RESPONDENT: Richard, do you have the transcript of a dialogue in which you probed someone for a recollection of a PCE?

RICHARD: No ... literally millions of words have disappeared into thin air.

RESPONDENT: I am interested in probing myself for this. Do you have any suggestions?

RICHARD: Just for starters the following may be of assistance (a written-at-a-later-date section of my version of a discussion with another many years ago):

• [Richard]: ‘... by ‘blue-print’ I mean conditioning into society at large. What I am particularly concerned about is the effect this socialisation has had upon him specifically. Can he see that he has been constructed, from birth onward, to fit into a mould, a pattern? Can he see that this has been so effective that he has taken this construct to be what he actually is?
He is shifting uncomfortably in his chair and looking a trifle shamefaced. He takes a slow sip from his wine to buy time. Dinner is simmering gently on the stove and it is high time to give it a stir ... and bring some rice to the boil before turning it down. The lights are low and the sweet scent of night-flowering jessamine wafts powerfully in through the screened windows, complementing the aroma of the spices that are cooking slowly. Overhead the slow-moving ceiling fan creaks slightly as it stirs the air. Altogether it is a very pleasant evening and I am happy to be here. Having attended to the culinary deeds I settle back into my seat, as he seeks to assimilate what I am talking of into his already existing mind-set. He explains that I have a way of confronting people with new concepts and can I please slow down as I nearly have him spinning in confusion. But he has indeed become aware of the automatic clichés he has been using – and believing in – and admits that I am right in that he is not as unique as he would like to think.
Can he remember any pure consciousness experiences? Can he remember experiencing a moment – or moments – wherein everything falls into place correctly and perfectly? Wherein everybody, oneself included, and everything, is utterly pure? There is an ambience of total peace and harmony. Kindliness and spontaneous generosity of character come spontaneously and easily. One knows, with an absolute certainty, that it is possible to be free of all the ills of humankind ... to become free of the ‘Human Condition’ is the only solution to life’s troubles worth pursuing. In the PCE, ‘I’ temporarily abdicated the throne and I knew, by direct experience, that freedom was already actual. It was ‘me’ that was the problem, not the absence of perfection. When ‘I’ ceased to be, perfection became, as always, apparent. One sees that there is only one person who can actually manifest your own freedom from failure in human relationship. Me, myself ... yours truly. It is very important to have confidence in one’s own ability to discriminate between current ‘human’ knowledge and what one personally knows from the PCE’s. This will give one that essential optimism and assurance ... it is the ability to plough on regardless of whatever stands in one’s way until one evokes one’s destiny. It is all to do with a certainty ... the solid knowing, born out of the PCE, that it is here for oneself and anyone ... if only one will act upon this sureness. Can he relate to this?
He can. He starts hesitantly, but gaining assurance goes on. He has never told this to anyone before, not even to his wife, because it was a very precious experience to him ... afraid to be made fun of. It happened back before he was married, when he was single and living out in the bush in an old shack. He had hitch-hiked back from town and was dropped off at the nearest intersection. He was walking the last two kilometres ... minding his own business and not thinking of anything in particular ... he remembers seeing some cows in a paddock on the right-hand side of the track ... they were black and white ... and they were especially vivid that day. As he went around the curve in the track ... past a big old tree ... the valley opened up before him. He knew all this as he had walked this track many times before ... but on this occasion he and the trees and the cows and the valley ... were ... sort of ... transformed. It was all as I had just described to him: everything and everybody is in its place, utterly correct and simply perfect. There is this total contentment with life as-it-is inside of him ... and outside, too. And all this has nothing to do with anything ... meaning that it is not precipitated by something. It just happens. Everything is absolutely wonderful exactly as-it-is. It is an amazing experience.
I can see, by the look on his face, that he is again having the flavour of this experience. What can he say, now, about faith and trust? Does he feel the need for them? Or is there only confidence and certainty? It is important that one remembers this. Right now he is experiencing it as an actuality, whereas five minutes ago he was struggling to understand it intellectually ...’. (pages 50-51, Article 6: ‘Confidence And Certainty Renders Trust And Faith Irrelevant’ from ‘Richard’s Journal’; Second Edition ©2004 The Actual Freedom Trust).

RESPONDENT: Richard, in what way is the ‘sagacity’ of a PCE different than the ‘wisdom’ of God (ASC) or to the ordinary, intermediated ‘understanding’ of the Normal CE?

RICHARD: Discernment is unmediated (and therefore perspicuous).

RESPONDENT: I’ve read somewhere on your portion of the site that the PCE has some sort of in-built ... umm ... ‘ wisdom’ for lack of a better term.

RICHARD: The better term would be perspicacity.

RESPONDENT: Do you derive understanding/comprehension in a different way than a scientist/enlightened/self-realized person does?

RICHARD: Yes ... perspicaciously.

RESPONDENT: That seems obvious to me from your writing. You seem to come as from another league on this mailing list in regard to discerning the facts of the matter. I guess that when the ‘inside’ clears, the ‘outside’ clarifies as well ... I can only speculate about what happens when both of these categories vanish and intelligence works directly, unmediated by any ‘thinker’/’feeler’. Does that mean that what you write is always and naturally factual/actual (as it comes directly from the experience of experiencing)?

RICHARD: In regards the direct experiencing itself ... yes (bar oversights that is); in regards other matters, such as historical review, current affairs, prospective evaluation, and so forth, being matters of opinion (mostly ill-informed) ... no.

RESPONDENT: A request for an estimated guess not related to the above ... when was the human animal first capable to experience a PCE?

RICHARD: The current human animal is known as homo sapiens (tool-making fire-using symbol-writing hominids) dating back to perhaps 100 thousand BCE; prior to that was homo erectus (tool-making fire-using hominids) dating back to perhaps 1.6 million BCE; prior to that was homo-habilis (tool-making hominids) dating back to perhaps 2.0 million BCE; prior to that was the genus australopithecus (small-brained hominids) dating back to perhaps 5.0 million BCE: prior to that were the hominoids strepsherinni/ haplorini (from which hominids arose) dating back to perhaps 70 million BCE. Thus my estimated guess would be to place it at maybe 70,002,004 years ago ... give or take a year or two.

RESPONDENT: It is not necessary when you write of millions to say BCE as you’ll give or take a few thousand years at max.

RICHARD: I was not giving or taking ‘a few thousand years at max’ ... my ‘give or take a year or two’ was only in deference to the (proposed) birth date of a saviour of humanity, from whence the arbitrary number 2004 CE (Common Era) is derived, being at least as early as 4 BCE (Before Common Era) – and thus corresponding to the (historical) death date of a contemporary ruler – plus an allowance for the fact there is no designated year zero in that particular calendar ... even though planet earth continued to orbit its radiant star all the while.

