Others ~ Selected Correspondence

Instinctual Passions

I can’t believe it, I’m actually discovering now, how the spiritual enlightenment is such a delusion. Such a fantasy. The Truth. And it’s the ultimate truth of the human reality. Oh man. Damn! I have just saw a movie that my spiritual enlightened guru have advised me to see (Vanilla Sky) saying (the spiritual teacher) how the movie helps to see the concept of awakening from the dream of mundane living to the greater reality, The Truth, (to fall into the truth of my self) and I see that it’s such an ego trip. And the most fascinating and uncomfortable for now thing for me is that spiritual enlightenment is the ultimate truth of the human condition, and it shapes all the other believe systems and values.

Damn. And this genuinely enlightened guy talks about how after one have awakened to the real truth, everything is cool, life is just a dream, he can as well swing in his hammock to the rest of his life, he is the Self, live is a dream, he is enjoying that now he sees it’s a dream and others still don’t, and since he is not this body anyway, he just can wait until time finishes him. And I thought it’s the ultimate life can be!

And just a few months ago I’ve read his writings with such an enthusiasm! The excitement was that I’m heading to the final truth and I’ll find the truth after all and will be saved! Now I’m starting to see that it is such a self centred trip that is empowered by the instincts of wanting power and self glory, (to such an un-fun place) and those instincts (the drive behind the direction to self - who am the real I) aren’t even questioned!

Part of me can’t believe just how far away actualism and spiritual enlightenment are. The distance is actuality, this sensible life, this infinite universe vs. imagination. I see how heading toward actuality is such a turn away from the human reality and from the spiritual reality. The actuality is just here and the awakened self just sees the hierarchy of reality which persons like him give status quo to and stand on the top of this whole direction.

What an ego tripper I was, heading to a world that is more and more inner, accepting the physical universe and everything as a hologram, as some infinite equation, which in the final truth I am. But big part of me is still automatically heading there, but now the instinctual drive starting to be more noticed. Self sucks me in from being here now to an imaginable (real) source.

It’s seem like a very scary thing to give up all reality completely. No 104, 2.9.2006

Because the body/brain doesn’t not function when the affective identity is functioning.. Thought, cognitive memory, locomotion, etc, all that stuff that bodies and brains do.

I don’t really know how that works I guess, or how to explain it. I can just report that in a PCE, I was fully cognizant of how previously ‘I’ (the passional instincts) had been running the show and simultaneously how the body/brain had been there all along, and how ‘I’ previously running the show hadn’t stop the body/brain from being there (and being cognizant), and how the body/brain being there and being cognizant hadn’t stopped ‘I’ from previously running the show. No 101 to No 107, 30.8.2006

Yes. I think the instinctual passions are quite separate from the startle response. The startle response, while innate to the human as well as other animal species, would properly be called (I think) a reflexive behaviour. Sort of like the knee jerk reflex. I have often observed, for instance, when driving my car, that a car suddenly coming out of nowhere causes a momentary startling effect, a kind of jump all of a sudden. Evasive action is immediately taken to avert disaster. However, sometimes in the past the instincts have asserted themselves and a very short time later (measured in milliseconds) there may be an angry or outraged response (that *&#!! idiot, etc). This outbreak of anger is an instinctual passion in action, stemming from one’s identity.

There is a very clear separation to my way of thinking. It also seems to me that the startle response is first and the flow of affective feeling comes later. Probably it takes awhile for the chemicals to pump through the heart and reach the critical organs, etc.

The longer I have practiced Actualism, the more abated and dampened the instinctual passions have become, although not entirely absent – greatly diminished to the point where they scarcely bother at all. Given the driving analogy that I entertained above, it is possible on the roads of this nation and state to observe the baleful effects of what is commonly called ‘road rage’ on almost a daily basis. As I am an essentially law-abiding individual, I observe the posted speed limits, often driving carefully at or slightly below the posted limit. This seems to cause no endless degree of consternation and frustration to my fellow drivers, who sometimes go to ridiculous and dangerous lengths to get around me in their rush to get where they are going. I can only shake my head in amazement at the blatant law-breaking and rageful reactions of many people on the roads. I can assure you that I too have sometimes carelessly gone over the speed limit, been pulled over, and given warnings by the friendly constable. In general I have heeded these warnings and been much more careful to avoid going over the limit and/or getting tickets. I use this example of driving because it is something that probably a good many folks could relate to. Gary to No 16

This pleasant anonymity is delightful. It is release from obligations, affiliations, and identifications. I come and go with complete ease, whether about town, in the food store, at work, or in the neighbourhood, freed from anxieties about who I am going to meet, what they might think of me, etc. I am ‘another Bozo on the bus’ so to speak, a phrase used by Albert Ellis. With identity effectively diminished, although not eliminated in entirety, there is not that evaluation and comparison with others that stems from the social identity.

