BW Newsletter 17th June - Re-thinking Wilhelm Reich, Plague of Secret Kangz & Defending Wim Hof O_o
Weekly materials with your local 'Just a British Pragmatist'
Contents
Rethinking Wilhelm Reich - A Physiological Perspective - Part 1
Path vs Non-Paths - Sorting Through the Pervasive Non-Paradox of the Kangz
Defending Wim Hof
Bio-Individual Podcast Links and Release Notes
Substack and Channel Updates - What’s Coming Soon….ish
Paid Subscriber Weekly Release - ‘No Dogma No-Self for Cushion Sitters’
Paid Subscriber Bonus - ‘Guided Meditation - Tuning into Sounds and Sensations’
1. Rethinking Reich
Over the last couple of months during our podcast discussions on Wilhelm Reich specifically and in private talks with Kevin, I've been forced to face up to Reich. In his totality. In a practical sense, Reich forms a massive part of what I've done over the years. It's also true I disagree with his outlook profoundly.
It’s well documented that Reich was thoroughly swept up in the communism burning through Europe at the time of his earlier developments, and this is very telling in his earlier works. The way in which he contextualised the role of Freud's early ‘libido’ theory, the 'repressive' forces of civilisation. Forces stunting the 'natural expression' of a loving ape. The ultimate end goal of his work being the requisite emancipation from oppressive forces.
These days in particular, having travelled widely and encountering many ‘native’ populations I find such utopian outlooks to be rather comical, as I’m sure you do too. Whatever you think of this, outlooks of this kind were not uncommon, as we’re all products of our time. Apart from this is his method: the real value proposition.
Having tempered this idealism in his later life, he then moves on to a grander battle: the fight against intergalactic space invaders. As amusing as this may be, putting on my serious hat, it has to be said that escapade was outright delusional. So you have to ask, if this guy was out of his mind, how on earth can you take his methods seriously? A very reasonable question, that will be looked at in the next installment.
Yet, I have to admit, after using his work for (almost, yikes) several decades, not as a therapy but as a means of self-transcendence, there are inarguable truths to what he was saying. If you take away the initial communistic undergirding of his analysis, with it’s references to space invaders, & Utopianism, what are you left with?
You are left to contend with the following:
Excessive muscular tension and poor respiratory habits create 'neurotic flareups' and behavioural patterns. A tendency towards individual and group dysfunction.
Muscular tension and neurotic character is definitely associated with sexual dysfunction, in which the sexual impulse & orgasm reflex are stunted and unable to be experienced fully.
Civilisation DOES impose thoughtless and incompetent constriction on many of these natural processes, leading to dullness and depressive tendency in the individual.
Western Civ. encourages poor bodily habits and is undisciplined in promoting the integrity of the bodily structure and lining up what Reich termed ‘segments’. This, combined with excessive tension, created a limp, lifeless body that cannot 'build energetic force and discharge', ending in a contemptible, compulsive character, scared of it’s own tail.
There is a pervading energetic function in the universe; the ancients knew this, yogis and ascetics utilised this and still do - and they manipulated their bodies and breath to do so - Reich attempted to medicalise this.
Thoughts are unimportant: they are downstream, mere flareups of structure and their quality is determined only by the degree to which integration of psyche and body has been undertaken. It’s typically the case that they deliver only content about the character; they are unimportant in and of themselves.
These are a few of the things I've seen to be the case, and I have to acknowledge them. So, if we take away the Marxist framing, Reich was indeed correct in many ways. And more in line with our way of thinking than many would like to acknowledge.
So in balancing this complex man for my own sake, I'd like to also include you in a mental exercise where I'd like to put this issue to bed once and for all.
Words on Analysis I’ve come Across
As with Eastern Practices, there’s a pervasive kind of ‘uptight heckin’ wholesome pumpkin pie’ moralism is typically levelled at Reich. 'He liked sex', 'he created hedonist 60s' 'he was Jewish Marxoid', and 'he alone is responsible for only fans'. For sure, he was a complete lunatic and did many things you'd question (none of the legitimate criticisms are ever spoken about since no one can research, apparently). It always comes from a place of moral posturing, never looking at the process and its basis on it’s own terms.
I have an issue with morality in our age because almost all modern humans are hypocrites. So I won't stand for this burlesque performative nonsense any longer. Other than being factually incorrect regarding his entire premise, the analysis I've read simultaneously and hilariously express the same dull life tendency Reich was describing.
The self-loathing, self-hating, depressive, energy-less, passive-aggressive, invital, dry-snatch and limp-dicked whinging, pulpit-humping whining f*ckface that can't put his or her false claims of moral superiority aside. An inferior, spiteful caricature of a human being completely devoid of biological energy. I intend to right the ship a little.
Due to length, I will present this in a few parts over the coming weeks and months.
