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BOOK CATALOG
 The catalog of books on this website are offered as free monthly installments on request by contributors of the conscious transformation quest, or, are for sale as complete books. They are not available in bookstores.
 Each book is related to the subject matter of the primary book, Of Love and Wisdom, and to the conscious transformation movement in general.
 Each book is professionally desktop published, is of 8½ by 11 page size, and is spiral-bound with cardboard stock cover. EXCEPTION: Of Pathics and Evil: A Philosophy against Evil is a commercially published book, available for sale.
 All books are authored by Joseph Sguigna, unless otherwise noted.
For more information regarding book availability and prices, contact us at
BOOK LIST
[Selections]
1. Human-Transcendence: A Love Wisdom [See sidebar at "The New Wisdom"] (345 pp)
BOOK SAMPLE
THE EROTIC SPELL
[A Soul-Struggle]
INTRODUCTORY NOTES
Since erotic love is the life force of Love which “turns our world round,” so to speak, this aspect of love is analyzed from two main perspectives: self-destruction and self-transcendence. This book of the ascendancy concentrates on the self-destructive aspect of erotic love in which the attraction between the man and woman is unbalanced, inappropriate; and so detrimental to one or both of them. [Contrast thetranscendent aspect of erotic love BOOK 4, In Beauty and Passion.]
Considering this vital purpose of this life-force, it is no awakening, then, to understand how dominating the attraction of the sexes, in all its subtle and not-too-subtle manifestations, is to human life. It is love at its most primal, basic, erotic phase. In one way or another, it takes up nearly all of our energy, attention, and interest throughout the prime of our lives, however seemingly diverted we seem to be at times by our work and other interests. As Herman Hesse put it, from the perspective of men that all that men do they do for women -- and vice versa, I might add.
It is this erotic truth that takes the reader into the white heat of the man-woman attraction as presented in my book, The Erotic Spell. It is a true account of a middle-aged man (37 years old)) who falls into the throes, the spell, of infatuation for his 18-year-old student. It is love turned upside down, so to speak, love gone awry; yet blinded to its purpose. The work records the day-to-day turmoil that this man undergoes in struggling to resist, to overcome, this infatuation that he knows is not only wrong, but destructive to his well-being.
The point, or theme, of the work is to pinpoint the almost insurmountable frenzy of this entrapment; and how giving in to it, can ruin everything for an individual. This can be summed up in one of my aphorisms that says “Sex may be the one life force, yes; but no, it is not all of life's worth."
____________
FORWARD
This forward is being written 18 years after the fact. And fact this chronicle was.
Eighteen years ago, I fell into an infatuated swirl with one of my senior high school students from which I almost never recovered. Being a writer, and accustomed to observing my thoughts and feelings, it was natural for me to record the event as it happened day by day. This probably turned out to be my saving grace, since it provided an outlet to channel the tumultuous soul-struggle (as I called it then) I was undergoing at the time.
I learned and grew from the ordeal; for it humbled me dramatically to the full force of the erotic in me which I had up to then underestimated by all my psychological defenses and transcendent yearnings.
As for my emotional and sentimental effusions while under this erotic spell, they are not exaggerated; they are recorded as they occurred, and I need not apologize for them. I am not normally an emotionally charged person; yet as I came to see, somehow when my depths are plumbed, these emotions emerge, or more to the point: erupt - But isn't that what erotic love is all about: that we mere mortals have not a chance in a million against its purpose when it's on us? We all know how erotic - not merely sexual love - can blind us, can hurl us, into impulsiveness that jeopardizes friendships, marriages, careers, and who knows what else. And do we not justify this enflamement as "the way of all flesh."
Well, this is what nearly happened to me. The same age-old scenario. What this work clearly demonstrates, however, is the intense vital, moral, struggle to keep the integrity of my being, of my well-being, intact. There is clearly a transcendent factor involved here; and not simply a matter of bio-psychology -- "I'm infatuated now, so I'm going to have to suspend my better judgment whatever the consequences. I'm just a pawn of the life force, as everyone else is; so what more need be said."
What this work shows, if nothing else, is that "giving in" to the life-force is not as simple as that rationale for my type of person, who are in vast numbers, I'm sure. If this work accomplishes nothing more, it shows that a fierce inner (sou struggle wages between the human and the transcendent in us when the equilibrium between the two is off; and shows the nature of that struggle to maintain one's balance and integrity, one's commitments, one's fidelity, one's friendships, one's whole way of life, rather than to passively submit to the "inevitable." And probably my reason for not writing this experience down in diary form, but rather as letters to a fictional friend, was the realization that a person in such a cauldron desperately needs a sympathetic confidant to help ease his struggle, calm his turmoil, give him the proper perspective. This alone I think justifies not only the work, but writing to a fictional friend; whom, because I didn't have one at the time, I created. I was unburdening myself to another "person" in writing my letters, instead of just recording my day-to-day experiences in diary form. And we all know that in writing a letter to a friend, we can be much more intimately ourselves, than when we are face to face, which makes it more difficult to articulate our thoughts and feelings.
As the intensity of my infatuation, lessened, I gradually came to a beginning understanding of the meaning of love, not only in its erotic heat, but in its broader human unity; to which previously I was fairly much oblivious to while my search for Truth, or call it what you will, prevailed. Truth, I have come to learn is Love at its core.
As emotionally and erotically, charged as this chronicle is, its main purpose, however, is the mollification of this vital side of us in preparation to a more expansive wisdom.
In hindsight, I would say that the theme of this work is one man's dubious victory, over the most powerful life force when it strikes the wrong two people.
====================
PHASE ONE
June 1st
I'm struck, Edmund! -- A woman again....and I'm hurting! Can you believe it of me with all my defenses: my dedication to knowledge and wisdom, to my writing, to my precious life with Celeste. And all along I thought it was the idea of love that fascinated me; not a chance, Edmund; she's the one who fascinates me! And what a devastating way and look about her! Not particularly beautiful, but pretty. And her eyes! God, how they mesmerize me. In their depths I see the Eternal-in-Woman of which Goethe and others write. Her soul seems to emanate through them as though beckoning me into the mystery of her being. Nothing physical about my attraction to her at all; it's her soul that draws me. . . or at least so I imagine; and this is the magic word, isn't it: imagine! Everything is in the imagination. Without it there exist not man and woman, but male and female; not love, but sexual mating. But with the imagination, ah, then, chemical transformations alchemize into spiritual affinities; physical features etherealize into angelic contours; natural movements, expressions, mannerisms, metamorphose into goddess-like graces; "making the beast with two backs" transmute into nothing less than Man and Woman embraced in beauty. I marvel at how nature has generated such an incredibly complex design to draw men and women together. What a miracle! If there is any reason for believing in an intelligent order underlying reality, this is it as far as I'm concerned.
I'm certainly being uncharacteristically romantic, aren't I? I don't know what's come over me; I feel like a love-sick adolescent -- me, a 37 year-old "mature" man who claims to be seeking higher, deeper, realities of life. Wisdom, knowledge, beauty, justice, transcendence, were-note the past tense here -- to be my life's ideals. And now look at me, enmeshed in the web of erotic captivation again. I don't know what went wrong. I thought for sure that the nature of my pursuits, my "higher calling," as it were, secured me from the bidding of that little fellow - that devil-god, rather! -- Eros. But no such luck, as it's turned out.... God, Edmund, what am I to do?! I want her more than anything; yet I know I can't have her; not because she's necessarily unobtainable, but because for some reason I dare not let myself go: become the romantic wooer. Everything I stand for seems to belie romance, especially with this darling girl -- and I mean "girl"; she's only seventeen, twenty years my junior! I realize that this age difference is not always so serious a discrepancy; but in my case, it is, and I know it. She is simply too naive and immature for me, and that is the fact of the matter....Yet the thought that I can't have her tears at me. All I have are my fantasies. My emotions are like exposed nerve ends, like raw, open sores. A deep ache disorients me. I can't, nor do I really want to, stop thinking of her. When by myself, all I seem to do is sit hour upon hour musing over her: entranced by her smile, her voice, her words, her expressions, her gestures, her walk. I replay over and over again everything I remember about her, project myself into various situations with her: emotional, intellectual and physical intimacies, marriage, family.
I have to stop here, Edmund; I'm quite embarrassed by all this. I feel like a comic figure. Please don't think any the less of me for my folly. I'm simply not the overman I fancied myself. As a matter of fact, this whole idiotic notion of Nietzsche's overman has no more reality than a unicorn.
I'll write you in a day or two once my glands have settled down a bit -- if they do; since I'll be seeing her tomorrow.
I'm suddenly reminded of Romeo's lines, "hang up philosophy! Unless philosophy can make me a Juliet." Precisely my sentiments at this moment.
Evening
I was about to mail this letter when I realized how thoroughly disconnected it was. Not like me at all. I simply plunged in without giving you any details of the matter, such as, her name -- Marianna. Ah, that name! - where I met her, how I became infatuated with her, what she feels about me, and other such particulars. I'm too wrought up to write anything more this evening; I'll be more consistent in my next letter.
I hope you won't mind my unburdening myself to you like this, but I have no where else to turn to relieve my confused and troubled mind. If you consent to reading my outpourings, please don't feel obligated to answer all, or even most, of my letters. There's no need to. I just have to write these emotions out of myself whether you answer them or not. But of course whatever consolation or advice you might have to offer will be more than welcome-though I can't guarantee to follow good advice in my present condition. I'll wait to hear from you. -- Don't be long!
June 4th
Received your letter this morning, and appreciate immensely your understanding -- and believe me, I need it! - and your willingness to follow me through this tempest, whatever happens. I'm undergoing so many rushing thoughts, so many subtle feelings, such searing emotion -- so much suffering, that have been lying dormant for the past seven years. Not to say that I haven't been attracted to this woman or that, or have not entertained the thought of an affair or two; but I truly believed that my higher leanings, and my loving companionship with Celeste were enough to keep me insulated from the surge of my erotic emotions. My first defense, so I thought, was the attitude: I don't have time for love -- but I have since found the time, Edmund, my friend!
So, armed with these "rock" defenses, what then went wrong? How did the unforeseen happen? How did this bewitching young woman wrench me from my purpose, usurp my quiet pattern of life? Quite unexpectedly, I can assure you. I had no intention of pursuing her, nor did I invite her attentions. . .well, not much any way; nor did I even give her a second thought. She meant no more to me than any other passing woman...But I'm getting ahead of myself; let me explain how I came to know her. It's very simple; she's one of my senior high school students. There's nothing exceptional about her academically for me to have taken special notice of her. But slowly, imperceptibly, she grew on me-in me, would be more to the point-as the academic year progressed; until now she has practically engrossed my entire consciousness and physiology. And, as any one who has experienced this knows, I can truly say, "I didn't know what hit me." From nowhere came that fatal shaft of love that struck me silly and jolted her into my being. At that moment my emotional equilibrium was shaken from its seven-year slumber. Suddenly she meant something vital to me. Here was a woman to be won!
Let me describe to you the trauma of that moment. The class hadn't begun, and she was present with two or three other students. Quite casually I happened to ask her if she were going on to college, but she didn't answer me. Her eyes were off in a distance, in an aloof, enigmatic expression as though she didn't hear, nor care to, hear me. But I knew she did; I felt it. That was the instant she claimed me! Pain of rejection shot through me like a bolt. I couldn't believe what had happened to me. My whole being erupted. I immediately collected myself, as though her attitude meant nothing to me...but it did, Edmund, it did! Although quivering inside, I managed to pull myself through the period fairly well. But since that initial jolt, I've not been the man you know so well; I am now Everyman.
I don't mean for you to think that my infatuation -- I suppose that's what it is -- began precisely at that moment of impact; we know that nothing of such eruptive magnitude happens without some preliminary build-up. There had been for about two months previously a number of small nuances of attraction between us. You know what I mean: casual, though meaningful glances, smiles, and expressions; subtle innuendoes, a mutual sense of being kindred spirits. I began to look at her especially, to look for her, to anticipate seeing her in class. I observed her walk, her dress, her mannerisms-and of course her enchanting smile! (I punctuate this point strongly, because it is so much a woman's smile that wins a man). I saw in her a gentleness; a simple, though profound soul, a woman of the earth; and, in seductive contrast to her seeming innocence and melting passivity, I recognized a pert insolence about her: what I interpreted as the female instinct (if I may call it that) to be dominated by the force of a man's character; and heaven help the man who does not measure up to it! I read somewhere that a man's weakness is a threat to a woman's well-being, and I have always believed it; and I see in Marianna this primitive need for a man's strength to the nth degree. And, do you know, Edmund, I'm almost certain that it is this consciousness of the female in her that magnetizes me so urgently to her; because I notice of myself that my masculine protective elements have been roused to a pitch -- ready for action.
We men complain about the wiles of women; but I wonder, would we honestly want them any other way, even though they drive us to distraction at times? What would there be to win and "rein" were women as gentle and innocent as we idealize them? Women are far more incisive in these mating matters; they know (consciously or unconsciously) that men require challenge, adventure, uncertainty, conquest, in order to feel their manhood, their existence; and women furnish us these freely in their quiet, unarming submissive ways. And normally we haven't the faintest idea of what they're about; we attribute their "mysterious- ness" to the so-called feminine mystique. To give you an instance of their subtlety, a woman once told me that she had to learn early in her marriage to let her husband permit her to do what she was going to do anyway! I tell you, Edmund, this "weaker" sex has it all over us; and we think we are "in charge." At this moment I am convinced that it is women, not men, who ultimately control events given their inborn resourcefulness, and their sway over men, especially in the first raptures of love; and thank the gods this rapture subsides, otherwise we'd never return to our senses. Still, even when we do, a woman wise in her ways will have her man well grounded and attached if only by domestic routine, not to mention commitment, responsibilities, her support. And should he lean toward activities not in her best interests or threatening to her security, she easily goes to work on his conscience (if he has one), on his vulnerabilities, until he comes around to the "practical" side of things. And gradually she has him realize that he can't live without her, that she is indispensable to his well-being. And if all that doesn't work, or no longer works, then she inversely tackles the situation by subtly impressing upon him through various moods, charms, innuendoes, susceptibilities, that she cannot live without him, that her well-being, and yes, even her emotional stability, her life, depend upon him. I don't think women as a whole are ever going to relinquish these "submissive" powers over men regardless of all the aggressive rhetoric of the feminists.
You see, Edmund, I'm not so naive when it comes to women. I certainly don't have the complete picture; though I do have considerable insight into their psyche.... But, so what! I want that woman regardless of my insight.
June 6th
I agree, Edmund, I shouldn't feel embarrassed by these most natural feelings. I appreciate your reassurance. And after all, as you said, I'm still young enough to be very much in the mainstream of love and lust -- don't I know it! Lust (my wild dog) is ever present in me, lurking behind my dignified calm. But romantic (or "erotic" -- I don't know which it is) love I had forgotten; had (so I thought) sublimated it for the intellectual life; and here I am right in the middle of it again!...though I do have to confess, Edmund, that despite the pain, it's rather exciting to be reeling in these emotions once again; they assure me that I'm still flesh and blood, am not a mere intellectual abstraction. Once more I'm feeling the heat and force of my manhood; am down to my fundamental self, am desiring a woman erotically, -- with my whole being; and so know that I'm still normal. I want to be normal! I dread the thought of ever be coming a walking shell of a man viewing everything as a concept, or as a proposition for analysis. As it is now, dear friend, my blood has not yet turned into writer's ink. I'm not yet dead to the throb of life. Who knows what tomorrow will bring!
As a passing remark, I notice that for some reason I'm relating loving a woman erotically to loving her soul - by "soul," I mean that which animates her being as this woman. Don't we normally attribute sex to the erotic and not to the soul? There seems to be a discrepancy here somewhere, but I can't put my finger on it. . .or maybe there isn't a discrepancy; I don't know. Well, I'm in no condition now to make fine distinctions; so I'll leave it and perhaps consider the question at another time.
June 7
She came to class today, smiled at me on the way in, and sent me for a spin. She looked so enchantingly feminine, her hair tossed up in back with full bangs over her forehead, which has always appealed to me in the fair sex -- "fair sex" -- I'm certainly waxing poetic these days, aren't I.
Strange! I was at her desk helping her with a problem, and deliberately brushed her hand slightly. . .but nothing miraculous happened: no rapturously tingling sensations stirred me. To be sure, the anticipation of the contact was thrilling enough, but the actual touch itself-scarcely anything (!?). At the same time, I noticed how unattractively small her hands were; and that her dark complexion clashed with the delicate milk-white texture I find so sensuously appealing in women. You would think that in the throes of my attraction, even these slight detractions would be appealing to me; but paradoxically, I actually hoped to discover more -- enough so that I might lose interest in her! Could this be an unconscious defense mechanism resisting my impulse to love her? If so, then truly the unconscious is a marvel.
But physical features aside, what disarm me are her soft voice, her halting words, her shy reserve as though frightened to speak; and I'm sure these aren't a deliberate ploy, since she's no match against the other students who dominate the discussions. I realize, of course, that her timidity in class in no way means that she is the same in her own circle of friends and family; she might very well be a tigress with them. All the same, since I'm presently being swayed by appearances, her shyness radiates to me a helplessness that does not fail to stir my sympathy. Could my attraction to her then be merely sympathetic? No, I don't think so. I'm sure she doesn't need my sympathy; because, believe me, she is strong in her weakness! What is it about her, then, if my attraction is neither predominantly physical nor sympathetic? Might I want to be a father figure to her? No, I'm sure not; my blood is too heated for that. Well, whatever the reason, I have a strong desire to know her; to hear of her ideas on life and love and marriage and family, of her daily activities, of her future plans.
I feel a deep tenderness for her, Edmund; and on that thought, I'll close this letter.
June 8th
I hope you don't mind my writing so frequently, Edmund, but I have to give these surging emotions an outlet, otherwise I'll burst. So be prepared for some heavy reading.
As you know, the school year is near its end, and classes have all but come to a standstill since final examinations are over. Marianna won't be attending school with any regularity this week, as she's rehearsing for graduation exercises.
Tonight is the annual school dinner, and I'm hoping-"hoping" is too mild a word for what I really feel - to see and speak with her.
You can imagine the ferment churning in me, Edmund; and yet not for a moment can I let it show, to her, or to anyone else. As always, I'm to be composed and in control -- my self-respect, you know! Evening
I didn't see her at the dinner. ... An empty and frustrating evening.
June IOth
Let me tell you something else she said, and with which the other two girls agreed. Apparently, she believes that it isn't a husband's occasional sexual foray that makes him unfaithful to his marriage, but only a love affair; since that involves emotional intimacy. And as it is this very intimacy which binds a marriage, he would betray it by sharing with another woman what he pledged exclusively to his wife. -- (As a side remark, one might ask if a husband would be betraying his marriage if this emotional intimacy no longer existed between him and his wife; and as this occurs in so many marriages, one might further question the validity or value of taking marriage vows. You can't pledge emotion- al intimacy. Well, it's something to consider.)
But back to Marianna. Quite a progressive young woman, isn't she. I hadn't considered this piece of feminine psychology before. But there it is. I'm sure this is not the attitude of most women (certainly not Celeste's, I'm sure), even though I realize the various circumstances that would force a wife to tolerate her husband's extra-marital dalliances. Nor do I think it would be a pleasant prospect for a sensitive wife to accept regardless of how open-minded she might be. Even Marianna conceded that, despite her resignation to men's promiscuity, she nevertheless wouldn't prefer her husband that way. I suppose the most a woman (or man) can do is to continually foster the emotional intimacy between them.
And I might add that I don't agree that all. or even nearly all, men are sexually promiscuous; whether a man is or not depends in large part on his basic moral character and sympathetic sensibility (both essentially related, I believe), two traits which, if they are relatively strong in a man, would make it difficult for him to hurt his wife unfairly no matter how inciting the sexual attraction. Still, I do admit that nearly all men can be enticed by an attractive woman (that "certain" smile, gesture, interest, will often do it); but that is not the same as promiscuity, but rather a matter of male susceptibility. I think, in general, wives know this of men, and so are considerably tolerant of this susceptibility. So, given a man's love of wife and family, his sense of fairness toward her; and fortunate circumstances so that his love and fairness are not put to proof unremittingly, this susceptibility remains mostly in the fantasy stage.
This has been more a tract than a letter, hasn't it. I'll stop here.
Evening
Before mailing this letter, I'd like to mention a couple of other matters. She told me today that she saw me at the annual dinner the other night. I melted at that, and responded that regretfully I hadn't seen her. I was moved because she sounded as though she had made it a point to see me,-which of course can't be conveyed in these matter-of-fact words I'm writing you. But if you had heard the way she said, "I saw you at the dinner the other night," you too would have heard something endearingly intimate about her intonation. The meaning I sensed behind her words wafted a magic that drew me even closer to her. This was the first direct suggestion that she cared; and you know, Edmund, what that can do to a man.
A little innocent scheme I had in mind will give you another indication of how far gone I am. I lent her a textbook about a month ago in place of one she had lost. She hadn't returned it; and since I wasn't expecting to see her in class anymore, I assumed that she had forgotten about it (if only she had deliberately forgotten!). So-o-o, I figured I had the perfect excuse to call her at home and offer to drop by and pick up the book, thereby saving her a trip to school - how very considerate of me! If my plan worked, I would be with her in her own surroundings; and who knows what might happen from there....You can imagine how my expectations collapsed when she returned the book today. But then, she did remember; which means that she thought of me. . .and what did she think, I wonder?!
Just before the period ended, she suddenly looked up at me and asked if I were going to the graduation ceremony - and so meaningfully, Edmund! Another sign that she cares....Of course I'm going, dear girl; you're going to be there, aren't you!
June IIth
When Celeste and I arrived at the ceremonies this evening, I immediately began looking for her, but she hadn't arrived yet. Despair gripped me at the thought that I wouldn't see or speak to her before the exercises commenced, because I knew it wouldn't be likely that I'd have the opportunity to speak to her afterwards. I moved about, socializing for awhile, though no more interested in what was being said than I was in seeing anyone but her. Finally I spotted her. When she saw me, she smiled and came to me. At last!...we were together outside of class. At once I began inquiring about her: how she felt about her graduation, what her plans were for the summer. . .but before we got very far, she was called away. And as thwarted as I felt, I nonetheless savored those few minutes together. They would suffice for now, I thought. And I consoled myself that there would be other opportunities.
During the ceremony, I was seated in such a position that I could see only her back except when she occasionally turned her face sideways and presented her lovely profile to my feasting eyes. At one point, she casually raised her finger to lightly scratch her cheek, and do you know what I thought, Edmund?-don't think me ridiculous, but here it is: "Imagine, she scratches her cheek too!"- I have her in my mind as demigoddess! What's become of me? And she did it so gracefully that I idealized this insignificant, natural gesture into a celestial touch. I then proceeded to picture her eating, dressing, sleeping, combing her hair; and I wanted so much to be with her in these intimacies. Do you see to what extremes I've been reduced-or increased, as the case may be. I know better, but I can't help myself; these thoughts happen with no volition of my own. I have no idea where they come from. . . Yes, I do! From Mother Nature, that's where!
Ah, my friend, I feel so empty without her presence, so uninterested in any thing except her. My intellectual activities have stagnated, and all I'm able to write are these "love" letters. An old, old story all this love-mooning, isn't it, Edmund. I'm reminded of a phrase of yours that sums up life so succinctly, "ever ending, never ending." Life goes its way, and has its way; and all we poor mortals can do is succumb. I have to laugh at the free will proponents who think we're in control of our actions. "It's your choice," they declaim, as though they have the omniscience to witness, or intuit, the chain of events that lead to any person's behavioral patterns. Illusionists, the lot of them!
June I2th
Nothing. A blank, flat, stale day. No classes, and no Marianna. I expect- rather I pray-to see her tomorrow, the last day of school when the seniors come for their report cards. Need I tell you that before tomorrow arrives an eternity will have passed!
Ah, what a fool I am, Edmund. What am I doing sighing for a 17 year-old girl? Have I lost my senses? Don't I realize the consequences of such folly? What about Celeste? My direction in life? The unalloyed joy I find in my mental world? Am I to turn my back on all this for the fever of infatuation? I tell you, Edmund, it's as though she has awakened a sleeping giant in me. Every thing mental is now sterile and insipid compared to my romantic musings. I'm in a delirious cauldron! I feel like Faust now, about to sell my soul for the thrall of the senses.
June 13th
A day that has run me ragged. A day of victory, a day of defeat, a day of torment, a day of euphoria; a day of hope, a day of despair-the day I left my wits behind.
As I describe my little episode, you'll clearly see what a madcap I've turned into; not at all like the reclusive "scholar" you once knew.
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BOOK SAMPLE
IN BEAUTY AND PASSION
INTRODUCTORY NOTES
Since erotic love is the life force of Love which “turns our world round,” so to speak, this aspect of love is analyzed from two main perspectives: self-destruction and self-transcendence. This book of the ascendancy concentrates on the self-transcendent aspect of erotic love in which the attraction between the man and woman is balanced appropriately; and so beneficial to them both.
[Contrast the self-destructive aspect of erotic love BOOK 3, The Erotic Spell.]
FORWARD
This part, In Beauty and Passion, reveals the intimate details of being in love in the deepest, most intense, most complete, sense of the phrase, from the beginning through the birth of our first child.
This book takes this theme of erotic love one step further beyond The Erotic Spell into the realm of beauty and passion; hence, the title of the work In Beauty and Passion. This book records the same man (myself) falling in love, but this time with the right woman and in the right circumstances. It is an almost daily account recorded on audiotape of the thoughts and feelings and response that go into falling in love, being in love, and right through to the birth of their first child. This all takes place within a period of two years.
The theme of the work is to reveal the beauty and passion involved in love in its transcendence as well as its humanness; and that it is surely the most powerful power in life, as life; and its fulfillment for human beings, beyond it underlying biological purpose.
These details (recorded on cassette tape) capture the beauty and passion of a man and woman so deeply in love - and still are, 21 years later - that the work stands in a class of its own as a glory to erotic love in its full human and transcendent array. It covers the whole range of erotic love - the sexual, the sensual, the sensuous, offspring, passion, compassion, lust, jealousy, rage, possessiveness, obsession - and the transcendence of this love that balanced and guided the extremes of this love through the straits of personal and interpersonal growth and closeness.
The enclosed pages are a sample of an approximately 300-page manuscript titled In Beauty and Passion. It is a true, intimate, spontaneous account of a dramatic love between my wife and me as written and recorded on audio tape as it happened from falling in love, through marriage, to the birth of our first child. The time span ranges from September 1982 through September 1984.
The contents of this works comprises thoughts, feelings, discussions, and experiences of the psychology and transcendence of man-woman sexuality and relationship.
The main theme, that is expressed throughout the work is the experience of erotic love as transcendence; or, more particularly, of the sacredness of love as experienced through sex in its orgasmic, primal explosion coursing through human consciousness as idealism, or transcendence.
The purpose of publishing this work is to make an inspiring contribution to freeing the minds of men and women from psychological and sexual repression, fear and ignorance that bar them from a broader, more expansive, panorama of man-woman love.
The work is sometimes very graphic in matters of our sexual acts and talks -- yet always in keeping with the aesthetics of our purpose; and highly controversial in ideas and beliefs -- yet always in keeping with what we believed to be true about us and human nature. There was little or no holding back on our parts; we had agreed to that from the beginning. It came very naturally for us to speak our minds from their depths, however consciously and unconsciously inhibited we might have been by our natural human limitations and insecurities.
My wife and I are convinced that this work, as controversial, and disturbing as it is, will contribute to the ongoing intuitive understanding of human consciousness, and so of human relationships. We are both willing to weather the consequences that this work is likely to generate-to some extent.
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THE BEGINNING
September 1, 1982
She's back from England!
Went to lunch together, sat closely, our knees just barely touching. Talked mostly about her trip and our tutoring school. Mild transports of joy suffuse me.
September, 7
Went to lunch with her again. We talked of each other, revealing this and that, and ever so subtly, our growing mutual feeling. She is receptive (I think). I am receptive (I know).
Afterwards in her car outside my home. We both reveal further in disguise -- but in such obvious disguise - our feelings for each other. I can't help but declare myself to her, and speak of myself as a man, and no mere intellectual, as she knows me to be. She responds so beautifully, as I want - need -- her to. During this time, I'm urged to kiss her, to make a physical touch; but I'm unsure of myself, of her possible rejection. It's been over twenty years since I've felt such delicate sensibilities.
We're still talking, winding down, getting ready to part. Am I going to do it?...Am about to, but she makes a parting response that stops me.
This is not the time, if ever there will be. ...Then a few more words, and she makes that "certain" response, gesture, that ineffably invites me to her. We look at each other in the unmistakable love gaze; and I reach over and kiss her softly on the lips; then gently cup her one cheek as I kiss the other. She responds givingly.
This kiss, both on her lips and cheek,was a kiss of beauty , with passion subdued. And now I know that our life together will be one of beauty, grace, tenderness: as misty falling rain, with the sun about to break through the clouds in golden beams.
She is my soulmate. I know it; and so does she.
She says to me: "I want us to grow old together, Joseph. ...In whatever direction our relationship goes, we must keep the transcendent part of it always."
I respond: "This may sound strange, even ridiculous, but this morning it flashed through my mind that somehow I'm going to be able to get to the soul, the being, of me in such a way that others will be able to get to it too; and not just rarely."
Her response: "I know we can."
I think she is to be the inspiration of my further human and transcendent development.
O, her being enhances my own!
Sept. 8
It's raining today, much out of season for Los Angeles. She loves the rain. I call her,after much hesitation as to whether I should so soon after seeing her. She answers with such a gorgeous, lilting hello that I suffuse in delight. I tell her I had to call her about the rain, and how it seemed like an omen for us. I'm not sure she understood my meaning. But then, I hardly did myself.
Sept. 9!
We confessed our love for each other this evening on the telephone! "I love you, Joseph," she wafts through to me in beauteous intonation. And, with the ease of a bird in flight, I respond in the same way. We then go on to talk in words of love. She says to me all the things about us that I want -- crave -- to hear.
She said of herself, and the same applies to me, that our confession of love for each other leaves her in a peaceful -- though with a measure of excitability state of mind. Nothing blind about what is happening to us: a calm fulfillment.
"I want to hold you," she spoke softly. ..."I want to sleep with you," she delicately intoned. "Yes," I responded, wanting the same.
She tells me that she had never had a more beautiful experience than my kiss yesterday. "And I love your name, and I love your eyes, and I love your lips, and I love your legs -- a few of the endearments I expressed to her.
We simply poured out ourselves to each other this evening without reservation --: our love, our desire, our need, of each other. How saving to be so unreserved. This unreservedness must be the earmark of our life together.
I have my woman -- and what a woman!
I can't believe it! I am loved! I love! The only woman for me loves me!
Oh, she is so right for me
Nothing will be the same for me again, for us again. It is so right between us that I'm reeling with felicity.
She is me through and through.
I will grow much as a person because of her. I know it.
No pretenses, no pettiness, no possession of each other.
We will give ourselves to each other first, and in so doing, will give ourselves to mankind.
What we have is an organic marriage of souls -- where the quick of us beats. She is my soul-wife.
I can hardly believe it, I gasp at the thought, that I'm going to hold a woman -- my woman -- in my arms again, after all these many years.
I love her mind, her body, her spirit, her whole being; I love her grace, and I love the gross about her -- all her contrasts...and they are myriad. What striking eyes! They flash her soul through them.
By freeing ourselves from the old psychology in us, we will pave the way to the freeing of others. Together we will break through the wormwood of human relations, and arrive at a truer, fresher, brighter perspective that is long overdue. On to the new man and woman!
Is this real? My own woman? -- Yes!...and more real than anything or anyone before.
Am I relieved that we "declared ourselves" tonight. I don't know how much longer I could have gone on in the suspense of "Does she love or does she not?" I was prepared to wait it out, though. But all is right now, and we can have the patience for our love to evolve in its proper channels, because, as she said, "We now know."
No games, no games -- none of the male-female games between us. We fervently agreed.
Oh, am I going to delight, to thrill, in getting to really know her: her shifting moods, her changing expressions, her intricate thoughts, her varying feelings, sentiments, urges, drives, fears, passions.
She loves me! She loves me! I can do anything now.
She has herself a good catch in me, I think; and what a catch I have in her! How fortunate I am!
Ah, Sharon, you are my woman, and nothing more need be said. Amen.
Sept.10 ! [3:30 a.m.]
I can't get to sleep; but who cares. She will carry me through the coming day. And what a day it promises to be!
O, my darling woman, I love you so much!
I want my ego to dissolve into her being. With that, the full force of my humanity will come through.
I almost feel like crying, I'm so happy. I've been on the verge of doing so a number of times tonight.
I am so joyed to give myself to her; so full, that she has me. And this is not my ego speaking, but my whole being.
My first verses to her:
I love you deep my precious heart,
You've felled me with your loving dart;
And what you mean to me is this:
Your womanness is my earthly bliss.
I've never written a truer poem, nor a more lovely one on the theme of love for a woman. It is perfect in form and expression, and took me no more than five minutes to write. Only love could have inspired me to write so freely.
[8:45 a.m.]
Fell asleep about 4 a.m., and woke up about 4:40 a.m., and have been up since. A misty, overcast day - our kind of day. How appropriate for our first time together as lovers.
I'm somewhat churned up inside for her. I'm not sure if it's because I can hardly wait to be with her tonight -- which can't be denied; or because of the momentousness of what is happening to me, of what is about to catapult me into another dimension of reality. I choose to think of it as both. My feelings are mixed between fear and awe.
Our love, I know, is going to be two-fold: erotic and transcendent; and it is the transcendent element that will preserve and expand the erotic element in us.
2nd poem to her:
There is a wild will about you, my sweet,
That I love as I do your compassionate breast;
This wild in you I am challenged to meet,
While your compassion keeps me at your behest.
I want, need, to experience the totality of her being!
She loves me! What meaning! What completeness!
I am to be with her tonight -- all night! No need to go into the ecstatics of that anticipation.
Sept.11
We slept together last night, but did not consummate our love sexually. We loved:kissed, caressed, fondled, but no penetration. It has to be resolved with the others before we can begin our life.
Sept.12
Now that everything has been revealed and partially settled, both on her side and on mine - not without climactic emotional havoc, I'll tell you -- we have consummated our love tonight. Now our love epic begins.
I feel myself a moving ocean of force and effect.
She poeticizes my whole being.
She is so intense, so real, so complete a woman...so mine!
Oh, am I going to thrill at coming to know you in your myriad ways and byways, my woman of the ages!
Her body, my body, is now our body.
O, my heart! My woman,
I throb with blood and rapture for you;
O, my soul! My woman,
I fuse with you in eternal flame.
I kiss and soothe and caress every curve, fold, and part of her adorable body. What a trackless wonder! What an inexhaustible array of sweet sensations! Her love's body is infinity incarnate.
She: We are making this (the intensity and profundity of our love) happen; not anything outside of us; no God, no Jesus.
I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you! She bursts out at me.
Am quivering in anticipation of seeing her.
I've never felt so free, so uninhibited, with a woman, or anyone -- even with myself, it seems -- as I feel with her.
I sigh in sheer delight that we love each other. Tears are almost to my eyes.
One day the world will read these love effusions -- and those to come -- and marvel that a man and a woman loved each other so deeply, so intensely, so fully; and will aspire to such a love; and that will be part of our contribution. Our love is the world's love.
This is going to be the love of the century -- or at least the recorded love of the century.
We look closely, adoringly, at each other; and for the first time I see that she looks like me! : her visage, the shape of her face.
There is no lust -- sex-lust -- whatsoever in our lovemaking. There is animal in it, but the animal humanized with graceful, undulating movements.
I enter her...slowly, gently, unexcitedly, without thrust; and I bathe in her female folds. Calm, soothing, easy. No grunting, no sweating,no urgency for ejaculation, for that excruciating pleasure-release. I become soft in her, and we stop movement, and look lovingly into each other's eyes. This is not the ultimate act for us. Everything we do, for, each other is ultimate: my kissing her eyelids, the nape of her neck, the underside of her arm, her wrist, her fingers, her fingernails...every gesture is an act of love.
Her skin is as silk, satiny.
I would die for her.
Loving her body is an inter-flow of passion and beauty, is the body and mind's spiritual experience -- the earth's image of Love's eternal meaning and bliss.
She: I want to share music with you. I want to share everything with you.
It's all right to be wrong with her. I doesn't matter. No ego stances, no prerogatives, between us.
No perfume, no make-up, on her; no seductions, no allurements - just the natural; and how sweet and arousing is her natural to me!
Our love is not exclusive to ourselves; it must go out to others, especially to those closest to us.
Our love is not romantic alone, is not sexual alone, is not erotic alone, is not transcendent alone; it is all these, which makes it humanly transcendent.
She has given me another dimension of life, a fullness of understanding, that no words of knowledge could ever give. Out the window with all the books, all the words; Love -- with a capital "L" -- gives it all.
Sept.13-15
My golden princess, feel not the least fear
That ever I should be far and you near;
My self you have to the quick of your soul,
Our life together is my wondrous goal.
