Actualism notes
DIARY 12583
12/15/77
ACTUALISM: FIRST ADVANCED #20
I'm panting as I arrive, but the group's still downstairs and Maureen's still paying, saying she just got there, and I sit between Kathy and Dorothy and Rebekah goes right into it with a blast: we're going to clear up relationships with our Reality Mothers! I get annoyed that they're going to do such a loaded thing NOW when they're going away, AND I'll be saddled with Mom while they're gone! She forms hierarchy VERY slowly and I gradually build resistance, opening eyes a few times to stop from falling asleep, and one time I feel a real JOLT, particularly in my kneecaps, at the end of it, and I wonder if she's zapping me. Then we start processing, and I'm HEARING all she's saying, but even though I HEAR her saying to spin the Power Rays, I just LISTEN and hope that my Incarnating Ego has taken over and DONE it, because my brain-mind's too clobbered to direct. I review lots of old images about resentment of my own and resentment of me by my mother. I chose "none at all!" when she says we can choose the amount we want to process, but I keep getting STUFF, not specifically about MOM, but about MYSELF: I'm not doing it; I'm getting angrier and angrier; this isn't working; dammit it IS working and I don't like the WAY it's working; and I want to leave; I want to throw the cup against the mirror; I want it to stop; and I over-dramatize here AND there, not wanting to LOOK at it, feeling the terrible IRONY when she talks of the tender loving care and the kindness of the Mother, the IRONY of the talk of the silky touch (and Michael moans sensuously), and resent Rebekah's cheery voice and light tone. And I can't imagine WHAT I'LL SAY: spent the session in hate-rage?? During the break I feel particularly numb, drinking lots of water, not looking at anyone, hating Rebekah, hating what I'm doing to myself. Somewhere toward the end I realized I had to do SOMETHING and kept saying "Withdraw identity and burn up the images; I don't want any of this, burn it ALL up---" till at last I remember vividly screaming inwardly "Incarnating Ego, GET ME OUT OF THIS." Returned to seat still activated, still fuming, and Michael starts a round of comment about how beautiful the session was and how much lighter it was than he'd feared, and Rebekah offers her chipper comments and her bright birdy look (and I think "I've got to put up with THIS for a whole 'nother year??") and I get more and more resentful, except that some part of me is saying that I can't SAY that; I can't BLAST her with my resentment, I can't uncover myself so much before the group; I can't rehearse what I'll say---I've GOT to get out of this: remove identity, process the images---Incarnating Ego: HELP! When it gets around to me it's been uniformly up, and I'm hating anyone, so I just say "I'm still processing, can I pass?" Rebekah pauses with an artificial smile on his (well, what the hell does THAT mean???) lips and says "Well, OK, we'll come back to you last," and it continues around to Tony, who asked for agreement that the temperature in the room rose until at least 98 (I felt very warm and humid, to the point of opening my cuffs and pulling up my sleeves to let air get to the wet hairs on my wrist, but that was hardly the CRUX of the matter!), and then Maureen was last (and I'd noticed that her face was TERRIBLY contorted during the intro) and said she'd rather not report since her dog had died that day and she was very upset, but she was OK. Rebekah said that this was a very appropriate power ray for grief, Maureen stumbled around a bit more, and it was back to me. "I didn't know how to give this report," I believe I started, "but I didn't want to be still processing. The high point came when I opened my eyes once, and got a zap of energy, but I think I spent the whole last half in hate-rage. I thought it was very---I had to battle with my images that it was awful, you shouldn't have done this to me now, awful resentment, but that's how my mother was." My voice and lips began to tremble and I took a deep breath. "And now I'm sort of feeling sorry for myself, and that's what my mother did: the only time I got through HER hate-rage and resentment, what she came down to was self-pity. Maybe I made a mistake when I started at the beginning by saying I didn't want ANY images to come up"---faint laughter---"I probably should have said "As little as possible," but BLAM." Again, haltingly, I wanted to get it all out. Then Barbara, as she did last session, helped me by using the word, in her report, of "Worthless," and of course that's what I was to my mother, "worthless," and I'd thought I'd managed to get through most of this by this time." Rebekah may have said some few things, but I kept on trying to communicate: "I heard everything you said, but I seemed so numbed by wanting to keep away from it all that I don't recall that I DID much that you said, so I'll have to get a summary of the process." About this point I was concerned about talking too much, being too negative, but I was ALSO, at an electrifying instant, aware of the perfect tableau of faces on either side of me, each positioned so that the entire face was visible if I'd have chosen to look to either side, totally concentrated on me, totally supporting me, and it was only later that I realized I should have reported on my first real feeling of a GROUP SUPPORTING me in this work. My voice kept trembling, and for a second I tried to evaluate it, to hear what it sounded like, to hear if it sounded different, but I couldn't listen and talk at the same time, so I stopped listening. I got out a few more things, and there were questions, and Rebekah kept insisting that the workshop tonight needn't be repeated slavishly. I came back with "Since I was processing so much tonight, I guess I'd continue with this one, and I'd like to know the details." She started once, but was very vague, and then in the breakup for brushdowns, Elliott leaned toward me and asked to be included in our review, and so Rebekah went into it in more detail then. I fumbled with my stuff under my chair and came up to find everyone paired off, except me, and Rebekah standing sort of distantly near. I turned to her and said "I guess I need someone with the BIGGEST Human hands around." We went into the bedroom and she started brushing, saying "I think this might be a real breakthrough for you, you might be able to sense your Human and get through to a lot of sensory feedback." I agreed, as I had during the report, that at SOME level I thought it was good to get into it; she said "Maybe you were surprised to find that you could handle more than you thought you could," and when she finished and we hugged, I said "I'm reminded of that punch line: with all this shit, there's GOT to be a pony," and she laughed delightedly and said "LOIS always says that," and I got a good feeling of inclusion in a good group. Then I quickly put on my coat, taking down Faye's New Year's Day invitation, and left quickly to get OUT!
