowledge of men”. (William Hickling Prescott, 1796-1859, “History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic”, ii. 24); 3. closely approximating or coalescing; near; familiar: as, ‘intimate relation of parts’; ‘intimate union of particles’; ‘intimate intercourse’; [e.g.]: “When the multitude were thundered away from any approach, he [Moses] was honoured with an intimate and immediate admission”. (Robert South, “Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions”, Vol. I); “I crown thee [Winter] king of intimate delights, Fire-side enjoyments, homeborn happiness”. (William Cowper, “The Task, Book IV; The Winter Evening”, iv. 139); 4. close in friendship or acquaintance; on very familiar terms; not reserved or distant; [e.g.]: “I sent for three of my friends. We are so intimate that we can be company in whatever state of mind we meet, and can entertain each other without expecting always to rejoice”. (Richard Steele, “The Tatler”, No. 181); “Barbara... took Winifred’s waist in the turn of her arm—as is the way of young women, especially of such as are intimate enemies”. (John Williamson Palmer, “After his Kind”, p. 282); 5. familiarly associated; personal; [e.g.]: “These diminutive, intimate things bring one near to the old Roman life. ... A little glass cup that Roman lips have touched says more to us than the great vessel of an arena”. (Henry James, Jnr., “Little Tour in France”, p. 214); II. (n.): a familiar friend, companion, or guest; one who has close social relations with another or others; [e.g.]: “Poor Mr. Murphy was an intimate of my first husband’s”. (Mrs. Hester Lynch Thrale-Piozzi (née Salusbury), Aug. 29, 1810); “Thackeray was one of the intimates at Gore House”. (Walter Besant, “Fifty Years Ago”, p. 204); “I testify that our lord and our Prophet and our friend Mohham’mad is his servant, and his apostle, and his elect, and his intimate, the guide of the way, and the lamp of the dark”. (quoted in Edward William Lane’s “Modern Egyptians”, I. 101). [from Latin intimatus, pp., ‘made known’, ‘intimate’; see the verb]. ~ (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia). What is immediately noticeable is how the listings in the various dictionary entries do not feature the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté. This is because there is a marked lack of information on the distinction between the intimacy of love and that naïve intimacy (as pointed out in the latter part of the first paragraph of my response to Claudiu on January 28, 2016). Viz.: • [Richard]: “(...) so too did intimacy experiences (IE’s) play a similarly significant role even though increasingly overshadowed by the insistent emergence of love—and, especially, Love Agapé—in the later months due to *a marked lack of precedence and, thus, of any praxeological publications* (nowadays made freely available on The Actual Freedom Trust web site) on the distinction betwixt the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté and the affectional intimacy of romance lore and legend”. [emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 28 January 2016). Just pause for a moment, if you will, to allow due consideration of what this extraordinary fact betokens. For not only is an actual freedom from the human condition entirely new to human experiencing, and, thusly, totally new to human history as well, so too is this outstanding intimacy, intrinsic to being naïveté itself, completely new—and which near-innocence is still within the human condition, mind you, just as the pathematic oneness of being in love is—and so new, in fact, as to not feature in any dictionary or praxeological publications until the words and writings of both a virtual and an actual freedom from the human condition were first made public knowledge in 1997. Put succinctly, this intimity, this most intimate of intimacies, has been beyond the ken of humankind since forever! To continue: I also detailed how feeling-being ‘Grace’, who was exacting in evaluating ‘her’ differing ways of being a ‘self’, had gradations of scale in regards to intimacy (togetherness: → closeness: → sweetness: → richness: → magicality)—all of which correlated to the range of naïveness from being sincere to becoming naïve and all the way through being naïveté itself to an actual innocence—in the second and third paragraphs following on from the above. Thus your query (posted nearly seven hours after that January 28, 2016 response of mine to Claudiu) also bears no relationship to all of this “near-actual intimacy” detail I specifically incorporated into my response to Claudiu’s request as per your “in addition” query. (...) * In regards to elaborating on the difference between intimacy as experienced by feeling-beings (i.e., the affective intimacy of the ‘real world’) and the actual intimacy experienced by flesh-and-blood bodies only (i.e., sans identity in toto/ the entire affective faculty), in the world as-it-is in actuality, it will be instructive to first provide the context from which you selected that second paragraph of mine you quoted (with that