She excites me to no end.
The truth between us, no matter how painful, no matter how hard.
Humor and wit are shot through our togetherness, as it must always be.
She to me: "What a man!"
I to her: "And what a woman!"
Our love has no past. I wouldn't care if she had murdered someone. We
start from the beginning of us.
We wrap our legs around each other in every way, and cling for dear love.
Yes, we are in love; but "in" love in the sense that we are in the center, in the flow, of that mighty, all-encompassing force.
I to her: "You are mine -- you are ours."
To me (as I am worshipping her body with kisses): "I love to be loved this way."
Sex -- or the male-female elements of our nature -- is the physical manifestation of the love force. [My thought as an ideal] : One day we are to get to that source as we sit naked to each other, crosslegged, hand in hand, in deep concentration of each other; and as the concentration intensifies, our hands tighten until we dissolve out of our bodies into the soul-being of each other. And love is where this fusion is.
The female in her, the feminine in her, the womanly in her, the girl in her, all add up to the whole being of her: her soul:
She puts my finger in her mouth and I explore its moist interior, as her tongue wraps itself about my finger. Her mouth and my finger transform into the male and female sex organs.
She nestles her head in my lap, and sighs: "My daddy." And I say "Yes,and your child, and your lover, and your friend." She smilingly nods in assent.
She is my woman -- and that is all that needs be said about my fulfillment as a man.
I to her: "Why did you want that we sleep together our first time together?"
She to me: Because I wanted to experience you totally.
We are both a force of one, of a four-fold energy: I in her = 2 forces; she in me = 2 more forces.
We have the purity of love, and the beat of it.
O! her living eyes! The glow, the flow, the soul, of Love beams from them.
Not only do I tenderly kiss the nape of her neck, the crook of her arm, the billow of her abdomen, the..., but I sink, melt, into them with a sighing groan of total surrender to the kiss, to the flesh of her, to the living being of her. Words are vacuous to convey the full sensation, the full meaning, of the experience.
She: I'll die if I ever lose you, I have never said that to anyone, I've thought it; but I've always known that I would survive somehow if I lost what I love. I can't say that of you.
She to me: You make me love my body.
I to her: You have added another dimension of life to me.
We have such a mutual understanding that it is not my sexual prowess or performance that defines me as a man, but that there are much more essential factors to the meaning of manhood -- moral integrity and honor, for one; force of character, for another; unswerving purpose, for still another.
She fits to me so perfectly in all facets -- the intellectual, the transcendent, the moral, the aesthetic, the sensual, the humorous, the practical, the ideal. She is cultured, she is not cultured - and that underscored "not" says it all.
I just thought of having a child with her, and heaved, wrapping my arms around my torso in awe of such a miracle.
To her (as I kiss her shoulder): I feel like sinking into your whole being; I really do.
You quicken my breath.
I'm waiting to experience her next emotion.
I'm always concerned for her comfort -- not because she is my woman, but because she is my love.
Christ: "Be you perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." And I add to this eternal truth: "Yes, do be perfect: love another human being truly, fully."
What we are to do together is to spiritualize the sexual act -- to make it truly a love act.
With my finger in her fount, I feel this inner push for my whole body and being to be absorbed in it -- to become it.
She is sensitivity embodied.
I glory over her womanhood! I gasp at her soulhood!
Her words: "I adore you" echo and waft through my being.
In caressing her body with my lips and hands, I want to be as delicate as a feather; and yet I will grip her in a fierce love bite -- just enough that she feels the slight pain, much as a loving dog holds back the pain of its play bite.
I stand before her naked as a man, and I rise and fall on that. All my intellectual accomplishments, personable qualities, creative force and abilities, are nothing in comparison.
A note to me from her:
Beloved,I want you to know: I love you, I care about you, I want you, I need you, I cherish you. I am vulnerable to you -- raw. You have the power to hurt me; I trust you with that power. I surrender 99% of my consciousness. I support you in all.
Love is the truth -- no corner of falsehood escapes it's glaring eye.
She writes to me: Thank you for loving me more than I love myself. Your understanding, support, and adoration give me the strength to weather the unpleasant parts of my life.
I am your knight at night between the sheets.
Sharon -- flesh of my flesh, spirit of my spirit.
She to me: " It feels good to be with you. It feels so wholesome."
A note to me:
My Love,
At this moment all I want is to see you again and hold you in my arms. You move me forward, freeing me from guilt and anxiety. This morning I'm a sparrow enjoying freedom with the sun and trees as my companions.
She "Thoughts": When I grow up I want to be a Joseph. You are my playmate. Your trustworthiness makes me feel safe and allows the child in me to express its playfulness.
She: Everything else seems so insignificant when I'm with you...I hope it always stays that way.
I: That's our quest.
...
NOTE: The following samples of our book are talks -- or more precisely, explorations -- that were recorded "on the spot," so to speak. In transcribing the tapes to paper, some of what we spoke were not clear on the tape, and so were lost. Ellipsis indicate this loss. What, however, was transcribed is exactly what we spoke without adding literary refinements or precise expression -- except for some word changes or additions placed in brackets where clarity is necessary.
What we -- my wife, especially -- have to say is so important and urgent, and in some cases, groundbreaking, that we don't have to apologize for speaking so gropingly -- as we all normally do when speaking extemporaneously.
November 5th
Joseph: (humorously)You love having a lot of sex with me, huh?
Sharon: Yes, I love having a lot of sex with you. I love being intimate. It's the intimacy of it. That is what it is: that closeness that I feel emotionally and mentally that only sex seems to be able to really get across.
Joseph: In its fullness.
Sharon: Yes, in its completeness, that makes it complete. I was thinking, you can be intellectually close, emotionally close, but you need words to express those. It seems when we're having intercourse, there's this bond that words would be insufficient, words would be weak; there's this cementing, that closeness; I hunger for, that I revel in it. That's why I need to have a lot of sex with you. Sex itself is really not what's important.
J: It's not the sex first and foremost.
S: Right. It's this feeling, this closeness.
J: The only way you can get to it is to be sexually aroused. Very deep. I understand it.
S: That's why we always need to make time for sex, and to have time for sex, because it's more important to us than sex itself; at least for me. I need that bonding; and, of course, maybe as time goes on, and the more secure I am with you; maybe I wouldn't need it as much. But I love it; and it's wonderful and beautiful and good for me, and good for you.
J: I know myself when I want to kiss you all over, it is that getting so intimate, so close to you, and the more intimate I get with you physically, the closer it seems I get to you feelingly and spiritually; but it's hard to decipher that when the sex feeling is on that's the predominant thing but it's not really and I started off straight with you wanting to caress hold you and not worrying about all the ejaculations and erections and so forth and it's still there.... You were saying about my climaxing?
S: Wanting to take the birth control pill. It's more than just wanting you to climax in me; that's not even logical. That doesn't even have to do with reason; it's not just a matter of: well , this is what I want , because this is nice or something like that. It has to do with some kind of deep-seated psychological ancestral need within me; and I can feel it clearly when we're making love and you're ready to climax; and when you pull out , it's as if I'm being torn; and it's not a physical kind of tearing. I don't know what it is, really; but it's like a completion of a life cycle, of: I want to have this man's child, and the tearing away from me -- it feels somewhat damaged; it's sort of like pretending each time: this time I'm going to become pregnant with the man's child, this man that I love. Something like that .
J: Even though with the birth control pill it wouldn't be.
S: Right. But that would satisfy the woman-man -children-propagation; life goes on
J: Erotic, all erotic.
S: Yes. but today the feeling was so tearing that it made me cry ;and I don't think that's good for me. I mean, I could go on; I can just change my attitude; but I'd rather not.
J: It's just a matter of attitude
S: It's much deeper than that. In fact, it has to do with the message.
J: Why do you call it a message?
S: Because it gives me a message, an ancestral message that I am to go with this man wherever he wants to go even if it means tearing up my own roots. ...That's what it means to me. It's a very tribal kind of thing; very native. It Makes me think about my dog. I had a dog, and we never had her fixed and we never let her have intercourse and every once in a while this poor dog would go through this whole thing of false pregnancy. She needed to be pregnant; she needed to fulfill that maternal need and she would go through this whole thing. She'd even swell physically and she'd stop her period; and she'd make her little butt close. It was just so pathetic because there was nothing happening; not on the physical level, anyhow. But her whole being needed this, and it was being thwarted.
The pill probably is dangerous to a certain degree. The rationalization would be everything's dangerous; everything has a price. There are other methods. I can't see myself putting on diaphragms before we make love; that kind of thing. It's not spontaneous enough for my particular nature. I'm willing to take a small risk. If I thought it were a big risk, I wouldn't do it; but I don't believe it's a big risk right now. I think that it would be safe for at least a year; and my hopes would be that by then there would be a better method. They are working on one right now in which you'd have a shot once every three months- it's supposed to be very safe, very effective. I have a low impulse control. There's a tendency in me to be impulsive. You have a high impulse control which means you can control yourself before jumping into something. I'm not so good at that. I read somewhere that women with low impulse control should be taking the pill ,because at the climactic moment nothing else matters; and that's the way I am; like when we made love today I didn't want to let you go. I was willing to take the risk. It didn't matter at that moment. But I am afraid this is going to become a problem. I don't want it to; and I don't know what to do about it because I don't want to displease you because you're right [about withdrawing].
...
November 6th
J: You feel so relaxed with me you can be mine.
S: Right. I can be your little girl, I can be your teenager,I can be your whore, I can be your adult ,I can be your mother. I can be it all for you.
J: You're that free?
S: You made me that free.
J: That animal thrusting: it transforms you, it frees you, from inhibitions; and you become this thrusting animal , but with a consciousness of all that's going on. The pleasure, the closeness, the gripping, the whole idea of trying to get into you as far as possible, and to mate, to propagate our species. This is a male and female, woman and man, going at it. (laughter) ...I still don't think I've captured what it really is.
S: (humorously) We'll have to practice it more...to get the right words.
J: Something is there a transformation that's quite delicious.
...
November 8th
J: Today I was thinking being with Tom I'm sure he sensed something in the air between us that was separating us the tension that we weren't really relaxed and happy I remember one time he hadn't seen us for a couple of weeks and one other time I wouldn't even let him near the house because the argument I grabbed him outside and took him to a restaurant before he could come in
S: And then last week you had him at the other house
J: Right and I thought "Boy, I'm sure he feels that we're gradually slipping apart."
S: I don't give a damn what he thinks. Anyway, it's good for him to see that no matter how much you love someone it is so difficult it's a myth to think that everything is fine between us, and that love makes everything fine and good and so on. It is so difficult to get two human beings together and on the same track and moving in the same direction. In fact, I think it's almost a miracle when it happens; there are so many things in the way; so many. It takes so much work. And I think it's fine for him to see us with our problems; but yet we're together and that's the key ...That's the way we interact. You can see that there's love ,there's strife; but there is love and we're trying to overcome the strife; and it's not right or fair for anyone to think that it goes smoothly just because people love one another; because it doesn't. ... It's so unfair to the other people too. It's like you're treating them like idiots; you're not giving them the credit for any kind of understanding or knowledge of life It's like: "We're going to pretend, because this idiot can't understand anything else. In fact, I have a cousin who was the happiest man I ever knew. Married, and she was the happiest woman. Perfect couple. Everybody loved them. they've been married for years - thirteen years. I went up there one Christmas, and I had a wonderful time. I thought "Oh God, the happiest couple in the world!" Well, they were separated a month later. They divorced and actually married other people. So, they're putting on all this for the relatives, and so on; and I did feel hurt; I did feel insulted, because I cared about them; I loved them, and not because they were a happy couple; I mean, as individuals. And it lowered them in my eyes to think they didn't think enough of me or any of the other people there to be what they were.
...
Later
S: You know what's really beautiful about the kind of lovemaking we just experienced is that it can only be you and me; only with you and you with me could we be that free. It's beautiful to know that it's sacred. I have never been like that with anyone and I know you haven't either; so that it's like two virgins and that's what I think makes it so excellent
J: And sacred, as you said.
S: Because it can only be us.
J: Or people like us who love as fully as deeply. you mention how sacred it is to be so completely animal free that we engross ourselves in the animal aromas and everything about us, all the orifices that we just love of each other. There's a sacredness to it; an inverse type of sacredness to what the word "sacredness" is usually meant to be; and that's why when I say that it would be a desecration to love anyone after you -- to be with anyone else if you were to die or I were to die for us to love so fully so uninhibitedly so primevally with someone else; it would be a desecration to have this with anyone else I really feel that..
...
November?
S: As we get close to orgasm I begin to feel things happening internally and each time I get a feeling that I couldn't identify an image I wasn't sure what it was but now it seems very familiar so maybe I was knowing it but now it's to my conscious.
J: You can articulate it
S: Right I can articulate it now but the image is rain; and right at the moment I feel that I am rain; and then right from there usually I go right into the speed of light experience. As a child I use to go out and sit in the rain with an umbrella or something or on the porch I use to pray because there was some connection with the rain and God for me I use to feel god as a little girl in the rain.
..
November 13th
[After another of her eternal orgasms she says:]
S: That the experience of miracle and I realize that it has nothing to do with life; and that's why it's so miraculous because everything we do in life no matter how fun or how blissful or fulfilling you feel the gravity of life there's never any let up of it; you're always aware you're in that body. But this is [different]; you're not in that body you're no longer tied to life.
J: Even though your body is twitching.
S: You don't even know what the body is doing. The body and the soul are separate in those moments. In the beginning, I feel my body moving; and then I don't know what's going on. I'm gone; it's fantastic, beautiful miraculous, experience. You know what's really ironic?: it just doesn't fit in with life at all. It just seems so strange to be here now and think "Why even have something like that?" It doesn't fit here at all. It's like graph going up and down life experiences; and here's this one that goes way off. It just has nothing to do with life. Strange. Wonderful.
J: I wanted to say that when I orgasmened you, that I just love the way you moved and held me... it showed such unity of our two-into-oneness. Your body just nestled into mine, just slithered into mine.
S: When I'm feeling that love for you it always bewilders me that I'm even capable of hurting you and I do hurt you -- the things I say or do; because the feeling that we have at that moment, this moment; that's the true feeling; that's how I really feel about you: pure love; all that is good. And I don't understand why I hurt you.
J: Your body expresses it. I guess that's when the day-to-day egos, or ourselves, get in the way of what we truly feel.
S: And life getting in the way; because at the moment there's nothing else; there's just you and me and our love.
J: That's what holds us together amidst all the conflicts of life and ourselves.
S: Because we know that that's the truth. And we don't hurt each other very much. But the little hurts; I don't even want to do those; I want the time to come when those don't even happen -- the little irritations; not even those. They don't belong in this love. They're not true, because they have to do with frustrations or fatigue or pain that have nothing to do with you.
...
A continuation of the earlier talk of the orgasm.
J: You said there's something very interesting that...
S: When become more and more aroused,and closer and closer to the orgasm, my mouth becomes terribly dry inside; so dry, that I almost choke on the dryness and it makes me think that there must be some chemical change going on in the body for that to happen. And the only other time that I've experienced that is the few times in my life that I've been terrorized by certain experiences; my mouth had gone that dry in a matter of seconds.
J: It's like almost when that happens you go into a state of trauma where you release your self-consciousness. You're going into a state where you lose all sense of the agonizing pain that would happen. Maybe it's related to animals. We see the lion attacking the deer; but it's known that they get into this state that they don't feel anything; they're in an ultra state of consciousness; the terror shifts them into another state of consciousness: a blank consciousness of just physical movement and escape so there isn't that agony that we seem to think they're in; that what they say, the scientists. But it's related I think; to the similar symptom of going into a different state of consciousness beyond the self-consciousness which happens to you. It's like the similarities well the excitement that you feel when getting a new car and the excitement you feel being with the one you love for the first time. It's the same basic physiology going on except one is more intensified and more complex than the others. the same symptoms are going on: the agitation; similar symptoms, only varied intensity and complexity which makes your experience from a physiological point of view, and therefore, from a scientific point of view, valid. From that point of view, something radical is happening here. Scientist might say "Let's not put it into a mystic experience." Or maybe it is a mystic experience; but whatever it is, it is different than self-consciousness call it what you will.
S: A person I know suffered from manic depression and when this person would go into the manic phase which is an elation phase of bliss and hyperactivity the mouth would become very dry during the whole manic phase so dry that it would crack and bleed as time would go on and during this time. Some articles came out in Newsweek and Time Magazines about manic depression, because lithium had just come out, which was not the cure but the stabilizer; and they said that for sure when a person goes through the manic phase a chemical change takes place and they can tell in the saliva. And they do brain scans; and the chemical are rearranged differently in the brain than when the person was in the depressive or the normal state; so that these chemical changes taken place do alter the consciousness in the brain chemicals which effect the salvitory system. What I'm trying to say is the manic phase is a different state of consciousness.
J: You said an elation. Is it like a madness?
S: As it goes on it gets more out of control. The first half let's say is really a very positive kind of thing: highly creative, strong, confident; all the plus things. Many famous people suffered from manic depression their greatest achievements were during the manic phase.
...
J: I think in discussing this mystic orgasm ...a sense of the universal, of everything, purity, and so forth; if it were available to everybody simply by manipulate or caress the clitoris in a certain way, or by injecting something chemically to make that chemical change, what would be the value of it? It would just be another high a super- high. If that's all it is, [of what spiritual value is it?]. Somehow, we have to relate it to something for it to have meaning. I think it would have to be related to something more universal, something beyond, as you've said, this life.
S: I don't see how anyone could experience this, and not know that it is God; that it isn't just another high. It's death; it's death to life while in life.
J: It does tell of another consciousness. If that's the case, then, to me, the value of it would be that if one could take that "Experience," quote unquote with a capital 'E', it's that experience that could go into the transforming of the psychology of human nature and that would validate the whole push towards "higher consciousness," "advanced consciousness" or whatever it is in relation to the new man. It can be done. I never did think I could do it, or that anybody could transform his psychology by his own humanity alone. It does have to have a definitely strong sense of a super consciousness that is somewhat determinant of everything.
S: There's a feeling that takes place, that I talked about, before hurling through time and space accelerated, that makes me know that there's distance involved; it's not like outside the wall. It's not nearby it's very dark. It's like a deep dark perfect river. It's like water. It fascinates me. Miracle.
...
November 17th
J: When I'm in you I control you as does the male the female
S: And I love it. You're the power that has kidnapped me from the English ship you can do anything you want to me and I'm your slave and your prisoner
J: Hold you down ram against you
S: I resist; but it's to no avail anything you tell me to do I will do.
J: But let me try this [male dominance over the female] other than the bed, then, there you have a different story -- nothing but resistance with a little giving in.
S: You wouldn't want it any other way. That's what the beauty of our relationship: we melt right into the roles at the right moment.
December 3
J: This morning we're in bed and she's reading transcending I'm lying next to her I have her fingers in my mouth and I'm kissing them adoring them and caressing them sucking them and I'm feeling such waves of delight and love just loving her fingers.
S: How come I invite you to be a little bit rough with me in our lovemaking. I kind of enjoy you being a little bit rough, forceful. Is it because I'm a female? Is that the female coming out of me.
J: That's what I was just talking about:about control -- the male over the female.
S: That's okay?
J: Yes it is the female being dominated by the male I think that's the primitive years and you need that. I think also that when the male comes out of me like that strong, and it holds and spreads your genitals and your behind and grips you and grunts at you, you know that this is the male animal at you; and that's the male animal that will protect you, that will defend you; that's where it comes out. If I were passive: just easy-going, a beautiful soul only; you probably couldn't bear. It's like that limp handshake; you know you don't have much strength there. But when I'm able to I give way to the grunt; then you know that this is the male animal that will protect your territory that will be your mate. It comes out most forcefully there; because other than that, it's just the intellect and my character -- which are fine and my ego my ego is the masculinity that comes out that why a woman would say I love his pride and the intellect of course kind of takes the place of the physical attractiveness of the physical control that the animal has over the female and the character of course is the human the man we're two miracles to each other for each other. That's where I belong inside you it's not sex it is being inside you. It takes up strength to love to surrender to it to transcend your self-concern for the other who needs it so badly that's where the strength is not in resisting that's the easy way out the masculine way out this is psychology we're use to that it takes up strength to have faith in love to the point that you know we won't be taken advantage of to overcome all those fears of becoming a slave or puppet to the other to forgo all that and surrender yourself to the force of love
...
December ?
J: After another of her spiritual orgasms she says to me:
S: Experiencing the bliss consciousness for me is the experience of my life nothing could come even close to it. I use to think that feeling like that feeling at one with nature that people have every once in a while: the ocean the sunset. I use to think there could be nothing more beautiful than that feeling and that is a similar out-of-body experience as I said before. Words are cheap when comes to trying to describe this transcendent bliss consciousness experience; and what I realize is. that it could only happen with you because for me it's a testimony of our love our trust our respect what we are to one another and I'm sure that's why I never did experience it with anyone else because of the sacredness for me it would have to be experienced with someone like you
J: Your whole body goes through contortions as you've talked about and you look like you're possessed somebody might think you're possessed by the devil and it would take someone as it turns out it's me that could look at you and not be frightened this is a woman this is a creature completely out of control. It's awesome to see; to know what's happening, what's going beyond your body. You don't see yourself you don't see anything, do you? You asked earlier "Where is this? In the mind?" and I said "No it's in every hair" --to quote Jesus: count all the hairs on your head; however it goes. But, you get right to the meaning of your being, of being itself somehow. I mean it's there; it exists. It's some kind of structured order. it's almost as though this [infinite vastness that you experience] is what that you [essentially] are, what I am, what everyone is and what everything is...I can't capture it now, but what I thought in a flash is that somehow we are the ones who make it happen. Yes, we are the world! it's through us that this consciousness exists.
S: Does it really look awful when I go into it
J: Now the word "awful" separate it awful it's awesome full of awe I mean something is happening here that is not in any way the normal human response to anything except as we see being possessed by something. It is a matter of [being possessed]. It looks that way. That's the way we interpret it; but for me, it's not a matter of possession it's a matter of breaking through [to the other side, the other Reality]. It -- Ultimate Reality -- has to do all kinds of things for it to happen; for it to push itself to it's ultimate...But it's not awful, no. When you do [contort], I feel for you; my eyes are almost to tears. I feel that I know what you're going through at that moment or what your body is going through your mind is having a great time no it's not awful in that sense I can see where it would be frightening or scary to an average man. I wouldn't think that just any man would know [ what was really going on in a woman in that contorted state.]
S: Maybe people don't talk about it
J: [They don't, I would think.] It can't be what they [the authorities] talk about when describing a woman's orgasm whether vaginal or clitoral; it can't be what they experienced --or if they have, have no clue, or are so fearsome, of it]; otherwise it would be so well documented.
S: Do you think maybe they don't know what it is?
J: The description itself, whether they know what it is or not, the mere fact that there's such a tremendous volcanic upheaval going on [It is perhaps too much for words; it's your genius in finding the words to describe it, and my prompting you with this tape recorder, on the spot, so to speak.]
December?
S: If someone said to you Joseph what is this self-transcendence what does it mean what do you do
J: It's the next step in human evolutionary growth that is not being any physiological change whatsoever. This would be totally spiritual in mind growth and advancement. And what this would mean is that you would have a larger spectrum of encompassing life and the universe and are basing it on what our goal is and that everything is... what our values are, what should our goals be, what's in the future? Those things would be answered by changing to that point of awareness; being receptive to all different types of ideas and concepts and being able to choose the strongest qualities from all of these. Learning capabilities would be enhanced and attitudes would be more flexible -- not really flexible but truer in the sense that now you've been able to encompass all these different ideas and opinions. You wouldn't have such a narrow view point on yourself as [the end and all] instead you'd have a whole different perspective. Does that answer your question?
S: No
J: Why, what's wrong
S: That's what it is in a universal kind of understanding but I wanted to know how Mrs. Barrel can try to be more self-transcendent is it something you do try or you wait for it to come to you
J: What again is self-transcendence?
S: Rising above ourselves.
J: Of our own psychology.
S: Our human limits.
J: What makes us rise above our human limits?
S: Seeing that if we stay in this mode we'll only go backwards
J: But how can we get out of this mode?
S: By rising above...
J: But you're going in a circle now.
S: How do you rise above by taking it upon yourself to do what you want to do what you know is right not what you think is right, what you know is right.
J: Morally right
S: Not morally right; just if you have commonsense of what is right for you.
J: Now are we suppose to put aside other people[ their feelings] in that?
S: Yes, you have to be independent you can't let anybody else push you around psychologically; that's why you're feeling horrible in the first place
J: So it looks like you have some kind of cosmic wonder and the way we can tap that a piece of that cosmic wonder is to rise above our psychology [our humanness] ,destroy the ego. Is that what you mean?
S: I don't think we should destroy the ego. I think you have to work at placing it where it belongs. I think it's displaced in most people
J: In which way?
S: That it's become more important [than it should be]. Our whole lives revolve around how our ego filters information and puts information out.
J: And around our needs and desires.
S: And there's nothing wrong with that, but it's got to be tuned again; we don't need this type of ego anymore. I think at one time it was necessary for survival, but it really isn't anymore. I think it's got to be reshaped, it's got to be retuned.
J: Exactly.
S: It's like, clean up your life so you can think clearly; and then start working on the ego and at the same time start dealing with the wonder of life and facing that there is more than just what we experience. I need that I need to feel that trust that I can put my life and body into your hands and that you will bring it joy and love. I give myself to you uninhibitedly things I've never given myself to even myself
J: In everything.
S: Yes in everything; but in sex especially; and you love it you love me and you love my body and my uninhibitedness you return that trust which makes me then love you all the more instead of rejecting my vulnerability.
J: That is part of the freedom I've always wanted you to have: that you can be vulnerable with me without remarks without repercussions of any sort. I love your uninhibitedness
S: As long as I'm alive, no matter how important things become, I would never ever allow myself to lose this with you because to me this is the key that makes many of the other things possible
J: What is the key: our sex contact?
S: Yes, the intimacy
J: When you stop to think of it, it's silly to say that sex will no longer be a part [of our self-transcendence], because it's through sex that you reached that [infinite Love experience] as we found out. That's been a part of our whole mission right from the beginning. When I said that we're going to spiritualize sex, I didn't quite know what I meant; but I knew that that was what was going to happen; and it's happened.
S: Yes I remember you felt like going back to the animal that that was one of the main steps
J: You brought that to my consciousness the animal to me the first part of it was beauty there was such beauty in what we were doing the movements and everything somehow I thought that could be elevated even higher transmuted even more and then you released the animal in me and then I realized of course that you do have to go through that even though I may have said it before you made it happen. Sex is a manifestation of our [human] love yes but it's also a spiritual manifestation too; and that's what it should become more and more and I guess that's what D. H. Lawrence meant when he said to get sex out of their head
What has to be realized in our times is the reason there are so many sexual frustrations and so much is against sex in many people's minds is because they have the wrong attitude toward it and that is because of a very crucial piece of ignorance which is they've never really loved that's hard to face but it isn't in the long run. There are some individuals who are indiscriminate and they need more than one body but there are many people who have very strong reservoirs of love and since love is so intense it can only be shared with one person really and not having found that person that's very difficult there are them out there they think by the cultural education that if you're not sexually exciting or sensual then you're the odd man out; something's wrong with you sexually, you have some kind of dysfunction or some kind of neurosis. It goes on and on. Love is such a delicate flower; sex is too. It's not enough just to love, since sex is so integral to love. A man has to be from the beginning, patient, gentle, and gradual. it just can't be a sex act. It's not a matter of women are more emotional, that they need to be emotionally worked up and embraced and cuddled, and all that; but there's more to it -- they've got to shown this is a love act not a sexual release. it takes a lot of patience for men, because men have the impulse to finish immediately, to get it over with -- that's the animal in them. And that's where the human part comes in when he's able to curb that animal and turn it into a love act.
December
S: It's always been my belief that people wanted Jesus who was free from sin because they can't by any means come close to that so therefore they don't have to bother to change. The great cop out is: "I can never be that good, so I won't even try." Whereas you take somebody like Lennon who sees that everybody, the people, can be these things [self-transcending].
J: What things?
S: Have the power, have the understanding, the forgiveness, the truth. It's like we live in an unreal world. He knew it can be a better world it can be happier it can be freer with more realization of the quality of life
J: Can continually change for the better.
S: Right but you have to change your way of thinking; and people mock at that because it takes work; and that makes you feel insecure, and so on. And that's why he'll always have trouble being accepted as a prophet, because he is so credible, because the idea is "Gee, if somebody with all these weaknesses: emotional and mental, and so on, can still see what's...
J: Beyond
S: Yes -- the utopia that is possible and within our grasp. Anyhow that makes people very uncomfortable because they realize they too have that power.
J: That means they are obligated; they can no longer get on their knees and pray for forgiveness or...
S: Be comfortable watching T.V. all evening long.
J: That means they have to get out there and do it for their own credibility, their own self-respect.
S: In tying together his gospel, your voice is coming through connecting the things he said and what you have to do is show that he is the embodiment of this revolution, of this transition, in mankind; and that what he went through, we're all going through in some way or another, some more than others; and that that's what we're all moving toward: his belief, his gospel, that that's what will come; that's what you have to bring out.
...
December 31
Here comes our summary of the year but before we get to it, she says ... and we were so tired but we couldn't separate from each to go to sleep; she says:
"I wish that we could sleep together and have each other's dreams like to be together in sleep as we are in waking."
BOOK SAMPLE
OF LOVE AND THE MAN
John Lennon
CONTENTS
PART ONE: Man in Transition: John Lennon
Forward
Preface
Introduction
First Perspective: The Quest
Second Perspective The Medium
Third Perspective: The Life
Fourth Perspective The Man
Fifth Perspective: The Artist [in the Man]
Sixth Perspective: The Man [in the Artist]
Seventh Perspective: The Hero
Eighth Perspective: The Mystic
Ninth Perspective: The Visionary
Tenth Perspective: The Musician
PART TWO: The Lennon Testament
First Aspect:: Transcendent Love
Second Aspect: Human Love
Third Aspect: Human-Transcendent Love
PART THREE: Revolution and the Beatles
Introductory Notes
Preface
Editor's Introduction
Chapter 1 The Effervescent Revolutionaries
Chapter 2 Comments from MusIcians and Others
Chapter 3 The Musical Phenomenon
Chapter 4 The Social Phenomenon
Chapter 5 The Spiritual Beatles
Chapter 6 An Historical Perspective
MAN IN TRANSITION
I've read everything on everything...I'm an avid reader.
- Lennon
Art is unthinkable without risk and spiritual self-sacrifice.
- Boris Pasternak
 Forward
The purpose of this aspect of the conscious transformation is to reach those millions who would not normally read, nor consider, the intellectual pinnings of this conscious transformation. John Lennon's life and music exemplify, represent, this wisdom-love unity in the popular aesthetics. For many, Lennon also represents a Christ-like figure in a way considering his charisma, Love-message, mystic experiences, and violent death.
Preface
1
Lennon and the Beatles' monumental revolutionary impact on music, society, and culture, are capsulated in this book. Part One is an exploration of John Lennon's premier role in this impact; Part two, traces Lennon's psycho-philosophic autobiographical role in this impact; and Part Three, follows the Beatles' phenomenon of this impact.
This Part One explores the muliti-faceted person and world task of Lennon in ten perspectives: (1) The Quest, (2) The medium, (3) The Life, (4) The Man, (5) The Artist [in the Man], (6) The Man [in the Artist], (7) The Hero, (8) The Mystic (9) The Visionary, (10) The Musician.
Of these ten perspectives, the most important aspect of Lennon, I believe, is that he was first and foremost a mystic; and that whatever else he was: musician, poet, peacemaker, even a kind of artist-philosopher, was peripheral and related, and consequential to this one inherent trait. The proof of this theme is stated in his own words, in both his lyrics and his interviews.
Mysticisim, as defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, as "the experience of mystical union, or direct communion, with ultimate reality…the doctrine or belief that direct knowledge of God, of spiritual truth, of ultimate reality, or comparable matters is attainable through immediate intuition, insight, or illumination and in a way differing from ordinary sense perception or ratiocination."
The word mystical derives from the Greek mystos, "keeping silence." Mystical experience reveals phenomena that are usually silent and inexplicable. This expanded consciousness, this whole-knowing, transcends our limited powers of description. Sensation, perception, and intuition seem to merge to create something that is none of these.
2
It is my contention that Lennon, as a mystic, that is, as being in touch with Ultimate Reality, Love, God, Meaning, or whatever we want to call It, was the reason -- and perhaps, the only reason -- that the Beatles could have become such a world-wide phenomena, musically, culturally, socially, and, if I daresay at this point, spiritually. I believe that receptive, sensitive readers of this book will themselves glean this awareness as they read, and reread, this book.
I think it important to relate my own experience in this Lennon-mystic regard that reinforces the theme of this book. As part of my research for this book, I, of course, would listen to all his relevant songs over and over again to grasp the feel, the meaning, of his lyrics in blend with the music. On a particular occasion, on listening to his gorgeous "Across the Universe," I was of a sudden transported out of my conscious mind into the universe of everything, "across the universe." It only lasted a second or two; but when I came back to myself, I leapt up from my seat and kept pacing back and forth rapt with what I had just experienced. It was such a wondrous immensity that I remember it to this day. This had never happened before, nor since then, on listening to any kind of music. For me, this proves without a doubt the Artist in Lennon, the mystic in Lennon, that his music could so transcend me out of myself -- and others, I'm sure.
Introduction
1
The following ten perspectives have as their underlying theme the growing awareness that we are on the eve of a conscious transformation in which the ascendancy of justice and wisdom will begin to prevail over injustice and ignorance, in which intuition will begin to prevail over reason, in which the God-within reality will begin to prevail over the God-without reality. It has been long coming, and it is here now at our doorstep in our times thanks to the many great minds, in all walks of life, who have forged the foundation and directed the way, especially over the past 150 years - from Schopenhauer, to Nietzsche, to Bergson, to Freud, .to Jung, to Wittgenstein, to D.H. Lawrence, to Kazanzakas, to Breton, to Camus, to Sartre, and so forth.
It is time now to get to the consolidation of this transformation, and this consolidation comes down to a wisdom, its Love source, and a man --: the wisdom: human-transcendence; the man: John Lennon. - "I sort of wanted to bring a new message to the public, at least new to me."; "I'm trying to do something different...I'm trying to change people's minds, to change their attitudes to things." This book concentrates on the man and his outline of a wisdom for this conscious transformation.
The first step is to identify the inward push toward the emergence of this conscious transformation. The following perspective identifies this inward push, and its charismatic emissary, John Lennon.
…
First Perspective
THE QUEST
I want to be free! -- The inward cry of our age.
And what is this freedom that is so cried-out for? Not political freedom; assume we have that. Not personal freedom; assume we have that too.
Then what? Is it not freedom from our all-too-human self in its suffering and vulnerability, in its lusts and violence, in its frailty and self-absorption? ...That's it!-the target for a type of individual whose eye is on his-her more-than-human self.
Such individuals are troubled, frustrated, even oppressed, by their humanness, regardless of their practicality, regardless of their social status, regardless of their age, regardless of their success, regardless of their biology; and however they attempt to assuage or discount this eternal insignia of their (human) nature, they fail either comically or tragically. They feel severely limited compared to the limitless power they intuit inwardly.
…
So what we have is a person who is in touch with his transcendence, and who aspires to, and struggles toward, a balanced harmony with it in relationship to others. This is his-her freedom, his self-freedom for which his daily struggle is carried on; never attaining to its ideal, but ever advancing toward it. He takes the world by storm: a poet-artist-musician whose life and work have chronicled more fully than any other public figure in our times or in any other times, his vision of freedom, and his struggle to realize that vision. John Lennon is his name: John Lennon of The Beatles; John Lennon, husband of Yoko Ono; John Lennon whose music with and without the Beatles changed not only the face of music but the face of society as well. Not many people who are familiar with the Beatle phenomenon would dispute this influence; yet equally, not many people have any idea of the full impact this man had on our consciousness of freedom-personal freedom to be oneself, especially; and even less people have only the faintest idea of his lifelong struggle for self-freedom.
We need an exemplar, a model, a proof, a testimony, a real person who is/was "one of us," to give us the inspiration, to carry on, through, our long lifelong trek, toward the Goal, the Omega. And John Lennon is that man. And in tandem, we need a man who carries that inspiration unto wisdom. Where is that man?
…
Second Perspective
THE MEDIUM
Next we might ask ourselves, "What qualifies Mr. Lennon for such a high-minded task? After all, was he not simply a rock musician - of the highest caliber, I grant; yet a rock'n'roller, nonetheless." The following perspective places Lennon in the proper setting for the task at hand.
1 The Beatles in general, and John Lennon in particular, spearheaded not only the youth movement in the 1960's, but an overall youth consciousness as well.
2 It could be considered that the Lennon-Beatle cultural phenomenon helped open wider the intuitive consciousness of mankind.
3 Elvis Presley's music said, in effect: Free your body; Lennon's music-with and without The Beatles-said, in effect: Free your mind.
