Actual Freedom ~ Commonly Raised Objections

RESPONDENT: Richard, some objections and thoughts: I do not know what anything is fundamentally, or why it is that way or how it works beyond the layer of understanding below it which simply redefines what is not understood/known. So I don’t know why you asking yourself how you are experiencing life now made you free from unhappiness.

RICHARD: I never asked how I am experiencing life ... it was the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago who asked, each moment again until it became a non-verbal attitude towards life, a wordless approach to being alive, how ‘he’ was experiencing this moment of being alive (the only moment anyone is ever alive).

RESPONDENT: But I accept that it perhaps did or appeared to – if you are that (whatever ‘you’ is with no self).

RICHARD: What I am with no ‘self’ (in its entirety) is this flesh and blood body only ... I use the first person pronoun without smart quotes simply as a matter of convenience, and to avoid being unduly pedantic, to refer to this flesh and blood body sans both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul (spirit).

RESPONDENT: Do you know these things?

RICHARD: What the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago knew was that ‘he’ was standing in the way of the already always existing peace-on-earth from being apparent ... ‘he’ did not find it at all necessary to know what anything is, fundamentally, or why it is that way or how it works, in order to be exclusively attentive to how ‘he’ was experiencing the only moment ‘he’ was ever alive.

RESPONDENT: Does the process through which you have gone mean you now know lots of things.

RICHARD: I have located the following text:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Is there anything you don’t know?
• [Richard]: ‘Yes ... I know a lot about some things; a little about many things; and nothing about a lot of things’

RESPONDENT: That is not your claim yet you speak as if you somehow know it all.

RICHARD: I have located the following text:

• [Richard]: ‘I am on record as saying that I am not an expert on everything ... and that I have no intention of becoming one. My expertise lies in the nature of consciousness and how to end malice and sorrow forever. I have the solution for things like wars, rapes, murders, tortures, domestic violence, child abuse, sadness, loneliness, grief, depression and suicide and so on ... not things like quantum theory sub-atomic particles and the such-like’.

RESPONDENT: Maybe you just claim to see the wood from the trees.

RICHARD: I do not just claim to see the wood from the trees.

RESPONDENT: In any case I doubt you know why you know or conscious, especially if all you are is meat.

RICHARD: If you want me to respond meaningfully you will need to write that in a way which makes sense.

RESPONDENT: In particular how do you know that what worked for you will work elsewhere.

RICHARD: This is one of those never-ending queries: person ‘A’ discovers something and shares that discovery with others; person ‘X’ asks whether what worked for person ‘A’ will work for another whereas person ‘B’ gives it a go and achieves the same result; person ‘X’ asks whether what worked for person ‘A’ and person ‘B’ will work for anyone else whereas person ‘C’ gives it a go and achieves the same result; person ‘X’ asks whether what worked for person ‘A’ and person ‘B’ and person ‘C’ will work for everyone else whereas person ‘D’ gives it a go and ... and just how many others would it take to satisfy person ‘X’ that something works universally (5.999 billion others perchance)?

More to the point, however, there is something strange, almost to the point of being weird, about an attitude which has it that until somebody else has achieved what a pioneer achieved one will not even set out to achieve that because such achievability has not yet been demonstrated to be achievable by another.

Put simply: how on earth can something work if nobody will put it to work because it has not yet been demonstrated to be workable?

RESPONDENT: You are making big claims about the whole of humanity. That you don’t acknowledge this lack of knowledge on your part I find distasteful.

RICHARD: I have located the following text:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘(...) And don’t even try to insult either my intelligence or my physics major in college by suggesting that I read a book – my concentration in college was in quantum mechanics.
• [Richard]: ‘I have no notion of why you would give me this caution as I specifically stated that ‘I am no physicist’ and that neither did I ‘claim any proficiency in quantum physics whatsoever’ and that ‘I am more than willing to be advised otherwise on the matter’ in regards to ‘the little I do understand of this – mostly mathematical and theoretical – physics’.
Golly ... if I were to be any more humble or modest or unassuming or unpretentious or self-effacing or deferential or without airs than those provisos I would be carving a furrow in the floor with all my genuflecting, prostrating, bowing, scraping and tugging of the forelock.
I genuinely would like to be advised on this – apparently – arcane subject because I cannot see it for myself’.

