Program Notes
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Guest speaker: James Fadiman
James FadimanPhoto source: psychedelicpress.co.uk
Today we get to listen to a long-forgotten talk by one of our most important elders, James Fadiman. This is a talk that he gave at the Transpersonal Vision Convention in 1988 and in it Jim provides us with another way to think about our higher selves. He points out that the self is a collection of personalities. It is not unified and cannot be unified.
“Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, ‘This is the real me,’ and when you have found that attitude, follow it.”― William James, The Principles of Psychology
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Transcript
00:00:00 ►
Three-dimensional, transforming, musical, linguistic objects.
00:00:08 ►
Alpha Shades.
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Greetings from cyberdelic space.
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This is Lorenzo, and I’m your host here in the Psychedelic Salon.
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And today we get to listen to a long-forgotten
00:00:26 ►
talk by one of our most important elders, Jim, or I guess I should say James, Fadiman.
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Let me see if I can put the length and depth of Jim’s career in perspective for you.
00:00:37 ►
I’m sure that you are aware of Stuart Brand, who created the Whole Earth Catalog, which
00:00:42 ►
was an important publication for the counterculture during the 60s.
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Well, while still a grad student at Stanford,
00:00:49 ►
it was Jim Fadiman who took Stuart Brand
00:00:52 ►
on his first LSD trip.
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From there, Jim joined Myron Stolaroff
00:00:56 ►
at the International Foundation for Advanced Study,
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where they studied the potential of using LSD
00:01:02 ►
to enhance creativity.
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Over 300 people participated in this study before LSD was made illegal.
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More recently, Jim has been on the Joe Rogan podcast talking about microdosing
00:01:15 ►
in his groundbreaking book, The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide.
00:01:19 ►
This talk that we are about to listen to was given at the Transpersonal Vision Conference in 1988.
00:01:27 ►
In it, Jim presents what, for me at least, is an idea that I wished I’d heard many years ago.
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Like you, I’ve heard a lot of the so-called New Age talk about unifying one’s consciousness
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and bringing our minds into a unified state through all kinds of spiritual practices.
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our minds into a unified state through all kinds of spiritual practices.
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But the image that Jim Fadiman presents in this talk has given me the key that I’ve been searching for for all these years.
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After we listen to Jim’s presentation, I’ll be back to see if you picked up on the idea
00:01:57 ►
that has, for me at least, given me exactly the metaphor I’ve been searching for.
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the metaphor I’ve been searching for.
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We are here this morning to look at a fairly radical idea, which is a reformulation of the term self.
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And I suggest it’s radical because it goes against
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the major theoretical systems of the West
00:02:27 ►
as well as most of the major theoretical systems of the East.
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The only merit in the proposition I will put before you this morning
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is it appears to be true.
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And as you know, fact displaces theory very slowly
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when there is an entrenched emotional and intellectual commitment to theory.
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So I want to very briefly go over the theories that are inadequate,
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and then, having brought you all along,
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we will look at what seems to be more realistic.
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And I’ve made a number of circles here so that I won’t have to leave this one microphone.
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The Western tradition, circle number one there, which is a circle with some little rays from
00:03:17 ►
it to make it seem like it’s shiny and exciting and positive, that is the notion that you
00:03:24 ►
are a single
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central, unified, individual self
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and an enormous amount
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of what we would call transpersonal therapies
00:03:34 ►
and systems are to move you
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towards that goal
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to move you towards being your capital F self
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your higher self, your true self,
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your essential self, etc.
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As you remember, there was one Egyptian pharaoh
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who tried monotheism and was soundly trounced for it
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as soon as he died.
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We then have the whole Hebraic theory
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of a kind of one God.
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This is where we get the idea of oneself.
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And if you actually, however, read the commandments very carefully,
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it wasn’t that there was one God, but there was one special God.
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Thou shalt have no other gods before me,
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indicating that Jehovah was perfectly well aware
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of the highly competitive atmosphere in which he worked.
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So that the, quote, monotheism is not quite as firm
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as you might have been brought up.
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Christianity says it is monotheistic.
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Again, if you look carefully beneath the surface,
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it is monotheistic.
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Again, if you look carefully beneath the surface,
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it’s an odd monotheism
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with a triune, essential God
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of the Father, the Son,
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and the Holy Ghost.
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And if you’ve ever been
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into a Catholic church,
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you will notice that it is littered
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with icons representing
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aspects of the self.