4 Lennon on the quintessence of the Beatles and their music: "The whole point of it is communication. We've got a chance to smile, like All you need is love; so that's me incentive for doing it.” Good cheer and play; that is his message along with love, peace, and self-freedom.
5 Whereas the other Beatles were musicians first, and you might say, artists second, Lennon was an artist first and musician secondarily. His music served as the blood flow through the lifeline of his ideas and ideals
…
46 The dreamer was slain, but the dream goes on-always, and in gathering momentum.
47 Christ is said to have died for our sins; Lennon, we might say, died for our repressions.
48 Ernest Newman, on composer Richard Wagner, eminently appropriate to Lennon:
Wagner [Lennon, as well] was one of those dynamically charged personalities after whose passing the world can never be the same as it was before he came-one of the tiny group of men to whom it is given to bestride an old world and a new, but to sunder them by a gulf that becomes even more impassable; one of the very few who are able so to fill the veins of a whole civilization with a new principle of vitality that the tingle of it is felt not only by the rarer but by the common spirits-some new principle from which whether a man likes it or not, he will find it impossible to escape.
49 Yoko Ono on the meaning of her husband's death as martyrdom:: Its like this event-isn't that a terrible way of putting it?-affected us all in different ways, but we are all stronger for it, and probably for the better....I can't think it was all for the worse. ...When John and I were saying, "The world is one, one world," it's almost like fate told us, "Okay, prove it. Prove it with your life." and that's what John did. At the time of his death, the world definitely became one. And though we might forget it, we're never going to lose that sense. It's in us, and it always will be. Somehow we're going to be different. And the sense of oneness that we preached, well, John actually had to show it physically, and somehow he did it. That was his fate. And I keep thinking of it. It's like preaching is not enough. Let the whole world feel it. Let it happen."
50 A thought -- : Did Yoko play her own destined part in Lennon's life to make sure he followed his destiny to the end to "screw his courage to the sticking place."? Was this the source of her soul-love for him?
…
Third Perspective
THE LIFE
This next perspective portrays Lennon's life and music in capsulation so as to give an overall view of the drama and achievement of his life.
CHILDHOOD: Liverpool, 1940-1953
At birth, John Lennon's mother and father are separated. His mother, unable, unwilling, to care for the boy, leaves him to be reared by her sister. The father returns years later to claim his five-year old son. He makes the child choose between him and his mother. The boy chooses his father. His mother walks away...A sudden, frantic, change of mind! He runs to her.
He has made his choice.
She returns him to her sister, and goes her way, seeing the boy only occasionally throughout is growing years.
Mother, you had me but I never had you
I wanted you but you didn't want me.
...
Mamma, don't go!
-Mother
The pain sears his mind, consciously and unconsciously. The stage is set.
I heard something 'bout my Ma and Pa
they didn't want me so they made me a star.
- I Found Out
He is of a soft nature, and is a cheerful, sunny boy despite his mother-father trauma. He lives a normal, uneventful, middle-class life with his aunt and uncle.
…
And then it ends in the explosion of four gunshots. John Lennon is dead.
It's a funny thing, but I've always felt I wasn't going to grow old.
- John Lennon, age 19
I don't want to die at 40.
- John Lennon, 1940-1980
…
Fourth Perspective
THE MAN
What is the moral character of this exceptional man who is to offer mankind the way to self-freedom, who wants us to “just follow him?” Is he a saint? a madman? a seer? a demon? an avatar? a neurotic-or just like you or I with all our human frailties and weaknesses? The following perspective sheds some light on this matter.
I want to be free!
- Money
Lennon's cry for freedom at the height of the Beatle craze. This freedom has nothing to do with the freedom that money buys, as the song suggests, but rather a freedom in the mind, where elsewhere he sings:
In my mind there's no sorrow
...and there's no time
-There's a Place
I know freedom is in the mind, but I couldn't clear my mind.
…
So, what we have is a person who is basically soft-natured but with a strong enough streak of the hard in him to balance his soft interior; who is devastated in early childhood by his parents-devastated especially his mother- who didn't want him; who is raised in a harsh environment ; and who is catapulted into world renown in his early twenties, and so, rarely ever to pause to reflect on his life without someone knocking at his door, so to speak, wanting something from him -- "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." Yet it was not enough for him to "change the whole wide world," as he set out to do, he had to change, transform, himself as well. There could not be the one without the other.
…
Fifth Perspective
THE ARTIST [in the man]
As Lennon was an artist of the first order, as witnessed by the originality, range and depth of his music, we have next to consider what makes him a universal Artist, with a capital `A' as regards the oncoming emergence of our intuitive consciousness-the consciousness emanating from our life-being.
1
John Lennon's life and work exemplified the tension between the artist in the man and the man in the artist: the artist in quest of ideals of beauty, truth, and freedom; and the man immersed in the blood of life, in the pulse of reality seeking wisdom. He could not, nor would not, deny either the ideal or the real world. And this was the conflict in his life, the struggle, the "good fight"; just as it is, more or less, any person's who has a strong sense of Transcendence beyond the normal, psychological consciousness. And he set out early in his career to share with the public the unfolding of his frail humanity striving to merge with his vision of an inward reality so potent in us that it can literally evolve us into a new consciousness, a new psychology, a new spirituality-all essentially the same.
…
As the Artist reveals and expresses the universal truths of our human nature through emotional channels rather than through intellectual channels, as do philosophers, psychologists, he is first and foremost concerned with man in relationships and in society, in relation to his own experiences; from which he universalizes them in his art. This concern applies to Lennon as is traced in the following perspective.
Sixth Perspective
THE MAN [In The Artist]
As the Artist reveals and expresses the universal truths of our human nature through emotional channels rather than through intellectual channels, as do philosophers, psychologists, he is first and foremost concerned with man in relationships and in society, in relation to his own experiences; from which he universalizes them in his art. This concern applies to Lennon as is traced in the following perspective.
1
It is perhaps everyone's wish to have all his desires gratified. Imagine: all the success and fame one would want, all the wealth and luxuries, influence and prestige, respect and honor; all the lovers and friends, all the leisure and pastimes. That would be the supreme good, would it not?...No, certainly not for everyone; and certainly not for John Lennon; for who had more worldly success than this man, and yet who at the same time had been more troubled, more confused, more disoriented, more insecure, more on the edge of despair? Here was a man who had "everything"; yet who at the same sang such desperate lyrics as Help! I need somebody; I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind; Yes I'm lonely wanna die; Hate and jealousy gonna be the death of me.
After a long, storming, world-renowned career, all that came to really matter were his family and musings. Even his music came to be of only secondary importance; so much so, that he wouldn't even bother recording without Yoko. "Bloody boring" he said it would be without her. Yet something still eluded him. Yoko sang of him that his mind had "changed the world," that he had all he could carry, and yet still felt "somehow empty."
What was missing? What "holy grail," what "philosopher's stone," what answer, did he lack for his ultimate fulfillment? In a word, it was freedom-self-freedom: an inward freedom in which love, equanimity, and wisdom habitually prevail over the demands and tensions of the psychological self. In the maelstrom of the Beatle craze, he cried out at the end of a song "I want to be free!" But he was encased in his bubble celebrity.
…
Seventh Perspective
THE HERO
Lennon, as he developed from artist to Artist, creates his music for the public, laced with his quiet, unassuming messages of redemption; yet more was required of him if he were to make more of an impact than mere mass popularity. He had to put his life on the line: "What's the good of being a Beatles if you don't do something with it"-somehow to startle people into the process of developing self-realization at the same time as he was going through that self-same process. What needed to be done required a person of heroic stature; and he believed himself to be of that stature, flaws and all.
If you want to be a hero then just follow me.
- Working Class Hero
Does John Lennon mean that he himself is a hero? Can only a person of heroic stature advise others to follow him? If so, then what kind of hero is he referring to? Clearly, a working class hero, as he sings in his song. But what is a working class hero? What is a hero, for that matter -- or more specifically, a hero of the people, a grand hero?
…
Lennon, with the Beatles, is singing simple love songs, but set in a new, fresh, dynamic key. The magic of their music and charisma is what fused the burst of freedom-license, many would consider it-let loose.
And so he goes on to create the Beatles, and to transform the world, and himself as well.
In its way the second political thing I did was say "The Beatles are bigger
than Jesus."
And the creation of the Beatles was "in its way" the first political thing he did.
…
This is no mere rock musician speaking. This is the man who, with his Beatles, initiated a revolution of conscious freedom that changed the world.
"His mind changed the world. "
- Yoko Ono
“He [John Lennon] definitely was a hero....In the mythological sense he was an
innovator ....The public hero is sensitive to the needs of his time. The Beatles
brought a new spiritual depth into popular music which started the fad, let's call it,
for meditation and Oriental music had been over here for years, as a curiosity, but
now, after the Beatles, our young people seem to know what it's about. We are
hearing more and more of it, and it's being used in terms of its original intention
as a support for meditations. That's what the Beatles started.”
- Joseph Campbell, mythologist
…
Eighth Perspective
THE MYSTIC
What gives Lennon the daring to publicly make the claim -- “I am of the universe and you know what it's worth”; to beckon people to -- “come together right now over me”; to -- “show ev'rybody the light”; who even goes so far as to exclaim -- “I think I'm Jesus Christ. I'm back again?” It must be the implacable inward Vision that possesses him over which he has no control other than to be Its emissary, like it or not.
Introductory Comments
There happens to many of us on rare occasions a suffusing sensation - if I can call it that - of such pure, beauteous, glowing elation that we seem transported into a world of radiant pure- conscious-bliss. It generally is of only short duration; seconds, minutes perhaps; and then is gone irretrievably in its intensity. It is the type of experience one never forgets, and one which we long to experience again. It instills in us a new understanding of ourselves in relation to the world. There are lesser experiences of the same, but none ever quite reach the intensity, the purity, the divinity, of that one "Big" experience. Some people consider it a spiritual or mystic vision; but whatever it may be, it generally manifests itself as a oneness with the totality of the world; a sublimity surpassing all sensuous and natural beauty; a benign resignation to one's mortal fate. It is an experience that makes one gasp with its ineffability; an experience that moistens, if not floods the eyes with emotion; an experience that etherializes us for the moment; one that makes us shake our head in sheer wonderment. The cause of it may be a delicate fragrant breeze that wafts through the nostrils, a glorious sunset, the vast sea or sky, or the presence of a saintly personage, or a sudden illumination of understanding, or of any of the myriad natural phenomena.
…
1
Since Lennon's mystic, as well as surrealistic, bent of mind is crucial to grasping the integral meaning of his life and work and influence, I feel it imperative at this point to delve into this mystic reality a bit to give the reader an overall view from the ideas and experiences of others.
…
At age 28, Lennon announces to his friend and other band members that he believed himself to be Jesus Christ.
I think I'm Jesus Christ. I'm back again. I've got to tell everyone. I've got to let the world know who I am. ...I just think this is it. This is my reason for being here on this earth....This is my thing.
Then he places himself in the same situation of crucifixion as Christ in his "Ballad of John and Yoko."
Christ you know it ain't easy,
You know hard it can be,
The way things are going
they're going to crucify me.
Is this madness? Was John Lennon mad? Mad with egomania? Or mad with God? Which? Certainly he was a vain man, as his public life attests; and as an artist-musician, he himself says, "If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do: in my art or music; in that respect, you can call me that. I believe in what I do, and I'll say it." This is a fairly normal and respectable assessment of Lennon as man and artist considering that he was the premier pop musician in his day. Nothing mad in that. What then would make him declaim that he was Jesus Christ? - or more to the point, that he was God? Again, Lennon himself answers an interviewer who questioned his seriousness in once saying that he was God:
We're all God. I mean Christ said the kingdom of Heaven is within you. That's what it means. The Indians say that, and the Zen people say that. It's a basic thing of religion. We're all God. I'm not a God, or the God - not the God. But we're all God; and we're all potentially divine - and potentially evil. We have everything within us. And the kingdom of heaven is nigh and within us. And if you look hard enough, you'll see it.
…
Lennon states and describes his "in-touchness," his mystic experience, of the oneness of All, or God or Soul, or Love, or Being, or Power. It will be clear from these brief descriptions that this experience was with him all his life, and was not a result of drugs, or LSD, especially.
I've been aware of soul. I've been aware of that power.
I've been aware of the Power ...There is a Power which people tap and they use it for whatever ends they use it.
You come out of a [pure experience] and you know "I've been there," and it was
nothing, it was just pure; and that's what we're looking for all the time, really.
I've been through it the eye of the needle, [nirvana, pure-conscious-bliss] and back a few times.
I remember an incident in my life when I was walking in the mountains of Scotland, up in the north. I was with an auntie who had a house up there; and I remember this feeling coming over, you know, I thought: This is what they call poetic, or whatever they call it. When I looked back, I realized I was kind of hallucinating. You know, when you're walking along and the ground starts going beneath you and the heather, and I could see this mountain in the distance, and this kind of FEELING came over me -- I thought, This is SOMETHING. What is this?...
…
The following passages from recognized mystics taken from all times and all places clearly validate the mystic experience.
Tennyson
1 . ...till all at once, as it were, out of the intensity of the consciousness of individuality, the individuality itself seemed to fade away into boundless being, and this not a confused state, but the clearest of the clearest, the surest of the surest, utterly beyond words, where death was almost a laughable impossibility, the loss of personality (if so it were) seeming no extinction but the only true life. . . . I am ashamed of my feeble description. Have I not said that the state is beyond words?
Aldous Huxley, From Doors of Perception
"I was sitting on the seashore, half listening to a friend arguing violently about something which merely bored me. Unconsciously to myself, I looked at a film of sand I had picked up on my hand, when I suddenly saw the exquisite beauty of every little grain of it; instead of being dull, I saw that each particle was made up on a perfect geometrical pattern, with sharp angles, from each of which a brilliant shaft of light was reflected, while each tiny crystal shone like a rainbow. . . .The rays crossed and recrossed, making exquisite patterns of such beauty that they left me breathless. . . .Then, suddenly, my consciousness was lighted up from within and I saw in a vivid way how the whole way how the whole universe was made up of material which, no matter how dull and lifeless they might seem, were nevertheless filled with this intense and vital beauty. For a second or two the whole world appeared as a blaze of glory. When it died down, it left me with something I have never forgotten and which constantly reminds me of the beauty locked up in every minute speck of material around us.
Ruysbroeck / mystic-writer
"When love has carried us above all things . . . we receive in peace the Incomprehensible Light, enfolding us and penetrating us. What is this Light, if it be not a contemplation of the Infinite, and an intuition of Eternity? We behold that which we are, and we are that which we behold; because our being, without losing anything of its own personality, is united with the Divine Truth."
From The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James
R. W.Bucke
"I had spent the evening in a great city with two friends reading and discus- sing poetry and philosophy. We parted at midnight. I had a long drive in a hanson to my lodging. My mind, deeply under the influence of the ideas, images, and emotions called up by the reading and talking, was calm and peaceful. I was in a state of quiet, almost passive enjoyment, not actually thinking, but letting ideas, images and emotions flow of themselves, as it were, through my mind. All at once, without warning of any kind, I found myself wrapped in a flame-colored cloud. For an instant I thought of fire, and immense conflagration somewhere close by in that great city.; the next, I knew that the fire was within myself. directly afterward there came upon me a sense of exaltation, of immense joyousness accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination impossible to describe. among other things, I did not merely come to believe, but I saw that the universe is not composed of dead matter, but it, on the contrary, a living Presence; I became conscious in myself of eternal life. It was not a conviction that I would have eternal life; but a consciousness that I possessed eternal life then; I saw that all men are immortal; that the cosmic order is such that without any peradventure all things worked together for the good of each and all; that the foundation principle of the world, of all the worlds, is what we call love. . . .The vision lasted a few seconds and was gone; but the memory of it and the sense of the reality of what it taught has remained during the quarter of a century which has since elapsed."
Anonymous (This contemporary Episcopalian author (a woman), prefers to remain anonymous
There came a night when I passed beyond Ideas, beyond melody, beyond beauty, into vast lost spaces, depths of untellable bliss, into a Light. And the Light is an ecstasy of delight, and the Light is an ocean of bliss, and the Light is Life and Love, and the Light is the too deep contact with God, and the Light is unbearable Joy; and in unendurable bliss my soul beseeches God that He will cover her from this most terrible rapture, this felicity which exceeds all measure. And she is not covered; and being in the last extremity from this most terrible joy, she beseeches Him again: and is immediately covered from it.
...
Wonderful, beautiful weeks went by, filled with divine, indescribable peace. The presence Of God was with me day and night, and the world was not the world as I had once known it-a place where men and women had fought and sinned and toiled and anguished and wondered horribly the meaning of this mystery of pain and joy, of life and death. The world was become Paradise, and in my heart I cried to all my fellow-souls, "Why fret and toil, why sweat and anguish for the things of earth when our own God has in His hand such peace and bliss and happiness to give to Every man? O come and receive it, Every man his share."
And the glamour of life in Unity with God became past all comprehension and all words.
a man
"I have on a number of occasions felt that I had enjoyed a period of intimate communion with the divine. These meetings came unasked and unexpected, and seemed to consist merely in the temporary obliteration of the convention- alities which usually surround and cover my life. . .Once it was when from the summit of a high mountain I looked over a gashed and corrugated landscape extending to a long convex of ocean that ascended to the horizon, and again from the same point when I could see nothing beneath me but a boundless expanse of white cloud, on the blown surface of which a few high peaks, including the one I was on, seemed plunging about as if they were dragging their anchors. What I felt on these occasions was a temporary loss of my own identity, accompanied by an illumination which revealed to me a deeper significance than I had been wont attach to life. It is in this that I find my justification for saying that I have enjoyed communication with God. Of course the absence of such a being as this would be chaos. I cannot conceive of life without its presence."
a woman
How can one go within oneself to find God? Isn't that just a glorification of the ego? I believe not. I believe that going within one's own being is a path to finding God.
As a child and well into adulthood, I believed that God, like a loving father, was "out there" above and beyond our world -- all knowing, judgmental, yet caring. "He" was accessible by prayer. Through prayer, God would look over us, take care of us and guide our lives, if we but ask.
By mid-adulthood I could no longer experience God in this anthropomorphic male image. I struggled, but through meditation and study, I came to experience God as the vital loving force, the primary energy of all creation. God is in all things. God connects all of life. This means God is within me. It means God is within every human I meet. We are connected in a profound way, but all too often we ignore or never establish that connection. The stories of the Bible and other world religions are metaphors and guides to help us understand this.
My search for God within is an effort to align myself with the loving force of reality, which I believe can only occur at a deeply personal level. If I connect with God within, I am connecting to all of life in a spiritual dimension beyond material explanation. With this intent, going within does not lead to glorification of one's own ego in narcissistic contemplation. This would be impossible. Rather it promotes community, connection to others, and a sense of oneness with God.
a woman
There came a night when I passed beyond Ideas, beyond melody, beyond beauty, into vast lost spaces, depths of untellable bliss, into a Light. And the Light is an ecstasy of delight, and the Light is an ocean of bliss, and the Light is Life and Love, and the Light is the too deep contact with God, and the Light is unbearable Joy; and in unendurable bliss my soul beseeches God that He will cover her from this most terrible rapture, this felicity which exceeds all measure. And she is not covered; and being in the last extremity from this most terrible joy, she beseeches Him again: and is immediately covered from it.
...
Wonderful, beautiful weeks went by, filled with divine, indescribable peace. The presence Of God was with me day and night, and the world was not the world as I had once known it-a place where men and women had fought and sinned and toiled and anguished and wondered horribly the meaning of this mystery of pain and joy, of life and death. The world was become Paradise, and in my heart I cried to all my fellow-souls, "Why fret and toil, why sweat and anguish for the things of earth when our own God has in His hand such peace and bliss and happiness to give to Every man? O come and receive it, Every man his share."
And the glamour of life in Unity with God became past all comprehension and all words.
…
These passages, then, should give the reader a general introduction to the tradition and wonderment of mystic Reality, and as it relates.to the God-within reality, and to transcendent Love; a tradition and wonderment of which Lennon obviously belongs.
…
Does Lennon have the earmarks, the qualities, of the charismatic spiritual leader despite his human flaws and failings? Bluntly, yes - in appearance and deed. Will he become a mythical hero in the course of time? By all accounts, most likely. Where is the evidence? Let me provide it, by traversing through his life, music, and words. Before commencing, however, be continuously alert to Lennon's natural humility and courage that shine through everything about him; for humility is the foremost human characteristic of a great soul, as it is the sign of his-her great love for humanity - "I'm concerned all right; I'm concerned with people"; and courage is the forceful characteristic that makes it possible to live this humility.
…
Look at it this way. Imagine you had evidence enough to believe that you, as a man, were an incarnation of God - I mean we all are at our essence; but you, in particular had the gift, the "third eye" to intuit this incredible truth. Now consider further that you want to spread the word through a medium that would resound throughout the world of this ineluctable truth about our spirituality in our day and age. What medium would you choose to reach the most people? Music, right? Rock music in particular; since it is this beat music that rouses to high energy, and inspires to action the "innermost recesses of the soul" most easily.
He has accomplished his first feat: the unleashing of a buoyant consciousness of freedom throughout western culture - not the freedom of self, but the freedom to be oneself regardless of conditioned values and beliefs - anyone raised in the 1950s and before will know exactly what I mean. And the youth movement of the Sixties gets underway in full force with tumultuous consequences, boding both good and ill.
…
Considering all that has been said of the Beatles - so far in this book, and in so many others - regarding them as a kind of religion (and to emphasis the phrase "kind of,") all the evidence points in that direction, as will be seen especially in the third part of this book, "Revolution and The Beatles." By the word "religion" is certainly not meant a formulated nor organized, church religion, but a religion inasmuch as their music, and Lennon's life and mission, are an aesthetic experience, par excellence that inspires good will and love and joy, and inspiration - inspirational in the sense that the magic and meaning of their music and charisma uplift us unto the flow of transcendent Love in grace, beauty, and power. And the effect stays with us, off and on, permanently; it never pales. What more would we want of a religion?
Paul McCartney:
I'm really glad that most of the songs dealt with love, peace, understanding. There's hardly any one of them that says, "Go on, kids, tell them all to sod off. Leave your parents." It's all very "All you Need is Love" or John's "Give Peace a Chance." There was a good spirit behind it all, which I'm very proud of anyway. It were a grand thing, the Beatles.
John Lennon:
This [the Beatles] isn't show business. It's something else. This is different from anything that anybody imagines. You don't go on from this. You do this and then you finish.
…
Ninth Perspective
THE VISIONARY
A Dream Vision
Rejoice! a visionary is in our times! Gone from life, but here in spirit-in the spirit of beauty and of truth: beauty in music and truth in deed.
…
Into the Vision
The Voice: (of Vision):
There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
. ..All you need is love
The mind (of Lennon):
I know it!...but what is love? It must be something more than human, because with it, in it, I-we, every-one-can do anything. There isn't anything that can't be done with love. I know that ...but how do I know
it? I can't put it in words. No, I don't know it as I normally know something; and yet I do-somehow.
…
Out from the Vision
John Lennon came with a vision that changed the world-a vision of love as "the underlying theme to the universe." That vision, through Lennon, changed the world in that it raised our consciousness of freedom -personal, social, and self-freedom.
…
Having all the elements for his world task residing in his being, Lennon must first become world famous, which he does through his creation of the Beatles, and their creation of a music that will mesmerize millions upon millions year by year. Using the Beatles as a medium, Lennon then proceeds to unravel and reveal himself as he begins his quest to transform the consciousness of his fellow beings.
Tenth Perspective
THE MUSICIAN
Forward
Yes, Lennon considered himself a torchbearer for the enlightenment of the popular consciousness --"I sort of wanted to bring a new message to the public, at least new to me."; "...we're (he and Yoko) carrying that torch, like the Olympic torch, passing it from hand to hand, to each other, to each country, to each generaation. That's our job". For when he disbanded the Beatles, he took their magic wand, snapped it in two, and tossed it on the rubbish heap. That magic was a mere frivolity compared to the real magic that was about to be set loose on the world; and Lennon was marked to be a medium through which it would course its way through human consciousness. This was not to be a magic of fantasy and play, but a magic of high seriousness: a magic expressive of the ideal, but realistic; of transcendence, but human. Something much more substantial was in the offing for collective man than his traditional values and beliefs had yet been able to accommodate. To be sure, this tradition had been suffering one blow after another since approximately the mid-nineteenth century from the thought of Darwin and Schopenhauer, through Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, and of the many other thinkers, and artists who have contributed to the advancement of human thought and expression. But the complexity of their works has always reached only a minor segment of society: the intelligentsia and artistic-minded, in general; the remaining two-thirds, more or less, of the population has remained in its old, moldy thought-patterns.
It is all too intellectual -- and frightening, for the majority. Yet truth has a particularly subtle way of making itself felt however long it may take, however long it is rejected. It seeps into the recesses of the individual and collective mind until gradually it cracks through the wall of resistance. If this dawning truth will not be recognized and accepted directly, easily, then it will take subversive, enticing, perverse measures until insidiously alienates more and more people from the conventional status quo; thereby setting society at odds with itself, as the vine of dissent, in all its guises, creeps indiscriminately -- but always with its set purpose in focus -- in all directions. Disorientation prevails; and from it, the teething process of growth gets underway amidst much anxiety and groping.
…
Steadily, he was advancing toward a self-integrated freedom, when in one explosive moment it ended; and what remains is the testament of his character, his example, his message, and his music.
And now the message through his music.
1963
This year the Beatles are making their mark on their own country from which they will go on to the world. Lennon introduces in the simplest form two of his three basic themes that course through his music and life: human love-which includes self-love (Love as essentially self preservation, self-identity), erotic love (as the male-female sexual-sensual-sensuous attraction normally leading to offspring) and vital love (as the vital [blood] bond to life and between human beings especially those closest to us - as of an umbilical cord); transcendent love-which includes Love-as-God (as the creator and destroyer of all being) Love-as-Purity (Love as essential being), and human-transcendent love-which includes humanistic love (the concern for the well-being of mankind), idealistic love (as ideal perfection), and selfless love (as mystic experience of the oneness of all)
SELECTED REPRESENTATIVE SONGS:
Human Love:……….……………."Please Please Me"
Transcendent Love:………………"There's a Place"
Human-Transcendent Love:
No sooner does Lennon become a world-wide phenomenon with the Beatles, than he begins his "father's work," as though this is the moment he had been waiting for -- "I had decided at sixteen or seventeen that whatever I did I wanted everybody to know it." Right from the beginning, then, Lennon reveals to the world his two sides -- our two sides -- his humanness (the all-too-human in us), and his transcendence (the more-than-human in us) To balance these two sides of himself, to attain to a kind of wisdom, will be his lifelong struggle; and he wants the world to witness this struggle, so that he can serve as an example, a witness, for others to do the same. This is what he means when he says that "I am a representative of the human race," "If you want to be a hero, then just follow me," "I am of the universe / and you know what it's worth."
…
1964
This year, Lennon, with the Beatles, solidifies his impression upon the world by singing traditional love songs, though in their own unique style of music, lyrics, and voice, coupled with their charismatic appearance and wit. This is the pivotal year from which all else follows.
SELECTED REPRESENTATIVE SONGS:
Human Love:……….……………. "I'm a Loser"
Transcendent Love:
Human-Transcendent Love:….…"Money" [cover song]
1
The Beatles are worldwide. Their success is unprecedented. They changed the world as though from out of the dark ages. They put a smile on our faces and a lift to our spirits. “We got a chance to put a smile on our faces..." [George Harrison] The Beatles are the Apollo of the dream, the light of the sun-Sun Gods. Their music uplifts, their personalities entice. They are magic, the dream weavers.
And Lennon?...Well, as much as he may be enjoying his glory, he nonetheless has his father's work to do underlying all the Beatle "to-do." -- "The one thing those Beatles did was to affect PEOPLE'S MINDS." [Lennon]
Another minimally transcendent message issues from him in the cover song "Money,” in which he cries out at the end "I want to be free!"
Free? Free from what? Doesn't he have the world in his hands; all the money, women, influence, power, prestige that anyone could imagine for a young man in his early twenties? Yet something is wrong, somewhere, somehow? He fought every inch of the way for this victory. Why is it not enough? Why can't he bask in his fame? Live the good life, the high life to the hilt?
…
1965
This is the year Lennon discloses to the world in no uncertain terms his intent to "show ev'rybody the light." And this light is Love as manifested humanly, transcendently, and human-transcendently. Regarding human love, he reveals his need of love ("Help!"), the violence of it ("Run for Your Life") and the tenderness of it ("In My Life"); regarding transcendent love, he announces his vision of Love ("The Word") and its meaning to him ("In My Life"); and regarding human-transcendent love, he reveals his humanistic concerns in light of it ("Girl").
SELECTED REPRESENTATIVE SONGS:
Human Love:……….……………. "Help" / "Run for Your Life" / "Nowhere Man"
Transcendent Love:…………….. "The Word" / "In My Life"
Human-Transcendent Love:…….."Girl"
1
Help! I need somebody
Help! not just anybody
- Help
These are the desperate lyrics Lennon sang during the halcyon Beatle days that first sounded, in no uncertain terms, in no boy-girl format, a personal note of a mind, a heart, a soul, in trouble; of a man locked inside himself, a man of expansive potentials constricted into a bleak sense of guilt, futility, rage, and worthlessness; a man whose tremendous musical and social successes only magnified his personal failures; a man isolated from the soundings of his true self -- his Love being.
Though the track has a commercial up-tempo beat, still an urgent vulnerability comes across as he drives through the song. Here for the first time he -- or any musician, for that matter -- reveals his soft underbelly in no uncertain terms. Yes, he was fiercely independent in his early youth, and "never needed anybody's help in any way"; but now his defenses are collapsing, his "independence seems to vanish in the haze"; and he is desperate for "not just anybody," but for that one special woman, his "dream girl," as he called her, who would not only love in return, but would help free his bound and hurting mind. She had to be of his cali- ber, and his present wife simply was not. Something in him is pressing to be known, to be freed; and he is wise enough to know that only the love of the right woman can start him on the way to self-freedom. But there would be no one to help get his "feet back on the ground," back to reality, until he fell in love with Yoko almost three years later. For know he is crying out for help.
I meant it -- it's real. The lyric is as good now as it was then. It is no different, and it makes
me feel secure to know that I was aware of myself then. It was just me singing "Help!"
and I meant it.
…
2
Yet, through the eye of all this Beatle pandemonium comes the Beatles' "Rubber Soul" album which first introduces the world to John Lennon, the lyrical and melodic poet of the first order who envisions love "as something new"; the humanist who pains over man who "must break his back to earn his day of leisure;" the sentimentalist (in the best sense of the word) who will "never lose affection for people and things that went before."
It is his vision of Pure Love and his humanistic deeds that Lennon will insinuate into the public conscious- ness for the next fifteen year; and these have their missionary beginnings on this album: his love vision in The Word, and his humanism in Girl.
It sort of dawned on me that love was the answer. The first expression of it was a song
called "The "Word." Love seemed like the underlying theme to the universe. Everything
worthwhile got down to this love, love, love, you know: the struggle to love and be loved.
There's something about love that's fantastic. Even though I'm not always a loving person,
I want to be that. I want to be as loving as possible, or in the Christian sense, as Christ-like
as possible; or in the Hindu sense, as Gandhiesque as possible.
…
We started putting out messages. Like "The word is love," and things like that. I write
messages.
And so Lennon's -- and pop music's -- first anthem of human-transcendent love is ushered into our consciousness in a bright, upbeat of optimism. He now has the answer to the freedom "in the mind" he is seeking, and it is love; not simply erotic love, but a vaster humanistic, spiritual Love: the love of which Jesus, St. Paul, Buddha, and all the seers and sages down through the centuries have taught. Even the title of this song, "The Word," has something profoundly, yet simply, sacred about it; as witness the sublimity of these two words conveyed in the opening lines of St. John's Gospel:
"In the beginning was the Word; the Word was in God's presence and the Word was God."
And the divine promise of Christ's words:
"And the Word will set you free."
There's no question that Lennon meant this phrase to have a similar impact And in Lennon's meaning, the Word is Love; just as it is in the Christian meaning: "God is love." And Jesus, believed to be the Son of God-"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us," is, by exchange of words: the Son of Love; or in more human terms, the personification of Love. And love is what he lived, and what he taught, and why he "made his dwelling among us."
…
So taken all in all, love has far more, vaster, meaning than our normal understanding and use of the word. It is no mere feeling, yet feeling is our consciousness of it; it is not exclusive to thee and thine, yet this is our human contact with it; it transcends the erotic in us, yet the erotic binds us to life. Love in its fullest meaning is no less than the universal power that orders everything as it is, to its place. And this is Lennon's meaning when he speaks of love as "the underlying theme to the universe, and when he thinks of love as something new and when he sings his poetry of love in such songs as "Tomorrow Never Knows," "Across the Universe," "And your Bird can Sing," "All you Need is Love," and more. To give an idea of the company Lennon is in regarding his vision of love, the following select minds have this to say about love.
Alexander Pope / English poet
Look round our world; behold the chain of love
Combining all below and all above.
Rumi / sufi poet
Love is the energizing elixir of the universe, the cause and effect of all harmonies, light's brilliance and the heat in wine and fire, it is the aroma in perfumes and the breath of the Divinity; it is the Life in all being. Love is the quickening solvent in maya and the coalescing agent in union. It is all the texts have to say, and the more that remains unspoken. 'What is love? Thou shalt know when thou becomest me.'
Vivekananda / Indian philosopher-seer
Where should man go to prove the existence of God? Love is the most visible of all things. It is the force that is moving the sun, the moon, and stars, manifesting itself in men, women, and in animals, everywhere and in everything. It is expressed in material forces as gravitation and so on. It is everywhere, in every atom, manifesting everywhere. It is that infinite love, the only motive power of this universe, visible everywhere, and this is God Himself.
Shakespeare / English playwright-poet
Love is a spirit all compact of fire
…
These passages clearly evince the awesome impression that we are in fact faced with the essence, the principle, the might, the Meaning, of reality, of existence, in this matter of Love. It is no mere sentiment, it is, as Lennon put it, "the underlying theme to the universe." And in the human realm of meaning, love is the bond that unifies man to woman, woman to man, and man to man, woman to woman, and men and women to their common humanity.
Lennon envisioned somehow -- mystically, or intuitively, or surrealistically, or conceptually -- the meaning of love in both its universal and particular perspectives; and being gifted with musical genius and personal magnetism, he set forth to "spread the word"-which makes it all the more significant that his first preachment would be his bright, optimistic, upbeat song "The Word."
Beauty through lyrical imagery and melodic nuances is to be Lennon's medium through which he evokes the message of love; which is what his wife, Yoko Ono meant when she said, "John's stuff is like the message is the medium; it's the message. ...it's like an urgent message, I feel. " And love is the message heralding its way through the medium of beauty: as expressed musically in Lennon's genius of musical expression.
…
3
It is for this reason of being in touch with this Love Reality that Lennon can boldly announce to the world in "The Word" that he is to be a messenger of love.
Now that I know what I feel must be right,
I mean to show ev'rybody the light.
-The Word
…
4
Lennon's enterprise then is twofold: humanistic-the way to love; and transcendent-the way of love. These two master themes will interweave in both his music and his life.
It is his humanistic strain -- "I'm concerned with people, all right" -- that fairly much dominates the Rubber Soul album and all his future solo albums in particular, as well as his life in four specific songs: "In My Life," "Girl," "Run for your Life," and "Nowhere Man." These songs earmark three distinctive features of his humanistic concern: sympathy, justice, and truth. His sympathy reveals itself in "In My Life" in a sentimental air of nostalgia for his past:
I know I'll never lose affection
for people and things that went before,
I know I'll often stop and think about them...
Yet even in this flush of human sentiment, he considers love transcendently:
and these memories lose their meaning
when I think of love as something new.
…
His justice unfolds in his sighing madrigal "Girl", which serves as the genesis of his crusade "to save humanity"
Was she told when she was young
that pain would lead to pleasure?
Did she understand it when they said
that a man must break his back
to earn his day of leisure,
will she still believe it when he's dead?
These closing verses lodge a subtle attack against religious doctrine and social inequity that both exploit
and oppress the people. The first two lines strike at Christianity.
…
1966
This year Lennon's main concern is to infuse his public with the spiritual aspect of his world task-the God-within. Having done that, he would expect that the “enlightened” person would have done with the God-in-the-sky concept and all its religions. Accordingly, he makes his controversial statement against institutional Christianity, and thereby puts his life and security on the line by compounding enemies by the millions-the stuff of which heroism is made.
SELECTED REPRESENTATIVE SONGS:
Human Love
Transcendent Love:…………….. "Rain" / "She Said, She Said" / "And Your Bird Can Sing"
/ "Tomorrow Never Knows"
Human-Transcendent Love:…… "Rain"
1
Lennon has discovered something of monumental importance: that everything is a state of mind. Change your state of mind, or your attitude, and you can change yourself.
Everything is its opposite.
