Actualism notes
DIARY 11602
2/1/77
ACTUALISM #8
Hazel explains to me that she's taking a transcription class that meets only on Monday and Wednesdays, which ends at 7:45, but the teacher would be willing to let her out at 7:30, and we agree to move the meeting to 8:15 for her. She's delighted, saying she's glad not to have to leave the group, and we feel good about it too. Met Malcolm, bright-eyed, on the street, and he's in "Billy Irish" at the Manhattan Theater Club the next two weekends, in "a good part," and he's glad to be back too: Rebecca, being an advanced teacher, charges $25 for a make-up class. So at last we're complete: Bob/Jim/Hazel, Malcolm/Matthew, and Dorothy/Rich, so we COULD get back to $12.50 at class 14. Bruce seems bright-eyed, too, asking what happened to us during the week, and Hazel asks about dreams, and we're to use the EB of Wisdom to scan for the high-frequency content of dreams, even challenging anomalous figures in dreams with it to check their "enlightenment." I want to ask about Krishnamurti's dreamlessness, but Rich arrives and Bruce seems in a hurry to get into the class. Maybe the women are waiting for him in some bar? Russell starts out about Higher Will, but immediately says that it's GOOD, not bad, which rather puzzles me since I hadn't had any forethoughts about it. (Oh, put off by the gentle way Bruce "pushes" the record by Rita Moss---tacky!), and then he gets into the idea that the "camel through the eye of the needle" comes from a noted pass through which the camel has to STRUGGLE, when loaded, to get through with relative ease. I get hung up on that, then must doze, because suddenly it seems he's moving up the body with the ccw light. Then later he talks about all the good will this can bring, moves the light up, and then goes back to the cw light and AGAIN it seems that he skips a part, but my nose has been dripping, I've been using my handkerchief as slightly as I might, but I'm not feeling as sharp as I could be. When I'm ready to leave I sign up for a $20 hand-session on Sunday at 3:30, and check that the Radiant Warrior is still the best light for a cold, and get told "sleep under this light tonight, then the RW for the rest of the week: they're in the same family, so to speak (as they should be: pale violet and royal violet, with names like RW and HW). He said that resistance would show up in my getting stuck on those things. Brush down Bruce, and he's brusque, but corrects me nicely once.
DIARY 11618
2/6/77
HAND SESSION AT ACTUALISM
Maureen's in the lobby waiting for her "Consciousness clearing," or something of the sort, and SHE'S in the class ahead, which has only 4, and they don't seem interested in slowing down to wait for us to join them, so we'll be together only at the first level of advanced, it seems. She goes off with Bruce into one bedroom and Jan and I go into their bedroom and she sits me on one chair, puts a pillow on my lap, my hands atop it, and after a small conversation suggests we work with the Higher Will energy. I later remark "My Immortal seems to sit up straighter than I do," and sit up straighter. She takes my left hand, pauses to make sure that I'm right handed, and starts palpating the palm and back, then brushes it down, then starts in earnest on the palm of the hand, starting with the little finger. Meticulously, she starts each finger by fingering the connections near the wrist, then moves down to the base of the finger as if to test the nerve connections, and then down around each joint to the tip. She remarks at FIRST that I might be prone to arthritis, but then later says that I may just have a lot of calcium deposits in my joints. I remark about the spur that came and went a number of years ago. I mention that I use my fingers a lot in typing, so at the break she asks what I do; I have to describe indexing to her. When she asks what I write, and I mention science fiction, she says she loves it, doesn't have time to read much, liked Wilson's "The Mind Parasites," which reminded me of Heinlein's "The Puppet Masters," and she's currently reading "Children of Dune," which I see at the bed table inside, so I know it's HER bedroom we're in. I say when she's finished that my left hand feels like a piece of fabric, no bones at all, and that rather than feeling restricted or claw-like (as it appears in comparison on my lap) I say that it feels hardly anything at all. Most of what I say, she seems to approve of. I get an image that I pass to her of being prepared for some high office or ritual, and she gives me a hint of the future by talking about "The Temples of Beauty" (in Atlantis originally, I'll bet) in Greece and Rome in which we all worked, and mentioned the foot washing of the Roman Catholic churches as an offshoot whose origins have been lost, so the ritual is meaningless. She suggests the foot session about a month after the hand session, and I ask for a list of all of them: body, neck-spine-hip (which I had with Bruce); Consciousness clearing (which she didn't say much about); hands; feet; face; and three sessions of nerves that should be taken in three consecutive weeks; sciatic nerve in back from the neck to the coccyx, nerves in front from the hip down to the feet, and nerves from the shoulders to the hands. And there may be one more. At the break (from about 4:20 to 4:40) she shows me the folder that sits on the table, advertising for one page for 50 a year, for services, and I might just put myself into it. Her hands feel confident throughout, and she laughed when I showed her the marks on my index finger that I'd scraped on the scraper in the dishwater: the day she was to take the training for this she slammed her hand in a drawer! After working on the inside of the hand in great detail for about 20 minutes, she turns it over and does almost the same sort of thing to the outside, though the work on the fingers is more in the nature of just rubbing the flesh between the joints. I go "oh" only when she gets to the fleshy part of the inside of the right thumb, an area I'd had trouble in before, though she was very surprised when I didn't react when she punched just inside my right elbow, saying it was a nerve point, and I suggested that after Rolfing, nothing would phase me. She didn't seem to have agreed. Her hands gradually get sweaty, and she's used some sort of balm that smells nice and is vaguely oily, so the contact between the hands becomes softer as we go along. I ask questions about the imagination (it could be low frequency or it could be "true" and I should use the Wisdom Beam to tell which is which) and reincarnation (telling her I don't care for the NARROW path we take back, we should have been EVERYONE, and she says from HER experience we've been reincarnated hundreds of thousands of times, and can trace ourselves back to the first one-celled creatures) and then ask if I'm asking too many questions, but she laughs and says I ask such good ones that it's OK. At another point I introduced a question by saying "Do I disturb your concentration?" and she stops and laughs and says "Ask it anyway!" I laugh with her. Later she forgets which finger she's on and I THINK she does one twice, making it feel VERY worked out indeed. She says that the right hand is carrying much more obstruction than the left, remarking particularly about the right ring-finger (in fact, THAT'S the one she does twice from the outside!), and then she's almost CONSTANTLY burping and I say "Are you releasing that for ME or for YOU?" and she says it's mainly from my work, though she seems in a hurry to say she does NOT take any of my load onto herself, but that she "gets goodies" from her work, too. I feel closer to her than I had before, and just before she leaves the second time to tell me to assimilate what's been done for a few minutes (as she did after she finished the left hand, just before the break), I flick my eyes open as a way of saying thanks, and she seems to be looking less harried and more self-confident and competent than I'd ever seen her before. When we're finished, she seems capable of just letting me go, but I'd felt the urge for a LONG time during the end of the session to just embrace her, so I ask "May I hug you?" and she smiles and says "Of course," and sort of hunches her elbows together in front of her body, so that obviously I enclose her in my entire grasp. We both seem to like it. During the break I went and got a LOT of junk out of my nose too, and she seemed to think of the cold as a release of some sort of obstruction, probably in connection with the Higher Will. I ask about the ideal configuration of bodywork, and she smiles that the IDEAL would be one session per week at the Star Center (at $15, I guess), but says that I could go to the others, who are all good. I say I'll think about it, feeling a bit antsy about the amount of money they'd be content with my spending with them, though I had to admit that the two hours with Jan for $20 was worth every bit of it, both from getting to know my hands (I said, and meant, that they felt very good and justifiably pleased that proper attention was finally being directed toward them) and getting to know Jan AND getting to know what the techniques are (which I didn't go into very well, but she took ALL parts of the fingers in DETAIL, and it felt totally thorough---the equivalent of 10 Rolfing sessions on the whole body.
DIARY 11629
2/11/77
ACTUALISM #9
Greatly overheated from my dash down from Dennis's, I zip into the bathroom to blow my nose and piss, putting my check down first, and we're all 7 there: Bob, Hazel/Jim, Malcolm/Matthew, Dorothy/Rich. Jan's teaching with excitement about the Energy of Perfection, cautioning us not to think of love as the "sentimental" thing we usually indulge in. The tape is as mildly forgettable as always, except that I AM impressed that the working SEEMS to be gradually changing from us as the CREATION of the being of Light within, to us AS the Being of Light looking with favor on the Creation/Personality. Nice doing, even if it's only in my own mind. I seem to be accepting Russell's speaking more readily than I did before, but it's so innocuous most of the time that there's really nothing to remember from it. He goes through the regular circuit with the pink light, then sends it down to the lowest center and moves it up, mingling it somehow with the Cosmic Father when it gets to Center 3, half in and half out of the top of the head. I ask her about it afterward, the first combination of frequencies, and she says for us to ignore that, seeming to imply that it might have something to do with advanced work. The reactions of the group are extraordinary: Jim says he blanked out a few times, I question the combination of colors, Rich says he was in extreme spinal pain (later he says he has to get up at 5 am in the Bronx to get to work at 7 in BROOKLYN and will probably be switching to another class since he isn't getting ANYTHING out of the tapes: he sleeps through them), Dorothy has blanked out a LOT of it, Hazel felt a stoppage going from one step/center to another, Malcolm was so busy burping in one section that he didn't hear the following section, Matthew felt that he had made ENORMOUS progress through the week and was displeased to hear that he'd gone back to step one again, and Jim said that he never DID like the color pink. WILD! I sign up for an oil and vibrator session on Wednesday at 2, figuring to tie it in with other errands, thinking to get a GOOD session before trying what the OTHER graduates are like in THEIR places, which should be fun. Leave about 10:10, and Jan smiles at me and hugs me on the way out. OH, inversion of love to hate, which has to be admitted, leads me to ask about SHOWING hate oscillating with love, through my BITING, and everyone laughs and she cops out by saying that I should shine the wisdom beam on it and find out for myself whether it's a good or a bad thing that I'm doing when I bite. VERY FUNNY.