Yes, and not only that – my instinctual reactions to previously dangerous or fearful encounters have also greatly diminished and if they should occur for some reason, I can observe them, analyze them if necessary, and keep my hands in my pocket until the impassioned inner assault is over.

‘Greatly diminished’ is a good way to describe it and goes for me as well. Driving to work one morning this week, a car quickly backed into the road between two large snow banks, causing me to rapidly swerve. The car narrowly missed barging into me broadside. I muttered some curse words under my breath and experienced some anger. But I must say the reaction itself was curiously diminished and in a moment vanished. Although the swerving, defensive driving was there, naturally in order to avoid a collision, and an accompanying feeling of outrage or indignation for a split second, I am enough practiced at attentiveness to be able to nip these reactions in the bud.

I recall when I approached the AF list, that I had these questions about ‘self’-defence: whether one would be able to ‘defend themselves’ without having the instinctual passions running ... the familiar adrenalin-fuelled ‘fight-or-flight’ reaction. The persistence of the view that such primitive reactions are necessary in order to physically survive in the world is commonplace. I again found it recently stated in the synopsis of a book on Stress on the Internet, the view that not only is the ‘fight-or-flight’ reaction normal but definitely necessary for survival ... that without it one would not physically survive.

I think this needs to be challenged, and the propagation of this view rarely takes into the account the other side of the coin: that the ‘fight-or-flight’ reaction poses a great risk to human survival itself due to the aggressiveness at its core. It seems like without adrenalin-fuelled reactions, one thinks much more clearly and rationally about sensible courses of action. Considered action to address the situation is then the result. One is then neither anxiously fleeing nor aggressively attacking the perceived locus of the threat. The more attentive I am at recognizing my own life situation and reactions to everyday events, the more I think that the ‘fight-or-flight’ reaction is totally unnecessary.

The only situation I can think of where adrenalin would serve a useful purpose would be some great calamity, where assistance or help is needed immediately: for instance, if I vehicle were to roll over someone and they were trapped and could not get out, someone under the influence of adrenalin might perform feats of superhuman strength, whereas the absence of this emotive force would require other measures that would not be readily available.

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It is well to remember the primeval roots of this instinctual programming, stretching back into the mists of time, back all the way to unicellular organisms. That instinctual passions are deeply encoded and ‘self’ perpetuating is a hard point for many to lay a hold of ... unless they have had that ‘taste of the instinctual passions’ themselves. And in order to have that, the social identity must have been sufficiently weakened so that the ordinary constant backdrop of the ‘shoulds’ and the ‘shouldn’ts’ is no longer running. Then the instinctual passions themselves can be experienced much more clearly and directly. I have experienced these sometimes as bestial urges to kill and devour. These are not acted on in any way, shape or form. But one comes into direct contact with that which has been hidden and obscured, denied and covered up, dreaded and forbidden. The instinctual passions are then weakened in some manner by the very direct experiencing of them. Gary to Vineeto

One of the things that jumped out at me was your statement that humans are indeed ‘other animals’. How often is that overlooked. It is remarkable how persistent is the view that we are somehow not included in the animal kingdom. I was watching a program on the local public television station not too long ago and it was an interview with Janwillem Van De Wetering, a writer of some note who resides in the state where I live. He has been into Zen practice for a long time. He stated to the interviewer the oft-repeated ‘truism’ that ‘we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience’. I can well remember believing this myself. This put my head way in the clouds because I could imagine myself as having descended to earth, like Christ, having come from some celestial realm, rather than being essentially an animal and having much in common with other animals. That we share a large percentage of genes in common with our primate ancestors and also share a common animal instinctual background is completely overlooked by those who would fondly imagine that we can totally transcend our dark sides by realizing that we are ‘spiritual beings’, whatever that means.

The only other thing I would mention is that there is another easy way of understanding the nature of the animal instinctual programming that I have run across and that is to observe children. Granted that the children that I work with as a social worker have, in many cases, been horribly abused by their parents and caretakers, but they seem not to have developed the internal controls that are inculcated by society as morals, ethics, and values, and the underlying instinctual package is plain for all to see. The malice and sorrow of these little people, their fights with one another, their pain and suffering, is readily apparent. The children are very obviously in a primitive survival mode almost all the time. The destructiveness of these self-centred passions is something I wrestle with everyday in my work. Gary to Peter

This bit here is important because it is almost exactly the same thing that Vineeto is saying to me in another, more recent, post. I guess I have been looking too hard for the ‘reason or rhyme’ which is, then ... Gruebelsucht! Vineeto was saying that getting down to the bedrock instincts, once having gotten through the outer layers of moral and ethical stuff, one is subject periodically to emotional storms for no apparent reason, and one need not go all off looking for the cause because the cause is none other than ‘me’ – the instinctual programming that is none other than who I am. This makes sense. And it is once again why the actualism writings make sense because it has been my experience that ‘I’ am a lost, lonely, frightened entity seeking immortality. For survival, ‘I’ cling to the herd, and it is extremely disconcerting to experience these bedrock instincts in their full intensity without the intervening moral and ethical judgements, the ordinary ‘shoulds’ and ‘should nots’.