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Particularly if you notice most of the churches in Europe
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are not dedicated to Jesus at all but to Mary,
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and that the general notion is that you have
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interceding on your sinful behalf in heaven
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a woman and a young man
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who are both telling their father to give you a break.
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That is what is called monotheism.
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And as you can see, although there is a theoretical monotheism, beneath it there is the awareness of there needs to be some kind of separation
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to make some kind of sense to the psyche.
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Islam is probably as close to monotheism in a major system as exists.
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There is no God but Allah.
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There is nothing but Allah.
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And in order to try and retain that in Islam,
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there is a general rule against images against icons of any
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sort and if you actually look at the theory the personality theory underlying personal growth in
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islam the goal in most systems is called fana which is the falling away of anything personal the being absorbed
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totally into Allah
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or into the Godhead
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very similar to some
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eastern systems
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however many systems
00:06:36 ►
also in Islam say
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that is not the final
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step the final step
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is Baka which is the
00:06:42 ►
return to the world
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from the Fana state,
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being in the world but unified.
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Theory.
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If we take that down into the West, the monotheism we have Freud,
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that you’re more familiar with, the theory of the ego dominant,
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but as you notice, immediately Freud reverts back
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to the triune system
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and suggests that beneath any unity
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there is the ego, the id, and the superego,
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which do not dissolve.
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The unions, what is the striving?
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Individuation, the becoming unified,
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but underneath always the shadowy Greek pantheon
00:07:26 ►
of the archetypes.
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So that even within those of you who love Jung and most people who like Jung love Jung,
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because you get all those wonderful people to hide out inside your head.
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And that makes sense, as we’ll see.
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And then the minor pantheons
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Fritz Perls
00:07:47 ►
every part of you represents all of you
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if you’ve ever done any Fritz Perlsian dream work
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the kind of holographic theory of personality
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psychosynthesis subpersonalities
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where there’s the notion of a higher self
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but unfortunately there are a lot of lower selves to deal with.
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And that the goal is to somehow blend, melt, merge, mush the lower selves into the higher.
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Again, aspiration, theory, one self.
00:08:21 ►
And a counter-cloy, a counter kind of weight to that in the West
00:08:26 ►
is only William James.
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William James says you are many selves
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and that each situation evokes a different self
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and that your self is whatever you identify with.
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And how do you know you identify with it?
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It is when someone disturbs it, you are
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disturbed. So some of you now are Republican selves, Democratic selves. Some of you are
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Chevrolet selves. Some of you are female selves, meaning when any woman is disturbed, you’re
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upset, and so forth. Most of you are identified with your children,
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with your parents, etc.
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So James suggests the self is not limited by the body,
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but is a question of attachment.
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James’ suggestion, however, is again towards the ideal,
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which is to pick one of yourselves that seems to be good
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and stick fast to it through many situations.
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A rather simplistic view of mental health being holding on to one self.
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And again, what James, however, points out is it’s not likely.
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So in the West, we have this idea of a unified self all made up of the same stuff not a compound
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but as you notice every time we push a little bit into the idea of the unified self in the west
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underneath it there’s internal diversity and as we, we tend to think of ourselves as going towards unity,
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but in truth being diverse. Now, if we take an opposite point of view, circle two,
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that is the no-self theory, central Buddhist doctrine. And I just checked with Jack Canfield
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before I came, Cornfield this morning before
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I walked over to make sure that I was on firm Buddhist ground about the no self.
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And the no self is an odd idea as well, which is it says in a sense there’s nobody home
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if you pay close attention.
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in a sense there’s nobody home if you pay close attention.
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And the goal in many forms of meditation is to eliminate everything that isn’t you until nobody’s there.
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And if I can read you a little bit from a very classic description of that position,
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this is the
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questions of King Melinda
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to the Buddhist sage.
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And the king comes to visit
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and he says,
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how is your reverence known? What’s your name?
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This is to the spiritual teacher.
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As Nagasana, I am known, O great
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king, but
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that’s just a denomination,
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a designation, a conceptual term, a current appellation,
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a mere name, for no real person can here be apprehended.
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And then the king basically questions him and says, is that possible?
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To which he announces that it is.
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And he says, well, everyone calls you by your name.
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Are the hairs of your head your name?
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Is the hairs of your body you?
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Or perhaps it’s your nails, your teeth, your skin, your muscles,
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your sinews, your bones.
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They love this.
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Your marrow, your kidneys, your heart,
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your spleen, your excrement, your bile, your phlegm,
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your pus, blood, grease, fat, tears, sweat,
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spittle, snot, fluid of the joints, urine, or the brain in the skull.
