This action of prizing apart and eradicating my spiritual identity was for me the most difficult part of the journey. I was torn apart between the terror of leaving a familiar world and the fascination and common sense of actualism. The psychological tension of not knowing which was the ‘right thing’ to do became so strong that for a short period my normal-spiritual worldview gave way and I had a pure consciousness experience. I discovered the world that Richard had talked about; I discovered a world beyond my beliefs, anybody’s beliefs – the actual world.

The actual world is this physical material world when you see it with eyes untainted by feelings and beliefs, unpolluted by passionate ‘self’-centeredness. It is vibrant and alive, magical and abundant, infinite and unblemished. This actual world is always here, always now and once you enter it you recognize it immediately as your destiny.

Your entry ticket to the actual world – question everything, particularly your own beliefs and passions, the human condition in action as yourself.

It is a grand adventure.

I have been thoroughly enjoying and what more, benefiting by all the recent discussions in the list. Thanks to No 38 and No 37. And as always, to Richard, Vineeto, Gary and Peter.

I wanted to add my observation. There is a clear dichotomy as to what is actual and what is not in the actualist’s writings (Richard, Vineeto, Peter). And they have no use for what is not actual, which is only there to be exposed. And what is actual is arrived through PCE, not logical reasoning, though the latter is an aid. Is this correct? I noted this particularly in the dialogue between No 37 and Richard where No 37 tries to bring out the good aspects of imagination, whereas Richard has no use for it, as he is with the actual, which is more delightful and malice-sorrow free. More than logically seeing why ‘not actual’ is not so good (though seeing logically can be useful), it seems to be important to see that the ‘actual’ is beyond comparison with the other.

Yes, and the only way to understand what is actual beyond doubt is to remember one of your pure consciousness experiences, which everybody has had at some time in their lives. It could even be a memory of childhood when one experiences the world, very often nature, as magical, sparkling, vibrant, abundant and pristine.

I remember when I was about 8 years old and strolling through the meadow behind my parent’s house. It was summertime and the grass was about chest-height for an eight-year-old, the summer flowers were in full bloom and the grass itself was blooming. I lay down and completely disappeared in the high grass and all I could see were the tips of the swaying grass and the clouds drifting by in the sky. Everything was perfect, there were no worries in the world and I was engulfed by the magic of the meadow and the sky.

Later on I tried to have this same experience again, by simply lying down in the grass and I thought that I couldn’t have the same experience because the grass wasn’t the right height. No matter what time of the year I tried, I didn’t manage to repeat the same innocent, carefree and delightful experience that I had on that particular day. Only when I learnt about actual freedom and understood the difference between a pure consciousness experience, normal every-day experience and a spiritual experience, did I understand that on this particular day I had a glimpse of the perfection and purity of the actual world.

There are a few simple guidelines to recognize a PCE when you remember one. In a pure consciousness experience, your senses are heightened and you experience peace and wellbeing that comes from the absence of ‘me’, worrying about ‘my’ survival. There might also be a sense of déja-vu as you realize that ‘I have always been here as this flesh-and-blood body’ and everything in this actual world has always been perfect, is perfect now and always will be perfect. The critical difference to any spiritual experience of altered states is that in a PCE there is a complete absence of any feelings of awe, gratitude, beauty, love or grandeur. For reference you can check out various descriptions of pure consciousness experiences where several people have described their PCEs.

Once you have experienced the absence of your ‘self’ in a pure consciousness experience you know beyond doubt that ‘the ‘actual’ is beyond comparison with the other’.

Although, the suggested method of trying to recall a PCE to get out of stuckness only helped in that it brought the obstacle into focus.

This is great success, don’t you think? To have ‘brought the obstacle into focus’ and to know what the obstacle is about which keeps you in ‘stuckness’ is an excellent starting position for investigation. Now this obstacle can be identified, labelled and experientially explored, using apperceptiveness to detect its reasons, connections, source and implications. This has nothing to do with the Buddhist method (Vipassana) of labelling a feeling and then dis-identifying from it. 180 degrees opposite again. An actualist labels the feeling to get the bugger by the throat, to explore it as a scientist, to check out its silliness or sensibility, to determine how it is part of the Human Condition and then, when all is said and done, to permanently step out of having that emotion. This final stepping out often results in a pure consciousness experience.

Last night I was contemplating about Alan’s description of his ‘reflective contemplations’, ‘practising the actual’ and arriving here in the actual world and how this records with my experience. Further Alan says:

‘Reflective contemplation’ is the way to not only get out of stuckness but also to discover what is preventing one experiencing this moment. I realised that this is what had occasioned all of my PCEs – this is what leads to wonder at the joy of it all. Alan to Vineeto, 29.4.2000

Recalling step by step my own process into a PCE last night I found that contemplation serves to focus on the direction – being happy, dismantling the self, comprehending enough of the real world in order to see the self in operation and to step out of it. Contemplation always helps to focus on and remove obstacles and then, with no feeling or belief interfering I can build up the sensuous awareness of this moment of being alive. The wind on the skin, the sounds around, the wiggling of my toe, visual delights, tastes and smells ... Increasing sensuousness tips over into gay abandon, the self as both the controller and the feeler are abandoned and bingo ... I am experiencing what I had previously only reflectively contemplated about – this moment of being alive as a flesh and blood body only.