And this is the optimism that shines through his song, "Rain." First, he introduces in imagery of rain and sun our usually resisting, ineffectual state of mind when faced with change or effort.
If the rain comes they run and hide their heads.
They might as well be dead,
If the rain comes, if the rain comes.
When the sun shines they slip into the shade,
And sip their lemonade,
When the sun shines, when the sun shines.
Lennon assures us that he himself will not give way to the discomforts of rain or shine: change and effort.
Rain, I don't mind,
Shine, the weather's fine.
The meaning here is not so much a matter of self-control, or forbearance, or moral courage, as it is more a change of mind: of outlook, of attitude. With this change of mind, the pain from which we flee, ends - almost miraculously! We are transformed. We probably have experienced this ourselves when we have decided "once and for all" to end a long term habit. Suddenly our worst fears are dissolved. No more urge, no more pain. We have made up our mind. The miracle, of course, is coming to this "making up our mind." All the reasoning in the world won't reconcile us to the pain of withdrawal, to the breaking a long-term habit of mind. Just as we can't make ourselves fall in love, so we can't persuade ourselves to welcome pain. Something "miraculous " has to happen to us, something transcendent of reason and self has to occur.
Lennon touches on this miracle in this same song:
…
This will be an ongoing motif of Lennon's, that you "feel your own pain." He doesn't mean this merely in a psychological sense -- that is too much to expect from most of us-but in a transcendent sense of drawing to the pain, being that pain, loving that pain; in which case the pain dissolves.
And this is the freedom, the power, the love, in the mind, that needs only to be tapped. All that is required is the right perspective on everything-and that is everything: the wisdom of all. Everything else we might attain in this life comes nowhere near this attainment: this jewel of human understanding, this wisdom which frees the mind unto self-freedom; and love is its center, force, and meaning.
This is the meaning that comes through in Lennon's "And Your Bird Can Sing". The "me" to which he refers can be interpreted as Love: "the underlying theme to the universe." "Me" is the Love in you, in me, in everyone.
You tell me that you've ev'rything you want,
And your bird can sing,
But you don't get me,
You don't get me.
…
No matter what you possess, what you experience, what you achieve, everything falls short of the ultimate prize - freedom in the mind: Love. And where in the mind does this Love reside? In the mystic center of it: the void, wherein nothing exists except the pure light-power of Love itself. And it is this Love that we "don't get," that we "can't see," that we "can't hear," so long as we are entranced by the swoon of our senses and pandemonium of our ego. Dazzled by love of self we are blinded to love of Love.
This is not to make a judgment as to whether we should or should not be dazzled by life to the exclusion of Love itself, but a truth. And the truth simply stated is: the less we love life through the eye of self, the more of Love we become; and so, the more loving beyond our self. By dying to self we live to Love. Yet people feel that this dying to self is a dying to life; which is as far off the mark as to say that the less we love, the more we are loved.
Nonetheless, the dread of dying to self so as to reach the mystic center of Love is far too overpowering for far too many people. Lennon however attempts to dispel this dread in his visionary "Tomorrow Never Knows. " It is the vision of the mystics throughout the ages, experienced as pure bliss-consciousness. It has been named differently according to different cultures: God, Nirvana, Satori, Truth, Spirit, the Void, the Kingdom of Heaven, the One, the All. Lennon calls it Love. Regardless of the name-though It cannot really be named-the Reality is the same.
Turn off your mind relax and float downstream,
it is not dying, it is not dying,
lay down all thought surrender to the void,
it is shining, it is shining.
That you may see the meaning of within,
it is speaking, it is speaking,
That love is all and love is ev'ryone,
it is knowing, it is knowing.
And as this self-freedom, this Love, is in the mind, and not in some formalized religious catechism, or ritual, or dogma, it can be tapped; one can be his own priest. It has something to do with the truth that everything is "just a state of mind," and that somehow we have the power to change our states of mind; and that somehow this power is identified with the divinity of Love: of God.-"God is love."*
All we've got to solve is our own heads.
…
With this self-oriented perspective of God, it comes as no surprise that Lennon would reject the mesh of organized religion; Christianity in particular, since he was an occidental.
Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that. I'm right and I will
be proved right. We're [the Beatles] more popular than Jesus now. I don't know which
will go first -- rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick
and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.
In its way the second political thing I did was say “The Beatles are bigger than Jesus
....I nearly got shot in America for that." [The first political thing he did was the creation
of the Beatles.]
I believe what Jesus actually said -- the basic things he laid down about love and
goodness -- and not what people say he said. If Jesus being more popular means
more control, I don't want that. I'd sooner they'd all follow us even it's just to dance and
sing for the rest of their lives. If they took more interest in what Jesus - or any of them --
said, it they did that, we'd all be there with them. ...I am [religious] in the respect that I
believe in goodness and all those things.
I've nothing really against the idea of Christianity and their ways. I suppose I wouldn't
make that remark about Jesus today [that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus].
I think about things differently. I think Buddhism is simple and more logical than Christianity,
but I've nothing against Jesus. I'll let Julian [his son] learn all about Jesus when he goes
to school, but I'll also tell him there have been lots of other Jesuses. I'll tell about the
Buddhist ones; they're good men as well.
I don't need to go to church. I respect churches, because of the sacredness that's
been put on them over the years by people who do believe. I think a lot of bad things
have happened in the name of the church, in the name of Christ; and therefore, I shy
away from churches. As Donnovan once said, "I go to my own church, in my own temple,
once a day. I think people who need a church should go; and others who know the church
is in your own head, should go visit that; because that's where the source is.
Everything you read about, all the religions, are all the same basically. It's just a matter of
people opening their minds up.
Lennon's central point regarding the Christian religion is, in effect: Lay aside all religious paraphernalia: dogma, catechism , ritual, practices, church attendance, homilies; and center in to the purity of religion: its spirituality, which is in our own church: our mind. God is in our mind, not in church. No one person, has an exclusive priority on God; we are all essentially God-that is our meaning. Life, we might say, is one of the dimensions of God; and so long as we are living, we are that dimension in our own individual form. So, in reality, we are two realities removed from God: first, our own individual form of life; and second, the dimen- sion or form of life itself. Yet we have our intimations of god, our images, symbols, and signs to represent the God of our mind-twice-removed.
…
And for those who are finely in touch with the God in their mind: Love-Meaning, they are to inspire and guide others to that Source. But that they vest themselves in the pride and honor, of being the chosen ones to preach to their flock (of sheep)-that Lennon will not abide. Humility is what Christ taught, and what Buddha taught, and what Krishna taught, and what Zarathustra (Nietzsche's Zarathustra) taught. You cannot "be powerful and pure," Lennon said-or otherwise stated: You cannot both love yourself ego-directedly and be of Love, simultaneously.
The message, then, is: seek God in your mind with the inspiration and guidance of those who, in humility, have found It-as far as that is humanly possible.
And Lennon has images of God as Love radiating Itself across the universe.
1967
Lennon's songs this year continue his emphasis on transcendent Love, mostly in surrealistic, psychedelic imagery. Human-transcendently, he gets across the idea that not only is he of special import, meaning, to this life ("Strawberry Fields Forever"), but that so is everyone else in his/her own unique way ("Baby You're a rich Man")
SELECTED REPRESENTATIVE SONGS:
Human Love:……….……………. "All You Need Is Love" / "A Day in the Life"
Transcendent Love:……………... "All You Need Is Love" / "Fixing a Hole" / "Across The Universe" / "I Am the Walrus"
Human-Transcendent Love:…… "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Baby You're a rich Man"
1
Images of broken light which dance before me like million eyes,
That call me on and on across the universe.
. . .
Limitless undying love which shines around me like a
million suns,
It calls me on and on across the universe
…
- Across the Universe
This gorgeously lyrical song* of cosmic love alone places Lennon in the hallmark of the great mystic poets. This song represents his vision of God-as-Love in the surreal imagery of lyrical music. In this beauteous song, Lennon has translated his vision of universal love into a transcendental swirl of endless images that "fly out," that "slither," that "wave," and "drift," and "dance," and "meander," and "tumble," "ring," and "shine." Whereas his "Tomorrow Never Knows" evokes the unity of love set in the still of the void, the eye of the storm, "Across the Universe" attempts to name the nameless in images that evoke the multiplicity of love in its perpetual play of energy forces and forms. Yet Lennon contrasts this multiplicity of Love with the unifying still of Love in the lines, "Nothing's gonna change my world"; which is to say: everything changes except Love in its eternal unknown Meaning -- "my world."
…
So to interpret Lennon's lyric "all you need is love" simply, or essentially, in erotic or humanistic terms is by far to miss his point. The love that all we need, for him, is the love that moves mountains, that is the kingdom to which Christ refers in his words "Seek first the kingdom of heaven and all else will be given you." And to change the wording slightly in Christ's answer to the woe of this life, Lennon is in effect is singing: Seek first the kingdom of Love, and all else will be given you. By this exchange of word-meaning, it will be easier to understand the meaning of Lennon's whole body of work, and of his mission; which is to sing his soul in urgency for his, and, for man's, human realization of this Love.
The more humanistic message of "All you Need is Love" is the one we are more familiar with: universal brotherhood love. Lennon has this to say about this interpretation of his song:
…
And how do we tap this world Love? Meditation is one way. Still, as Lennon exclaims:
O, my soul!...It's so hard.
1968
This year Lennon falls deeply in love with Yoko Ono, a Japanese artist. Love in its erotic phase is at the fore of his life. This love-relationship fits appropriately into his scheme of things, as it merges the western world with the eastern world. His transcendent songs are more obscure, yet otherworldly nonetheless. Human-transcendently, he initiates his social-political statement that before institutions can be fundamentally changed we must first "change our heads." ("Revolution")
SELECTED REPRESENTATIVE SONGS:
Human Love:……….……………. "Dear Prudence" / "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" / "Julia"
Transcendent Love:…………….. "Glass Onion" / "Everybody's Got something to Hide
Except Me and My Monkey" / "Hey Bulldog"
Human-Transcendent Love:…….. "Revolution"
1
Lennon, with the Beatles, is in India in the early months of the year meditating under the guidance of the Guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
We [the Beatles] dropped drugs long before we met the Maharishi. It had
done all it could do for us. There was no going any further.
. . .
Yes, he is "of the universe," and yes, "Love is all and love is ev'ryone," and yes, “Love is the underlying theme to the universe"; and for all his insight and vision into transcendent love, he sings, "And you know what it's worth"-- which is not very much for him without the gift of human love between a man and a woman. And this he still does not have; and he is desperate, and suicidal.
Yes, I'm lonely wanna die
. . .
Home from India, Lennon falls completely in love with Yoko, and she with him. Her love is to be for him the synapse to the Love source that possesses him. She opens a channel in him through which can flow his full artistic creativity. She makes him see that he is a true artist in his own right apart from the Beatles. The second stage of his mission gets underway: the humanizing of his transcendent vision of Love.
I've never known love like this before, and it hit me so hard that I had to halt my marriage to Cyn. And I don't think that was a reckless decision, because I felt very deeply about it and all the implications that would be involved. Some may say my decision was selfish. Well, I don't think it is. Are your children going to thank you when they are eighteen? There is something else to consider too-isn't it better to avoid rearing children in the atmosphere of a strained relationship?
…
No sooner do they get together than they initiate a series of artistic and social events which carry with them consequences of far-reaching magnitude. Yoko inspires Lennon's courage to the task.
. . .
So there is a case for us all to put society right; and that is basically why there is unrest all over the world; because a revolution must come.
…
4
Yes, "a revolution must come"-but a revolution of epic grandeur, the likes of which humanity will ever stand in awe. This is first and last an individual revolution, and only subsequently a social, political revolution. In this revolution, psychological fears will be largely dispelled, fears of the unknown, of death, of insecurity, of failure, of rejection, of inadequacy, and so forth.
Lennon's "Hey Bulldog" touches on this future state of mind.
…
There is a kind of happiness, a kind of child-like innocence, a kind of solitude in the soul of our mind that last "miles" and "years"; a state of mind which will enable us to "listen to our fears," which we can turn to when we're "lonely." We may have had glimpses, intuitions, momentary surges of this state of mind, and think that is all there is to it, that it can have little or no effect on our daily lives. Lennon thinks differ- ently; he sings that we "haven't got a clue" to the limitless power of the mind-to our power to will. In comparison to this power, our "smile" -- i.e. self-pride-is not so very "special." That we have this limitless power to will changes of mind, enhances us far beyond mere self-pride into a sphere of self-worth that makes us all essentially beautiful. And this is Lennon's drift in his "Baby You're a Rich Man," recorded a year earlier. The song is a projection into the future of man's mind.
…
And were we to interpret Lennon's song "Happiness is a Warm Gun," as a redemptive salvation by the means of erotic love then I think we would be close to the song's meaning.
Let me put this interpretation in as simple terms as possible: Yoko saved Lennon from suicidal despair. Let us start with that as the main theme to the song.
She's not a girl who misses much
. . .
She's well acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand
The "she" is the aware woman who knows what is going on with the lecherous type of man with the "velvet hand."
Like a lizard on a window pane.
. . .
The man in the crowd with the multicoloured mirrors
On his hobnail boots
Lying with his eyes while his hands are busy
Working overtime
A soap impression of his wife which he ate
And donated to the Nation Trust.
There he is, lizard-like, looking up women's skirts, and the like, flattering them at every turn with a turn of the phrase for his sexual pleasure, while treating his wife like s - - t A soap impression of his wife which he ate/ And donated (as excrement) to the Nation Trust.
This type of lusting behavior of men -- himself included, I'm sure he would include -- and the whole depravity aspect of sex depresses him, despairs him so searingly that he needs "a fix" to relieve him.
I need a fix 'cause I'm going down
Down to the bits that I left uptown
I need a fix cause I'm going down
But in the end the fix relieves him only temporarily, and he's back to his despair over and over again to the point the suicide seems the only way of the pain. And for his suicidal state of mind happiness would be a warm gun, since he would be out of his misery after shooting himself out of existence.
But Yoko - "I occasionally call her Mother, because I used to call her Mother Superior; remember `Happiness is a Warm Gun'? She is Mother superior" -- comes to the rescue, and saves him from the gun to the head.
Mother Superior jumped the gun
…
And so, the actual gun transforms into the warm feel of his woman-savior in his arms and in his touch.
Happiness is a warm gun
When I hold you in my arms
And I feel my finger on your trigger
I know no one can do me no harm
Because happiness is a warm gun
It is love as erotic that now has embraced him, that has freed him from his "deep despair." His vision alone could no longer sustain him. He needed the right woman for his equilibrium, if not for his sanity; and he has her in Yoko Ono.
. . .
1969
There is scant mention of transcendent Love this year, as Lennon is now absorbed in his erotic love of Yoko and their artistic, social, political activities. The over-coming of his drug addiction ("Cold Turkey") -- to ease the pain "when we were without hope,” as he put it. -- lets his public know just how frail he is however his world status may seem to the contrary. He carries his political message from song to deed in their bed-in for world peace using the Viet Nam War as a leverage point, which many Americans considered unjust. He interjects brief mention of his transcendent message in two of his songs as though to remind his public that is where he remains essentially centered.
SELECTED REPRESENTATIVE SONGS:
Human Love:……….……………. "Don't Let Me Down" / "I Want You" / "Cold Turkey"
Transcendent Love:…………….. "The Ballad of John and Yoko" / "Because"
Human-Transcendent Love:…… "Give Peace a Chance" / "Come Together" / "Dig a Pony"
1
Having found his other half in Yoko, Lennon's mind descends from the cosmic dance of "undying love" to the sensual bond of erotic love. He celebrates his descent from the heights in two extraordinary songs that capture both the sensuality (passion thrust) and the sensuousness (passion-beauty) of their erotic love. In "I Want You," the beat clearly evokes the drive and thrust of the sex act, while at the same time, a subtle, inflowing rhythm particularly noticeable during the instrumental section, tempers the animality of the act into a surging act of love. Words are hardly necessary, and appropriately Lennon pares the lyrics to the essentials.
I want you so bad
It's driving me mad, it's driving me mad.
She's so heavy
- I Want You (She's So Heavy)
…
War is over if you want it.
We all have Hitler in us, but we also have love and peace. So why not give peace a
chance for once.
Ev'rybody's talking about
Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism,
Ragism, Tagism,
This-ism, that-ism, is-m is-m is-m
All we are saying is give peace a chance.
- Give Peace a Chance
I was...pleased when the movement in America took up "Give Peace A Chance" because I
had written it with that in mind really. I hoped that instead of singing `We Shall Overcome'
from 1800 or something, they would have something contemporary. I felt an obligation even
then to write a song that people would sing in a pub or on a demonstration. That is why I would
like to compose songs for the revolution now.
The newspapers said, say what're you doing in bed
I said we're only trying to get us some peace.
- The Ballad of John and Yoko
We are both artists! Peace is our art. We believe that because of everything I was as
a Beatle and everything that we are now, we stand a chance of influencing other young
people. And it is they who will rule the world tomorrow.
…
Early in the evening I'm giving you the feeling
Everybody's nothing
And nothing to lose.
- (extemporaneous singing)
"Everybody's nothing" in the sense that at our core we are pure nothing but Love, Being, Soul-God. So whatever we seem to lose in this life, we actually do not lose anything in the end, since every-thing is a manifestation of Love; and so, in a sense is as real as no-thing.
Because the world is round it turns me on.
Because the world is round
- Ah - love is old, love is new,
Love is all, love is you.
- Because
This proper perspective also includes the realization of one's humanness, and its searing pain in the addictive extreme.
Temperature's rising
Fever is high
Can't see no future
Can't see no sky.
Cold turkey has got me on the run.
. . .
Oh I'll be a good boy
Please make me well
I promise you anything
Get me out of this hell.
Cold turkey has got me on the run.
- Cold Turkey
This harrowing song of frenzied despair is on the surface level a compelling evocation of heroin withdrawal.
. . .
Lennon has the intuition that to even begin to be free -- relatively free from desires of the ego and needs of the self: self-freedom-we have to face the understanding of the fears, insecurities, defenses, hostilities that accompany these desires and needs. We must work through them in pain and in joy. He invites us to follow his soul-struggle.
1970
Lennon's landmark solo album John Lennon Plastic Ono Band centers him right in the throb of human love balanced by his humanistic endeavors. His suffering humanity shines through as he strips himself of his false personas thereby preparing the way for others to do the same. It is the God of Love, not the idols of man, that inspire and guide him. It is his love for Yoko, and her love for him, that embolden and support him.
SELECTED REPRESENTATIVE SONGS:
Human Love:……….……………. "Mother" / "Love" / "Well Well Well" / "Look At Me" /
"Isolation" / "Look at Me" / "My Mummy's Dead"
Transcendent Love:…………….. "Love"
Human-Transcendent Love:…… "Hold On" / "I Found Out" / "Remember" / "Love" / "Working Class
Hero" / "God"
1
The Beatles are over, and John Lennon, the man and artist, emerges about to begin the trek through the jungle of his psyche, through the desert of his soul -- in search of his soul. He intends to work through to his being here and now, in life; and not to leave the consequences of his actions to some cosmic karma, or re- incarnated destiny, of past and future existences. We make our own karma, our own destiny, is the message.
Instant Karma's gonna get you
Gonna knock you right on the head
…
His [Janov] thing is to feel the pain that's accumulated inside you ever since your childhood.
I had to do it to really kill off all the religious myths. In the therapy you really feel every painful
moment of your life -- it's excruciating. You are forced to realize that your pain, the kind that
makes you wake up afraid, with your heart pounding, is really yours and not the result of
somebody up in the sky. It's the result of your parents and your environment. As I realized his
it all started to fall into place. This therapy forced me to have done with all the God shit. All of
us growing up have come to terms with too much pain. Although we repress it, it's still there.
The worst pain is that of not being wanted, of realizing your parents do not need you in the
way you need them. When I was a child I experienced moments of not wanting to see the
ugliness, not wanting to see not being wanted. This lack of love went into my eyes and into
my mind. Janov doesn't just talk to you about this but makes you feel it. Once you've allowed
yourself to feel again, you do most of the work yourself. When you wake up and your heart is
going like clappers or your back is strained, or you develop some other hang-up, you should
let your mind go to the pain and the pain itself will regurgitate the memory which originally
caused you to suppress it in your body. In this way the pain goes to the right channel instead
of being repressed again, as it is if you take a pill or a bath, saying, "Well, I'll get over it."
Mine is an extreme case, you know. My mother and father split and I never saw my father
until I was 20, nor did I see much more of my mother. But Yoko had her parents there and it
was the same. [Yoko: “Perhaps one feels more pain when parents are there. It's like when
you're hungry, you know it's worse to get a symbol of a cheeseburger than no cheeseburger
at all It doesn't do you any good, you know. I often wished my mother had died so that at least
I could get some people's sympathy. But there she was, a perfectly beautiful mother.”] And
Yoko's family were middle-class Japanese, but it's all the same repression; though I think
middle-class people have the biggest trauma if they have nice imagery parents, all smiling
and dolled up. They are the ones who have the biggest struggle to say, "Goodbye mummy,
goodbye daddy."
Mother! you had me
but I never had you
I wanted you
you didn't want me
- Mother
…
So opens Lennon's marvelous landmark album, John Lennon Plastic Ono Band, an album about pain set in a stark, Spartan, echo sound of rock, beat, and lyricism. In the simplest terms, he plumbs his deepest, most incisive fears and pains; unmasks his various personas one by one until he stands as emotionally naked to the world as he stood physically naked on his "Two Virgins" album. Yet each song subtly registers a measure of hope, of courage, of human sympathy and understanding. It is a work of inspiration, a work of timeless and universal meaning. It inspires regeneration.
"John Lennon is my doctor. Whenever I want therapy, I put on his new album [John
Lennon, Plastic Ono Band]. He has lived the didactic. The songs are what every
patient experiences. The genius of the Beatles is proved. It is John. In this record,
John has made the universal statement. I believe it will transform the world."
- Arthur Janov, psychologist, founder of the primal scream therapy
…
And, as is his wont, he carries his personal predicament to the world for it to hold on too; that you're gonna see the light-the light of the truth of one's life and of life itself.
Hold on world, world hold on
It's gonna be alright
You gonna see the light
…
Having bid his parents farewell, he next assures himself to "hold on, It's gonna be alright." He now has Yoko, the love of his life. He now has his other half; he is complete. And however indelibly scarred he may be from his mother-father trauma, with Yoko, he can now at least psychologically stabilize, if not com- pletely normalize, the destructive elements of his psyche. Also, he has his transcendence, the integrity, the unity, of his self with others to help brave the pain of this life.
When you're one
Really one,
You get things done,
Like they've never been done
And, as is his wont, he carries his personal predicament to the world for it to hold on too; that you're gonna see the light-the light of the truth of one's life and of life itself.
Hold on world, world hold on
It's gonna be alright
You gonna see the light
…
In “Working Class Hero,” he now points out the pain that has to be gotten through: the pain that is inflicted by family, bureaucracy and fellows. A pain so deep and restricting that one can hardly ever relieve it entirely.
. . .
At this point of his life, it is becoming clearer and clearer to Lennon that he realizes himself to be a guide out of the abyss and malaise of the contemporary "nowhere man." Yet he is as vulnerable as the next man under the scrutiny and influence of his fellow beings, as he sings in "Isolation."
And so in “Love,” he reminds us of our ultimate origin, Love, and how vulnerable we are to Its manifes- tations in this life of loving and being loved. If we are not loved nor can love, we are ruined as human beings in one way or another.
…
Yes, he has the vision that the word is Love -- that it is free, that it is you, that it is me, that it is touch, that it it sunshine, that it is being; but the din of human desire and need, and impulse, and suffering, drown it out. and though both he and Yoko "sat and talked of revolution," of women's liberation, "of how the hell we can get things done,"-still, they're only human, and don't know how to get things done, and both are "nervous, feeling guilty" that they're not coming up to what they know and preach. Their whole enterprise is fright- ening, elusive, seemingly impossible, too much, too vast for "just a boy and girl trying to change the whole wide world." He screams out his frustration in the refrain "Well, well, well." This frustration casts grave doubt on the whole meaning of their mission, his vision, as plaintively expressed in his next song.
…
He surely is lost, confused. He doesn't know who he is; yet he does really know
Nobody knows but me.
Nobody else can see
Just you and me.
- Look at Me
He is convinced what he is eternally, what he is here on earth to do; it is the human element that confuses him and foster so much doubt and fear and pain. But his vision of eternal Love cannot ever be denied, as he sang in his 'Across the Universe”: "nothing's gonna change my world” -- the world of "limitless, undying love which shines around” him in the purity of his mind.
…
That he believes in World-Love as the ultimate reality of life, of existence dismisses not only all need of or- ganized, ritualistic, dogmatic religion of the God of those moth-eaten religions that have man either on his knees in prayer or on his haunches in meditation. And this applies also for the so-called avatars of those religions or philosophies "from Jesus to Paul" as he sang in "I Found Out! " from Buddha to any leader who says , in effect, "Follow me as charismatic god-person.
He may have the way in his mind and in his message, but the man himself is to be forgotten. In other words, be concerned with what is being said, not who said it.
And this is the point of his next to last song, "God."
…
He believes only in this reality, in himself, in himself and Yoko.
The dream is over...
I just think it's a lot of bullshit, I think it's the biggest joke on earth that everyone's talking
about some imaginary thing in the sky that's going to save you and talking about life after
earth which nobody has ever proved or shown to be feasible. Why should we follow Jesus?
I'll follow Yoko, I'll follow myself…
It's the same as I did when I went looking for gurus, It's because you're looking for
the answer which everybody is supposedly looking for. You're looking for some kind
of super-daddy. The reason for this is because we're never given enough love and
touch as children.
…
Turn to yourself, he is singing. Be your own leader, be your own priest. Be guided, yes, but take that wis- dom unto yourself; don't idolize it or those who preach or teach it, whatever high place that person may be in: cardinal, pope, Dama Lama. You are not only your own person, you are your own God. God is in your temple, not in a church or holy Eucharist, or creed, except symbolically. God is the meaning of your life and existence, however we may never know that meaning. There is a meaning to our reality, to all reality itself, and it is inherent to all of us, to everything; and so is us apart from our bio-psychological self. And that Meaning can be called God or Love or Spirit or Mind, or whatever else; it does not matter. What does matter is that essentially, eternally, we are that Meaning. Lennon-and others -- St John: God is Love -- believe that Meaning, God, is Love; mainly because of the creative force and intelligence of which somehow, if we can tap into, we share in our Godhood, our Lovehood, in this life, and not only at death. And the most important way to experience this love is through acts of love: both deeds and creations, whether artistic, or as artisan, or scientific, or morally, or spiritually (meditation, contemplation). There is a beauty to love that surpasses understanding so that you reach the truth in intuition, in vision, or in reality.
Lennon had the intuition, the vision, and struggled all his life to make his vision of Love a human reality, whether in his peace activities...in his life. And he recognizes that to happen, one must strip himself of false notions, personas, pretenses, idols; and face the truth of one's pain and fear and insecurities so as to reach a kind of wisdom of insecurity -- which, in effect, is not relying of the appearances of security -- which, in fact, never really or fully gives security; but to rely on oneself as a frail, vulnerable human being, who however has a transcendence about him that is the infinite power and intelligence of the world-Love. This is the keystone concept underlying this masterful album.
But for all this "wisdom of insecurity," for all his iconoclastic stripping away of false personas and idols, for all his visions and intuitions of humanistic, universal love, still he closes his album crying out for the lost love of his "mummy". This loss pangs him to the soul, and always will for all his therapy, his gurus, his drugs, his meditations, his genius, his grand love in Yoko, his world success.
…
This extended diversion from Hesse's novel, Goldmand and Narcissus, to the origins of the Earth Mother, to the Divine Mother, to Nietzsche's Venus, deepens our understanding of Lennon's "fixation," you might call it with his absent-lost mother, and his devotion to his wife, Yoko, who apparently embodied all aspects of the Mother. His following remarks will have more meaning now.
I occasionally call her [Yoko] Mother…She is Mother Superior, she is Mother Earth,
she is the mother of my child, she is my mother, she is my daughter. The relationship
goes through many levels, as in most relationships; it does not have any deep-seated
strangeness about it.]
And I can do no better than closing this topic by summarizing with a statement by Hermann Hesse regarding the man-women relationship: "Everything we men do we do for women."
Of course this truth does not apply to every man -- at least not by their outward actions and attitude toward women. Yet, Do we really know the depths of even the man who lords it over women, or who are “independent” of them? What if he were not able to control women, would he then calmly accept that fact, or rather would he become suicidal, murderous, neurotic, and so forth? And, of course, to give men their due, the same psychology can be applied to women.
And as a final remark, all this Mother-Woman ideal leads to a deeper understanding of why Lennon's lay naked in fetal position while lying in Yoko's clothed arms in the last public photograph of them together in the Rolling Stone magazine.
…
1971
Lennon mostly lightens, "sugarcoats," his message, in his next major album, Imagine as though he were saying, "See, it isn't that fearful to `feel your own pain'; it's actually liberating once you come through it-The truth will set you free. [Observe the happy jaunt of "Crippled Inside" or the whistling in "Jealous Guy"-two serious topics] Once you feel the inebriating lift of this self-freedom, then it is easy rid yourself of false beliefs and exploitive institutions. From that point on, we can move ahead psychologically, socially, and spiritually." And Yoko is still by his side loving and goading him on.
SELECTED REPRESENTATIVE SONGS:
Human Love:……….…………….. "Crippled Inside" / "Jealous Guy" / "It's So Hard" /
"I Don't Want to be a Soldier" / "Oh My Love" / "How" / "Oh Yoko"
Transcendent Love
Human-Transcendent Love:……...."Power To The People" / "Imagine" / "Give Me Some Truth"
1
The driving humanistic message -- free yourself, and himself of false idols, ideals, parents, leaders, religions -- of "JL Plastic Ono Band" leads Lennon into the next major step of his development and work-free the people. Whereas all along his prime message had been free your mind, now at this stage, he realizes more fully than earlier (in his 'Revolution' period) that before one can effectively free oneself, the tenor of society and its norms and attitudes and institutional structure and patterns have to be modified enough to make this individual freedom possible. An instance of his would be, say, I believe that as a lawyer or a doctor, I should give some of my time to defending the poor for a minimal fee; yet, my wife and colleagues convince me that in doing so, I will be jeopardizing my financial status when this aid conflicts with my high paying clients. The present social mindset is financial security above all else; and so, I give in to it.
Accordingly, since the power structure presently in control resists changes that might threaten the security and traditions of that structure, we cannot expect them to foster changing the rules in the interest of the people just enough to keep them off the streets in protest-is the attitude. Power, profit, prestige are what especially matter to the executives,and whatever will promote the security of these, they will adopt whatever the value, whatever the price.
…
Thus Lennon first step is to get the people up and about, waken them from their "dogmatic slumbers," stir them to action; and this is what the sound and lyrics of "Power to the People" effectively does.
Say you want a revolution
We better get on right away
Power to the people
Power to the people, right on
. . .
Having exorcised his mother trauma, demythified his god complex, and reaffirmed his human reality, Len- non sets sail to plow unknown waters toward the "promised land" of the new mind of man.
He envisions this promised land in his beguiling, doleful tune, "Imagine."
…
This is the classic utopian ideal set in the stately beauty of poetry and music-the ideal at which all realists scoff or smile indulgently. Lennon himself is realistic enough to know the objections
…
In his next track, “It's So Hard,”, he really gets to rock bottom of the problem of psychological change. And he sings it as in the bowels of the problem.
So we see that the problem of change is much more complex and stupendous than so many of our false optimists and our gurus and love sages present. Lennon is tired of all the false hopes and promises and theories and programs to enlighten mankind. Such people are either completely naive or ignorant of the intensities of human bondage or they skim over it or ignore it, or disdain it .They think they can advance man's happiness by bandaging the cysts. They have no idea how to lance and heal them --though they think they do in their books and lectures and talks, ad nauseum.
Lennon rings this out in his “Gimme Some Truth.”
…
In his ''Oh My Love,'' Lennon shows that all this harshness of our human connections is eased in the deep clear love of another. That love has opened his eyes. He can now see. Everything is clear in his head, ''in our world." That love has opened his mind so that for the first time "I can feel." What he is saying essentially is that the love of a woman, or a man, is the first step toward easing the grip of our bondage. This love does help to free us, give us wider perspectives, greater, more complete experiences and understanding. The love of the opposite sex is the complement of our being.
…
In “How,” he shows that he has been, and still is, just as lost as anyone else despite his celebrity and wealth; and is just as afraid to "go forward into..." But that does not stop him as his life has eminently proved.
…
1972
A heavily political year, both actively and musically. By releasing the provocative Some Time In New York album, and by associating himself with political radicals, he alerts the American government to him as a possible threat to their status quo. Now he is in deep water; for he is not just singing harmless songs of injustice, not just having a lark in bed for peace, but is actively challenging the government's policies by his “non-American” activities and by his political statement, Some Time In New York. It deems him an insurrectionist; and accordingly, goes after him with the intention of deporting him. Here Lennon stands tall again as hero inas- much as he puts forth his beliefs, regardless of the damning cones- quences. In tandem with these humanistic is his extended concern for the liberation of women ("Woman Is The Nigger of the World"), which he had mentioned in his song "Power to the People" the previous year.
SELECTED REPRESENTATIVE SONGS:
Human Love:……….…………….
Transcendent Love:……………..
Human-Transcendent Love:…… [the album Some time in New York City]
. . .
1973
Interspersed with Lennon's apologetic, love chants for Yoko, Lennon's Mind Games album, is, in good part, a rallying call for those of like mind to come together to "get things done / like they've never been done." What we need to do is to get in touch with our intuition through the "absolute elsewhere in the stones of your mind"; and from there we can change ourselves and change society; so let's "come together over me…over you."
SELECTED REPRESENTATIVE SONGS:
Human Love:……….……………. "Tight A$" / "Aisumasen (I'm Sorry)" / "Out Of The Blue" / "I know (I
Know)" / "You Are Here"
Transcendent Love:…………….. "Mind Games" / "Intuition"
Human-Transcendent Love:…… "Mind Games" / "One Day (At A Time)" / "Bring on The Lucie (Freda
People)" / "Only People"
The year Lennon and Yoko separated for 18 months. His social-political activism is over, though he is still singing about them. The year he releases his album "Mind Games." Again, he starts off with a mighty positive theme of pushing human consciousness beyond its far too limited boundaries of ego and its ignorance and injustice into the "spirit of peace and love."
…
But as before, Lennon is ever the realist. We have this human factor of ego and self and sensuality to come to terms with, and it is not easy; not only with our own wild urges, but with our need for success and recognition that keeps us ''tight.'' In this cut, he conveys to us the ''high'' of being somebody, of ''making it'' and the price we pay (1) ''Just as tight as a dope fiend's fix my friend. '' (2) “You cannot both serve mammon and God'' is his basic message. Mammon gets you ''laid'' all right but you'd better tow the line, follow orders, or be replaced, oh dispensable one! And so tense your buttocks as you ''make it big''. If ''you can take it fine; but if '' You can't stand the heat......shade, '' which means, take your choice God or mammon. Each is all right, only know then to what you belong, what you prefer.
…
Depression strikes into us hard too, especially when things don't go our way consistently. And it make us act contrary to our better intentions, and we hurt those closest to us; since we need an outlet for the anger that sweeps through us; because when we're ''down'' we lose perspective, we lose hope, we lose the vibrancy, the drive forward; we lose direction, and so we get angry at our selves, and at life, and at others. All our negativities arise, and we are confused, and so we become impatient, bitter, spiteful, and our bitterness and spitefulness seems to be our only defense, our only strength; and so we strike out in barbs at the complacency and faults of others -- those that we even loved when all is well....
And this is Lennon's problem, as is sung in his gentle apologetic Aaisumasen (I'm Sorry”)
…
But something seems to be missing in their love and life, for he apparently sings of the past when she would support him in his down periods.
All I had to do was call
…
So having realizing the inseparable dependency on his love for Yoko, and in general, of the sexes-and not just a romantic "smoke gets in your eyes" affair -- Lennon realizes that this transcendent revolution cannot exclude the man-woman relationship That must be revaluated and transformed as well as the personal. So this revolution is both a personal and inter-personal one, which culminates in a social revolution.-- remember his "Revolution" -- change your head, free your mind first. This can be seen in his optimistic, rousing "Only People" in the lyric 'we can't be denied with woman and man side by side' The same theme was stated in his "Power to the People:" 'I gotta ask you comrades and brothers / How do you treat you own woman back home / She got to be herself / So she can free herself.' It is a man-woman revolution among the people.
…
As seen, Lennon does not condemn the present bureaucracy; it is merely the reflection of our individual and collective ignorance; nonetheless, we have to move ahead beyond our ignorance, beyond the control of injustice. There has to be a conscious transformation in which justice and wisdom take precedence over injustice and ignorance. Government, as it is, and has been, historically has had its day-as a matter of fact, has been having its day for some time now; it just takes so long for the leviathan to sink.
Free the people from your repressions and exploitations he sings out at them. Get smart before it's too late.