DIARY 12587
12/15/77
ACTUALISM: FIRST TRY WITH MOTHER
Feel totally failed. Wanted to get in touch with Rebekah and ask "What can I do if the practice doesn't seem to work?" and when she doesn't call, I sit down at 5:55 to do the practice and it doesn't work, so badly that I feel I have to sit down at 6:55, now, and see if I can't find something good from the morass. This of all practices should have more specific instructions. I formed TPH this morning, so I cleared the field and human and creature of the dynamics of others, and got my dynamics back, and then went to the dynamic side and set myself to conjure up images. None came. I thought about dinner tonight, about Bruce Lieber coming over, about how cold it was in the room, about the cachinnations of the humidifier. But no images of my mother came. Well, maybe she didn't do anything to my dynamic, maybe she only shut down my magnetic. So I hung out on the dynamic for a bit, then went to the magnetic. Nothing again. Images of MY worthlessness---nothing to do with my mother?---came up and I tried the old "Withdraw identity and assimilate the essence." Felt silly; nothing seemed to happen. Well, that's processing, keep going with it. Then I remembered "Magnify presence and harmonize with the Immortal of your real mother." Grunge. How could the Immortal of my mother be so negative? Obviously it's not working; lightwork's not working. Why didn't Rebekah call? What will I tell her without sounding terribly negative? How can I get out of it? Well, try assimilating: it LITERALLY feels as if sticky globs of unprocessed gunk are being assimilated, plastered onto me. Is it an image or reality? Doesn't matter: I don't like it. Feel silly. What's going to happen? Is this going to continue through the three weeks to the next lesson? FOUR weeks to the next lesson?! Thinker-knower should know. How SILLY! Try Thinker-knower. OK. So I increase the size of the white star and try the consuming fire aspect to clear out the general mess I've caused. Doesn't clear up. Try assimilating after that. Can hardly sit still. Now Bruce buzzes and I have to let him in. How much do I tell him? How much can he answer even if I tell him? What do I do with it all NOW??
DIARY 12597
12/19/77
ACTUALISM: SECOND CHRISTMAS PARTY
Sleety and cold outside, but the hotel is rather like the Olcott and there are people waiting for the elevator and Marilyn comes down the stairs from the ladies' room, having changed, and the starter remarks something, she greets me, and then introduces me to the others in the elevator, whom I barely acknowledge, disliking her. Into the hallway and hand my coat to George, getting a glare from the woman I'd been on the elevator with as she hands him her boots first, and I wait for them all to have their stuff taken and George takes mine. Rebekah is rather self-consciously elegant in a pleated gold cape that covers her body with a shimmer, and Jan is again in white, this time without the ruffled top, and Bruce has the same velvet dinner jacket on. Into the odd peaked/beamed-roofed BROWN room with gold medallions for decoration on the walls, and Gene Adams greets me, and I look at the few people sitting around, and I don't want to join Marilyn and her friends, smiling and saying "No, THANKS," to her when she asks, and I sit alone, discovering that I really didn't want to be there, and I guess Bruce Lieber didn't want to be there, either, because his mother, Kate, greets me and says he just started to come down with the flu this evening. Watch the people coming in, the "Oriental" from Carol Ann who turns out to be Ray Espino, the woman who doesn't wear a nametag, but she was supposed to have been in Florida this weekend, and she just came up for it. I sit near a Cousins child, who turns out to be one of the two or three children of Bernice Cousins, who with Valda Wells was acknowledged as being the planners of the evening. I'd stopped near the table and asked the hostess whether they were serving drinks, but she said "Not yet, Bob," looking at my nametag, but then a few minutes later she waved me over to take the first food, and then I moved from the FRONT seat on the penultimate-left set of tables to the BACK seat there, and that table seems later to have been taken over by second-advanced students. Jim walks in, gives me the high-sign, and manages to get into the food line directly, and comes over to sit with me, saying that he's about to go into first advanced now. Later, Bob Dukes sits down next to me and chats, and then Bruce says "Hello, Bob" from two chairs away, and comes over to hug me as I protect his back from my greasy fingers from the scrawny chicken leg. Kathy Benson, looking sweet in a dress and makeup, comes over and talks about barely having time to change from her nurse's uniform, and I tell her I've probably indexed some of the books she's using, and she's surprised and pleasant. Janet smiles at me, Michael asks if