paragraph highlighted for convenience). Viz.: • [Respondent № 27]: “Richard, I am currently perplexed about ‘caring’. You distinguish between ‘feeling caring’ and ‘actually caring’. I think I understand the distinction for the most part—‘feeling caring’ is caring based upon emotion —‘feeling’ that one cares, and ‘actually caring’ is something that happens ONLY in a PCE or when one is actually free. Now, this results in the somewhat shocking statement that the only people who actually care are those in pure consciousness”. • [Richard]: “Aye, it can indeed be a shock to realise that, for all the protestations of being caring, no one trapped in the human condition actually cares. However, apart from galvanising one into action, it is a liberating realisation as it releases one from the bonds that tie. There are always strings attached in affective caring”. (...elided...). • [Respondent № 27]: “I have similar questions about the distinction between ‘feeling intimacy’ and ‘actual intimacy’. Could you define exactly what you mean by those terms—as well as just exactly what you would say is going on when there is a ‘feeling intimacy’?” • [Richard]: “So as to circumvent coining new words I chose to make a distinct difference between the word ‘actual’ and the word ‘real’ (plus the word ‘fact’ and the word ‘true’) whereas the dictionaries do not: thus when I talk of the actual world, as contrasted to the real world, whilst both words refer to the physical world I am making an experiential distinction (a distinction in experience). I usually put it this way: what one is (what not who) is these eyes seeing, these ears hearing, this tongue tasting, this skin touching and this nose smelling—and no separative identity (no ‘I’/ ‘me’) inside the body means no separation whatsoever—whereas ‘I’/ ‘me’, a psychological/ psychic entity, am busily creating an inner world and an outer world and looking out through ‘my’ eyes upon ‘my’ outer world as if looking out through a window, listening to ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ tongue, touching ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ skin and smelling ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ nose. *This entity, or being, residing in the body is forever cut-off from the actual—from the world as-it-is—because its inner world reality is pasted as a veneer over the actual world, thus creating the outer world reality known as the real world, and experiences an affective intimacy (oneness, union, unity, wholeness) wherein the separation is bridged by love and compassion ... instead of an actual intimacy (direct, instant, immediate, absolute) where there is no separation whatsoever*. In other words, no separative identity in the first place means no division exists to be transcended”. • [Respondent № 27]: “Is there no intimacy in feeling intimacy?” • [Richard]: “Yes, there is the feeling of being intimate”. • [Respondent № 27]: “If that’s the case, why do you call it feeling ‘intimacy’?” • [Richard]: “Because that is what it is ... the feeling of being intimate”. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27d, 18 November 2002). Basically, I am sitting here (metaphorically) scratching my head and wondering just what it is you want to know which is ... (1.) not already explicated in that exchange ... and (2.) not already elaborated on in my ‘intimacy experiences’ response to Claudiu (posted nigh-on seven hours before this one of yours). Perhaps if I were to put it this way: a feeling-being, residing as they do in their ‘self’-created ‘inner world’, feels separated from other feeling-beings as a matter of course (who, whilst similarly residing in their own ‘self’-created ‘inner worlds’, nevertheless manifest as residing in that feeling-being’s ‘self’-created ‘outer world’) and seeks to bridge that ‘self’-generated separation in the only way a feeling-being can—affectively and psychically—such as to experience a feeling of being intimate (i.e., a feeling intimacy a.k.a. an affective intimacy), when successful, and even unto an affective-psychic union, a ‘oneness’ experience, when that feeling of being intimate, through having become a loving intimacy, then transforms itself, via what is known as “falling in love”, into a state of being called “being in love” (i.e, being love itself as “a state of ‘being’”). Meanwhile, here in this actual world—(where flesh-and-bodies already have ubiety and where nary a feeling-being nor any dichotomous inner-world/ outer world reality is to be found wheresoever)—any and all experiencing is intimate in its very nature by default (parenthetically expressed as “direct, instant, immediate, absolute”, in the above quoted paragraph), as in unmediated, and I have previously highlighted the all-inclusive nature of this by referring to “an actual intimacy with an ash-tray” for deliberate effect. Given that intimacy as typically experienced, in reality, by a feeling-being is so totally different to intimacy as bodily experienced, in actuality, then this impression you have (about how “most people still can’t tell the