The gay abandon can, of course, also happen without the reflective part, as a nature experience, in sex or any time when sensual pleasure is sensuous enough to tip over into the self-less experience of being alive as a flesh and blood body only.

The next night the fear happened again but was all much less dramatic, the temptation was there to delve into the fear, the physical symptoms were ready to emerge again, but this time I didn’t believe in the actual danger and it quickly went.

Then appeared another temptation – to divert into a journey into the psychic world, with all its ‘deep and meaningful’ insights and glorious ‘enlightenments’. But I had explored that area enough, I wanted to see what actuality there is without fear and beyond or beneath the psychic world. What I found is a magic, a stillness, unemotional, without excitement and strangely enough without ‘form’. The best description I could come up with is the definition we have here for an idiot: ‘All the stubbies are there for the six-pack, but the plastic between them is missing that would keep them together!’

Senses are operating but nobody is seeing or hearing, and then there is no difference between me and the desk that I am seeing, no distance, no ‘I’. Last night I experienced life beyond ‘being’, in a strange way hollow, but very alive and sensate. Now I can slowly and diligently examine the ‘plastic between the stubbies’, what it consists of, because recognized and understood it disappears. Sometimes it consists of fear, sometimes a vague feeling, sometimes a sense of continuity, of having past and future and definition...

Richard: I cannot help but prick up my hears where you say ‘strangely enough no form’. I am presuming that physical objects were still extant as you say that you were seeing without fear and the psychic world ... and thus by ‘no form’ you do not mean the metaphysical ‘formlessness’. Do you mean that there was no form to an ‘I’ as in an on-going identity ... like you write about in your next paragraph? Are the ‘stubbies’ the days gone by since birth – all events and occurrences – and the ‘plastic that would keep them together’ is this ‘me’ that is the ‘form’ that was missing in this experience?

With the stubbies I meant in this incident my actual senses including the brain, fully functioning, better than with the ‘plastic’ of emotional interpretation around them, but they had no definition or identifiable form, hence the description ‘strangely enough no form’. It is more the idea of there having to be a form that was missing. I seemed to consist of the pieces of information that the senses gave me, the seeing, hearing, thinking, but there was no continuity, no person as such, no identity.

Your use of the word ‘definition’ brings me back to your ‘strangely enough no form’ description above and I relate ‘definition’ with ‘outline’ ... as I wrote in Article 9 of ‘Richard’s Journal’.

Yes, Richard, I agree with your term ‘outline’, it is a very good description of this fictitious entity. It seems to come on so silently, that if I don’t turn my attention to it I hardly notice that it has slipped in yet again, pretending to be someone, while only the experience of the particular bit of the universe is happening. Right now it takes a lot of remembering and awareness to discern it, or better, to focus on the actual experiencing of coffee, food, sound, or whatever I am doing.

I used to get a bit confused by actualist’s descriptions of ‘feeling good’, ‘feeling fine’, and ‘feeling excellent’, and tried to differentiate how this contrasted with other feeling and emotional states because after all ‘feelings are feelings’. I still cannot determine if the feeling-good part of the so-called excellence experience or PCE is a feeling or a sensation. My memory of PCEs I have had is that there is certain exhilaration associated with it. Not a manic type high at all, or even a drug-like euphoria, but there certainly is an exhilarating, ever-fresh, yes, vividness is a good word, and there is an exceptional clarity to it all which is the chief difference so far as I am concerned. The PCE is characterized by an incredible clarity of perception and sensation. The most ordinary and mundane objects are fascinating in their own right and everything is imbued with a clarity and liveliness that is missing in the ordinary ‘normal’ state. So the experience itself must be one chiefly of sensuousness and not emotion. Nevertheless one can speak of ‘feeling excellent’ as the word ‘feeling’ can also refer to the faculty of sensation. I’ve probably taken something here and over-complicated it all, but I thought I would mention it. When both bad and good feelings disappear, something so exceptional happens that everything else pales by comparison. The realization that ‘I’ am the only thing standing in the way of this magical perfection and purity turns what is initially an interest into a full-time obsession to experience the best that life on this planet can offer.

Only in a pure consciousness experience is my feeling-fed self temporarily absent. The rest of the time ‘I’ am a feeling being, however inconspicuous. ‘My’ best choice is to feel good – or to feel excellent – which is the closest I can get to experience the world as it is. Feeling excellent means that no specific emotion spoils my experience of the day, thinking only happens when needed for the particular action I am involved in, my senses are heightened compared to normal-day reality and I immensely enjoy simply being alive. However, a simmering hesitation, a vague holding back, an awareness of a controller, a slight sense of ‘me’ lurking in the background marks a very noticeable difference to a ‘self-less’ experience.

A PCE, as you have described it, is not a feeling-experience. It is magical purity, experiencing everything in its directness, a stillness that has always been here, with psychedelic colours and glimmering textures, distinctly multi-layered sounds, sensations without filter and I am aware of sensately and reflectively experiencing the world and I am also aware of being aware. This apperception adds the depth and magic to everything experienced, fear disappears and I am no longer separate from the universe that lives me. For me, a PCE always starts as if a curtain rips in my head that then opens the view to this magical wondrous being here.

Actually, I often then find myself in love, in peace with the world as it is. It is not unlike the love for a woman because I have the need, the desire to be here, to enjoy it right now; the way it is. There is a certain feeling of intensity, sensual perceptiveness. There is also the sense of being undisturbed by hostile people or events. It makes me very comfortable and happy. I think it is what you refer to as a PCE.