And the point of such precision about such imprecise dating? Simply this: whatever date it is that archaeologists/ palaeontologists/ scholars may come up with, as being the earliest emergence of hominids/hominoids, then that is the date I would estimate the human animal being first capable of having a pure consciousness experience (PCE).

RESPONDENT: What’s the differentiating factor than, if not intelligence, between the early hominids and let’s say a wolf or a giraffe in terms of actualizing a PCE?

RICHARD: I am none too sure there is any differentiating factor – the primary factor for pure consciousness experiencing (direct sensate experiencing) is sentience – and as they are feeling beings I see no reason why a wolf or a giraffe cannot have a PCE.

*

RESPONDENT: I was thinking that such an event (PCE) is possible precisely because of the intelligence developing in the human animal.

RICHARD: No, it is an actual freedom from the human condition which is possible because of the development of intelligence ... only an animal with that cognitive faculty of understanding and comprehending (as in intellect and sagacity) – which means the cerebral ability to sensibly and thus judiciously think, reflect, appraise, plan, and implement considered activity for beneficial reasons (and to be able to rationally convey reasoned information to others of its species so that coherent knowledge can accumulate around the world and to the next generations) – can afford to dispense with the instinctual survival passions.

RESPONDENT: As a PCE makes the instinctual self redundant, there should be no wonder as to why it has not happened to other animals ... including the different ‘less human than animal’ sub-species that lived < 70 million years ago.

RICHARD: It is an actual freedom from the human condition which renders the instinctual ‘self’ redundant ... in a PCE the ‘self’ is merely in abeyance (which means ‘a state of suspension or temporary disuse; a dormant condition liable to revival’ according to the Oxford Dictionary).

RESPONDENT: Given the fact that >100.000.000.000 homo sapiens lived on this earth, it is a real mystery as to why none of these tool making, condom using, symbol writing hominids (who presumably all had a temporary PCE and usually more – the best thing since sliced bear) haven’t managed (accidentally or purposely) to live a freedom from the ‘homo sapiens condition’, both tribal and instinctual. Don’t you find this a bit strange?

RICHARD: Not nowadays ... no; some years ago ... yes (and exceedingly odd at that).

RESPONDENT: I mean ... 1 in 100 billion, close to the number of stars in the milky way. Now, taking the enlightenment ratio, which is close to 1 in a million, and using some mathematical symbols, the afore-mentioned conditioned condition delivers somewhere close to 100.000 enlightened sapiens and only one big delightus ... you’re the man, eh?

RICHARD: For as far as I have been able to ascertain ... yes.

As a point of related interest: the human species has been doing its thing for at least 50,000 years or so – no essential difference has been discerned between the Cro-Magnon human and Modern-Day human – and may very well continue to do its thing for, say, another 50,000 years or so ... it matters not, in what has been described as ‘the vast scheme of things’ or ‘the big picture’, and so on, whether none, one or many peoples become actually free from the human condition (this planet, indeed the entire solar system, is going to cease to exist in its current form about 4.5 billion years from now).

All these words – yours, mine, and others (all the dictionaries, encyclopaedias, scholarly tomes and so on) – will perish and all the monuments, all the statues, all the tombstones, all the sacred sites, all the carefully conserved/carefully restored memorabilia, will vanish as if they had never existed ... nothing will remain of any human endeavour (including yours truly).

Nothing at all ... nil, zero, zilch.

Which means that nothing really matters in the long run and, as nothing really does matter (in this ultimate sense) it is simply not possible to take life seriously ... sincerely, yes, but seriously?

No way ... life is much too much fun to be serious!

RESPONDENT: Yes, I see your point as I remember instances of original comedy in my life, although in the real-world where I currently reside, it’s a serious and sometimes deadly business, mainly because people take themselves so seriously (survival takes precedent over enjoying).

RICHARD: And therein lies the nub of the issue (in the real-world life is indeed a serious and sometimes deadly business).

RESPONDENT: When the potential for freedom is actualized, there’s no need to build another freedom site or to write a book dedicated to the same subject as it is extensively covered, all the while considering myself a factualist instead of an actualist with all the branding and neo- prefixes. I can simply disappear over the horizon if I so wish when ‘The Game’ is over.

RICHARD: As an actual freedom from the human condition requires an all-inclusive altruism to effect – and altruism wipes away selfism completely – it would be a contradiction, not only in terms, but in effect to not pass on a report, by whatever means, of the discovery of the already always existing peace-on-earth to one’s fellow human beings.

In other words, if for no other reason than simply because of the inherent character of fellowship regard, here in this actual world, were you not to share your experiencing of what life is in actuality – that is, kept it to yourself, for yourself, whilst all about misery and mayhem rages unabated (plus all the branding and neo-prefixing for that matter) – then it would not be an actual freedom from the human condition.

Feeling beings do not have a corner on caring.

RESPONDENT: I wonder how all these astronauts, who have seen the Earth from space, haven’t seen the folly of the humans below or if they have seen it why didn’t they say loud and clear what stupidity is played down here everyday.

RICHARD: Presuming that you are assuming some of them have a PCE – because of the sheer impact of seeing this azure and verdant planet from such a privileged vantage point perchance – then basically you are asking why anyone who is having a PCE is not saying, loud and clear, why all the misery and mayhem being played-out all around the globe is unnecessary.

Speaking personally, that is the very thing I would say, all those years ago whenever the ‘I’ who was inhabiting this body went into abeyance, and anybody I have been with since then, whilst they were having a PCE, has expressed variations on the same theme.

RESPONDENT: How can they re-become so easily ‘normal’ with only a whisper about their experience?

RICHARD: For the same reason why an actual freedom from the human condition is new to human history ... the persistence, and thus dominance, of identity.

RESPONDENT: Let me pose a couple possible PCE’s to see if you could tell me whether either of them seem to be right on.

1. I’m sitting on the steps of the library on my university campus. It’s the last half hour of daylight, with the rays of the sun and the shadows from trees and buildings creating a special light for the stage that I observe. In front of me, my fellow students cross the stage that is my field of vision, coming from left and right, moving on. As I watch I have no concerns that they might observe me or evaluate me or have any judgments in mind. As I look from person to person, it occurs to me that they are all very pleasant-looking. If one’s nose would normally seem ‘too big,’ for instance, now it seems to go perfectly with the rest of their features, even their gait. No one is inferior or superior – these thoughts don’t even come to mind. We are who we are and we are there, for the moment.