DIARY 11633
2/12/77
OIL AND VIBRATOR WITH ACTUALISM'S REBECCA
Jan answers the door, someone else comes out of the other room so I can't figure how to answer Rebecca's question of "What energy are you working with?" and then she asks "What lesson did you just have?" and I say "Nine." I have some water, and Rebecca says I can come into the other room when I wish; I thought it might be her because her hair was hidden by a scarf. She directs me to strip to my shorts (and no socks) as I did for the neck, spine, and hip session by Bruce that she asked me about, and I lay under the blanket as before, the sun-like lamp shining down on me. When she comes in about 2:15 and asks if I'm warm, I say my toes are cold and she drapes a blanket over them. She slaps some cold menthol-pine-scented oil on my back, covers it up, then smoothes out both legs with the oil, then comes to the top and goes the usual one-hand-on-tailbone-one-hand-on-necknape talk about focusing the consuming fire aspect, and then she starts poking into my shoulders with the vibrator, with an attachment that feels like a hard, thick finger. Then she goes down the left arm with some thoroughness, leaving it as limp as a flag over the side of the table, doing part of the work with my hand at my side, the last bit with my arm curled up above my head. Her brushdowns were terribly thorough: if her fingers held razors I'd have been shaved clean. The right arm didn't release quite so much tension, and I told her of my disappointment, and she said that was typical, that the right side held more tension than the left. Then she went down the right and left sides of the spine, and I coughed quite a bit during this part, and at one point had to ask for a tissue to blow my nose. She scarcely burped at all. Each section of the torso was done thoroughly, but it was a MUSCULAR massage rather than a NERVE manipulation, and I didn't feel as if I gained anything in particular from it. Then she worked down the left leg, almost causing me to snicker when she worked away at the bottom of the foot, and she said that some people WERE very sensitive there. Then the other leg and foot, then to the other side, but she didn't do anything with the belly or upper thigh---the closest sexual touch was a thorough circling of the buttocks from all angles, though never to the point where she had to say, like Bruce, "Maybe you'll want to protect your private parts for this." She left PRECISELY one hour after she started, told me to assimilate for 10 minutes, then knocked and said to dress. Finish.
DIARY 11641
2/19/77
ACTUALISM #9.5
Only five of us there: Rich is permitted to miss the intensive, since there are only 5 needed in basic; Matthew had been making it up, so we're Bob, Dorothy, Hazel, Jim, and Malcolm. Bruce asks for my money as I sweep past him, then sees the check on the table; then says it's an intensive, and I say "I wanted that, because I wanted more time with the Energy of Perfection," and he says "That's only if we're doing an intensive with that energy," and I say "Oh," rather noncommittally, looking at him; "And we are," he says with a smile, and I laugh. He describes the four main aspects as STRUCTURING, ORGANIZING, HARMONIZING, AND UNIFYING (leaving out Harmonizing until I say, "I just remember three.") and we work with them, deciding to concentrate on two, and I get Structuring and Organizing, since I figure my PRESENT structures and organizations are being assimilated, causing me so much trouble. He starts by asking us, slowly, to unify with the immortals of the others in the room: with Dorothy I get an actual physical fragrance, with Hazel almost nothing until the end, until I smelled something like burnt toast (and she later said when he came to her she kept saying "No, no," and so maybe THAT'S why I didn't get anything from it at first), with me a FLEETING sense of LOTS of impressions for a SPLIT second, and then settled into what I hoped was an openness, with Jim a sense of someone AGED and LEARNED under his exterior of youth and callowness, with Malcolm a sense of STRENGTH under the smile. At the end, finally got to brush down Malcolm as Jim sort of directed himself toward Bruce and the girls took each other. Malcolm was pottier than I thought, but he has a nice deep chest and nice legs, and a STRONG sense of pressure when he does me, with a PULLING rake down at all angles. And still the beaming smile, particularly when I said we'd tried to see him on Friday, and Papp's more interested in Babe's "Father and Son" than "Billy Irish," and he might be in THAT. I take down a name for oil and vibrator, but don't use it yet. Bruce droned on and on, almost an hour, with the same "magnify presence, set a problem, and see the answer." I set "But I don't WRITE," and the instant response, dissolving the knot in the solar plexus-nerve center, of simply "DO it," and it felt RIGHT and CORRECT, but it's been a week and I HAVEN'T done it at all. But I've gotten other things out of the way to be ABLE to do it?
DIARY 11642
2/19/77
ACTUALISM PHONE CALL
Feel SUCH tentativeness typing DIARY 11641 that I stop in the middle and phone Actualism, getting Jan. I say that I'm NOT questioning the whole thing, that I feel very good about it, that SOMETHING will handle SOMETHING, but that I fear getting another lesson and another energy without finishing THIS one. She says that the energies that we'd have most TROUBLE with were the energies that we were STRONGEST in, and so the INVERSIONS of structuring and organizing would come up FAR stronger for people who WERE highly structured and organized than for others. I feel a great sense of relief: nothing like making what SEEMS a failure attributable to a STRENGTH. She says to use one of the intensive methods: sit under the downpour, magnify presence, and turn on consuming fire, then tentatively turn the whole mentality of (1) not being able to get into it and (2) not being able to get through it once into it (that I'd reported---not verbally PRECISELY as clearly as here, but close enough so that I'm "sure" she knows about it) over to the Immortal to handle. She said she thought that I was trying to work through too much of it with the PERSONALITY and not with the immortal. I agreed strongly. She said that I HAD to be organized in my job (as an indexer) and she rather tentatively came out with the idea that I was a perfectionist, demanding a lot of myself, and I surely agreed with THAT. But she emphasized, as had Bruce on Monday, that the Energy of Perfection doesn't direct us to be PERFECT, but to become MORE perfect, or to constantly engage in the process of PERFECTING ourselves, which is a constant state of change. I think, now as I type, that PERFECTING ourselves would be to SEE and ACCEPT ourselves perfectly, AS perfect, so that the ISNESS would become perfect, and since that's all there IS, what IS, that EVERYTHING would then become perfect in the sense of Actualism, est, Krishnamurti, and most other teachings taught by a teacher and taken by individual students who have to avail themselves of the PERSONAL guidance of a teacher (more correctly, the IMMORTAL of the teacher, hardly the PERSONALITY of the teacher) who has to be trusted to INTUIT the problems and solutions for the students who haven't reached that stage of CLARITY yet to be able to see into their OWN machinations, persiflages, and illusions.
DIARY 11658
2/25/77
ACTUALISM #10
Hazel says hello on the corner of Columbus and 72nd, and it only takes her five minutes to get here from class, and her teacher lets her out at 7:30, so we've gone back to 8, except that Rich wasn't here last week and didn't know. To pass the time, Jan asks if "tools are the same as energies." I think yes, but she says no, but doesn't explain it so I think there are FEW tools, and when I leave word on Thursday and Rebecca phones back on Friday (yawning at 9:30 am) to say that EACH energy comes THROUGH a tool, and each tool SUPPLIES an energy, I'm more confused than ever. Jan gives other quizzes "How to invert sexual energy (aside from self-gratification, she says smiling) when there's no appropriate partner?" I suggest higher will, but she says "No, more specific," and Malcolm comes up with the Cosmic Father, though the transmutational mergence position in the pelvic bowl. For "checking the validity or invalidity of nightmares" everyone guesses at the Wisdom light. Then Rich arrives and we can start. Jan asks if we'd HEARD about #10, and I say someone said the COLOR was red-ORANGE (checked with diary) at the Christmas party, and that Bruce Lieber wanted to talk with me about it after I got it. She smiled ruefully and said this WOULD happen, but that the beginner has some responsibility for stopping the more advanced student from saying too much, and I felt guilty mentioning Bruce's name. Then she announced a change, to my delight in particular from the stars rising from the crown with the red-GOLD energy of the Sigil Seal, with which we'll work a lot in the future. The start of the TAPE was fabulous as Russell outlined the previous ten lessons, though perversely NOT giving the colors for the "light purple and royal purple" that I'm NOT sure ISN'T VIOLET. Lovely synopses of their values, too. Then into the "bone" of the Armor of Light, the Sword of Michael, the Sigil Seal, which he slowly creates from upper right at the sun (which I inquired about the size of, Jan said it wasn't said, and the sheet said 15"), where I got a flood of light from the light at my right, then across the top, where to my surprise the light evened out more than physically reasonable, then down to the center, then down to the lower left, across the bottom, pausing under the foot (where at first I felt "flutters" at the sides of the foot, as if a fan below were blowing ribbons upward, and then when he said to intensify the star, I felt a distinct "touch" as if someone had grasped a SMALLER foot inside my own foot, which as I described later "so blew me that I didn't feel a thing with my right foot" when the actions were repeated) and out to the right, then back to the center. Oh, earlier, under the downpour from the 15" sun, I DISTINCTLY visualized white vertical bars of light interspersed with shadows of less light. Then the star coursed upward through the centers, and I felt a rather usual gold-ball-expanding-to-tennis-ball sensation in my solar plexus, and when it got to the middle of the head I swore he said something about WHY the star then went to the four points of the compass, but Jan later said it was only to "clear out the head." I asked about the color of the sigil, since I tried to visualize to see whether it was the white of the star or the red-gold of the sun, and it was intermediate, and then Jan said it was unimportant, until the end, when she said it was white. Various of the people reported unconsciousness, heat, feelings of great comfort, and Dorothy asked why she felt she wasn't finished with Higher Will, and Jan said that this is one of the energies that isn't earthed yet, and it's the purpose of ALL of us in this lifetime to help earth this energy, making it as assimilable as others which ARE earthed, and I figured this was a NEW parameter that I wasn't aware of, though Bruce Lieber later said it was mentioned on the tape. He asked if I jumped at the reference to "travel through time and space," but I said I'd asked other questions and got "you'll hear more about that later," so I probably heard it and ignored it. But then on the sheet it said "Moves from one dimension to another with speed and ease of thought," so it SAYS the same sort of thing. My mind felt delighted with the questions and answers after the heaviness of the unfulfilling Energy of Perfection, and it felt good to be going onto something different, not to mention something more easily remembered than various-colored stars.