We will have coming up:
What Reich done good
What he done bad
Where he really got his method - My take
Moving Beyond Reich for Bio-Individuals
Finally, you should note that I have always used the method for non-therapeutic purposes (as did my teachers). My analysis of Reich necessarily includes therapeutic terms and outlooks, but you should know I'm not into therapy. I reject therapeutic perspectives except for the most severe cases, and strongly repudiate the impulse to medicalise everything, and to see everything as 'divergent' or 'pathological'. For me there is adaption, or not. So forgive me in advance, but it is obviously required.
Reich's Contributions
(i) Non Verbal Intervention
Reich's origin story is that of being an acolyte of Freud. Freud is that one person that never fails to regularly induce an oceanic deluge of tears whenever he’s mentioned. I will put it out there: I don't mind Freud's (final - important distinction) analysis, and I feel at least in some regards he’s misunderstood.
Reich became enamoured with Freud's libido theory, and it formed the basis of his pursuits going forward. Volumes are written Libido and my explanation here is incomplete. For the purpose of this article, we can understand it thus: libido was for Freud a term denoting the force that organises all the dynamic processes of the organism.
Libido is a force derived from the hormonal cascades selected for by evolution, and therefore is an innate drive that seeks general pleasure, with sexual pleasure as the prime directive. Borrowing from vitalist philosophers, Freud proposed (initially) that instead of a generalised vital energy with sexual impulses as merely one component, libido was at the core of human drives. Without the requisite flow of libido, neurosis would find expression.
"On the one view, the individual is the principal thing, sexuality is one of its activities and sexual satisfaction one of its needs; while on the other view, the individual is a temporary and transient appendage to the quasi-immortal germplasm, which is entrusted to him by the process of generation." - Freud
This conception is strikingly close to many outlooks I've heard online, frankly.
Embracing this theoretical underpinning wholeheartedly during his time in Vienna, Reich quickly put his disagreeable character structure to work (not a criticism, I possess this). Accepting Libido theory and its consequences with a degree of admirable fanaticism. There is much evidence of this in his own books and is worth reading for those interested. As time went by and his clinical work deepened, he became frustrated with the analytical method. He noticed that speaking therapy was long-winded and ineffective for many of the patients that would visit the clinics he was involved in during those earlier years.
During these sessions, he would take note of the patient's body structure and 'sub-conscious' movements, i.e. movements of which the neurotic patient was unaware. He noticed the modification of breathing habits accompanying different states and physiological postures, for example.
From this, Reich deduced that the way to psychological wholeness was, in fact, probably through manipulating physiology. This manipulations end goal would be to ensure a full expression of libidinal impulses - the thing Freud deduced to be at the bottom of the neurotic character. He noticed that many patients had stunted sexual ability through their complaints, so it made sense to him that reinstalling this impulse would necessarily alleviate neurotic symptoms.
As Kevin will tell you, Reich assumes that there is a kind of 'intelligence in the body' and through 'harmonising' the system as a ‘bio-energetic whole’ - primarily through removing so-called blockages or tension - the body would then be free to just kind of 'fall back into place'.
The outcome of the 'bodies intelligence' would be the creation of a harmonic pulsation of excitation and relaxation, and over time this would reduce neurotic symptoms; since the bio-energetic flow was no longer uninhibited and could freely flow between the various' segments' of the body that Reich outlined.
Reich reportedly obtained results. Like all paradigm-shifting men, he seems to me to have been a pragmatist who followed the money. Reich also realised that speaking therapy was fraught with danger for both parties involved, and was basically ineffective. He encouraged therefore a more holistic approach to behavioural change. This aspect of Reich is under-appreciated today.
The shift away from verbal intervention in therapy is now highly pervasive. In fields such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), for example, there is an emphasis on action and even increasingly integration of mindfulness practice. Used to integrate experiences and implementation of new behaviours that the patient undergoes. This is now known as iCBT, loosely based on Burmese Vipassana (that's literally all it is - Western grifter scientists pretending they've found something new). We can see that Reich's sensing exercise is precisely a Vipassana-type technique - literally the same thing as well.
Reich was a crucial figure in rebelling against words and theory-based interventions. His pursuit of the body as the vault of knowledge ran in stark contrast to what many prominent thinkers of his time were doing, and he in no small way kicked off the many body-based methods that hit their stride in the '50s and '60s: methods people take for granted today. Although there was a specific cultural foment in which his vegetotherapy flared up and he was not solely responsible for new stream of technique, as we will see in later articools.
in the end, he was thrown in jail for this. He died in prison. Nowadays, the same credentialed scientists and therapists are benefitting from his work against the system of the time, and will still refer to him mockingly, despite enjoying the fruits of his struggles.
(ii) Moving Beyond Psycho-Analysis to 'Vegetotherapy.'