2. I’ve just left a little store in Bern, Switzerland. Having travelled an hour by train from Lausanne, I have finally gotten into my hands the marijuana that I have so badly wanted. My days are normally long drug-induced journeys into the subconscious, into the strange world of language and culture as I learn and speak French, and I regularly marvel at the beauty of lake Geneva and the mountains on the other side. But today, with this marijuana in my satchel, headed toward the central park where hippies and the like normally sit on the grass smoking their weed, I decide to wait. I will not drug myself, but enjoy the beautiful city that I am in, for I will not always be able to be here. Nearly as soon as I decide to wander and explore, I am struck with a sense of awe about everything. It’s like my brain is so prepped up to get stoned and to battle losing consciousness that I’m skyrocketed into a very intense consciousness. As I walk, gravity is barely an issue. Everywhere I turn my eyes there is intense beauty, but not because I say so, just because it is strange and wonderful. I look at two young women passing by on the street and wonder if they realize how wonderful everything is. They look back at me and it doesn’t seem to matter if they realize it or not because I’ll never know anyway. Nevertheless, there seems to be a brightness there in their eyes that I don’t usually notice in my fellow man.

I don’t know what it would be like to live in #2. It seems it would be overwhelming. As for #1, well it was nice to be out of the usual judging/critical/worrisome mode ... well, actually, #2 might have been especially nice because of the sort of exotic environment I was in.

RICHARD: The key-words in description No. 1 would seem to be ‘no one is inferior or superior’ (hence the lack of concern over others observing, evaluating, or judging you) and what stands out in description No. 2 is ‘how wonderful everything is’ … however the references to ‘a sense of awe’ and the lightness of being (as expressed in your ‘gravity is barely an issue’ phrasing) and ‘there is intense beauty’ may be an indication of an altered state of consciousness (ASC) rather than a pure consciousness experience (PCE).

Needless is it to add the qualifier that there actually is insufficient information for me to comment meaningfully? Besides which I am somewhat reluctant to appraise another’s description anyway (unless it be strikingly obvious just what it was) as experience has shown that when another asks whether such-and-such is a PCE or not it is, generally speaking, not … in a PCE it is startlingly apparent to the experient that is indeed a PCE. For just one example:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Yesterday I had the first really clear and unequivocal PCE since starting with this ... previously, I had had what I call ‘mini-PCE’s’. 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 PCE’s (...) [emphasis added].

RESPONDENT: Thanks for your consideration.

RICHARD: You are very welcome … and it is at this stage I usually append a stock-standard disclaimer such as this: I am simply reporting my experience and it is entirely up to the other to do with it what they will ... and I stress that it is the PCE that is one’s guiding light – one’s authority or one’s teacher – and not me or my description of a PCE. The evidence of human history demonstrates that there is a distinct possibility that things can go awry wherever the human psyche is being subjectively investigated. Yet there are some notable people (or notorious people) in this field of endeavour who have rashly promised that they will take care of everything if only the person investigating will believe them and/or have faith in them and/or trust them and/or surrender to them and/or obey them ... and so on. And there are more than a few of these gullible persons currently occupying places in psychiatric wards as a direct result ... and the person who promised to ‘take care of everything’ is remarkably unforthcoming (it is counsellors and therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists who have to pick up the pieces).

I cannot save anybody at all.

RESPONDENT: So ... here it is the AF site & mailing list, an opportunity. Who can make a satisfactory use of this opportunity?

RICHARD: Anybody who is vitally interested in finding out about life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are.

RESPONDENT: Only those who can remember a PCE?

RICHARD: No ... I often put it that there is sufficient information on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust web site to establish a prima facie case worthy of further investigation ... and not capricious dismissal.

Furthermore I invite anyone to make a critical examination of all the words I advance so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ... and if they are all seen to be inherently consistent with what is being spoken about, then the facts speak for themselves. Then one will have reason to remember a pure conscious experience (PCE), which all peoples I have spoken to at length have had, and thus verify by direct experience the facticity of what is written (which personal experiencing is the only proof worthy of the name). The PCE occurs globally ... across cultures and down through the ages irregardless of gender, race or age.

I also make it clear that what I write is (mostly) expressive prose – it is not a thesis – as I am conveying the lavish exhilaration of life itself. My writing is not intended to stand literary scrutiny for scholarly style and grammatical form and so on – the academics would have a field-day with it – for it is an active catalyst which will catapult the reader, who reads with all their being, into this magical wonder-land that this verdant and azure planet is.

Then actuality speaks for itself.

RESPONDENT: I cannot recall a PCE in the sense that I cannot look into the past and say with absolute certainty ‘that was a PCE’ using actualist description as a standard. On the other hand, I can remember an ASC and I can definitely say ‘that was an out-of-the-ordinary consciousness experience’ and it was an ASC by actualist standards.

Where are the PCE’s stored?

RICHARD: Presumably you are referring to this:

• [Respondent]: ‘... it is hard to relate actualism to anything one has encountered in terms of knowledge and experience.
• [Richard]: ‘... one of the many things I did, in the years before I went public, was to ascertain whether people from all walks of life could recall having had a pure consciousness experience (PCE) – as distinct from an altered state of consciousness (ASC) – for obvious reasons. Sometimes it took a quite a while for them to remember – once it took over three hours of intensive description/discussion – as *being sans any affective content whatsoever the PCE cannot be stored in the affective memory banks* (which is where the ASC is primarily located) ... plus they are much more common in childhood and require further reach.
Everybody I spoke to at length – everybody – could recall at least one PCE ... and usually more. [emphasis added].

And this:

• [Respondent]: ‘Maybe this will trigger in my case some forgotten memories about forgotten PCE’s.
• [Richard]: ‘Mostly PCE’s happen for no demonstrable reason at all – as in being a serendipitous event – and quite often occur in everyday surroundings doing everyday things ... I can recall being on a farmhouse verandah at age eight, looking into the glistening white of a full glass of milk in the early morning sunshine, when it happened for the entity within.
*Not being an affective experience they are not stored in the affective memory-banks* (which is where the ASC is primarily located) and thus require a different type of recall to normal remembrance ... plus they are much more common in childhood and require further reach. [emphasis added].

It would appear that your (affective) memory of the ASC is blocking access to (cognitive) memory of a PCE ... experience with other people over the years has shown that ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being – which is ‘being’ itself – has, more often than not, both a vested interest in remembering an ASC and in being amnestic about a PCE.