Richard writes about a PCE –

In a PCE one is fully immersed in the infinitude of this fairy-tale-like actual world with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity where everything and everyone has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous, scintillating vitality that makes everything alive and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence – the ‘actualness’ of everything and everyone – for one is not living in an inert universe. Richard’s General Correspondence, No 9

In order for a PCE to happen one’s identity (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) go into abeyance and perception becomes apperception (which is the mind’s awareness of itself being conscious as distinct from ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious). Apperception is an unmediated awareness ... a pure and clean consciousness unpolluted and uncorrupted by any identity whatsoever. Richard, List AF, Alan

My first pure consciousness experience happened after 3 months of emotional turmoil while I was trying to figure out how I could live with Peter and partake in his new discovery of actualism and at the same time not give up my spiritual beliefs and friends of the spiritual community I was involved in. It became more and more obvious that this was impossible, as I increasingly felt torn between two opposites. Within my ‘normal’ way of thinking, feeling and believing there was no solution to my dilemma, and the need for a solution became increasingly vital for my mental sanity. Further, my intent to not settle for less than the best made any compromise with myself impossible. Then, one evening while reflectively contemplating upon my conundrum, my whole belief system crashed – I popped through the fog of beliefs and saw the actual world for the first time in its – at first shocking – purity and simplicity.

In a PCE I am not in love with the world. In a PCE ‘I’ am temporarily in abeyance, thus freeing this body for a short period from the impact that my instinctual passions together with my beliefs have on sensory and reflective perception. There is no ‘me’, an instinctive feeling entity, assessing the situation and dividing the world into friendly and hostile people or events. Rather, I can look at the Human Condition in toto and I understand how it is operating in its totality, as myself and therefore in everybody, because I can see it from not being afflicted by it for a certain period of time.

A pure consciousness experience is vital for an actualist in order to experience the actual world in one’s own right so as to not have to rely on merely believing what any of us says or writes. A PCE is the touchstone by which I ascertain my direction towards my goal – to live a PCE 24hrs a day, everyday.

However, for me the path to actual freedom so far has always been about ‘the meantime’ – what do I do when I don’t have a PCE? In the meantime is where life is happening and this moment is the only moment I can experience being alive. To waste this moment of being alive by being grumpy, miffed, miserable, vindictive, dreamy, ‘out-of-it’ or fearful is simply wasting this moment. If I want to become actually free from the Human Condition then in the meantime I have a job to do. Actualism is certainly not an effortless path.

In the meantime I examine what prevents me from being happy and harmless right here, right now, whatever the circumstances. In the meantime I dig into my belief systems, my social conditioning, my automatic instinctual program whenever it interferes with feeling excellent. In the meantime I am using all the insights I could gain from my pure consciousness experiences in order to tackle the Human Condition in me. In the meantime I am virtually happy and virtually harmless 99% of my time. In the meantime I am now having the time of my life.

Yesterday I had the first really clear and unequivocal PCE since starting with this and I thought to write about it a bit. Previously, I had had what I call ‘mini-PCEs’. They lasted only very brief periods of time, say an hour or so, and I wasn’t really sure it was a PCE. Yesterday, however, I had no doubt at all about the experience, as it accorded in all details with what I have read about PCEs.

Another thing I noticed about the experience was how any object, even the most ordinary and mundane, instantly had become amazingly interesting and wonderful to look at. Everything I looked at had a life of its own. Everything appeared fresh and new. Everywhere I looked there were sensual delights to behold. Another thing was that there was some kind of very pleasurable sensation located near the solar plexus region. I find this difficult to convey but it was a very satisfying visceral sensation. I shall have to, in future, see what I can notice about it.

What serendipity. I remember at the beginning of my path to Actual Freedom, PCEs would often occur when I had dug my teeth right into a topic and there was no turning left or right, because all the ‘tried’ had failed and my usual escapes were simply too embarrassing to me. Finding myself between a rock and hard place with the grim intent to find the solution to my particular puzzle at the time – for instance ‘what about God’, I experienced a suddenly ‘whoosh’ and a veil in my perception opened to reveal the actual world where everything was imminently clear, obvious and self-evident. At other times PCEs would sneak up on me, so to speak, when life was easy and carefree, pleasurable and delightful and I suddenly noticed the magical quality that makes the PCE stand out from feeling excellent. You have described the difference really well in your letter to Richard.

I found it useful to gather as much descriptive memory from my PCEs to have a touchstone for what my aim is, and I also look for as much information as possible about the various aspects of my ‘self’ while having a PCE. Standing outside the ‘self’ in a PCE, so to speak, lets me see clearly and without doubt what facet of ‘me’ I want to tackle next, what overall understanding about the human condition I can extract, what part of my ‘self’ I am stuck with or how it all works both in me and in humanity as a whole. Most of the stunning insights that happened in my early PCEs about Human Nature and my conditioning have now been forgotten, as all of the realizations and understandings are integrated in my daily life and are experienced as normal as going shopping. All the seemingly complex realizations and understandings about the human psychology and psyche had only one purpose – to get out of it, to leave it behind.