RESPONDENT: In fact your verbose writing has that air of it throughout.

RICHARD: Here is what a dictionary has to say about the word ‘throughout’:

• ‘throughout: through the whole of; in or to every part of; everywhere in (...) right through from beginning to end; through the whole extent, substance, etc.; in every respect; in or to every part, everywhere’. (Oxford Dictionary).

RESPONDENT: Is that fair enough?

RICHARD: No, not at all (as those few quotes clearly demonstrate).

RESPONDENT: Your highbrow writing will not appeal to many people ...

RICHARD: If I may point out? It is the content, not the manner, of what somebody – anybody – has to say which is truly appealing or not.

RESPONDENT: ... do you have plans to present in a way that will hold more people’s attention.

RICHARD: I have no plans to present my discovery in a way which will attract peoples who find style, not substance, appealing.

RESPONDENT: The hypothesis that you are benign and harmless and free of malice and sorrow I hold as proved incorrect. It is not the case. I have documented consistently my observation that by persistently categorising the contributions of humans into WRONG normal and spiritual possibilities, or RIGHT Richard possibilities; you are propagating, continuing, and enhancing malicious disrespectful and legally reprehensible and offensive behaviour.

RICHARD: Are you really suggesting that anyone – anyone at all – who makes a discovery about anything at all relating to human life on this planet, which discovery advances human knowledge and improves the quality of human life, should keep that discovery to themselves just because you are lurking in the wings waiting to pounce upon them for having the audacity to point out that there is a better way of doing something? How can anyone say that the current way is the wrong way without saying that it is the wrong way? Golly, just try driving your car north along a south-bound one-way street ... and as sure as eggs is eggs there is a large red sign saying:

‘Turn Around ... You Are Going The Wrong Way!’

*

RESPONDENT: The way of normality and the way of the spiritual have been the ONLY options humans have had till now ...

RICHARD: Exactly ... either materialism or spiritualism.

RESPONDENT: ... and your way has now arrived and ... you clearly state that we must turn around 180 degrees and renounce our past, including the contributions that those who came before us have made to our freedom.

RICHARD: Hmm ... this is the way I have put it time and again:

• [Richard]: ‘Nothing that I am on about will you find in the scriptures. Nothing. Eventually one has no recourse but to face the facts and the actuality of the human situation squarely. Which is: if the ‘ancient wisdom’ is so good, why has it not worked? How long must we try something before abandoning it in favour of something more promising? There is as much animosity and anguish now as back then. The experiment has failed. Love and its Compassion; Beauty and its Truth have had thousands of years to demonstrate their efficacy ... where is the evidence that they should be persevered with? Where is the Peace On Earth that they supposedly promised? Clear the work-bench and start fresh. Learn from those that have gone before and move on’.

I do see the words ‘learn from those that have gone before and move on’ ... couple this with my ‘I am very appreciative of all those brave peoples who dared to enter into ‘The Unknown’; if it were not for them leaving their written words behind I could not be where I am today’ and you will see I do both acknowledge and appreciate ‘the contributions that those who came before’. What seems to be the nub of the issue is that I do not and will not ‘ascribe value to the work and play and being of others’ which is of importance to you ... it is a constantly recurring theme in your posts. Perhaps if I put it this way:

I acknowledge and appreciate the contributions of all the peoples who puzzled over and proposed and explored the ‘flat earth theory’ and the ‘geocentric cosmology’ for umpteen years but I ascribe no value whatsoever to their work ... I ascribe value to those who proposed a ‘spherical earth’ and the ‘heliocentric system’.

I have only ever been interested in facts and actuality.

RESPONDENT: You are incredibly ungrateful Richard.

RICHARD: You are tipping on only half of it ... there is nary a trace of either gratitude nor ingratitude in me.

RESPONDENT: You are rude and arrogant Richard. At least acknowledge it; and take your seat in the community of humans as you are entitled to.