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You notice what’s at the bottom of the list.
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And is this the sage? No, great king.
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Is it your perceptions, your impulses, or your consciousness? No.
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Then is it the combination of form, feelings, perception, impulses, and consciousness? No.
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Is it outside the combination of form, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness?
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No, it is not, great king. Then ask as I may. I can discover no sage at all just a mere sound your reverence
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has told a lie and has spoken a falsehood then the venerable sage says hey I’m summarizing here
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what he says is how did you come to visit me
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at my hermitage here
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with by the way
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80,000 people in attendance
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I did come sir
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on a chariot
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you’ve come on a chariot
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and please explain to me
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what a chariot is
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is a pole the chariot
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no
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is the axle the chariot
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no
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is it the wheel
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the framework
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the flagstaff
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the yoke no is it the wheel, the framework, the flagstaff, the yoke? No.
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Is it the combination of those? No. Then what is this chariot? I can discover no chariot at all,
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just a mere sound is this chariot. But what is the real chariot? Your majesty has spoken a lie.
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There is no chariot. Your majesty is the greatest king in the whole of India.
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Whom are you afraid that you do not speak the truth?
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All right?
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Your majesty has spoken well about the chariot, it goes on.
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It is so with me.
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This designation, this conceptual term,
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is what people call me.
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In ultimate reality, the person cannot be apprehended.
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That’s the other position, the doctrine of no self, the doctrine of egolessness, the
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doctrine of fana, the doctrine of that there is not only no there there, but there’s no here here.
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And there is no self, just a congregation of ideas, wishes, lusts, and attachments.
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And if you let these go, as you’ve noticed, any of those you’ve let go,
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there’s been no feeling of loss.
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The body, obviously, is the same kind of collection.
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And when you cut your hair you feel no loss etc.
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But of course you say
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ah but there is a single unity
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the single unity
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yes there is a single unity
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called life
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in the back of the game there is always life
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but that’s not personality
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that’s not self
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that’s not soul
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that’s not the individual that’s not self, that’s not soul, that’s not the individual
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as you talk of yourself. Because we know that you can have life and no personality.
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I’m not talking about anyone personal here, or even political figures.
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But if you think of it, a person who is in a coma, who is brain damaged, is alive, but we do not think their identity is intact.
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That’s two theories.
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The third theory is the self does exist, but it is not unified and cannot be unified.
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It is a collection of personalities,
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not unified and not non-existent.
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Now, that’s the position.
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Now let’s turn to some data and see what emerges once we let go of the fiction of a single self
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and the theory of no self at all
00:16:07 ►
and then begin to look at your own lives.
00:16:13 ►
Now I came to this by looking at multiples,
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multiple personalities.
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Multiple personalities is a kind of emerging field of study
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and it is supposed to be a pathology
00:16:32 ►
in which the individual body contains different personalities
00:16:39 ►
with different points of view
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who may or may not be aware of one another
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and whose behavior is often totally contradictory. with different points of view, who may or may not be aware of one another,
00:16:49 ►
and whose behavior is often totally contradictory.
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Now that’s a pathology, and that’s supposed to be a very extreme pathology.
00:17:00 ►
And in that pathology, the differences are quite severe. For example, personalities will differ as to handedness. So there will be
00:17:11 ►
right-handed and left-handed personalities. Again, those of you that know your theory
00:17:15 ►
of handedness know that’s about the structure of the brain. Therefore, given the theories
00:17:22 ►
that you know, changing handedness from moment to moment is not possible
00:17:26 ►
however the data indicates that it is possible
00:17:29 ►
and here we go
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begin to look at the data versus your theories
00:17:34 ►
the one that I like because it disturbs me the most
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is there are many cases of multiples
00:17:40 ►
some of whom are colorblind
00:17:43 ►
some of whom are colorblind, some of whom are not.
00:17:47 ►
Okay?
00:17:48 ►
Everyone remember that chapter on the physiology of the eye
00:17:51 ►
and the cones and the rods?
00:17:53 ►
Okay, way, way below personality,
00:17:56 ►
except it may not be true.
00:17:59 ►
Then another one that might interest some of you
00:18:02 ►
is some multiples are diabetic, some are not
00:18:07 ►
in the same body. So there’s something very unusual about the
00:18:17 ►
capacity of the personality to dominate the form. Now these are very well documented by the kinds of researchers
00:18:28 ►
who would bore us if they gave us their data.
00:18:32 ►
All straightforward physiological stuff.