RESPONDENT: I understand that it is a cognitive memory, but what type of memory is that?

RICHARD: A non-affective memory ... a memory sans feeling-tones.

RESPONDENT: What other memories are stored there?

RICHARD: The following may throw some light on the subject:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘... I take it though, from my vantage point, that one still has memories of the past which can be accessed when thought is used practically.
• [Richard]: ‘Yes. I have been here for 53 years and have all my own memories ... I have always been here like this: I have been having a wonderful, marvellous and amazing life for 53 years. It is this simple: the slate was wiped clean because ‘my’ memories disappeared along with ‘me’ when ‘I’ disappeared.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘It would be easy to misread this as you saying that you as a psychological self-image is living so fully. But, what I hear you saying is the approach of ‘controls-as-separate-thought-made-image-at-the-controls’ has come full stop and you are living fully. That thought operates practically, but not detrimentally. And you use the term ‘I’ to refer to the organism, not the separate self. Could you comment about this?
• [Richard]: ‘Certainly. There are three I’s altogether but only one is actual: I am this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. When both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul disappeared I became apparent. I have been here all along ... it was just that there was this loudmouth inhabiting this body, for the first 33 years (‘I’ as ego) plus the next 11 years (‘me’ as soul), who dominated so totally that I could not get a word in edgeways. And, when ‘he’ ‘self’-immolated for the benefit of this body and every body, all of ‘his’ memories were also immolated (‘the slate was wiped clean’).
I have no childhood hurts whatsoever.

And:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘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?
• [Richard]: ‘The passionate memory of all emotional hurts (indeed all the affections) was extinguished when the passionate memory faculty was extirpated ... the intellectual memory operates with the clarity enabled by the absence of the instinctual passions which normally cloud the remembrance with attractions and repulsions; likes and dislikes; shoulds and should nots and so on. In other words: free of malice and sorrow. The brain has two ‘memory banks’ and the passionate memory is both non-conscious and primal.

RESPONDENT: I can only relate ‘cognitive’ with the ability to know something, does a PCE allows you a different type of knowledge?

RICHARD: No (unless untainted knowledge can be classified as a different type of knowledge).

RESPONDENT: And there is the memory of the ASC, of course ... how could it not be?.... but I cannot detect emotionality when remembering it and it cannot be represented anyhow. Could you represent in your mind a PCE when living an ASC?

RICHARD: Not ‘represent’ ... it can be intellectually remembered (indeed such a memory of the pure consciousness experience (PCE) is what helped me escape from a lifetime of being stuck in the permanent altered state of consciousness (ASC) known as spiritual enlightenment).

*

RESPONDENT: In my case and other participants on the mailing list it’s not easy to remember one.

RICHARD: This could very well be because if ‘I’ were to actively remember a PCE it could be the beginning of the end of ‘me’.

RESPONDENT: Hmm ... the end of ‘me’?

RICHARD: Yep ... everything one instinctively knows oneself to be – what one deeply feels and thus intuitively thinks oneself to be – can and will vanish in an instant ... never to ‘be’ again.

Never, ever.

RESPONDENT: I have always thought that this universe is infinite (even as a child when watching TV documentaries) simply because all the other explanations seemed so silly. And I spoke to other non-scientific & non-spiritual people and surprisingly they also said that they believe it to be infinite. But when asked to explain why they think so, they couldn’t say it.

I wrote this as you explained that it’s the connection between this infinity and myself that eliminates ‘me’ and delivers the goods. That this connection is an active force (‘pure intent’).

I sense this is the missing link ... to live each moment fully realizing that I live in an infinite and perfect universe. I don’t think remembering a PCE creates ‘the fatal attraction’ ...

RICHARD: The following may elucidate what I mean by a connection with the peerless purity of infinitude:

• [Richard]: ‘Just to set the record straight: altruism (in its biological sense) is only the key to the process of ‘self’-immolation – going into blessed oblivion – and has nothing to do with living everyday life happily and harmlessly ... the appearance of benevolence ensures that all interactions (including with oneself) are benign and beneficial. (...) Life is truly this simple: the pure intent to have the already always existing peace-on-earth become apparent, as evidenced in the pure consciousness experience (PCE), is activated with the nourishment of one’s innate naiveté via ‘the wonder of it all’ ... whereupon an intimate connection, a golden thread or clew as it were, is thus established whereby one is sensitive to and receptive of the over-arching benignity and benevolence of the ‘another world’ of the PCE – which is already always just here right now anyway – and one is not on one’s own, in this, the adventure of a lifetime.
And sincerity works to awaken one’s dormant naiveté.

RESPONDENT: ... how many people you spoke to at length who remembered a PCE haven’t continued with their life as usual, even though they aware of an opportunity?

RICHARD: I have never kept count ... it would be the minority of them, though.

RESPONDENT: If presented with the choice of 10 million dollars reward/seeing God/living in a PCE, how many would choose $64.000?

RICHARD: Presumably ... the minority.

*

RESPONDENT: I ask this as I don’t want to fool myself practicing a method without knowing where it leads. I guess it leads to a PCE, but what’s that?

RICHARD: Presumably you are speaking of experientially knowing where it leads ... intellectually knowing cannot provide the fatal attraction, so to speak, which experiential knowledge provides and which is essential for success.

I am, of course, referring to pure intent.

RESPONDENT: As a consequence of all this, I set my aim to be happy & harmless and not to live in a PCE (I don’t know how it’s like).

RICHARD: A very sensible approach indeed ... being sorrowful and malicious (and thus antidotally loving and compassionate) is not at all conducive to a PCE occurring.

RESPONDENT: What’s on offer here, is both valuable and sensible in my view and it reflects, explains my personal experiences and observations in a very satisfactory and comprehensive way. But these words (aka thoughts) are derived from PCE’s. They can provide guidance, direction and assistance in the DIY process of dismantling the identity and help one assess which are the facts and which are the beliefs. But they cannot induce/produce a PCE ...

RICHARD: If I may interject? More than a few persons have had a PCE occur whilst listening to me/reading my words ... which is why I explained (further above) that my expressive writing is an active catalyst which will catapult the reader, who reads with all their being, into this magical wonder-land that this verdant and azure planet is.

‘Tis the ‘all of their being’ which is the key.

RESPONDENT: Well, I’ve read your writings extensively and intensively ... I intellectually agree with them, but you know that there is a world of difference between intellectual and experiential understanding. And no PCE’s occurred, although there were many realizations.

RICHARD: Okay ... a realisation is not to be sneezed at, of course, where it sets one free of a habit of a lifetime.