*

As I said above, in order to understand what Actual Freedom is about it is essential to remember a pure consciousness experience. It is vital to investigate precisely those ‘direct experiences’, and determine when and where and how the experience is being polluted by the ‘self’, by the feeling and spirit-ual interpretation of the actual sensate, sensuous experience. It is a fascinating adventure to explore one’s sensate experiences with the magnifying glass of attentiveness and heightened awareness and to discover the ingredients that invariably occur to stop or prevent one’s direct experience of the actual world.

I selected this excerpt because it reminded me of some of the questions I have about the PCE. I was wondering yesterday what made the experience fade away or diminish. Conversely, I found that I could refresh the experience by running the ‘How am I...’ question and by increased attentiveness to the feelings that contaminated the experience. A couple of times, the experience would come back in full bloom in all its’ lustrousness. The PCE stands out in such dramatic contrast to ordinary, every-day perception and sensation. I wonder if, as one advances on the path to Actual Freedom, they become more frequent, more a part of the landscape, so to speak? Or are they relatively rare? I gather from what Richard writes that his experiencing is like having a permanent PCE 24/7. How wonderful that must be! Which reminds me of another key feature of the experience – no affective element, no feelings, no disturbance whatsoever-there was nothing that could disturb the experience, take anything away from it, or detract from it. In other words, there was no feeling ‘me’ to spoil the experience.

How amazing.

Yes, how amazing. It is great news – a confirmation that actualism works for another human being via reading the words when the information is combined with the stubborn and pure intent to find out for oneself. As the actual world is already always here one is bound to stumble upon it by diligently removing the obstacles in front of one’s ‘psychic eyes’ that we have inherited by default – through no fault of ours.

As for the frequency of PCEs I cannot make a definite statement. By the very nature of the process the PCEs of my first year of actualism stand out in my memory because they were in stark contrast to the emotional turmoil and the mental confusion that was then my normal state of mind. Now, as life has become infinitely better to the point of being virtually perfect, PCEs are rather rare, silently sneaking up and softly disappearing and only a few stand out in my memory as a stunning experience. When and how and why PCE occur is one of the things in actualism that I cannot make sense of yet and maybe never will. I have a few guesses as to why the intensity and frequency of PCEs has changed – one reason could be that I expect my final extinction to happen at any time and this expectation causes ‘me’ to be on guard. Another speculation is that PCEs are a glitch in the brain-circuit and, as the brain becomes rewired, those glitches, born out of contrast, are less frequent. A third option is that PCEs now vanish out of memory the moment they are over. However, as there are no records about the ‘workings’ of PCEs in actualism other than reports from Peter, Alan and me, this is simply not enough information for a scientific judgement. Frequency and memory of PCEs could merely be a personal attribute.

However, excellence is definitely a stable part ‘of the landscape’. There is hardly any interruption now in being excellent, having a perfect day, every day – only once in a while I get to work out some emotional hiccup.

Gary, I don’t know if that answers your questions or if my information is of any use to you. With your own outstanding PCE you are now becoming your own expert and it will be your reports that are contributing to the research we are conducting on the project of ‘Freedom from the Human Condition’. It’s the latest science, people simply have not twigged to it yet...

Pure Consciousness Experience: A PCE occurs when ‘I’ as ego is temporarily ‘stunned’ and ceases to have any control. It is more than a difference of degree when compared to the peak experience, it is almost as if one has stepped into a different dimension. One can no longer even recall the problems one had, but a moment ago. Everything seems alive, sparkling, as if one has eyes in the back of one’s head; there is a three hundred and sixty degree awareness and all is self-evidently clear. This is knowing by direct experience – one knows that life is actually perfect.

The affective content of the PCE varies according to the extent to which ‘me’ (as soul) is prevalent. At one end of the scale is the ‘epiphany’, the mystical experience, the Satori experience. Feelings of love, bliss and rapture are common and one can even imagine oneself to be the saviour of mankind. This reaction is largely caused by the person’s environment, upbringing, social conditioning and experiences. It is this experience which gives rise to the ‘Awakened Ones’ and, should (rarely) the ego be permanently expunged, the ‘Enlightened Ones’.

In the interest of having clear, definable terms, a pure consciousness experience is just that – an experience of pure consciousness, where the ‘self’ is temporarily absent, completely. This means that there is no affective experience in a PCE whatsoever, no ‘love, bliss, rapture’ or the imagination of being ‘the saviour of mankind’ . Whenever there is any feeling or emotion experienced whatsoever, it is not a PCE. For most people, the experience may well start as a PCE, but invariably ‘I’ will step in and seize the experience as ‘mine’ and interpret and feel it to be a spiritual experience. One needs to understand and practice actualism to be sufficiently aware of one’s beliefs, feelings and instinctual passions in order to avoid the trap of Enlightenment on the path to Actual Freedom.

The way the Human Condition works, ‘this reaction’ of ‘love, bliss and rapture’ is not merely ‘caused by the person’s environment, upbringing, social conditioning and experiences’, but it is the instinctual passions – ‘me’ at my very core – that inevitably cause ‘me’ to grab the experience as a way of ensuring not only my survival, but also my immortality and my ultimate power. On the path to Actual Freedom, those instinctual passions need to be investigated deeply and thoroughly because they constitute what ‘I instinctually know myself to be’. These instinctual passions are the core ingredient of the ‘self’ whereas one’s social identity of ‘environment, upbringing, social conditioning and (life) experiences’ is merely the outer layer. Unless these instincts are seen through, understood and weakened by experiential investigation, ‘I’ will seize every opportunity to re-establish my identity, particularly after the ‘time-out’ of a pure consciousness experience.