…
So, what we will have is a growing number of overmen (and overwomen), to use Nietzsche's terminology; or mind guerrillas, to use Lennon's terminology.
The strong, intelligent, sensitive individual-millions of them (a million heads are better than one); and therein lies the continuing success of the human-transcendence of the intuitive man and woman.
…
Intuition is the new order of the day. The ascendancy of knowledge has run its course as the reigning queen of the mind. Through intuition, we know by "feel," by "sense," by vision; and this intuitive knowing is just as valid as rational knowing, even though intuition does not fall into the logical categories of thought. Intuitions are too nebulous, too fleeting, too undetermined, too random, to be put under the eye of the logical microscope. Intuition is of the unconscious; and more so, of the transconscious. And so our rational mind is ill-equipped to discourse philosophically much less scientifically, on the finding of the intuitive part of us. This intuitive part of us knows instinctively through the wisdom of the species-or collective unconscious, to use Jung's term-without having to rise to the level of rational discourse. It also sends messages from the center, the bowels, the meaning of our being. We can presently only capture these messages through the poetics of our imagination; similarly with the messages from the unconscious dream world. [quote Lennon interview about we can only use language as a means of interpreting our dreams]. Those who are predominantly of a rational turn of mind can see little or no value of murky, fantastic or mystic "feels" or visions expressed in kaleidoscopic imagery. It is all poetry or religion to them -- often meaningless poetry and religion. So these rationalists close off communications with those whose intuitions prevail predominant over their rational thought.
But the gathering evidence, and numbers, of the intuitive realm are eventually going to have to open the minds of the rationalists if they themselves are not be deemed "irrational!"
Lennon invokes us to recognize and respect our intuition in his lilting song "Intuition."
…
1974
The melancholy, Walls and Bridges, finds Lennon fairly much where he had been four years earlier-in a state of personal chaos. In 1970 he had channeled his buried feelings about the loss of his parents, and its neurotic in the Plastic Ono Band album. Here, 4 years later he channeled his feelings of the loss of his soul-mate Yoko into Walls and Bridges. In this album, he turns out psychological ballads that are desperate, soulful, angst-ridden, haunting. It is the multiple Lennon at its peak. Finished with the political-social activism of prior years, and separated from his wife, his life is at a standstill and in shreds; yet he still sings songs of transcendence and humanism. He is still carrying the torch, though on his knees practically.
SELECTED REPRESENTATIVE SONGS:
Human Love:……….……………. "Going Down on Love" / "Bless You" / "Scared" / "Surprise, Surprise
(Sweet Bird Of Paradox)" / "Steel And Glass" / "Nobody Loves You
When You're Down And Out"
Transcendent Love:…………….. "#9 Dream" / "Here We Go Again"
Human-Transcendent Love:…… "Whatever Gets You Through The Night"
The separation practically destroys him as he wastes himself in alcohol, drugs, and carousing.
Yet the spirit unfolding is still with him as he sings in wonderment in his mysterious “Here We Go Again.”
Here we go again
Well I know I've seen this place before
Someone keeps on moving the door
In keeping with the transcendence of Lennon's mystic mind, he captures his wonderment of being here before, repeatedly -- “here we go again” and in different times and places and forms -- “someone keeps on moving the door”. One can interpret this “eternal recurrence” Nietzsche's term) as reincarnation, as Lennon himself interpreted it “I've been a woman….”Or more mystically, as experiencing one as the universal mind of all things past present, and future, all rolled into one -- Oneness; and at that moment of awareness, one somehow has tapped into that universal mind thereby knowing, being, all things. And so, yes, you have been here before and have slipped into a particular time warp of recognition so that what you perceive psychically is an instance of time, either past or future; that is, that has happened or will happen. Reincarnation does no seem to take into account the apperception of future events that one experiences, and that actually occurs in our normal future. There have been numerous accounts of this phenomenon down through the ages, from all places.
At all events, what Lennon is describing is that mystic sense, that so many of us have experienced at least once in our lives, in one sense or another, in which we “know” with our third eye, so to speak, that “this has happened before”; “I've been here before.” It is such an overwhelming experience, that one never forgets it, that makes one know, not merely believe, that something universal is implanted in our minds “somewhere,”somehow” that includes everything -- and I mean EVERYTHING! Lennon has been there, as his song attests to.
…
His next album, Walls and Bridges, records his state of mind during this 18 month separation ["It's all about hate, growing old, God, etc.... "] It's a desperate album opening with his mysterious "9 Dream." He is seeking his vision, his muse, which has long left him. The last real divinity was recorded in his Revolution #9 represented in that second of the burst into eternity.
…
Without Yoko, he is "down and out" and he laments the truth that without the love of your life(s) by your side, we really are not much more than a commodity to others, no one else really cares for us other than lip service; as everyone else has their own lives to live, their own relationships to deal with day in and day out. That you are a star, or a genius, well, that's fine so far as admiration goes; but love is something quite different. We don't live with and love a person because we admire him or consider him a genius. We spend some time with them, and then we return to our own lives. And though Lennon has seen it all from A to Z, and beyond, has been to the uppermost success and popularity, has revealed himself, weaknesses and all, still he wonders why that is not enough to be loved for what he is. All this he sings in his “Nobody Loves You (When You're Down And Out).”
…
And for all his genius and resounding success and charisma, still he feels himself to be a person of bad faith, and the very same he perceives in others as well.
Well your mouthpiece squawks as he spreads your lies
But you can't pull strings if your hands are tied
Well your teeth are clean but your mind is capped
You leave your smell like an alley cat
- Steel and Glass
We steel ourselves with all our defense when in fact our psyche is as fragile as glass when it comes down to being alone “like a rolling stone. …We're made of "steel and glass," and Lennon at this period is glass
…
What emotional havoc being without that one person who matters everything to you. You are prepared to let down all your defenses, get down on your knees, if necessary, to ask for forgiveness for being such a cad to the one you love.
…
And yet, on the other side of the coin, is the recognition that all this suffering that he is going through is all part, and the consequences, of being all-to-human; a condition that we can never fully expirpate ourselves from. Yes, we must ever strive to transcend our humanness, but not to despair over our failure to come up to our transcendence. We all have our particular “thorn in the side"; and short of out -and-out moral and loving betrayal of our loved ones, we are to forgive each other “seventy-times seven, as Christ put it. But he lifts himself up out of the depths to see things in a positive, self-forgiving attitude in his driving optimistic "Whatever Gets You Through The Night."; and that title is just his message along with:
…
The next song, his gorgeous "Bless You," continues his up side, his loving side. He blesses Yoko wherever she is, whoever she's with. even though they're apart, "now and forever our love will remain."
The anguish returns in his closing song on the album, the harrowing "Scared." This is the poetic, musical testament on the anguish of guilt and fear. He's scared of the fear invoked by the terrifying drone of the howl of killer wolves-with which the song begins. But he assures us:
…
And so he returns to Yoko, and soon after retires from public life for the next five years. These years are occupied with his continuing soul-struggles, raising his son Sean, and living with Yoko. They were not all happy years, they were lost years of not finding his vision, of losing his muse; and so his music. And he suffered too.
…
But they stayed together through it all. And then his muse returned, and the music returned, and his love returned, and family happiness returned.
1980
The songs he composed during his final year reveal a resurgence of hope, cheer and wisdom; though still, if not enmeshed in, then bothered, troubled, by, the entrapments of his humanness.
SELECTED REPRESENTATIVE SONGS:
Human Love:……….……………. "(Just Like) Starting Over" / "Cleanup Time" / "I'm Losing You" /
“Beautiful Boy / Woman / "I'm Stepping Out" / "I Don't Wanna Face It" /
"(Forgive Me) My Little Flower Princess" / "Grow Old With Me"
Transcendent Love:…………….. "I Don't Wanna Face It"
Human-Transcendent Love:…… "Watching The Wheels" / "Nobody Told me" / "Borrowed Time" / "Serve
Yourself"
Lennon is at sea where the heroic in him emerges again, but this time against a tempest of nature. He comes through it victoriously with a flood of music coming through him that, as it turns out, will be his last testament to his loved ones, to the world, and to his mission of Love.
It was my first time at sea: three thousand miles, seven days. There [were] four of
us on this forty-one foot boat, and it was the most fantastic experience I had ever
had. I loved it!
…
It is a celebration of family, man-woman relationship oriented, mostly positive; yet revealing the negatives as well.
The opening track "(Just Like) Starting Over" is a perfect beginning by Lennon
…
All seems well with the Lennon family after their stormy, rocky 12 years together in the public eye and privately. Yet Yoko's next track , "Kiss, kiss, Kiss," let's us know that this "precious life together" that Lennon has just sung about, as needful and inspiring as it may be, is not enough to chase away the anguish of life, and fear of death.
…
Lennon continues on his merry way with the happy jaunt "Cleanup Time," and everything is fine with himself on his side of the relationship:
You and me...place
We cast the magic spell.
…
He is where he belongs with his wife and child making music together [quote Len: I wouldn't want to make music without Yoko...] Yet, in “Woman,” he is still apologizing for his thoughtlessness, causing her “sorrow and pain,” and all the rest that seems to continue as ever in their relationship.
…
Yoko continues expressing for both of them the dark side of living together, of her inner anger with him :
Your eyes are cold
Your voice is hard
And she sings of the dark side of getting through life.
The money's hard
The living's hard
…
And yet she loves him, as she has, nor will, anyone else.
Yes, I'm your angel
I'll give you everything
. . .
Yes, our hearts are one
Our bodies, too
And it's so good (um) everytime
And I'll let it come true for you
…
And yet she has something to say about his women lusts:
Save your sweet talk for when you score
Keep your Monday kisses for your glass lady
I want the truth and nothing more
I'm moving on, moving on you're getting phony
And yet she loves him, and she's his for life, despite his male sexuality, his masculine bluster. At least be honest about it; she knows after all. Whatever you do, do not become a plastic human being.
You didn't have to tell a white lie
You knew you scored me for life
…
This leads Lennon to his apologia "Watching the Wheels," for the contemplative stream of consciousness way of life that he has always preferred to the active life [I'm part monk...]
People say I'm crazy doing what I'm doing
…
His friends and fellow musicians do not understand how he can let it go for the reclusive life. but Lennon sings that "I just had to let it go" so that he can find himself [quotes from Japan], and just as importantly, keep himself. He now has control of his life. He is beginning to be the master of his soul. He's found it again; and this time, more permanently expressed in character and daily life; it no longer only comes through him his art, his music. Now he's "just sitting here doing time." He knows now. It is not just a dream. [quote #9 dream]. He has found his essence again: Love; and for him, it is divine and eternal. The rest of his life surely is "doing time." and he doesn't have much time left.
He still has to get through this life. He loves life. He loves love; and he wants more than ever to live love. And his last two songs of their heart play re devoted to his expression of his love and need of the great love of his life, and his apology for causing her so much pain and sorrow; and his gratitude for giving him the fulfillment of his life.
…
You're a beautiful boy
With all your little ploys
Your mind has changed the world
And you're now forty years old
You got all you can carry
And still feel somehow empty
Don't ever be afraid to fly
If anything, the running theme in this last of Lennon's recordings, "Milk and Honey, " reveals the cyclical pattern of Lennon's life, ideas, and ideals. These songs, including his diary entrees, bring home the re- curring issues of a man still struggling with his demons of depression, loss, despair, jealousy, but now in his fortieth year, tinged with a softening, lighthearted, attitude toward them. Yes, he has made progress toward self-freedom; yes, he now knows where his priorities lie; yes, he is a much happier man overall with his wife and child and growing wisdom of life; and yes, he is closer than ever to the self-freedom he has struggled and striven for all those years ["His spiritual pursuit; that's John" -Yoko]. His heroic experience at sea centered him with the cosmos, as he said; so, even in this case, he was at the center of his being - his soul, …
The songs on "Milk and Honey" show the interplay between the various facets of, and between, his humanness and transcendence.
In his song, "I'm Stepping Out," his humanness shows in that he can take only so much of his inner solitude; he has to get out of the house to feel that he is alive and throbbing.
…
"I Don't Wanna Face It" is a masterpiece of self-accusation. It reveals Lennon's disillusionment with himself. He wants his solitude and to be free from the public eye and its assessment of his work, yet he can't completely let go of its enticing influence.
…
In this next verse, he touches the truth-nerve of his whole life's enterprise; perhaps the falsity of it. He loves humanity on the whole, but not individuals in particular. They don't come up to his high standards. People overall are too wrapped up in themselves and so are not open to the finer reaches of their humanity. This stagnate condition of so many people renders them tedious, selfish, ignorant, untrustwor- thy, and even dangerous in a pinch; that is, when it comes to money or their pride, or their position. This state of affairs not only pains Lennon, but it questions the validity of his peace and love enterprise
…
The following verses questions the value of his musical career and achievements in the long run; that it is of no value at all when it comes down to the serious business of living as a "real-man with a "real" job.
Well I can sing for my supper
But I just can't make it
For all his truth-seeking, all his love and peace efforts, all his striving to better the world; nonetheless, he has to face the truth that these efforts, noble as they are, have been excuses from having to refine himself. After all, his world task is more important than himself; yet there he is, preaching, freedom and truth and love and changing your mind; and he is hardly up to them himself.
Well now you're lookin' for a world of truth
Trying to find a better way
The time has come to see yourself
You always look the other way
I don't wanna face it oh no
…
Still, for all his shortcomings, all his flaws, he still is in touch with his inward purity, his God within, the pure Love that shines around me like a million suns. Yet, he doesn't want to face that fact that he keeps procrastinating from taking the steps to get in touch with his purity. Much the same as St. Augustine so long ago cried out for purity but not just yet.
Well I can see the promised land
And I know I can make it!
I don't wanna face it I know
He is so close to his Source, his Center, his Purity, and yet…
I just can't face it no more
Every time I look in the mirror
…
In "Nobody Told Me," Lennon next voices his disillusionment with people and life in general. In a series of striking one-liners, he makes his points that, one, for all our talk about this and that, this and that rarely happens; two, do we really love much more than our selves; three, we are so self-preoccupied, so self-loved, that we don't even recognize the evil that comes upon us in front of our very eyes (Nazis, for example), or if we do we ignore it hoping or expecting it to go away, which it usually doesn't.
…
We take all our pills to help us get through the day, some uppers, some downers; but it turns out to be an endless cycle that takes us nowhere except to the next pill. However high, inspired, we might be at times, we nonetheless reach our peak experience that enlightens us to the truth of our inwardness, our purity, our Love. And if there are UFO's? What then? We are not the only intelligent beings in the universe. And if not, then what? There then is much more to our petty little lives than ourselves. Why not open ourselves up to the unknown? We might find ourselves in that case.
Everybody's smoking and no one's getting high
Everybody's flying and never touch the sky
There's a UFO over New York and I ain't too surprised
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
. . .
Yet for all his transcendent wisdom, he still has a family with all its domestic responsibilities, unpredictable- ness, emotional highs and lows, all its busyness, so to speak. Dealing with his day-to-day life practical affairs successfully, harmoniously, requires a practical wisdom. This practical wisdom needed does not easily blend with transcendent wisdom. How to balance, integrate, his transcendent wisdom with a practical wisdom, I suppose would have been the ongoing task of the last segment of his life had he lived.
I'm over the conflict that says you can't be awake and have money.
…
In the end, however, Lennon remains ever the man of vision, the visionary who was in touch with the oneness, the purity, of all that is -- pure Love.
Grow old along with me
The best is yet to be
When our time has come
We will be as one
God bless our love
God bless our love
And yet he has ever the specter of depression, despair, shadowing over him when least expecting its presence.
[from his diary] Well, here we are. Age 39, looking out of my hotel window wondering
whether to jump out or get back in bed; so I got back in bed.
…
CONCLUDING PERSPECTIVE
How do we fittingly conclude this mighty saga of John Lennon who came into a dreary world and lit it up with mystic vision, enlightening intuition, unique heroism, dazzling persona, humble humanity, and, not the least of all, musical genius? I suppose by summarizing these traits.
…
=========================
THE LENNON TESTAMENT
First Aspect
TRANSCENDENT LOVE
[Our Transcendence]
[Love as the bond that attracts and binds all things together in unity through meaning. Oneness, pure existence, pure consciousness, eternal bliss are its human concepts and experience]
I
Love-As-Essential-Being
Love conceived as the Universal Principle or Essence of all things -- of the Power or Will or Meaning that binds all things into unity of which we all essentially are.
[Lennon has a mystic vision of Love as not only universally human but as transcendently underlying
all things of the universe. This will be the message that he delivers to the world during his brief stay here]
I And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of Love as something new
- In My Life
I:1 It sort of dawned on me that love was the answer. The first expression of it was a song called "The
Word."
I:2 Say the word and you'll be free
Say the word and be like me
Say the word I'm thinking of
Have you heard the word is love.
It's so fine, it's sunshine,
It's the word love.
- The Word
…
1:21 All those bits from religion about love being all-powerful is true, you know.
II
Love-As-God
[God, as the spiritual word given to Love as the bond of all unity - that which binds all things and creatures into individual and absolute unity. The term "God" has been given a personal demarcation so that human beings can identify with It anthropomorphically.]
[Lennon identifies transcendent Love as a unitive universal Power that we call God; not as a
father figure conceived by man who metes out rewards and punishments in life in preparation
for the afterlife; but then, neither did Jesus believe in such a God: "There will be no marriages
in heaven..." Lennon's conception of God is as a pure spirit, or the oneness , the power, of Love.]
II I always sort of suspected that there was a God, even when I thought I was an atheist - (humorously) You know, just in case! I believe it.
II:1 I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that
what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right; it's just that the translations have gone wrong.
II:2 When I refer to God ...I'm talking about "It" more than One Old Man in the Sky.
…
II:43 I have found out personally - not for the whole world - that I am responsible for it,
as well as them. There's no separation; we're all one; so in that respect, I look at it all and think, "Ah, well, I have to deal with me again in that way. What is real? What is the illusion: I'm living or not living? And I have to deal with it every day. The layers of the onion. But that is what it's all about.
III
Love-As-Divinity
[Love conceived aesthetically as "beauty is truth, truth beauty," (Keats); as the God of creation apart from all created things; and as that which is sacred, spiritual, holy, and metaphysical]
[Lennon was best able to express his mystic vision of Love through lyrical music; and it was
through the aesthetics of his music that he was most consistently in touch with its pure spirit.]
III:1 I basically feel that I'm a poet. ...I'm not a formalized poet, I have no education, so I
have to write in the simplest forms usually.
III:2 I had always considered myself an artist or musician or poet or whatever you
want to call it, and the so-called pain of the artist was always for by the freedom of the artist. And the idea of being a rock 'n' roll musician sort of suited my talents and mentality.
III:3 I do think in terms of the long term. I'm an artist. I have to express myself. I can't
be dominated by gold records the art is more important than the thing, and sometimes I have to remind myself of it. Because there's danger there, for all of us, for everyone's who's involved in whatever art they're in, of needing that love so badly. I never enjoyed [the craftsmanship of writing songs]; I like it to be inspirational.
III:4 The message is the medium. [i.e. in particular, his message of Transcendent Love
manifests itself through music.]
III:5 The real music comes to me, the music of the spheres, the music that surpasses
the understanding, that has not to do with me, that I'm just a channel ...So for that to come through,
which is the only joy for me out of the music, is for it to be given to me and I transcribe it like a
medium. But I have nothing to do with it other than I'm sitting under this tree and the whole damn thing
comes down and I've just put it down. that is the only joy for me.
…
III:31 I think the Beatles were a kind of religion.
...
Second Aspect
HUMAN LOVE
[Our Humanness]
[ As an affectionate bond of compassionate unity between persons including oneself either positively or negatively
or both.]
I
Self-Love
Love as Essentially Self Preservation, Self-Identity
[This aspect of love expresses the predominant concern for one's own preservation and well-being, excluding or including the concern for, and well-being of, others.
[Lennon is sure of his genius and task, and wants the world to know it.]
IV:1 I made the decision at sixteen or seventeen that what I did, I wanted everybody to see. I wasn't going after the aestheticism or the monastery or the lone artist who supposedly doesn't care what people think about his work. I care a lot whether people hate it or love it, because it's part of me and it hurts me when they hate it, or hate me, and it's pleasing when they like it. But as many public figures have said, "The praise is never enough, and the criticism always bites deep." That's just the predicament of being some ... artist .
IV:2 I suppose you could put me aside Gogh, Renoir and Shakespeare. That's always been my hangup-trying to be Shakespeare.
IV:3 People like me are aware of their so-called genius at ten, eight, nine ....I always wondered, "Why has nobody discovered me?" In school, didn't they see that I'm cleverer than anybody in this school? That the teachers are stupid too? That all they had was information that I didn't need.I got fuckin' lost in being at high school. I used to say to me auntie "You throw my fuckin' poetry out, and you'll regret it when I'm famous," and she threw the bastard stuff out. I never forgave her for not treating me like a fuckin' genius or whatever I was, when I was a child. It was obvious to me. Why didn't they put me in art school? Why didn't they train me? Why would they keep forcing me to be a fuckin' cowboy like the rest of them. I was different, I was always different. Why didn't anybody notice me? A couple of teachers would notice me, encourage me to be something or other, to draw or paint ¯ express myself. But most of the time they were trying to beat me into being a fuckin' dentist or a teacher. And then the fuckin' fans tried to beat me into being a fuckin' Beatle or an Engelbert Humperdinck (a romantic crooner), and the critics tried to beat me into being Paul McCartney. ... Nobody says it, so you scream it: look at me a genius, for fuck's sake! What do I have to do to prove to you son-of-bitches what I can do, and who I am? Don't you dare, don't you fuckin' dare criticize my work like that. You, who don't know anything about it. Fuckin' bullshit!
IV:4 If there is such a thing as [a genius], I am one. [When was about twelve] I used to think I must be a genius but nobody's noticed. I used to think whether I'm a genius or I'm mad, which is it? I used to think, well, I can't be mad because nobody's put me away; therefore, I'm a genius. I mean genius is a form of madness and we're all that way...If there is such a thing as genius, which is just what ...what the fuck is it, I am one, you know, and if there isn't, I don't care. I used to think it when I was a kid, writing me poetry and doing me paintings. I didn't become something when the Beatles made it, or when you heard about me. I've been like this all me life.
IV:5
No one I think is in my tree,
I mean it must be high or low.
That is you can't, you know, tune in
But it's all right, that is I think
it's not too bad.
- Strawberry Fields
[In the end, genius or no genius, pop seer or no pop seer, mystic insight or no mystic insight, life still despairs him.]
IV:58 Age 39. Looking out of my hotel window wondering whether to jump out or get back in bed. And so I've gone back in bed.
…
V
Erotic Love
Love as the Erotic Bond of Life
[This aspect of love manifests itself between the sexes that attract them to each other sexually, sensuously, sensually, relationally, so as to mate them as one; or more precisely: two-as-one. Offspring normally results from this love which binds parents to children, children to parents, siblings to siblings. This erotic love extends into a vital relationship in which "blood-to-blood" defines the intense bond between family members.]
V:4
Help! I need somebody,
Help! Not just anybody.
- Help
V:5 She was having a show at this gallery and I knew the fellow that ran it so it wasn't - it's a bit embarrassing being a Beatle anyway, going into a shop, never mind going to a gallery, because they either all leap on you thinking "he's another mug, like a Texan, he'll buy anything" and I had a bit of a hang up about art too, having been to art school, and disliked the attitude of the so called artists, you know. So anyway, I finally got to this show, and she had all these things on like hammer / nail things and that clock there you listen to with a stethoscope, all the things. And at first I reacted like a mug you know, like the ones that were saying "We don't get a badge" you know, so I thought "Ha ha - you don't fool me with all this junk" you know, so then there was this ladder and a thing on the ceiling, so I climbed the ladder and on the ceiling it said 'Yes', you see, so I thought, I agreed then, it's ok - you know, I mean it's like those jokes "While you're looking up here you're dribbling down your trousers" (Big laugh from audience)
I mean, it's all sort of connected, people get a buzz out of that in the toilet, but if you put it on in a room, it upsets them a bit, because they've got preconceived ideas about where those messages should be. But it said 'Yes'. And if it had said 'No' I would have carried on with my preconceived ideas about art and artists, that they're all sort of "Yeah yeah, sure, sure". But it said 'Yes' and that was enough and then she came up and said - she didn't know who I was - and [she] was saying "Do you like to hammer a nail in? it's five shillings", So I said, I didn't have any money either, so I said "I'll hammer an imaginary nail in and give you an imaginary five shillings" Which she agreed with and she accepted that, on the same basis that I accepted her work , you know, and (In camp voice) that was how we met actually.
V:6 I'd always had a fantasy about a woman who would be a beautiful, intelligent, dark-haired, high-cheekboned, free spirited artist (a la Juliette Greco).
My soul mate.
Someone I had already known, but somehow had lost.
After a short visit to India on my way home from Australia, the image changed slightly-she had to be a dark-eyed Oriental. Naturally, the dream couldn't come true until I had completed the picture.
Now it was complete.
I finally met Yoko and the dream became a reality.
The only woman I'd ever met who was my equal in every way imaginable. My better, actually. Although I'd had numerous interesting "affairs" in my previous incarnation, I'd never met anyone worth breaking up a happily-married state of boredom for.
Escape, at last! Someone to leave home for! Somewhere to go. I'd waited an eternity.
Since I was extraordinarily shy (especially around beautiful women), my daydreams necessitated that she be aggressive enough to "save me," ...
…
V:38 A Heart Play
John
Oh my love for the first time in my life
My eyes are wide open
Oh my lover for the first time in my life
My eyes can see.
I see the wind, oh I see the trees
Everything is clear in my heart
I see the clouds, oh I see the sky
Everything is clear in our world.
Oh my love for the first time in my life
My mind is wide open
Oh my lover for the first time in my life
My mind can feel.
I feel sorrow, Oh I feel dreams
Everything is clear in my heart
I feel life, oh I feel love
Everything is clear in our world.
Yoko
Yes, I'm your angel
I'll give you everything
in my magic power
So make a wish
And I'll let it come true for you
Tra, la la la
You give me everything
I ever wanted from life
I'm in your pocket
You're in my locket
Our hearts are one
Our bodies too.
…
V:40 We're not presenting ourselves as the perfect couple because we don't want to get into that bag either. Right? Because we're trying to present what it is, you know: a relationship that lots of other people are having, but they're maybe not songwriters, and they don't express it that way. ...We have our problems, we had our problems, and we'll have our problems. But, you know, we're trying; we want to stay together. We want to be a family.
VI
Vital Love
Love as the Vital [blood] Bond to Life and between Human Beings
[This aspect of love expresses itself as the intense force that binds us to life, or to another human or sentient being. Sympathy, affection, compassion and empathy are the main binding sentiments of this form of love. It is this form of love that is organic to our being as indicative of our self-preservation, physical homeostasis, psychic balance. Agony, grief, despair, anguish, loneliness, compassion, futility, empathy, horror, rage, fear, the sense of tragedy; and the "blessed" relief or appeasement of these various types of suffering -- are some of the incisive emotions associated with vital love.]
[Having and loving Yoko, his life is saved, both literally and figuratively; yet his underlying anguish for the loss of his mother remains. Not having his mother as a child and adolescent, cut deeply into his being and remained scarred.]
VI:4 The worst pain is that of not being wanted, of realizing your parents do not need you in the way you need them When I was a child I experienced moments of not wanting to see the ugliness, not wanting to see not being wanted. This lack of love went into my eyes and into my mind. Mine is an extreme case, you know. My mother and father split and I never saw my father until I was 20, nor did I see much of my mother.
VI:5 The copper came to the door to tell us about the accident. It was just like it's supposed to be, the way it is in the films. Asking if I were her son and all that. Then he told us, and we both went white. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I thought, I've no responsibilities to anyone now.
So that was another big trauma for me. I lost her twice. Once as a five-year old when I was moved in with my auntie, and once again at fifteen when she actually, physically died. And that was very traumatic for me....And that was ...really a hard time for me. It just absolutely made me very, very bitter. the underlying chip on my shoulder that I had as a youth got really big then. Being a teenager and a rock 'n' roller and an art student and my mother being killed just when I was re-establishing a relationship with her ... it was very traumatic for me.
VI:6
Mother, you had me,
but I never had you
I wanted you, you didn't want me
So I, I just got to tell you
Goodbye, goodbye
Father, you left me,
but I never left you
I needed you,
you didn't need me
So I, I just got to tell you
Goodbye, goodbye
Children, don't do what I have done
I couldn't walk and I tried to run
So I, I just got to tell you
Goodbye, goodbye
Mama don't go
Daddy come home…
- Mother
VI:7
My mommy's dead
I can't get it out of my head
Though it's been so many years
My mommy's dead
It's hard to explain
So much pain
I could never show it
My mummy's dead
- My Mummy's Dead..
…
[That inseparable, excruciating bond that holds together man to woman, and woman to man, has the dire consequence for many - Lennon being one of those many - of not being able to live without that other.]
VI:34 She is my other half. I'm always scared that she will die or something and I won't be -because I wasn't prepared for losing my mother when I was a teenager. I'm terrified of that deep down all the time. I need her so much. How will I survive when Yoko is gone?
Third Aspect
III: HUMAN-TRANSCENDENT LOVE
[Our Human-Transcendence]
[As the aspiration and feat to balance our humanness (human love) with our
transcendence (transcendent love)]
VII
Humanistic Love
The Love of Humanity
[The concern we feel and show toward other human beings, exclusive of erotic
or self love. Mild affection, sympathy, are some of the sentiments of humanistic love.
Comradeship, camaraderie, companionship, sociability, cordiality, moral acts,
loving-kindness are a few of the manifestations of humanistic love.]
[Having the love of his life by his side, and in full support of him, he leaves the Beatles, and continues on to the next main phase of his world task: his personal growth, both psychological and transcendent, and his humanistic efforts to propagate his message of Transcendent Love through his music and various social and artistic activities. Whereas Love was his main implementation with The Beatles, Peace was his next endeavor: social and personal peace - peace of mind - with Yoko.]
VII:1 Ah, well, I'm not a do-gooder about things. I won't go around marching or…I'm not that type. It just so happens that my feelings about coloured people, or religion, or anything like that, do happen to work with the way I write. I make fun of coloured people in the book [In My Own Write] and Christians and Jews, but really, I'm not against them.
VII:2 I'm not a cynic. They're getting my character out of some of things I write or say. They can't do that. I hate tags. I'm slightly cynical, but I'm not a cynic. One can be wry one day and cynical the next and ironic the next. I'm a cynic about most things that are taken for granted. I'm cynical about society, politics, newspapers, government. But I'm not cynical about life, love, goodness, death. That's why I really don't want to be labeled a cynic."
VII:3 I'm concerned all right; I'm concerned with people.
…
VII:6 I'm interested in concepts and philosophies.I am not interested in wallpaper, which most music is. ...I'm interested in things with more of a world-wide ...I'm interested, what's it called? something that means something for everyone, not just for a few kids listening to wallpaper. I am just as interested in poetry, or whatever, or art, and always have been. That's been my hang-up, you know-continually trying to be Shakespeare or whatever it is. That's what I'm doing. I'm not pissing about.I consider I'm up against them.I'm not competing myself against Elvis. Rock just happens to be the media which I was born into, it was the one, that's all. Those people picked up paint brushes, and Van Gogh probably wanted to be Renoir or whoever went before him just as I wanted to be Elvis or whatever the shit it is. I'm not interested in good guitarists. I'm in the game of all those things: of concept and philosophy, ways of life, and whole movements in history ; just like Van Gogh was or any other of those fuckin' people-they are no more or less than I am or Yoko is-they were just living in those days. I'm interested in expressing myself like they expressed it, in some way that will mean something to people in any country, in any language, and at any time in history.
A Human-Transcendent Revolution
[Toward a conscious transformation --: a balance, harmony, between love of self , love of others, and love of being (soul)]
[The revolution of which Lennon refers is a revolution of the mind ("You better free your mind instead"), through which a social revolution will eventually take place, individual by individual. This revolution of the mind is to change (revolve into new patterns) age-old patterns that has kept us from progressing, evolving, into more complete human beings. As these patterns change, through the wisdom of transcendent Love, there will occur a major conscious transformation in the human mind personally, interpersonally, and socially. This conscious transformation will happen through a human-transcendent wisdom that balances both our human and our transcendent sides of our humanity.]
VII:16 The one thing the Beatles did was affect people's minds.
VII:17
You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world.
But when you talk about destruction,
Don't you know that you can count me out-in.
You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan.
But if you want money for people with minds
that hate,
All I can tell you is brother you have to wait.
You say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know
You better free your mind instead.
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao,
you ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow.
- Revolution
First Perspective of The Revolution:
FREEDOM FROM INSTITUTIONALIZED RELIGION - [that bars the way to the spirit of religion]
[His first step in declaiming this revolution was his so-called infamous statement that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ, a year after his disguised barb against Christian doctrine in his song "Girl." With his perspective of God as Love, it comes as no surprise that Lennon would reject the mesh of organized religion; Christianity, in particular, since he was an occidental. He is all for Jesus, but not in favor of Christian church organizations.]
VII:25 I always sort of suspected that there was a God [as spirit], even when I thought I
was an atheist.
Second Perspective of the Revolution:
FREEDOM FROM IMPERIALISTIC GOVERNMENT - [that makes war for gain]
[Another aspect of this revolution is for the people to speak and stand up for their beliefs and rights not just by the usual way through elected officials, but through educated awareness and procedure and consolidarity.]
VII:58 I've never not been political, though religion tended to overshadow it in my acid days; that would be around
'65 or '66....Religion was an outlet for my repression. I thought "Well, there's something else to life, isn't
there? This isn't it, surely?"
VII:59 I was always a little political. But I got to be hanging around with political people… I become whoever I'm
with. If I'm with a madman, I become mad, and if I'm with somebody I love, I become lovely. I'm like a cloud in
the wind.
VII:60 The people must be made aware that it's up to them. (humorously) You know, just in case! I believe it.
…
The concept of love is a too internal, ephemeral reality to hold on to for most people other than in erotic terms; but the meaning of peace is a more empirical, social concept which can be easier assimilated into the under-standing. What must be done then is to emphasize the word peace: its meaning, its feasibility. Get it out of the subconscious up into the conscious mind. Even beguile the mind with the beauty of its meaning. Having accomplished that venture, then begin the next by tracing its roots to love and the individual. And once the internal relationship between love and peace is understood to be essentially an individual matter, this understand- ing will invariably spread from one individual to another, and to another, and another, until the fabric of social relations undergoes a radical change for the betterment of all.
Then a true transformation of values will be taking place, and a "brave new world" will come into being -- a conscious transformation! This is the real revolution that is underway, and which is Lennon's vision and his mission to advance.
And so at this stage of his life, Lennon works toward hammering the idea of peace into human consciousness.]
VII:82 I am an artist and my art is peace and I happen to be a musician.
VII:83 Let's call God peace and do it that way, you know.
VII:84 What goes with love, we thought, was peace.
…
Third Perspective of the Revolution:
FREEDOM FROM CAPITALISTIC EXPLOITATION - [that takes from the poor and disadvantaged to give to the rich and advantaged]
[Still another stage of this revolution of the mind is for the people to take control of their lives economically and not be intimidated by those in control. They should be part of the administrative process of business and corporate economy rather than exploited by it. Justice, equity, interaction are the goals to aim for.]
VII:126
As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise
a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
…
VII:161 I'm sure we'll get there. It's just a matter of what conditions. We won't play games with governments.
Fourth Perspective of the Revolution:
FREEDOM FROM GENDER DISCRIMINATION - [that determines superiority or inferiority on a person's sex]
[With Yoko, Lennon began the gradual process of growing out of his cocoon of male superiority that he had been conditioned to by his environment. This broadening of his perspectives made it possible for him to open up to her influence so that he could understand the man-woman relationship in its manifold dynamics.]
VII:163 And the women are very important too; we can't have a revolution that doesn't involve and liberate women.
It's so subtle that way you're taught male superiority. It took me quite a long time to realize that my
maleness was cutting off certain areas for Yoko. She's a red-hot liberationist and was quick to show me
where I was going wrong, even though it seemed to me that I was just acting naturally. That's why I'm always
interested to know how people who claim to be radical treat women. ...How can you talk about power to the
people unless you realize that people is both sexes.
…
VII:204 The female message has not been heard or listened to for centuries and it's only starting to come
out. Although there is a thing called the "women's movement," it's like society took a laxative and
just farted. They haven't really had a good shit yet. It really hasn't started. The seed was planted
sometime in the Sixties, but the real changes are slow to come down.
…
Fifth Perspective of the Revolution:
FREEDOM FROM PARENTAL NEGLECT - [that treats children with disrespect]
[Having had a traumatic childhood by being abandoned by his parents, Lennon experienced firsthand the psychic disorientation and dysfunction that results from parental neglect, however well everything else might be in one's life. Having Repeated the same situation with his own first son, he was determined not to let that happen with his second son; and so he put his career on hold and stayed home with his son for his first five years]
VII:205 You can talk about Jews, you can talk about the Third World, and you can talk about everything, but
underlying that whole thing, under the whole crust of it, is the woman; and beneath them, the children. As
Dick Gregory said to us in 1969 in Denmark, "Children's liberation is the next movement." Because they
have no rights whatsoever, absolutely none; women have a certain amount. But children is the next thing -
children power -- but the women will liberate the children.