*

RESPONDENT: ... as this experience escapes any reference frame of thought, it’s pure consciousness as experienced by an individual.

RICHARD: Hmm ... are you so sure that it does indeed escape ‘any’ reference frame of thought?

RESPONDENT: The results derived by practicing this method is that I’m cleaner day-by-day, but a ‘pure’ individual does not necessarily mean pure consciousness, eh?

RICHARD: There is no such thing as a pure identity (if that is what you mean).

RESPONDENT: I fully engaged myself on the spiritual path as a consequence of an ASC. Is it vital to remember/live a PCE in order to successfully practice actualism?

RICHARD: Eventually ... yes; in the interim ... I would say not (going by another’s report).

RESPONDENT: I would say it is essential to live a PCE otherwise all these discussions will degenerate sooner then later into intellectualisations rather then conveying individual experiences.

RICHARD: Not while there are some that do recall a PCE ... even one such person could keep a discussion on track (keep it in accord with what this mailing list is set-up for).

RESPONDENT: This is already happening on the mailing list, circles in a circus.

RICHARD: Speaking personally I find the input from peoples of a religio-spiritual/mystico-metaphysical persuasion (if that is what you are referring to by your ‘circles in a circus’ phrasing) to be a salutary example – a real-life practical illustration – that the ‘Tried and True’ is indeed the ‘Tried and Failed’.

There is nothing like a practical demonstration to drive the point home.

RESPONDENT: What I’m doing right now is to sensibly use the information supplied here for daily use, see if it can stand practical life exposure and eventually create the favourable circumstances for a different CE to occur.

RICHARD: A very sensible approach indeed ... intellectualising is not at all conducive to a PCE occurring.

RESPONDENT: ... how many people you spoke to at length who remembered a PCE haven’t continued with their life as usual, even though they aware of an opportunity?

RICHARD: I have never kept count ... it would be the minority of them, though.

RESPONDENT: If presented with the choice of 10 million dollars reward/seeing God/living in a PCE, how many would choose $64.000?

RICHARD: Presumably ... the minority.

RESPONDENT: So, the minority of those who remembered a PCE would choose a happy and harmless life.

RICHARD: I did say ‘presumably’ ... when there is more than at present virtually free, or even another actually free from the human condition, that presumption is no longer valid, of course.

RESPONDENT: How could Peace-on-Earth be possible if every new generation would be born with the same old, same old instinctual passions?

RICHARD: The same way it is possible now.

RESPONDENT: It would be a continuum ‘ad infinitum’ DIY process and some would simply refuse (for a million reasons) to conform to a happy and harmless life.

RICHARD: Nobody is being asked to ‘conform’ to anything (as is the case with morality and/or ethicality) ... it is each and ever person’s choice, each moment again, how they experience this moment of being alive (the only moment they are ever alive).

No one is preventing you from being happy and harmless but you.

RESPONDENT: And they will be the minority report.

RICHARD: Only until they become the majority report.

RESPONDENT: Or would the actual free parents would give birth to instinctually free babes in a gradual evolutionary process that would stretch over thousands of years?

RICHARD: As I had a vasectomy in my late thirties I am unable to test that theory.

RESPONDENT: We’ve been here before, but this just doesn’t make sense to me.

RICHARD: Maybe the following will be of assistance:

• [Richard]: ‘... The PCE demonstrates that the pristine perfection of the actual world is just here – right now – for the very asking.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Yes indeed. Thanks for this. It gives me confidence that the whole endeavour is both possible and extremely worthwhile.
• [Richard]: ‘In view of the continuing parlous state of both individual and world affairs it is most certainly worthwhile – I have oft-times said it is worth almost anything in terms of personal discomfort/private disturbance to have happen – and the distinct possibility of more and more outbreaks of individual peace-on-earth (be they virtual or actual) bodes well for humankind at large ... given the twentieth century’s unprecedented move towards the eventual democratisation of all sovereign states it only takes 51% of a population to be living in an actual or a virtual peace and harmony for groundswell changes to take effect.
What was previously only the stuff of pipe-dreams is now entirely possible.

RESPONDENT: And even if actualism would be practiced by many people (say 500 millions), it would not be an identical process to everyone, as a matter-of-fact it would get distorted, it would degenerate as with everything which happened on a mass scale in the history of humankind and over an extended period of time.

RICHARD: You are referring that which is new – thus without precedent – and which is actual, and not fantasy, and are comparing it to not only that which is old but that which is a massive delusion into the bargain, in order to come to your conclusions.

RESPONDENT: Nothing remains the same. Yes, the PCE might be identical to everyone, but ...

RICHARD: If I may interject (before you go on with your ‘but ...’)? If, as you say, nothing remains the same, how can you then say, in virtually the same breath, that the pure consciousness experience (PCE) be *identical* to everyone?

RESPONDENT: ...[but] the process of becoming free will inevitably be distorted, there will be countless ‘branded’ versions of becoming free.

RICHARD: As the PCE is essential to the process of becoming actually free from the human condition then any method other than the only one that has worked so far to deliver the goods will be similarly bench-marked ... ‘tis not for nothing that clarity in communication (what some classify as pedantic nit-picking) is the hall-mark of actualism words and writings.

RESPONDENT: This will serve the innate human need for diversity and tolerance.

RICHARD: Those that choose diversity and tolerance over happiness and harmlessness are simply wasting their only moment of being alive ... frittering a vital opportunity away on more of the ‘Tried and True’ in yet another guise.

RESPONDENT: I lived part of my life in communism and I know on my personal skin the effects of idealist unicity, equality and freedom applied in practice.

RICHARD: As actualism is not ‘idealist’ your comparison of it to an unfeasible (given the human condition) socio-political system is pointless.

RESPONDENT: They have also thought to have found the ‘only and unique’ solution, never tried before.

RICHARD: As no actualist has the ‘thought’ that they have found anything of the sort, but rather the direct experience of the actuality, your comparison is again pointless.

RESPONDENT: I guess this is my version of ‘you can’t change human nature’ applied on a global scale, but that’s the way I see it in the long run.

RICHARD: Okay ... it is your life you are living, when all is said and done, and how you see things is your business, of course.

*

RESPONDENT: ... this experience escapes any reference frame of thought, it’s pure consciousness as experienced by an individual.

RICHARD: Hmm ... are you so sure that it does indeed escape ‘any’ reference frame of thought?

RESPONDENT: You can easily and accurately describe how good it was last time you had sex with your partner. But these are only thoughts, they convey something ... but of what use they would be to me if I wouldn’t have any sexperiences?