DIARY 11663
2/25/77
TALK WITH BRUCE LIEBER ABOUT ACTUALISM
He's bubbling over with news about his advanced work with the Sigil and the sun called Michael; his parents are taking private lessons back to about level 7; I should call Jan and tell her it was Maureen Duffy who told me about the "red-orange" energy so they can clear it out (he'd gotten pains, aches, and dizzy spells from telling people things inappropriately). He finally tells me about the "exed out" sessions that you can have only as often as once a month, unless you want to get addicted to them, which resolves all the problems you're having in a particular relationship, in which he seems to be particularly weak. (I think of my relationships and feel great about them.) Tell him about the coincidence between Bob Rosinek and me, and my split about wanting to enjoy life to the fullest and YET with the mysticism lie down the body voluntarily for Nirvana. His problem is the opposite, he doesn't WANT to be saddled with this body and this life, so I get him Yogananda's definition of Karma and say I LOVE it, that I'll probably live for many more lifetimes because I want to DO everything. He talks of the impatience of Rebecca with him when he calls too often, saying "Is two days enough time for what I'd said to WORK for you?" He thought I was being too hard on Jan for not being consistent or forgetting things, then launches into a description about how he and Bruce Jaffe are similar: Jewish, same build, interested in computer repair (he, BL, in a company where "they're all lighted beings" that haven't hired him yet but they probably will), too quick to take to anything mystical, suffering bodily aches, subject to parents, etc.etc.etc. So that BJ would SAY to BL "I know where you're at, I've been there before MYSELF." He spoke of a warm feeling in his heart talking to Rebecca, mentioning it to her, and her saying "Oh, you can FEEL me working on you?" He said he couldn't get a sense of my body on the phone, but he could with others. I said my content with Wisdom MIGHT mean that my wisdom either isn't there, or it's better directed than I think it is. We BOTH say how delighted we are with the work; he says people hear Russell as they THINK OF THEMSELVES, so since I hear him as gentle, on the right path, and bumblingly innocuous, I'm like that to myself, I guess. Range ALL over talking with him, feel together and earthed compared with HIS flights of hysteria, babbling talk, mixed emotions, and flights of self-rage.
DIARY 11670
2/28/77
ACTUALISM RESUME FOR THEIR BOOK
Bob Zolnerzak
167 Hicks Street
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201
(212) 522-0591
1) WRITING AND CONSULTING (Special interest or published in the following fields): Computer technology, Dance, Display, Drama, Education, Entertainment, Homosexuality, Mathematics, Philosophy, Physics, Programming, Religions, Science fiction, Sciences, Sex, Statistics, and Travel (Details on request)
2) INDEXING (Indexes published in the following fields): Art, Biography, Biology, Chemistry, Computers, Cooking, Economics, Education, Engineering, Entertainment, History, Humanities, Literature, Mathematics, Medical sciences, Music, Nursing, Philosophy, Physics, Programming, Psychology, Religions, Sciences, Sex, Sociology, Statistics, and Travel (Titles on request)
3) TRAVEL, PROFESSIONAL: Tour guide to Europe and the Mediterranean and the east coast and interior of South America
EDUCATION: Travel agent and ticketing courses at Claridge Travel Service and Kingsborough Community College
PERSONAL: Specialist in United States, Canada, Europe, India, Japan, Nepal, South America, and Sri Lanka
4) EDITING in any field
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY: Free-lance writer, indexer, traveler, and editor
IBM Systems Analyst and Programmer for ten years
EDUCATION: Columbia University (Nuclear Energy Technology)
University of Akron (Physics and Mathematics)
PERIPHERAL SKILLS: Discussion leader, Quiz-show contestant, Speaker,
Systems analyst, and Writer of fiction and poetry
REFERENCE COMPANIES: (W = Writing, I = Indexing, T = Travel, E = Editing):
Appleton-Century-Crofts (W, I, E); Basic Books (I, E);
Creative Book Services (I, E); Dell (I); Dutton (E);
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (E); Harper and Row (I);
Latham Publishing (W, E); Library of Congress (I);
Logical Technical Services (W, I, E); McGraw-Hill (W, I);
Macmillan (I); Mattachine (W); New Century (W, E);
Prentice-Hall (I); Springer (E); Trans-World (W, E);
Travel Dynamics (T); Trip'n Travel (T); and Wiley (I)
REFERENCES ON REQUEST
DIARY 11675
3/4/77
ACTUALISM #11
Michael had mentioned that he'd never met Rebekah, and SHE'S the one who's giving the class, checking off the names of the people who have paid and who haven't. I ask Malcolm about "Father and Son" and he says Papp will do it at the Public Theater with him in it! Hazel is reading a shorthand book, and it's Gregg, so I say I'll be writing letters for her. Michael introduces himself to her, and she's shyly courtly. Sit and Rebekah makes me SMILE ALL OVER when she says that the stars were in the crown only temporarily, and now they'll be put in their proper places in the centers of the body. I'm smiling so hard I'm crying, but the feeling quietly leaves as she guides us through the first few minutes and then puts on the tape, which is almost an hour long. Russell makes some jokes about blue-eyed people being better than people with eyes of any other color, and then puts the blue Wisdom Light between the eyes, conjuring up a fetching image with this 3" sun blazing blue from the center of the forehead. The others go into place progressively more quickly, but I can't quite feel the rays reaching out the 15' they should be streaming out, and during the comments afterward, Rebekah says that we tend to think of them as HUMAN-sized, and that's the cue I needed: it DID seem that they went out about 6 feet and then sort of lost their thrust. Agreed when she said that the back was liable to be more limited than the front and sides. She asked for comments and swept her eyes around the room. When she got back to me, everyone else being reluctant, I said I'd start and said how PLEASED I was that this came about: it'd been something I'd been waiting for and it seemed so RIGHT. Hazel said what I did, but Dorothy again talked about unconsciousness and Michael said he was in terrible pain and wandering mind. Jim was fidgety in his chair, Malcolm had troubles with certain of the energies, and Rich wasn't there, leading me to wonder if they weren't CONTENT with the active contingent at 6 so that we'd have to pay $15. Everyone seemed taken when I waited around long enough, and Michael chose to do me first, and then I did him as he squeezed tears out from under his closed eyes, and I smiled inwardly as my side-brushing hands unbuttoned the top button of his shirt---I said to him afterward that I was glad to see him there; hope I'm not PUSHING AT him.
DIARY 11703
3/7/77
BRUCE LIEBER OVER AGAIN
He repeats lots of stories (how his mother wracked up the car, his playing of Irish fiddle music the night of getting the green energy on St. Patrick's Day, coincidences with his roommate, and his "heart warming" walk with Rebekah) and gets into new ones: how he wanted to be OUTGOING this weekend and proceeded to stay indoors, the pains he still got, and his hearing that I said my PLACID experiences with Actualism were the opposite of his HYSTERICAL experiences with it. He said that the next few sessions were going to be great for me, that he thought Werner kept talking about how he WANTED to be rather than how he was, that Loren Spectre was giving the Wednesday "About Sex" and he liked him a lot. He started by saying that I was quite glowing when he came in, but didn't want to tell me data because he didn't want me to look to him as a guru. No danger! He talked of the dynamite Lois, built like a truck driver, who performs "brain surgery" for about $30, having been in Actualism about 17 years, coming to NYC in a couple of weeks, and how he had to go to bed and then couldn't sleep all night after she worked on his nerves, barking like a dog, while he twitched like a puppet with an epileptic puppeteer (MY terms!). He spoke again of Rebekah's powers, the similarities between him and Bruce, and the abilities of the teachers to read minds and auras and even see the future (some replacement when Jan and Bruce went on a skiing weekend pinpointed Bruce EXACTLY, saying he could see and hear it over the phone, and Wyndee said something so mind-reading that everyone had to believe it, but they said they had better things to do than to tune in on people's private lives, so we didn't have to worry). He talked about the likely people dropping out, and the unlikely people getting in and staying in, how he wanted to become a hermit even though he'd done it (and even been enlightened) in previous lives, and how he still sometimes thought he didn't belong in it. I told him more about my "let," how it helped me in Rolfing, too, and how I didn't figure on anything getting me out of it, even though I didn't get anything out of many of the body sessions, and I'd go along until I felt I needed them. He didn't say anything.