Reich being an acolyte of Freud, we should remember that Freud himself moved on from or developed what he is now famous for - the so-called 'libido theory'. Moved on from its absolutism in any case. Due to the war in Europe, with increasing bitterness towards humankind (simply can't relate), Freud revised his initial assumptions to include a counter-force. Thanatos, a destructive drive that was at least as powerful as the force he called Eros.
This is little known or acknowledged in our circles. 'Thanatos' and 'Eros' - the drive towards life and death - creation and destruction. (This is why I disagree with the general handlings of Freud, and this is where many are incomplete in their analysis. At least those I've seen).
Freud's analysis of Thanatos and Eros was the point at which he diverged from the psyche being purely formed around the drive toward sexual pleasure. There's something deeply alluring about Freud's final analysis, and even if you dislike him for other reasons, it's worth a read and hearty consideration on its own terms. In my view.
Indeed, the critical opposition of fellow psychiatrists like Jung tempered this view. Analysts like Adler and Jung, who were more traditional in their outlooks towards ‘vitalism’, preferred a 'base-creative energy' model. A vital energy that animated all things, inclusive of, but not derived from sexual impulse as the prime mover. Despite his confidence in his theory of the primacy of libido and neurosis, Freud, in the end, postulated that the forces of life were in fact separated into psychic drives towards violence and sexual pleasure. Granted, it wasn’t a complete backflip.
Whatever you think of Freud’s analysis, we should note that the tenacious and disagreeable Reich didn't let go of the libido theory; not only did he not let it go, he went balls to the wall with it. Rejecting Freud's later developments that he considered a kind of cowardice. So Reich ends up in some ways more Freudian than Freud himself.
For our own analysis, this period also marked the split between Freud and Reich. Reich refused the let go of the primacy of of libido and thereby became a rather stubborn proponent of the things Freud at thrown out as absolutes by the 1930’s.
This is incidentally one of the places where I also split from Reich. I still acknowledge the sexual energy and associated reflexes as immensely powerful; but it's not all there is. I also don't think Feud's final conception of human drives was as far from the mark as people make out, to be honest. He's just one of those guys that's easy to hate because of what he's popularly attributed to having believed or having been responsible for.
There is another marked difference stemming from this split and era that is critical to understand: While Freud and Jung were what I would term 'hardline wordcels and believed in having a nice friendly little chat with their insane patients - Reich had started working with the body. Therefore, in his own conception of Libido and its relationship with neurosis, he was witnessing the consequences of these theories primarily as a physical manifestation in the bodies of the patients he was observing.
Reich himself declares that he:
"…is essentially a bio-therapist, and no longer merely a psychotherapist" (Reich, 1949)
As you'd expect, given Reich's infamous belligerence and insistence on bodywork, it wasn't long after this split (1934) that Reich was expelled from the psycho-analytic society which Freud created.
This wasn't the only split; regardless of the sophistication and ultimate accuracy of Freud's positions, his society and its methods remained steadfastly committed to verbal therapy as a prime method. We have much evidence of this, like from David Boadella (a student of Reich), who gives us a snapshot of what Reich was up to in the period leading up to this event:
"By 1933, Reich's theoretical conclusions on the relation between sexuality and anxiety, and his clinical work in dissolving the character rigidities, had pushed him to the boundaries of the psychological realm. With the concept of the 'vaso-motor response', which he had advanced in 'Die Funktion des Orgasmus', he was on the edge of a complex field of psychosomatic phenomena which most analysts preferred to leave alone. ... Reich's characterological work had taught him that the function of the rigid character formation was to bind anxiety. Only those analysts who worked consistently with character analysis were able to reverse the process and release the dammed-up anxiety from the character armour. As the techniques of dissolving the armour grew more proficient, the effective release became more pronounced” (Boadella, 1973)
As we can see, Reich, aside from holding on to libido theory, also diverged by starting to view the body and its rigidity as the source of 'neurotic ailment'. He began to assess the 'character formation' of the organism as a rigidification induced by the drive towards managing anxiety responses to the external environment.
His vegetotherapy (bodywork) aimed to try and 'loosen up' areas of extreme tension. Thereby alleviating neurotic processes, symptoms and dysfunctional character. This ran completely counter to the accepted methods of sitting on the couch and blabbering to a therapist for years on end to no avail.
This split marked his move to Oslo (1934) where he began to deepen the development of his methods. Interestingly, he made acquaintances with several people that assisted him in developing the processes we have today - this has been a constant area of interest for me and will be included in an upcoming part of this series.
According to his correspondence, the atmosphere in Scandinavia was one which was much more open to body-based therapeutic methods. So unlike Freud's wordcel Vienna group, not only did no one bat an eyelid, but he was well-received and even started working with several other Scandi psychoanalysts and prominent dancers to develop his co-called vegetotherapy.