Another thing that made sense to me was what another writer, again I think it was Vineeto, said about the fear of falling off the plate of humanity. When I really seem to be getting somewhere with actualism, this fear seems to inevitably crop up because ‘I’ am afraid of ‘not being’. So there are still these atavistic fears of extinction, annihilation. But at the same time there is the thrill that comes with being on the cutting edge, so to speak, of the actualism process – the very process of examining and bringing the light of awareness to the rudimentary animal instincts, because that is what eventually dooms ‘me’ to extinction. This is the bedrock, primal instinctual program that all human beings are genetically endowed with. This is the exact point where one is really on one’s own. This is where it takes nerves of steel.

I am not getting any creepy, crawly feelings in my head or any other kinds of unusual somatic or psychic experiences, but I am experiencing a progressive and incremental freedom from the debilitating feelings, emotions, and passions that ran my life for so long.

I am coming to recognize these bouts of atavistic fear, never happening for very long anymore, as a sign that the method is working and reaping results. The social identity, with its beliefs, values, and morals is being effectively demolished, leaving the underlying layer of raw primitive instincts uncovered where they can be experientially examined and felt out as what they are – nothing but blind nature’s way of perpetuating the species as kill or be killed, screw or be screwed. A raw biological programming based on a biological and genetic imperative – survival of ‘me’ at all costs and in all ways.

One can, through investigating and experiencing the instincts in oneself, see them more clearly in other people. I had talked at a previous time of changing my scope of practice as a social worker – I got a job in a treatment program for children. I had never worked with children before and, for me, it was a daunting prospect because being with children always seemed to trigger me to re-experience the anguish, anger, resentment and hurts tied up in my own painful childhood. Despite years of insight-based therapy, I was still subject to bouts of convulsive crying, deep sorrow and debilitating depression at times.

It was heart-rending to go through these painful emotions and they made little sense to me. I had been told by supervisors that I ought to work with children, that it would be good experience, etc. Yet I was afraid to do this and I gradually began to want to be free from this fear. So, after I quit my last job, I went out and got a job working with children.

My current supervisor told me that she thinks I am a ‘natural’ at it. Since practicing actualism, I think there has been a progressive shrinkage in the emotional-memory part of my psyche and brain perhaps, whereas I do not experience the types of fears, angers, etc that I used to. My intelligence and common sense is free to make sense of the interactions with people around me. Working with children is a most satisfying and engaging way of getting an inside and intimate look at the Human Condition in action. It is rather an ‘eye-opener’ and one realizes that one is yet a part of this vast enterprise known as society and culture and that all ‘I’ have to offer is yet again the same tried and failed techniques that keep the instincts under control and keep us from going off the rails. Gary to Peter

Permit me to respond to the questions you posed in your recent post. You wrote:

Feelings, affect, and emotion definitely do not reside ‘in the head’, although there is admittedly a cognitive aspect to many feelings and emotions. Astute observation of and investigation into one’s feelings will reveal that feelings, in other words emotions, are definitely manifested through particular bodily sensations. In other words, they are felt in one’s body, not in one’s head. The expression ‘in the heart’ is a convenient shorthand way of referring to this very physical, corporeal experiencing of one’s emotional life. Another way to refer to it is one’s ‘gut feelings’. One’s guts are in their stomach, not in their head.

One of the things I have noticed whilst practicing actualism is that there is heightened awareness of not only the ‘heart-felt’ aspects of feelings and emotions, but also a much keener recognition of the many cognitive aspects to feelings. Quite often I notice particular thoughts arising in the mind which may be accompanied with particular bodily sensations (ie, of unease, of tension, irritation, etc.) Through continued and diligent application of the method of unremitting attentiveness to one’s experiencing in each moment, one can ‘nip the feeling in the bud’, so to speak, thus avoiding and side-stepping a full-blown outpouring of the feeling or emotion. One becomes increasingly more and more adept at recognizing the various subtleties of one’s ‘inner’ emotional life, and how one’s emotions affect not only oneself but those about one.

I know there may be a hue and a cry raised from the cult-busters on this one, fresh charges of ‘clone’ and other nonsense, but permit me to say that one’s primitive animal instincts were well in place long before one developed the intellectual and cognitive ability to form thoughts and beliefs. Again, one’s feelings are in the heart (so to speak) not in the head. However, there are many cognitive manifestations and accompaniments to having an emotion. Say, one experiences anger. Naturally, one has thoughts about that anger, thoughts about the situation in which the anger arose, thoughts about dealing with and handling the anger, as one has variously learned certain methods of either anger-suppression, ‘control’, or expression (i.e.. ‘assertiveness’). However, the anger is felt in the heart (or if you prefer, the body) as a corporeal experience, is it not?