RICHARD: I have had variations on this theme thrown at me for years and years ... ‘don’t be uppity’; ‘who do you think you are’; ‘you need to learn to know your place’ and so on. Peoples like to fondly quote that ‘the emperor has no clothes’ homily but ... but never, ever have the audacity to demonstrate that the emperor actually has no clothes or we will jump on you from a great height and say: No, no, no, just take your place amongst all us other humans, Richard ... 6.0 billion of us can’t possibly be wrong, you know.

And so all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides go on forever and a day.

RESPONDENT: Richard’s interactions with people on the mailing list do not seem to be consistent with his claim that he lives in actual freedom and that he is happy and harmless 24 hours a day.

RICHARD: And just how should the interactions on a mailing list of a person actually free from the human condition be, then (according to you)?

RESPONDENT: I do not claim to have an answer as I do not live in actual or virtual freedom.

RICHARD: In which case how can you say that my interactions do not seem to be consistent with being actually free from the human condition?

*

RESPONDENT: Many people have noticed Richard’s argumentative attitude, one-upmanship, determination to win arguments at all cost, claims that he is the best thing since sliced bread, claims that he is the only free person in the world, evasiveness in answering direct questions, nit picking with precise definition of words to avoid answering difficult or uncomfortable questions, refusing to really listen to anybody else’s observations or points of view etc., etc.

RICHARD: In response to the last three items on your list (the first four are already answered in the section you have taken them from): where have I been (1) evasive in answering a direct question ... and (2) avoided answering a difficult or an uncomfortable question (whatever they may be) ... and (3) refused to really listen to anybody else?

RESPONDENT: Well, I will give you a simple example in this very exchange. Further down this discussion you wrote [quote] ‘As this is the second occasion wherein you have described your peak experience as affective – as in your ‘feels’ phrasing just above (and your ‘enormous feeling’ phrasing further above) – it is pertinent to point out, at this stage, that if there be any feelings whatsoever in such an experience one thing is for sure ... it ain’t a PCE’ [endquote]. You know that other people do not live in actual freedom.

RICHARD: What I know is what my co-respondent types out and sends ... and the following is how you began your previous e-mail:

• [Respondent]: ‘Now that I have had a chance to read a lot of the information on the web site as well as a large portion of Richard’s journal and having experienced a few PCE’s (*or perhaps excellence experiences*) lasting for half a day at a time as well as remembered quite a few other PCE’s, I have some observations to make and questions to ask’. [emphasis added].

RESPONDENT: You also know that other people when outside of PCE do not express themselves in exactly the same way that you do.

RICHARD: Nor necessarily whilst having a pure consciousness experience (PCE) either ... and I have been with more than a few persons having such an experience. For instance:

• [Richard]: ‘... very early in the piece I asked my current companion, once the PCE was definitely happening, what she had to say now about love (always a hot topic):
‘Love?’ she said, ‘Why there is no room for love here!’
She went on to expand, saying there was no need for love as everything was already perfect, and there was no separation, and so on ... but she had said enough in her initial response to both satisfy and delight me.

Now, I have never used such an expression – ‘there is no room for love here’ – yet I knew perfectly well what was being conveyed.

RESPONDENT: Your language has evolved over the years and become very precise and novices to your web site are not totally familiar with all the exact definitions or words and experience, which words are affective or, for that matter even what ‘affective’ means.

RICHARD: Maybe this will be of assistance:

• ‘affective (see affect): of or pertaining to the affections [the emotions, the feelings; esp. feelings as opp. to reason; the passions]; emotional’. (Oxford Dictionary).
• ‘affective: relating to, arising from, or influencing feelings or emotions: emotional [of or relating to emotion]; expressing emotion’. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).
• ‘affective: (psychology) influenced by or resulting from the emotions; concerned with or arousing feelings [susceptibility to emotional response; sensibilities] or emotions; emotional’. (American Heritage® Dictionary).
• ‘affective: characterised by emotion; affectional, emotive’. (WordNet 2.0).

• ‘affect: (psychol.) an emotion, a mood; (affectless: without emotion, incapable of feeling emotion)’. (Oxford Dictionary).