difference” between them) looks more like an impression in need of considerable review than anything else. And especially so as your speculation about the intimacy involved in “The Intimate Ambiance Experiment” (which to you “appears to be the intimacy of friends talking” despite having listened to very little of the recordings)—being based on the differentiation between a feeling-being’s intimacy, as typically experienceable, and intimacy as bodily experienced (else why ask for elaboration thereof and thus clarification thereby)—neither takes into account the very raison d’être of the experiment itself, despite such featuring in its title, nor the intimacy atypically experienced in the real world (so atypical, in fact, as to not feature in the listings in the various dictionaries). Here is a “thought for the day” (so to speak): unless you have or know of “friends talking” solely with the intent of [quote] “creating a felicitous/ innocuous/ intimate atmosphere via psychic currents (i.e. via each participant aiming to enjoy and appreciate each moment of being alive via (at least) affectively feeling good, thus automatically giving off general-sense-of-well-being psychic currents, to be picked up by the other participants and to reinforce their own general-senses-of-well-being, and so on in a feedback loop)” [endquote] then your “it appears to be the intimacy of friends talking” speculation similarly looks to be in need of considerable review as well. And especially so as you immediately go on to express how you, personally, are *still* desiring “the intimacy of close or genuine friendship where one can be honest about one’s true feelings and talk about anything” (which, bespeaking as it does of such “intimacy of friends talking” being yet to happen for you, suggests that the very nature of your speculation itself is based upon an ideal as to what constitutes an intimacy born of friendship). Re: What Near-Actual Intimacy Means Practically RICHARD to Claudiu: In the same way that excellence experiences (EE’s) were a notable feature of feeling-being ‘Richard’s virtual freedom experiencing circa March-September 1981, although of course not named as such back then, so too did intimacy experiences (IE’s) play a similarly significant role even though increasingly overshadowed by the insistent emergence of love – and, especially, Love Agapé – in the later months due to a marked lack of precedence and, thus, of any praxeological publications (nowadays made freely available on The Actual Freedom Trust web site) on the distinction betwixt the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté and the affectional intimacy of romance lore and legend. Just as the term ‘excellence experience’ came from feeling-being ‘Grace’ – who was exacting in evaluating ‘her’ differing ways of being a ‘self’ so as to not illude herself that ‘she’ was more progressive than was really the case – so too did the expression ‘different-way-of-being’. What gradually became more and more apparent was that a prevailing feature of ‘her’ differing ways of being was the degree of intimacy involved. The gradations of ‘her’ scale were, basically, good, very good, great, excellent, and magical perfect – whereby, in regards to intimacy, ‘good’ related to togetherness (which pertains to being and acting in concert with another); ‘very good’ related to closeness (where personal boundaries expand to include the other); ‘great’ related to sweetness (delighting in the pervasive proximity, or immanence, of the other); ‘excellent’ related to richness (a near-absence of agency; with the doer abeyant, and the beer ascendant, being the experiencing is inherently cornucopian); and ‘magical’ ‘perfect’ related to actuality magicality (neither beer nor doer extant; pristine purity abounds and immaculate perfection prevails) – all of which correlate to the range of naïveness from being sincere to becoming naïve and all the way through being naïveté itself to an actual innocence. [naming errors stemming from the original 10th of November 2009 post corrected]. The term ‘intimacy experience’ became part of the actualism lingo after a particularly instructive event in late spring, 2007, when at anchor upriver whilst exhorting feeling-being ‘Grace’ to no longer reserve that specific ‘way-of-being’ for those memorable occasions when ‘she’ was alone with me and to extend such intimacy to also include ‘her’ potential shipmates in order to dynamically enable the then-tentative plans for a floating convivium – which were on an indefinite hold at that time – to move ahead expeditiously (this was in the heady context of feeling-being ‘Pamela’ having already entered into an on-going PCE a scant five days beforehand due to ‘her’ specifically expressed concerns to me over the lack of intimacy between actualists). At some stage during this intensive interaction feeling-being ‘Vineeto’, who had been intently following every nuance, every twist and turn of the interplay, had what ‘she’ described as a “shift” taking place in ‘her’ whereupon the very intimacy being thus exigently importuned