I agree with you on your point that there is a part of ‘me’ that still gives exalted interpretations of a feeling, particularly a good feeling. This part has been conditioned too as you say by one’s particular religious and spiritual background, whether Eastern, Western, or somewhere in between. However, the ‘good feelings’ (i.e.. compassion, love, exultation, gratitude, etc, etc) are none other than direct derivatives of one’s animal instincts (as nurture and desire). In other words, one finds that all of one’s feelings eventually trace back to or derive from the basic animal instincts, of which there are four: fear, aggression, nurture and desire. Gary to No. 33

I think these terms are generally taken to mean the same thing. Except that sensation also involves feeling. For instance the sensation of being cold also involves certain feelings (a cold feeling in one’s hands, or a chill feeling in one’s body). So sensation can involve a conscious feeling or sense impression in the tactile sense. But as the terms are commonly used, feelings and emotions mean the same thing.

I think of the primitive instinctual passions as being the root of the tree, whereas the feelings and emotions are more finely differentiated branches and leaves. I don’t know if it is correct to say that they are exactly the same. There are generally four basic human instincts – fear, aggression, nurture, and desire – as we talk about it on this list.

And these four basic instincts give rise to a great number of more finely differentiated feelings states. For instance, aggression gives rise to feelings of annoyance, irritation, abhorrence, dislike, antipathy, etc. The list of feeling-type words is quite long, but the core, underlying rudimentary emotional experience directly stems from the instincts. By utilizing attentiveness and sensuousness, one can become intimately attuned to one’s feelings and emotions, and when this happens, I have found that certain instincts and feelings arise willy-nilly, without apparent cause or trigger – they happen whether one wishes it or not. I think Peter has made this observation before. Also, one need not go back very far to understand what caused or was connected to the arising of a certain feeling or emotion.

The amygdala as I understand it is part of the so-called reptilian brain that mediates and activates one’s instinctual passions. It has been explained as operating a quick-scan for danger and activating the instinctual passions and emotions when danger is detected. It happens much quicker than conscious recognition and representation by the cerebral cortex. This happens almost subliminally, without thought, planning or preparation. It is a down-and-dirty survival program that all sentient creatures are genetically endowed with. It is remarkably effective in promoting biological survival of the organism but at a dreadful cost. Gary to No 33

I wanted to respond to this passage from a post you wrote a while back. I’ve been taking my time in answering these posts, and I think that instead of trying to respond to each and every point, I shall respond to whatever occurs at the moment to be the most interesting point raised. Rather than getting bogged down in a log-jam of posts to be responded to (I count 3 at the current time), I will write when the urge strikes me, rather than feeling obligated to respond to everything that is said to me. You wrote before:

Central to many religious and spiritual belief systems, Christianity in particular, is the necessity of engaging in ‘good works’ and the performance of certain charitable and ‘humane’ acts in order to effect salvation from what is believed to be the misery of an earth-bound existence. Along with other values instilled in me in my upbringing was the unremitting belief in the importance of service to others and charity to those less fortunate. In the Human Condition, this belief is translated into action by the performance of various ‘do-good’ activities, whether they be in the professional realm, by making charitable contributions, or in the finding of some suitable ‘humanitarian’ interest. As you point out, these activities are ‘self’-gratifying and ‘self’-satisfying to the extreme.

When I first took on actualism, it seemed to be an extremely self-centred and very ‘uncharitable’ (is the only word I can think of) activity. It was difficult to square what you are saying, particularly in this passage here, with my deep-seated belief that one must do something to ease the suffering of others and contribute materially to building a better world. Hand in hand with this attitude was the resentment of whoever or whatever was the cause of the enormous suffering of humankind. At various times the impetus to serve and the impetus to destroy, oppose, do away with, held equal sway over my imagination. Not surprisingly, in younger years, I was attracted to radical politics of the left. Later I saw that these were merely a convenient way to camouflage my hatred and aggression, and that involvement in these activities only served to fan the flames of hatred within me. Then I swung to the other extreme: identifying with the lily-white beautiful sentiments, passions, and grand emotions of the spiritual life. I became obsessed with the feeling that I was channelling Divine Love and radiating it throughout the world. The fact that I was still prone to resentful outbursts and murderous thoughts/feelings did not concern me much because I was sure that the Son of God was redeeming me according to His plan.