Apart from that: the words in question are ‘feels’ – as in your ‘one feels so good, at ease, benevolent, fulfilled (as in nothing is missing) and secure’ phrasing – and ‘feeling’ (as in your ‘there is an enormous feeling of well being’ phrasing) ... and I am yet to come across someone who does not know what those words mean.

RESPONDENT: So instead of answering a question genuinely ...

RICHARD: And just what question would that be? The only one in the entire paragraph which I responded to the first three sentences of was of the ‘rhetorical question’ variety (a question to which no answer is expected, often used for rhetorical effect (American Heritage® Dictionary)) ... to wit: a ‘who will promote it’ lead-in to your own immediate answer.

RESPONDENT: ... [So instead of answering a question genuinely] and help the person see what is wrong with their thinking, you nit-pick at the word ‘feel’ and go off on a tangent.

RICHARD: If I may point out? It was you who said that your experiences were [quote] ‘or perhaps excellence experiences’ [endquote] ... and not me.

RESPONDENT: Does one have to substitute a word ‘feel’ for ‘experience’ or another word that meets your approval before one can engage in an open discussion with you?

RICHARD: It is not a matter of substitution at all ... it is a matter of what the experiences really were.

RESPONDENT: This attitude does seem rather silly and I have seen countless examples of this sort of thing on the web site.

RICHARD: And just what ‘countless’ examples of this sort of thing would they be?

RESPONDENT: I mean, does a normal person have to fully absorb your terminology and use precise wording and carry a dictionary in their pocket before they can have a meaningful discussion with your?

RICHARD: As I am yet to come across someone who does not know what the words ‘feels’ and ‘feeling’ mean then ... no.

RESPONDENT: Quite frankly, when I started reading your web site, there were quite a few words that I did not understand and in fact encountered here for the first time in my life (and I have a university degree).

RICHARD: Meanwhile, back at my query: where have I been (1) evasive in answering a direct question ... and (2) avoided answering a difficult or an uncomfortable question (whatever they may be) ... and (3) refused to really listen to anybody else?

RICHARD: No longer plagued by petty arguments, pathetic one-upmanship.

RESPONDENT: Including, of course, the pathetic one-upmanship of ‘I have discovered truths no one else knows’. What I would like to understand is why all the self-proclaimed enlightened (I use that term loosely to include you Richard, though you don’t use it yourself) folk on this list are so all-fired certain that they are the only ones on the surface of the earth who have ever experienced what they experience? And why are y’all so arrogant that you can say things like ‘nowhere in the revered and sacred scripts, anywhere in history’ – as if you personally had studied each one? It is actually your attitude of smug disdain that most convincingly argues against your having achieved anything resembling equanimity, never mind true understanding of reality.

RICHARD: To clarify the situation:

1. I am not enlightened.
2. I do not want to be enlightened.
3. I never will become enlightened.
4. Enlightenment is worthless.

If no-one was bold enough to say that the accepted ‘truth’ is a mistake, then the sun would still be revolving around the earth. In the face of public opinion, one needs to be intrepid to question the collective wisdom and find out for oneself the fact of the matter. One of the best ways of doing this is to see that something held to be true is not working. Instead of vainly trying to make it work through intellectual dishonesty, one takes stock and applies lateral thinking. One needs to be audacious to proceed where no-one has gone before ... and trail-blazers are often castigated for their effrontery. Fancy being ridiculed or ostracised for ascertaining the actuality of something ... for establishing a fact. To be forced to recant, by popular demand, is an outstanding act of dogmatic elitism born out of ignoring the facts. With this being the lot of the path-finder, no wonder humanity is in the mess that it is in, for who would run the gauntlet?

But I am supremely blasé about the opinion of others, for their ‘truths’ do not work ... they do not live in peace and tranquillity. They do not experience the perpetual purity of this moment of being alive; a purity welling-up in all directions from the vast, immeasurable stillness of the infinitude of this universe. They remain ignorant of the excellence of the absence of ‘being’. In short, their ‘truths’, their philosophies on life, do not work. The criterion of a fact is that it works, it produces results. Because I live here, where the immediate is the ultimate, there is no sorrow or malice. All my thoughts are benign, for maleficence does not exist where time has no duration. By living the fact that ‘I’ am not actual, evil has ceased to be.