RICHARD: I was questioning your ‘escapes any reference frame of thought’ statement ... am I to take it that your analogy with the sexual experience indicates it does not escape ‘any’ reference frame of thought after all (as in thoughts which convey something)?

RESPONDENT: Even Enlightenment can be described, that’s not the issue here.

RICHARD: Oh? This is the issue I am responding to:

• [Respondent]: ‘I set my aim to be happy & harmless and not to live in a PCE (I don’t know how it’s like). What’s on offer here, is both valuable and sensible in my view and it reflects, explains my personal experiences and observations in a very satisfactory and comprehensive way. But these words (aka thoughts) are derived from PCE’s. They can provide guidance, direction and assistance in the DIY process of dismantling the identity and help one assess which are the facts and which are the beliefs. But *they cannot induce/produce a PCE as this experience escapes any reference frame of thought*, it’s pure consciousness as experienced by an individual. [emphasis added].
• [Richard]: ‘Hmm ... are you so sure that it does indeed escape ‘any’ reference frame of thought?

RESPONDENT: I have pointed out to the distinction between thoughts and experience. The experience gives rise to thoughts, not the other way around, otherwise I will live through quotation-marks. Your thoughts cannot give rise to a similar experience in me (a PCE for instance), they can describe it, yes, but they cannot produce/induce it. Simple as that.

RICHARD: As ad hoc experience with other human beings has shown me there are some people, who listen to me/read my words with all of their being, that have been catapulted into the magical wonder-land that this verdant and azure planet is then what is (so far) the case for you is not the case for everybody.

It is as simple as that.

RESPONDENT: Everything can be described, take ‘torture’ for instance. It’s one thing to be tortured and another thing to intellectually understand torture as described by another person. Torture escapes ‘thought’ because it’s not an intellectual experience. You can describe it via thought but you can’t experience it via thought.

RICHARD: Of course not ... it almost goes without saying that one cannot (sensately) experience a sensate experience cognitively.

RESPONDENT: In this sense escapes thought, not in the sense that you can’t convey or describe it.

RICHARD: Sure ... but what has this got to do with you saying that the actualism words and writings [quote] ‘cannot induce/produce a PCE as this experience escapes any reference frame of thought’ [endquote] when they can do, and have done, that very thing (induced/produced a PCE)?

It just does not make sense to say that something which has happened, and does happen, cannot happen. Vis.:

• [Respondent]: ‘(...) This site is mainly the product of a person life *experience* translated into thoughts. It’s a huge mistake to think that by practicing ‘it’, you can arrive somewhere. Thoughts/ ideas cannot generate *experience*, they can do all sorts of things: simulate, represent, imitate, emulate but they cannot *experience*.
Anyone who thinks that he experiences something different in terms of consciousness when immersed in a certain *thought* medium might simply fool himself. It’s at best a lab experience.
I raised this objection in my latest post to Richard ... ’. (Wed 25/02/04).

As I am the living evidence that practicing ‘it’ (the actualism method) does enable this actual world to become apparent it would appear that you are but tilting at windmills ... as is the following further on in the same e-mail:

• [Respondent]: ‘(...) I have extensive experience in the past with the ‘work’ language while in a spiritual group and a common ‘lingo’ is a sure sign of belonging to a ‘group’. The same excuses were used ... that it’s an exact language with no literary pretences, that its sole purpose is to accurately convey/describe the process and the experiences.
The early morning blue sky can be described in a million different ways ... even using the same words, but a person’s writing style is unique as his signature. And the writing style of Peter and Vineeto is very similar to the point that someone wondered if ‘they’ are not but one and the same person!’. (Wed 25/02/04).

Not all that surprisingly I am reminded of the following:

• [Respondent]: ‘Although I generally agree and enjoy many of the things stated on AF website, I have some doubts and I thought you might found them worth of attention. The first one concerns the writing style of some older actualists, like Peter, Alan and Vineeto, which is similar in its form and content with Richard’s.
• [Richard]: ‘Aye ... and that would be because each person, myself included, is talking about, referring to, or describing the same identical thing. For example, if you were the first to go outside in the morning to experience the weather, and consequently report that the sky is blue today, then when I too go outside to experience the weather I would similarly say that the sky is blue.
It is nothing more mysterious than an agreement that our experiences match.
• [Respondent]: ‘What I want to say is that when a person belongs to a group whether an actual or a virtual one, a characteristic he acquires is the lack of originality in its thinking, the ability to use new words in describing one’s experiences.
• [Richard]: ‘As none of the three people you mention belong to a group then your conclusion is a non-sequitur.
Just as a matter of interest: how many original ways can a person say ‘blue sky’ (bearing in mind that there are 6.0 billion people on the planet)? As for ‘new words’ ... this is how I answered someone else when they raised this same point last year:

[Co-Respondent]: ‘Speaking the same lingo [the same words] ... is a hallmark of cultism’. [Richard]: ‘Perhaps you may be able to assist me in something rather important? My computer is making both groaning and grumbling noises and when I type in run-commands there is no response ... this is my take on what is going on: I figure that the wheelbarrow is conflicting with the scotch mist – both of which, as you would know, share the same chewing gum – and I am wondering whether it would be best to replace the wheelbarrow or the scotch mist. Do you have any suggestions, tips, hints or clues that might assist me? Maybe I should replace both? Or should I make adjustments to the chewing gum ... and if so, what would be the best way to go about it?’ [endquote].
If there were 6.0 billion people all using ‘new words’ to describe the same thing then effective communication would be a thing of the past.

I will not, at this stage, ask you to provide the ‘million different ways’ you say the early morning blue sky can be uniquely described using the same words ... just 100 of them will do for now.

RICHARD: I did not substitute/rephrase what I ‘think’ you were saying for what you were saying at all (let alone getting it altogether wrong or changing the meaning in the process or then claiming that my rephrasing of your words is in fact your misrepresentation of my words) as I explicitly state I took the liberty of rephrasing your comment so it be in accord with what I actually say (and not what you make of what I say) in order to make it clear why I intervened, as you put it, when you wrote to another that to tie the value of a pure consciousness experience (PCE) and actualism to a particular model of the universe is just stupid and that it is just plain silly to tie actualism up to a particular world view.

In short: I have made it clear all along that actualism is experiential – the direct experience of the actual world/universe such as in a PCE – and not intellectual (such as in a particular model of the universe/a particular world view) and my ‘example only’ rephrasing was nothing other than another way of expressing this clarity.

RESPONDENT: All without any apparent awareness of the irony in the above.