came about for ‘her’ instead. To say ‘she’ was astounded with the degree of intimacy having ensued is to put it mildly as ‘her’ first descriptive words were about how ‘she’ would never have considered it possible to be as intimate as this particular way of being – an intimacy of such near-innocence as to have previously only ever been possible privately with ‘her’ sexual partner in very special moments – when in a social setting as one of a number of persons partaking of coffee and snacks in a sitting room situation. Intuitively seizing the vital opportunity such intimate experiencing offered ‘she’ took over from me and commenced interacting intensively in my stead – notably now a one-on-one feeling-being interchange – and within a relatively short while feeling-being ‘Grace’ was experiencing life in the same, or very similar, manner as feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ (hence that 4th of December 2009 report Richard, List D, No. 14a, of mine about how these intimacy experiences are potentially contagious, so to speak, for other sincere actualists as the atmosphere generated affectively-psychically can propagate a flow-on effect). As for your query regarding how the intimacy experience (IE) differs from an excellence experience (EE): qualitatively they are much the same, or similar, insofar as with both experiences there is a near-absence of agency – the beer rather than the doer is the operant – whereupon naïveté has come to the fore, such as to effect the marked diminishment of separation, and the main distinction is that the IE is more people-oriented, while the EE tends to be environmental in its scope. In other words, with an EE the ‘aesthetic experience’ feature, for instance, or its ‘nature experience’ aspect, for example, tends to be more prominent, whilst with an IE the ‘fellowship experience’ characteristic, for instance, or its ‘convivial experience’ quality, for example, comes to the fore. In either type of near-PCE – wherein the experiencing is of ‘my’ life living itself, with a surprising sumptuosity, rather than ‘me’ living ‘my’ life, quite frugally by comparison, and where this moment is living ‘me’ (instead of ‘me’ trying to live ‘in the moment’) – the diminishment of separation is so astonishing as to be as-if incomprehensible/ unbelievable yet it is the imminence of a fellow human’s immanence which, in and of itself, emphases the distinction the most. For instance, the degree of intimacy experienced with minera, flora and fauna upon strolling through some botanical gardens with either near-PCE occurring – as in, with rocks, trees and birds, for example – is to the same gradation as when in a social setting such as a typical sitting room situation (as in, with ashtrays, flowers and humans, for instance) yet it is the ‘fellow human being’ element which exemplifies the already astounding diminishment of separation which ensues upon the blessed onset of this near-innocent intimacy of naïveté. And that latter point – the felicitous advent of naïve intimacy – is another way the IE differs from the EE inasmuch if a near-PCE is initiated via intensive interaction with a fellow human being/ with fellow human beings it takes on the properties of an intimacy experience (IE) whereas if the near-PCE is triggered via interacting intensively with the world at large (as in, an aesthetic experience, a nature experience, a contemplative experience, for example) it takes on the properties of an excellence experience (EE). The role they play in an out-from-control/ different-way-of-being virtual freedom (entitled ‘The Dynamic, Destinal Virtual Freedom’ on that web page to distinguish it from the still-in-control/ same-way-of-being virtual freedom entitled ‘The Pragmatic, Methodological Virtual Freedom’) is, essentially, in enabling the actualism process to take over. In effect, the actualism process is what ensues when one gets out from being under control, via having given oneself prior permission to have one’s life live itself (i.e., sans the controlling doer), and a different way of being comes about (i.e., where the beer is the operant) – whereupon a thrilling out-from-control momentum takes over and an inevitability sets in – whereafter there is no pulling back (hence the reluctance in having it set in motion) as once begun it is nigh-on unstoppable. Then one is in for the ride of a lifetime! (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 28 January 2016). * RICHARD to № 46: [...eight paragraphs elided...]. As the word ‘intimacy’ refers to the state or condition of being intimate – a word which comes from Latin intimātus, past participle of intimāre, ‘to make familiar with’ from Latin intimāre, intimāt-, ‘to make known’, from Latin intimus, ‘innermost, deepest’; from intus, ‘within’ – perhaps a more extensive dictionary entry than those quick ones will throw some light upon what it is you are wanting to know about intimacy per se and the intimacy of love. Viz.: [...elided...]