00:18:36 ►
The other thing that happens very often in multiples
00:18:39 ►
is there are personalities of different ages,
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of different IQs, who know different
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languages, have highly differentiated skills.
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There is also considerable data on multiples are of opposite sex inside the
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same body, in every way that we can kind of imagine that.
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And there is considerable data
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in the cases that we know of from the psychotherapy world.
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These are multiples.
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These are people who come in either for therapy
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or because the police have brought them in for crimes,
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and amnesia is one of the hallmarks.
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There are also helpers.
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There are higher and lower beings that appear with great regularity in looking at multiples.
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in looking at multiples.
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And the data is extremely clear that helpers exist for many multiples.
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Probably the most famous case is a man named Danny Milligan,
00:19:57 ►
whose wonderful book has been written about his inner life.
00:20:01 ►
And he appeared for us in the press
00:20:04 ►
when he was accused of four rapes and admitted
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that his one of his personalities did three of them but he was innocent of the fourth
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and he was acquitted on the basis that the major personality known as Danny, didn’t do any of them.
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And as one studies him, the personality that is a criminal and a robber
00:20:34 ►
who abducted the girls didn’t do it either.
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It turned out that the rapist was a personality unknown to most of the other personalities who was a
00:20:47 ►
very very miserable and lonely lesbian who literally raped the girls for companionship
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okay a little unusual in every respect as danny milligan is in therapy and the problem with working with multiples in therapy
00:21:07 ►
is you got to know who you’re working with
00:21:08 ►
and who you did work with
00:21:11 ►
and who told who about what went on
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what comes out after
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he’s in therapy like for two years
00:21:20 ►
and finally goes on trial for the rape
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and is acquitted and sent to a hospital for further therapy.
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He’s acquitted to be hospitalized.
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He’s not acquitted.
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He’s sent for the disturbed insane.
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After several years of work,
00:21:36 ►
when he is infinitely healthier,
00:21:38 ►
meaning the various parts of the personality speak to one another
00:21:41 ►
and are aware of one another,
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a figure emerges called the
00:21:47 ►
teacher. And the teacher, it turns out, has taught the… There’s one personality who
00:21:53 ►
is an escape artist. There’s another personality that is a classically
00:21:59 ►
trained British-speaking kind of highly literate member, kind of sardonic
00:22:04 ►
literate member of the establishment
00:22:05 ►
there’s another one who speaks Yugoslavian
00:22:08 ►
the teacher
00:22:10 ►
taught all of them
00:22:12 ►
their respective skills
00:22:14 ►
and
00:22:16 ►
the story goes on
00:22:19 ►
okay I just want to give you
00:22:21 ►
the kind of data
00:22:22 ►
that I started with
00:22:23 ►
in looking at that.
00:22:26 ►
Now, the easiest thing, of course, to do with that data is to say,
00:22:30 ►
isn’t that weird?
00:22:32 ►
I’m sure the National Enquirer will cover it adequately.
00:22:35 ►
And I can go about my life because obviously I’m not that weird.
00:22:41 ►
Well, then I started to look at that.
00:22:44 ►
And look at what causes a multiple.
00:22:52 ►
Jim, we’ve been able to extend your session five minutes.
00:23:08 ►
I already said I was going to take ten the theory
00:23:13 ►
what happens with multiples
00:23:15 ►
in almost every case
00:23:16 ►
what are called true multiples
00:23:17 ►
is there is a trauma in childhood
00:23:20 ►
and the trauma is so severe
00:23:23 ►
that the personality cannot stand being present during the trauma is so severe that the personality cannot stand being present during the trauma
00:23:27 ►
and literally divides into a part which is present and a part which totally withdraws, denies, ignores.
00:23:38 ►
And in almost every one of these clinical multiples, there’s a small child who is impervious to pain. And
00:23:46 ►
this child appears throughout the lifetime when there is severe pain. So this is one
00:23:52 ►
person that only knows a life, very intermittent life, of pain and suffering. Many people who
00:23:59 ►
had our multiples have no awareness of the fact because the multiple is simple enough,
00:24:07 ►
this is the clinical theory,
00:24:09 ►
so that the repressed part is so deeply repressed
00:24:12 ►
that it does not appear in later life.
00:24:16 ►
Let me give you a case of someone I talked to recently.
00:24:20 ►
This woman was a lawyer,
00:24:21 ►
very heavy-duty power figure in Washington,
00:24:24 ►
breakthrough woman on various federal levelsduty power figure in Washington,
00:24:27 ►
breakthrough woman on various federal levels,
00:24:29 ►
very important figure in Washington.