'Thought' or 'neurotic fantasies' were increasingly seen by Reich as an eruption of a disordered organism. This demanded a more simplistic and primal approach to the organism. In Reich's case, this primal approach aimed to reinstate the orgasm as the prime biological reflex. The ‘muscular armour’ that prevented this reflex was an anxiety-blunting coping mechanism and was seen by Reich as the inhibiting force.
This general conception formed the basis of what would be termed vegetotherapy - the vegetative nervous system being an old-school term for what we would now call the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), the mechanism that regulates automatic or involuntary functions within the organism.
Reich investigated and started to model this new bodywork in the following ways:
Respiration: a subject close to my heart.
The 'segment theory' of the body as the basis for integration - Suspicious...
The emotional and instinctual expressions in the organism.
The end goal for Reich was the 'conscious integration of the conscious and unconscious, the primal ability for the organism to build a charge and discharge it.
(As an aside, for anyone interested in Eastern Practice, we can plainly see the similarities between Reich's segment approach and chakra models. Notably, Reich reacted with suspicious aggression towards any mention of Eastern practice when asked about it - by all accounts).
So in practice, Reich looked at the patient's body. Controversially, he would make them strip naked and stand before him as he believed neurosis was often expressed as shame in the body. This, in particular, is amusingly close to what many online claim today, which level criticisms at the 'clothmos world order' and its excesses.
Many critical of Reich say he was an intrusive pervert for this - but those who are red-pilled on the nudity question would no doubt be able to see the logic in his actions. He was also influenced by ballet dancers and German naturist and nudist movements prevalent at the time (European dancers helped him design his therapy in Oslo).
Aside from checking attitudes towards the body, he would also have the opportunity to look at the bunched tissues, the general interconnectedness of the various segments, and the bunches and structure of muscle tissues.
once assessed, he would have the patient breathe deeply on the couch and induce hyper-ventilation. He would, rightly or wrongly, employ touch also to make the patient aware of what he called 'vegetative currents' - the sensations and energies moving throughout the body that were not perceptible to the patient because of their severe mind-body split. This would also induce discomfort rather like the stripping down part; neurotic patients are often allergic to touch. Right or wrong, there is inarguably something to this, as I’m sure any massage therapist would tell you.
Through 'reading' the muscular armour and the patient's related 'character', he began to see clearly how manipulation of these tensions were related to character - and the downstream impacts of the process of reintegration of ‘vegetative currents’ (later called ‘orgone’) throughout the body.
He also noticed something that any Vipassana or meditation student will know about - sensations and bodily states tend to remain entirely outside of attention most of the time. This realisation spurred Reich's ultimate goal of his work - the integration of the sub-conscious functions of the nervous system with the conscious element or the 'Freudian psyche'. It was thought that through this process, the 'vegetative currents' would be free to flow as they 'naturally should'. Thereby allowing the function of the orgasm reflex to fully express itself.
So whatever the reality of the energies of the vegetative system, this in some ways irrelevant to his method and it outcomes. In practice, which is what we really care about, the design of the body and psychic integration process he…created…or appropriated…or whatever - works, and it works well.
In the context of a language-obsessed, inorganic culture, his revolutionary conclusion was that words and concepts were more often eruptions or thinly veiled justifications stemming from defense mechanisms that were maintained at great cost, to inhibit the vital natural pulsation of the human being, as a means of psychic protection.
Reich's position is simple - only through reintegrating the body's structures with the psyche, letting go of excess tensions, and simply learning to breathe with the diaphragm as a central fulcrum to this project - only this way can one animate the organism with vitality and energy.
(iii) Pulsation, Vegetative Integration & Vitality
Reich deduced his idea of 'Orgone and Pulsation' from this method. Admittedly, how he expresses these things has never been to my liking. But they were a product of the times, as was he.
Orgone is given a clownish, memeish and buffoonish representation in our circles: Orgone pyramids from Amazon, orgone devices made out of resin and metal shards, and all sorts of equally absurd esoteric stupidities. Like everything online, the core of the message is diminished and misunderstood, and ridiculous humans continue on as sad parodies of themselves. Coming across as more dysfunctional than the Joe 6-Pack they consider themselves through their orgone consumerism to be ‘so much better than’.
So let's take a little time to understand the Reichian conception of vitality - because before Reich, such ideas had representation, but usually, they were philosophical and word-based abstractions, or at best related to chance occurrences in special human types.
Reich did something very valuable. As we've seen, he introduced non-verbal practical methods for implementing vitality - rightly refusing to accept that it should simply happen by 'chance' or 'genetics'. And rightly seeing that dysfunctional child-rearing practices stunted what human potential there was. And it is possible to maintain this view without being utopian, nor denying genetic quality as being important.