. What is immediately noticeable is how the listings in the various dictionaries do not feature the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté. This is because there is a marked lack of information on the distinction between the intimacy of love and that naïve intimacy (as pointed out in the latter part of the first paragraph of my Message № 21835 (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 26 January 2016). Viz.:. • [Richard]: “(...) so too did intimacy experiences (IE’s) play a similarly significant role even though increasingly overshadowed by the insistent emergence of love – and, especially, Love Agapé – in the later months due to *a marked lack of precedence and, thus, of any praxeological publications* (nowadays made freely available on The Actual Freedom Trust web site) on the distinction betwixt the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté and the affectional intimacy of romance lore and legend”. [emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 28 January 2016). I also detailed how feeling-being ‘Grace’, who was exacting in evaluating ‘her’ differing ways of being a ‘self’, had gradations of scale in regards to intimacy (togetherness: → closeness: → sweetness: → richness: → actuality magicality) – all of which correlated to the range of naïveness from being sincere to becoming naïve and all the way through being naïveté itself to an actual innocence – in the second and third paragraphs[1] following on from the above. [naming error stemming from the original 10th of November 2009 post corrected]. (Incidentally, and purely as a matter of historical note, I first detailed the above gradations publicly on Tue Nov 10, 2009, in Message № 7476 (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 26 January 2016) which – along with 30+ other posts of mine – was deliberately censored via being deleted from this forum’s archives and thus potentially stricken from view forever, as part of a concerted effort to stop the global spread of peace-on-earth dead in its tracks, along with several proposals to prevent me from publishing copies of my ‘Yahoo Groups’ correspondence on The Actual Freedom Trust web site). [...thirteen paragraphs elided...]. ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• [1]What did not get included in those second and third paragraphs, regarding feeling-being ‘Grace’ and her rigorous gradations, was ‘her’ oft-repeated observation – regarding the onset of the third stage, on that range of naïveness, where ‘her’ gradation of ‘great’ related to sweetness – about a bifurcation manifesting where the instinctual tendency/ temptation was to veer off in the direction of love and its affectuous intimacy (due to a self-centric attractiveness towards feeling affectionate) as contrasted to a conscious choice being required so as to somehow have that sweetness then segue into a naïve intimacy via what ‘she’ described as ‘richness’ and graded as ‘excellent’. (Richard, List D, No. 46, 7 February 2016). ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• MARTIN: What does that mean practically then Richard? RICHARD: G’day Martin, Essentially, what “that” meant practically for feeling-being ‘Grace’ was how ‘she’ needed to be fully alert, upon the emergence of (if not prior to) that third-stage ‘sweetness’, to the attractiveness of the feeling of affection/ of ‘self’-centrically being affectionate – so as to not instinctually veer off into the intimacy of love – and thereby remain steadfast with delighting in the physical proximity of the flesh-and-blood body typing these words (i.e., “the other”, in the nomenclature of the third paragraph from the top of this page, that ‘she’ conventionally referred to as “my partner”, when living what ‘she’ laconically termed “my other life”, during ‘her’ interactions on weekdays with female colleagues, friends, acquaintances, &c., in a neighbouring village). The reason for drawing attention to this instinctual tendency/ temptation – (i.e., to become loving and, consequently, feel even closer to another ‘being’ because of its affectuous intimacy) – in the above Footnote № 1 is two-fold: • It is the natural and normal (instinctual and default) course of action: see Message № 20312 (Richard, List D, James, 8 August 2015) for an extensive, fully referenced, elaboration. • It has sufficient explanatory power on its own to account for that historic [quote] “insistent emergence of love – and, especially, Love Agapé – in the later months” [end quote] overshadowing of the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté, in 1981, explicitly referenced in that first paragraph of mine (re-presented at the top of this page) for its specific ‘forewarned-is-forearmed’ effect. (By the way: this natural and normal course of action, this instinctual and default tendency and/or temptation, must surely feature majorly in any plausible hypothesis as to why an actual freedom from the human condition is entirely new to human experience/ human history). MARTIN: Obviously I have to start with an affective intimacy rather than the actual intimacy you describe (as I’m currently a feeling being). If I’m with a women should I let myself like