DIARY 11705
3/8/77
ACTUALISM #11.5
Looking forward to the exciting classes that Bruce says are coming up, but Bruce Lieber sits and chats with us about last week until 8:15, when Jim finally arrives, and then continues his chat about how the world's changing, how Higher Will has never been earthed though the Cosmic Father has been earthed by Lao-Tse, Perfection has been earthed by Christ (which name is close to "crystal," which I think is an unacceptable Englishism), and Wisdom has been earthed by Buddha, Pythagoras, and someone else who I've forgotten. Another energy, "coming soon," has also not been earthed. He talks on until about 8:30, then we close our eyes and put the Royal Purple above us in a downpour, going through various plexes in the body and trying to get the sensual concomitants of its presence. I feel very removed and distant from most of the first 3/4. But then the CCW and CW sun goes from bottom to top, and finally as the CW sun reaches the waist, I sense a VERY flowery-fruity color inwardly, and when he says to hold the sun's center at arm's length at the left to test the magnetic and at the right to test the dynamic, I'd been feeling warm and oppressed throughout the session (Matthew said he'd NEVER felt so hot), and felt something VERY like the cooling touch of a hand on the shoulder. When Dorothy said the same, Bruce said that the shoulder would be touched since it was so close to the center where the Higher Will sum WAS. I said I kept comparing it to last weeks', which was great, and Bruce cautioned me against saying that I was causing it, rather than the OBSTRUCTIONS THAT WERE BEING PROCESSED that were causing my feelings of being out of it. Hazel dutifully reported almost constant sweet tastes and smells, but said she got nothing sensorily from it. Bruce can barely restrain himself from laughing, but says she should next concentrate on the sound of it. Jim reports little sensation, Dorothy and Michael say it was beautiful for them, and though we all tentatively admit that the feelings on the magnetic and the dynamic were equal, Bruce hastens to assure us that there's all sorts of room for improvement: when they DO feel equal, THEN we have a chance to expand BOTH of them evenly, so that we can give AND get in abundance without feeling either guilty about how much we're getting or tentative about how much we can give. "Coincidence" that I'd just read about est's idea that "You can't admit your love for someone you invite as a guest, so you have to say it'll be good for them, or interesting for them." Bruce is talking to Matthew, who drifted and thought he might blow it, and Bruce says, "You can't blow it," and that makes me feel GREAT. Talk to Bruce afterward and tell him that, and he smiles when I say that I or he or both of us would know about it if I let the "let" go too far, but he didn't say anything. Matthew kept talking about his feelings of worthlessness, taking over the theme from Rich, who was now content that he'd moved to another floor in the same building that he lived in before. Bruce says that he should put the light and his vibrations into the new apartment so that he'd feel at home in it quickly, making it a lighted place in which to live. I'm confused about what we're to do during the coming week, and Bruce says that we can work with ANY energy on both the magnetic and dynamic side: that concept was explained during the Creativity introduction to Objectify it, but it was applicable to all of them, and what we're overbalanced in on the OUTSIDE will probably be UNDER BALANCED in on the INSIDE, which gives everyone the idea that you can't tell about the inside of people from the outside. Bruce DOES say that there's an importance of orientation, so that the magnetic is facing the person when you're receiving them, and I had noticed just before that (said to Michael) that Bruce had turned his left shoulder slightly toward Dorothy to listen to her (and she was delighted that she was AUDITING this, so she'd get $9 back from her $15 to the auditing charge of $6). I was willing to go along with it, but wondered if he might be slowing us down so that we're more evenly spaced: if we only need five intensives in basic, it seems that the last part will go quickly, I hope. Bruce said nothing about the advances in "non-itchiness" with the Radiant Warrior, a related energy, that Bruce Lieber had been talking about, and again Malcolm referred to some body technique that I hadn't heard about. Hazel laughed so becomingly as I said something to her on the subway platform that a handsome light black looked at her and openly smiled, and she demurely turned back to me as if to say, "You know I really didn't mean to do THAT, Bob."
DIARY 11726
3/15/77
ACTUALISM #12
All three teachers are sitting in the room as I get there just at 8, and then we wait for Matthew to exit from his bodywork in the next room, and Rich doesn't show up at all---may he be gone? But all the rest of us 7 were there, Hazel smiling when I suggest she'd gotten a crewcut, Malcolm looking sexier than ever on his one-day-a-week diet, and Michael says I look VERY good with Higher Will, and Dorothy smiles at me knowingly when she says "You've taken Actualization, haven't you?" when Jim starts asking about it. Jan talks of inversions of Higher Will as lacks of organization when I say I couldn't get to do things that I was planning to do, linking organization and perfection (in the same center with Radiant Warrior, related to Higher Will) and Higher Will. I'd wanted to confess I didn't do much, but did so only to Michael afterward, who seemed to think it was OK. Then Jan gets into the lesson for the day: the Silver Chalice (grail) of the Cosmic Mother, which bathes and nourishes, and feeds the MAGNETIC side in the same way that the Cosmic Father tends to the DYNAMIC side. She smiles when I say I have to say something, saying "I noticed," and I say my mother is coming to town JUST SATURDAY, and she laughs and says "That's perfect," and talks about the chance that "a FEW may have no problems with their mothers, but most do." Russell talks of the grail and courtly love as being some of the freshening influences of the end of the Dark Ages, when women didn't exactly become EQUALS, but certainly were no longer CHATTELS (literally based on CATTLE). He cited Cleopatra a lot, not mentioning Hatshepsut who was probably stronger. Then he got into the work, and my face kept itching and my feet were burning, both quite uncharacteristic, so there must have been obstructions that I was still working through. As nearly as I remember, the work put the 6-8" chalice 6" above the top of the head, and this was to grow to a 6' chalice overhead which fills and spills over with light, consuming fire down through the body. Then it lowered to the bottom of the field and spun CCW to scour out the bottom of the field, then moved up from the bottom, stopped, and down again and spun CW to assimilate, then went up the BACK to above the head, filled and spilled OVER this time, and then shrank back to its home position in center two. I asked about the traffic jam up there, since Russell mentioned it sitting ON the top bar of the Sigil, and Jan spoke of the crown as being "in another dimension where the interference didn't matter, and the crown didn't enter." But the White Star fits UNDER THE BOTTOM CUP of the silver chalice on the top bar of the Sigil, all in center two. Dorothy talked of the moving around, which I echoed, and I didn't say much more until Michael mentioned the field, and I added that I had the sense of my field being VERY small and constricted, and Jan said I should concentrate on the consuming fire to ream out the obstructions to help clear up this area with this energy. Then Matthew talked about all the voices in his head, and I volunteered that MY voices had become very much quieter: reaching only to the BACK ascent of the body (when Jan asked about me as copilot I just said, "I looked, and it seemed to be going OK, so I went along with it.") and to the traffic jam in center two. Hazel spoke about the sweetness of the taste and smell of the feast BEFORE Russell mentioned the feast; Matthew spoke of the silken smooth TEXTURE of the energy, and Michael talked of the feeling of obstruction in the bottom part of his legs. I asked Hazel for a brushdown, and she seemed delighted, afterward mentioning how MUCH she liked my touch, and I mentioned her slight smile of enjoyment, and then SHE did a particularly loving one, and I could hear Jan talking about how GOOD it felt, saying that the Cosmic Mother certainly lent her characteristics of Tender Loving Care to this session. This is the last of the first half of basic, at which time an individual counseling session with two instructors is mandatory before TWO weeks from now for lesson #13, and I signed up for 8 pm on Monday. She also said that bodywork is effective now, and I'm sure it's NOT a coincidence that JoAnne de Mattia had Congo Bars for us, so I'll call her and make an appointment before Monday, so if it's an INEFFECTIVE session as it seemed to be with Rebekah (Oh, remembered the little "huh?" from Jan as she told us to meld with the immortals of Bruce and Rebekah, Russell and Carol Ann) I can ask about it. There was another good point, but I missed it. They didn't hand out the sheets, so I have to call for directions for the weekly work.