Reich tells us that the vital energetic vegetative currents we've been speaking about, in essence, should be experienced as pleasurable sensations. Reich tells us that we are taught to become anxious about the pleasurable pulsation of these currents through our bodies, as a result of guilt, anxiety and fear induced by poor parenting, moral impositions and other irrational civilisational practices.
Reich's 'Psychic Plague' - the psychophysiological ill that plagues mankind - stemmed from this disconnection of the mass man from his vital essence - that man himself had become fearful of his governing energetic responses, the charge and the pleasure of life itself.
Man exists in a state of what Christopher Hyatt refers to as a 'blistering psychic masochism'. He turns his inability to express his life force with lightness and vitality and to experience the energising pleasure of life itself, inwards - towards destruction and self-loathing. In some ways, I see this as an acknowledgement of the Thanatos principle, but Reich did not believe it was inherent in us, rather is was a drive created by dysfunction.
Reich's views are best summarised in that famous quote of his:
"Love, work, and knowledge are the wellsprings of our lives; they should also govern it."
The expression of this sexual and orgasm reflex, and creative force, were inextricably linked in his conception. They represented the 'free-flowing orgone' or bio-energy conducted by the unarmored pulsation of fluids and tissues in the organism. We can see here then how Reich refused to let go of Freud's original view and even pushed it further.
Libido itself, the reflex, and its functionality were not simply one element of the whole; they represented the health and functionality of the energetic pulsation of the organism itself; they are, as it were, the prime representation of the organismic life process.
Reich also started to investigate metabolism in terms of the fluids within the organism and the vitality of blood cells. Pictures and analysis of this can be seen in many of his books for those interested.
Ray Peat, for example, who is heavily influenced by Wilhelm Reich, would understand much of what Reich was alluding to in his investigations of cells and fluids and their relation to metabolism. I believe Peat took the flame from Reich, and advanced his principles further. This is clear because Ray Peat is even accused of the same utopianism, and like Reich had some Marxist leanings at certain points.
Reich asserted that the quality and vibrancy of the ocular gaze, the skin tone, and the muscular tonus are all intimately related to the relationship between the metabolic quality of the cells and tissues and the pulsation of energy. In orgonomic practice, much could be gleaned about an individual's energetic and vital constitution from observing these things. The successful practice would see these things improve - again, I can confirm.
This vital expression formed itself from the organism's structure and ability to express the basis of all universal existence and all life - what he termed the orgone energy. Reich described metabolism and cellular energy in this way. Orgone was an expression of the totality of the metabolic function of the organism. From its cells upwards.
The more thoroughly this pulsation is expressed within an individual organism, the more it can express its vitality; its creativity or purpose. To act fully through time and space according to its inborn constitution. In our circles, this is what many refer to as vitality, and we can see how Reich himself tangibly medicalised, pseudo-scientifically or not, the concepts, structures and observations of the great vital philosophers. Deliberately or not.
We can also see how even though it is never acknowledged because of Reich's ethnicity, Peat Bros really owe Ray's entire 'bio-energetic' foundation to Reich's work. I’ve seen Ray acknowledge this but it’s rarely spoken about in any detail. This is one of the ways esoteric circles are wholly dominated by Reich's ideas whilst having the faintest conception of it. Or minimal comprehension any case.
On vitality and 'pulsation' of orgone: Reich believed that if this pulsation was restricted, what he termed 'anorgonia' in his works, whether this be from muscular tension or the collection of metabolic wastes (Again Raymond Peat built on Reich’s ideas) that cancer and other metabolic dysfunction would ensue.
The muscular armour, therefore, that expressed itself as hate, resentment, and depression was a dulling or pathological representation of the orgone pulsation. The vital energetic expression of metabolic resonance was stunted by poor metabolic health.
So what are examples of this pulsation? Examples might include playing sports or having sex with total exertion and then being able to experience full and complete relaxation afterwards, after a crescendo of charge or orgasm reflex.
For Reich, all our activities should be expressed in such a way. In coming into contact with this, Reich postulated that we could know our true purposes, our true works. And define our creative drive through the vegetative functions of the body - such as respiration, the orgasm reflex, digestion, and other sensations.
Reich also determined signs of the atrophy of this pulsation - Many such ‘esoterical secrets’ you see in halfwit bro threads online list these.
Poor hair quality, skin elasticity and tone...ocular dullness. Bad posture, withering vocal expressions. Shallow or irregular breath. Pallid complexion…Alcoholism or compulsive sexuality…unwarranted aggression. Such things were expressions of poor cellular metabolic energy - constricted pulsation derived from muscular tension and incoherent structure. Something people in our circles talk about all the time in these exact terms, without mentioning the progenitor.
