Hello friends,
Welcome to this week's instalment and to all new subscribers. Although it doesn't come across obviously all the time, because that's not how I roll, I sincerely appreciate your reading and engagement. I'm glad to hear some of you are gaining some value from this writing and the practical units presented.
To begin - I am going on Zen Sesshin this week. So I will miss next week's newsletter. I will be facing a wall and cleaning. Please forgive me for missing a week. Still, all this stuff has to come from somewhere, right?
I try not to only quote books in the college paper style. I try to inject something of myself into it all. This requires hard data. When it comes to this type of thing, hard data is not reading books. Not words, not sounds humans make. It's a different kind of knowledge.
This is my excuse for going on sesshin and missing a week.
Before I leave I want to discuss a few things that have been on my mind: ways we hold ourselves back. According to apparently "objective concepts" that end up as personal straight jackets—or worse, a means for clandestine and sneaky humanoid coverups.
You'll note that much of what I present here is about uncovering personal dishonesty. This is because we, as humans, are wicked falsifiers. When you work with someone who knows how, to uncover your sneaky treacherous ways, like I was able privileged to do, you would be utterly shocked at the ways in which we're dishonest with ourselves. And others. I’m not even joking.
The solution is simple: we just have to drop it all. It's an expensive, bad habit. Unfortunately, we can't drop what we don't know is there.
Cue spirituality, the great cloak of a mendacious species.
So, here, I offer a little something of my own experience in realising what a little shit I was. I am. The only reason I know this is because someone very talented ruthlessly bashed my head into a mirror and forced me to look.
Once you see it, you can't really unsee it. And you see it in others also. Weirdly, I suppose setting aside all the pain it all causes people, the lies we tell ourselves are really quite comedic. We're a comedic animal.
Take and example of something we have trouble with. Losing. Simply admitting we lost something. I don't know about you, but lets say in the workplace as one example, almost no one can admit they lost to someone better. They'll jump into all sorts of justifications, emotional pleas, nasty vindictive behaviour, self-destructive habits, you name it. Now, this is all there because they cannot be honest. The truth is - I lost. It may be that the person who won was better on the day. They may just be better. Fine. Or it was unfair, maybe. You or I still lost. So it doesn't matter.
This may seem like an "obvious" example. Sometimes people comment to me about how "obvious" this all is. But I can assure you, most people are in knots of failing to face up to straightforward things. They can't face up to it, and more importantly, they can't drop it. And built upon this wobbly foundation of dishonesty, is typically more dishonesty.
We can't just say, ah, well, I lost. Let it go and move on. Of course, this is just one example. We are bundled up in all sorts of silly, energetically expensive ways. This is reflected in our bodies, too.
The deeper we are in the quagmire of this rather pedestrian confusion, the less we can make anything actually "esoteric" and "spiritual" work - I shudder when I use those words.
This is the great irony. We're miserable, so we go to spirituality and often spirituality just makes everything worse. It covers it up even deeper. So we become even bigger clowns than we were before. Honk honk.
How can you reach the truth if you're coming from a place of untruth? There's nothing mysterious about this, but it is hard, dangerous, and runs deeper than these words can possibly indicate. It really in the body.
The things is - barely anyone will think any of this applies to them.
Energetic Reading
I'm not even joking, I read as part of my real work schedule—not my job, but the actual work, some of which I write about here. This primarily includes yoga, zazen, and special physiologic tantric work. Some of the "surface-level" stuff I present here. This may come as a surprise to many of you, given that I'm always mean to wordcels.
I take none of this back. It's deserved. You all deserve it. You even deserve it for reading this newsletter.
Also, there may be a difference in how we read. Hear me out.
I keep it to 1 or 2 pages daily, maybe 3 if I feel ludicrous. I usually read after a session of physiological work. So I'll do my zazen, or energetic work, and I'll have my book beside me. I then focus on it intently. Fomr that state.