DIARY 11741
3/18/77
ANOTHER PHONE CALL TO ACTUALISM
When Jan asked, "Just why were you calling?" I decided that I WAS being a bit incoherent. Starting with a barrage of "I got overwhelmed with guilt on Wednesday then made three phone calls and got three stories of woe." "Well, if you open yourself to take on other people's burdens, you have to be prepared for it." "I'm not taking them on, I was just thrown off balance. Let me ask questions that I didn't before about Actualism versus est: do you think we're responsible for everything?" "Est goes too far in that, you didn't make it rain today; you don't have to take on the sorrow of others. Use the Cosmic Mother for protection from the inroads of others, either in downpour from small or large chalice, or lower it over your body and invoke consuming fire. How are these going; as much trouble as the energy of perfection?" "No, not as hard to get going, but I'm again using 'let' to do everything." And again she said it sounded as if I were doing well. "When I wander and forget where I left the energy source, I sort of let it go and say, "I want it to be here now." She says that's OK, but that I can go into intensive mode and try to find where the chalice is through the SENSES. I say that I'm getting nothing much in the sensory, envying Hazel's tasting and smelling everything so sweet. "No one can get the energies in all three ways: sensory, intellectual, and emotional." You're better than she is in some and she's more receptive than you in others, but that doesn't mean you should avoid them." "I look at it like a test; what happens if I WANT to find sensorily where it is, and get NO message back?" "You may be afraid of getting TOO MUCH." "No, I don't think I'm afraid of getting too much---that is, I'll say that until I get too much!" "See, what did I tell you?" said Jan, as though she'd proven her point. She talks about how HER relationship with her parents is great on the inner and poor on the outer, and I should work with my mother to get the same way. But I shouldn't overdo my guilt-bit, should try to keep my perspective, and she again ends by saying that I seem to be doing very well, and that she's looking forward to seeing me next week, and that I should be pleased that these things are coming up now to be processed and worked out. I agreed, wishing it were somehow OVER, and she stressed the CONTINUAL work in this area, saying that there will ALWAYS be problems and new steps to be taken and changes to assimilate.
DIARY 11748
3/22/77
ACTUALISM 12.5 COUNSELING
I read until Malcolm leaves, grinning, at 8:05, and then sit on the sofa facing Jan on my left (magnetic?) and Bruce on my right (dynamic?) and I make a weak joke about having the whole sofa to scoot back and forth in. Bruce asks if I've had trouble with the Cosmic Mother, and I essentially rehash what I'd told Jan: my troubles with Bob and Dennis Wednesday night, the revelation Thursday morning that it was connected with the guilt between my mother and myself, and the other contacts with guilt through the week. Bruce said that I was very perceptive: that indeed guilt WAS the operative inversion of the Cosmic Mother, so I was attacking my blocks directly. He gave the definition of "sin" as coming from ancient archery, meaning "missing the mark," yet it's not possible to learn ANYTHING save by some missing of the mark, and I should adapt the same attitude to "sinning" in my life as I have for the errors I'll obviously make in my indexing. Then I said the sessions were going slower, from a minimum of 20 minutes to an average of 40 to a now-maximum of 60 minutes, hastening to say that I only do it once a day. He says that's all right, that the second part of basic is directed toward the practice of staying in the light ALL DAY LONG, rather than just using it as "needed," and I said I was taking steps in that direction, but felt the agreeing need to constantly use it. Then he asks if I see any problems in my life, and I say only the usual one about the lack of time, which he immediately connects to the organizational forces of Perfection. We go around with my entertainment absorption until I HAVE to work, at which time I'm proud of my concentration, product, and 15-hour days, until finally they say I seem to have it under control and let's change the subject. What about marijuana? I say I smoke. How often? Once a day. That will be a hindrance to earthing the energies. What about alcohol and coffee and cigarettes? Actual practical studies have shown that the effects of marijuana give a false sense of higher frequencies which are in fact low frequencies, and the effects are discernible in the field for between 6 months and two years AFTER the consistent smoker has given it up. I said "That might be a problem" at the start, then began to realize that I had mentioned wanting to cut down (though hardly to stop it completely), and felt the irony that just as it might become legal, I might stop doing it. Thought about it a lot (see DIARY 11750). In sum, they absolutely recommend against it; alcohol can be enlightened to something handleable, but grass can't. I wouldn't be able to go into advanced and continue smoking. I made sure there would be no future restrictions on sex, and they say it gets brighter as the sexual organs are enlightened, with a rather fleeting, embarrassed mention of the reproductive urge, and I mention that Russell seems OK with gays, and Bruce laughs aloud and says, "If he didn't, half the movement wouldn't be here." I laughed too and said, "I noticed." I end by saying that I like the path that this offers to me, and I'd not like to do anything to interfere with it, and said that I'd just stop smoking completely, which led him to say that that would probably be difficult. I said I'd done it a couple of times in the past, when I went on trips and didn't want to hassle customs with grass, and it seemed to have no effect, and he looked at me and said, "Then I guess you're a very unusual case in that." He said that one of the best students had had to start with a cold turkey for heroin, and lots had had to overcome lots stronger habits, but he said that he himself had never been into anything stronger than grass or hash. They sort of pushed for body sessions, saying it was a good way to free the body of debris. I balked. When we talked of mothers, he said that this was passed on from generation to generation, and I said that my mother complained about HER mother, and I disliked the parts of MY mother that I saw in me, at one point contradicting myself and blaming it on my mother. I asked if they "warned" if someone were slipping, and they said they were as much for the movement as WE were, so they'd only try to help, so of course there would be no surprises along the way (like grass, I wonder). I felt that I was a definite part of the group, hugged first Bruce sideways and then Jan more directly, though at an angle from top to bottom (we made the top vertex of a triangle), and left after they clapped their hands to their heads and said that the session inside prevented them from getting a sheet for me, but that I could pick it up some other time if I wanted it. Felt the tiniest disdain for Jan for forgetting it, thanked them for letting me see the AFI show tonight, but they implied the best they could do for April 11 was a makeup session.
DIARY 11773
3/29/77
ACTUALISM #13
Class of 7: me, Michael, Dorothy, Jim, Malcolm (cuter than ever), Hazel (more beautiful than ever: made-up, in a lovely yellow suit), and a NEW Rich, with a tiny mustache, who'd been connected with other movements and might have been in my est classes of seminars. When Bruce asked for results from the past week, no one said anything even though he added that it was possible to benefit from talking in a GENERAL way about something SPECIFIC and even letting the group in on the intensity of the feeling without revealing their circumstantial causes. Then he got into a "new level" of lesson and we went through the seven super-layers of being very quickly, with Russell using such terms that I later questioned as "Inner Moon" (which used to be taught as the closing-off of the upper left of the Sigil, but which isn't used now); "Third Kingdom" (as opposed to the First Kingdom of Minerals, Second Kingdom of Animals, Third Kingdom of the Body, Fourth Kingdom of the Mind (?), and Fifth Kingdom of the Angels (?)), and then I remarked about the larger field, since I THOUGHT once before that Rebekah said that the field extended down "almost to the ground floor of the building." He kept saying that the Brain-Mind would not be able to understand all of this, so to sort of turn it off. Later, when I talked to Hazel on the way to the subway, she said she was glad that I'd gotten something, since she felt sorry that "You're such a NICE person" and had been only "treading water" a few lessons back, and she was glad to see me happy, saying that I looked so CUTE tonight in my white shirt and blue jeans, and Dennis said I looked VERY collegiate, and Michael said he liked the color of my bright orange sweater. Malcolm came up with the word "Devic" in connection with the "Angelic," saying that Russell has used it, but I hadn't remembered, being very vague during the playing of the sixth level. Hazel's voice got MUCH stronger when she said she got fouled up in the Emotional, and when I told her she just laughed and laughed delightedly, as I did when she was saying how much she loved to listen to me speak, and how smart I was. She couldn't understand how I didn't taste and smell the sweetness of the energies and the foulness of the obstructions that "come from way down here," she said, scooping from her vaginal area, "and get breathed out here," she said, sweeping her hands away from her mouth. Dorothy laughed to say she envied Malcolm his progress, and they brushed. I was left with Bruce, who was VERY firm.
DIARY 11785
4/2/77
SUMMARY OF ACTUALISM TO DATE
LESSON
13: Spectrum 7th level: Formless form
Formless
V ________
I Form
B 6th level: Archetypal
R 5th level: Angelic
A Absorption veil
T 4th level: Soul
I Unobstructed
O ___________
N Obstructed
A 3rd level: Mental
L 2nd level: Emotional
1st level: Perceptual
12: COSMIC MOTHER: Silver Chalice
1: WHITE ENERGY: White Star Center 2: Upper room
10: SIGIL: Red-gold Sun
2: COSMIC FATHER: Gold Dome of Crown Center 3: Top of head
F 11: HOME CENTERS FOR STAR-SUNS
R 6: WISDOM LIGHT: Electric Blue Center 4: Midbrain
E 7: OBJECTIVE CREATIVITY: Emerald Green
Q Center 5: Throat
U 8: HIGHER WILL: Royal Purple
E Center 6: Hermes or Thymus
N 4: LEFT HAND of PHYSICIAN WITHIN: Ruby Red
C Center 7: Physical Heart
Y 5: RIGHT HAND of PHYSICIAN WITHIN: Orange
Center 8: Solar Plexus
B 3: RADIANT WARRIOR: Light Violet
A Center 9: Organizational
N 9: ENERGY of PERFECTION: Pink
D [MISSING DIAGRAM]
S
DIARY 11796
4/5/77
ACTUALISM #14
We meet in the farther apartment, delighted to see all 8 of us, and the lesson is FOR forming the group sigil. I report that I'd practiced many short times, and Jan's delighted, and Michael reports VERY high practice sessions. Then we merge with the immortal and the tape goes on about 8:15 and continues to 9:10, one of the longest (and I'd put in my sheet with a check for $15.50, so I should check next week if it's THERE). She prepares us for the outrageous dimensions (hundreds of feet) of the sigil, and winces at my differentiation between my two-dimensional idea of the personal sigil and my location-questions about the group sigil, which is the WHOLE group of ALL lightworkers (even pre-workers), and not just our group of 8. I get a great feeling of the altitude and expanse of the top of the sigil, though all is black "because there's nothing to see" as I put it to Jan, and though there's a sense of aloneness, there's not a sense of ABANDONMENT about the airy heights. The three-inch dimension of the white star through my body feels LUDICROUSLY small compared with the 300-foot field we now have. Wonder slightly about the ethics of Rebekah's (her ministry in Actualism is signed by Russell on 1-15-75, so she's been in over 26 months) flat "No" to my question of "Will the field expand AGAIN so that it'll reach almost to the ground floor of the Olcott." So here we are. Matthew and Jim report "my ass wasn't in the chair, I was floating." I reported two SHARP, FAR excursions from the tape, on something about work and Mom, now forgotten, which I almost opened my eyes to return from, as directed from Jan. (She stopped to make sure we were all in level one, which seemed strange: did she "see" someone NOT there?) Michael felt a steadiness of experience which he disliked compared to the JOY from before, and Malcolm seemed to get the brunt of "not wanting to be with the group," though I reveled in the thought of "getting a bit from everyone," thinking particularly the sensual smell and taste from Hazel and the touches from Matthew and the strength from Michael. Over about 10, late, and I stayed later to ask questions that Jan answered not too convincingly. "Not worry about location of sigil," and "first level means first KINGDOM." Met Bruce Lieber downstairs, and we talked animatedly: when I tell him of my GREAT feelings on Thursday, he immediately leapt in to see it on my face NOW. Pleased with how it's going, brushed down Dorothy with nice feelings for the first time, and the guys are all seemingly so HANDSOME: GOOD GROUP!