I like to think of all this in terms of the malfunctioning autonomic nervous system - tense but can't relax, tired but can't sleep, can't eat, no energy - all the things we'd associate with poor metabolism - Reich related this to lousy structure, bad breathing and stunted energetic expression, as well as our usually externally inculcated attitudes towards life. I believe Peat bros get the order wrong. They look at these things as downstream of molecular causes - for me it’s the other way around. With reintegration of physiology, what’s seen as ‘molecular’ dissipates or sorts itself out.
Reich asserted that this core of pulsation of the sexual and creative force and the fullness of it’s expression in the individual organism would also determine the quality and character of civilisation.
In terms of my own views on vitality, I do agree with Reich in his assessment of what blunts it:
Sexuality and creativity are generally stultified by powerful, stifling moralities, leading to physiological strangulation or constriction of active, vital forces.
Our obsession with words, theories, education and technology as the answer to our dull psychic masochism is ludicrous. Completely back to front.
Orgone or Bio-energy, or whatever you call it, is constricted in almost all of us and is related to our bodies and their structure, which in turn determined by the poor habits of our culture and our chance reaction to them.
Returning to 'fainting couch' ‘scared-of-own-tail’ old-fashioned morality would not be a positive or new development. In fact, I don’t really think it was ever really a thing until fairly recently.
The bland, lame, 'cradle to grave' normgroid existence we experience is directly related to the stultification of the natural flow of bio-energy, and this is primarily imposed on us from a young age.
This can be reversed to a significant degree, and outbursts of energetic movements should not be just put down to chance.
As an aside, I can confirm that after running this work, orgasm does become more intense and involves all parts of the psyche: so take that for what's it worth.
So, next week we'll return to what I believe he got wrong...
2. Paths vs non-Paths: A Seemingly Profound Realisation That’s More or Less Retarded
Acting with Vitality in Life for Fun and Profit or head to the cave? Not on the path to the cave, though…just kind of getting to the cave without a path.
Recently I was accused of promoting the wrongful idea of 'paths' and 'destinations' by user 'Nietzschean Alan Watts 666'. Granted, this was primarily related to the individual in questions' inability to understand metaphor and the rest of what was loosely indicated in my video, but I thought I'd offer a few words on this, as it does come up fairly regularly.
In a more abstract sense, it's a fair enough question because it presents a linguistic paradox and feels like it has no resolution if you entertain it as a wordcel-type problem. As if you have to choose one or the other and you must choose wisely.
It's this simple - we know for a fact that to get good at something, you need to continue practising it. We also know you can have a chance of 'awakening' in which you see the interconnected impersonal nature of reality as it is. Awakening will always dissipate, and we will always fall back into the bundle of habits that we are. Physiological discipline in my opinion indicates a 'path' of action.
'Bro, if enlightenment or perfection is a feature of what is here right now, why would you need to 'walk a path' to find it?'
Ok.
Firstly, this argument or paradox only exists on a verbal level, like all arguments. It's a dualistic paradox induced by the way we are taught to think. The Aristotelian law of thought, or either/or, is naught but a product of habituated linguistic trickery the brain levels against us.
If we're not careful with them, most arguments and statements we make become arguments of opposite abstract categories rather than discussions about the tangible nature of what's being indicated.
So in simplistic terms - if the pathless types are right there's no need to do anything. Why not just evaporate into the mystical ether with your metaphysical knowledge?
Has orgone energy rushed through your endocrine system and blasted out of your arse, so you can ascend to some far-off place in the heavenly kingdom of un-perceptibility? Is that what happens?
...No need to seek drink, food, shelter or anything else. No need to cut a path to your local cafe to get breakfast this morning. You can survive on sheer pathlessness...No need to improve your station. That's a mighty fine-looking piss-soaked cardboard box right there. How about you engage in pathlessness in that lovely box?
And, this is what some in the East, for example, rather amusingly, try to do.
So, as we can see, how it's meant here anyway, levelling this critique at someone promoting physiological practice is profoundly retarded, and more so a function of the petty egotism of the person making the cringe statement.
The ultimate perspective, or great insight into the nature of reality, doesn't make reality stop. It doesn't make you taking care of your interests go away. It changes your view of them, yes, absolutely - but it does not render one 'fully cooked' in an instant.
Experience continues until it doesn’t. Molecules shift, impermanence reigns, and you age and die. There is some kind of experience of youness, and you can't help but act in the world.
In a more technical sense, the realisation of everything being essentially selfless without any destination that already isn't here doesn't preclude one from not benefitting from ‘path practice’.
We now know, for example, that the brain changes over time with these practices. It doesn't go 'bang done'. Masters meditate for years for a reason.
And yet, this is what someone who argues this 'paradox' is saying. They're saying, 'What you do and everyone else does is stupid - because I, and I alone, know there is no path! And therefore, I can be the same f#cking useless prick I've always been'.
At its heart, this is nothing more than a 30-something-single-woman-instagram-motivational-post tier outlook.