If the social conditioning and beliefs are reduced or eliminated, the PCE takes on a new meaning. One no longer interprets the experience as religious or spiritual and can see that ‘I’ am all that is standing in the way of the perfection and purity being evident. Then, one has the opportunity to avoid the pitfall of ‘enlightenment’ and heading straight ahead for an actual freedom.

What do you (and anyone else) think? Magnificent adventure this pioneering business, is it not?

‘The opportunity to avoid the pitfall of ‘enlightenment’ and head straight ahead for an actual freedom’ only presents itself when one has experientially explored and understood the role that our instinctual passions, ‘me’ as soul, play in the whole spiritual scenario of enlightenment. The difference between PCE and ASC is not merely a matter of religious or spiritual interpretation and conditioning; a pure consciousness experience is 180 degrees opposite to a spiritual experience. In order to become actually free, it is not enough to reduce one’s social conditioning and eradicate one’s spiritual belief system, one then needs to dive deep into one’s psyche and investigate the core of one’s being – ‘me who I instinctually know I am’, the animal instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. Any shortcut at this point would inevitably lead to Being – ground on the Rock of Enlightenment.

As Richard wrote earlier about PCEs –

In order for a PCE to happen one’s identity (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) go into abeyance and perception becomes apperception (which is the mind’s awareness of itself being conscious as distinct from ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious). Apperception is an unmediated awareness ... a pure and clean consciousness unpolluted and uncorrupted by any identity whatsoever. However, it is very common for the feeling of ‘being’ (identity as ‘me’ as soul) to re-establish itself whilst the sense of ‘doing’ (identity as ‘I’ as ego) permits an interregnum. This is where the PCE devolves into an ASC. This happened to me in 1980 (as described in the second paragraph of ‘Appendix One’ in my ‘A Brief personal History’) and – Lo! and Behold! – a year later, I was to become enlightened for the next eleven years. It is the instinctual feelings coming rushing in to take over the experience that does the damage ... and self-aggrandizement reigns supreme. Richard, List AF, Alan, 1.12.1998

As for ‘reconciling the experiences [you] had before encountering actual freedom with what [you] have subsequently discovered’ – I can only say that, after investigating all of my past beliefs and my spiritual conditioning, any reconciliation of my former outstanding experiences with a PCE is impossible. Before encountering Actual Freedom I simply did not know that one could eliminate one’s emotions, that there is more to extinguish than my ego and that there is more to the Human Condition than social conditioning.

However, it has been of great benefit to remember in detail some of my outstanding experiences of my spiritual days in order to investigate the cunning entity in action. For this exploration I was more interested in the differences between my former experiences and the pure consciousness experience in order to determine at what point of the experience ‘I’ was taking over and what were the reasons that a stunning experience turned into an indulgence of feelings.

Now, having become familiar with the intensity and power of my instinctual passions, I agree with Peter’s theory that atrophying them in a period of ongoing excellence experiences is the most promising approach of success –

My experience is that sufficient time is needed living and experiencing a state of virtual freedom such that the fuses don’t blow when the whole ‘signalling’ system collapses or atrophies. In practical terms, this is a period of virtually no ‘signalling’ from the amygdala and virtually no personal ‘self’-centred thoughts. When one checks out by asking ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ and there is no ‘signalling’ , no sadness, no being peeved, no boredom, etc. and no mental worries or anxieties and no desire to go looking for them, then one simply ‘cruises and grooves’. Just a note that I am talking here of the latter stages of the process – in the early days one’s life is so full of discoveries, investigations and insights into the Human Condition and how one functions that one can barely catch breath with the often tumultuous excitement and pace of events.

This latter period of ‘nothingness’ can be daunting at first but gradually an existence devoid of any ‘real’ world and ‘spiritual’ world meanings and values becomes delightfully delicious and sensually rich, not as a feeling but as a magnificent and overwhelming actuality. This ‘nothingness’ can be seen as a milder version of Richard’s angst or mental anguish period when all ‘signalling’ had ceased. Peter to Alan, 4.1.2000

Finally, to emphasize a clear distinction between an ‘excellence experience’ and a pure consciousness experience, I endorse Richard’s latest correspondence –

The rule of thumb is to ask oneself: is this it; is this the ultimate; is this the utter fulfilment and total contentment; is this my destiny; is this how I would want to live for the remainder of my life ... and so on. It is up to each and every person to decide for themselves what it is that they want ... as I oft-times say: it is your life you are living and only you get to reap the rewards and pay the consequences for any action or inaction you may or may not do. <snip>

It may be relevant to report that my companion, who is exacting when it comes to grading herself/her experiences, has classifications ranging from good, very good, very, very good, excellent ... and PCE. She is most particular to not confuse an excellence experience with a perfection experience ... and the most outstanding distinction in the excellence experience is the marked absence of what I call the ‘magical’ element. What I describe as ‘magical’ she prefers to call ‘entering into the fourth dimension’ (not to be confused with the Hindu fourth state known as ‘Turiya’). This is where time has no duration as the normal ‘now’ and ‘then’ and space has no distance as the normal ‘here’ and ‘there’ and form has no distinction as the normal ‘was’ and ‘will be’ ... there is only this moment in eternal time at this place in infinite space as this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware (a three hundred and sixty degree awareness, as it were). Everything and everyone is transparently and sparklingly obvious, up-front and out-in-the open ... there is nowhere to hide and no reason to hide as there is no ‘me’ to hide. One is totally exposed and open to the universe: already always just here right now ... actually in time and actually in space as actual form. This apperception (selfless awareness) is an unmediated perspicacity wherein one is this universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being; as such the universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude.