With no evil in existence, I do not have to believe in and muster all my energies in order to be good. ‘Good’ is a psychic force created to combat the psychic force known as ‘Evil’. Similarly, in monotheistic cultures, a ‘God’ is invented to engage in an endless battle with a ‘Devil’. In polytheistic cultures Gods are opposed to Demons. Then there is ‘Heavens’, ‘Hells’, ‘Sin’, ‘Karma’, ‘Resurrection’, ‘Reincarnation’ ... the list goes on. Where is intelligence in all this? Are humans worthy of the title ‘Mature Adults’? This is worse than puerile ... this is primitive in the extreme. It all leads to such appalling brutality and unbearable suffering that it is a wonder that such nonsense can still be soberly entertained as even approximating truth. It is not only bizarre; this is insanity.

All this is so patently obvious that I am amazed at the reactions I meet when I talk about such matters to others. It all does not work. These ‘truths’ have been rigorously applied by diligent peoples for thousands of years, to no avail. How long must humans keep on trying something that just simply does not work ... and never will? Why take umbrage at something entirely new, something that has never been before, something that delivers what it proposes? Are humans so perverse as to turn their backs, again and again, on the fact that the ‘tried and true’ methods do not work? So much for the supposed ‘innate curiosity’ and the inherent ‘spirit of exploration and discovery’ that is said to be the hall-mark of being human. Humans rather spend billions on searching for life in outer space, for example, instead of examining their own mores. Does humanity hope to find an alien race near some distant star who have the secret to life? And if they did find such creatures, who on earth would listen? Who would apply their wisdom? Would they be accused of ‘smug disdain’ ? Would they not also be called ‘arrogant’ ?

Obviously, what would happen, is that a phalanx of sociologists, anthropologists, biologists, psychologists, theologians and philosophers would swing into action to ‘study their culture’.

Such is the unyielding fate of a benighted humanity.

RESPONDENT: Intelligence does not use thought to try and prove that it knows more than everybody else. It doesn’t act like a fighting cock all strutting and prancing around ready to attack its opponent.

RICHARD: No, indeed not. This ‘Intelligence’ is being as humble as all get-out in the hope that no one will twig to the fact that it is only ‘I’ in disguise.

RESPONDENT: This ‘cocky’ attitude somewhat present in some posts only reveals some philosophers wanting to do the battle of thought.

RICHARD: Are you still talking to me (Richard) or are you speaking generally? I have more than merely ‘a cocky attitude’ ... my cockiness is actual and comes from an inestimable success. And I am not battling thought here, but rather bashing away at beliefs ... which are emotion-backed thoughts. No one wants to examine their feelings.

RESPONDENT: I do not think this sort of display of thought is ever going to solve anguish.

RICHARD: What will, then? Examining beliefs, perhaps? And thus examining feelings? Anguish is a feeling, after all.

RESPONDENT: Is this list merely something to enjoy, pass the time of day, or is it a serious effort to understand and end the problematic child, thought?

RICHARD: I, for one, thoroughly enjoy this List, yes. It is indeed a pleasant pastime, yes. It is not a ‘serious effort’ , no. And last, but not least, thought is not a ‘problematic child’ it is the ‘thinker’ that is the problem ... and the ‘feeler’.

RESPONDENT: Humbly and respectfully submitted.

RICHARD: Why ‘humbly and respectfully’? Why is there a need for this abject humiliation?

There is no god to be in awe of or to fear ... here in this actual world of sensual delight.

RESPONDENT No. 27: I’m merely pointing out to you (if you want to see it) why it makes perfect sense the way Richard responded. He is simply taking Respondent No. 49’s words at face value, and not treating him like a ‘teenager’ or a ‘kid’. Do you think it is a better approach to not take his words at face value by writing him off as ‘impatient’ or a ‘kid?’ Do you think that is in Respondent No. 49’s best interest? What do you think Respondent No. 49’s response would be if it dawns on him that you are merely ‘humouring’ him or ‘being nice’ because you don’t want to hurt his feelings? Don’t you think he just might prefer a sincere conversation as to not be misled?