DIARY 11822
4/14/77
ACTUALISM #15
She says (Jan) that this is an INDIVIDUAL trip, so I didn't mess up the group by not being there last night. So I quickly close my eyes and she steadies me and puts on the tape. Russell starts with a BEAUTIFUL talk on how we're channels of light, trying to break the crystallizations that mar the smooth passage of the light, and I get the STRONG feeling that it's VERY close to the Zen book that I'm reading: ACCEPT everything as it IS, and the light rays that are God pass RIGHT THROUGH you, and if you don't CHANGE the light, you ARE the light, and you can UNITE with the light of all others who are undeviating, becoming ONE UNIFIED LIGHT that fills the whole universe, at last, when everyone is "clear" (is THAT what it means?) and the light is once more UNIFIED---ONE---and the conviction that this is IT is so strong that I MUST write another page about it (see DIARY 11824). Then she introduces the Ring-Pass-Not, and I'm pleased that we're getting back into the centers, because I was afraid that I was forgetting which was where, which was perfect. Then it's reduced (the white star) to a tiny bead, another new thing, that starts making Spiritual Atomic Explosions up and down the CVA, and I try to think ahead to see the matching of dimensions with centers, but that doesn't take place. I'm listening VERY closely and clearly, and do NOT hear that he talks of the Golden Color of the Cosmic Father, and I MISS it, but she says it IS there, so I'm not sure whether I DRIFTED during it, since I didn't think I'd drifted at ALL, or if Russell's forgotten to include it, though it's on the sheet. I talk about my resistance to not smoking, and she says that's just what it IS, resistance, and I can't do it because THEY tell me not to, and I can't restart it because DENNIS wants to, but I have to do what I want, and she says maybe it indicates something about Dennis, and I talk with him that evening about HOW MUCH he wants others to do what he does to VALIDATE him (though he denies it), and I think this IS a good way of looking at it---though he didn't have to have grass last night for a good session, but not having grass didn't help MY session, either. She seems a bit impatient, brushes me down thoroughly, and chases me out about 12:30, and I get a sheet, had paid my $20, and Rebekah waves goodbye to me from the sofa.
DIARY 11824
4/15/77
"IT" IN ACTUALISM
From Actualism #15 (see DIARY 11822), I get a strong image of the Egyptian drawings of rays from the sun ending in human hands: that's JUST what the image of humanity seems to be from that lesson: rays from a SINGLE source that each bit of humanity (what is THAT?) perverts BY its humanity to form a local deviation that DISTINGUISHES the individual from the whole, and only when the individual CEASES to be an individual, MELDS in willingness and practice with the whole, will the light be unbroken again. Reminds me VERY strongly of the Moody's phrase that I have discussed elsewhere: "Open the soul windows and become the light," the idea that OPENING and OPENING will make the seed of the soul more and more window until it becomes TRANSPARENT and NONEXISTENT. In the interview with Madge yesterday, I describe the perfect IOCS as being transparent to the user; so the perfect human would be transparent to the creator. Essentially THWARTING the creator IF the creator, as Watts says, wants to HIDE in corporeality, ENRICH his life by proliferation of FORM, but if the creator makes a three-by-three array of BEINGS, and these nine beings live as INDIVIDUALS, there's a chunk gone from the light of god; but if the center individual DESTROYS his lifht (LIFE AND LIGHT)-perverting opacities and malcrystallizations, the center of the array becomes ONCE MORE PURE LIGHT, reducing the "creation" of god, leaving god less to amuse himself as having become, eradicating the germ of individualism in the center, BUT the center GAINS the quality of the intensity and purity and unity of light that permeated "his space" before he was created: twisted out of the ("out of the" both in the sense of AWAY FROM THE and the sense of MADE FROM THE) streaming undeviated light and now acting as a LENS that is apparent (and parent of its children), interfering (in the optical AND moral sense), and crystallized (that is, rigid, so that nothing ELSE can be made there until he VACATES it, and maybe THAT'S where reincarnation comes in: when an individual VACATES a space and someone else is CREATED there, the SAME light (or does "this eternal" light stream as photons or exist STILL, as molecules of water in a cosmic ocean?) becomes someone else. Did Hubbard's Scientology MEAN this by "clear," is THAT what Werner means by "Vanishing it," and is THAT what Nirvana and Satchitananda revolve around: becoming transparent to the ORIGINAL LIGHT THAT YOU WERE BEFORE YOU WERE BORN: IT EVEN ANSWERS ZEN COANS!
DIARY 11839
4/20/77
ACTUALISM #15.5
Malcolm, Michael and Dorothy say they'd missed me last week, and Rich says hello to Tom, so I remember his name then, and we're in to find that we're seven again, so we go down to $12.50, so I get $2.50 back in change, which is nice. Jan sits in on the class while Bruce announces that we're having a different kind of session, and I crow to Jan that I did that, and she smiles tolerantly and says, "You did?!" Bruce says that this evening's lesson will have us look at our immortals more clearly and take us on a trip. He talks about how we might not BELIEVE we're beings of light, but we'll see if we can sense it EXPERIENTIALLY. Then he tells us to close our eyes and think of ourselves in the room WITHOUT the existence of a being of light. I have a tension about the evening which manifests itself at this moment as a constriction in my chest and a sensation of a rapidly beating heart in a small area, and that anxiety seems proper to a being without light. Then he says to now ACCEPT the existence of the being of light, and as I feel guilty about not having done the work from last week, want (my mind wants) some kind of super-special manifestation of the Being of Light that I don't really EXPECT to get, my anxiety mounts, so that rather than feeling lighter or less constricted, I feel exactly the way I felt when I DIDN'T believe the Being of Light (which NOW makes sense, since it SHOULDN'T make any difference whether I BELIEVE there's a being of light or not, only a difference whether there IS a Being of Light or not, and since it's not amenable to MY senses (the only ones I let myself have at this point), I SHOULD NOT expect anything---but I did). He asks for volunteers to share at various times, and I zero in on Dorothy's (she's sitting next to me) comment that her chest feels constricted, and Bruce says something about the heart being hemmed in, and that feels right. Then he asks us to open our eyes and goes around the room from the opposite side, starting with Michael. All sorts of positive results, but I confess to my guilt, confess that my mind wanted an indication that "I" knew wasn't about to be manifested, and said that I still felt "pretty good" because I didn't think of myself as a FAILURE, this is just what happened. Bruce observes that that's the sort of thing the mind can do to you, and he started talking in what I judged to be an increasingly scattered way, his eyes changing from a pleasant resting-on each person as he looked at them to a nervous flickering back and forth, and I wondered if my sitting on his magnetic left side didn't cause him troubles, though he kept talking about the energies from the group sigil, and how we could all be supported by the years of experience and lightness that went into its formation, and I surely didn't think of myself as negatively powerful enough to topple the entire structure. But he seemed to tread with nervousness. Then we selected someone else in the room (I decided to take Hazel, since she smiled at me (I think, since I didn't have my glasses on) when I scanned her), negated their Being of Light, then accepted their Being of Light, and he asked for opinions and I didn't say anything. Then he said we'd go on our trip, so we closed our eyes again and went to the group star in the center of the group sigil, took it to the top of the sigil, and then in our "cosmic spaceship" went up through the dimensions, being encouraged to look out through the portholes at the sides to see whatever we could see. When we went into the Perceptual, I didn't see anything, but Bruce said something about the turmoil and, by implication, the ugliness and evil manifested there, saying that we shouldn't be concerned about all that, since the walls of the Group Star would protect us. When we rose to the Emotional I got a sense of the turbulent ocean heaving in slow angry swells, and in a few seconds Bruce TALKED about the heaving of the ocean, but that our ship kept us on an even keel, and I continued to weep the tears that had begun to fall when we started, reinforced when he said to think of the star as a magnetic attractor to all the debris we'd encountered that we were willing to let go of: I'd encountered so much, I figured I COULD let go a load, and think I did. I wiped my face about three times, then reached forward to pick out a tissue when my nose started running. When we advanced to the Mental Level, I saw all sorts of tiny activities, like the cores of an enormous computer being stimulated, but his image of that was of great clouds of lightness floating across a sky, so that image didn't agree much, though I got the idea of MY mentality as being terribly over-organized. Then up to the first lighted region, that of the soul, and beyond that I didn't get much of an impression, even though he stressed the idea of going "through the veils" from level to level. We went up to 7 and then came down again, and there wasn't any repetition of the sensations of going up, though I felt good about bringing down the light into the lower areas. The sharing started with me when I raised my hand to say that this was much better than the heaviness of the first part, and Bruce said "Great, anything else?" and I mentioned the specific mind-verification of the vision of the emotional ocean, and he said "Great" and went on to Michael across the room. Rich stressed his "antsiness" and not being able to keep still, and Michael talked about not wanting to look out because the comforts inside the starship were so attractive. Tom shared Rich's antsiness (he'd earlier said that he had to accept the person's Being of Light that he'd tried to negate, and it may have been my imagination and weak eyesight, but it seemed to me he was talking about me, and though I still have the sense he mistrusts me because I'm gay, he seems somewhat easier to accept me as a human being), Jim talked about the great amounts of heat (it DID seem to get warm in the room, and Bruce opened the window at the break), and Dorothy said that she hadn't heard that much of Bruce's actual WORDS, but she thought she got the sense of them, and there was a nice non-accusatory tone in her words and on her face, so I was glad that Bruce accepted what she said: I would have. Then he asked if I had any farther thoughts, and I threw in something, and then he (when I asked him) said that we had the choice of doing the exercises from lessons 14 or 15, and when I said, "Oh, I'll do 15, that's for sure," he smiled and we hugged before we left. I brushed Dorothy down, and she remarked that I was really "cleaning her off," and she ran her hands much more lightly over my body, but making no bones about doing the FRONTS of the legs, brushing everything there was to brush. Great session, though I don't think it was the one Bruce couldn't wait for me to get. I didn't remark about how I'd anticipated the dream work by having two extraordinary dreams ALREADY Sunday and Monday.