Sixth Perspective of the Revolution:
FREEDOM FROM SEXUAL REPRESSION
[Sexual arousement is as natural as there are men and women present to incite it. As evertone knows on reflection, sex is essential to our nature; so it makes little sense to repress it, or feel guilt or shame about it, except when its excess or deviation, or misuse harms ourselves or others. Yes, for many there is a certain embarrassment, and need for modesty, related to our genitals and sex acts, that requires a modest privacy, perhaps because of its animal origins that we would rather not be reminded of; or on the other side, because of its sacredness as the life-creating principle in us. In either case, we are in awe of its beauty, physical forms, arousements, lusts; and so love it in us and in others in its proper place in our lives. Yes, it can be addictive, but it is a natural addiction, is not stimulated by foreign substances, such as tobacco, or alcohol, or drugs that can ravage our bodies and, or, minds. Yet just as overeating can overtax our bodies and rule our minds, so can oversexing do the same. So, what is even natural can be taken to excess, and that is what wisdom can do for us to moderate our inclination to overdo anything kind of pleasure.]
VII:225 The thing is, I started it [the frontal nude photograph of him and Yoko on their album "Two virgins"] with a
pure ...it was the truth, and it was only after I'd gotten into it that I'd realized what kind of scene I was going to
create. and then suddenly you show it to people and then you know what the world is going to do to you, or
try to do. But you have no knowledge of it when you conceive it or make it. Originally, I was going to record
Yoko, and I thought that the best picture of her for an album would be her naked. I was just going to record
her as an artist. We were only on those kinds of terms then. So after that, when we got together, for both of
us to be naked. We're naked in front of a camera-that comes over in the eyes. Just for a minute you go!! I
mean you're not used to it, being naked, but it's got to come out [editor's italics]
…
Seventh Perspective of the Revolution leading to a conscious transformation:
FREEDOM FROM SELF-IGNORANCE
VIII
IDEALISTIC LOVE
Love as Ideal Perfection
[Love conceived or intuited, as perfection, purity, order, beauty; the good, truth, moral excellence, as
exemplified in Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Gandhi, etc. et al and the human inspiration, aspiration, and
struggle to approximate this ideal love, this ideal state, through morality and its virtues; in brief, to
balance our humanness with our transcendence]
[The overall point of the following maxims by Lennon is that however transcendent or spiritual, we may aspire to be, we have to always keep in mind the limitations of our frail humanity. And that if we are to gain a good measure of transcendence, we need a wisdom of love and understanding to be able to balance our human limitations with the ideals of our transcendence. We must never give up the struggle to be the person we have always wanted to be]
ON HIMSELF IN PARTICULAR
VIII:1 I prefer it [honesty about oneself]. Because it's harder to live with the phony that it is with the real sort of causes, harassments in a physical sense or an outside sense. I found that the other way causes internal problems. You've been conning yourself or fooling yourself, which is quite easy for all of us. we're all so good at it, you know, that you don't even realize you're doing it. But in a way you pay a different kind of price for that.
VIII:2 The hardest thing is facing yourself. It's easier to shout "Revolution" and "Power to the People" than it is to look at yourself and try to find out what's real inside you and what isn't, when you're pulling the wool over your own eyes.
…
VIII:100 There isn't one answer to anything
IX
SELFLESS LOVE
Love as a purifying and mystic experience
[The stripping of one's ego-sensuality so as to approximate, and make one receptive to, the unity
of Love that could lead to the "blissed" experience beyond self of Oneness, All, Nothingness, the Void,
Satori, Nirvana, Bliss-Consciousness, Purity, or whatever else it may be - though having no name]
[Lennon recognized that only by freeing one's mind from the trap of our ego-sensuality, could we experience the oneness of Love both humanly and transcendently. As Love is free (from all dualities), this is where our own freedom lies.]
IX:1 I want to be free!
IX:2 Even then (1965 - 25 years old) my eye was on freedom.
IX:3 You say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know,
You better free your mind instead.
IX:4 One thing I can tell you
is you got to be free.
IX:5 It's all in your mind.
IX:6 Freedom is in the mind.
IX:7 All we've got to solve is our own head.
…
IX:42 You can't be powerful and pure.
IX:43 Well I can see the promised land
And I know I can make i
__________
Experience John Lennon's music and Love message at:
REVOLUTION AND THE BEATLES
It [music and poetry] would be harmless...were it not that little by little,
this lawless spirit gains lodgment and spreads imperceptibly to manners
and pursuits; and from thence with gather ing force invades men's dealings
with one another, and next goes on to attack the laws and the constitution
with wanton recklessness, until it ends by overthrowing the whole structure
of public and private life.
- Plato The Republic
INTRODUCTORY NOTES
The purpose of this part, "Revolution and the Beatles," is to emphasize the Beatles' contribution to the transformation of our consciousness as a social phenomenon through their music and charisma. Their aesthetic, personal, and social influence influenced standards and values that led to a burgeoning of personal freedom unheard of before their arrival. This personal freedom was a necessary stage out of the confines of psychological repression before the next stage could be taken toward a self-freedom, which is slowly happening now everywhere, and to which the human-transcendent wisdom is contributing.
We might say, then, that the Beatles spearheaded a revolution toward personal freedom; and that the human-transcendent wisdom is spearheading a transformation toward self-freedom. Thus the title of the book, of which the following passages are selections: Revolution and the Beatles.
As a defensive note: I do not say that the Beatles started this revolution, consciously or unconsciously; but that they spearheaded it; since all the ingredients from other sources paved the way for their contribution. Similarly, with this transformation. The human-transcendent wisdom is not starting this transformation; it is just giving it a semantics, a unifying structure, and a guidance.
_____________
PREFACE
This book is a compilation of first-hand accounts of how the Beatles spearheaded the social and cultural revolution of the Sixties with their music and charisma. These edited passages are taken from published articles, inter- views, and books by journalists, musicians, Beatle historians, etc selected published writings and depict the Beatles leading role in the sweeping youth movement of the sixties -- a movement that turned into a social-cultural revolution through to the mid-Seventies. This approximately 10-year revolution served as the precursor to the conscious transformation that has been slowly developing since the eighties. The Beatles role in general was the expression of an effervescence that freed millions to be themselves regardless of convention and rebuke.
An introductory essay by the editor -- myself -- discusses the magnitude of this revolution.
Editor's Introduction
The Beatles! What can be said of them? They blazed unto a generation like sun gods. In them the magic of music fused so dynamically with the magic of personality that society opened at its seams. Through their music, manner, appearance, and dazzling presence, they radiated an abandon, an innocence, a gaiety, an irreverence, that mesmerized millions upon millions of the young and not a few adults. They were frivolity incarnate, casting an illusion of a care-free-world-come-true. The following excerpts from press conferences of their early fame convey the charm of their wit in a hitherto drear, dispirited world:...
And for the times, the Beatles were the magic that mainly initiated the "vast social revolutionary movement", upheaval, of freedom, peace, love, and magic and nightmare! for those who resisted, resented, and suffered from this youth movement of song and ideals. Nonetheless, for countless millions they were a celebration, a breath of fresh air breezing through a stuffy room. What they sang, said, did, or wore, made news and served as examples to be followed. They traveled to India to study meditation and the sitar, and thereupon popularized Indian philosophy-religion and music in the West. they embodied a freedom of creativity, expression, action. And this free spirit spread like a contagion that not only helped release many of the traditional shackles binding the young, but also helped bring them into prominence as persons in their own right.
In keeping with this social emergence, American rock and folk music took its own course; and with its personalities, contributed in no small way in reshaping the attitudes, manners, and morals of the young and many of their elders. Long hair, loose, colorful, disheveled, or outlandish dress, sexual permissiveness, psychedelic drugs, communal living, rock festivals, political and social activism; the idealisms of love, peace, freedom, anti-materialism, universal brotherhood and equality, spiritual enlightenment all these and more came into vogue as representative of the new youth movement: the counterculture, as it came to be known in its beginnings.
…
In our times, a Christian author, David Noebel, who effectively represents the segment of conservative Christian traditionalists against what they deem as the nefarious effects of rock music, deplores such music as decadent, destructive, and satanic; including the sexually perverted, drug addicted, barbaric lifestyles of its musicians. For him, this music has polluted, and continues to pollute, the minds of countless young people who would otherwise be morally and religiously sound. And he has the evidence to prove his case -- his one-sided case, that is:
"America's youth are bombarded with bizarre themes rhythmically hidden within the rock 'n' roll cultural matrix. Lennon and the Beatles supplied this receptive pop culture with lyric approval for dirt, drugs, and social rebellion.
"Formerly taboo perversions and the occult spice up their songs or the songs of their followers.
"The assault on Western values has been absolutely fierce. It is moral war! The undeclared battle to subvert the values of our youth is without parallel, so far as I know, in the history of the world.
"Neither John Lennon nor his legacy is ethically attractive. John Lennon was a purveyor of moral trash, a drug connoisseur, a driving force of the revolution...."
"The present rock 'n' roll scene (1982), Lennon's legacy, is one giant, multi-media portrait of degradation, a sleazy world of immorality, venereal disease, anarchy, nihilism, cocaine, heroin, marijuana, death, Satanism, perversion, and orgies."
…
Such is the topsy-turvy world confronting us in our day. And did the Beatles incite it all. Of course not. For one thing, it was the intellectual, liberal, and affluent conditions and social consciousness of the times that produced the Beatles, and made it possible for the young to make such strides as they did. As far as the musical influence of this youth revolution was concerned, it started with the rhythm and blues of the blacks, and wove its way through rock and roll where the fuse was lit by the popularity of Elvis Presley; and with him, you might say that the youth culture began. The explosion came with the Beatles. Certainly they did not consciously set out to turn our culture inside out -- or did they?
…
Chapter 1
THE EFFERVESCENT REVOLUTIONARIES
Paul
1. We were honest with each other and we were honest about the music. The music was positive. It was positive in love. They did write we all wrote about other things, but the basic Beatles message was Love. Editor's note: Notice that Love is capitalized , which takes its meaning far beyond romantic love. There is a transcendent element in his point about Love. See also, Ringo's statement regarding this same point Paul made.]
2. I'm really glad that most of the songs dealt with love, peace, understanding.There's hardly anyone of them that says: 'Go on kids, tell them all to sod off. Leave your parents.' It's all very 'All you need is love' or John's 'Give peace a chance.' There was a good spirit behind it all which I'm very proud of. Anyway...It were a grand thing, the Beatles.
3. I do these songs still: 'Let It Be' and the like. And to actually see young kids crying over the spirit in the song. I'm very proud of that. It could have gone another way. I say to people, 'Hey, if The Beatles were really bad, we could have played Hitler's game. We could have got kids to do anything, such was our power.
4. I think we gave some kind of freedom to the world. I meet a lot of people who say the Beatles freed them up ...I think we set free a lot of people who were blinkered, who perhaps were starting to live life along their parents' authoritarian lines.
George
1. I think we gave hope to the Beatle fans. We gave them a positive feeling that there was a sunny day ahead, and that there was a good time to be had, and that you are your own person and that the government didn't own you. There were those kinds of messages in a lot of our songs.
Ringo
1. We were honest with each other and we were honest about the music. The music was positive. It was positive in love. They did write -- we all wrote -- about other things, but the basic Beatles message was Love.
2. I feel now, on reflection, that we could have used our power a lot more for good. Not for politics, but just to be more helpful. We could have been some bigger force. It's an observation, not a regret - regrets are useless. We could have been stronger for a lot more causes if we'd pulled it together.
John
1. I think the Beatles were a kind of religion and that Paul epitomized the Beatles and the kind of things that were a hero image more than the rest of us, in a way. He was more popular with the kids, girls and things like that.
2. Changing the lifestyles and appearance of youth throughout the world didn't just happen, we set out to do it; we knew what we were doing.
3. I think the Sixties was a great decade. I think the great gatherings of youth in America and in the Isle of Wight might have just been a pop concert to some people but they were a lot more than that. They were the youth getting together and forming a new church, as it were, and saying, 'We believe in God, we believe in hope and truth and here we are, 20,000 or 200,000 of us, all together in peace.'
Chapter 2
COMMENTS FROM MUSICIANS AND OTHERS
Joe Walsh / singer
What happened was, I was in the living room and my radio was on the refrigerator in the kitchen. And I heard this music coming into the room and I went "Uh-oh. Everything's changed now!" That was my basic statement to myself: "Everything's changed now! Something has happened." And it was "I Want to Hold Your Hand."
Allen Ginsberg / poet
They had, and conveyed, a realization that the world and human consciousness had to change.
Bob Dylan / singer-lyricist
John and the Beatles were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid. Everybody else thought they were for the teenyboppers, that they were gonna pass right away. But it was obvious to me that they had staying power. I knew they were pointing the direction where music had to go.
Brian Wilson / singer/lyricist of the Beach Boys
It was the biggest musical event ever in history. It had the characteristics of God. God's presence on that stage took the form of four boys. ...Their gift: They write better lyrics than hardly anybody does.
Abbie Hoffman, political activist
[Sgt. Pepper] summed up so much of what we were saying politically, culturally, artistically, expressing our inner feelings and our view of the world in a way that was so revolutionary.
…
Chapter 3
THE MUSICAL PHENOMENON
From A Day in the Life, Mark Hertsgaard
2. The Beatles' music "has cut through differences of race, age and class [and]is adored by the world," as Derek Taylor put it in 1964, is that it touches the essence of what it is to be human. Lyrically and musically, the songs of the Beatles both invoke and convey the joy, sorrow, struggle. laughter, wisdom, anger, love, fear, and other emotions and experiences that make up the human condition...LSD guru Timothy Leary sounded silly in the late 1960's when he called the Beatles young gods incarnate who had been dispatched to earth to lead humanity to a new evolutionary stage, but his underlying point was not so outlandish. The music produced by the collaboration of the Beatles was, as they themselves recognized, something bigger than the four of them. When John, Paul, George, and Ringo all came together, they seemed to enter another dimension, as George Martin put it, and become a vehicle for whatever higher force is out there, urging us all on....But however one explains it, the Beatles tapped into the deepest, truest aspects of being human. and in so doing, they, like all great artists, put the rest of us in touch with the divine ...
...
"What Made Them So Fab?" , Robert, Hilburn / LA Times, 11-12-95
The legacy of the Beatles, however, is best measured in their music's continuing ability to enthrall new legions of listeners. For these fans, the magic of the Beatles doesn't grow out of a generational bond-it springs solely from the music.
…
In retrospect, there was no reason to be surprised. The Beatles' music has been touching us in deep and endearing ways for more than 30 years, It challenge and comforted, amused and amazed us. It is ultimately where the ideals and dreams of the '60's are best preserved.
Who would have imagined?
"Billboard", Los Angeles, CA, December 20, 1980
[The Beatles] proved music could be more than notes, that it could be noteworthy. It no longer mattered whether it had a beat. It now carried a message. The Beatles wrote the themes for a generation of change. They tried to explain that generation and the revolution in attitudes it created.
...
Chapter 4
THE SOCIAL PHENOMENON
From Time / September 22, 1967
1. Considering that the Beatles' trademark is offbeat irreverence their effect on mature audiences is oddly amusing. If the teeny-boppers made the Beatles plastic gods, many adults make them pop prophets, and tend to theorize solemnly, instead of seriously, about their significance....And there is still the hardy minority that insists on viewing the Beatles as the great put-on of the century.
From A Day In The Life, Mark Hertsgaard
1. The essence of the Beatles' message was not simply that the world had to change, but more importantly, that it could change. There is nothing particularly original about thinking that things should be different...The truly radical first step is believing it can actually happen. In their public statements and their music, usually subtly and implicitly, the Beatles proclaimed that it was indeed possible to break the old patterns and forge a kinder, more peaceful reality, that it was important to car not just about the war in Vietnam but about other manifestations of evil, and that it was important to try to do something. It was up to you which is to say, all of us to make changes, and you could do it. That message resonated deeply and powerfully in the mass psyche, for it put people in closer touch with their higher selves and made them feel part of a larger project of human renewal. The Beatles, in short, brought out the best in people, which is a large part of why so many people cared, and still care, so passionately about them. ...
From National Review, April 1971
1. A letter from a spirited and incisive correspondent on the West coast has cost me the better part of a day. ..."I send you , untouched by human hands issues 74 and 75 of Rolling Stone that carries the complete interview with John Lennon, running to some thirty thousand words.
"These sheep-witted Beatles, fawned on and reverently looked up to by most of the young across the earth, although their dispositions are as mean as their intelligence and their morals are as base as their lineage, I make so bold as to suggest that they started it all, and have dealt Western Society such heavy blows that it will be a century in recovering, if in fact, it ever does.
"These men are not innocents -- they are sophisticate scoundrels capable of the most swinish behavior and their influence poisoned the headwaters of the Sixties and we now see that trickling stream of history as it gathers and deepens and broadens and rolls its mighty tides of drugs and antinomian attitudes, now already engulfing what remains of civilization in a few walled towns. I am led to believe that what I am sending you is a historic document."
Because my friend believes, after all is said and done, in the virtue of moderation, he adds the P.S.,"There are north-west winds today, and the horses are restless - also my 51st birthday-tomorrow will be better." well, I have read all thirty thousand words, and I also hope that tomorrow will be better, having no alterative: despair is a mortal sin. despair is very nearly what the reading of this gargantuan interview brings you to.
From the Beatles Forever, by Nicholas Schaffner
[They were] the most remarkable cultural and sociological phenomenon of their time. During the 1960's they seemed to transform, however unwittingly, the look, sound, and style of at least one generation. They had, of course, a lot of help from a great many friends but it was more than anyone else, John, Paul, George, and Ringo who set in motion the forces that made a whole era what it was, and, by extension, what it is today.
"I Wanna Hold Your Head," Andrew Kopkind / Ramparts, April 1971
1. The myth of the Beatles was a seed-dream of the '60's. From it grew the rock religion to which massed millions now adhere. In most respects it is a complete cult, with a pantheon of gods, demi-gods, angels, priests, and sacrificial virgins installed to cater to the range of passions and needs. it is also big business, of course, as every true religion must become. In time, the roster of divinities grew long, but the Beatles retained the central throne. they claimed that they had superceded the old superstar, Jesus Christ, and for their adherents they were right. Then, as gods will, they fell to jealous fighting among themselves and went their ways, their divinity still more or less intact.
…
Chapter 5
THE SPIRITUAL BEATLES
From The Beatles Reader, edited by Charles P. Neises
1. The Beatles love what they do, so they love themselves. The screaming girls love the Beatles, and the Beatles are the receptacle or container of their love. They also resemble the Greek god of love, in the sense that Kierkegaard speaks of him:
It is a genuine Greek thought that the god of love is not himself in love, while all others owe their love to him. If I imagined a god or goddess of longing, it would be a genuinely Greek conception, while all who knew the sweet unrest of pain or of longing, referred it to this being, this being could know nothing of longing.
But the Beatles not only embody love, they are the Incarnation of Love. As Kierkegaard writes:
In the Incarnation, the special individual has the entire fullness of life within
himself and this fullness exists for other individuals only is so far as they
behold it in the incarnated individual. (From Immediate Stages of the Erotic)
The Beatles are as extraordinary as they are because they not only represent Love but also contain the "entire fullness" of Love within themselves. They are thus an embodiment and container of Love, and they are also the Love which they contain. There is no one there at all but themselves.
...
Thank God for The Beatles, by Timothy Leary, Harvard psychologist, and foremost spokesman of the psychedelic and LSD culture of the Sixties and Seventies
Obeisances to the Four Divine Gurus...
This essay is a logical exercise designed to prove that the Beatles are Divine Messiahs. The wisest, holiest, most effective avatars (Divine Incarnate, God Agents) that the human race has yet produced.
My thesis is a simple one. I declare that John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr are mutants. Prototypes of a new young race of laughing freemen. Evolutionary agents sent by God, endowed with mysterious power to create a new human species.…
Meet the Metaphysical Beatles: Vanguards of the Revolution / (excerpted from Alexander Journal No. 37)
1. Let us examine the nature of the soul agreements binding the four young men constituting the Beatles. An agreement was formed before their births to blend their disparate energies into a unified gestalt serving as the primary revolution- ary trigger for the Sixties. That is, in order to avoid the catastrophe of a culture suddenly collapsing as its cosmological pillars crumble -as western society's core value of separation violates natural law and must lead to cultural disintegration -- a trigger was needed to ignite the revolutionary fires of incendiary social change. The need was urgent for an irresistible force to wrest young people away from the values of their elders and larger culture, to enlist them as foot soldiers of revolution.
...
Chapter 6
AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
The Beatles With Lacan: Rock'n'roll as Requiem for the Modern Age by Henry W. Sullivan
1. Their outstanding music placed them in an unprecedented position of authority from which to influence cultural phenomena that were not strictly associated with the world of popular music. But my larger thesis is that they presided over an epochal shift comparable in scale to that bridging Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages, or the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. The Beatles became their own historical example for vindicating such a thesis.
…
US Weekly, Sept. 18, 2000
John Lennon, Paul McCartney; George Harrison and Ringo Starr changed everything. They transformed not just pop music but pop culture, simply by being themselves. Yet at the height of the frenzy of Beatlemania that began when "I Want to Hold Your Hand" topped the U.S. charts in Jan. 1964, they probably would have laughed at the idea that their fresh-faced images--30 years after their breakup, 20 years after John Lennon's murder--would still be beloved by everyone from tattooed teens to baby boomers' elderly parents.
The Beatles followed their creative whims, always with groundbreaking -- and commercially viable --results. In the 1960'S, they helped fuel the drug-drenched revolution of social and political consciousness that reverberates to this day. Everything they did seemed to open doors no one had even noticed were there, allowing an entire generation safe passage into uncharted territory.
British invaders though they were, the Fab Four purely embodied the American dream: average, working-class kids transformed through hard work, smarts and perseverance into the undisputed, yet humble, emperors of rock & roll. Their extraordinary adventures and fame were beyond most people's experiences, but the music was absolutely human. The Beatles Anthology, being published in October, is an oral and photographic history of their life in the band As Paul McCartney ruminates in the book, "The basic thing in my mind was that for all our success, the Beatles were always a great little band Nothing more, nothing less."
From "Intimate Portrait: Yoko Ono" / Lifeline/ video, 1995
1. In the mid-sixties, the Beatles were at the height of their charismatic power, and they were having an inebriating effect on a whole generation. This was more than music; this was a movement. John Lennon was redefining pop culture with his every move.
…
NOTE 1: To view Lennon's representative videos, accompanied by an on-going exposition, turn to my Lennon myspace:
NOTE 2: To review a catalog of Lennon's spoken ideas and ideals from edited interviews and other media, recorded on 10 CDs, turn to the Book Catalog on this site.
|
BOOK SAMPLE
ROCK LYRICS
From Musicians For the Conscious Transformation
With Inroductory Comments and Interpretations
INTRODUCTION
This book concentrates on the rock lyrics from the mid 1960s through to the present time that relate to the human-transcendent wisdom. These lyrics that underlie the conscious transformation movement that has been underway in our times specifically, and in all times generally. specifically, inasmuch as for the past twenty some-odd year, the focus has been narrowed more than ever before to the intuitive development of our psyche, and all that that implies morally, aesthetically, psychologically, and mystically.
The genesis of this book might be traced to something wisely said to me many years ago by a young man to the effect that rock musicians are the philosophers of our times. Of course, the rock musicians he referred to were narrowed down only to those musicians whose psychological and transcendent insights into the human condition were part and parcel of their music.
Accordingly, the lyrics and music herein are selected for their aforementioned insight as well as for their poetic expression as well as the blend of their music to their lyrics. Of course, for some, the music will be of little importance in relation to the meaning of the lyrics, which doesn't matter in the long run; though in the short run, it does matter; and for those to whom it does matter, they will recognize that relationship; and so in listening to the accompanying music, will gain another dimension of meaning to the lyrics.
The format of this book follows the pattern of the human-transcendent wisdom as presented in my other books on this site. Underlying this human-transcendent wisdom is the oneness of Love ? that is, Love-as-the-bond-of-unity.
My selected interpretations of these included lyrics, are not intended to be either complete nor final; since I am not able to penetrate into the minds of the lyricists specifically as to what they really meant by a particular verse or other. Perhaps, they themselves could not explain what came to them inspirationally or intuitively. But my extensive background, personally, psychologically, and transcendently, makes it possible for my to recognize certain patterns of thought that fit into a human-transcendent context. And on this basis, I feel secure in my interpretations of the musician's lyrics.
There are many impressive songs from noted musicians-singers-lyricists that herald, the coming of a new age, what I call "the conscious transformation," of which this site is based, and I'll include these at the outset, titled THE QUEST. Hopefully they will inspire the participant ? and I call a person a "participant" inasmuch as he reads these lyrics with interest, and hopefully concern ? to not only continue reading the various song-lyrics, but will listen to the accompanying music, as well as read the other topics on this site.
THE QUEST
"Basically, the whole world is doomed. So the way that I try to make it better... is
by playing music that could be spiritually uplifting, that could put people in a positive state of mind, where they would have the energy to get up and do something,
anything, that's positive."
- Flea (The Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Bob Dylan First announced the coming of the conscious transformation -- hereafter shortened as TCT -- as far back as the early `60's. Before TCT can happen a revolution in mind must happen - not a political nor social revolution - but a mental revolution in which archaic beliefs and values are overthrown, and superceded by a “revaluation of values,” as the great prophet Nietszche proclaimed over a hundred years ago -- yes, it takes that long -- and longer -- for the implantation of the new to outgrow the old.
The Times They Are A-Changin' / Bob Dylan
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.
COMMENTS
Yes, “There's a battle outside -- [and inside] / And it is ragin'.” We have to fight for this change in us, in others. We have to fight ourselves, have to fight others. Change does not come easily. You are taught, and you believe X; and live by X, even though you sense that X is not right for you. You have nothing else but X; you are defined by X; your parents and the authorities and institutions make sure of that. Now along comes someone with the idea, the ideal, of Y; and though you may sense that Y is for you, your psychology resists it at first - and for many people, at the last. You need a new understanding to help you along the way. Where is it to come? So you start searching. In the meantime, you start resisting X, while groping for Y; and you cause trouble, for yourself well as for others. You seem surrounded by conflict everywhere personally and socially. But the dam has been cracked, and you have naught to do but to prepare to be carried away with the flood - the flood of the new Y. You have no choice but to fight for Y. And what is Y? The belief in yourself, the belief that justice and wisdom will take precedence over injustice and ignorance.
A Call to Arms / Mike and the Mechanics
Midnight man at your door
Blackened faces run in the night
Daybreak under the floor
Bring my bow
Fill my head with flame, and we must
Let them know that the torch is lit again
Crystalize the pain behind your eyes
Are you ready to fight?
(You hear the drum and) run for your life
(Sweet Avalon the heat is on)
In other words, I hope and pray
That time and tide wash the hate away
A simple man with simple thoughts
Who turned to force as a last resort
All around us, chaos rings
Buildings crumbling down
Silhouettes in the fiery rain
Timbers crash to the ground
Bring my spear, invested with my youth
Bring the children near, they must now be told the truth
Old and young and those of foreign tongue
Are you ready to fight?
(You hear the drum and) run for your life
(Sweet Avalon the heat is on)
In other words, I hope and pray
That time and tide wash the hate away
A simple man with simple thoughts
Who turned to force as a last resort
In other words, I hope and pray
That time and tide wash the day away
When simple men with simple thoughts
Will turn to force as a last recourse
COMMENTS
The battleground, the war zone, is not necessarily on the warring battlefield but in one's mind, against oneself, against the injustices of others met everyday as rudeness, backbiting, lies, insults, bullying aggression, betrayal, intimidation, and so forth. The good fight is to bring light from darkness: the light of wisdom and justice from the darkness of injustice and ignorance - this is the “call to arms, ” of which this band sings, so that “time and tide wash the hate away." This good fight will not -- cannot -- happen sitting down in one's armchair, or crosslegged. Human nature is not made that way. And this is why U2 sings “I'm sick of hearing again and again / That there's gonna be peace on Earth.”
Peace On Earth / U2
Heaven on Earth, we need it now
I'm sick of all of this hanging around
Sick of sorrow, sick of the pain
I'm sick of hearing again and again
That there's gonna be peace on Earth
Where I grew up there weren't many trees
Where there was we'd tear them down
And use them on our enemies
They say that what you mock
Will surely overtake you
And you become a monster
So the monster will not break you
And it's already gone too far
Who said that if you go in hard
You won't get hurt
Jesus can you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
Tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground
Peace on Earth
No whos or whys
No one cries like a mother cries
For peace on Earth
She never got to say goodbye
To see the color in his eyes
Now he's in the dirt
Peace on Earth
They're reading names out over the radio
All the folks the rest of us won't get to know
Sean and Julia, Gareth, Ann and Breda
Their lives are bigger than any big idea
Jesus can you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
To tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground
Peace on Earth
Jesus sing a song you wrote
The words are sticking in my throat
Peace on Earth
Hear it every Christmas time
But hope and history won't rhyme
So what's it worth
This peace on Earth.
COMMENTS
There is suppressed anger in this U2 song, but which seethes through in the band, Machine Head's song Block, as they sing against political-economic injustice.
Block / Machine Head
Hate breeds hate my eyes they have seen
the decimation of all that is pure pure
A system that feeds the machine with
the blood, sweat and money of the poor poor
Corruption gets rich, honesty just exists
'cause nobody cares anymore anymore
F**k it all
F**k it all
White attack black, black attack back
the fuckin' media keeps us all blind blind
Children on crack, junkies on smack
you wanna close your eyes to hide hide
Pollution so dense, sickening existence
new world order, new world decline
F**k it all
F**k it all
The more the sense of ignorance
The more intense is the pain
Hate breeds hate my eyes they have seen
the decimation of all that is pure pure
A system that feeds the machine with
the blood, sweat and money of the poor poor
Believe in something if it stops your suffering
'cause all we have is nothing nothing
F**k it all
COMMENTS
And then there is religious injustice to contend with, as sung in the next two songs by Spirit Caravan, and Bad Religion.
Burnin' In / Spirit Caravan
There was a sign around for many years
It's universal power was revered
Then they twisted it around
And all the goodness was bound
Now it's a symbol of suffering, death and fear
With their crosses they came into the land
Claiming divine authority over man
They burned all the books
And their culture they took
Now the blood of the children's on their hands
It's sad the way the future looks today
The old and the young held in it's sway
A fanatical whim some call it a sin
It will come back upon them anyway
It's lies they're tellin'
Yes indeed
It's death they're sellin'
To feed their greed
To believe in something the just will win
The light of reason comes burnin' in
It's lies they're tellin'
Yes indeed
It's death you're smellin'
To feed their greed
To believe in something the just will win
With light of reason comes burnin' in
"Faith In God" / Bad Religion
It's all right to have faith in god
But when you bend to their rules and their fucking lies
That's when I start to have pity on you.
You're living on a mound of dirt,
But you can't explain your reason for existence
So you blame it on god.
So much hatred in this world and you can't decide
Who's pulling the strings
So you figure it's god.
Your whole life foreshadows death
And you finally realize you don't want to die alone
So you'll always have god.
It's all right to have faith in god
But when you bend to their rules and their fucking lies
That's when I start to have pity on you.
It's all right to have faith in god
But when you bend to their rules and their fucking lies
That's when I start to have pity on you.
There's people in the world today
Who say they're Jewish, Christian and such,
They're all ignorant fools.
They'll tell you you can't have your own way
unless you pay money and dedicate your life
Or you'll be damned in hell.
Don't be feeble like all of them,
You have your own brain full of thoughts and choices,
So use it don't let them use you.
COMMENTS
Nor must we be “blinded by science,” thinking that science has all the answers to human life, simply because it provides more pleasure than pain, as Foreigner sings,
Blinded By Science / Foreigner
Blinded by science, I'm on the run
Blinded by science, where do I belong?
What's in the future, has it just begun
Blinded by science, I'm on the run
I worry 'bout the world that we live in
I'm worried by all the confusion
I wonder 'bout the lies I've been reading
I wonder where this madness is leading
Is this a road going nowhere?
Or is someone leading us somewhere?
I can't believe we're here for no reason
There must be something we can believe in
Blinded by science, I'm on the run
I'm not an appliance, so don't turn me on
What's in the future, has it just begun
Blinded by science, I'm on the run
What's in the future, has it just begun
Blinded by science, I'm on the run
I worry 'bout the world that we live in
I'm worried by all the confusion
I wonder 'bout the lies I've been reading
I wonder where this madness is leading
Is this a road going nowhere?
Is someone leading us somewhere?
I can't believe we're here for no reason
There must be something we can believe in
Blinded by science, I'm on the run
I'm not an appliance, don't turn me on
What's in the future, has it just begun
Blinded by science, I'm on the run
Blinded by science, I'm on the run
I'm blinded by science, on the run
COMMENTS
We must recognize, struggle against, and rise above, the personal and social conditions that stagnate and abuse our humanity. We must be in control, not THEM -- whoever THEM are -- who are making all our decisions. We must stand strong and fight our weaknesses that put others in control of our lives unjustly and ignorantly. We must hold to the position, as Machine Head sings, of “I won't break, it gives me strength”
A Nation On Fire / Machine Head
 Well I see, I feel
 On my way
 You close your eyes, scared to think
 You might see
 A world that spends more to kill than to cure
 Living, writhing, diseased, so unpure
 It hardens me, the things I see
 But I won't break, it gives me strength
[Chorus:]
 Our suffering, won't always be
 We'll dominate, this nation on fire
The media it
 Blinds our eyes
 A people divided
 And force feds lies
 The black and white societies corrode
 Warring, hating, blind, a rage explodes
 So take my hand across this land
 won't go down, stand my ground
 [Chorus]
 This nation's built on fighting war after war
 And for my brothers, I will fight and stand for
 'Cause I won't break, Your truth is fake
 If blood ran red, You'd leave me for dead
A nation on fire
 A nation on fire
You tell me peace, Well I hear gunshots all night
 The scars I have, I've earned 'cause I've had to fight
 An endless pain, and it won't change
 We just sat by, and watched this world die
A nation on fire
 A nation on fire
The more the sense of ignorance
The more intense is the pain
Hate breeds hate my eyes they have seen
the decimation of all that is pure pure
A system that feeds the machine with
the blood, sweat and money of the poor poor
Believe in something if it stops your suffering
'cause all we have is nothing nothing
F**k
COMMENTS
But we can't stand strong and determined alone. We will eventually collapse by the sheer resistance of the opponent “A million heads are better than one,” as Lennon sang. We need others to bolster our commitment, as they need us. We must be soldiers of TCT. We need, first a man or woman of vision and leadership to lead the way, and to bring out the leadership and vision in others as well. The Bee Gees sing of this person.
Wind of Change / The Bee Gees
In the streets of New York City
ev'ry man can feel the cold.
And I don't want no pity,
but I want my story told.
When the lights shine down on me,
they shine on the little boy.
In this way to make him pay;
be'ng born in a world of joy.
But like me
he don't know where he'll go wrong;
he won't cry so many tears
till he finds out why he don't belong like me.
there's no room for us out there;
you can lose your hope and pride.
When it comes to broken dreams
you'll get your share.
Sometime a man breaks down,
and the good thing he is looking for
are crushed into the ground.
Get on up, look around;
can't you feel the wind of change?
Get on up, taste the air;
can't you see the wind of change;
Don't you understand what I'm sayin',
we need a god down there.
A man to lead us children,
take us from the valley of fear.
Make the lights shine down on us,
show us the road to go.
Help us survive, make us arrive,
teach us what we need to know.
But like me
he don't know where he'll go wrong;
he won't cry so many tears
till he finds out why he don't belong like me.
...
Get on up, look around;
can't you feel the wind of change?
Get on up, taste the air;
can't you see the wind of change.
COMMENTS
This song is a plea for the man or woman of vision who sees through the "wind of change" in his midst to its human realization ? to give mankind form and meaning to this vision without "breaking down." The forces of inertia make sure that "the good things he is looking for are crushed into the ground." This "god" must "lead us children" and not falter, as Christ did not falter. In a way, we must all become Christs -- or at least Christlike and hero -- like in our dedication and determination to be ourselves, to free ourselves, and others.
Starlit Eyes / System of a Down
 Pushin' the law again
 Pushin' the law again
Justice with a sword
 Our smiling knight on board
 Opening his heart to everyone
 And loving without a doubt
 Embarrassing friends and
 embarrassing foes,
 And those who were unjust
 A man true to his heart
 without fear or misgivings
 With "insecurity" tattooed
 across his body
The first to accept, the last to disappoint
 He understood all and expected nothing
Now you are free
 Free to roam the skies
 Now and then visit me
 With your starlit eyes
 You took all our hearts
 With your smile,
 And left a legacy untold
You conquered life and fear,
 So you see there was no room for you to grow old
Holding Out for a Hero / Bonnie Tyler
Where have all the good men gone and where are all the gods?