In a PCE one is fully immersed in the infinitude of this fairy-tale-like actual world with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity where everything and everyone has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous, scintillating vitality that makes everything alive and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence – the ‘actualness’ of everything and everyone – for one is not living in an inert universe.

It is one’s destiny to be living the utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this eternal, infinite and perpetual universe actually is. Richard, General Correspondence, No 9

This is the nub of what I am getting at – the affective response during the experience. I agree with you that, after the experience, ‘‘I’ will step in and seize the experience as ‘mine’ and interpret and feel it to be a spiritual experience’. I am discussing what happens during the experience – when ‘I’ am not extant. It may be that we need another definition for what these experiences are and you went on to define ‘peak experience’:

‘The affective response during the experience’ proves that the experience is not a PCE. Affective means there is the feeling ‘me’ present, alive and kicking as in. ‘When ‘I’ am not extant,’ when there is no ‘self’ whatsoever, there won’t be any affective response.

*

Peak Experience is obviously a generic term used for a wide variety of exceptional experiences, which can range from being very happy to feelings of great love or beauty, from pure consciousness experiences to epiphanies, Satoris or full-blown Altered States of Consciousness.

But, this is too wide a definition for what I am talking about.

Exactly, it is because the term is so wide – that’s why we no any longer use the term peak experience. For actualism, I found it enough to make the distinction between any affective experience with the ‘self’ in action and a PCE with the ‘self’ in abeyance.

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My sole interest is to eliminate all of my ‘self’, both the normal ‘I’ and spiritual ‘I’, in order to be the actual I, ‘what I am’, this flesh-and-blood body brimming with sense organs. As such, any experience that is not a PCE, however unusual or seductive, needs to be thoroughly investigated. That’s what makes the pursuit of Actual Freedom so simple.

The difference between the spiritual search and actualism is that spiritual people give great significance to a temporary absence of the ego in a out-of-the-ordinary experience, Satori or ASC, while for an actualist such absence of the ego only signifies the unabated and uncontrolled presence of the soul, the animal-instinctual part of the identity. Whenever one removes only one’s personal ‘self’, the ‘ego’, with one’s ‘soul’, the animal-instinctual ‘self’, still intact, this will result, by its very nature, in the ‘soul’ running amok, unfettered by a personal ‘self’, inevitably evolving into an impersonal ‘Self’.

To assume can be to egotistically presume superiority.

The other day I had a pure consciousness experience where I understood once again that the Human Condition of malice and sorrow is indeed the particular flavour of human beings on planet Earth. I experienced a broadened awareness that gave me an overview of planet Earth floating in space, observing all that is going on and seeing its common flavour of humanity, whatever the place, race, gender or age. Human beings, by their very nature are inflicted with the genetically-encoded instincts that produce malice and sorrow. They pervade every thought and action, are the fuel for every emotion and passion and make ‘life a bitch and then you die’. The social identity and the instinctual ‘self’ are intrinsic to and a result of the evolution that took place on this fair planet, the third rock from the Sun, in the Milky way galaxy, in the infinite universe. Yet now the evolution has reached a point where humans can free themselves from the now unnecessary ‘appendix’ of the social identity and the animal survival instincts. What serendipity!

In this PCE I could also see that even though a staggering six billion people think, believe, feel and act within these parameters of the Human Condition, the actual world is nevertheless infinite, eternal, perfect, silent and magical. The actual world is always and everywhere present underneath the doom and gloom of our ‘self’-centred perception and can be discovered any moment. In such a PCE I can see that it does not matter that right now there is only Richard who lives in the actual world 24 hours a day, every day. This blithesome, magnificent and benevolent actual world exists always and everywhere around us, it is always here, always now and immediately experienced when I leave all of humanity behind.

Out of this and similar experiences, I don’t need ‘to assume’ – I know the Human Condition in its totality, in myself and therefore in everybody, because I can see it from not being afflicted by it for a certain period of time. Such experience is the opposite of ‘egotistical’ because a PCE is only possible when the whole ‘self’ is absent – in spiritual terms, both ego and soul. And yes, such an experience, even for a short period of time is vastly superior to any experience within the Human Condition. That’s why I want to live it every day, 24 hours a day. I don’t need to ‘presume superiority’, I simply write from the memory of the superior state evident in a pure consciousness experience and from the ongoing experience of Virtual Freedom.

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I must point out that I am not ‘just’ writing, but like you, I am writing from experience.

Because Actual Freedom is so new and radically non-spiritual, it often happens that it is difficult to distinguish between Actual Freedom and the teachings of ‘wisdom’ that have been around for centuries. Having had several experiences of PCEs and of Altered States of Consciousness I can say that I am an expert on the pitfalls and seductions of the spiritual world. If you are interested you can read about my exploration into death and the psychic world.

If by ‘I am writing from experience’, you mean life-experience, it can only be an emotional experience from within the Human Condition and, as such, is worth sharing to enhance the inquiry. If you mean you are writing from an experience of a PCE, I can only go by what you write and your words and descriptions don’t convey the experience of a self-less state.