People must realise that much of what practice is is seeing through these illusions that language casts - and it's always surprising to me that the ones who typically see themselves are 'spiritual' or 'superior' are very often the least able to see through these constructs they’ve created for themselves to assert their need for superiorty.
Paradox is a waste of time. They don't exist in reality. If we practised, we'd understand this.
If you think material is bad and you want to live in a piss-soaked box to 'reduce pathing', explain to me how your attitude is any different from the CEO who values only material with no desire for insight?
They are both extreme ends of the spectrum - and there is no spectrum - only concepts, stories and ideas that don't match reality even remotely. There is just experience, awareness, and it doesn't care. It doesn't discriminate.
My problem is it's rarely entertained as a genuine question or conversation - it's almost always entertained as a way a spiritual type can level their resentment as someone perceived as doing something in the real world - something that doesn't measure up to how smart and unique they think they are. There is in these spaces, a plague of what Dr Hyatt referred to as 'secret kings' - I've rephrased to 'secret Kangz' - for the times.
These types aren't after constructive dialogue - they need to assert themselves by taking a metaphor or view out of context and asserting themselves and their beliefs on top of a straw man. You notice this because they'll rarely directly engage with the material - they'll choose one element, take it out of context, and throw it at you like a projectile.
I find the psychology of such individuals is far more interesting than what they’re saying.
So don't be a secret kang. It's a waste of time and annoying. Get to work.
3. Why the Wim Hof Method Akshully Does Werk & May Even Be Worth Doing - IMHO.
Recently I've seen several people take shots at Wim Hof. Granted, the absurdly cringe aesthetic and character are not for everyone. In a way, his motivating people to get out and notice their breath is positive.
And let's face facts - normgroids require absurd burlesque or comedic sideshows to be able to embrace anything of value - the dumber it is, the more deeply they'll consider it.
As I've discovered, there's no way to simply lay out an argument on its own terms without remaining at a 30 follower count - it must be done as a clown would - if one wants mass appeal. It's the only thing that can motivate them, so good work to Wim for his success in that regard.
On the other hand, you have the all you need approach bros. You only need to nose or slow down breathing through training. Ok, fine - I embrace this also partially.
Unfortunately for us, I've recently inadvertently come across some papers that may shed some light on what is really happening when you undergo the process of Esoteric Hoffism.
(i) Oxygen and Metabolism
Hyperventilation refers to the oxygen and carbon dioxide balance becoming out of kilter, occurring when the body stores more oxygen than is used.
In a mild or weak case, like that induced by different kinds of bodywork, you could expect a soft psychological effect, sometimes even reasonably agreeable. In extreme instances when individuals may breathe too rapidly into the chest or even too deeply, unpleasant effects can occur.
Current treatments for hyperventilation syndrome include counselling and other forms of therapy, and barring the success of these approaches may even require a drug intervention. This is obviously something to be avoided, so it's little wonder many breathing proponents do not embrace hyperventilation as necessary or particularly useful. Therefore, chronic hyperventilation can not only be caused by increased sympathetic dominance but also mutually reinforcing it.
So caution should always be exercised with such approaches.
(ii) Bioenegeretic use cases for Hyperventilation
As readers of this blog how now established, several forms of body therapy utilise mild hyperventilation for therapeutic purposes. It's been the case that many therapists probably weren't aware of what was going on and pushed it beyond the limits of its use. Nevertheless, where there's smoke, there's fire.
From the perspective of the body therapists, inducing a deficiency of carbon dioxide in the blood through hyperventilation has an over-stimulating effect on the nervous system of the organism; this creates a scenario of sympathetic domaine and firing, thereby inducing more substantial vascular and muscular tension. Those who have done any of this work will be familiar with the spasms this generates, the results of the tetany that additional oxygen and the excitation of the peripheral nerves in the body.
From the perspective of someone like a Reichian therapist, they would perhaps desire to induce hyperventilation to 'weaken' psychological defence mechanisms. Some therapists I've been reading about report that regression can often occur during this period. Chronic muscular tensions are also thought to become more noticeable in the consciousness of the person undergoing the work. This makes it easier to 'let go' of chronic muscular tensions.
The different patterns of movements coupled with specific breathing reveal the layer of chronic tension as a mask (mask used by therapist Ekman) - a cover beyond the functional tension required to function optimally and vitally.
Tension and its downstream effects such as anxiety or depression, are costly for the organism to maintain from an adaptive and survival standpoint. Through inducing a highlighted awareness of these patterns, the patient becomes aware of them, and through feeling them, the pattern 'unravels' over time.