Where's the great white Hercules to fight the rising odds?
Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night I toss and I turn and I dream of what i need
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero till the end of the night
he's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fast
and gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero till the morning light
He's gotta be sure and he's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life
Larger than life
Somewhere after midnight
In my wildest fantasies
Somewhere just beyond my reach
There's someone reaching back for me
Racing on the thunder and rising with the heat
It's gonna take a Superman to sweep me off my feet
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero till the end of the night
he's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fast
and gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero till the morning light
He's gotta be sure and he's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life
Larger than life
I the mountains neath the heavens above
Out where the lightning strikes the sea
I can swear that there's someone somewhere watching me
Through the wind and the chill and the rain
and the storm and the flood
I can feel his approach like a fire in my blood
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero till the end of the night
he's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fast
and gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero till the morning light
He's gotta be sure and he's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life
Larger than life
When I Look at the World / U2
When you look at the world
What is it that you see
People find all kinds of things
That bring them to their knees
I see an expression
So clear and so true
That changes the atmosphere
When you walk into the room
So I try to be like you
Try to feel it like you do
But without you it's no use
I can't see what you see
When I look at the world
When the night is someone else's
And you're trying to get some sleep
When your thoughts are too expensive
To ever want to keep
When there's all kinds of chaos
And everyone is walking lame
You don't even blink now, do you
Or even look away
So I try to be like you
Try to feel it like you do
But without you it's no use
I can't see what you see
When I look at the world
I can't wait any longer
I can't wait till I'm stronger
I can't wait any longer
To see what you see
When I look at the world
I'm in the waiting room
Can't see for the smoke
I think of you and your holy book
While the rest of us choke
Tell me, tell me, what do you see
Tell me, tell me, what's wrong with me
COMMENTS
But this modern day Christ is no saint, he is first and foremost a man, or woman, who has all the failings and charms of a human being, but conjointly knows his transcendence and strives to live by it. This is the point in titling this next song, by Deadsy, as Tom Sawyer, who, as we know from our reading, was a charmingly troublesome boy.
Tom Sawyer / Deadsy
A modern day warrior
Mean mean stride
Today's Tom Sawyer
Mean mean pride
Though his mind is not for rent
Don't put him down as arrogant
His reserve, a quiet defense
Riding out the day's events
The river
What you say about his company
Is what you say about society
Catch the mist
Catch the myth
Catch the mystery
Catch the drift
The world is the world is
Love and life are deep
Maybe as his skies are wide
Today's Tom Sawyer
He gets high on you
And the space he invades
He gets by on you
No, his mind is not for rent
To any god or government
Always hopeful, yet discontent
He knows changes aren't permanent
But change is
What you say about his company
Is what you say about society
Catch the witness
Catch the wit
Catch the spirit
Catch the spit
The world is the world is
Love and life are deep
Maybe as his eyes are wide
Exit the warrior
Today's Tom Sawyer
He gets high on you
And the energy you trade
He gets right on to
The friction of the day
COMMENTS
And because our humanity is both weak in its humanness and strong in its transcendence depending upon our life's circumstances at any given time, neither one nor the other side of us can permanently possess us. We do weaken however strong we may be. Hence we need others to assist us in our personal and social quest to “move on,” to “break on through to the other side,” as Jim Morrison sang. The hero, needs soldiers to bolster him, to give him the courage to go on, to "make the lights shine down on us." The hero is as dependent upon us as we are upon him, “independence,” wrote George Bernard Shaw, is middleclass blasphemy.” And this message is sung in the Bee Gees' "Soldiers."
Soldiers
I memorize, I walk in line
carry my sacrifice for the sake of the millions
All night you be the light on the water
You be the pride and the sorrow
Shower your love to me there
Summer died before the rain
Unify every soul together be lonely
Ride on follow me to the sunrise
Save me the world that is broken
Nothing but love to be there
Soldiers, father and son
We're soldiers, nowhere to run
We fight or we die
For what are we livin' for?
Boys never cry
Soldiers, mother and child
We're soldiers, the meek and the mild
We stand or we fall
Never mind, dry your eyes
You'll never be far away
Forever beside me
Hold out, I will be your tomorrow
I will walk through the fire
Nothing but love to be there
Soldiers, father and son
We're soldiers,nowhere to run
We fight or we die
For what are we living' for
Boys never cry
Soldiers, mother and child
We're soldiers, the meek and the mild
We stand or we fall
I'm a little misunderstood
living all the daydreams and nightmares
don't do me no good
I'm a little bit on the moon
But when the word is - you love me
No moment is too soon
All night give me the light on the water
Give me the pride and the sorrow
Showing your love to me there
...
COMMENTS
We have to come together, to fight the good fight, to get beyond our present circumstances that bind us to those past values and belief that hold us back, hold us down. We must become soldiers: parents and children, and lovers and friends. And as it is love that binds us together; so it must be through love that we make a "brave new world." ruled by love. Neil Young sings of this state of affairs.
Name Of Love / Neil Young
You who rule
upon the land,
You hold the future
in your hand,
When you take your people
down the road,
Before another bomb
explodes.
Can you do it
in the name of love?
Can you do it
in the name of love?
And when you sail
upon the sea
This one's for you,
this one's for me.
Before another missile flies
You who soar into the sky
Can you do it
in the name of love?
Can you do it
in the name of love?
And so I shout it
around the world
To every boy and every girl,
Yeah, I shout it
around the world
To every boy and every girl,
Can you do it
in the name of love?
Can you do it
in the name of love?
Can you do it
in the name of love?
COMMENTS
And from a personal point of view, U2 sings about the utmost importance of love in one's life.
Love Rescue Me / U2
Love rescue me
Come forth and speak to me
Raise me up and don't let me fall
No man is my enemy
My own hands imprison me
Love rescue me
Many strangers have I met
On the road to my regret
Many lost who seek to find themselves in me
They ask me to reveal
The very thoughts they would conceal
Love rescue me
And the sun in the sky makes a shadow of you and I
Stretching out as the sun sinks in the sea
I'm here without a name in the palace of my shame
Love rescue me
In the cold mirror of a glass
I see my reflection pass
I see the dark shades of what I used to be
I see the purple of her eyes
The scarlet of my lies
Love rescue me
And the sun in the sky makes a shadow of you and I
Stretching out as the sun sinks in the sea
I'm hanging on by my thumbs
I'm ready for whatever comes
Love rescue me
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow
Yet I will fear no evil
I have cursed thy rod and staff
They no longer comfort me
Love rescue me
I've conquered my past
The future is here at last
I stand at the entrance
To a new world I can see
The ruins to the right of me
Will soon have lost sight of me
Love rescue me
COMMENTS
And what is this new world to come? If it is to be one of love that will lead to the wisdom and justice we are seeking, then it would be imperative for us to understand just what is meant by love in its various manifestations. Is love just peaceful? Certainly not if we look at human life as it is. Is it not insane as it is sane? Is it just unity, or diversity as well? And if diversity, then, as the Bee Gees sing in their “Evolution,” “Love it in leather I don't care,”… “Everything is legal in the danger zone,”… “being the one In the storm of revolution,” … “we look for the same insane games …” ”Got to be commital / To the subtle variations.” From these lyrics, it seems that the love that underlies this conscious transformation is much more varied and subtle, and dangerous, than we might have considered it. Normally we think of love as the safe zone, not the “danger zone.” As this conscious transformation is a “form of evolution,” we best be as understanding of love in its role in this transformation as we can.
Evolution / The Bee Gees
There's a law in what we do
We got a quest for something new
Everything you witness seems to
Let you down
If someone gets you from behind
I got an open mind
And you've been thirsty for the friend you found
Close your eyes and make a wish
I don't wanna mess with mother nature
Knowing that you're mine
You said I could see
You with another and we all get satisfied
(CHORUS)
It's a form of evolution
It's a kind of movin' on
An eternal source of pleasure
In being the one
When your love is for the giving
It's a case of destiny
You know we look for the same insane games
Got to be commital to be a little deviation
So I get all wound up inside
I can see your scene unwind
You dance together or you dance alone
And leave the real world in the air
Love it in leather I don't care
Everything is legal in the danger zone
Close your eyes and make a wish
Later we could cater to the animal
Knowing that you're mine
It's straight in my face
You and your lover and the brain is paralyzed
(CHORUS)
It's a form of evolution
It's a kind of movin' on
It's a cycle of emotion
In being the one
In the storm of revolution
What is done can be undone
You know we look for the same insane games
Got to be commital
To the subtle variations
(CHORUS)
It's a form of evolution
It's a kind of movin' on
It's a cycle of emotion
In being the one
If your love is for the givin'
It's a case of destiny
And you can find your source of pleasure
In being with me
COMMENTS
This song basically is getting the message across that we are evolving into a state of humanity in which "all things" are permitted both humanly and transcendently inasmuch "we all get satisfied" according to our proclivities that harm no one and are consensual, and evolutionary - that is beyond our present limitations. We've "got to be commital to be a little deviation," .\ "to the subtle variations." And lest anyone think this "kind of moving on" is sexual or sensual only, the song makes the point of "an eternal source of pleasure" not just carnal , sensual, or even sensuous.pleasure.
Love is not a static unity of oneness that has no penetration into the dimensions of time, space, and causality. If it is true that God is love, and that God is essentially everything and every- where, then love - as a substitute name for God - is just as much everything and everywhere. So love is unity as well as diversity. How this is so, we do not know, nor even need to know. We will take its truth on a common faith of reality? Love, as the bond of unity, binds the world together. The world is a diversity of infinite relationships. These relationship involve all the various “opposites” in life - call them opposites to simplify matters - of which we perceive and conceive; such opposites, as male-female, good-evil, hot-cold, black-white, day-night, glad-sad, pleasure-pain, and on and on. Everything revolves around these opposites so that everything is in flux (change), as the ancient Greek philosopher stated. Nothing in life stays the same for any one day, hour, minute, even second. We may want something in particular to never change, but eventually it does one day or another, and we must prepare for that eventuality. Change pains us in various degrees, and some people can never adapt to certain changes, and so they suffer. We are bound to suffer in any case, but to minimize that suffering is to have the proper perspective on our life of change, as well as the proper perspective on our changeless, transcendent (spiritual) world. Eccelesiasties (of the Bible) wrote about this situation many hundreds of years ago, and it has been updated as a rock tune in the following song, “Turn, Turn, Turn,” sung by The Byrds.
“Turn! Turn! Turn!” / The Byrds
To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time for every purpose, under Heaven
A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep
To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time for every purpose, under Heaven
A time to build up,a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together
To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time for every purpose, under Heaven
A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing
To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time for every purpose, under Heaven
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time to love, a time to hate
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late
COMMENTS
Yes, it is time now for peace on a scale that has never been had on earth before. This is not to say that there will not be wars, but that peace will take precedence over war, so that war becomes an insignificant part of human life. War, however, will continue within oneself, between our fellow beings in the various activities of daily life. How long this state of world peace will reign over mankind is just as dubious as to how this peace will transform us as human beings. It will be, as the Bee Gees sang, “a kind of moving on” - to where we don't know. But this we do know: we have to move on beyond this tedious state of affairs of war, war, war. As U2 sang in their Peace on Earth, “Heaven on Earth, we need it now.”
THE VISION
NOTE: the following songs are not accompanied by comments, but will be in the near future. For now, you can at least get an idea of the type of songs that are to be included in this conscious trans- formation popularized by song.
And what will this heaven on earth be like. We do not know, but we have intimations, visions, of it, as the following songs reveal.
“Distant Vision” / Kansas
On a night as I lay sleeping, in a dream
I saw the shore of a distant land where
Promise lay in wait
And I heard the sound of voices
of a million hungry souls
Now it comes to me to lead them to the gate
But I am just a man, not worthy of this plan
With a strength that's not my own,
I must rise
And I...will bear the light, (and the
vision leads me onward)
That blind....men have their sight
I'd sail a thousand seas to make it so
To the Kings I gave the mission,
in the hope that they would share
In the joy
of setting countless captives free
But the lust for Gold and power, is luring us
away
From a calling that began in purity
And 'm still just a man, not worthy of
this plan
With a strength that's not my
own, I must rise
Now a tempest rages in my heart, as this
fever furies on / Soon these islands
promise rest and hope, my answers wait
beyond their shore
Dream on...
Hungry eyes are standing on the sand,
they beckon us to bring the tide
Sovereign hand must hold me now, I plead
with you
Be my solace and my guide...by my side
And I...will walk with you
On the shores of the land of promise
That blind...men see you too
I'd sail a thousand seas to make it so
“Incident on a Bridge” / Kansas
It began in the underground, with visions of light and sound
The music revealing the deepest passion
Around us a river raged, still I knew that the scene was staged
Awaiting the consequence, I don't believe in accidents
(Chorus)
It's all too real, all these things we feel
As the years go by, things intensify
And I know, for each life there is a reason
And I know, for each time there is a season
Now the bridge leads on, to a brighter dawn
It's waiting for me
We were tied by a bond of fate, in our hearts we could feel the weight
Carried along by the winds of fortune
The outcome was never known, and our purpose was never shown.
'Til everything fell in place, the words on the wall we could not erase
(Chorus)
Each piece is arranged, the puzzle's complete
Victory's taste is so bittersweet
No regrets for the time that was lost
For it all comes out in the end
And the prize is worth all the tears that it cost
For the stairway you ascend
Drawing us near
It's where we belong
The world has a lot to give, but it's worthless if you don't live
And life only comes from the one who made it
When I look back and see the plan, when I retrace the race we ran
The course was so clear and true, each bridge that we crossed led me straight to you
“Mansion World” / Deadsy
Once upon, and once up high
A dandy dream, what means to die?
Things to come, as life goes by
The core of human equation
Pentagram present the sign
A sign to save your eyes
Turn around, I'd like to know you
Everywhere and every why
The answer lay beyond the sky
Pass through the seven satellites pass on to the place we go to
(Learn to read!)
To rhyme, to count your primes
An earthly education
(Climb A Tree!)
In life in hopes to find
(The mid-space time - dilation)
On a Mansion World, the role's reversed
A slave becomes a master
On a Mansion World, the soul's converse
And life moves a little faster
We unify the universe
And arrive in the ever after
In the Mansion World, I might like to know you
Now and then it comes to mind
I draw upon a long lost time
So don't ask me why the angels won't cry 'cause you know what I've already told you
Memories of Urantia girls they race around my brain in swirls
You never ask me why the change is in the sky bring you up which to the hole
that you go through
And now you're off you've done the time
Prepare for divine invasion
As the spirit climbs Morontia minds
Ascend to the cosmic nation
On a Mansion World, the role's reversed
A slave becomes a master
On a Mansion World, the soul's converse
And life moves a little faster
We unify the universe
And arrive in the ever after
In the Mansion World, I might like to know you
New Urantia girl, everything's below you
On a Mansion World, the role's reversed
A slave becomes a master
On a Mansion World, the soul's converse
And life moves a little faster
We unify the universe
And arrive in the ever after
In the Mansion World, I might like to know you
Once upon, and once up high
A dandy dream, what means to die?
(Chorus)
What is it that we have to go beyond? One thing is the God without, that is, the anthropomorphic God who consciously rules the world from here to eternity, who ultimately decides the outcome of our lives in heaven or hell. The following songs rule out such a God.
...
PATHICS OF EVIL
A Compilation with the Author's Introduction
By
Joseph Sguigna
in Collaboration with David Kaye Nason
CONTENTS
Prefatory Note
An Exploratory Introduction
PART ONE
Pathics and Evil
Chapter 1 The Evil in Human Nature
Chapter 2 Pathics As Evil (Nonprofessioanl Descriptions)
Chapter 3 Professional Descriptions of the Pathic Character
Chapter 4 Nonprofessional Descriptions of the Pathic Character
Chapter 5 Self Descriptions of the Pathic Character
Chapter 6 Two Authors' Experiences of the Pathic Character
Chapter 7 Pathic Character Profiles From World Literature
Chapter 8 Pathics in the Bible
Chapter 9 Pathics as Psychotic Killers
PART TWO
Pathics in Personal Relationships
Chapter 9 Nature or Nurture or Both
Chapter 10 Child Pathics
Chapter 11 Men Pathics
Chapter 12 Women Pathics
Chapter 13 Inverted Women Pathics (Codependents)
Chapter 14 Sex and the Pathic
Chapter 15 Religion and the Pathic
Chapter 16 Gaslighting and The Pathic
Chapter 17 Pathics and the Traumatic Effects on Their Victims
Chapter 18 Protective Suggestions from Pathic Victims
PART THREE
Pathics in The Social Sphere
Chapter 19 The Pathic in The Workplace
Chapter 20 Protective Suggestions Against Workplace Pathics
Chapter 21 Pathic Aspects of Government
Chapter 22 Pathic Aspects of Corporate Economics
Chapter 23 Pathic Aspects of The New World Order
Chapter 24 Suggested Remedies Against Political / Economic Pathics
PART FOUR
Pathics and the Soft-natured Person
Chapter 25 Pathics and the Soft-natured Person
Prefatory Note
The personal accounts of these passages are mainly from internet forums; and I am endlessly grateful for each person's story, which, without these forums, this book could not have been compiled. These individuals have contributed immeasurably to the ongoing understanding of the pathic personality.
To keep the authenticity of the personal accounts in this book, I have retained each person's natural way of writing with their often nonstandard words, spellings and usages - for example: “gonna,” “for the helluvit,” “sooooo seductive,” etc; as well as, idiosyncratic words, such as “creepazoids” I retained their use of capital letters for emphasis, since their accounts on these internet forums were written in plain text, which, do not include bolding, italics, underlining, and the like (HTML). Also, since many of these accounts are from England, I retained their standard spell- ings of such words as, “behaviour” (behavior), “cant” (can't), “favour” (favor) “realise” (realize), etc. I do change punctuation marks, so that their sentence arrangement make sense
The following abbreviations are used by the personal accounts in this book
Abbreviations Used
N - Narcissist
S - sociopath
P - Psychopath
NP - Narcissistic Psychopath
NPD - Narcissistic Personality Disorder
NS - Narcissistic Supply (attention, admiration, etc.)
APD - Antisocial Personality Disorder
BPD - Borderline Personality Disorder
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AN EXPLORATORY INTRODUCTION
1
1. The following ideas are exploratory statements set down without any proof other than my own years of research, observation, reflection, and contemplation. So, I'm stating them as though they already are substantially proven - and the word "substantial" is important here, because nothing is set down in stone regarding human nature and behavior. If my readers recognize the overall truth - relative truth - of these pronouncements, then I have accomplished my task of getting to the bottom of my subject matter. As Thoreau wrote, "There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." My aim is to get to the root.
2. The purpose of this book: is for the reader to be made aware of how the other part -- the destructive part -- of humanity thinks .We know how they act pretty much, now we must understand them to their root so that we may protect ourselves from them as best we can; and the consolidated readings in this book are a major step in this direction. The following passages from two survivors of the pathic person capture the tone and direction of this purpose
"Trying to scan through the postings [from internet forums], someone has written 'together we really are experts on this subject'. It struck me just how powerful are the combined forces of a group of committed and altruistic survivors and internet technology. It's truly amazing. "
"A new day is here; a great opportunity to really come to terms with our experience/s with NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) disordered personalities..... Suze perhaps we could have a section somewhere where we could all write our personal biographies....where we can visit at will...and new members can read without it all being rehashed..... I know I seem to have told mine [probably in 'bits' over time] and it would be therapeutic for me to write the entire story once and for all ...adding chapters as they pass; e.g. court experience, property settlement, etc and of course the emotional roller coaster. The biographies [of those wanting to participate] could be collated and published as an inspirational book. It perhaps could include introductory chapters on the disorder and its various manifestations in 'plain speak'. I'm sure there is more than sufficient collective knowledge and experience in the group to be able to contribute as writers, editors, collators etc. No reason we couldn't 'do it' over the web. Just a few suggestions...no offence intended to anyone."
2
The Pathics
1. In reading this book, and any other book dealing with this matter of the "mean ones," -- to use this simplistic phrase for now -- the commonplace terms applied to them are "psychopath," "sociopath," and "narcissist." These terms are commonly used interchangeably, and so can be confusing as to the degree of meanness in any one person and his behavior.
2. Accordingly, my wife came up with a comprehensive term that includes all three terms; yet, distinguishes the degree of meanness entailed by each of the terms. The term "pathics" is this comprehensive term that includes the sociopath, the psychopath, the narcipath -- I will modify the term , "narcissist" to "narcipath" so that the suffix, "path," is consistent with the other two terms.
3. If we consider the term "evil" generically as meaning destructive, the breaking down of good, justice, love, peace (peace of mind, as well), then we can define these three variants of pathics in the following general way: The narcipath does evil for the sake of self aggrandizement; the sociopath does evil for the sake of dominance over others; and the psychopath does evil for the sake of evil, or more particularly, of malice.
It is often difficult to determine whether a person is one or the other type of pathic, since pathic traits are so similar that they often overlap, one into the other. Is the pathic essentially sociopathic or is he/she essentially narcipathic, or psychopathic? On hearing the accounts of others, it would be difficult to determine which is which; but the person who actually experiences a particular pathic would fairly much know once he realizes that this pathic is out to break her down, destroy her self-worth either from sheer malice, from sheer self-aggrandizement, or from sheer dominance.
The confusion is even more complex when we consider that a pathic on the surface who is controlling, but who from a deeper aspect is controlling in order to harm his victim from sheer malice; or the person who is being willfully malicious might seem to be so for the sake of malice itself, when in fact he his is acting maliciously in order to control the person or persons. and the complexities go on and on.
Yet the obvious scenario would be when the person obviously preens herself on being aggressively superior to others in intelligence, in attractiveness, in expertise, and willfully harms anyone or any situation that threatens that sense of superiority -- then it is obvious that that person is a narcipath. Similarly, a person with the same sense of superiority but whose main modus operendi is to use that sense of superiority, not for her own self-aggrandizement, but to control others and situations and events to their detriment if they don't fit into her schemes -- then it is obvious that that person is a sociopath. Again, given a person with the same superiority complex, but whose main concern is neither self-aggrandizement nor dominance, but to harm other for the seer sake of delighting in, thrilling to, to the suffering, agony even, that he inflicts -- then that person is obviously a psychopath. And lastly, given the same superiority complex in an individual, but to such a severe extreme that it is not even a matter of delight or thrill at the suffering he inflicts upon another; but rather it is an orgasmic demonic compulsion he anticipates, and actually experiences, at his victim's physical and mental agony. In such acts, he gratifies his demented superiority complex, his twisted control over another person's life, and his demonic pleasure in the perdition of his act -- it is then obvious that that person is a psychoticpath.
4. We all, as human, have our own share in these three traits: self-aggrandizement, dominance over others, and malice. The difference is that these traits are naturally, innately, excessive in pathics, so that their actions are mostly and consistently destructive than constructive. Their malady, we might call it, is to destroy and control the well-being of others. It is considered a malady because it is like a strain of virus that infiltrates life in order to destroy it. So far as trait, this virus, is functioning as a destroying agency, it is in itself healthy; on the other hand, inasmuch as it destroys the well-being of others, it is considered a disease. And so the root suffix "path" as meaning 'disease' is justifiably affixed to the terms "psychopath" and "sociopath, and, as I term it, "narcipath." But to call a pathic - whether psychopath, sociopath, or narcipath -- as "sick" or diseased, misses the point; since they themselves are neither "sick nor diseased; rather, it is their presence and their behavior that cause sickness or disease in others. They themselves are fine just the way they are so long as they are acting effectively from their "center," so to speak. That they often bring upon themselves destruction -- self-destruction, more particularly -- by their actions is not normally their own doing, but the social, legal, inter-personal, and self-limiting (misfiring) consequences of their actions. Life (good; light) has to protect itself from death (evil, dark).
5. The term "pathic" then will be used in this book as the comprehensive, generic, meaning for those who do evil - destruction, breaking down -- or malice, upon their fellow man. The type of the person's natural tendencies, will determine in general whether he or she is psychopathic, sociopathic, or narcipathic (narcissistic).
6. So, in sum, we have the pathic nature who is either narcipathic, sociopathic, psychopathic, or psychoticpathic, depending upon the type and extent of his or her pathic behavior.
7. A simplified distinction between the four types of pathics:
The narcipath: "I'm the best! - no matter what, and to your detriment if you get in my way."
The sociopath: "I'm the boss! - no matter what, and to your detriment if you get in my way."
The psychopath: "I'm the torturer! - no matter what, and to your detriment at my whim."
The psychoticpath: "I'm the archfiend! - no matter what and to your agony and/ordeath."
8. We would say that he or she is a pathic type by nature. A person who displays pathic behavior, not by nature, but as a result of conditioning or nurture, is not naturally a pathic but conditionally a pathic.
9. One almost certain way of determining whether a person is naturally or conditionally a pathic, would be to observe his or her behavior from childhood up. There are definite traits that a child displays that marks him or her as a pathic (See chapter 10). I say almost certain, because even then, if a child is abused right from the beginning of life; yet has a hard enough nature -- not pathic - to survive, he will display such pathic behavioral patterns. If an abused child has too much of a soft-nature, such abuse would more than likely turn him or her into a neuropath, which is more of a passive response to abuse.
10. In relation to the four types of pathics, the term "pyschopath," containing the prefix "psycho" meaning "mind" refers to a person's nature. The term "sociopath," containing the prefix "socio" refers to a person's behavior in a social setting, as a result of his psychopathic nature, or mind set.
11. So we say that a psychopath has particular characteristics that make them act sociopathically.
In which case, a person is "wired" psychopathically to have no conscience psychologically so that he acts without conscience sociopathically.
So, for example, a psychopathic inborn trait of irresponsibility would make him potentially receptive to act irresponsibly.
We refer to a person as a sociopath when we are speaking of his actions, his behavior; we refer to a person as a psychopath when we are speaking of his character or temperament, or nature.
12. Another distinction that has to be made is the difference between a psychopath and a psychoticpath. A psychoticpath may have all the traits of the psychopath, with the addition, however, of an intense bloodlust streak so that it makes it possible for him-her to commit murder, mayhem, torture, etc individually or serially compulsively without remorse.
The term "psychotic" refers to disease, pathology; and as such, the disease can go in one of two ways: pathically to the extreme, or neurotically to the extreme. When it goes neurotically to the extreme, then the psychosis reveals itself as manic-depression, or hypochondria, or schizophrenia, or delusional disorder, and the like. Such a psychotic person would be considered a neuropsychotic.
When it goes pathically to the extreme, then the psychosis reveals itself in murder, mayhem, torture, etc individually or serially, without remorse. Such a psychotic person would be considered a psychoticpath.
4
Soft Natures
1. Two other terms that are crucial in understanding the pathic character - and one's own character as well - are "hard" and "soft" natures.
2. It is essential to understand the distinctions between a soft-natured and a hard natured person for our enlightenment and for the protection and survival of our well-being.
3. Put simply, a hard-natured person is less impressionable than a soft-natured person. Analogously, we might say that a soft-natured person is like hot wax in which a thumb impression goes deeply; whereas a hard-natured person is like cold wax in which little or no impression is possible. Of course, there are degrees of heat that make wax more or less impressionable; and the less heat applied to the wax the harder it is too make a thumb impression; in which case, we have the degrees of a hard-natured person.
In other words, the more impressionable a person is psychologically, the softer natured he or she is; and conversely, the less impressionable a person is psychologically, the harder natured that person is.
4. Another wax analogy: An analogy with soft and hard natures could be seen with wax. The warmer wax becomes the more impressions can be made with it.; the harder it is the less impressions can be made on it. A knife flakes a hard candle; that same knife cuts through a soft candle. Soft = warm or hot; hard = cool or cold. The hotter wax becomes the less pliable, impressionable, it becomes so that it melts rather than have an impression made upon it. Hence, analogously speaking, the neurotic or neuropath. The cooler, then colder, wax becomes, the less pliable, impressionable, it becomes
5. Loosely speaking, a hard nature is hard wired physiologically, temperamentally - that is psychosomatically; and a soft-nature is soft-wired physiologically and temperamentally - that is, psychosomatically.
6. A tendency toward variant neuroses.
7. A tendency to forgive others indiscriminately.
8. A tendency toward moral idealism - right, goodness, integrity, and the like.
9. A tendency to consider all people as basically good-natured, but some of whom are corrupted by their conditioning and nurture.
10. A tendency to be more on the defensive than on the offensive.
11. Is subject to the burden of conscience that dictates its way often indiscriminately, often to their own detriment.
12. Loves intensely and/or deeply.
13. A soft nature can be hardened by an adverse environment.
14. A hardened person is not basically a hard nature.
15. A guilty conscience: - That we don't do right by another person or others. It preys on us, and hard-natures prey on us as well.
16. Our (moral-loving) conscience inhibits, prohibits, us from doing harm to others overall; yet regarding ourselves, we often enough go against our conscience, since we have only ourselves to answer to.
17. To be free of this "nagging conscience" of guilt, shame, embarrassment, anxiety, of the "abyss" - of evil - is this not a sometimes secret impulsion in the soft natured ones, if only for "a walk on the wild side," an exercise in consciencelessness, to be as the hard-natured ones! would that not be one of our three wishes from the genie of the lamp?
18. The soft-natures are given to caring-love --often too much so -- so that the hard-natures make sure that their partner - their victim" - falls head-over-heels in love with him/her. Once that love is cemented, the bond is so tight that it would take an equal or stronger bond to break it (a splitting of the atom). That is why the hard-natured ones make sure no such other bond occurs; hence, his or her weakening and breaking ties with old friends, family members, God, Jesus, and whoever or whatever else would threaten that hold he has on her, or she has on him.
19. The softer one is, the more of love she is; and so the more intense and/or deep he loves, the more understanding of others and oneself, the more he identifies with others. Sensory, sensual, sensuous, stimuli, impress themselves deeply into his being. Yet if she is bound obsessively, compulsively, to a hard nature, all her love energy is focused into her "lord"; and so, she has little or nothing left for others or for her broader, transcendent, side. And this is what is meant when we say a hard-natured person "has broken a person's spirit."
20. The more one's self-love excludes the love of others, the harder that person's amour sets itself against all human sentiments; in which case, that person can maneuver and manipulate his way through the will of others with impunity.
21. An excessively hard-natured person makes for the pathic type of person, whether as a narcipath, a sociopath, a psychopath, or a psychoticpath. an excessively soft-natured person makes for the neurotic type of person, whether as egoneurotic, socioneurotic, or psychoneurotic.
22. The ego-neurotic is the self-effacing, self-inhibiting, disordered person in all the variations of this mental type . The socio-neurotic is the social-effacing, social-inhibiting, disordered person in all the variations of this mental type. The psychoneurotic is the self-fragmented, social-distorted insane person in all the variations of this mental type.
23. The ego-neurotic has pacified his self-identity to such an extent that his self-worth is minimized to the control and influence of others. The socio-neurotic cannot function in society without extreme mental anxiety. The psychoneurotic withdraws into the fantastic chambers of mental derangement.
24. The pathics are typically aggressive, the neurotics are typically passive.
25. Pathics tend to be sadists - and all their variations; neurotics tend to be masochists - and all their variations.
5
1. It is furthermore essential to understand our humanness from our transcendence. In this way, we will come to understand not only the pathic psychologically (that is, their humanness), but to protect ourselves from them transcendently.
2. In the broadest sense our humanness consists of our pains and pleasures, wants and needs, and our self. And in the broadest sense our transcendence consists of our sense of right, of truth, of understanding, of grace, and of being.
3. As regards our humanness, we are bound by our animal nature to survive and propagate our species, and by our human nature to know and understand life and existence.
4. As regards our transcendence, if it is true that God is love, and true also that man is made in the image of God, so it would follow that man himself is love as image - that is to say, an image of the true nature, or essence of love.
5. The true nature of love, its essence, not only regarding humans, but animals, plants, and all inanimate matter from the heavenly bodies to atoms is the bond of unity: that which attracts and repels so as to bind all things near or far to their appropriate place purpose and meaning.
Since it is not the purpose of this work to explore the meaning of love in all its aspects, but rather as it pertains to the pathic individual it would do us well, therefore, to understand, as much as in our power, the nature of love so far as human nature is concerned.
6. Inasmuch as man loves (is drawn to) himself, self-love, is predominant; inasmuch as he loves (is drawn to) others, vital love is predominant; inasmuch as he loves (is drawn to) his progeny, erotic love is predominant; and inasmuch as he loves (is drawn to) strife, (conflict) nihilistic love is predominant.
7. Love in the most general human sense of the word is a an affectionate bond of compassionate unity. In loving one's self (self-love), a person feels affection as well as compassion for himself; in loving others (vital love) a person feels affection and compassion for them; in loving his potential progeny (erotic love), he feels affection and compassion for his mate through his sexuality; and inasmuch as he love strife (nihilistic love) toward others, he feels no affection nor compassion for neither himself nor others.
8. In all these variants of human love, one underlying factor pertains, and that is, that we are motivated by the presence or absence of love. We are all bonded to one another, in one way or another, favorably or unfavorably.
9. If we love our selves favorably, we can be considered fairly well balanced psychologically. The same applies to both erotic and vital love. The reason for this is that the love we experience in these three areas is fairly well met inasmuch as the attraction-repulsion factor applies to human nature is fairly well balanced.
10. As we study the pathic character -- note I say "character" rather than the usual term "personality"; since semantically, "character" refers to inborn characteristics and temperament of an individual, and "personality" refers mostly to the manifestations of one's inborn character -- these four categories of human love will intertwine and interpenetrate each other in such subtle, minute ways that to express them in words would psychologically overtax our comprehension. Fortunately, however, our intrinsic, intuitive understanding will come to our aid as we read on reflectively. The words will serve as a guide to this understanding. And with this understanding, hopefully we will gain the wisdom to act upon it, so that we understand not only the psychopathic character, but our own character as well - which include the psychopathic characteristics; though not in the extreme.
11. In studying the pathic, we will easily see that in such a person, love has gone awry -- as we understand it in the sense of being an affectionate bond of compassionate unity. The unity holds, of course, since none of us can escape from our human bondage state. We need each other either to do good or to do ill. "No man is an island," as it is written.
12. The pathic loves excessively, and in the wrong way, to the extent that love has become a vice rather than a virtue. He loves himself and/or strife excessively, and his progeny or others deficiently. Again, by love, I refer to what a person is attracted and bonded to.
13. This excess can be conditioned by a demeaning environment, by one or another addiction that destroys one's self-identity, character, and essentially one's humanity; or it can be as a result of one's inborn nature, or character. Whether pathic behavior results from nature (inborn character) nurture (environment) or as a result of both, makes the important difference between whether such a person can be "redeemed" or not. And yet, depending upon the extent of one's conditioning, even in such a case, rehabilitation is next to impossible. These are reasons enough why professional therapists deem such individuals as irredeemable. Their typology is perman- ently fixed with only minor modifications.
14. Since in the phenomenon of personality disorder involves both perpetrator (predator) and victim (prey), and that they generally of different types, it would be imperative to consider both types of natures, rather than just the perpetrator one.
6
Some Notes on Conscience (which pathics significantly lack):
1 My mind tells me that something is wrong and if I do it -- or not do it - I will feel ashamed or remorseful, or guilty, or blameworthy,. I don't want to, or prefer to, hurt another's feelings; and when I do because of my selfish, etc. behavior, I try to make amends.
2. Or if I do something morally wrong, I feel guilty, and might try to rationalize or justify my act; but the very fact that I have to rationalize or justify my act indicates that my conscience bothers, or plagues, me.
3. Or if I don't do my duty, or what I ought to do, my conscience assails me; and again I try to make amends.
4. Or if I don't come up to my expectations, I feel guilty, and so suffer from my conscience.
5. Or if I don't fulfill my obligations or responsibilities
6. My conscience dictates to me what I believe is right and proper, which can be conditioned, or be as a result of my basic character.
7. Hard natures play off a soft-natured person's conscience, and accordingly control and dominate her/him accordingly.
8. One's conscience can be so dictatorial, so dominating, that one can become stifled, and so dysfunctional.
9. Conscience is essentially a strong soft-natured trait.
7
Some Notes on Self-love and the Pathic nature
1. Self-love: - We love ourselves. Who is "ourselves" - or myself? My self-identity. Who I am with all my thoughts, images, feelings, stored past memories.
2. If I am content with most of all that makes up myself, then I can be considered normal. I love myself, am drawn to it rather than repelled by it.
3. Everyone has thoughts, images, feelings, stored past memories that constitute the totality of one's conscious, sub-and-un-consciousness; and is considered our self, or self-identity. If we, or others, attempt to negate our self-consciousness, or self-identity, they accordingly try to modify, influence, intellectual and psychological contents so that our "true" self becomes "another," foreign self, or multiple selves.
4. We are drawn to whatever self-identity we have taken upon ourselves, or what others have made upon us; and so, it is this self-identity that we love - self-love.