In our exchange before last you used expressions like: ‘There being no thinker there is however an awareness remembered... I watch the whole interaction without being a watcher ... timeless sense of PCEs ... In my experience I can only attempt to convey a flavour, style or ambience of the ‘thing’ rather than the emotional or intellectually factual remembrance.’

To me these expressions are indicative of a spiritual experience, and are not describing a pure consciousness experience. In a PCE one is this flesh-and-blood body only with the clear awareness of what is actual. Everybody who can remember a PCE can recognize when someone describes the purity of the actual world. In a PCE the ‘real’ world does not exist because the ‘real’ world consists of ideas, beliefs, emotions and passions produced in the head and in the heart. In a PCE there is no ‘emotional ... remembrance’ because emotions are the very substance of the self.

Re: PCEs, excellence experience, etc. I wrote to Richard, a while before the site went down, about an experience I felt was a PCE. After reading all the information that has been going back and forth the past week, I am sure that it was. I won’t go into great detail, but for an hour the whole affective feeling layer of me was peeled away and I experienced directly with no feeling sense mediating, mitigating, or interfering in any way. Everything was remarkably vivid, like if you had a very dirty window and then cleaned it. Answering the question, was this the ultimate, is this how I want to experience my life from now on? Yes, without doubt.

What serendipity! A PCE, and the memory of a PCE, is an invaluable guide for an actualist, it is the ultimate authority to ascertain and confirm one’s aim in life. My first PCEs often came as a shock, firstly as to the remarkable difference to my normal experiencing of life, and secondly to the obvious implications that they had for ‘me’, my identity. The PCE makes it startlingly and devastating clear that all that is preventing me from experiencing perfection is ‘me’, who I think, feel and instinctually know myself to be. If I want to experience perfection 24 hrs a day, ‘I’ will have to disappear completely.

• I can’t remember a PCE, is that a problem.

There is topic-page on Pure Consciousness Experiences, that I have put together. It contains descriptions and definitions of PCEs, how to recognize a PCE and distinguish it from an Altered State of Consciousness, and suggestions of how to induce a PCE.

I myself didn’t have a PCE until four month of intense investigations into actual freedom, but I had enough understanding that the old solutions didn’t work and I had the intent to investigate something new.

However, to become actually free it is very helpful, and eventually vital, to remember a PCE in order for you to have clear experiences of the freedom that you are aiming for. But don’t let the worry of not remembering one right now spoil your enjoyment of the moment or diminish the intent of your investigation into your emotions and beliefs. Sooner or later, if you are sincerely, honestly and persistently inquiring, a PCE will sneak up on you, possibly after you have seen through a particularly ‘dense’ belief. When it happens, it is good to look out for the ‘good’ emotions of gratefulness, bliss, love and beauty so they do not to take over, thus inviting the ‘self’ back in and destroying the purity of the peak experience.

At the same time that I was watching this I was distinctly aware of my thinking and my journeying in this magical ‘inner’ world. At one stage I even experienced what it is to be mad. I understood the temptation of staying forever in an easy, illusory world of psychedelic wonders, where the mad person is the magician in his own world enjoying the power and safety of his dream. But anybody who dares to question this dream has to be considered a deadly enemy. However, I was always aware that I had the choice to stay in this imaginary world or not.

When I tried to tell Peter about my experiences and insights his simple response gave me quite a shock. ‘But all this is just inside your mind, it is simply your own interpretation, it may appear to be real, but it is not actual.’ Yes, that was true. I could easily see that I was inside the ‘mind’, roaming about in the different chambers of my assembled beliefs-systems, trying to find the one that was ‘right’ and ‘true’ – while in fact, I was just having a little grander and unusually complex perception of this huge labyrinth of thoughts and feelings! I could see more of my ideas or concepts and other people’s ideas, but they were simply ideas and feelings. None of them had any relevance to the actuality of the physical world!

In seeing the fact, everything stood still and the whole construct of beliefs suddenly disappeared. Then, for the first time in all my years of the spiritual search, I experienced several hours outside of the ‘psychic world’. Being outside, I could see that this ‘world’ is a huge, all-encompassing construct, created and held in place by the dreams, beliefs, bonds, power-battles, emotions and different spiritual ideas of all of humanity. Everyone is part of it, weaving and reproducing bits of this ‘psychic carpet’.

In regards to your description of your psychic nightmare I agree with Peter here. All the madness is inside the mind. Human beings are all walking around in a cloud of mental noise and madness.

You seem to have conveniently overlooked that I was describing a pure consciousness experience, after I stepped out of the ‘psychic nightmare’:

In seeing the fact, everything stood still and the whole construct of beliefs suddenly disappeared. Then, for the first time in all my years of the spiritual search, I experienced several hours outside of the ‘psychic world’.

A pure consciousness experience is when fear, generated by the instinctual programmed self, stops and is not replaced by any other feeling, be they bliss, gratitude, being present, Grace, Oneness, Truth, Love, Compassion, ‘Surrender’, Beauty or Wholeness. Simply because the self is temporarily absent, because all feelings have ceased, one is able to experience the magnificence, magic and abundance of the actuality of it all. One then is the universe experiencing itself as a flesh-and-blood sensate and reflective human being. There is no sense of ‘being’ whatsoever. There is only this actual world and the overlaying real world and spiritual world of feelings, imaginations and instinctual passions can clearly been seen for what it is – a passionate illusion.