00:24:33 ►
She got in touch with the fact that as a child, her father had tortured her sexually and mechanically.
00:24:40 ►
And that so kind of broke up her world
00:24:43 ►
that she has now learned to be a social worker.
00:24:46 ►
She’s in good shape,
00:24:47 ►
but feels that it’s more important to help people of abuse
00:24:50 ►
than to hang around Washington.
00:24:52 ►
For most of us, we think she is considerably healthier.
00:24:58 ►
What she began to see as she got hold of memories
00:25:01 ►
that filled her with enormous fear and horror for a number of years was that her father was also a multiple.
00:25:10 ►
Her father was actually a distinguished screenwriter in Hollywood
00:25:13 ►
and had escaped from Nazi Germany,
00:25:18 ►
but one of his subpersonalities was a kind of worst of Nazi,
00:25:24 ►
and she recalls the critical moment in their relationship when she is down in the cellar
00:25:29 ►
of their home and he is attacking her with a chisel.
00:25:36 ►
She is seven years old.
00:25:38 ►
She picks up the chisel and stabs him.
00:25:43 ►
He looks at her
00:25:45 ►
and runs screaming and weeping out of the cellar
00:25:49 ►
and into psychotherapy.
00:25:54 ►
Because until that moment,
00:25:55 ►
the part of him that was a distinguished writer
00:25:57 ►
had no idea that there was a part of him
00:25:59 ►
that tortured and sexually abused his daughter.
00:26:02 ►
So that there is a level of unconsciousness
00:26:06 ►
in multiples which is extreme.
00:26:10 ►
Okay?
00:26:12 ►
Now, if you remember Freud,
00:26:14 ►
Freud suggested that traumatic incidents
00:26:17 ►
fixate part of the personality
00:26:19 ►
at a lower developmental level.
00:26:21 ►
So within Freud we have the beginnings
00:26:23 ►
of a notion that parts of you are of
00:26:27 ►
different ages, different times. Now let’s assume for a moment that you are looking at this from
00:26:37 ►
the outside. Now let me give you some ideas to suggest to you that that third diagram may be yourself. Now the bottom of the
00:26:49 ►
last diagram there, which has little boxes, is a pathology version. The little boxes means they’re
00:26:56 ►
not aware of each other. This is just a pie for a moment. Now let me give you an example. This is, if you were a multiple, you would have
00:27:05 ►
different aspects. For instance, have you ever gone to bed saying to yourself, tomorrow morning
00:27:13 ►
I’m getting up early, I’m going to go to yoga and exercise, I’m going to do my meditation, I’m going
00:27:19 ►
to eat a good breakfast, and I’m going to be on time. And you think, oh, wonderful person, right?
00:27:27 ►
Because that’s really the way you feel. And then in the morning, someone else wakes up.
00:27:41 ►
Okay. Who are those people people is that a model
00:27:47 ►
of the unified self
00:27:49 ►
have you ever had
00:27:52 ►
an argument
00:27:53 ►
with yourself
00:27:53 ►
should I do
00:27:55 ►
I don’t know
00:27:56 ►
of course I could
00:27:57 ►
well it’s only 300 calories
00:27:59 ►
but then again
00:27:59 ►
I could skip dinner tomorrow
00:28:01 ►
but you know you won’t
00:28:02 ►
ever had that argument she’s so attractive I could skip dinner tomorrow, but you know you won’t.
00:28:07 ►
Ever had that argument?
00:28:11 ►
She’s so attractive, but you know what happens when you get into one of those.
00:28:12 ►
No, but this might be different.
00:28:14 ►
Why do you think it might be different?
00:28:15 ►
Because I always think it might be different.
00:28:17 ►
You always do.
00:28:24 ►
One of the questions that used to puzzle me is why did insight not make any difference?
00:28:30 ►
The reason is
00:28:32 ►
that the part of me that has insight
00:28:35 ►
isn’t the part that does those things.
00:28:39 ►
And the communication is poor.
00:28:44 ►
Have you ever gone to sleep with a problem
00:28:46 ►
and awakened with a solution?
00:28:50 ►
Who did it?
00:28:52 ►
Not the you that you think is your identity.
00:28:56 ►
It obviously was asleep.
00:28:57 ►
Well, it was my unconscious, it was my subconscious,
00:29:00 ►
it was my angelic spirits, it was, you know.
00:29:01 ►
You have a theory that suggests you’re perfectly well aware
00:29:06 ►
that you’re not unified
00:29:07 ►
and that you know how to use
00:29:09 ►
some of the differences correctly.