5. When this self-love becomes so overwhelmingly self-centered, aggrandized, so that it is hardened to the impressions of other selves, then at the minimum we have what can be termed narcissistic self-love. At the maximum we have what is termed psychopathic self.-love Between these two, we have what is termed sociopathic self-love. When this self-love is so hardened, that it splits into a kaleidoscope of self-fragments, then we have what is termed as psychotic self-love. In each of these cases, one's love of self is distorted into an object that identifies, or defines, one's self. The personal love of one's self is degenerated into an impersonal love of an image of one's self.
6. With narcissism, self-love is a fetish so that one is so enamored of oneself and his-her desirable traits that he or she can hardly see or evaluate anyone else except through this prism of the fetish self. All other persons and considerations are closed off except as they stimulate and support this fetish-self. Whoever poses a threat, or contradicts, in the slightest way to the supreme I is disposed of with insults, backbiting, ostracism, the "silent treatment" etc. Jealousy is a prime motive for such behavior. No one gets the better, or is to do better if he can help it, in his sphere than this person. One's conscience is at the barest minimum to the point that it still functions, but one's self-love is so overriding that it gets "lost" so to speak.
Since this fetish self depends on relationships with others, he has to feign concern and interest and conscience so that he is continually nourished, respected, admired, kowtowed to, by them. His self-love demands that he be right in all circumstances even if he is not, and knows it. Those who oppose him suffer his wrath. That they suffer, well, that is too bad; but there is no other alternative if his superiority is to prevail.
He just wants to shine among others, not necessarily control them. He is too preoccupied with his vanity to take the effort to attempt to control others to any serious extent. It is his desirable self that dominates his sphere of influence, and what advantages he derives from it. He is so blinded by his own light that he sees no other light; and hence can not feel sympathy nor empathy, nor compassion for others, since they are mere shadows to his light. Consequently, there can be no conscience about any wrong he does to others since they either deserve his "wrong," or he can't possibly be wrong, since he is "always right," as his type contend. And besides, "shadows," are not real persons.
And when he helps others, it is for his own aggrandizement - what a wonderful person he is to be helping another in need.
His intention is not to abuse except when his self-love is threatened
He is naturally, born this way, not primarily conditioned to this state of mind, though his environment does influence this predisposition.
7. The sociopathic self takes self-love one dimension further so that it is so imperative, imperialistic, that it wants to rule, control, dominate, others and circumstances, and events at their expense. That they suffer for his behavior and attitude is not his foremost motive, but is rationalized, justified, into being part of his reign over them. He is right - no doubts about it - and any threat or even positive opposition is to be crushed and eliminated if necessary.
Everyone, and all circumstances, exist for his manipulation. He is the master - master this, master that. Being the master, the ruler, over his subjects, he is not to be contradicted in any way, as that would question, and so, threaten his sovereignty. So long as that is understood, everything will be fine with him and with others. Do his bidding and be secure in your position and safe from his harm. domination is his signature trait. If he needs to insult, to rage, to lie, to cheat, to steal, to expropriate, to ruin reputations and relationships, he will do so without moral scruples or conscience; since he is justified to do what he pleases because of his superiority, his reign as the chosen one, the divine right of kings, the survival of the fittest. He knows what is right for everyone, though others may falsely believe they themselves know.
If he has no choice but to eliminate - kill - his opponent, he will not hesitate morally or religiously or socially. Such an ultimate act on another person is merely one other means of disposal.
He feels no hatred - or anything for that matter - for others, since they are only puppets on his string
Conscience is middle-class blasphemy, herd morality. All means justify his ends. Do not dispute it, directly or indirectly, or else you're doomed to suffer his dire consequences.
If he cannot control circumstances in the social or workplace, then he will control them in his home against his family. He must control his environment in order to feel his superiority, his identity. His control takes the form more of emotional and psychological abuse than physical, though that may come through now and then. He will employ any device or ruse to get his point across that he comes first, that his little world is at his command. And if it takes insults, name-calling, whatever shock treatment he uses, then that is what he will do.
8. The psychopathic self-love moves further along the continuum of hard-naturedness to the point that the means becomes more important than the end. He is not foremost interested in control and manipulation but only as they serve the end of destroying the well-being of others. He needs to inflict pain, both psychological and physical; he enjoys, thrills to, making others suffer, to breakdown persons, relationships, situations, events.
It is not his own self that he loves, since he has no self-love. What he does love - is drawn to - is the love of destruction, evil. It is this that defines his self. And when he acts accordingly, his "self" comes into being. His self is focused into his acts of destruction, evil. Without these acts, he is a vacuum, a void, without center. His mind is not deranged, split into a million parts, as a psychotic's would be. He knows what he is about. He chooses to be what he is - or it chooses him; "it" being his innate nature. The sufferings of others delight him, define him, gratify him, fulfill him. He plans methodically his executions of destruction just as anyone else would plan his enterprise. There is a "method to his `madness'." He will take the time and effort to insinuate himself into whatever social position or relationship that appeals to him, that is suited to his life-style. He will become a politician, a priest, a doctor, a teacher, a psychologist, a soldier, a terrorist; he will marry, or remain a bachelor, or whatever else to play his part on the surface, so that he can ply his evil "under the table." He can't torture his peers, but he certainly can do so his family behind closed doors. He can't physically torture and kill others gestapo-like, but he certainly can clandestinely do so with strangers, prostitutes, again, with his family. He goes underground to feed his lust for whatever acts that will degrade, torture or kill.
Whereas the sociopath will kill as a consequence of circumstances, the psychopath will kill as the creator of the circumstances. In other words, the sociopath would kill with no conscience as a result of necessary self-threatening circumstances; whereas the psychopath would kill for the sake of killing, certainly with no conscience at all, other than perhaps feeling guilty that he did not kill when he felt he should have. And to add the narcissist to this camp, he would kill perhaps with temporary conscience in self- threatening circumstances were there no other options available to him..
All social norms and morals and manners are to be used for his ultimate objectives to inflict pain and death - if not death of the body, then death of the soul, so to speak. He annihilates, just as he himself is annihilated. Because he has no identifying self in normal circumstances, he must create circumstances that will identify him as "this" person; and "this" person is one who annihilates well-being. His planning and scheming are all part of his agenda; and so long this agenda is occurring every day in every way, he gets by as Mr. Normal. So long as he knows that sooner or later he is going to strike, he can bear the wait and the scheming; just as part of a boxer's victory over his opponent is won in an hour or so; yet the preparation took months.
Conscience obviously has no part at all in his makeup, since conscience is a moral, vital-loving condition of mind; and his state of mind is totally anti-moral, and his actions immoral, and motivated by hatred of everything moral, affectionate, and good.
9. With the psychoticpath self, there is no identifiable self. There is not " This is what I believe," or "This is the type of person I am," or "This is the type of person I want, or ought, to be." The "I" is fractured into a fixation with, for, or against, something; and all mental contents, are reduced, deduced, to that fixation. Normally this fixation weighs heavily, constantly on his mind in various degrees of toleration. When this fixation becomes so tormenting, then one must relieve oneself of it or descend into a vortex of madness. Everything and everyone centers around this fixation; and so one can only function at this level of reality, while everything else is subordinated to it. With the hard-natured psychotic, destruction is the modus operendi of this fixation. He must destroy the object of this fixation. And though he may very well destroy an object of his fixation; he does not destroy the object of it; since the fixation itself needs an object, and so will create another object to be destroyed. It is this fixation that defines a hard-natured psychotic; and it is this fixation that is loved as the identifying self. Destruction is a consequence of this fixation, not the cause.
10. These distinctions of narcissist, sociopath, and psychopath, are, of course on the same continuum of hard-naturedness, from hard (narcissist) to harder (sociopath) to hardest (psychopath). They are hardened against affectionate, compassionate human feelings and sentiments. They act mainly on intensified, raw-edged emotions that have been conditioned to be kept in check where necessary by the pretenses of human, engaging feelings. When it is said that these types of individuals have no feelings, this is partly right inasmuch as they have no feelings for others - only emotions; but they do have feelings toward themselves. Narcissists do have feelings for themselves; after they love themselves excessively. Sociopaths also have feelings, though more for their
11. Call them hard-natures, and realize that they are all capable of using and abusing others for their own gratification. The extent to which they will go regarding this abuse decides whether they are narcissists, sociopaths, or psychopaths. Narcissists need to shine and so put everyone else down as shadows of their light. Sociopaths need to control and manipulate, and dominate; and so will use and abuse everyone for this purpose. Psychopaths need to hurt and harm, and so will use and abuse everyone for that purpose.
...
8
Hard & Soft nature Continuum Outlines
1.
If a person is 10% soft-natured, then he is 90% hard-natured
If a person is 20% soft-natured, then he is 80% hard-natured
If a person is 30% soft-natured, then he is 70% hard-natured
If a person is 40% soft-natured, then he is 60% hard-natured
If a person is 50% soft-natured, then he is 50% hard-natured
If a person is 60% soft-natured, then he is 40% hard-natured
If a person is 70% soft-natured, then he is 30% hard-natured
If a person is 80% soft-natured, then he is 20% hard-natured
If a person is 90% soft-natured, then he is 10% hard-natured
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9
SELF-LOVE
1. Both soft and hard sides of us normally balance other so that we do not become too hard or too soft. When we go off balance, or are off-balance from birth, so that one or the other side predominates, then we have what is termed a psychic or personality disorder. Depending on the extent of this disorder, or imbalance, is what decides whether a person is predominantly hard or soft natured. On the hard side, when this imbalance is somewhat moderate, a person is termed a narcissist in that his excessive self-love overshadows, or infiltrates, all other interests and considerations so that he/she can love himself.
When one's self-love is so extreme that it not so much overshadows everything and everyone else, but dominates them, then the person is considered a sociopath, inasmuch his social relationships and interactions are used and abused by him/her so that he does love himself. His self-love is so over-weaning that it blots, blanks, everyone else out except as it reflects his love of himself as the foremost person in all respects. If he cannot achieve this through favorable means, then he will do so through unfavorable means. In other words if others will not submit to his self-proclaimed superiority passively, then he will make them submit aggressively. And depending upon his circumstances, he will use whatever means appropriate to them.
When one's self-love is overshadowed, negated, by his need to destroy the well-being of others maliciously, so that self-love is a negligible factor in one's life, then that person is considered a psychopath.
And finally, when a person's self-love is so twisted that it takes on the persona of Evil (Satan, etc.) itself so that it can destroy lives with impunity, then that person is considered a psychoticpath.
2.
HARD-NATURED
egoist = 50% hard / 50% soft
egotist = 60% hard / 40% soft
narcissist = 70% hard / 30% soft
sociopath = 80% hard / 20% soft
psychopath = 90% hard / 10% soft
3.
SOFT-NATURED
self-love = 60% soft / 40% hard
selfless love = 70% soft / 30% hard
neurotic = 80% soft / 20% hard
paranoid = 90% soft / 10% hard
4. normal behavior: insult to one's pride causes one to do unjust acts.
5. The narcipath, the sociopath, the psychopath, and the psychoticpath, all have the same basic traits of no conscience, no remorse, no empathy; and this is the continuum of the self-loving person on the hard-natured side of the continuum. It's the degree of severity that marks each different from each other.
6. Because pathics do not have these three soft-natured qualities of conscience, compassion, and remorse, they are equally capable of the severity that ensues from these lacks, depending upon the circumstances. If you don't feel remorse, or conscience toward a person, then that person, and other people, are not really real, but are mere shadows. There cannot be any feelings conveyed, shared, between people and you. Consider a frog as an analogy of the psychopath's relationships with people. There cannot be any feelings toward frogs because there's no reciprocation of feelings, since frogs don't have human feelings. And this why frogs are dissected in science labs.
It is the circumstances, and the type of people one is involved with, that determines whether one is more or less brutal, more or less insulting, more or less abusive, using that other person more or less.
With the narcipath he or she controls the situation with his/ her vanity, with his sense of superiority; though it doesn't necessarily either of the…he just have to insinuate himself into circumstances so that he shines, stands out; and that is a form of controlling others so that he makes sure that they see him as he wants them to see himself.
For the sociopath, abuse is the means for the control that he wants over persons and situations
For the psychopath, control is the means for the end: the abuse. Primarily he wants to abuse; and he does that mostly by control, which is a form of abuse. He is more concerned with the results of the control (suffering of his victims) rather than the controlling itself.
For the narcipath, the controlling reflects his own self-image: his superiority, his vanity; and so control give his that superiority, proves to him his superiority. And he feels no remorse or conscience that he hurts anybody for it, because that's not dominant in his mind.
But for the psychopath, abuse is the end, the point of it, the suffering that he inflicts is what in the end he wants, desires, craves; and the way he does that best is control. He can control either ruthlessly, maliciously, or subtly. But whatever way it may be, it is still controlling.
Psychopathy: `psycho' referring to the mind, the soul; pathology referring to a sickness, disease. Disorder, malfunction; something is wrong, off. Certainly psychopathy is pathology inasmuch as the person wants to, needs to, cause continuous pain to others. And constant pain is pathology; there is something wrong when there is constant pain, whether it's the body or the mind. There is sickness, disease, whatever it may be.
Psychopathy is not so much a disease itself in a person, since it is natural for the psychopath himself to act that way; but it such behavior is pathological inasmuch as it causes pain, sickness, and even disease in the recipient, victim, of his behavior. Just as cancer cells function naturally, normally, as cancer cells inasmuch as it destroyed healthy cells; that is their function. What is not normal is the disease, and its accompanying attrition of normal bodily functioning, along with the pain of such attrition that it causes in the body. In such cases, the body is no longer healthy and cannot live normally, and so dies prematurely.
So the psychopath is the person who causes pain through his destructive behavior to others, whether intentionally, unintentionally, or maliciously. We might say that the N unintentionally destroys others as a consequence of his actions, the sociopath intentionally destroys others as a consequence of his actions, and the nihilist maliciously destroys others as the purpose of his actions.
7. Psychopaths in generally destroys the well-being of others, psychologically, emotionally, physically. Self-love is the continuum on which they operate going from the narcipath, to the sociopath, to the psychopath, and to the psychoticpath. In severity of breaking down, destroying the well-being of others. The narcipath for the sake of his vanity; the sociopath for the sake of control; and the psychopath for the sake of the destruction itself. And then you have the psychoticpath mind in which a person's self-love vastly fragmented to the point of dementia
8. Psychopaths control others so that they can harm them psychologically and/or physically.
Sociopaths harm others so that they can control them psychologically and/or physically; their prime intention is not necessarily to cause suffering to their victims - they would just as soon have the victims enjoy their submission to him; but if the victim does suffer, then so much the worse for him or her.
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Pathics and Evil
Chapter 1
THE EVIL IN HUMAN NATURE
Preface
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EVIL
Devils, Demons, and the Daimonic
Stephen A. Diamond, Ph. D.
[Dr. Diamond wishes to express his gratitude to Matthew Clapp and Craig Chalquist for creating this special on-line version of Chapter 3 from his book Anger, Madness, and the Daimonic: The Psychological Genesis of Violence, Evil, and Creativity (State University of New York Press, 1999).]
Hostility, hatred, and violence are the greatest evils we have to contend with today. Evil is now--ever has been, and ever will be--an existential reality, an inescapable fact with which we mortals must reckon. In virtually every culture there has existed some word for evil, a universal, linguis- tic acknowledgment of the archetypal presence of "something that brings sorrow, distress, or calamity...; the fact of suffering, misfortune, and wrongdoing." Yet another of Webster's traditional definitions links the English word evil with all that is "angry... wrathful,... [and] malignant." The term evil has always been closely associated with anger, rage, and, of course, violence. But today we seem uncomfortable with this antiquated concept. Our discomfort resides largely in the religious and theological implications of evil, based on values, ethics, and morals that many today find judgmental, dogmatic, and passé. In a secular society like ours, we Ameri- cans have tended to avoid biblical characterizations such as "sin," "wickedness," "iniquity," and evil." Nevertheless, as Jungian analyst Liliane Frey-Rohn rightly remarks: "Evil is a phenom- enon that exists and has always existed only in the human world. Animals know nothing of it. But there is no form of religion, of ethics, or of community life in which it is not important. What is more, we need to discriminate between evil and good in our daily life with others, and as psychologists in our professional work. And yet it is difficult to give a precise definition of what we mean psychologically by these terms."
Evil is an actuality, whether or not we choose to deny it. In their 1971 anthology, Sanctions for Evil, social psychologists Nevitt Sanford and Craig Comstock cogently justify resurrecting the religiously tainted term "evil": "In using the word evil, we mean not that an act or pattern of life is necessarily a sin or a crime according to some law, but rather that it leads to damage or pain suffered by people, to social destructiveness of a degree so serious as to call for use of an ancient, heavily freighted term." When employed in this sense, evil is synonymous with "senseless violence." But, on a still subtler level, evil can be considered that tendency which -- whether in oneself or others -- would inhibit personal growth and expansion, destroy or limit innate potentialities, curtail freedom, fragment or disintegrate the personality, and diminish the quality of interpersonal relationships.
The fact that evil, as defined above, exists more or less throughout our world seems incontro- vertible. We see evil every day in its infernally multifarious forms. First, there are the cosmic, supernatural, transpersonal, or natural evils like floods, famine, fire, drought, disease, earth- quakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, and harmful, unforeseeable accidents that wreak untimely death havoc, and unmentionable suffering on humanity. This is the metaphysical or "existential evil" with which the biblical Book of Job concerns itself, and which religions worldwide try mightily to explain. Existential evil is an ineluctable part of our human destiny, and one with which we must reckon as best we can, without closing ourselves off to its tragic, intrinsic reality. But there is, of course, another kind of evil at large: human evil, "man's inhumanity to man" in the most panoramic sense. By "human evil," I mean those attitudes and behaviors that promote excessive interpersonal aggression, cruelty, hostility, disregard for the integrity of others, self-destructiveness, psychopathology and human misery in general. Human evil can be perpetrated by a single individual (personal evil) or by a group, a country, or an entire culture (collective evil). The Nazi atrocities directly or indirectly engaged in by the German people dramatically exemplify the latter.
The most pernicious form of evil today (as further discussed in chapter six), may be madness, mental illness, or psychopathology: It is evil in this guise, and in its most radical manifestation--destructive violence - that has now become the target of such intense psychological scrutiny and treatment. With escalating urgency, contemporary culture calls upon the psychologist and psychiatrist to do battle with this evil: to explain, control, or "cure" bedeviled individuals who tend to be homicidal, suicidal, sexually perverted, assaultive, abusive, addicted, anorexic, alcoholic, or otherwise violently destructive to themselves and/ or others. This--I am speaking here of the suffering, not the sufferers - is the true reality of evil today! And it raises the following question: How can the skilled psychologist--let alone the average citizen - even begin to effectively cope with evil without more fully comprehending its fundamental nature?
…..
Evil has an archetypal - or universal - quality. "There is no religion in the world," writes philosopher Paul Carus, "but has its demons or evil monsters who represent pain, misery, and destruction." To those who would deny the reality of evil, its existential facticity, arguing that its relativity ("One man's meat is another man's poison") and subjectivity (what I view as evil, another sees as good) render it illusory, Carus responds: "Evil and good may be relative, but relativity does not imply non-existence. Relations are facts too." To merrily dismiss evil as merely a mental illusion (or "Maya" as Buddhists term it) is to cowardly duck the difficult task and fateful human accountability for consciously coming to know good and evil. Evil is a very real phenomenon. But it is not a "thing," with physical properties of its own apart from those human actions which comprise it; nor is it an "entity" with a will of its own, as the traditional doctrine of the devil advocates. Evil is a process in which we humans more or less inevitably participate. Indeed, it is a psychological - or spiritual, if you prefer - process of negation. By "negation" I do not, however, mean non-existence. Negation is as real a force in the world as affirmation; negative and positive are simply two opposite poles of one, single reality. (Consider, for example, a magnet with its two opposing yet integrally related poles.) As Jungian analyst and Episcopal priest John Sanford puts it, the Christian doctrine of privatio boni (the "nothingness" of evil) put forth by Augustine (354-430 A.D.), "does not deny the reality of evil but states what evil is. It says that while evil exists it can only exist by living off the good and cannot exist on its own." Of course, the same may be said of the "good," which cannot exist on its own either, without some reference and comparison to that' which is "evil."
…
====================
LITERARY AUTHORS
Churton Collins
We are no more responsible for the evil thoughts that pass through our minds than a scarecrow for the birds which fly over the seed plot he has to guard. The sole responsibility in each case is to prevent them from settling.
D.H. Lawrence
1. At the bottom men love the brute in man best, like a great shire stallion makes one's heart beat.
2. Intellectual appreciation does not amount to so much, it's what you thrill to. And if murder, suicide, rape is what you thrill to, and nothing else, then it's your destiny - you can't change it mentally. You live by what you thrill to, and there's the end of it. Still for all that it's a perverse courage which makes the man accept the slow suicide of inertia and sterility: the perverseness of a perverse child. - It's amazing how men are like that.
3. This is the very worst wickedness, that we refuse to acknowledge the passionate evil that is in us. This makes us secret and rotten.
George Bernard Shaw
1. When it comes to the point, really bad men are just as rare as really good ones.
2. It is easy - terribly easy - to shake a man's faith in himself. To take advantage of that to break a man's spirit is devil's work.
Somerset Maugham
There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless.
...
POETS
T.S. Eliot
So far as we are human, what we do must be either evil or good: so far as we do evil or good, we are human: and it is better, in a paradoxical way, to do evil than to do nothing: at least we exist.
Kathleen Raine
I couldn't claim that I have never felt the urge to explore evil, but when you descend into hell you have to be very careful.
Joseph Brodsky
The surest defense against evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even-if you will - eccentricity. That is, something that can't be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned imposter couldn't be happy with.
Richard Chenevix Trench
Evil, like a rolling stone upon a mountaintop,
A child may first impel, a giant cannot stop.
Longfellow
The world loves a spice of wickedness.
Shakespeare
1. The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
O what a goodly outside falsehood hath!
...
PHILOSOPHERS / SAGES
Camus
1. A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.
2. For centuries the death penalty, often accompanied by barbarous refinements, has been trying to hold crime in check; yet crime persists. Why? Because the instincts that are warring in man are not, as the law claims, constant forces in a state of equilibrium.
Eric Hoffer
1. It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
2. It is remarkable by how much a pinch of malice enhances the penetrating power of an idea or an opinion. Our ears, it seems, are wonderfully attuned to sneers and evil reports about our fellow men."
Simone Weil
1. In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But the works of malice and injustice are quite in another style. They are finished with a bold, masterly hand; touched as they are with the spirit of those vehement passions that call forth all our energies, whenever we oppress and persecute."
2. Evil is neither suffering nor sin; it is both at the same time, it is something common to them both. For they are linked together; sin makes us suffer and suffering makes us evil, and this indissoluble complex of suffering and sin is the evil in which we are submerged against our will, and to our horror.
3. Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty.
4. A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.
Edmund Burke
1. I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more or less pronounced according to the play of circumstances.
2. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
Schopenhauer
Man is at bottom a wild and terrible animal. We know him only as what we call civilization has tamed and trained him; hence we are alarmed by the occasional breaking out of his true nature. But whenever the locks and chains of law and order are cast off, and anarchy comes in, he shows himself for what he really is.
Nietzsche
1. Look about you. All creation struggles for its existence but it does so in uninterrupted enjoyment of the faculties of living and growing. Man is the only organic phenomenon who consciously engages in the promotion of ill-will.
2. [Zarathustra:] But it is with a man as it is with the tree. The more he aspires to the height and light, the more strongly do his roots strive earthward, downward, into the dark, the deep-into evil.
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PSYCHOLOGISTS
Jung
1. It is a fact that cannot be denied: the wickedness of others becomes our own wickedness because it kindles something evil in our own hearts.
2. The man who promises everything is sure to fulfill nothing, and everyone who promises too much is in danger of using evil means in order to carry out his promises, and is already on the road to perdition.
3. Have the horrors of the World War done nothing to open our eyes, so that we still cannot see that the conscious mind is even more devilish and perverse than the naturalness of the unconscious?"
4. It is a frightening thought that man also has a shadow side to him, consisting not just of little weaknesses- and foibles, but of a positively demonic dynamism. The individual seldom knows anything of this; to him, as an individual, it is incredible that he should ever in any circumstances go beyond himself. But let these harmless creatures form a mass, and there emerges a raging monster; and each individual is only one tiny cell in the monster's body, so that for better or worse he must accompany it on its bloody rampages and even assist it to the utmost. Having a dark suspicion of these grim possibilities, man turns a blind eye to the shadow-side of human nature. Blindly he strives against the salutary dogma of original sin, which is yet so prodigiously true. Yes, he even hesitates to admit the conflict of which he is so painfully aware.
5. Taking it in its deepest sense, the shadow is the invisible saurian [reptile] tail that man still drags behind him. Carefully amputated, it becomes the healing serpent of the mysteries. Only monkeys parade with it.
6. Just as we tend to assume that the world is as we see it, we naively suppose that people are as we imagine them to be. In this latter case, unfortunately, there is no scientific test that would prove the discrepancy between perception and reality. Although the possibility of gross deception is infinitely greater here than in our perception of the physical world, we still go on naively projecting our own psychology into our fellow human beings. In this way everyone creates for himself a series of more or less imaginary relationships based essentially on projection.
7. To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light. Once one has experienced a few times what it is like to stand judgingly between the opposites, one begins to understand what is meant by the self. Anyone who perceives his shadow and his light simultaneously sees himself from two sides and thus gets in the middle.
8. Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.
9. A man who is unconscious of himself acts in a blind, instinctive way and is in addition fooled by all the illusions that arise when he sees everything that he is not conscious of in himself coming to meet him from outside as projections upon his neighbour.
10. In reality, the acceptance of the shadow-side of human nature verges on the impossible. Consider for a moment what it means to grant the right of existence to what is unreasonable, senseless, and evil! Yet it is just this that the modern man insists upon. He wants to live with every side of himself-to know what he is. That is why he casts history aside. He wants to break with tradition so that he can experiment with his life and determine what value and meaning things have in themselves, apart from traditional presuppositions.
Freud
1. I will say nothing of how you may appear in your own eyes, but have you met with so much goodwill in your superiors and rivals, so much chivalry in your enemies and so little envy amongst your acquaintances, that you feel it incumbent on you to protest against the idea of the part played by egoistic baseness in human nature? Do you not know how uncontrolled and unreliable the average human being is in all that concerns sexual life? Or are you ignorant of the fact that all the excesses and aberrations of which we dream at night are crimes actually committed every day by men who are wide awake? What does psychoanalysis do in this connection but confirm the old saying of Plato that the good are those who content themselves with dreaming of what others, the wicked, actually do?
And now look away from individuals to the great war still devastating Europe: think of the colossal brutality, cruelty and mendacity which is now allowed to spread itself over the civilized world. Do you really believe that a handful of unprincipled place-hunters and corrupters of men would have succeeded in letting loose all this latent evil, if the millions of their followers were not also guilty? Will you venture, even in these circumstances, to break a lance for the exclusion of evil from the mental constitution of humanity?
You will accuse me of taking a one-sided view of war, and tell me that it has also called out all that is finest and most noble in mankind, heroism, self-sacrifice, and public spirit. That is true; but do not now commit the injustice, from which psycho-analysis has so often suffered, of reproaching it that it denies one thing because it affirms another. It is no part of our intention to deny the nobility in human nature, nor have we ever done anything to disparage its value. On the contrary, I show you not only the evil wishes which are censored but also the censorship which suppresses them and makes them unrecognizable. We dwell upon the evil in human beings with the greater emphasis only because others deny it, thereby making the mental life of mankind not indeed better, but incomprehensible. If we give up the one-sided ethical valuation then, we are sure to find the truer formula for the relation of evil to good in human nature.
2. In reality, there is no such thing as eradicating evil tendencies.. . .The inmost essence of human nature consists of elemental instincts, which are common to all men and aim at the satisfaction of certain primal needs. These instincts in themselves are neither good nor evil. We but classify them and their manifestations in that fashion, according as they meet the needs and demands of the human community. It is admitted that all those instincts which society condemns as evil-let us take as representatives the selfish and the cruel-are of this primitive type.
These primitive instincts undergo a lengthy process of development before they are allowed to become active in the adult being. They are inhibited, directed towards other aims and departments, become commingled, alter their objects, and are to some extent turned back upon their possessor. Reaction-formations against certain instincts take the deceptive form of a change in content, as though egoism had changed into altruism, or cruelty into pity. ...
It is not until all these vicissitudes to which instincts are subject have been surmounted that what we call the character of a human being is formed, and this, as we know, can only very inadequately be classified as good or bad. A human being is seldom altogether good or bad; he is usually good in one relation and bad in another, or good in certain external circumstances and in others decidedly bad. It is interesting to learn that the existence of strong bad impulses in infancy is often the actual condition for an unmistakable inclination towards good in the adult person. Those who as children have been the most pronounced egoists may well become the most helpful and self-sacrificing members of the community; most of our sentimentalists, friends of humanity, champions of animals, have been evolved from little sadists and animal tormentors.
William James
1. We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.
2 . For life is evil. Two souls are in my breast; I see the better, and in the very act of seeing it I do the worse.
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Jean Genet
1. Repudiating the virtues of your world, criminals hopelessly agree to organize a forbidden universe. They agree to live in it. The air there is nauseating: they can breathe it.
2. Crimes of which a people is ashamed constitute its real history. The same is true of man.
3. We know that their adventures are childish. They themselves are fools. They are ready to kill or be killed over a card-game in which an opponent-or they themselves-was cheating. Yet, thanks to such fellows, tragedies are possible."
4. When the judge calls the criminal's name out he stands up, and they are immediately linked by a strange biology that makes them both opposite and complementary. The one cannot exist without the other. Which is the sun and which is the shadow? It's well known some criminals have been great men."
5. Anyone who hasn't experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing about ecstasy at all.
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THE DEGRADATION OF EVIL
De Sade
1. Wolves which batten upon lambs, lambs consumed by wolves, the strong who immolate the weak, the weak victims of the strong: there you have Nature, there you have her intentions, there you have her scheme: a perpetual action and reaction, a host of vices, a host of virtues, in one word, a perfect equilibrium resulting from the equality of good and evil on earth.
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THE CULTURE OF EVIL
Octavio Paz
1. One of the most notable traits of the Mexican's character is his willingness to contemplate horror: he is even familiar and complacent in his dealings with it. The bloody Christs in our village churches, the macabre humor in some of our newspaper headlines, our wakes, the custom of eating skull-shaped cakes and candies on the Day of the Dead, are habits inherited from the Indians and the Spaniards and are now an inseparable part of our being. Our cult of death is also a cult of life, in the same way that love is a hunger for life and a longing for death. Our fondness for self-destruction derives not only from our masochistic tendencies but also from a certain variety of religious emotion.
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We are nihilists - except that our nihilism is not intellectual but instinctive, and therefore irrefutable. … We believe that sin and death constitute the ultimate basis of human nature.
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THE POLITICS OF EVIL
Machiavelli
1. Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.
2. A prince should therefore have no other aim or thought, nor take up any other thing for his study but war and it organization and discipline, for that is the only art that is necessary to one who commands.
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THE EGOISM OF EVIL
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
1. If we resist our passions, it is oftener because they are weak than because we are strong.
2. The passions are so selfish and unjust that, even when they seem most reasonable, to indulge them is a danger, to defy them a duty.
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ON EVIL IN PARTICULAR
Malice
Eric Hoffer
There is probably an element of malice in our readiness to overestimate people -- we are, as it were, laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size.
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Cruelty
Tennessee Williams
All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.
Andrea Dworkin
Being a Jew, one learns to believe in the reality of cruelty and one learns to recognize indifference to human suffering as a fact.
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Fear
H.P. Lovecraft
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.
Edgar Wallace
Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake.
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OVERCOMING EVIL
[In Particular: Courage]
Keshavan Nair
With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity.
Eleanor Roosevelt
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I've lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." You must do the thing you think you cannot do)
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Chapter 2
PATHICS AS EVIL
From Nonprofessional Accounts
1. And the reptilian stare of those eyes. You cannot escape the uniqueness of that stare, no matter what the color. Once you've seen it, you'll never forget it...how they drill into you, draw you in and capture you.
2. Also what I have observed is the truly evil end of the spectrum both in human and animal is always displayed in those deep dark hole for eyes. Can that be the easiest clue to tune into?
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Chapter 3
Professional Descriptions of the Pathic Character
1
Gordon Banks, 1990
Historical Overview
The first writings by doctors on the subject seem to originate around the beginning of the 19th century, but the earliest formal description of what he called "moral insanity" is given by Prichard in 1835. The 19th century physicians recognized that there were some walking among other men who were of sound reason and intellect, but when it came to the moral realm were "deranged". They described individuals who had no sense of right and wrong, no feelings of guilt or shame for wrongdoing, and had a marked propensity to lie, cheat, and engage in other activities which normal society considered reprehensible. During the last 40 years, psychopaths have been more intensively studied and recent research seems to indicate that they actually represent a variant of human beings with abnormal brain function.
Demographics
Demographic studies of psychopaths are somewhat suspect because they rely so heavily on the institutionalized segment of the population of psychopaths, but they show that males outnumber females by at least 5:1, and that they almost always come from severely disturbed families[4] The deviant behavior is manifest even as young children. The period from adolescence to mid-thirties is marked by the most severe deviance. As they age, many psychopaths seem to "mellow", at least in their more aggressive antisocial behavior.
Clinical Features
In describing the clinical features of psychopaths, I will rely heavily on the most complete description in the literature, the monograph which constituted the life-work of psychiatrist and neurologist Hervey Cleckley entitled The Mask of Sanity.
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Selections by Cutegirl 21 from the website mahjoob.com
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
This woman is so articulately familiar with psychopathy literature -- which she quotes copiously -- and treats the subject in a very down-to-earth style, that I decided to use her overall comments on the psychopath over more of the clinical, professional approach to the subject.
The Psychopath: The Mask of Sanity
The common problem with psychopaths... "Is they don't see a problem with their behavior."
"Non-victims can't understand this, but the psychopath really does suck the life out of a caring person. Think of them now as a slimy suckerfish right out of the swamp, vacuum-lips out and prowling for someone vibrant and attractive to con and eviscerate."
If you are a good person you will meet many evil people in your life, you need to recognize them and their actions. More importantly you need to recognize which evil behaviors you have been conned into accepting as reasonable and to reject those behaviors - both in yourself and in others - as unacceptable.
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Chapter 4
Nonprofessionals Descriptions of the Pathic Character by
INTRODUCTION
The following quotation fragments are more indications whether who referring to is either a narcissist, sociopath, or psychopath. Because of the current confusion between the three terms, these persons use the three terms indiscriminately because each category have shared traits, such as consciencelessness, lying, irresponsibility, etc.. More information is needed to derive a full picture of which he or she is according to our grouping. Accordingly I will group them with this in mind. Narcissists will be abbreviated as N; sociopaths will be abbreviated as S; and psychopaths will be abbreviated as P
1. “They memorize body language and can spot a person who might feel a little vulnerable a mile away.”
2. “Of course, as normal human beings, we search inside ourselves for answers. That is precisely what the N (narcissist) never does. If he did, he would go for therapy forthwith. It is natural to wonder how we could be fooled so easily and so ruthlessly. Ever watch sleight of hand? Well, it is the same. You are fooled by the speed and skill of the 'magician' or the card sharp. But, and this is the `but', it is only an illusion.”
3. "Looking back on all the Ns I've ever known and merged with, I see there were signs within minutes of meeting the N that they were grossly selfish, immoral, sex-addicted or something was definitely 'off' that I couldn't explain. I didn't honour my intuition, gut feelings and instinct. The truth is that I had almost no experience setting healthy boundaries." [S or P]
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102. “The other day I was "lured" back into conversation with "the voice"... he took me by surprise, calling me at work from a payphone (I didn't recognize the number) and his "alluring, polite, warm, sexy voice" had me responding to him before I even knew what I was doing! I know that sounds weak and inexcusable, but it's the God's honest truth! At first I truly didn't know it was him... it was just a very familiar, friendly, trusting, yet seductive voice and before I realized it was him, I was "hooked"... Well, once again, as always when I "engage" in conversation with him... he "beats around the bush" and twists things until I am so baffled and confused I am speechless and worn out. So... back to the "drawing board" once again... NO CONTACT. What's the point? I don't want him in my life AT ALL (he scares me) and he brings nothing to me but disharmony, distrust, confusion, aggravation, and frustration that there is NO way to get through to him that he and I have NOTHING in common! Thank God! But, I just wanted to also say, I understand about feeling sorry for "them" because they do seem so lost, lonely, strange and sad. But, I truly believe that is just one more way they have to "hook" our compassion and trust... don't be fooled.”
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Chapter 5
Self Descriptions of the Pathic Character
The Narcissist (narcipath)
1. "I'm right back at the center of attention -- where I belong!"
2. "It's all about me now. I don't care about you or what the kids want or what they need."
3. "I don't care if you have been sitting in traffic all this time because of a wreck on the Interstate! I have been sitting here waiting for you for 2 hrs! |