RICHARD: Hmm ... why you would be using irony – ‘dissimulation/pretence; esp. the pretence of ignorance practised by Socrates as a step towards confuting an adversary’ (Oxford Dictionary) – when you later say that you know what I am offering to my fellow human being begins and ends with the direct experience of this actual universe (and that you know it is not a conceptual model and that you know I am not advocating a mere belief in the infinitude of the universe and that you know I am recommending that people test my words out experientially) is beyond me.

Or, to put that another way, why you would be using irony – ‘discrepancy between the expected and the actual state of affairs; a contradictory or ill-timed outcome of events as if in mockery of the fitness of things’ (Oxford Dictionary) – when you later say that you know what I am offering to my fellow human being begins and ends with the direct experience of this actual universe (and that you know it is not a conceptual model and that you know I am not advocating a mere belief in the infinitude of the universe and that you know I am recommending that people test my words out experientially) has got me beat.

Especially as you experientially know this moment in time has no duration in a PCE anyway:

• [Respondent]: ‘...there are moments when all of this ceases, pops like a soap bubble, or quite abruptly drops away into open-ended transparency, and the actual universe is there in all its pristine purity and perfection, untainted by the slightest stirring of ‘me’. The lucidity and clarity is stunning. (...) Perception is diamond clear. Ordinary objects are wondrous things, infinitely rich in detail. Time is ... expanded ... inflated ... somehow motionless? ... beyond my capacity to recollect or describe clearly. ‘I’ am gone. (...) These moments of calm can come and go; they never last long by the clock, but the ordinary sense of duration doesn’t seem to apply here anyway.’ (‘Re: Experiential Investigation-Logical Investigation’; Fri 30/01/04 AEST).

And that you experientially know this place in space has no location:

• [Respondent]: ‘... at one point I wondered: where am I? I knew that I was walking on a country road outside town, but when I tried to precisely locate myself in relation to the river and the town, found I could not. I could not hold an abstract map in my mind at all. But it didn’t matter in the slightest. Where am I? I’m here! The whole question of where ‘here’ is only makes sense in relation to where somewhere else is, and what’s the point of that? (‘PCE / ASC / psilocybin’; Fri 7/11/03).

Yet when I report/describe the same or similar I am, it seems to you (further above), a recovering spiritualist particularly prone to swinging between extremes with crappy logic which is impervious to reason such as to betray the fanatic’s heart which is probably the same emotional tendency that led to me being long-term spiritualist in the first place ... here is but one example out of many:

• [Richard]: ‘This [the ‘magical’ element] 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.

And even more recently you have reported the following experience:

• [Respondent]: ‘... a whole load of pure childhood PCE memories came flooding in. The simplest things: watching a flag flapping in the wind; listening to the sound of yachts and fishing boats tinkling in their moorings; listening to the sound of waves lapping against the shore; watching a bright plastic windmill in my 3 yr old fist, spinning in the breeze; the smell of the airport cafeteria; the blast of warm night air in Karachi when the doors opened. Wow! These moments of ‘eternity’ were once just how it was. And the world hasn’t changed. What could be simpler than just letting it be? (‘Re: Identity & Nurture’; Thu 26/02/04).

May I ask? Where in all this is the crappy logic which is impervious to reason such as to betray the fanatic’s heart?

RESPONDENT: The ‘provoked spontaneous onsets of PCE’s’ via drugs owe their first lyrical descriptions to Aldous Huxley in The Doors of Perception which you undoubtedly know, he was, however (well or badly, what do you think?), prepared by his previous assembly of a collage of mystics from all times and religions, the ‘Perennial philosophy’.

RICHARD: It really does not matter whether Mr. Aldous Huxley was well or badly prepared by his prior understanding of the ‘perennial philosophy’ – the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago had no such understanding at all yet, even so, wound up in the enlightened/awakened state of being anyway – as what does matter is that there now is, finally, a body of work which clearly explicates just what a PCE is ... and what it is not.

Thus no-one need traipse eagerly down the ‘Tried and True’ path ever again (unless they so desire of course).

RESPONDENT: Watts picked up quite a lot from Huxley. But I want to get to something else: The PCE’s experienced from taking mushrooms (or did you take the psilocybin in some other form in 1980?) ...

RICHARD: No.

RESPONDENT: ... remind me of the ‘flow’ experienced by artists while creating or actually anybody merging completely with his activity, as recently again described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

RICHARD: I have located the following description of how it feels to be in ‘the flow’:

1. Completely involved, focused, concentrating – with this either due to innate curiosity or as the result of training.
2. Sense of ecstasy – of being outside everyday reality.
3. Great inner clarity – knowing what needs to be done and how well it is going.
4. Knowing the activity is doable – that the skills are adequate, and neither anxious or bored.
5. Sense of serenity – no worries about self, feeling of growing beyond the boundaries of ego – afterwards feeling of transcending ego in ways not thought possible.
6. Timeliness – thoroughly focused on present, don’t notice time passing.
7. Intrinsic motivation – whatever produces ‘flow’ becomes its own reward’. (www.austega.com/education/articles/flow.htm).

I have reported experiencing the same or similar ... for instance:

• [Richard]: ‘There is no fine line – let alone a somewhat arbitrary one – between a work of art (masterwork/masterpiece) and a work of craft (no matter how excellent the craftsmanship may be) ... there is, to deliberately use your phrasing for effect, a striking discontinuity between the one and the other.
To explain: I was not only a trained art teacher, in the fine arts, but a practicing artist for a period in my working life and honed my skills to a high level of craft (so much so that I was eventually able to discontinue teaching and support both myself and my then wife plus four children all the while paying off a mortgage and a car on hire purchase) yet it was only when ‘self’ was absent during the process of putting paint on canvas (or moving a pencil on paper or shaping clay on a pottery-wheel or whatever) that the product became art – as distinct from craft (and ‘I’ was a good craftsman) – inasmuch the expression ‘the painting painted itself’ was how I would respond, with no false modesty whatsoever, when complimented/praised/admired for my supposed genius.
I have written about this before (where I explain how my wanting to have my life live itself, in the same way that the painting painted itself, is what started me on this whole business) but I happen to have to hand a transcribed interview with Mr. John Lennon, where he is talking about ‘Across The Universe’, which says much the same as above. Vis.: [Mr. John Lennon]: They [the words] were purely inspirational and were given to me as boom! I don’t own it, you know; it came through like that. I don’t know where it came from, what meter it’s in, and I’ve sat down and looked at it and said, ‘can I write another one with this meter?’ It’s so interesting: ‘words are flying out like [sings] endless rain into a paper cup, they slither while they pass, they slip across the universe’. Such an extraordinary meter and I can never repeat it! *It’s not a matter of craftsmanship; it wrote itself*. It drove me out of bed. I didn’t want to write it, I was just slightly irritable and I went downstairs and I couldn’t get to sleep until I put it on paper, and then I went to sleep’. [emphasis added/italics in original]. And (where he is talking about ‘John Sinclair’): [Mr. John Lennon]: ‘They wanted a song about ‘John Sinclair’. So I wrote it. That’s the craftsman part of me. If somebody asks me for something, I can do it. I can write anything musically. You name it. If you want a style and if you want something for Julie Harris or Julie London, I could write it. But I don’t enjoy doing that kind of work. I like to do the inspirational work. I’d never write a song like that now’.