them rather than love them, so there’s an experience of closeness / intimacy based on liking rather than affection? RICHARD: Because “an experience of closeness / intimacy” is already happening before the onset of the third stage depicted in that footnote, as per feeling-being ‘Grace’s gradations of scale regarding intimacy (good:→ very good:→ great:→ excellent:→ perfect), which correlates to the range of naïveness from being sincere to becoming naïve and all the way through being naïveté itself to an actual innocence (togetherness:→ closeness:→ sweetness:→ richness:→ magicality), your query has prompted me to pull together my scattered references to those gradations, bring them up-to-date (upon spotting a misnamed term in the original 10th of November 2009 post), and lay them out sequentially as an aide-mémoire. Viz.: • Togetherness (‘good’) is the companionship of being and doing things together – be it shopping, cooking, dining, communicating, copulating, sharing, travelling, and so on – and pertains to the willingness to be and act in concert with another in the regular connubial/ conjugal way of feeling intimate. • Closeness (‘very good’) comes about due to feeling sufficiently safe/ feeling secure enough, emotionally, to intuitively enable an inclusive-of-the-other expansion of viscerally-determined personal boundaries; this is a normal type of intimacy wherein the regular way of feeling intimate is intensified and/or deepened. • Sweetness (‘great’) is when closeness entrées a joyous delighting in the pervasive proximity, or immanence, of the other (it is at the onset of this stage that a bifurcation manifests whereby the instinctual tendency/ temptation is to veer off in the direction of love and its affectuous intimacy due to the ‘self’-centric attractiveness of feeling affectionate). • Richness (‘excellent’) happens upon sweetness segueing into a near-absence of agency; with the controlling doer abeyant, and a naïve beer ascendant, being the experiencing of what is happening is inherently cornucopian (a.k.a. an excellence experience). • Magicality (‘perfect’) is whence neither beer nor doer be extant; pristine purity abounds and immaculate perfection prevails (a.k.a. a pure consciousness experience). So, bearing in mind the distinction betwixt the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté and the affectional intimacy of romance lore and legend, as clearly demarcated in the two preceding email exchanges, plus the footnoted account regarding feeling-being ‘Grace’s oft-repeated observation (about a bifurcation manifesting upon the onset of the third stage), then ... yes, steadfastly being as true to an imitation of the actual as is feasible (i.e., staying as faithful as is imitatively doable to actuality) and thus unwaveringly liking one’s fellow human creature/ one’s fellow human creatures – despite that instinctual urge, drive, impulse, or any other similarly blind appetitive craving/ longing/ desiring for an affective-psychic coupling or bonding form of consummation (i.e., merging, blending, fusing, uniting, or any other state of integration, unification, oneness, nonduality, and etcetera) – is a significant feature in the enabling of the IE’s delineated in the first of the two preceding email exchanges. MARTIN: Is it as simple as that? RICHARD: As your nominative pronoun “it” draws its referencing function from the way in which intimacy experiences (IE’s) come about as per feeling-being ‘Grace’s gradations of scale regarding the range of naïveness from being sincere to becoming naïve and all the way through being naïveté itself to an actual innocence – (this syntactically precise exegesis of the referent whence your query derives relevance is purely for the sake of clarity in communication) – then ... no, “it” is not “as simple as that” (in your case liking women rather than loving them; in ‘her’ case liking men rather than loving them) as some considerable finesse of focus is called for in order to discern this which is as entirely new to human experience/ human history as an actual freedom from the human condition is. Perhaps if I were to put it this way: untold billions of peoples down through the ages and across cultures have liked, rather than loved, another and/or others relationally, familially and societally – and yet even so the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté does not appear in the dictionary listings – to the point that it speaks volumes regarding the all-dominating puissance of blind nature’s rough-and-ready instinctual survival passions which, whilst self-evidently successful in its proliferative perpetuation of the species, nevertheless blindly dictate that no other course of action, vis-à-vis being intimate, than love’s affectuous intimacy will ever instinctually come about. Put succinctly: as all what blind nature is concerned about (so to speak) is the survival of the species – and even then any species will do as far as blind nature is concerned – then it is patent that blind nature cares not a whit about any such finesse of focus being articulated