But we're not into therapy here, are we. It is unfortunate that I always have to refer to this literature since it makes people think maybe I'm into therapy - I'm not. I'm into mastery of the organism, and for too long, these methods have been the playthings of the insane and stinky hippies. No longer -
For those who don't know, Wim Hof's method essentially goes like this:
breath in 30 big breaths, breathing out less on the exhale and more on the inhale
Once done, see how long you can hold your breath for
Breathing in 2 large breaths - in which the blood is rapidly pumped around the tissues.
This is done for 12 weeks. With cold showers, but I won't go into that here.
Now clearly, hyperventilation is an effect of pumping oxygen around the body in substantial quantities. And on holding our breath and taking giant gulps of air afterwards, we'd expect this to aggressively push oxygenated blood quite aggressively through the body. In light of the above article and references to respiration and metabolism (as well as hormonal cascades), well-oxygenated tissues are good. An organism that can process higher oxygen levels without hyper-ventilation is also arguably good.
The question is if you can simply relax and breathe, why bother doing this at all? That is a fair point…
Hyperventilation is person dependent - meaning that some organisms can retain more oxygen than others. This is determined by the quality of the cellular response to oxygenation.
Each person or organism, therefore, has a unique way of associating the process of respiration and metabolism. The theory goes that the more oxygen the organism can tolerate, the higher its metabolic rate and action in space. This has hatched a whole new series of scientific insights I'll be writing about in the future.
In short, the more oxygenation an organism can tolerate, the more metabolically active we can become - in theory...
Many of the illnesses I see people credit Hof with attenuating are ultimately diseases of the metabolism. It makes sense that consistently saturating the body with oxygen over many months will increase the individual's oxygen tolerance, metabolic functionality and cellular energy production.
Given we've spoken about Reich, he maintained that vitality reduces when the ability to handle oxygenation reduces.
Technically, oxygenation exercises create a complex modulation of neurotransmitters and the impacts of diaphragmatic flexibility and movement on the venous system. And in turn, this impacts the regulation and interaction of our nervous system in a beneficial way.
So there is more going on. And the Wim Hof method is a blunt force object that encourages the cells with a gun to their heads to become more efficient at utilising large quantities of oxygen in the body.
When done over time, we could hypothesise that people's metabolism and hormonal profiles improve - what we could loosely term 'vitality' start to develop.
This brings up one more exciting viewpoint: the impact of respiration on hormonal profiles. I am working on a newsletter arrival a the moment that will be investigating the phenomenon of respiration impacting hormones and hormonal cascades - it has been noted that the effectiveness of respiration itself regulates a cascade of chemical interaction throughout the body - which, of course, is another mutually enforcing feedback mechanism - hormones also influencing the breath.
So hats off to Wim; I support anyone who can demean themselves to the degree required to help large numbers of people. Go forth and oxygenate Hof bros.
4. Bio-individual Podcast - Amoral Meditation
This week we went into my meditation and sitting course, and some thoughts Kevin and I have about it and how it all fits in. I got some good feedback on people who are starting to go through it. But hey, at the end of the day, it’s easy to just start doing it. Just sit down for 20 minutes twice a day.
I’m going to release 2 videos to the general public at some point in the future, so look our for that.
Youtube
Spotify:
Audio MP3
Generic Website
5. Channel and Substack updates
In the process of setting up some guests for the podcast. Look out for that. So, less of our ranting and moving into speaking with experts in their field. in some respects this is the next phase of the podcast and we hope to have more of this in the future.
Substack as you can see, I’m including several days of releases in one. This is to avoid abusing your inboxes, and to collate all the material in one place you can chip away at at your leisure. I hope this is a more acceptable way of doing things, however if not i’m always open to feedback.
This week for paid subscribers I’ve included a section on no-self. This in a way is a part of the meditation series. It is a critical an misunderstood part. Below that release you’ll notice a short guided meditation, where we can hone in on that experiential realisation.
Further to this, I’m offering guided no-self discourse to subscribers. This is a dialectical process that you can choose to go through. This is something I went through with one of my teachers, and it’s how I first had the true realisation of no-self. No-self CAN be indicated in such a way, and it seems more suited to most Westerners. There is another fee for this, given it demands a lot of my time, and you won’t take it seriously otherwise, so if this sounds of interest to you, get in contact with me.
The Chris Hyatt edits we’re doing with Original Falcon press are coming on nicely. No ETA yet but cutting is underway. I caught up with Nick Tharcher for several hours to begin plotting out what to do, and with Kevin’s invaluable input (having attended) it seems like we’re all in agreement on a way forward.
There should be 2 - 3 sets of 2 part releases. One Focusing on discourse and ideas, another on breathing techniques alone, and the final on the more psychological parts and fuckery that ensued - which from my point of view was the most interesting part. Watching Dr Hyatt effortlessly break the attendees into pieces.
Given the volume of material I’m not sure on eta. It’s all up to me since I’m the poor sod mastering sound and picture.
Any-case, watch this space.