So now, while practising actualism, when I am moved by a feeling of wanting to help others through some ‘socially responsible’ activity, that feeling comes under investigation like other feelings and passions that come up. I should say that there is nothing wrong with helping others – I enjoy helping people if I can, that is, if they are asking for help or needing help. But, efforts to ‘steer Humanity’ this way or that are motivated primarily by ideological convictions of the thinker/ feeler, whether they be religious belief, political belief, or ‘humanitarian’ motives. If one is moved by these convictions and beliefs, one is acting out an instinctual agenda: one is moved by suffering to apply humanitarian aid through compassionate relief efforts. Some people make a lifestyle out of being moved by the suffering of others, like the woman mentioned in Richard’s Journal who was moved to tears by the sufferings of Humanity.

In actualism, one can actually do something about ending suffering. One begins the fascinating business of investigating and eliminating the root cause of suffering and malice – the genetically endowed instinctual passions – through demolishing the accrued social identity one has build up through learning and conditioning. Then the fascination becomes an obsession when one sees that this method actually yields results – one is incrementally more benevolent, gay, and carefree. Through eliminating what causes suffering – in oneself, by eliminating ‘me’ – a momentum begins that may well carry one to the ultimate: self-immolation. So the understanding that there is no more fruitful contribution that I can make to my fellow human being than ending malice and sorrow in this flesh-and-blood-body is not an intellectual understanding – it is born of the very practical successes and discoveries that one is experiencing along the way by asking oneself again and again ‘How am I experiencing this present moment of being alive?’ Gary to Peter

I get some definite reminders every now and again. I have some bleed-throughs of the instincts from time to time. For instance, I experienced a temper tantrum this week. I have not left the Human Condition, I am still in it. I have to ask myself why these things happen, and I have to admit that I am discouraged when I act childishly petulant and peevish. It is a most uncomfortable state. But I find that rather than ‘snowball’, these negative moods rather quickly dissipate once I get back to running the question. I am writing this so that others will not think that Actual Freedom is some kind of piece of cake, something easily accomplished. It’s darned hard to get right down to it. I have always had the greatest difficulty with anger. I am subject to ‘stuffing’ anger and can easily end up quite unawares that I am actually very angry and then ... kapow! it comes tumbling out.

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When one is ‘temporarily free from one’s beliefs, feelings and passions’, bouts of the instincts can extremely educative of the difference between raw emotions and the so-called ‘self’-less state of apperception as in the PCE. It becomes easier and easier to discern the difference between feelings, beliefs, passions and pure sensuousness. If anybody thinks, however, that Actual Freedom is a walk in the park, I think they are liable for a big surprise. ‘I’ will do literally anything to survive. Gary to Vineeto

Yes, people certainly do glory in their passions. It seems, in the view of most people I have talked to, that passion is what justifies life entirely – like I said, without passion, one is ‘dead’, lifeless. You’ve got to have passion in this life in order to survive, so the thinking goes. Without it, you would be ‘spineless’, people would walk all over you.

Without it, you would not experience joy, happiness, love, or affection – all the things that seem to make life worth living. Nothing could be further from the truth, because happiness, the way we talk about it and experience it here, is purely sensual, without feeling and passions. In Actual Freedom, happiness and harmlessness is totally devoid of feelings and passions. It seems that many people do not understand at all that it is quite possible to be happy and harmless without feelings and passions- in fact, it is impossible to be happy and harmless with feelings and passions. Gary to Peter

In a recent post to No. 5, I told of my addiction and treatment for it in 1985. Both before and after treatment, I attended AA. Particularly in the years immediately following treatment, I was a zealous AA member. In recent years, and particularly since having a good relationship with a woman and setting up house together, I have slacked off on my attendance of meetings. Now, in fact, I am deeply questioning the methodology of AA and the meetings and people themselves. I don’t mean openly questioning, as in dialogue with others or argumentation. I mean questioning to myself the spiritual values and identity that I adopted in my active years in AA. I have found it increasingly difficult when I do attend AA meetings. I usually attend once or twice during the week in the town where I work as a social worker. When people get to the part, as they inevitably do, where they relate what God has done for them or praise God in gratitude for getting them sober, I can scarcely relate. I can relate in the sense of having made these grateful proclamations myself many times in the past, but I no longer feel that way. I feel at times that I am in the midst of a Christian Revival meeting, with people getting up on the soapbox to praise the Lord and exhort other believers to do the same. This feeling has intensified in me since finding out about actualism and particularly since I have deliberately exerted myself to understanding and jettisoning spiritual values, practices, and beliefs. I feel the methodology of AA is all wrong. I know my AA friends would probably tell me I am heading for a drunk (which I seriously don’t believe to be the case), and that I have got it all wrong.

My addiction is something that I now regard as being almost totally instinct driven.