RESPONDENT: An effective communicator phrases statements in a context that is meaningful to the intended recipient.

RICHARD: Indeed so ... and the ‘context’ in question is as follows: Respondent No. 4 posted an e-mail in the same thread (in response to my post of Monday 14/06/2004 6:33 AM AEST) at 6:22 PM Monday 14/06/2004 AEST – to which I sent my further response at 5:18 AM on Wednesday 16/06/2004 AEST – and whilst I was in the process of then writing my response to Respondent No. 49’s e-mail of Tuesday 15/06/2004 4:52 AM (in response to my post of Monday 14/06/2004 6:30 AM AEST) the following came into my mail-box:

• [Respondent No. 49]: ‘Richard, is your refusal to respond to my last follow-up query due to: a} it being irrelevant? b} the questions escaped your comprehension? c} you had to run? d} they were the wrong questions? e} you are stumped? f} all of the above. (‘To Richard: Questions about questions’; Wednesday 16/06/2004 9:27 AM AEST).

Thus 4 hours and 9 minutes after I had posted my response to Respondent No. 4 from two days prior – whilst I was in the very process of writing my response to Respondent No. 49 – I was being asked as to why I was refusing to respond (as in the ‘your refusal to respond’ phrasing) to the follow-up query posted only the previous day (in fact 28 hours and 35 minutes prior to that e-mail).

In short: it was nothing but an (erroneous) assumption that I was refusing to respond.

RESPONDENT: One who is only interested in stating what they hold to be truth speaks in words that are meaningful to themselves. Richard falls in the latter camp.

RICHARD: Speaking of (erroneous) assumptions: you are assuming that Richard is only interested in stating what he holds to be truth ... and, further assuming that he speaks in words that are meaningful to himself, draw baseless conclusions from such assumptive premises.

RESPONDENT: That is his prerogative ...

RICHARD: If I may interject? You are assuming that your assumption is my ‘prerogative’ ... based upon your assumptive premises.

RESPONDENT: ... but it doesn’t do much to help spread actualism far and wide.

RICHARD: ‘Tis just as well I am not doing any of the things you assume I am doing then, eh?

RESPONDENT: Hence, the list of actualists shall remain short ...

RICHARD: As your ‘hence’ is derived from a baseless conclusion (drawn from assumptive premises) your further conclusion – ‘the list of actualists shall remain short’ – is without substance.

RESPONDENT: ... consisting of those few (to none) who ‘get it’ ...

RICHARD: As your further conclusion is without substance your (meaningless) detail in that insubstantial conclusion is but certitude masquerading as certainty.

RESPONDENT: ... and those who parrot.

RICHARD: Hmm ... a clichéd ending is a fitting finale to your latest contribution to discussion about peace-on-earth.

For your information: the reason why I responded as I did – first using the modern-day equivalent of Mr. Eubulides’ example of a sophistical tactic – is because my co-respondent has displayed a tendency, over numerous e-mails, towards asking me many questions based upon assumptive premises ... for example: and .

You will see from these two examples, which are but a couple of instances among many, that the (larger) context in which I phrased those two statements is most certainly intended to be meaningful to the recipient.

As is this e-mail to you.

CO-RESPONDENT: Have the actualists solved the riddle of nature vs. nurture?

RICHARD: As I was born and raised on a farm there never was a nature versus nurture riddle to solve ... the human animal was demonstrably born with instinctual passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) just like the other animals were.

C-RESPONDENT: The theories about the role of instincts on the website ...

RICHARD: If I may interject? Just what [quote] ‘theories’ [endquote] are you referring to? And the reason I ask is because what I have to report/ describe/ explain is experiential ... as in coming out of direct experience.

RESPONDENT: You ask people not to accept anything you say without verifying it for themselves.

RICHARD: Indeed so ... you are obviously referring to something like this:

• [Richard]: ‘... I do not want any one to merely believe me. I stress to people how vital it is that they see for themselves. If they were so foolish as to believe me then the most they would end up in is living in a dream state and thus miss out on the actual. I do not wish this fate upon anyone ... I like my fellow human beings. 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’. [emphasis added].

