The Wrong Reality. PartVIII - 51e Contrary Concepts - continued

Consider our position as the person in Figure 15b. To become adult we have to take charge of and reconcile all the different versions of self, each of which is false because all are related to the false Machine. The Child in us, from the earliest age, senses conflicts of interest between the Parent, the Machine, and itself. The Parent is normally aware of no alternative to fighting this battle. The Adult has responsibility for reaching some sort of compromise. None of them has a realistic alternative to finding a way along this wrong road, except to resist the great pressure from the self-interested Machine and join in an even harder struggle to discover and realise humantruth. Hard as that is, it has an all-important saving grace - that it is true. The wrong road would not be as hard if we were totally unaware that it is wrong. But we all have an independent postconscious mind whose intuition, or conscience, however we try to deny it, makes us morally aware, if only on the simplest fundamental level.

The reality contained by the triangle on the left-hand side of Figure 15b, remember, is the conscious arena. The conscious mind alone is incapable of sorting out all the entanglements represented here. It can only untangle a small selection of superficial problems at a time on behalf of the human Adult, or small group of Adults, leaving the Machine to roll on over a disunited, unfulfilled people. Psycho-analysis is most practiced, and with apparent success, upon the more privileged population of the USA, and Western Europe. It is hardly appropriate to under-privileged people in the Third World upon whom our prosperity largely depends. Psycho-therapy, confined to the conscious arena, is not the means by which the citizens of the USA could be persuaded to give up their rich advantages and seek equality with the rest of the world. Only supraconsciousness can achieve such modesty.

As I'm OK, You're OK reminds us, the memory record is permanent, even though the person may not be able to recall all memories. It is my view that recall is triggered, in nature, whenever the same circumstances that contributed to the memory recur. In humans, memories are interconnected by deeper reason. In the case of the postconscious that reason is potentially unlimited, but it cannot be recalled to consciousness, only the conclusions reached, whereas conscious reason canbe recalled. That is why, as a race, we have not reached true understanding because postconscious conclusions, though true, are not backed by true facts (because our reality is false) and the true reason behind them is obscured (because the postconscious is unconscious) - they can not, from the conscious viewpoint, be grounded in evidence and argument. But memories of events which did occur can be backed by actual fact (and interpreted in one way or another which is acceptable to conscious reasoning), and it is this that is normally regarded as true. So, not only is present humanity's version of truth wrong but we disregard the postconscious truth because we cannot observe its reasoning and because it is not borne out by present actual fact. Psychiatry is about manipulating memories and conscious reason in order to be, or seem to be, happy and contented. It fails to acknowledge that, in existing reality, the happy state is as invalid as the unhappy state. This is because intellect, to be happy, has to be fulfilled, which means to be totally humantruly aware and to have that awareness fully reflected in its whole reality. Therefore no intellect can be truly happy when the world of which it is aware is not similarly happy.

Harris has helped me in making it clear that as a result of traumas derived from upbringing (against the background of existing reality) individuals can become psychopathis or psychotic, ie in the grip of very strongly disturbing emotions and lopsided conscious reasoning. But even the psychopath can presumably choose to intellate, and thus achieve balance of mind through the by-passing and ignoring of emotions. Such a person could become the character E in Figure 16e, next Chapter 52, still with conscious hang-ups, yet truly aware because that person is able to listen to the postconscious which is not affected by conscious hang-ups. I think that if there were examples of supraconscious intellation in evidence, with avenues for it to follow and places for it to occupy in reality, then such individuals as psychopaths might be able to get so far removed from their handicap as to overcome it. Neither they nor anybody else can glean much hope from, or find good guidance in, existing reality in the conscious arena.

The book Families has this to say about the child as it becomes able to think for itself - that it now has to learn how to fit in with others, first its family then the rest of society, because otherwise it will not get the affection, support and help from other people which it will assuredly need; that in any case its life will be much more rewarding and interesting if it is able to get on well with others. Yes, in ideal circumstances, but the present circumstances of most humans are not ideal, and for many they are intolerable. In the world as it is we surely must expect much more from our children. It is my opinion, in a society that is so obviously wrong and desperately in need of radical change, that love of truth must come first, otherwise we will never achieve a reality to which all can adapt with honesty.

Having already derided the idealist, Families later claims that he is an outsider, avoiding reality, someone who has not learned to place himself in reality accurately to size and so has a false idea of his self-importance. To avoid being cut down to size he keeps himself out of his picture of the world or gives himself the wrong position and size. He believes he is a special case, and, instead of changing himself, he tries to change others. There are people like this, no doubt, but to apply this to all idealists is to take a narrow and cynical view of humans as no more than clever animals, not to be allowed to discover their extraordinary true capacity. The fact is that the world iswrong. Anyone who clearly sees this must, in all conscience, try to change it and other people, and must resist their efforts to make him narrowly conform. The norm is incapable of measuring the behaviour of anyone who has perceived the truth or who, as a child, had determined to discover truth. But we have passed well beyond the monkey stage and ought to behave accordingly. There can be no doubt that we have enormous intellectual potential. Is it not obvious that this gives us great responsibility? It seems to me that, living in an insane world as we are, everybodycould be expected to be seeking truth and refusing, wherever possible, to give way to the norm.

In the present world, in psychological terms and using Harris's terminology, it is possible for the Adult to come to terms with its Child and Parent, and with the Machine, and to become a viable member of society, withoutsucceedingin finding these answers and solutions we shall not come to terms within ourselves nor shall we ever fit into the world as it now is. But we willbe an influence or force for radical change towards a humantrue reality in which the Child, Parent and Adult in everybody, and the communal framework of life, would be in total harmony.

Consider drug trafficking as an example which supports my arguments. This traffic exists on a world scale only because it is very profitable in money. The very fact of its existence is, from any viewpoint, a condemnation of the Machine and its economy. The victims are the addicts, many of whom no doubt could have been helped by psychologists and others to overcome problems from which drugs offered escape. But the financiers, producers, distributors and pushers, as well as the government agents who try to bring them to justice, are presumably well under control of their Adult. So being Adult, in the Machine, is not necessarily to be moral. Indeed, it is very often the case that morality is a handicap in the struggle for worldly success. Such 'evils' as drug-trafficking can exist in the Machine, and co-exist with 'good', because our reality is limited to the conscious arena. These 'evils' are not howled down because they are supported by much conscious reason and Machine-principle. We cannot equate 'good' with the police anti-drugs squads because they hunt down the traffickers on the grounds of law - police do not confront traffickers on the basis of their personal immorality and that of the competitive money-economy whose laws they obey. We know that drug-trafficking would virtually disappear were there no money-profit in it. It is also clear that if the morality which our society pretends to went really deep, itwould defeat the drug problem. As it is, the profit motive is so much stronger than the moral that any profitable opportunity that presents itself, however immoral, is automatically taken up. The nearer we approached to the supraconscious state the more difficult would the drug traffickers find it to ignore the terrible and tragic consequences of their trade, to the point where they had to give it up.

Morality, as earlier pointed out, is almost a dirty word in today's language. Morals, in a worldly political or commercial context, are seen as naive hopes. But we have recent examples in Europe (Rumania, Russia) of the invincible power of united, and to large degree justified, public demand. These were irresistable protests against oppressive forms of government, directed against members of such governments. Were we all aroused to the same extent in protest against immoralities, from drug trafficking to political dishonesty to money-economics, their hold on us could be broken overnight, and they could be swept away as though they had never been.

Harris gives it as his opinion that truth is a growing body of data which we observe to be true. This is to ignore that most of the conceptual and factual 'truths' of our present world are only partially, not wholly true, and that consciously oriented human observers are not capable of discerning whole truth. He therefore joins with all the others I have quoted in submitting to the mistaken edict of Philosophy that truth must be capable of grounding in conscious evidence and argument, whereas it is my hope and belief that I have shown truth to emanate from its unconscious source in the independent postconscious. It is probably correct to say that there is a tendency to agree upon certain large overall 'truths', such as the existence of god and the principles of progress, and that this reflects a general wish for unity (a wish which manages to co-exist with strong competition). By contrast, criticism and 'rubbishing' of peoples' beliefs (such as I am practicing), however true and vital for genuine human unity they really are, are at present commonly seen as disharmonious.

Towards the end of I'm OK, You're OK, Harris states it as a fact that people cannot and do not wish to live unrelated to other people. I am quite sure that this is so, despite the contrary evidence of man's inhumanity to man for which the unnecessary practices of the Machine and authoritative government, rather than human nature, are responsible. A large part of happiness in a humantrue society will be the knowledge of mutual regard and support across the whole world, and a sense of unity with all supraconscious intellects throughout the universe. Figure 15c below shows the relationships on which the constitution of such a society would be founded.

I have suggested already (see Figure.14a) that in early childhood the developing postconscious is much more closely related to, thus having more influence on, the developing conscious. The two-year-old's ability to learn language would appear to confirm this. But thereafter a battle is joined between the postconscious potential for truth and domination of the conscious by the Machine and the great factual and conceptual weight of existing reality. It is a battle which the Machine generally wins, but the individual is left with a conscience, a sense of truth overlooked and morality betrayed, which has had the good effect of causing mankind continually to question itself, and the bad effect that we have invented religions and other disciplines as substitutes for true answers.

There is no denying that the difficulties of upbringing and of adjusting to reality can have dire behavioural consequences, or that the books Families, I'm OK, You're OK and its sequel Staying OK, can address and alleviate these difficulties. However, all those who have been helped to become OK, together with all the rest of the world's six thousand million people, are adapted to serve one or another function of the Machine, belong to one or another faith or ideology and are contained within one or another country, and all these occupations, beliefs and nations are potentially if not openly in conflict. All these people belong to the wrong reality(see Figure 15b,)and no amount of psychology will make it or them right. That, I repeat, is the basis of my criticism of these books. Let us first achieve the right reality, shown in Figure 15c above, regardless of our wrong emotions, and then let us see whether the result of itbeing right will not be that weall come out right.

It is thought, by free-expression educators for instance, that children should be brought up with infinite kindness, but how are they then to be prepared either for a hard world which is not even ordinarily kind or for a career of rightful but painful protest against that hard world? Similarly, it is thought by almost everybody that the only way successfully to communicate is to appeal to, in order to get a friendly response from, the conscious concepts, beliefs, hopes and dreams that the great majority of us presently hold in common. But if a radical reformer-writer does this the main effect on his readers will be that their overall view of reality is confirmed, and that his radical message can be put on a shelf marked 'to be attended to when we have time, and then, ifit is approved, to be implemented only in parts, as and when we can afford it'.The individual's normal situation, shown in(Figure 15b,) in a closed triangular arena of conscious reality and between the opposite influences of the Machine and the intuitions of the postconscious, is not easy to escape. Since the key to the problem is postconscious awareness, it is clear that if radical reformers are to achieve their aims they must, as writers or readers, tap into the postconscious - they must be supraconscious.

Harris refers to experiments with monkeys who were 'raised' by wire-framed, terry-cloth covered, surrogate mothers. When these monkeys reached maturity they had minimal capacity for mothering, whereas this capacity had been thought to be instinctive. This is an important finding when related to humanity and the overall 'mother' which brings us up - our framework of life - the Machine. (It is also important to question our right to subject monkeys to this indignity and pain). In nature the monkey would alwaysbe brought up by a female monkey mother, so that the mothering instinct (minimal though it might be at birth) would be confirmed and reinforced and passed along, rather than remain minimal as in this unnatural experiment. The instinct and its performance are interdependent, for the monkey without a mother would, naturally, die. The purpose of the mothering instinct is to give the baby everything it requires for its function to survive and, in the case of a female, everything it requires to reproduce, successfully according to design - this, and subsequent life in a viable community, equals happiness. For we humans, though we may have natural mothers, the Machine is ourcollective surrogate mother which, with its false framework of life, gives us minimal capacity for happy communal survival. Our true collective mother would be humantrue society, sustained and continually reinforced by our equivalent of instinct - supraconsciousness.

Harris says that we have to become adult before we can explore, and find answers to, the great perplexity 'what's the good of it all?' This is clearly true, but, if he is to know how and where to explore, and to be able to recognise true answers when he, or she, sees them, the normal adult also needs to change, radically. The state of adulthood, within the Machine, entails a false concept of reality which certainly precludes truth. It is necessary that the self, however immature it might be in terms of existing reality, should find a true intellectual maturity by opening to the postconscious, intellating, and becoming supraconscious. It will be cognisant of the present psychological difficulties, but will recognise that it is not these difficulties that constitute the problem to be dealt with, but the entire false reality which gives rise to them.

It is clear that individuals, to be contented, eventually need to be at peace with their Parent and Child within, but this cannot be until their Adult, and their world, is humantrue. The individual who achieves adult maturity within the conscious aena, as is the object of psychiatry, is not capable of discovering or realising humantruth. The supraconscious individual, though still immature by Machine-standards, having recognised that the psychological difficulties of achieving automated adulthood are not the real problem, will by-pass them on its way to a far better understanding given by the infinitely more deep postconscious faculty. He or she must be willing to endure the pains of being a misfit in existing reality for the sake of future humantrue reality.

In the world as it is people suffer considerable stress, and it is to relieve this that they go to psychiatrists. I appreciate the psychiatrists' point that this suffering exists, now, and they have to treat it now. But supraconscious individuals would reject their treatment, opting personally to avoid the norm rather than adapt to it. They are vitally aware, however, that humanity at large cannot escape the norm that presently dominates it, and they are dedicated to realising a humantrue reality. By transfer of their emotions to support of the postconscious mind's absolute determination on humantrue change, they will find that the many stresses associated with living unhappily in an alien world, not to mention awareness of the stresses experienced by others through failure to become happily successful in automated reality, are far outweighed by stress arising from awareness that the present is an intolerably wrong reality, stress which will be alleviated only when we change to a humantrue reality.

It might still be argued that there will be Parent-Child-Adult relationships in any reality, and it is argued that because of the personality disturbances they cause a humantrue reality could not work. But when all peoples are united by common supraconsciousness, and living in a world which has been constituted accordingly, they will be in a much better position to deal with any disturbances that do occur. In particular I believe that nuclear family life is the cause of much present psychological trauma which community living would dispel. In a humantrue community the burdens of parenthood and childhood would be shared, the adult would be freed from all unnecessary outside pressure, and everybody would share in the satisfaction of healthy basic living and cooperative comradeship.

Reading the books reviewed in this chapter has confirmed my belief that the more the automated conscious mind learns, from books which the Machine is willing to offer, the more confused it becomes. It is this that obliges conscious individuals to specialise, taking a limited stand which they can encompass, explain, and defend. The accumulation of such understanding brings little, if any, advance of humantrue understanding. Living in the Machine is like reading a Sunday newspaper. The information's part-truths do not build towards whole truth but are subtly negated by the whole newspaper's acceptance of the overall false existing reality.

Pt.VIII FURTHER ILLUMINATION
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49 The Flaw in our Accepted, Philosophical, Mode of Thought
50 How to Humanise Reality

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