00:29:15 ►
Some of you, for instance, have a phobia.
00:29:18 ►
Now, phobia is a neurotic pattern
00:29:20 ►
that even you think is neurotic.
00:29:24 ►
pattern that even you think is neurotic
00:29:32 ►
and if you watch someone or when you were having a phobic you know little trip what you’re aware of is part of you thinks this is so embarrassing I know that a moth will not kill me. But
00:29:45 ►
the part of me that doesn’t know
00:29:49 ►
isn’t sure.
00:29:52 ►
And tales of killer moths are around.
00:29:58 ►
So the part of you that is phobic
00:30:01 ►
cannot be reasoned with
00:30:02 ►
and the part of you that is reasonable
00:30:03 ►
isn’t in control.
00:30:12 ►
A very wonderful friend of mine at one point has a phobia of physicians, which
00:30:28 ►
seems to me in the right direction. A frightening procedure and she called me in total hysteria and weeping and generally deep fear.
00:30:31 ►
And I was not being terribly helpful.
00:30:34 ►
And at some point there was this little change in the breathing.
00:30:39 ►
And she said to me, I’m really fine, you know.
00:30:41 ►
And I said, I know.
00:30:45 ►
And then the hysteria started again.
00:30:49 ►
So part of her was saying,
00:30:52 ►
I’m perfectly aware that the part of me that’s crazy and hysterical is in almost total control, but please don’t worry.
00:30:57 ►
There’s a part of you that has that position.
00:31:02 ►
I was in a hospital in Australia once recovering from an
00:31:06 ►
accident and the medication I was given had a side effect of paranoid psychosis
00:31:16 ►
and I watched that and I thought to myself,
00:31:25 ►
part of me doesn’t think this is true,
00:31:28 ►
but part of me knows that the murmuring I’m hearing outside
00:31:31 ►
is the two nurses on the night shift,
00:31:34 ►
and they’re pointing out that I’m the last one in the ward
00:31:37 ►
to become totally addicted,
00:31:38 ►
and they’re going to have to increase the dosage,
00:31:40 ►
so I will be part of the other addicts
00:31:42 ►
that they make money on in this hospital.
00:31:53 ►
So the next morning I said to one of my physicians, I said, excuse me, I don’t want you to be a problem, but I’m going psychotic.
00:31:56 ►
And I said, I will be going psychotic
00:32:07 ►
you know, be probably going fairly soon
00:32:08 ►
and then they did check my medication
00:32:15 ►
and found out that was what was going on
00:32:17 ►
you don’t need it
00:32:21 ►
some of you may be Vietnam veterans,
00:32:26 ►
or you may know Vietnam veterans.
00:32:28 ►
I’ve been with Vietnam veterans,
00:32:30 ►
and we’re walking in the country, and a car backfires.
00:32:34 ►
The next thing I know, my companion is lying in the ditch
00:32:37 ►
at the side of the road, being careful.
00:32:41 ►
Okay?
00:32:43 ►
Trained for a while, but a part of them really knows
00:32:46 ►
that when in doubt, jump in the ditch.
00:32:49 ►
That’s a multiple.
00:32:50 ►
That’s a healthy multiple when it’s in control.
00:32:54 ►
So what I’m suggesting is a realistic theory
00:32:57 ►
which I’ve been calling the braided self.
00:33:03 ►
The individual strands of the self
00:33:06 ►
harmoniously interacting and interrelated.
00:33:12 ►
If you watch a flock of birds,
00:33:16 ►
they are a diversity,
00:33:18 ►
but they operate as a single unity.
00:33:22 ►
And also, if you study birds,
00:33:24 ►
they don’t have the same leader, because leading turns out to be a single unity. And also if you study birds they don’t have the same leader
00:33:26 ►
because leading turns out to be a little tiring. It’s actually physically more
00:33:30 ►
draining in terms of airflow. So they change leaders when it’s appropriate. And
00:33:38 ►
if you begin to think of yourself as a collection, then the goal is not to be one high being or to be nobody,
00:33:51 ►
but the kind of end picture over there
00:33:54 ►
which has little things all pointing toward the center,
00:33:58 ►
which is a team,
00:33:59 ►
which is a team that functions exactly as a team should,
00:34:03 ►
with every member doing what it does best when that’s appropriate.
00:34:10 ►
And although I’m amazed that I would come to this in my lifetime,
00:34:14 ►
football is a good metaphor.
00:34:19 ►
Baseball is less good because a lot of people sit down a lot of the time.