From the self-less perspective of a PCE, the self can be seen, labelled, explored and discriminated as the overlaying chemical-induced self-centred structure that encapsulates each human being in a shell of survival fear and the ensuing instinctual passions and emotions. In these moments one can thoroughly understand what one’s psychic structure consists of – an intricate web of conditioning, feelings, beliefs and fervent passions complete with vivid imagination.

It is good to be precise with words. A clear understanding can lead you to a realisation, which can lead to a peak-experience. Then you can experience for yourself the actuality of what we are talking about – the purity, the obviousness, the fairy-tale like magic of the ‘self’ being temporarily absent.

Ahhh, now you lose me. Clearly you are saying that there is more for me to experience. Clearly you believe I do not experience the actuality of what you are talking about. Perhaps this is the case. Truthfully, when you talk about the ‘self’ being temporarily absent, I do not know what you are talking about. Can you explain more how one knows when one’s self is absent???

From my own experience of the first big peak-experience I know that without the comparison of such an experience it is difficult to locate and isolate the ‘self’. Only after I experienced that the ‘self’ consists of my emotions as well as my beliefs could I get a grip on this amorphous psychic entity that is ‘me’. I come here into this moment and leave my ‘self’ behind.

When you have a peak-experience and the ‘self’ is absent this fact is very obvious to you. There is no sense of separation to anything and anybody whatsoever. There is no feeling or emotion and you know that this is not your imagination, it is simply so. I have written to No 13 about Pure Consciousness Experiences (PCE) – and you may want to read a few descriptions in Peter’s Journal. It takes a bit of reading to get the gist of it, a PCE is so very different from our everyday experience of life as a ‘self’. These are the links:

• Introduction
• Love
• People
• Intelligence
• Universe
• Bit of Vineeto

If you can’t remember a peak-experience, another way to approach the subject is to determine how the ‘self’ is present – what feeling do ‘I’ have now?, what’s my objection to being here?, what longing to connect with someone?, what slight feeling of numbness or boredom?, what irritation about someone’s words or behaviour? Driving a car was always a good test for me, so many ways to get irritated, and so unnecessarily. The ‘self’, when investigated, can be very cunning in disguising itself as the imagination of having arrived – because then one stops dismantling it. ‘I’ have every investment not to be found out, not to die. And yet, ‘I’ am the only thing in the way of experiencing this blithe and perfect moment of being alive.

Reading the different statements I was reminded of a particular outstanding experience during the Anti-Fisher-Hoffman-Process in Pune. It was my second time I did the group, the first time that I was a staff-member. The AFH, as we called it, is a 10-12 day process of looking at childhood issues and overcoming fear, resentment, anger, attachment with intense bio-dynamic methods. By the third day, with lots of ‘work’ and little sleep, everybody hit their limit. I dragged myself forward, fantasizing about the time when I could sleep again as long as I wanted, if I only made it through the next ‘hellish’ days. Suddenly it dawned on me that what I was doing was waiting. I was wasting my time for ‘redemption’. And I realised that there was no difference to ‘waiting for heaven’ or for enlightenment, or for the right man, or...

With this insight that there is only now, that I live only now, and that there is no heaven to go to – I woke up into full awareness and aliveness. Postponement only brings more misery, hope is for the hesitant one who does not want to take the first step to freedom. This peak-experience lasted for several hours, and while everyone else was tired to the bone I bounced in refreshed aliveness. Later on the event got filed into the category of ‘group-highs’ and the memory of it soon faded away. But for those few hours I had lived in the actual world, here, now, without God, heaven, authority, love, hope and postponement. I had experienced that this moment is the only moment we have got, the only moment we can experience being alive, to be either miserable or happy, complaining or fully alive.

Suddenly, I recognized that the world is absolutely complete and perfect, exactly as it is. The present moment was whole and integrated. Any sense of fundamental separateness was gone. ‘I’ was still there, but any anxiety I had ever felt was completely eliminated. All I knew/felt/experienced was the complete and absolute perfection of the present moment.

This was a moment of overwhelming revelation, of pure and absolute joy. The perfection and wholeness of the universe seemed so obvious, so simple, so complete, so absolute. Like a bliss-filled fool, I alternately laughed and cried, spontaneously and irresistibly, at the exquisite perfection of All That Is. Even as I eventually awakened my partner, and began to shower and prepare for our client’s meeting, this astonishing energy continued to move through me, in wave after wave of sweet and unspeakable joy.

What you describe here sounds like a powerful Peak Experience. It can be brought on by various circumstances including certain drugs and lasts for periods from a few minutes to days. ‘I’, my identity, get a taste of the actual world in its utter purity and ‘as-it-is-ness’, in its clarity and perfection, and I experience everything including me-as-my-body being made of the same stuff as the rest of the universe. In a pure consciousness experience I don’t have the feeling of ‘Oneness’ but know for the first time that there is no actual separation between you as a physical body and the rest of the universe. In a peak experience I experience the world as it is, in its marvellous actuality, factuality, while ‘me’, the ‘self’ is temporarily in abeyance, not interfering. Then it is possible to see the world as-it-is, without the psychic and psychological web of human emotions, beliefs, instincts and fear. The peak experience is a glimpse into what it is to be a human being without the ‘I’ being present and spoiling it all.