RESPONDENT: Yet when they come back and question your theories ...

RICHARD: If I might interject? When they come back from ... from where? Clearly, not back from [quote] ‘verifying it for themselves’ [endquote] as they would not be calling them theories, now would they?

RESPONDENT: [Yet when they come back and question your theories], you throw out the last card in your deck – ‘what I have to report/ describe/ explain is experiential ... as in coming out of ‘direct experience’.

RICHARD: No, that is not the last card in the deck – it is the first one – as well you know. Vis.:

• [Respondent]: ‘You ask people not to accept anything you say without *verifying it for themselves*. [emphasis added].

RESPONDENT: ... and hence forthwith it is now as if carved in stone.

RICHARD: No, it is carved (to use your terminology) in the PCE ... here it is again from that passage of mine you obviously referred to:

• [Richard]: ‘Then it is the PCE that is one’s lodestone or guiding light ... *not me or my words*. [emphasis added].

RESPONDENT: They can question your theories till the cows come home ...

RICHARD: No, were they to have come back from [quote] ‘verifying it for themselves’ [endquote] they would not be calling them theories.

RESPONDENT: ... but you have laid down the laws of the universe ...

RICHARD: No, it is the PCE which evidences what you are labelling as ‘the laws of the universe’ ... not me or my words.

RESPONDENT: ... this universe according to your understanding of it ...

RICHARD: No, this universe according to the direct experience of it in a PCE.

RESPONDENT: ... or what you like to call ‘experiential’ ...

RICHARD: No, the direct experience in a PCE is not what I like to call experiential ... it is experiential. Vis.:

• ‘experiential: of, pertaining to, or derived from experience or observation’. (Oxford Dictionary).

RESPONDENT: ... and now your words are to be carved in stone ...

RICHARD: No, that that passage of mine you obviously referred to is quite explicit:

• [Richard]: ‘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’. [emphasis added].

RESPONDENT: ... because you hold the trump card of what you like to call ‘direct experience’ ...

RICHARD: No, were they to have come back from [quote] ‘verifying it for themselves’ [endquote] they would have the entire deck of cards (to keep with your analogy).

RESPONDENT: ... which trumps everyone else’s so-called direct experience.

RICHARD: No, the PCE is global in its spread. Vis.:

• [Richard]: ‘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*. However, it is usually interpreted according to cultural beliefs – created and reinforced by the persistence of identity – and devolves into an ASC ...’.

RESPONDENT: You are trying to have it both ways, all ways, as usual ...

RICHARD: No, were they to have come back from [quote] ‘verifying it for themselves’ [endquote] the PCE would be their lodestone or guiding light ... not me or my words.

RESPONDENT: I believe that is call dualism ...

RICHARD: No, that is not called dualism.

RESPONDENT: ... perhaps you should rename the obviously erroneous name for your millions of words, actualism ...

RICHARD: No, the name for my millions of words is not actualism – either erroneously or otherwise – as that is the name for the direct experience that matter is not merely passive. Vis.:

• [Richard]: ‘The word actualism refers to the direct experience that matter is not merely passive. I chose the name rather simply from a dictionary definition which said that actualism was ‘the theory that matter is not merely passive (now rare)’. That was all ... and I did not investigate any further for I did not want to know who formulated this theory. It was that description – and not the author’s theory – that appealed. And, as it said that its usage was now rare, I figured it was high-time it was brought out of obscurity, dusted off, re-vitalised ... and set loose upon the world (including upon those who have a conditioned abhorrence of categories and labels) as a third alternative to materialism and spiritualism’.

RESPONDENT: ... into dualism ...

RICHARD: No, that would be a misnomer for were they to have come back from [quote] ‘verifying it for themselves’ [endquote] the PCE would be their lodestone or guiding light ... not me or my words.

RESPONDENT: ... or Richardism.

RICHARD: No, that too would be a misnomer for were they to have come back from [quote] ‘verifying it for themselves’ [endquote] the PCE would be their lodestone or guiding light ... not me or my words.

Ain’t life grand!