here. (...) * MARTIN: I sometimes feel exposed though and this can prevent a relaxed intimacy. RICHARD: First of all, the raison d’être of being intimate – and the word itself, coming as it does from the Latin intimātus, past participle of intimāre, ‘to make familiar with’ from Latin intimāre, intimāt-, ‘to make known’, from Latin intimus, ‘innermost, deepest’; from intus, ‘within’, clearly reflects this – is to be fully exposed, with nothing hidden, and thus able to be yourself, as-you-are, with no pretence. Obviously, for any such intimacy to be “a relaxed intimacy” then any and all pretence at being anyone other than who you really are – as-you-are in reality, that is, and not a societal entity, in ideality, as per acculturation and acclimation – will be given short shrift/ will fall by the wayside. As pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s) unequivocally evidence who you really are (as-you-are in reality), as distinct from what you actually are (as-you-are in actuality), as being nothing but the instinctual survival passions/ the feeling-being formed thereof – just like all the other 7.0+ billion pretenders busily pretending to be anyone other than who they really are, as-they-are, in reality – then the concomitant realisation that it is not your fault and how, like all the other 7.0+ billion feeling-beings, you were born thataway (per favour blind nature’s rough and ready survival passions), releases you from any shame/ embarrassment, and etcetera, for being who you really are, as-you-are, in reality. Furthermore, as who you really are (as-you-are in reality) has no existence whatsoever or howsoever either anywhere or anywhen in actuality – has no actual substance wheresoever or whensoever (i.e., is not only not actually extant but never was nor ever will be) – it is a lot of fun to be sincerely playing the game of finding out just what makes you tick (i.e., how you operate and function both in public and in private). MARTIN: Is the idea that if I’m sincere (as an guileless) that I have nothing to hide, and I can give up my hiding place? RICHARD: No ... “the idea” (as you put it) about being sincere – and the root meaning of sincerity is to be in accord with the fact/ to be aligned with factuality/ to stay true to facticity (i.e., being authentic/ guileless, genuine/ artless, straightforward/ ingenuous) – regarding aspirations for actuality is to be in accord with/ be aligned with the actual, per favour the PCE, as in, staying true to (a.k.a. remaining faithful to) actuality as experientially evidenced. The realisation that you are, essentially, the same as all the other 7.0+ billion feeling-beings parasitically inhabiting their host bodies – inasmuch you were all born thataway per favour blind nature’s rough and ready survival passions – means there is nothing unique about you, at the core of your being, which necessitates having “to hide” anything. Put differently, as your “hiding place” is the same-same “hiding place” as each and every other feeling-being’s “hiding place” (all 7.0+ billion of them) just who do you reckon you are really fooling, other than yourself, by remaining hidden not only from others but from yourself as well? In other words, how will you get to know yourself, intimately, unless you reveal yourself as-you-are in reality? Speaking personally, the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body circa 1980-1981 first began finding out just who ‘he’ was, as-he-was in reality, via the guise of being ‘an eccentric artist’ (a socially-acceptable way of being a bit of an oddball) due to the total lack of any precedent and, therefore, of any praxeological publications. (The first of the subsequent millions of words nowadays freely available on The Actual Freedom Trust web site had no public existence prior to 1997). It was such fun! And the more eccentric ‘he’ became – as more and more oddball facets of who ‘he’ really was, as-he-was in reality, emerged into play – the more ‘the others’ lapped it up! Talk about being encouraged by one’s peers to “just be yourself”, eh? Ha! What a hoot it all was – and quite the ‘Drama Queen’ on occasion as well – especially that ‘Latest and Greatest Saviour of Humankind’ part ... it would take some doing to top that (in the ‘oddball’ stakes) no matter what else you have hidden away there. MARTIN: And then I can be liking / naive? RICHARD: The way to be both likeable and liking – to be as near to innocence as is possible whilst remaining a ‘self’ – is to retrieve and resurrect your long-lost naïveté (locked away in childhood, per favour the scorn, ridicule and derision poured forth upon it by the worldly-wise cynics and sophisticates, due to an infantile/ juvenile inability to separate out being naïve from being gullible), nowadays made readily possible by virtue of your adult sensibilities, and operate and function in the world at large by being naïveté itself (thus by-passing/ over-riding that instinctually/ viscerally felt core-of-being centre of ‘self’). Actual Freedom Homepage
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