How could it be otherwise? Why would a person such as myself, with basically a decent upbringing and many social and educational advantages, be driven to nearly drink and drug themselves to death, not to mention the crushing despair, suicidal depressions, and nearly constant homicidal tendencies? There are things about AA that I appreciate, however, one of them being that the founders of AA, in my opinion, correctly recognized the role of the instinctual passions driving the alcoholic’s life and relationships. They correctly discerned and set up a practical method of investigating the instinctual passions, at least in part. But the continual infusion of the spiritual approach into AA has set the whole methodology of inquiring into the instincts through a searching and fearless inventory on its head, and thus I am beginning to see that the entire thing is rotten to the core, to use an expression I have heard on this list. The method of turning oneself in abject surrender over to God or a Higher Power almost certainly dooms the method, and the resulting investigation of the instincts becomes only a surface skimming around, not going to the required depths needed to eliminate them at their root. Gary

There is much more to one’s background than conditioning ... one begins to comprehend that all the different types of socialization (peer-group conditioning, parental conditioning and societal conditioning in general) are well-meant endeavours by countless peoples over innumerable eons to seek to curb the instinctual animal passions. Now, while most people paddle around on the surface and re-arrange the conditioning to ease their lot somewhat, some people – seeking to be free of all human conditioning – fondly imagine that by putting on a face-mask and snorkel that they have gone deep-sea diving with a scuba outfit ... deep into the human condition. They have not ... they have gone deep only into the human conditioning. When they tip upon the instinctual passions – which are both savage (fear and aggression) and tender (nurture and desire) – they grab for the tender (the ‘good’ side) and blow them up all out of proportion as an antidote, as compensating pacifiers ... and the investigation ceases. It takes nerves of steel to don such an aqua-lung and plunge deep in the stygian depths of the human psyche ... it is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. This is because below or behind the conditioning is the human condition itself ... that which necessitated the controls (conditioning) in the first place. Thus the conditioning can prevent the investigation of the human condition itself.

I seem to remember the statement ‘instincts on rampage balk at investigation’. For the most part, then, we are content to, as you say, paddle around on the surface, avoiding deep investigation into ourselves. We want to have an image of ourselves as reasonable, respectable people rather than the bloodthirsty killers that we are. Pardon the hyperbole; perhaps that is putting it too starkly.

We may never have actually snuffed out a life, directly, but the potential for actual violence is there in the instinctual drives, the ‘human condition’ that you refer to. Yet the instinctual animal passions are there for a reason, are they not? What is their basic function or raison d’être? Once necessary for survival, why have they continued on?

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My sense is that equity and parity do not come unless one is singularly vigilant to the violence in one’s life and in one’s relationships (of course one’s life is one’s relationships). That would be watching oneself very carefully in every situation and basically seeing every movement as it comes up.

Yes ... one’s aggression is primal and hijacks, subverts and sabotages equity and parity time and time again.

So, you are saying aggression is primal. Would you say aggression is innate, implying in-born in the human species? Or is it acquired? If it can be extinguished, as you seem to claim it has been in you, does that not imply that it has not been hard-wired into the human species, that it may have a largely acquired characteristic?

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For instance, I became aware of interrupting a new female co-worker in her speech. I noticed this a couple of times and it bothered me. I was trying to dominate the discussion. I thought about why I was doing this, I became really aware of it, and it stopped.

If I may ask? When you became ‘really aware of it’ (through thinking about why) did this awareness reveal the feeling or feelings driving your interaction? If so, was it the discovery (of being run by the affective faculty) that ended the ‘dominating the discussion’ activity through its exposure? Or was it a thought-realization that it is not nice to dominate another (as a social theory)?

Well, I was able to see the fear (fright) driving this outward behaviour. There was fear involved in it for me. It was not that I just suppressed the behaviour because it is not ‘nice’. If that were the case, I believe it would pop up in some other form.

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Naturally, there is a dark side of democratic institutions that is well known: the history of oppression and slavery, actual slavery, political and economic slavery, that democratic ideals, cleverly managed, conceal. And there is the actuality that we are quick to the trigger, to pick up a machine gun or a grenade launcher when the music stops and infringe on the ‘rights’ of others in territorial conquests or economic competition.

And here you have put your finger on the nub of the issue: the spontaneity of equity and parity that comes with the recognition of being fellow human beings is hijacked, subverted, sabotaged. And by what?

There are a myriad of factors involved, undoubtedly. We could speculate endlessly on these. Greed is a factor: I think I am lacking and you have something I want; therefore, I am going to take it from you to acquire it for myself. Returning to what you said in terms of the ‘theory of mind’, it would appear to be human conditioning as a cause. In other words, greed is organized by thought, by conditioning. Primal aggression, on the other hand, is disorganized, ‘blind’ in a sense, but given shape and form by the social conditioning.

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There are in-built hormonal and neuronal mechanisms that mediate the fight-or-flight response of the organism to danger and extreme stress. These are permanently altered when one has been the object of violence or exposed to extreme stress.