I read from two places now: my gut and my head, specifically the areas between my eyes and in the middle of my forehead. I focus mainly on awareness in these areas while reading—in a "non-dual" manner, you could say—but my attention is "in" these areas simultaneously while reading.
I read it deeply, breathing in the words and their meanings. Like aged wine in a delicate glass, I let it sit and air. Swirl. Watch its succulent, sapid, sexual, voluptuous legs form on the edge of the glass. Watching the sensations overpower me.
Reading was traditionally a compulsive, disembodied act for me. It was almost as if I was trying to get rid of the book as quickly as possible.
In fact, most things we do are this way: eating, drinking, being with our friends or family...you name it. As I've said, we're cut off, static, and not really there.
Instead, we may spend time somewhere else. Perhaps we are compulsively attention-seeking online like a greedy child or want to be seen as the most spiritual or political in a group—the smartest one. We may occupy ourselves with silly games. We may fantasise about revenge, getting back at perceived enemies or others who have done us wrong. But we are never really there.
The same goes for reading. We read quickly, not sincerely; the words often lead to streams of infantile fantasies about ourselves, others, and what we're gonna do.
There is another way. That is the text on its own terms, as it was meant to be experienced.
From a neurological point of view, slow, energetic, or mindful reading—I guess you could call it that —is powerful. I suggest it fosters lateral and transverse neurological integration when done in a more "embodied" way. Perhaps a more right-brained physiological practice beforehand deepens the experience of reading. But anyway, it is just better.
It makes the message organic, part of the blood and sinew. And that's what we're all about, is it not, chaps? The organic, not the disembodied, not the static.
Other than this, I like this style of reading for several reasons.
It makes me choosy about what I subject myself to. My time is limited, and most books are retarded or a paltry knockoff of something greater. Most of what's been put to paper, particularly in the modern age, is really nothing more than the deranged, confuddled screeds of a barely hominid milk-fed gimp.
If something is poisonous, you really notice it. You want to spit it out. Your gut will tell you this. Just throw it out.
If something is transcendent, like the Illiad, which I'm using at the moment (a text I'm sorry to say I'm not at all familiar with), or whatever other bit of writing you like, you will embody the experience being communicated. Deepening it will give the words their proper due. It will, in an authentic sense, become a part of you.
So, after your next yoga session, you can select a text for the next few months and read it this way.
Let me know how you go. Time to go deeper.
Genetic Determinism vs Environmentalism
I wrote previously, or spoke, I don't remember, on the right-wing reaction towards environmental outlooks on human behaviour with so-called "genetic determinism" as being incomplete and limiting. Necessary, but limiting.
I pointed out why education and the environment are essential from a neurological point of view. As we are not static machines or blocks of immovable block of machine-like genetic material.
I argued that the most significant oversight of this type is that of early childhood education, a production line of the left. The right will continue to lose until this is addressed. While it is true we’re always plastic, it is very true of children. In veyr important ways that differ from adults.
I think this ignorance, not reluctance, partially stems from many on the right, primarily the religious rights' belief in the nonsensical concept of "free will." "All you need is a heckin wholesome good idea" or "the truth" to reason with those who are mistaken, and they can be brought to the light with their god given free will.
This is, of course, total nonsense. Not in any way a delusion the Machiavellian left suffers from, in any way. I will never understand the rights emphasis on all manner of things, all things other than childhood education. I don't just mean story hours, either. Physiological education. The subtle cues and language of the teachers. The subconscious, non-explicit manipulations, It is absolutely crucial to win that space.
It's really not much use trying to convert adults to your cause online. Even if they ideologically agree, most of them will still represent those values deep down. Take e-girls as a great example of this. All of them are militant feminists deep down, despite professing how based and fashy they are or whatever nonsense term gets used.
The reason for this is that it's very difficult to tangibly change brain structure as adults the the degree required by the task - in my opinion. The process required for this is not conceptual or reading the right books.