00:34:23 ►
But that if you think that a
00:34:25 ►
part of you is strong, a part of you is clever, a part of you is kind, a part of you, these are
00:34:31 ►
parts that are more or less well developed. And under this position, it begins to give you a way
00:34:38 ►
to restructure therapy, for example. Therapy now is not to destroy or eliminate the parts that are
00:34:47 ►
functioning at the wrong time.
00:34:51 ►
See, it makes malfunctioning not a question of evil
00:34:55 ►
but a question of inappropriate at the wrong time.
00:35:00 ►
You all, for instance, having eaten breakfast,
00:35:03 ►
your bladders and bowels are doing what they’ve been trained to do.
00:35:08 ►
And you will probably take care of that
00:35:11 ►
in the right place and the right time.
00:35:14 ►
That’s health.
00:35:15 ►
If you do that at the wrong place and the wrong time,
00:35:19 ►
then the culture finds that disturbing,
00:35:22 ►
and you find it disturbing.
00:35:23 ►
And if you really lose total control of that
00:35:26 ►
tiny sub-self, they do a lot of things to you.
00:35:32 ►
What you will notice when you are, quote, misbehaving is the part of you that is well
00:35:37 ►
developed is doing the wrong thing in the wrong time.
00:35:40 ►
Not that that part of you is bad or that you’re inadequate or inferior.
00:35:42 ►
not that that part of you is bad or that you’re inadequate or inferior
00:35:44 ►
now
00:35:47 ►
other problems which
00:35:49 ►
we now can open up more easily
00:35:52 ►
is what are
00:35:53 ►
what is possession
00:35:54 ►
what are evil spirits
00:35:58 ►
what are angelic forces
00:36:00 ►
what are these helpers
00:36:02 ►
that appear in all the multiples
00:36:04 ►
and they say
00:36:05 ►
we are the spiritual council. And very often they’ll work with a
00:36:09 ►
psychotherapist designing the treatment plan, and the treatment plan will work.
00:36:14 ►
And the therapist uses that, you know, that added capacity. Just as when people
00:36:22 ►
are asked, what can I do to make my life better?
00:36:25 ►
Everyone can make the list.
00:36:28 ►
Part of you knows.
00:36:29 ►
That doesn’t mean that part of you is in control
00:36:32 ►
or should give up anything.
00:36:36 ►
So what we’re looking at
00:36:37 ►
is a different way of appreciating yourself
00:36:44 ►
and permitting yourself to be who you actually are.
00:36:48 ►
And noticing the part of you that’s here
00:36:50 ►
and taking notes, for example,
00:36:53 ►
and the part of you that misplaces notes
00:36:55 ►
are both working parts.
00:37:01 ►
The problem for a true multiple
00:37:04 ►
is that they don’t respect each other’s parts
00:37:08 ►
and they lack the ability, they lack in a sense the knowledge of where you should go
00:37:14 ►
at any given point in your psyche to find what you need.
00:37:21 ►
It’s like when I’m preparing a speech, I have books, psychology books, Buddhist books, literary
00:37:30 ►
books, books of quotes, and if I know where to look, I can get the help I need for the
00:37:36 ►
thing that I need to do.
00:37:39 ►
If I don’t know where to look, I may either look nowhere or I’ll look in the wrong place. And every once
00:37:48 ►
in a while I have opened my notes and found I have the wrong speech and someone else wrote
00:37:56 ►
it for some other occasion. So I’m really suggesting a very simple model which is to
00:38:02 ►
look at yourself and to really ask the question,
00:38:06 ►
what’s the evidence for the kind of Christian one soul, one self? What’s the evidence,
00:38:13 ►
internal only, for the Buddhist position of no self? And the wonderful thing about Buddha
00:38:19 ►
is whenever he was asked a metaphysical question, he said, basically,
00:38:23 ►
check your own experience. Metaphysics is of no importance.
00:38:27 ►
But unfortunately, he’s gone.
00:38:30 ►
Check your own experience.
00:38:32 ►
To what extent do you appear to yourself to be a collection?
00:38:39 ►
We have time, perhaps, for one or two questions.
00:38:43 ►
Yes, please.
00:38:44 ►
A radical transpersonal theory suggests that
00:38:59 ►
you don’t even need basically a brain body to house a self or collection of cells
00:39:05 ►
and that there may be another way of looking at the whole picture
00:39:08 ►
which is even beyond this, what the Buddhists call wonderfully
00:39:13 ►
the skin bag full of dirt.
00:39:16 ►
The Buddhists are not real body lovers in many of their aspects.