DIARY 11848
4/21/77
ACTUALISM AND IBM FRUSTRATION
I sit trying to do lightwork, but my stomach is fluttering and my heart is beating and my brow is knit and I keep THINKING about all the good things that I'd planned with the money I'd get from IBM that would now be lost. I kept trying to put myself back in mind of the good things about my life NOW, then tried to turn it over to the Immortal, saying that it knew best, and tried using the Ring-Pass-Not to do away with all the low energy vibrations, but it helped only after about 45 minutes, and while I was depressed, it was really DEPRESSING, and I wondered how people could stand it for 95% of their LIVES! Thought of using the energy of Objective Creativity to surround myself, and later in the evening Matthew suggested that I send my Immortal to harmonize with THEIR immortals, and that sounds like a GREAT idea, no matter what the result might be (though I must admit I fantasize that each manager up the line would give me CREDIT for my self-will, and at least figure my services were worth the CHANCE of re-hiring, though they might have to hire someone else in 7-8 years when I take off on something ELSE. Kept debating whether to TELL someone else, or to leave them sit in optimism and help my resolution of the problem, or to try to CLEAR IT OUT of myself by talking about it enough to neutralize it. Then I went to sleep with the thought of energizing Higher Will to let the Immortals do whatever was best for me (though what would they do in ANY case???), but I had to keep from thinking how SILLY it was to sit here playing with my mind thinking about colored lights when I should be trying to DO something: influence Madge, call Nick, sue the company for defamation of character, though I had to promise Madge I wouldn't do anything about what she told me in STRICTEST confidence, except that I MIGHT inquire of Nick whether there was anything negative in my file IF he calls to say that I didn't get the job. I sort of have to resist calling Madge: she has enough problems as it is, and certainly she knows her way around the IBM hierarchy better than I do. Though again, the thought that "if they can't respect me for what I did, why should I want to go back to them?" is so strong that I'm led to the ineluctable conclusion: "If they DON'T respect me for it, I WON'T be going back!"
DIARY 11869
4/25/77
MEDITATION THOUGHTS DURING LIGHTWORK
Just as usual: I'm sitting SUPPOSED to be doing lightwork, and as in meditation my mind races over the things I should be doing NEXT, what I'll be doing after THAT, how much I should do today, what I'd like to do for pleasure, the whole SCHMEAR of it. Some examples: I have to do the (1) index for Appleton, and then some for (2) Harper and Row; I keep thinking of the typing of the (3) cassette for Leonard Orr and the (4) letter to Bill after I type the tape. Then there are the other things on the Do list, like returning the (5) film to Maverick, making the (6) reservation that came in the mail this morning for Perrin through Paul McLean. I want to work on (7) stamps, want to check the books for the (8) revised list in the library, and want to shop at (9) Strand and the 4th Avenue area again. Want to bring the (10) entertainment list up to date, get the (11) drawer sorted out, and write (12) letters to everyone I owe letters to. Want to phone (13) Paul Bosten and get together with (14) Theo and (15) John Connolly. All sorts of evenings of entertainment coming up, and now I have 10 new TDF vouchers to get rid of by June 30. Have to get (16) groceries, want to take out a pile of (17) sweaters to be dry-cleaned, and would like to leave my books-to-buy list at (18) Middagh, (19) Barq, and (20) new mailing houses. Want to watch TV and see movies and plays and dance performances, on and off-Broadway. Want to mix new drinks, buy more wine, have Dennis bake new breads, bake more cake, and maybe even think about moving. When I think of (21) writing back for "Throw-back" I think of how many things I want to do before that, including listening to my alpha rhythms on Pope's (22) alphaphones. Then I have the shelf of books to read, haven't heard from IBM yet, need to take a (23) resume to Actualism tonight, want to make up (24) "The Body" courses, and have to shave and shower and brush my teeth and take pills and get ready for Actualism, while I tell myself I really can't stop at the library tomorrow, and wanted to work on the index today and it's 5:15 and I haven't had time to do anything but catch up on my diary, which is the thing that always gets done but it's the one thing that doesn't HAVE to be done, except that I don't have to labor under the pressure of a great number of days to catch UP with in which I've FORGOTTEN what's happened. Didn't get (25) Rolf over for the porno, haven't called (26) Steven Waite or (27) BobG to see them, and still have other things on the borders ((28) zoos, (29) Coney Island, (30) Arboretum) that I HAVE not even had the room to transcribe onto this page which is now filled to the very limit!
DIARY 11870
4/26/77
DREAM SUMMARIZATION FOR ACTUALISM CLASS
DREAMS from 4/17 to 4/25
4/11 Richness and loss, then nothing until
4/17 (Sunday) Bierstadt into Ama Dablam;
bus and hotel and lake in Tibet(?)
4/18 (Monday) Working at IBM with Handel music and dance and elevators
Actualism that night: remember dreams
4/19 (Tuesday) A. Plane/bus maps
B. Father and me in car in West and Mexico
C. Theater and personal worth-praising
4/20 (Wednesday) A. Nude women swimming in pool
B. TV production of lesbians ending on an eye
Wednesday INCREDIBLE day: IBM, est, Matthew, Rolf, all on full-time jobs.
4/21 (Thursday) No dreams recalled
4/22 (Friday) A. Taping profiles to throw cream at
B. Giving away chicken
4/23 (Saturday) Crowded rooms with Gary Vallish, a cousin
4/24 (Sunday) A. Subway/train to Russia
B. Cleveland taxi ride
4/25 (Monday) A. Dancing girls spelling name
B. Travel something not recalled
8 nights' dreams: 4 TRAVEL something; 4 Theater/Production something.
Always OUTSIDE my house or apartment!
Jan, then on Monday evening, specifically said that it would be BRUCE that would visit with us, and I didn't recall any of that, though Hazel said she dreamed a lot about the group, and dreamed that Jan would be calling people out of the room this evening just as she had been doing. I was disappointed that no one said anything about dreaming, though she asked only in general about what happened during the past week, nothing specific about the dreams. I asked a few people, but they didn't respond very warmly, and I felt rather left out of the group, though I was willing to sit there and accept the fact that my Immortal was happy to be there: now all I have to do is merge with the Immortal sufficiently to know that I am pleased enough to be there TOO.