There is potential for change, but the animal misunderstands what it is. The other issue is that most people don't have the ability or desire to undergo such a change.
How many people consistently tried the work presented here, as the experiment presented required? I would say 1% at best. That's okay, but it just means most adults have no real desire to change—at least in any fundamental way.
So, humanoids are inarguably plastic and capable of changing. Yet, they also inarguably possess heritable features and proclivities. It seems almost stupid to have to say it. But as we all know, people actually argue against this.
My argument here, is that "determinism", "heredity", and "environmentalism" are simply mental concepts. They are useful only in so far as they are seen in their proper context, i.e. not as complete truths. Parts of a whole.
That's why I found the article below so enjoyable; it succinctly describes these conceptual fallacies.
Corpus Errorum Biologicorum
As with everything I do here, greater men with greater minds have apparently all done it before.
After going through the hypnosis article, I came across a lovely passage in Korzybski's "Science and Sanity" during my mindful reading.
So, in regards to above, please enjoy the below.
Corpus Errorum Biologicorum
But exactly the distinctive work of science is the modification, the reconstruction, the abandonment of old ideas; the construction of new ones on the basis of observation.
This however is a distressing operation, and many refuse to undergo it; even many whose work is the practice of scientific investigation. The old ideas persist along with the new observations; they form the basis-often unconsciously-for many of the conclusions that are drawn.
This is what has occurred in the study of heredity. A burden of concepts and definitions has come down from pre-experimental days; the pouring of the new wire of experimental knowledge into these has resulted in confusion. And this confusion is worse confounded by the strange and strong propensity of workers in heredity to flout and deny and despise the observations of the workers in environmental action; the equally strange and strong propensity of students of environmental effects to flout and deny and despise the work on inheritance.
If one accepts the affirmative results of both sets, untroubled by their negations, untroubled by definitions that have come from the past, there results a simple, consistent and useful body of knowledge; though with less pretentious claims than are set forth by either single set. Our first fallacy springs from the situation just described. It is:
I. The fallacy of non-experimental judgments, in matters of heredity and development .... Our second general fallacy is one that appears in the interpretation of observational and experimental results; it underlies most of the special fallacies seen in genetic biology. This is the fallacy that Morley in his life of Gladstone asserts to be the greatest affliction of politicians; it is indeed a common plague of humanity. It is:
II. The fallacy of attributing to one cause what is due to many causes.
III. The fallacy of concluding that because one factor plays a role, another does not; the fallacy of drawing negative conclusions from positive observations ....
IV. The fallacy that the characteristics of organisms are divisible into two distinct classes; one di.re to heredity, the other to environment …
VII. The fallacy of basing conclusions on implied premises that when explicitly stated are rejected ....
Many premises influencing reasoning are of this hidden, unconscious type. Such ghostly premises largely affect biological reasoning on the topics here dealt with; they underlie several of the fallacies already stated, and several to come ....
VIII. The fallacy that showing a characteristic to be hereditary proves that it is not alterable by the environment...
IX. The fallacy that showing a characrteristic to be altered by the environment proves that it is not hereditary ....
It appears indeed probable, from the present state of knowledge and the trend of discovery, that the following sweeping statements will ultimately turn out to be justified:-
(1) All characteristics of organisms may be altered by changing the genes, provided we can learn how to change the proper genes.
(2) All characteristics may be altered by changing the environmental conditions under which the organism develops, provided that we learn what conditions to change and how to change them.
(3) Any kind of change of characteristics that can be induced by altering genes, can likewise be induced (if we know how) by altering conditions. (This statement is open to more doubt than the other two; but it is likely eventually to be found correct.) ...
X. The fallacy that since all human characteristics are hereditary, heredity is all-important in human affairs, environment therefore unimportant ..•.
XI. The fallacy that since all important human characteristics are environmental, therefore environment is all-important, heredity unimportant, in human affairs. (247)
H.S.. JENNINGS
Jennings Magnum Opus can be found here: