Tuesday 30 October 2012

Erich Neumann and Julian Jaynes

I read Gunter Grass's "The Flounder" in the late 1970s while still in school. We read Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan as part of our school coursework. So we were introduced to Bergsonian elan vital. I don't know what history I learnt in school, but I had named different stages of my life as "ancient greek", "dark ages", and "renaissance", and ofcourse, renaissance was the then present, when I wanted to read everything, from economics to literature to physics. The Flounder got mixed with all this..... In 1980s , I discovered Jung and Neumann.  And I read something of Julian Jaynes, so bizarre was it , but unfortunately I lost the reference to him. In my mind, Neumann and Jaynes were so mixed up, for me the meaning of monotheism was obvious. Sometime back couple of days search on internet led me to Jaynes - a search for bicameral mind would have lead to him immediately, but I was trying monotheism. ..  Now I have decided to seriously learn neurobiology (Open courseware is available at MIT). I have read a few semipopular books.. I found the following in a forum discussion, few years old. Otherwise I would have joined in. 

I have always meant to write down some of my big dreams, and have written two posts on them. So in my 50th year, I am seriously turning to religion after turning away from it when I was 12.


http://www.julianjaynes.org/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=393
It is stunning to look at Jaynes' and Jung's work through each other's lenses as well. The Right Brain becomes The Feminine, and the emergence of Jaynes' introspective consciousness in the last 3000 or so years becomes the Masculine declaring its independence from the Mother, to form what we could call The Patriarchy--a necessary exploration of individuality, sovereignty, intellectual operation, in revolt against the hive-consciousness of the cultures built around The Great Mother (Sumer being the last great one in the Old World), where a human individual identified ONLY as his/her function/position in Her service; where only specially-initiated individuals--originally initiated only by priestesses of The Goddess--had access to intellectual knowledge (animal and plant husbandry, astronomy, geometry, number, writing, preparation of psychotropic concoctions such as alcohol and other hallucinogens, and especially the connection between intercourse, conception and birth--the "Women's Mysteries").
And now that The Patriarchy is dissolving (and ironically but not surprisingly we are becoming conscious of THAT), it looks to me as if we are about to experience another evolutionary leap (or self-destruct as a species in our failure to do so). In "Jungian" terms, we are about to re-unite the Patriarchy (Left Brain) with the Matriarchy (mostly suppressed and masked Right Brain), to produce something new. Our "globalization" activities--the internet, the emerging awareness of climate change as a global, species-wide problem, the mounting irreconcilabilities of individual vs. collective wellbeing in all their medical, spiritual, cultural, political and ecological forms--even our recent preference for dual processors in computers! all point to this, when human evolution is viewed from a "Jungian" point of view AND a "Jaynesian" one simultaneously. In other words, the Left Brain will need to see itself as good governments are supposed to operate--as knowlegable SERVANTS, not as ignorant, repressive "gods". In yet other words, we are about to redefine what "gods" are and then BECOME GOOD ones...taming the "animal" parts of ourselves through knowledge and compassion, rather than through fear and suppression.

Conscience and Madness

I once knew a woman who was schizophrenic. She would hear voices. We 'normal' people also have our inner conversations, when we debate over something, sometimes with the conjured  image of another person. Only, in her case,  these conversations were audible to her. For instance, whenever she was thinking of me. she would hear my voice. On hindsight. I feel that it might have been better for her to have kept quiet  about her state. But a lifetime of being treated a weirdo leaves its deleterious effects. Imagine a whole lot of voices abusing you, taunting you, and their taunts would be correct because they came from your innermost self. This lady was living in a hell. Today, I might be able to help someone in her position. But, about 20 years back, I was a struggling graduate student, and this woman was several years elder to me. I was raw and ignorant and struggling to balance my various activities and time has always been in short supply. It is great when a wiser person puts everything in -perspective-
Lessing: I have a rather fanciful interpretation about schizophrenia, which is probably nonsense, but it might interest some people. It is that this self-hater part of ourselves, the conditioned conscience, is usually disassociated and is just sitting there ready to pounce. Then, then some crisis activates it, it gets plugged into the entire human psyche. It isn't just personal, it becomes an impersonal accuser, as if the whole of society is behind it. And that's why people can't bear it. It's so powerful. It isn't just the voice of mummy or daddy, it's the total collective power of dislike, accusation and pure hatred. In other cultures this is probably a recognised aspect of a god — I wouldn't be surprised — certainly in India you'd find it in, probably Kali or another of those terrible goddesses. But I'm sure that schizophrenics get plugged into something so enormously powerful they can't bear it.
Tyrrell: Perhaps that's why schizophrenics commonly believe they are being spied on by evil alien creatures.
Lessing: They often think they're spied on through electric sockets on skirting boards.
The latest one I've heard is the check-out points at supermarkets! There is an interesting cult in South Africa which I was told about. They believe that the world is being controlled by an evil force, '666', which is taking over the entire world through the agency of check-outs of supermarkets. And this is easily proved because so often the numbers on the printouts from these check-outs have 666 on them. You can't fault the logical of crazy people! And this cult now has a paid up membership. They are waiting for Satan. South Africa breeds amazing cults for some reason. 
 On Commanding Self  http://www.lightwinnipeg.org/Spiritual%20Writings/Essence%20and%20Personality.pdf

        ESSENCE AND PERSONALITY

                                    ‘The touchstone it is which knows the real gold.’
                                                                                                        Saadi

                                         The ‘Secondary’ or ‘Commanding’ Self
                        The Commanding Self, the subjective mind which is a compound of
                         instinct and training, of intellect and emotion: these are the factors
                          which stand between the ‘gold’ and the ‘touchstone’ in everyone.
                                                                                                                  Idries Shah

o In many spiritual teachings a distinction is made between the essence or real self and the
   secondary self or false personality.
                    It must be understood that man consists of two parts: essence and personality.
                    Essence in man is what is his own.  Personality in man is what is ‘not his own.’
                    ‘Not his own’ means what has come from outside, what he has learned, or reflects,
                    all traces of exterior impressions left in the memory and in the sensations, all
                    words and movements that have been learned, all feelings created by imitation –
                    all this is ‘not his own’, all this is personality.
                       A small child has no personality as yet.  He is what he really is.  He is essence.
                    His desires, tastes, likes, dislikes, express his being such as it is.
                       But as soon as so-called ‘education’ begins personality begins to grow.  Person-
                    ality is created partly by the intentional influences of other people, that is, by
                    ‘education’, and partly by involuntary imitation of them by the child himself.  In
                    the creation of personality a great part is also played by ‘resistance’ to people
                    around  him and by attempts to conceal from them something that is ‘his own’ or                  
                    ‘real.’ (1)
o The secondary or commanding self dominates and controls the human personality.  People live
   largely in this conditioned personality and imagine that it is their only self.  “The Commanding
   Self is that mixture of primitive and conditioned responses, common to everyone, which          
   inhibits and distorts human progress and understanding.”
o The secondary personality develops early in life and forms a sort of mask or ‘persona’ which
   covers the true inner being or essential self.
                    Personality is an accidental thing, which we begin to acquire as soon as we are
                    born; it is determined by our surroundings, outside influences, education and so
                    on; it is like a dress you wear, a mask; an accidental thing changing with changing
                    circumstances.  It is the false part of man; and can be changed artificially or acci-
                    dentally – in a few minutes by hypnosis or a drug.  A man with a “strong person-
                    ality” may have the essence of a child, overlaid by personality. (2)
o In Sufi terminology the dominating self is known as ‘nafs’ – the basic but selfish impulses and
    desires which control the behaviour of most human beings.
  The prime target of [Sufi teacher] Sanai’s onslaught is the ‘self’ (nafs).  By this
                    term he understands something like the ‘ego’ of western psychology: the pro-
                    visional ‘consensus-reality’ which we passively allow environment, culture and
                    experience to erect around us from birth.  The self is an entirely illusory entity,
                    constantly changing, full of contradictions which only habit prevents us from
                    discerning.  But above all the self is – selfish.  As if flying in panic from any
                    recognition of its own nothingness, it feverishly erects edifices of self-importance,
                    self-aggrandizement, self-love.  More binding than any prison, since we unthink-
                    ingly take its very walls for reality, it prevents us from ever realizing the true
                    significance of our being here. (3)
o The secondary self rules and limits the scope and possibilities of human functioning. “The
   Commanding Self is the origin of the individual controlled by a composite consciousness,
   which is a mixture of hopes and fears, of training and imagination, of emotional and other
   factors, which make up the person in his or her ‘normal state’.”
                    The secondary self is the false personality which, although enabling people to
                    handle many of the circumstances of life, has as its objective the maintenance of
                    itself; not the progress of the individual beyond quite narrow and shallow limits.
                    This Commanding Self is manifested by reactions, hopes and fears and various
                    opinions and preoccupations. (4)
o  The activity of the secondary self leads to behaviour that is automatic, conditioned and uncon-
    trolled.  Much of the manifestations of this self are mechanical, almost like a machine.
                    The ordinary, familiar Self, which is a secondary one, is easily conditioned,
                    dominated and operated by primitive logic.  People thus make decisions based
                    on habit, on command or upon lack of information.  They do this because they
                    are trained to act in this way, and also because they frequently lack flexibility of
                    approach. (5)
o One of the qualities of the false personality is that it is constantly changing as it reacts to ex-
   ternal influences and events.   “The false or secondary self tends to filter and distort impres-      
   sions from the external world by processing outside impacts and situations from an entirely
   subjective viewpoint.”
                    Personality is an accidental thing – upbringing, education, points of view –
                    everything external.  It is like the clothes you wear, your artificial mask, the result
                    of your upbringing, of the influence of your surroundings, opinions consisting of
                    information and knowledge which change daily, one annulling the other.
                       Today you are convinced of one thing – you believe it and want it.  Tomorrow,
                    under another influence, your belief, your desires become different.  All the material
                    constituting your personality may be completely changed artificially or accidentally
                    with a change in your surrounding conditions and place – and this in a very short
                    time. (6)
o The secondary self acts as a barrier to higher or extra-dimensional perceptions.  The activity of
   the commanding self  (which is said to have a ‘location’ in the area of the navel) stifles the
   intuition and blocks any recognition of spiritual truth.
                    People may be obtuse because they are unconsciously suppressing their percep-
                    tion of the facts or of truth.  There are many people who act against their reliable
                    and accurate promptings for some delinquent reason.  This reason is generally
                    because something in them fears the intrusion of truth, either because this unsettles
                    them or because they are partly hypocrites.
                       The ‘censor’ is that part of the Commanding Self – the artificial personality,
                    which seeks to protect the existing ways of thought of the person, who therefore
                    is suffering from an inward conflict: half of which knows the truth and wants it,
                    admitting it into his brain, the other half inhibits the acceptance of this fact, since
                    it is dedicated to maintaining what it takes to be an equilibrium.  If it were to admit
                    the truth, so its reasoning goes, it would face the unknown; the personality, it
                    fears, would change, or else the person would then be motivated by something else
                    (truth) not by the small bundle of ideas and reactions with which it is familiar. (7)
o The element which stands in the way of real human progress and spiritual development is the
   secondary self or false personality.
   
                    The area of psychological activity in the human being is for the Sufi that of
                    his secondary, raw and conditioned self.  This is not the self which achieves higher
                    consciousness, but is the socially operative one.  Customary human efforts are
                    directed towards stabilizing this secondary self and integrating it in society, and
                    the emotional experiences which are possible to this self are generally confused
                    with higher experiences, giving rise, at best, to therapy or the formation of a new
                    tribe or society (actually a cult), not to a body of more aware people.  I say at
                    best because this is the best that can be achieved when working on this level; not
                    to indicate that this is not to be desired.  But people who need therapy or a tribe
                    should attend to this need first, and should not confuse it with higher perceptions. (8)
o The presence and activity of the false personality produces psychological and cultural problems
   which distort the understanding of mystical teachings and methods.
                   

The Western cultural milieu, more than those of the East, provides a back-
ground mentality which encourages the Commanding Self. Procedures designed

for Eastern people are likely to have negative effects if adopted by Westerners.
Briefly, the Eastern tradition that one learns until one is permitted by a teacher
to teach (an ancient tradition perpetuated in apprenticeship and the granting of

degrees in the West), is not adhered to in many non-academic areas of the West.
The reason for this is not far to seek. In the West, the prevailing culture’s
emphasis is on haste, on getting something and passing it on (e.g. products or
ideas, after value-enhancing) and so on. This has taken the form, in spiritual,
psycho-psychological and other areas, of people trying to teach, to expound, to
treat or cure, to communicate before they are properly fitted to do so.
The fact that, in the West, anyone can set up as an expert, a teacher, a therapist or an adviser, compounds this error. The Commanding Self, always agile in its sophistication, conceals from the individual that he/she is trying to run before being able to walk. When people start to approve of what the individual is doing, this is misread as a validation of his or her role. In fact, it is usually only the fact that some people are dependent characters by nature or formation.
The answer? Time and service rather than wanting to take a place on the totem-
pole. It is for this reason that Sufi teachers divert vanity from the spiritual area,
by encouraging their disciples to channel the Commanding Self’s activities to any
worthy worldly ambition: while continuing to study the Sufi Way in a modest and
non-self promoting manner. (9)

o Although the secondary self is very useful when used for certain purposes, its operation may be
   useless or even harmful when applied to areas which are not appropriate to it.  The impulses
   and desires of the secondary self should not be suppressed or denied, but rather controlled and  
   channelled.
 
                                             The Essence or  Essential Self

o The essence or the essential being of a person has an inner hunger and capacity for spiritual
   growth.  But in the majority of undeveloped human beings, the essence operates in such a way
   that it gives its potential (the development of higher consciousness) to the secondary self.
                    Take the case of a young child.  The sense of ‘I-am’ is not yet formed, the
                    personality is rudimentary.  The obstacles to self-knowledge are few, but the
                    power and the clarity of awareness, its width and depth are lacking.  In the
                    course of years awareness will grow stronger, but also the latent personality      
                    will emerge and obscure and complicate.  Just as the harder the wood, the
                    hotter the flame, so the stronger the personality, the brighter the light generated
                    from its destruction. (10)
o An analogy by Rumi alludes to the hidden nature of the essence within the dominating struc-
    ture of the secondary self.
                    In Fihi ma Fihi, Rumi says that there is a minute insect in a field, which cannot
                    be seen at first.  But as soon as it makes a sound, people are alerted and see it.
                    People, similarly, are lost in the field of this world, their surroundings and preoc-
                    cupations.  The human essence within is concealed by all this disturbance. (11)
o Essence grows and develops under favourable conditions, but in most cases any real inner
   development stops at an early age.  “As long as one regards what are in fact secondary things    
   (including one’s secondary, conditioned self) as primary, the subtler but more real primary
   element – Reality and the Essence of the individual – will not be perceived.           
With most people, essence continues to receive impressions only until it is five
or six years old. As long as it receives impressions it grows, but afterwards all
impressions are taken by personality and essence stops growing. Sometimes if education is not too unfavourable, the essence may continue to grow, and a more
or less normal human being can result. But normal human beings are the exception.
Nearly everyone has only the essence of a child. It is not natural that in a grown-up
man the essence should be a child. Because of this, he remains timid underneath
and full of apprehensions. This is because he knows that he is not what he pretends
to be, but he cannot understand why. (12)
o The essential being exists at birth, but its capacity to express itself fully remains latent until it
   can harmonize with sources of higher knowledge and energy.
                    Q:  Could you say something about essence, some indications of how we can
                    recognize when we are working with essence or with personality?
                    A: To begin with, basically, you are using the essence each time you are using
                    any technique or any context of the Tradition.
                       Secondly, you are working with the essence, if, before beginning anything, you
                    invoke what we call a “Nyat” or intention.  If you concentrate yourself on receiving
                    the help of the Tradition, then you will be using the essence.
                       The third and most difficult part is when you are treating someone or doing some-
                    thing and suddenly you have no idea of what to do.  And then, without you really
                    knowing it, it comes to you.  That is the essence working.
       
           Q:  Does the essence work in an unconscious way?
                    A:  Yes. (13)
o The essence communicates to the human being in a subtle, refined and precise manner based
   on necessity, urgency or need to know.  “The communication harmonic of the essential being
   transmits and receives in a very precise frequency.  This communication and reception appa-
   ratus or harmonic is a very fundamental and functional part of the essential being.”
                    Essence is a subtle substance that has physical characteristics.  This means that
                    in order to experience essence the physical organism has to become sensitive
                    enough to perceive these physical characteristics, which are usually coexistent
                    with the ordinary physical sensations.  The physical characteristics of essential
                    substance are very subtle, in the sense that they are quiet and silent compared to
                    the sensations of the body and its feelings.  Usually, they are drowned out by the
                    grosser sensations.  They might be present, but because the person is attuned only
                    to the grosser, more familiar physical sensations, he might not be aware of their
                    presence.  So his awareness will have to become refined enough to be sensitive
                    to the subtler and finer sensations of the essence. (14)
 
o Signals from the essence are optimally received in a state of relaxed awareness and openness.
   “The essential being is reluctant to be recognized or used only in the sense that it wishes to pro-
   tect itself and also the person.  It therefore has to be encouraged and persuaded, and it also has  
   to feel right.”

                 
The essential being of a person knows intimately what the minute by minute and
second by second state of the body and mind is signalling to you, and it sends sig-
nals to your conscious being in a very simple and also very sophisticated way.
The essential being of the person is interested in the quality and good state of
the body. It knows those signals, what type of signals they are, and in what way it
can communicate and be understood.
It may choose how to signal to you, either by some physical change or physical
manifestation, or else it can signal to you with a series of strong ideas coming back
over and over again into the mind.
Signals of a less obvious nature are coming back to one all the time. They can
come quickly and pass, perhaps because of a lack of alertness by the person.
Alertness is a state of scanning which is constant in you and it should be
encouraged, because if the essential being wishes to send a significant signal, this
signal will be repeated over and over again. (15)


                                        Relationship Between Essence and Personality

                             ‘While the Commanding Self says: ‘Give me what I want’, the
                           Real Self, which lies beyond it, is saying: ‘Give me what I need.’                        
                                                                                         
o The secondary self is interposed between objective reality and the real self or essence (whose
   realization is the purpose of spiritual study).  “Personality hides behind essence and essence
   hides behind personality and they mutually screen one another.”
o The essence or ‘real self’ must re-establish a living contact with the Divine.  In most human
   beings the inner self is trapped by the operation of the secondary self, and “the shallow but        
   strong bonds of conditioning and environment.”
                    The secondary (‘commanding’) self in everyone is the false self which everyone
                    takes to be the real one.  It stands in relation to the real being of the person as the
                    face does to the person: virtually a persona.  Everyone, says Rumi, in Fihi ma Fihi,
                    likes a mirror, and is enamoured of the reflection in the mirror of his attributes and
                    attainments: though he does not know the real nature of his face.
                       The veil which he sees on the looking-glass he imagines to be his face.  ‘Take
                    the covering from your face, so that you may see me as the mirror of your real face:
                    so that you will realize that I am a mirror.’ (16)
o There is a mutual and parallel relationship between the two fundamental aspects of the human
    being: the essence and the secondary self or false personality.
                 
Essence is the truth in man; personality is the false. But in proportion as person-
ality grows, essence manifests itself more and more rarely and more and more
feebly and it very often happens that essence stops in its growth at a very early age
and grows no further. It happens very often that the essence of a grown-up man,
even that of a very intellectual and, in the accepted meaning of the word, highly
‘educated’ man, stops on the level of a child of five or six. This means that every-
thing we see in this man is in reality ‘not his own.’ What is his own in man, that is, his essence, is usually only manifested in his instincts and in his simplest emotions.
There are cases, however, when a man’s essence grows in parallel with his person-
ality. Such cases represent very rare exceptions especially in the circumstances of
cultured life. Essence has more chances of development in men who live nearer
to nature in difficult conditions of constant struggle and danger.
But as a rule the personality of such people is very little developed. They have
more of what is their own, but very little of what is ‘not their own’, that is to say,
they lack education and instruction, they lack culture. Culture creates personality
and is at the same time the product and the result of personality. We do not realize
that the whole of our life, all we call civilization, all we call science, philosophy,
art, and politics, is created by people’s personality, that is, by what is ‘not their own’
in them.
The element that is ‘not his own’ differs from what is man’s ‘own’ by the fact
that it can be lost, altered, or taken away by artificial means.
Sometimes, though very seldom, and sometimes when it is least expected, essence
proves fully grown and fully developed in a man, even in cases of undeveloped
personality, and in this case essence unites together everything that is serious and
real in a man.
But this happens very seldom. As a rule man’s essence is either primitive, savage
and childish, or else simply stupid. The development of essence depends on work
on oneself. (17)
o The essence or real self, and not the secondary personality, has the potential for inner growth
   and spiritual development.  “As we observe our personality it becomes more passive, then our
   essence can become active and begin to grow.”
                   
A very important moment in the work on oneself is when a man begins to dis-
tinguish between his personality and his essence. A man’s real I, his individuality,
can grow only from his essence. It can be said that a man’s individuality is his
essence, grown up, mature. But in order to enable essence to grow up, it is first
of all necessary to weaken the constant pressure of personality upon it, because
the obstacles to the growth of essence are contained in personality.
If we take an average cultured man, we shall see that in the vast majority of
cases his personality is the active element in him while his essence is the passive
element. The inner growth of a man cannot begin so long as this order of things
remains unchanged. Personality must become passive and essence must become
active.
In the case of less cultured people essence is often more highly developed than
it is in cultured man. It would seem that they ought to be nearer the possibility of
growth, but in reality it is not so because their personality proves to be insufficiently
developed. For inner growth, for work on oneself, a certain development of person-
ality as well as a certain strength of essence are necessary. Without some store of
knowledge, without a certain amount of material ‘not his own’, a man cannot begin
to work on himself, he cannot begin to study himself, he cannot begin to struggle
with his mechanical habits, simply because there will be no reason or motive for
undertaking such work.
Thus evolution is equally difficult for a cultured and an uncultured man. A
cultured man lives far from nature, far from natural conditions of existence, in
artificial conditions of life, developing his personality at the expense of his essence. A less cultured man, living in more normal and more natural conditions, develops
his essence at the expense of his personality. A successful beginning of work on
oneself requires the happy occurrence of an equal development of personality and
essence. Such an occurrence will give the greatest assurance of success. (18)
o  In schools of higher development there exist precise methods which are applied to separate
    essence from personality and experimentally verify the relation of personality to essence.
    “In Eastern schools ways and means are known by the help of which it is possible to separate
    man’s personality from his essence.  For this purpose they sometimes use hypnosis, sometimes
    special narcotics, sometimes certain kinds of exercises.”

                                          Personality Roles and Essence Types

o The issue of identity and self-image is a major pre-occupation and concern of most human
   beings.  The personality of many people is an artificial one, almost a ‘role’ which they play in  
   social situations.
                    Q:  How concerned are people, really, about their identity, about who or what
                    they are, and whether what they think and do is real or just habit and instinct?
                    A:  They are so concerned with this, that they think of very little else, though
                    they do not realize it.  It is very easy, however, to observe that this is what is
                    happening, if we only examine what people say, think and do from the point of
                    view of whether it is connected with their identity and/or their perception of
                    themselves and of others.  The interesting thing is that they seldom suspect that
                    this is their obsession. (19)
o The behaviour of most people in customary social situations is based on particular roles that
   they play.  “As soon as we define ourselves in relation to another we feel more comfortable,
   because now we know how to be and to act.”
                    If you are awake enough, aware enough, to be able to observe how you interact
                    with other people, you may detect subtle changes in your speech, attitude, and
                    behaviour depending on the person you are interacting with.  At first, it may be
                    easier to observe this in others; then you may also detect it in yourself.  The way
                    in which you speak to the chairman of the company may be different in subtle
                    ways from how you speak to the janitor.  How you speak to a child may be
                    different from how you speak to an adult.  Why is that?  You are playing roles.
                    You are not yourself, neither with the chairman nor with the janitor or the child.
                       A range of conditioned patterns of behaviour come into effect between two
                    human beings that determine the nature of the interaction.  Instead of human
                    beings, conceptual mental images are interacting with each other.  The more
                    identified people are with their respective roles, the more inauthentic the relation-
                    ship becomes. (20)
  o The average person has a limited repertoire of roles, drawn from the secondary personality,
   which he or she exhibits in ordinary life.
You must realize that each man has a definite repertoire of roles which he plays
in ordinary circumstances. He has a role for every kind of circumstance in which
he ordinarily finds himself in life; but put him into even only slightly different
circumstances and he is unable to find a suitable role and for a short time he
becomes himself. The study of the roles a man plays represents a very necessary
part of self-knowledge. Each man’s repertoire is very limited. One or two for
his family, one or two at his office (one for his subordinates and another for his
superiors), one for his friends in a restaurant, and perhaps one who is interested in
exalted ideas and likes intellectual conversation. And at different times the man
is fully identified with one of them and is unable to separate himself from it.
To see the roles, to know one’s repertoire, particularly to know its limitedness, is
to know a great deal. But the point is that, outside his repertoire, a man feels very
uncomfortable should something push him if only temporarily out of his rut, and
he tries his hardest to return to any one of his usual roles. Directly he falls back
into the rut everything at once goes smoothly again and the feeling of awkward-
ness and tension disappears. This is how it is in life. (21)
o Most people are unable to live without roles, preventing the real self from emerging.  “When
   we see clearly how we function, how we contact our surroundings through memory from the
   point of view of separate roles and patterns, the already known, we can only be astonished.”
                    When you are free from the concept “mother,” you are really a mother.  Then
                    when circumstances call on you to be a mother, when the child asks for a mother,
                    you are a mother.  But don’t live in mothering.  You are nothing, and in this
                    nothingness the mother comes and goes.  Then there is a current of love.
                       The problem is not biology but psychology.  To take yourself as a father, mother,
                    lawyer or businessman is fractional living.  Then you act according to certain
                    patterns.  When you are established in your wholeness, the father or mother appears
                    in this wholeness.  Similarly, conception, memory, is an essential tool of our brain,
                    but to live in memory is the problem. (22)
o In some spiritual teachings the importance of identifying and being aware of unconscious role-
   playing is the initial step in restoring elements of the personality to their proper functions “as
   servants rather than masters of the mind.”
                    Human beings play different roles in life, and relate differently to different people
                    and situations through these different roles.  The question is this:  “Who and what
                    is the real self underlying and undertaking these roles?”
                       The Zen point is that these roles are not the real self, but are more properly like
                    guests or servants of the real self.  Confusion and loss of freedom arise from a
                    fundamental misapprehension: Identifying with a role, people can forget and lose
                    the rest of their potential shifting from role to role unconscious of the central
                    “pivot” of the essential self, people can experience stultifying conflicts among
                    their commitments to different roles. (23)
    o The various roles played by a person in life come from the false personality, but in certain
   circumstances these may be replaced by the genuineness and authenticity of the essential self.
  All the ordinary roles we play are personality; but if, by accident, we find
                    ourselves in unusual conditions, we may behave according to essence.  Some
                    grown-up men, for example, when they have had a good deal to drink, or are
                    under the influence of some young woman, will behave like little boys – which
                    essentially they are.  On the other hand, in times of danger they may behave
                    either intelligently and rationally or like frightened children.  Under the shock
                    of grief, the stern business man or the statesman may become human and tender.
                    Our task is to die to this personality, which is a false thing, not our own; it may
                    be necessary to melt it down in the fires of great suffering, but when this is done
                    correctly, in its place will grow individuality; a man will become an individual,
                    possessing real will and an “I”.  He will be himself. (24)
o In most instances it is difficult to distinguish between personality roles and the workings of
   essence.
                    Only a conscious man can tell which are the manifestations of essence and
                    which are personality.  The ordinary role we play in life is personality, and with
                    some people it becomes a fixed habit and is no longer even a role.  Yet person-
                    ality can react differently with different surroundings and people.  Essence, when
                    it does react, will always react in the same way.
                       Essence means being, intrinsic nature, the thing in itself, inborn character,
                    something that is.  The opposite is personality, persona, a mask, that which is
                    not ours.  But essence can be spoiled and warped: ‘Man, most ignorant when he’s
                    most assured.  His glassy essence plays such fantastic tricks. . .’ (25)
o The powerful influences of contemporary culture and civilization exert a profound effect on
   the human being.  One of the negative consequences is a one-sided development away from
   natural type and real individuality.
                   
The life of our times has become so complex that man has deviated from his
original type – a type that should have become dependent upon his surroundings:
the country where he was born, the environment in which he was brought up, and
the culture in which he was nurtured. These conditions should have marked out
for a man his path of development and the normal type which he should have
arrived at; but our civilization, with its almost unlimited means of influencing a
man, has made it almost impossible for him to live in the conditions which should
be normal to him. While civilization has opened up for man new horizons in
knowledge and science and has raised his material standard of living, thereby
widening his world-perception, it has, instead of lifting him to a higher level all
round, only developed certain faculties to the detriment of others; some it has
completely destroyed. Our civilization has taken away from man the natural and
essential qualities of his inherited type, but it has not given him what was needed
for the harmonious development of a new type, so that civilization, instead of
producing an individually whole man adapted to the nature and surroundings in
which he finds himself and which really were responsible for his creation, has produced a being out of his element, incapable of living a full life, and at the same
time a stranger to that inner life which should by rights be his. (26)
o In many spiritual traditions individuals are classified into various ‘types’ based on common
   similarities and patterns of behaviour.  “If you observe yourself and note the things that
   attract you, what you like to see, to hear, to taste, touch, you may discover your type.”
                    Each one of you has probably met in life people of one and the same type.
                    Such people often even look like one another, and their inner reactions to things
                    are exactly the same.  What one likes the other will like.  What one does not like
                    the other will not like.  You must remember such occasions because you can
                    study the science of types only by meeting types.  There is no other method.
                    Everything else is imagination.  You must understand that in the conditions in
                    which you live you cannot meet with more than six or seven types although there
                    are in life a greater number of fundamental types.  The rest are all combinations
                    of these fundamental types.
                       ‘How many fundamental types are there in all?’ asked someone.
                       ‘Some people say twelve,’ said G.  ‘According to the legend the twelve apostles
                    represented the twelve types.  Others say more.’ (27)
 
o The concept of ‘types’ is related to the essence or real individuality of people and plays a    
   major role in the attraction and relationship between the two sexes.
                    If people were to live in essence one type would always find the other type and
                    wrong types would never come together.  But people live in personality.  Person-
                    ality has its own interests and its own tastes which have nothing in common with
                    the interests and the tastes of essence.   For this reason personality can dislike
                    precisely what essence likes –  and like what essence does not like.  Here is
                    where the struggle between essence and personality begins.  Essence knows
                    what it wants but cannot explain it.  Personality does not want to hear of it and
                    takes no account of it.  It has its own desires.  And it acts in its own way.  But its
                    power does not continue beyond that moment.  After that, in some way or other,
                    the two essences have to live together. And they hate one another.  No sort of
                    acting can help here.  In one way or another essence or type gains the upper hand
                    and decides. (28)
o According to some esoteric teachings the laws of ‘fate’ and ‘accident’ play a fundamental part
   in the life of humanity – although affecting different aspects of the human being.
                    Most people are separated from their fate and live under the law of accident
                    only.  Fate is the result of planetary influences which correspond to a man’s type.
                    A man can have the fate which corresponds to his type but he practically never
                    does have it.  This arises because fate has relation to only one part of man, namely
                    to his essence. (29)
                         
                                   REFERENCES

  1. P.D. Ouspensky  In Search of the Miraculous  (New York: Harcourt, 2001), p. 161.
  2. C.S. Nott  Teachings of Gurdjieff: The Journal of a Pupil  (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1974), p. 65.
  3. David Pendlebury  The Walled Garden of Truth  (London: (Octagon Press, 1984), p. 65.
  4. Idries Shah  Learning How to Learn  (London: Octagon Press, 1983), p. 42.
  5. Idries Shah  Evenings with Idries Shah  (London: Designist Communications, 1981), p. 19.
  6. G.I. Gurdjieff  Views From the Real World  (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1973), p. 143.
  7. Idries Shah  The Commanding Self  (London: Octagon Press, 1994), p. 116.
  8. Idries Shah  A Perfumed Scorpion  (London: Octagon Press, 1983), p. 191.
  9. Idries Shah  The Commanding Self  (London: Octagon Press, 1994), p. 6-7.
10. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj  I Am That  (Durham, North Carolina: Acorn Press, 1982), p. 417.
11. Idries Shah  Learning How to Learn  (London: Octagon Press, 1983), p. 177.
12. J.G. Bennett  Gurdjieff: Making a New World  (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), p. 134-5.
13. Omar Ali-Shah  Sufism As Therapy  (Reno: Tractus Books, 1995), p. 18-19.
14. A.H. Almaas  Essence  (York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1986), p. 130.
15. Omar Ali-Shah  Sufism As Therapy  (Reno: Tractus Books, 1995), p. 105-6.
16. Idries Shah  Learning How to Learn  (London: Octagon Press, 1983), p. 289.
17. P.D. Ouspensky  In Search of the Miraculous  (New York: Harcourt, 2001), p. 162-3.
18. P.D. Ouspensky  In Search of the Miraculous  (New York: Harcourt, 2001), p. 163-4.
19. Idries Shah  Knowing How to Know  (London: Octagon Press, 1998), p. 237.
20. Eckhart Tolle  A New Earth  (New York: Dutton, 2005), p. 93.
21. P.D. Ouspensky  In Search of the Miraculous  (New York: Harcourt, 2001), p. 239-40.
22. Jean Klein  Open to the Unknown  (Santa Barbara: Third Millennium Publications, 1992), p. 17.
23. Thomas Cleary  No Barrier  (New York: Bantam Books, 1993), p. 163.
24. C.S. Nott  Teachings of Gurdjieff: The Journal of a Pupil  (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1974), p. 71.
25. C.S. Nott  Journey Through This World: The Second Journal of a Pupil  (New York: Samuel Weiser,
     1974), p. 84-5.
26. C.S. Nott  Teachings of Gurdjieff: The Journal of a Pupil  (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1974), p. 2-3.
27. P.D. Ouspensky  In Search of the Miraculous  (New York: Harcourt, 2001), p. 246.
28. P.D. Ouspensky  In Search of the Miraculous  (New York: Harcourt, 2001), p. 254.
29. P.D. Ouspensky  In Search of the Miraculous  (New York: Harcourt, 2001), p. 161.


Wednesday 24 October 2012

Group Minds, Zeitgeist & Religious War

http://loh.loswego.k12.or.us/mcnealm/Senior%20English/Group%20Minds.pdf

Doris Lessing - Group Minds


   People living in the west,  in societies that we describe as Western, or as the free  world, may be educated in many different ways, but they will all emerge with an idea  about themselves that goes something like this: I am a citizen of a free society, and that means I am an individual, making individual choices.  My mind is my own, my opinions  are chosen by me, I am free to do as I will, and at the worst the pressures on me are economic, that is to say I may be too poor to do as I want. 
   This set of ideas may sound something like a caricature, but it is not so far off how we see ourselves. It is a portrait that may not have been acquired consciously, but is part of a general atmosphere or set of assumptions that influence our ideas about ourselves. People in the West therefore may go through their entire lives never thinking to analyze this very flattering picture, and as a result are helpless against all kinds of pressures on them to conform in many kinds of ways.
   The fact is that we all live our lives in groups-the family, work groups, social, religious and political groups. Very few people indeed are happy as solitaries, and they tend to be seen by their neighbours as peculiar or selfish or worse. Most people cannot stand being alone for long. They are always seeking groups to belong to, and if one group dissolves, they look for another. We are group animals still, and there is nothing wrong with that. But what is dangerous is not the belonging to a group, or groups, but not understanding the social laws that govern groups and govern us. 
   When we're in a group, we tend to think as that group does: we may even have joined the group to find "like-minded" people. But we also find our thinking changing because we belong to a group. It is the hardest thing in the world to maintain an individual dissident opinion, as a member of a group.
   It seems to me that this is something we have all experienced-something we take for granted, may never have thought about. But a great deal of experiment has gone on among psychologists and sociologists on this very theme. If I describe an experiment or two, then anyone listening who may be a sociologist or  psychologist will groan, oh God  not again- for they will have heard of these classic experiments far too often. My guess is that the rest of the people will never have heard of these experiments, never have had 
these ideas presented to them. If my guess is true, then it aptly illustrates my general thesis, and the general idea behind these essays, that we (the human race) are now in possession of a great deal of hard information about ourselves, but we do not use it to improve our institutions and therefore our lives. 
   A typical test or experiment, on this theme goes like this. A group of people are taken into the researcher's confidence. A minority of one or two are left in the dark. Some situation demanding measurement or assessment is chosen. For instance, comparing  lengths of wood that differ only a little from each other, but enough to be perceptible, or shapes that are almost the same size. The majority in the group-according to instruction-will assert stubbornly that these two shapes or lengths are the same length, or size, while the solitary individual, or the couple, who have not been so instructed will assert that the pieces of wood or whatever are different. But the majority will continue to insist speaking metaphorically-that black is white, and after a period of exasperation, irritation,  even anger, certainly incomprehension, the minority will fall into line. Not always, but nearly always. There are indeed glorious individualists who stubbornly insist on telling the truth as they see it, but most give in to the majority opinion, obey the atmosphere. When put as baldly, as unflatteringly, as this, reactions tend to be incredulous: "I certainly wouldn't give in, I speak my mind. ..." But would you? People who have experienced a lot of groups, who perhaps have observed their own behaviour, may agree that the hardest thing in the world is to stand out against one's group, a group of one's peers. Many agree that among our most shameful memories is this, how often we said black was white because other people were saying it. 
   In other words, we know that this is true of human behaviour, but how do we know it? It is one thing to admit it in a vague uncomfortable sort of way (which probably includes the hope that one will never again be in such a testing situation) but quite another to make that cool step into a kind of objectivity, where one may say, "Right, if that's what human beings are like, myself included, then let's admit it, examine and organize our attitudes accordingly." 
   This mechanism, of obedience to the group, does not only mean obedience or submission to a small group, or one that is sharply determined, like a religion or political party.  It means, too, conforming to those large, vague, ill-defined collections of people who may never think of themselves as having a collective mind because they are aware of differences of opinion-but which, to people from outside, from another culture, seem very minor. The underlying assumptions and assertions that govern the group are never discussed, never challenged, probably never noticed, the main one being precisely this: that it is a group mind, intensely resistant to change, equipped with sacred assumptions about which there can be no discussion.
   Since my field is literature, it is there I most easily find my examples. I live in London,  and the literary community there would not think of itself as a collective mind, to put it mildly, but that is how I think of it. A few mechanisms are taken for granted enough to be quoted and expected. For instance, what is called "the ten-year rule," which is that usually when a writer dies, her or his work falls out of favour, or from notice, and then comes back again. It is one thing to think vaguely that this is likely to happen, but is it useful? 
Does it have to happen? Another very noticeable mechanism is the way a writer may fall out of favour for many years-while still alive, be hardly noticed-then suddenly be noticed and praised. An example is Jean Rhys, who lived for many years in the country. She was never mentioned, she might very well have been dead, and most people thought she was. She was in desperate need of friendship and help and did not get it for a long time. Then, due to the efforts of a perspicacious publisher, she finished Wide Sargasso Sea, and at once as it were became visible again. But-and this is my point-all her previous books, which had been unmentioned and unhonoured, were suddenly remembered and praised. Why were they not praised at all during that long period of neglect? Well, because the collective mind works like that-it is follow-my-leader, people all saying the same thing at the same time. 
   One can say of course that this is only "the way of the world." But does it have to be? If it does have to be, then at least we could expect it, understand it, and make allowances for it. Perhaps if it is a mechanism that is known to be one then it might be easier for reviewers to be braver and less like sheep in their pronouncements.  Do they have to be so afraid of peer group pressure? Do they really not see how they  repeat what each other says? 
   One may watch how an idea or an opinion, even a phrase, springs up and is repeated in a hundred reviews, criticisms, conversations-and then vanishes. But meanwhile each individual who has bravely repeated this opinion or phrase has been the victim of a compulsion to be like everyone else, and that has never been analyzed, or not by themselves. Though people outside can easily see it. 
   This is of course the mechanism that journalists rely on when they visit a country.  They know if they interview a small sample of a certain kind, or group, or class of people, these two or three citizens will represent all the others, since at any given time, all the people of any group or class or kind will be saying the same things, in the same words. 
   My experience as Jane Somers illustrates these and many other points. Unfortunately there isn't time here to tell the story properly. I wrote two books under another name, Jane Somers, which were submitted to publishers as if by an unknown author. I did this out of curiosity and to highlight certain aspects of the publishing machine. Also, the mechanisms that govern reviewing. The first, The Diary of a Good Neighbour, was turned down by my two main publishers. It was accepted by a third and also by three European publishers. The book was deliberately sent to all the people who regard themselves as experts of my work and they didn't recognize me.  Eventually, It was reviewed, as most new novels are, briefly and often patronizingly, and would have vanished forever leaving behind a few fan letters. Because Jane Somers did get fan letters from Britain and the United States, the few people in on the secret were amazed that no 
one guessed. Then I wrote the second, called If the Old Could, and still no one guessed. Now people keep saying to me, "How is it possible that no one guessed? I would have guessed at once." Well, perhaps. And perhaps we're all more dependent on brand names and on packaging than we'd like to think. Just before I came clean, I was asked by an interviewer in the States what I thought would happen. I said that the British literary establishment would be angry and say the books were no good, but that everyone else would be delighted.  And this is exactly what happened. I got lots of congratulatory letters from writers and from readers who had enjoyed the joke-and very sour and bitchy reviews. However, in France and in Scandinavia the books came out as The Diaries of Jane Somers by Doris Lessing. I have seldom had as good reviews as I did in France and in Scandinavia for the Jane Somers books. Of course, one could conclude that the reviewers in France and Scandinavia have no taste but that the British reviewers have!  It has all been very entertaining but it has also left me feeling sad and embarrassed for my  profession.  Does everything always have to be so predictable?  Do people really have to  be such sheep? 
   Of course, there are original minds, people who do take their own line, who do not fall victim to the need to say, or do, what everyone else does. But they are few. Very few. On them depends the health, the vitality of all our institutions, not only literature, from which  I have been drawing my examples. 
   It has been noticed that there is this 10 per cent of the population, who can be called  natural leaders, who do follow their own minds into decisions and choices. It has been noted to the extent that this fact has been incorporated into instructions for people who run prisons, concentration camps, prisoner of war camps: remove the 10 per cent, and  your prisoners will become spineless and conforming. 
   Of course, we are back here with the notion of elitism, which is so unfashionable, so unlikeable to the extent that in large areas of politics, even education, the idea that some people may be naturally better equipped than others is resisted. But I will return to the subject of elitism later. Meanwhile, we may note that we all rely on, and we respect, this idea of the lonesome individualist who overturns conformity.  It is the recurrent subject of archetypal American films-Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, for instance.  Take the way 
an attitude towards a certain writer or a book will be held by everyone, everyone saying the same things, whether for praise or for blame, until opinion shifts: this can be part of some wider social shift. Let us take the Women's Movement, as an example. There is a lively, courageous publishing house called Virago, run by women. A great many women writers who have been ignored or not taken seriously have been re-evaluated by them. But sometimes the shift is because one person stands out against the prevailing tide of opinion, and the others fall into line behind him, or her, and the new attitude then becomes general. 
   This mechanism is of course used all the time by publishers. When a new writer, a new novel, has to be launched, the publisher will look for an established writer to praise it. Because one "name" says it is good, the literary editors take notice and the book is launched. It is easy to see this bit of machinery at work in oneself: if someone one respects says such and such a thing is good, when you think it isn't, it is hard to differ. If several people say it is good, then it is correspondingly harder. 
   At a time when one set of attitudes is in the process of changing to another, it is easy to see the hedging-your-bets mechanism. A reviewer will write a piece nicely balanced between one possibility and another. A light, knowing, urbane tone often goes with this. This particular tone is used a great deal on radio and television, when doubtful subjects are under discussion. For example, when it was believed that it was impossible for us to put men on the moon, which is what the Astronomer Royal said a few years before 
it was done. This light, mocking, dismissive tone divorces the speaker from the subject: he or she addresses the listener, the viewer, as if it were over the head of the stupid people who believe that we could put men on the moon, or that there may be monsters in Loch Ness or Lake Champlain, or that….but fill in your own pet possibility . 
   Once we have learned to see this mechanism in operation, it can be seen how little of life is free of it.  Nearly all the pressures from outside are in terms of group beliefs, group needs, national needs, patriotism and the demands of local loyalties, such as to your city and local groups of all kinds. But more subtle and more demanding-more dangerous-are the pressures from inside, which demand that you should conform, and it is these that are the hardest to watch and to control.
   Many years ago I visited the Soviet Union, during one of their periods of particularly severe literary censorship. The groups of writers we met was saying that there was no need for their works to be censored, because they had developed what they called "inner censorship." That they said this with pride shocked us Westerners. What was shocking was that they were so naive about it, cut off as they are from information about psychological and sociological development. This "inner censorship" is what the psychologists call internalizing an exterior pressure-such as a parent-and what happens is that a previously resisted and disliked attitude becomes your own. This happens all the time, and it is often not easy for the victims themselves to know it. 
   There are other experiments done by psychologists and sociologists that underline that body of experience to which we give the folk name 'human nature.' They are recent; that is to say, done in the last twenty or thirty years. There have been some pioneering and key experiments that have given birth to many others along the same lines-as I said before, over-familiar to the professionals, unfamiliar to most people. 
   One is known as the Milgram experiment. I have chosen it precisely because it was and is controversial, because it was so much debated, because all the professionals in the field probably groan at the very sound of it. Yet, most ordinary people have never heard of it. If they did know about it, were familiar with the ideas behind it, then indeed we'd be getting somewhere. The Milgram experiment was prompted by curiosity into how it is that ordinary decent, kindly people, like you and me, will do abominable things when ordered to do them-like the innumerable officials under the Nazis who claimed as an excuse that they were "only obeying orders." 
   The researcher put into one room people chosen at random who were told that they were taking part in an experiment. A screen divided the room in such a way that they could hear but not see into the other part. In this second part volunteers sat apparently wired up to a machine that administered electric shocks of increasing severity up to the point of death, like the electric chair. This machine indicated to them how they had to respond to the shocks-with grunts, then groans, then screams, then pleas that the experiment should terminate. The person in the first half of the room believed the person in the second half was in fact connected to the machine. He was told that his or her job was to administer increasingly severe shocks according to the instructions of the experimenter and to ignore the cries of pain and pleas from the other side of the screen. Sixty-two percent of the people tested continued to administer shocks up to the 450 volts level. At the 285 volt level the guinea pig had given an agonized scream and become silent. The people administering what they believed were at the best extremely painful doses of electricity were under great stress, but went on doing it. Afterwards most couldn't believe they were capable of such behaviour. Some said, "Well I was only carrying out instructions." This experiment, like the many others along the same lines, offers us the information that a majority of people, regardless of whether they are black or white, male or female, old or young, rich or poor, will carry out orders, no matter how savage and brutal the orders are. 
This obedience to authority, in short, is not a property of the Germans under the Nazis, but a part of general human behaviour. People who have been in a political movement at times of extreme tension, people who remember how they were at school, will know this anyway. ..but it is one thing carrying a burden of knowledge around, half conscious of it, perhaps ashamed of it, hoping it will go away if you don't look too hard, and another saying openly and calmly and sensibly, "Right. This is what we must expect under this 
and that set of conditions." 
   Can we imagine this being taught in school, imagine it being taught to children. "If you are in this or that type of situation, you will find yourself, if you are not careful, behaving like a brute and a savage if you are ordered to do it. Watch out for these situations. You must be on your guard against your own most primitive reactions and instincts."
   Another range of experiments is concerned with how children learn best in school. Some results go flat against some of most cherished current assumptions such as, for instance, that they learn best not when "interested" or "stimulated" but when they are bored. But putting that aside-it is known that children learn best from teachers who expect them to learn well. And most will do badly if not much is expected of them.  Now, we know that in classes of mixed boys and girls, most teachers will-quite unconsciously-spend more 
time on the boys than on the girls, expect much more in scope from the boys, will consistently underestimate the girls. In mixed classes, white teachers will-again quite unconsciously-denigrate the non-white children, expect less from them, spend less time on them. These facts are known-but where are they incorporated, where are they used in schools? In what town is it said to teachers something like this,  "As teachers you must become aware of this, that attention is one of your most powerful teaching aids. Attention-the word we give to a certain quality of respect, an alert and heedful interest in a person-is what will feed and nourish your pupils." (To which of course I can already hear the response: "But what would you do if you had thirty children in your class, how much attention could you give to each?") Yes I know, but if these are the facts, if attention is so important, then at some point the people who allot the money for schools and for training programmes must, quite simply, put it to themselves like this: children flourish if they are given attention-and their teachers' expectations are that they will succeed. Therefore we must payout enough money to the educators so that enough attention may be provided. 
   Another range of experiments was carried out extensively in the United States, and for all I know, in Canada too. For instance, a team of doctors cause themselves to be admitted as patients into a mental hospital, unknown to the staff. At once they start exhibiting the symptoms expected of mentally ill people, and start behaving within the range of behaviour described as typical of mentally ill people. The hospital doctors all, without exception, say they are ill, and classify them in various ways according to the symptoms 
described by them. It is not the psychiatrists or the nurses who see that these so-called ill people are quite normal; it is the other patients who see it. They aren't taken in; it is they who can see the truth. It is only with great difficulty that these well people convince the staff that they are well, and obtain their release from hospital. 
   Again: a group of ordinary citizens, researchers, cause themselves to be taken into prison, some as if they were ordinary prisoners, a few in the position of warders. Immediately both groups start behaving appropriately: those as warders begin behaving as if they were real warders, with authority, badly treating the prisoners, who for their part, show typical prison behaviour, become paranoid, suspicious, and so forth. Those in the role of warders confessed afterwards they could not prevent themselves enjoying the position of power, enjoying the sensation of controlling the weak. The so-called prisoners could not believe, once they were out, that they had in fact behaved as they had done. 
   But suppose this kind of thing were taught in schools? Let us just suppose it, for a moment.….But at once the nub of the problem is laid bare.  Imagine us saying to children: "In the last fifty or so years, the human race has become  aware of a great deal of information about its mechanisms; how it behaves, how it must  behave under certain circumstances. If this is to be useful, you must learn to contemplate  these roles calmly, dispassionately, disinterestedly, without emotion. It is information that will set people free from blind loyalties, obedience to slogans, rhetoric, leaders, group  emotions." Well, there it is. 
   What government, anywhere in the world, will happily envisage its subjects learning to free themselves from governmental and state rhetoric and pressures? Passionate loyalty and subjection to group pressure is what every state relies on. Some, of course, more than others. Khomeini's Iran, and the extreme Islamic sects, the Communist countries, are at one end of the scale. Countries like Norway, whose national day is celebrated by groups of children in fancy dress carrying flowers, singing and dancing, with not a tank or a gun in sight, are at the other. It is interesting to speculate: what country, what nation, when, and where, would have undertaken a programme to teach its children to be people to resist rhetoric, to examine the mechanisms that govern them? I can think of only one- America in that heady period of the Gettysburg Address. And that time could not have survived the Civil War, for when war starts, countries cannot afford disinterested examination of their behaviour. When a war starts, nations go mad-and have to go mad, in order to survive. When I look back at the Second World War, I see something I didn't more than dimly suspect at the time. It was that everyone was crazy. Even people not in the immediate arena of war. I am not talking of the aptitudes for killing, for destruction, which soldiers are taught as part of their training, but a kind of atmosphere, the invisible poison, which spreads everywhere. And then people everywhere begin behaving as they never could in peace-time. Afterwards we look back, amazed. Did I really do that? Believe that? Fall for that bit of propaganda? Think that all our enemies were evil? That all our own nation's acts were good? How could I have tolerated that state of mind, day after day, month after month-perpetually stimulated, perpetually whipped up into emotions that my mind was meanwhile quietly and desperately protesting against? No, I cannot imagine any nation-or not for long-teaching its citizens to become individuals able to resist group pressures. 
   And no political party, either. I know a lot of people who are Socialists of various kinds, and I try this subject out on them, saying: all governments these days use social psychologists, experts on crowd behaviour, and mob behaviour, to advise them. Elections are stage-managed, public issues presented according to the rules of mass psychology. The military uses this information. Interrogators, secret services and the police use it. Yet these issues are never even discussed, as far as I am aware, by those parties and groups who claim to represent the people. 
   On one hand there are governments who manipulate, using expert knowledge and skills, on the other hand people who talk about democracy, freedom, liberty and all the rest of it, as if these values are created and maintained by simply talking about them, by repeating them often enough. How is it that so-called democratic movements don't make a point of instructing their members in the laws of crowd psychology, group psychology? When I ask this, the response is always an uncomfortable, squeamish reluctance, as if the whole subject is really in very bad taste, unpleasant, irrelevant. As if it will all just go  away if it is ignored. 
   So at the moment, if we look around the world, the paradox is that we may see this new information being eagerly studied by governments, the possessors and users of power studied and put into effect.  But the people who say they oppose tyranny literally don't  want to know.