Yet there are no child-hood hurts extant in this flesh and blood body ... my experience demonstrates that nothing in the affective faculty is either ‘hard-wired’ or permanent.

Would you say your experience is exceptional, indeed, unusual? I was referring to research on PTSD that shows that there are actual hormonal and neuronal changes following exposure to extreme stress. Probably I was wrong to say that these are ‘permanent’ – that is jumping too far. But once these hormonal and neuronal mechanisms are chronically altered, it seems to me it makes interrupting the cycle of hyper-arousal and psychic numbing extremely difficult. Perhaps I should not use the word ‘interrupt’ – that implies something continuous. What I hear you saying is that there is a discontinuity. Am I correct?

When you say ‘there are no childhood hurts extant in this flesh and blood body ...’, are you saying the memories of hurt have been extinguished? Gary to Richard

It is such a monumental thing to have happen: this event is the pivotal point wherein 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 in one human being come to an end permanently. In a word: innocence.

Some say that chucking socially contrived roles, chucking the divisions made up by thought, such as national divisions, and even divisions such as man, woman, child, etc. leads to freedom. It occurs to me that something more sinister than thought-induced division is at work in the kinds of monstrosities that you have identified: rape, child abuse, tortures, domestic violence, etc, etc. In the past, you have talked on this list of the extinction of the instinctual passions of fear and aggression. You have pointed out that social conditioning is designed to keep these instincts under wraps but (and I think this is what you are saying; I may be wrong) that it is the primitive instincts that create all this havoc. I am interested in knowing from you the extent that you would endorse the view that the solution to these horrors is merely throwing out thought-created (made up) social concepts, in other words, a freedom from the known, or do you think that something more deeply embedded, intrinsic to human beings, is at work in producing the level of violence that we see? Gary to Richard

Yes, of course, that makes more sense. I felt rather a fool after I sent my first post requesting more information. That is because there is such a wealth of information in the AF and Third Alternative website that there is scarcely any need to go further afield. I did obtain an introduction to Evolutionary Psychology off the net which perked my interest. I can see some obvious similarities to some of the things we talk about here. You are right that much scientific writing is not only incomprehensible to the average layman (me) but also replete with misleading emotional-moral-ethical perspectives.

Interestingly, the information from Wiener, entitled Young Men More Likely to Wage War, is a corroboration of a view I have had for a long time: that there is nothing more dangerous than an 18-19 year old male.

That point gets around to what I really want to talk about in this post, which is my recent discoveries regarding the instinctual passions. I feel I have begun to experience, in a more directly intimate way, what previously I had only had very brief, rather superficial glimpses of: the primitive passions at work in me, the so-called battle between Good and Evil. I awoke yesterday morning in a state of anxious dread. As I investigated into it, I found what I will call a fear of annihilation, a naked dread that I wanted to get away from as much as I could. There was raw libidinal energy also swirling around – I seemed to go from fear to sex in a heartbeat and it was very powerful.

I feel I am getting now a direct look at the caldron of seething passions that are ordinarily contained by the thin veneer of morals and ethics. My most obvious spiritual practices were the first thing to go overboard, but as I continue in this work, I am uncovering the less obvious and infinitely more subtle morality and ethicality that is designed to keep these instincts in check. I have noticed that my way of expressing this in language to myself is definitely archaic: words like fornicator, lecher, warlord, beast, wolf, etc. come into my consciousness and I feel I am peeling away the thin layer of 20^th century civilizing influences and getting into a substratum of morality that harkens back to the Christian Dark Ages, or at least it seems that way. There is so much baggage of Christian religion and western civilizing influences that make up the social identity to be dismantled. It is quite evidently thousands and thousands of years old, and deeply, deeply ingrained and embedded.

I have also been having quite a surge of energy with these developments. It seems like some great energy is being liberated inside of me. Something that had been contained and burdened is becoming unburdened and I am feeling marvellously alive.

And there is, for the most part, not that fear that it needs to be clamped down on.

Perhaps this is what I was experiencing yesterday morn, the fear of engulfment, that this force, this primal energy will wash over me and be my undoing. It is an exciting time right now and I feel that I have come upon something of major importance. Gary to Peter

What I am discovering is that any attempt to uncover the instinctual passions that operate in all human beings will be met with fierce resistance, and that includes ‘me’.