DIARY 11871
4/26/77
ACTUALISM #16
Rich, Tom, Nick (a VERY sexy guy in a JohnV-type blue body overall with a large chest, small waist, lovely thighs, nice crotch, who seemed not to look at me at all), and Marilyn (?) (a mud-faced girl who seemed more out of it than I was), and Michael were all auditing this one, leaving Matthew, me, Dorothy, Malcolm, Hazel, and Jim as the 6 in the class of 11, and Jan talked about the forming of the wave of people who would be going into First Advanced together, and it felt nice to be included in that group, though I felt somewhat out of it, though the number of sexually attractive men in the group has grown to be astounding: Rich, Tom, Nick, Matthew, Malcolm, and Michael (the majority of the class: mind boggling!), any of which I'd be DELIGHTED to bed down with; Jim and me, the lesser in the field of masculine beauty, to make 8 of 11 men; and Hazel, Dorothy, and Marilyn, all of whom could NOT be termed your typically feminine women. Jan introduced the topic by saying we'll be talking about angels and archangels, so the brain had better keep QUIET. I shared that I kept pushing it down to have it bubble back up, but Jan suggested it would be better to instruct it to merge with Radiant Consciousness and begin to get some answers at a level that would satisfy it. It was hot in the room: that everyone reported, from Matthew saying it came from inside to me blaming the room. I remarked surprise about a new angel, Uriel, and said that the merging with Michael was the more impressive since it was the first, and the others were "repetitions," which sounded unutterably dilettante-ish: "Well, you merge with one archangel you've merged with them ALL." Others confess to being VERY spaced out, and when I get the sheet I see that I was spaced-out during the description, have to ask questions about the positioning of the rod and the staff, and the next morning I have MORE questions, and phone them for help, feeling very scattered, shattered, and spattered. There are various reports of good-feeling with various of Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel, and then I do brushdowns with Matthew, who seems to be in better posture, not having the pot he had before, and his hands are VERY encompassing of whatever they're brushing, and I feel good toward him and we hug. Stay last and ask questions of Jan, who gives me a "special task" of letting my star magnetically consume obstructions to perceptual, then letting star distribute ESSENCE through my field when that's finished. When I practice, I get a GLINT of light energy off sword surfaces, and probably Bruce will talk about the POWER of the lesson and ones ahead.
DIARY 11872
4/26/77
BRAIN EMPTYING OUT
Get a good feeling when I CAN just sort of let the thoughts that are infesting the brain just drain away, flow out like water from a sieve, to retain the good things that are left without having them float about in a lot of dispersing liquids. But emptying the brain leads to a feeling of EMPTINESS, and I remark to Dennis that I seem to have abdicated CONTROL over things: put it OUT to IBM that I wanted to be hired, but now THEY have to decide; put it OUT that I want indexes, but they have to call ME to have me do them; put it OUT to Matthew and Rolf that I might like a job, but THEY have the next step; even find myself at a loss with Dennis, who seems to want someone to take control over most of what he does, and when we both do it, no one suggests that we eat, smoke, have sex, or go to bed until it's really too LATE for it. There's a nice feeling of CALMNESS that comes with the brain empty, but the society and the conditioning jumps on at some point to say: Is this the way to IMPROVE your sense of well-being, let the brain, which you've invested so much in, just decay as they say your centers, your emotions, and your body functions have been left to decay? Yet there was always the call for balance, and I still can't imagine that anyone would say that my body and emotions have yet caught up with the almost incessant activity of my brain. So it should feel good to rest. It makes it easier for the practice of the lightwork, certainly, so that I'm not constantly thinking of what else I have to do (see DIARY 11869) how it isn't working, whether I should be spending time with this at ALL, where is this all GOING. (See DIARY 11876) I guess that just shows impatience: I can wait around and see where the emotions and body are going in relationships and aging and coming together, but I can't wait to see where the training is going, where the life is going, where the brain is going to light next. Since I'm the ONLY thing that controls the brain (THAT seems good: the EARTH controls my body, est and ACTUALISM control my rate of enlightenment, Dennis has a hand in controlling the relationship, but my BRAIN is SOLELY MINE, and I can fuck it up as royally as I fuck up the time I spend doing things (see DIARY 11874), and now I want to finish these pages that I've lined up for me so that I can finish the index waiting for me to that I can get to some of the OTHER things that I have to do!
DIARY 11877
4/26/77
ACTUALISM QUESTIONS
Actualism #16 seemed so clear when I took it (see DIARY 11871), but then when it came to the practice, it seemed so unclear that I called them, jotted down some questions, but then when they didn't answer decided to PRACTICE and see what came up. After I finished, Rebekah called, and said that
1) the swords are UTILIZED only at the end, when the rod acts as a power gear on them as a STAFF, spinning them CCW less than CW to assimilate essence.
2) The STAFF are the swords, and she says the ROD OF POWER, not rod of PERFECTION.
3) The rod can remain vertical BETWEEN center 5 and center 2 (I don't recall that ANY of this was made very clear during the tape or the discussion with Jan) and allow the swords to spin CW during the day, OR the rod can be pulled back down to its horizontal position in the two feet in front of center 5 to be used as a COMMUNICATION tool, and she's less dismissing of my positional questions than Jan seemed to be. It can be changed as I want to work with it.
4) I should visit the CITY once in the AM for 40-45 minutes, then in the evening use the Rod and Staff to spin CCW and CW to clear out the low-frequency impressions accumulated throughout the day. There's really more of a feeling now that I should USE these tools (reinforced by my reading of the material AGAIN this morning) more to WARD OFF the low frequencies (as summarized so well in these last few pages (see DIARY 11872-11876). These ARE my tools, I'm beginning to be aware, as I was when the person had an attack in the theater and I lit up my two "Physician" centers and freed myself to go back to the stage. I feel that perhaps I'm beginning to use them in my relationship with Dennis, though I haven't yet made much advance in using them to get rid of my irritability, my lack of productiveness in the index, though surely I'm going through lots of THESE pages. I guess I'll be glad to get into advanced, because then I'll be dealing directly with Rebekah and Bruce, with whom I feel more in tune than with Jan, though there's no denying that she's very good with the group, and maybe it IS the difference between the third and fourth advanced, and I'm STILL wondering when I'll meet Russell, the only fifth advanced that anyone seems to know about; no one says anything about how far Carol Ann has gone, and the students here only go as high as SECOND advanced, though some should be getting through to third SOON?
DIARY 11900
5/5/77
ACTUALISM #17
Bruce checks me in at 7:55 with the sad news that it's $12.50 tonight and $15 "for the rest of the course" (though Malcolm said that Marilyn would be catching up with us by lesson 20) because MATTHEW is dropping back for some reviews "for a number of reasons." I wonder if his not wanting to say "No" to my resume is one of them. SMALL group tonight: me and Dorothy, Michael and Malcolm, Hazel and Marilyn, and Tom without Nick, Jim, or the sexy guy from last time. Bruce tells us about two triangles across the solar plexus and across the heart and "a surprise at the end that I won't tell you about." We get into the tape and Russell goes on and on and on about not visualizing anything, and I get the star just about to expand and then get LOST through where the sheet says to "float free through the body" and come back when he tells us to go to level 2. I do, get up to 7 and get a charge from the "instant downpour" through all the levels, and then we're down and when he starts going into the colors of the triangles I just CAN'T make them make sense, and I'm getting drowsy, missing lines, not doing what he says, and throwing up all kinds of flack that I identify with Tom when Bruce says "Oh, so you were really processing, huh?" I'd never been OUT so much, and I said that it was heavy because his words seemed to take SO long and seemed SO boring that I couldn't follow them, and Bruce smiled and made a comment about my processing, too. Dorothy was actually ANGRY about it, Michael said it was great (and said that I'd lost lots of stiffness, and that he'd been too busy to get to me and Malcolm for the free bodywork, but he'd be calling), and Marilyn talked about pains in chest and heart. Got Michael for a brushdown, and he went VERY lightly over me and I went over him, we got our sheets, and I sort of had to make a point of hugging Bruce goodbye. Tom wanted to get a cab with me again, but I said I'd walk, and he talked about reading the "why Brick died" scene from "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," saying that he was glad he'd seen NEITHER Brando nor Dullea do it, so he could do it for himself, since HE was a football player once. I walked, debating briefly about the chances of dropping out of Actualism, but as I told Bruce the next day, "I think they're just trying to weed us out for first advanced," and he thought that was very perceptive of me, saying that we'd be getting HEAVY stuff the next few lessons.
DIARY 11903
5/5/77
STEVE SCHWEIGERT AT WEISER'S
Recognize him sitting in a chair, and stoop down to catch his eye and he says "Do you come in here often?" and I say, "Not since the last time I saw YOU here," which turns out to be the last time HE was there! He's debating buying an $18 book on "Iridology," saying he can't afford it, but then pays for it with a $50 bill! He tells me about someone from whom he took a course in "Touch for Health," from Apple Skills, who in three nights for $26 tells you how to touch muscles and find the condition of their connecting ORGANS. I suggest that it's like Rolfing, but he says that he NOW thinks that Rolfing is effective because it affects the LYMPHATIC system, which "Touch for Health" deals with, and that's more effective than the blood system for clearing out wastes. He's interested in the science of eyes, since "the past sicknesses and present strengths and weaknesses are right there," and I keep staring into his transparently clear blue eyes with their multitudinous flecks, keeping thinking of his flawless and well muscled body and long dong when he helped with the rebirthing, and at the rims of his eyes which were SO light and not even PINK that I felt that he MUST use some sort of drops. He kept talking about Mind Freedom, a two-weekend thing from 9-5 for $235, or something, than which you need nothing MORE, but I say that it takes whatever it TAKES to free your mind from INSIDE, not outside: I'd gotten tools from EST that I didn't use properly NOW. He agreed, but said that he was feeling great, felt that he had to get more things on his own now, wanted to set up some sort of therapy dealing with eyes, felt that we must be connected because we kept running into each other here, wanted to know about Blackwood and Teilhard on whom I'd just spent $66, and then said he wanted to check something inside and vanished so we wouldn't have to walk together. I kept saying that people tried too hard, and kept feeling that I was trying too hard around him, trying to be interested, trying to be interestING, when I just wanted to touch him, tell him how beautiful I thought he was, wanted to be near his lovely body and see what he'd be like in the throes of an orgasm. That's ALL!