And:

• [Richard]: ‘In the years I successfully made a living as a practising artist I never took any notice of the critics’ opinions ... indeed, if I had I would never had made a living out of it as my artistic output came about despite both the institutionalised training I received during three years fulltime study at art college and the two years fulltime application of same immediately following graduation (wherein I had to teach art part-time of an evening to supplement my then-meagre income).
It was only when ‘I’ got out of the way and the painting painted itself, so to speak, or the drawing drew itself/the sculpture sculpted itself/the pottery formed itself (and so on) that craft – all the painstakingly acquired skills – became art.
I clearly remember the opening night of my first one-man exhibition (in a major city of this country I reside in): it virtually sold-out on that first night and, of course, being the star of the show ‘I’ was the recipient of the judgements of those assembled who chose to voice their opinion ... yet what they did not realise, as only ‘I’ knew how that artistic output came about, was that their opinion was of no value to ‘me’ whatsoever either one way or the other.
The opinion of another identity did not mean a thing either’.

And:

• [Richard]: ‘... all art is initially a representation of the actual and, as such, is a reflection funnelled by the artist so that he/she can express what they are experiencing in order to see for themselves – and show to others – what is going on ‘behind the scenes’ as it were. However, when one is fully engrossed in the act of creating art – wherein the painting paints itself – the art-form takes on a life of its own and ceases to be a representation. It is its own actuality. One can only stand in amazement and wonder ... this is what ‘I’ experienced back when I was a normal person.
Thus ‘I’ wished to live ‘my’ life this way – where my life lived itself – and consequently here I am ... now’.

RESPONDENT: I have the impression that Actual Freedom could be defined as experiencing the whole life as such a ‘flow’, experiencing the sensory ‘input’ (into what, anyway?) only.

RICHARD: There is no ‘input’ ... sensory perception is immediate (direct).

RESPONDENT: Closely connected to this is what you name ‘apperception’ ...

RICHARD: I found the word in the Oxford Dictionary in 1997, when I was assembling an ad hoc collection of articles into some semblance of being a book form so as to be suitable for publishing, which simply said (as the first of several meanings):

• ‘apperception: the mind’s perception of itself’. [endquote].

It was that definition – as contrasted to the normal ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious type of perception – which appealed ... and not any historical usage of the word.

RESPONDENT: [These should be enough examples of ...] your insincerity to own up to what you have written multiple times, for now.

RICHARD: The two quotes you provided are not examples of insincerity as they are nothing other than the way the English language is commonly used. For example:

• [Respondent]: ‘I had what I labelled as a PCE ... the sucker lasted many many hours ... basically from 4pm one day till waking the next morning’. [endquote].

RESPONDENT: At that time I had been reading your words and had tried out your trick/device/method aka haietmoba ... that experience was couched in your words & your lingo and was exactly what you had written regarding what you labelled a PCE ...

RICHARD: Are you saying that when you wrote [quote] ‘I had what I labelled as a PCE ...’ [endquote] it was because you had read those two quotes you provided, where I say that only an identity can have a PCE, and couched it accordingly (albeit in the past tense)?

RESPONDENT: No ...

RICHARD: In which case, then, your usage of the past tense of the word have – as in your [quote] ‘I had what I labelled as a PCE ...’ [endquote] phrasing – must surely be nothing other than the way the English language is commonly used, eh?

RESPONDENT: ... I was using your terminology, your lingo.

RICHARD: The word had – the past tense of the word have – is not my terminology, my lingo, at all ... it the way the English language is commonly used.

RESPONDENT: The word ‘PCE’ is your lingo.

RICHARD: The fact that the acronym for the phrase ‘pure consciousness experience’ is my lingo does nothing to detract from the fact that your own usage of the past tense of the word ‘have’ demonstrates that this entire argument of yours, about double talk, lack of clarity of communication, and insincerity in owning up to what was written (twice), was a beat-up from the get-go.

And even only three and a half hours ago you demonstrated that same thing (the way the English language is commonly used) in your e-mail to another. Vis.:

• [Respondent]: ‘If the identity was not present, then what had the PCE? Anyways, PCE’s will not solve your problems. When you snap out of it ...’. (Saturday, 29/04/2006 9:45 PM AEST).

Now, I know what you are wanting to convey – and presumably your co-respondent does too – because surely, having just enquired as to what had the PCE if the identity was not present, you are not referring to the identity snapping out of the PCE.

Incidentally, as the answer to that query of yours is, of course, that the flesh and blood body (in which identity is abeyant) is what had the PCE then what the identity snaps out of is abeyance – ‘a state of suspension or temporary disuse; dormant condition liable to revival’ (Oxford Dictionary) – upon which re-emergence its problems recommence.

Only upon extinction will its problems cease forever.

RESPONDENT: Just as an aside to your PCE thing. You have said that the PCE is one’s guiding light ...

RICHARD: This is the way I usually put it:

• [Richard]: ‘What one can do is make a critical examination of all the words I advance so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ... and only when they are seen to be inherently consistent with what is being spoken about, then the facts speak for themselves. Then one will have reason to remember a pure conscious experience (PCE), which all peoples I have spoken to at length have had, and thus verify by direct experience the facticity of what is written.
Then it is the PCE that is one’s lodestone or guiding light ... not me or my words. My words then offer confirmation ... and affirmation in that a fellow human being has safely walked this wide and wondrous path’.

RESPONDENT: I’ll agree ... what I learned from those few hours that fit your description of a PCE is; that what is on offer here are your 2nd hand experiences ... if that is what one is after, then they’ve come to the right place ... personally, one such experience was enough ... all religions are born with the petty experiences of certain people.

RICHARD: As what you experienced for those few hours was not a PCE then anything learned therein, or any conclusion drawn therefrom, has nothing to do with what is on offer here.