As ‘I’ am these instinctual passions, ordinary morals, ethics, and societal values keep me away and ward me off from direct examination of these seething passions, primarily for fear of going off the rails. Aggression, for instance, I have experienced as something so threatening, so powerful and dynamic, so primitive and raw, that it seems almost that it must be controlled. Last night I had, for instance, the most violent dream with the most bizarre violent content. It is interesting to trace all this back to its source and see the primitive instinct of aggression rearing its ugly head again and again. I think with practice and persistence, one gains confidence in withstanding these storms of emotions and realizing that they are not going to destroy one. But it is powerful stuff. As Richard has said it is not for the weak in the knees. In the same way that there is a thrilling aspect to fear that one can use to one’s advantage in ‘self’-investigations, I think there is a similar aspect of aggression, so normally suppressed, that can be used to one’s advantage. Becoming aware of one’s own innate and latent aggression can energize the process of eradicating one’s own malice and sorrow. Gary to Peter

I thought you might be interested in the following article, which appeared in yesterday’s newspaper –

BABIES as young as four months old are capable of experiencing and showing jealousy, according to new research presented today. Contrary to conventional psychological thinking that infants under two are not able to show such a complex emotion, the study confounds the idea that infants exist in blissful innocence.

Even babies who did not cry when their mothers showed love to another infant registered some distress.

‘It has always been thought that until the second year of life babies could not experience jealousy which implies a sense of others rather than self,’ said Dr Riccardo Draghi-Lorenz, the psychologist who conducted the study at Portsmouth University. ‘By chance I noticed a baby of four or five months showing what looked like jealousy and I decided to find out.’

He will tell the International Conference of Infant Studies in Brighton that the study involved 24 mothers and babies aged four to six months. First, their mothers talked with other adults. Then they picked up another baby and showed it love; cooing, cuddling and tickling. ‘When mothers were talking to adults, three out of 24 babies became distressed and started to cry. When the mothers showed love to another baby, 13 out of 24 babies did. Some of the mothers felt quite guilty,’ said Dr Draghi-Lorenz. ‘All but one of the other 11 babies showed some level of jealous reaction.’

I also happened to catch a quotation on the news ‘as it appears the emotion of jealousy is inborn it can be regarded as natural and not a bad emotion’ – or words to that effect. Alan, 19.7.2000

It has been another intense week for moi. Had my regular cancer check operation on Monday, still active, 2 tiny tumours removed. So it has been a very painful week physically, a couple of very down days (even the rain ‘got’ to me once), no attentiveness and no concentration. Cheered up considerably today (Friday) with the abating of the physical discomfort. Below is an indication of my thoughts this week.

Instincts now seem to be the territory in which ‘I’ dwell. Prancing on instinctual ponies called fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Now on fear – fear for ‘my’ very survival, now riding on aggression – to face the fear, now riding on desire – desire for harmless happiness, now on nurture – self sacrifice for the good of all. So, ‘who’ am ‘I’ now – what is it that is left to ride these ponies and what is it that holds ‘me’ here prowling in the rarefied atmosphere of the ‘world’ of the instincts? In terms of the instincts as allies as said somewhat figuratively above, fear is the poignant one – seems to be the foundation stone. I have the thought that in the end one stands in the face of this the strongest of the instincts (and in the only place left to stand) until what ... the cows come home ... is one simply ‘scared to death’ ... ‘til the amygdala circuitry blows a fuse.

My point here is that I don’t really know what it is like to face the final boogie man with a full willingness to ‘be with it’ for long enough. ‘I’ still ultimately look for an escape from the fear rather than stand toe to toe – so to speak – and for the full duration of whatever must occur for ‘my’ final dissolution to take place. But ... not to worry because there seems to be opportunities galore to practice.

I just reread Richard’s account of a glimpse of actual freedom and ‘his’ final disappearance into the permanent state of actual freedom and the accompanying states of fear. Is it that I must ultimately accept so fully in the end that who ‘I’ am is fear – must ‘I’, in the end ‘identify?!’ with this fear so fully that ‘I’ as an observer or controller in any way ‘exit’ the ‘real’ world, finally through fear, the primal ‘stuff ‘of which the self is made? Because any ‘me’ that is left now to manage these intense states of instinctual fear, any ‘me’ who desires to watch, escape, manipulate, alleviate this essential fear is that pesky little self again, doing tricks to keep saving its ectoplasmic butt. Ah well, next stop on this train of thought may be the twilight zone – so I think I’ll leave it at that. Mark

Yes, this makes so much sense to me now. If addiction did anything at all for me, it showed the me the depths to which one can sink, despite the so-called ‘civilizing’ influences of parents, family, church, state, etc. The only framework into which I could put it was the dualizing influences of ‘Good’ vs. ‘Evil’. The experience of active addiction was, in these terms, diabolical to say the least. I never understood that it was possible to completely eliminate the root cause of so much unhappiness and suffering in the world and in oneself, to totally transcend the opposites. It still seems quite incredible to me that there are people who are finding this very thing out for themselves. It takes a gutsy person to sit out ‘the storms of fear’ and to acknowledge the ‘lust to kill without denying it’. Had not the social identity with its’ spiritual values, mores and practices been in the process of being dismantled, one would abhor this vision of their ‘sinful’ nature and automatically grab for the remedial pacifiers of Love, Truth, and Compassion. Gary to Vineeto

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