00:39:21 ►
Given that would simply take this one step farther
00:39:23 ►
and we might draw this then without the outer circle.
00:39:27 ►
Yes. Yes.
00:39:28 ►
Well, I wonder if you looked at the work of George Gurdjieff
00:39:32 ►
who talks about a thousand eyes.
00:39:34 ►
Gurdjieff talks about a thousand eyes,
00:39:38 ►
but most of them are towards working for and supporting
00:39:42 ►
and developing more essence.
00:39:44 ►
So Gurdjieff has the same prejudice,
00:39:48 ►
even though, again, he doesn’t have any evidence,
00:39:51 ►
prejudice towards the one higher terrific self.
00:39:54 ►
So Gurdjieff, as Asajoli and a few others,
00:39:57 ►
there are a lot of the sub-personality theorists.
00:40:00 ►
I’m saying if we take it one step farther,
00:40:02 ►
suddenly it all makes sense.
00:40:03 ►
Please, Jackie.
00:40:04 ►
I see that philosophy,
00:40:07 ►
your philosophy going hand in hand with Christianity
00:40:09 ►
because that’s basically what they say
00:40:12 ►
is there is a multiple personality.
00:40:14 ►
One is the flesh and one is the God within us.
00:40:17 ►
The God within us is teaching the child
00:40:19 ►
which is the flesh constantly.
00:40:21 ►
So I see your philosophy is going totally to Christianity.
00:40:25 ►
Well, I suspect that Christianity…
00:40:28 ►
See, the nice thing is every major system
00:40:29 ►
has within it something based on evidence.
00:40:34 ►
And it is from that basis
00:40:37 ►
that it is easier to develop a position
00:40:39 ►
and that any system that’s lasted more than a thousand years
00:40:43 ►
has some very powerful truth left.
00:40:47 ►
And the notion of, the only concern I would have, Jackie,
00:40:50 ►
is you’re still making too few cells.
00:40:53 ►
Because the evidence is there appear to be more,
00:40:56 ►
and I do understand what you’re saying,
00:40:59 ►
is that within Christianity this could make sense, and I’m thrilled.
00:41:03 ►
One more and then we’re out.
00:41:05 ►
Who is the central conductor
00:41:07 ►
who says white, south, comes to the fore,
00:41:11 ►
who tells which bird should be the leader bird in the group of birds?
00:41:16 ►
Again, be careful of your metaphor because you picked one where there’s obviously
00:41:20 ►
the conductor is the higher being. Football feels better
00:41:24 ►
because everyone gets in the huddle and
00:41:26 ►
usually the quarterback calls the play after everyone agrees that’s appropriate. But there
00:41:33 ►
are other occasions and there are times when, for instance, when a famous conductor dies,
00:41:39 ►
his orchestra then usually gives a concert without a conductor to demonstrate that the conductor is incorporated into the cells.
00:41:48 ►
So we can have a good time with this, many metaphors.
00:41:52 ►
You have many other things to do.
00:41:54 ►
Thank you very much.
00:41:55 ►
Thank you.
00:42:00 ►
So did you hear the concept that got me so excited?
00:42:06 ►
My guess is that, well, it may not seem so earth-shaking to you as it was for me,
00:42:11 ►
but the truth is, I’ve never been able to unify the person that I am into a single consciousness.
00:42:17 ►
There’s the dad, the grandpa, the husband, the employee, the co-worker,
00:42:21 ►
and all of the other selves that I’ve been during the past eight decades. In retrospect, I’ve been seeing my life as somewhat of an unstructured mess. But no longer,
00:42:32 ►
I now see the flow of my life as a beautiful braid. A braid with a number of fascinating
00:42:38 ►
and distinct strands. And while all of these strands may not be compatible with one another,
00:42:43 ►
And while all of these strands may not be compatible with one another,
00:42:48 ►
when woven into a single braid, I, well, I now see that it is a thing of beauty.
00:42:53 ►
Not something to be copied or done again, but interesting in its own way.
00:42:59 ►
I hope that you will re-listen to this talk while thinking about your own series of life adventures.
00:43:03 ►
The mistakes, pitfalls, successes, and joys.
00:43:08 ►
Hopefully you’ll see them as a part of your own long and beautiful braid of life,
00:43:11 ►
one that your descendants will tell their grandchildren about.
00:43:13 ►
As William James once said,
00:43:15 ►
you are many selves.
00:43:21 ►
And for now, this is Lorenzo signing off from Cyberdelic Space.
00:00:00 ►
Namaste, my friends.