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Q What sort of response have you had to The Good Terrorist?

             Of all the books I’ve ever written, the letters I got afterwards were the most fascinating. I got letters from a lot of people who had been a part of such groups in various countries, but I think perhaps the most interesting thing was when I went to Rome. I met a woman whose husband had been killed the year before by the latest wave of terrorists. In order to cope with her grief she had taken to visiting the first wave of terrorists in prisons. What she told me was so fascinating that I’m thinking about it ‘til this day. She said they were all educated people like you or me, mostly rather pleasant, likeable people. They had committed unspeakable crimes – all of them. The thing that very much interested me was that all of them now got over this and were full of remorse, saying things like “It was as if we had been taken over by something; it was like being in a sailing ship and being driven full speed ahead” – this kind of metaphor kept coming up. They have all more or less recovered from what they regarded as a madness and are busily writing their memoirs, learning languages, and so forth, in prison. Now this raises many questions that we never even think about : we never ask what happens when people get taken over like this. What actually happens? What’s going on?
            Another  thing she said that really interested me was the terrorists who’d committed the worst crimes and were full of guilt were in 100 times better psychological state than the group who said, “It’s not fair. I was just standing by and didn’t mean to shoot the gun”. This brings you to the ironical thought , Is it better to have been a real criminal than someone who is just assisting? The questions that arise from all this are endless, in fact. (From Doris Lessing – Conversations ..p175)

 Q  You are very hard on words, really.

You forget my history. I have had a lot to do with politics, and there’s a point at which you feel that if you hear one more speech you’re just going to vomit. And it’s the truth : you suddenly cannot stand another rhetorical speech. And you begin to hear nothing but...You know, any political speech can be reduced to nonsense in about three sentences. They always take off into this garbage. I think that children ought to be taught how to examine rhetoric to insulate them from it. (From Doris Lessing – Conversations ..p170)

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From  http://www.dorislessing.org/boston.html


DL: The more we know about ourselves, the more we can choose how to behave. There was a chap in Canada -- and I'm going to leave it vague because nobody really approves of this kind of research -- who used brainwashing techniques. He would take, say, a Seventh Day Adventist and make this person a Roman Catholic, then two days later change the set of beliefs again into, oh, I don't know, Jewish, then later make the person a follower of Ian Paisley, and at the end of the time would turn this person back to the original set of beliefs. Now this seems to me an original piece of research we have chosen not to notice. What does that say about beliefs? What does it say about us? Doesn't it strike you as something we might pay attention to?
HB: But how do we use this kind of information?
DL: Let us say we now decide to set up a little group or movement to do something or other. There's a lot of information about the dynamics of groups. They nearly always develop leadership problems. They very often split in certain recognized ways. None of them ever end up where they were supposed to. Why doesn't anyone say, this is likely to happen so how do we stop it? How do we recognize a mad power lover who's using the words of idealism and doesn't even know he's a power lover? We could actually start thinking instead of emoting.
HB: Some of your writing works like that, like a probe: let's see how this situation or that group of people work. There's an experimental aspect to it.
DL: Yes, I think so. When I write I am all the time amazed at what I'm thinking, amazed at what I learn because I've been too lazy to think it before.
HB: You've written about the Sufis, and what you emphasize is their attention to the Zeitgeist, their dispassionate look at what is possible for human beings at a given time and place.
DL: There's a bit I quote at the beginning of Walking in the Shade where Idries Shah points out that until we understand what makes us tick, we're not going to change. He puts it more eloquently. What I admire about the Sufis, apart from any other dimension that they have, is their extraordinary sharpness. Idries Shah had the sharpest, most critical mind of anyone I've ever known. Listening to him talk for an hour, your brain used to rock with his comments on society and the world. Incredibly acute and I admired that. He died, you know.
HB: Yes, I read your appreciation. There's a website, a Doris Lessing website, which contains some of your occasional writings.
DL: A fan did that. I was very grateful to her.
HB: In Walking in the Shade you allude to the easy dismissal of religion, that takes no effort or thought. But now religious fundamentalism is a very powerful force. And it does cost something to oppose it.
DL: You'd never believe, when I was young, we genuinely believed religious wars were over. We'd say, at least it's impossible to have a religious war now. Can you believe that?
HB: In a piece you wrote in 1992, you said, "I am sure that millions of people, the rug of communism pulled out from under them, are searching frantically, and perhaps not even knowing it, for another dogma." Don't you think religion and nationalism have entered to fill the void almost immediately?
DL: And political correctness, which has an appalling effect on academic life. Universities are being ruined by it. Freedom of thought has been destroyed. And that is bigotry. I'm so afraid of religion. Its capacity for murder is terrifying.
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Dream Walkers - Idries Shah

An Ancient Way to New Freedom - Doris Lessing

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