I know his son Ben, and Dorothy came over all smiles and I hugged her around the waist in greeting. Joan Ann seemed to be avoiding me, Valda semi-greeted me (and SHE won the $20 lesson-prize from the spa drawing), and Sidney Sudberg kept hanging onto a female as if he WANTED to prove he were straight, and he SNICKERED during Joan Ann's "Oh Holy Night," so he seems to be a real---though facially beautiful---shit. Line finally dwindles and I stand on line for more food, and chat with Barbara Lea about how much we don't like parties, and Bruce stands in behind and says we're here with our relations in past lives, and I snort that maybe that's why I don't care for it, since I don't like my relations, and he says that then the party will be good for processing! Get two dishes of food as they announce a little gathering in 10 minutes, and in about 20 minutes Bruce gets up and says nice little things, then Rebekah introduces the acts, and some woman sings a grating "Estellita," (appropriately, she says, little star), another sings her own song "I, I am you; you are we," and Abe sings an off-pitch "La Donna e Mobile" and Joan Ann does the BEST by singing "Oh Holy Night" and then the setting of one of Russell's poems, TO the teachers standing awkwardly onstage, and then Rich and Nick and Neil and Rich troop onstage with boxes of gifts, and it's not the TV but a whole set of kitchen tools: Corningware, food processor, pots and pans, Fry Daddy, Rotobroil, and glassware. Jan makes a NICE speech, Rebekah is awkward, and Bruce starts a speech and chokes up in the middle, pauses a LONG time, and finishes beautifully. Then Russell's tape comes on (only after everyone has cake, and since George had three pieces I felt permission to have two pieces, and the carrot-nut filling and sweet-honey icing is the best of the motley hors d'oeuvres that included pate, hot fish with sweet sauce (tiny pieces), meatballs in dill (that went slowest), crepes with celery and meat, two or three servings of a cheesy-fillery flat pie, and later about a dozen puffs with the last of the paté and hot cheese. I had Chablis, then punch, then went to Rhine and had about three glasses of that, feeling more and more depressed about the evening: Malcolm was with the Blackburn family and didn't even greet me; Willa Kim was all alone most of the time, because she wanted to be; Dorothy Kent was pallid in a long dress, surprised that I remembered her name without looking at her nametag at the point I was talking to her; teachers looking uncomfortable about it (though Bruce said he processed any sadness about LEAVING into joy from having BEEN here and looking forward to the next year, knowing we'll like Winston and Linda, whom Bob says BOTH can only teach basic, which will "have Rebekah busy" as I put it, and "she'll surely enjoy it" as Bob Dukes put it. He said that he and Fred Miller and Ed and someone else always came up from Philly on Sunday night, and Berenice said that others who met on Friday couldn't get together with them. Bob Hoberman and Susan Hoberman and Moss and another smaller Hoberman looked uncomfortable through the whole thing, too. Matthew Gotbaum was in black shirt open with red turtleneck under, laughing VERY loudly with beautiful Drew Simione, Bob Guillame, and who I took to be his lover, Stefan Wysocki, bland and blond and handsome. Rich Semel was the young hump, Rich Cogdal was the balding Rich, and Nick KELLY makes me wonder if he's not related to the similar BOB Kelly that Susan knows. Michael Molthen is quite young and strangely postured, as if he might have been cured from curvature of the spine or polio. Russell's tape was odd: he sounded possibly drunk, though probably only very touched by what he was saying, about no one understanding Christ, and then the kings being "Gold, Frank Incense, and Mere---Murr," and later almost weeping when he said "they brought whatever they could of experience and wisdom, which was all they had." I felt drunk by this time, and quickly got my coat and left on almost the first elevator, tired of the smiling, the kisses and hugs, the hyper-happiness that seemed only a front, the dozens of people smoking constantly (and wouldn't THAT mean they were unhappy?) and the embarrassment of the awful entertainers and the awkwardness of the teachers, except for Jan's cool and Bruce's simple perfection with anything he had to say into the microphone. Except for the silliness of changing the food line direction too late.
DIARY 12608
12/21/77
DYNAMITE ACTUALISM SESSION WITH MOTHER
Calmly into it at 6:15, having few images until I start working on the idea of how she could have affected my dynamic, and then remember the three images of "Worthless, idealized, and evil," and think of the neatness of fit: either there IS no value attached (worthless) or there IS value attached. If there IS value attached, it's either GOOD value (idealized) or BAD value (evil), and THAT COVERS THE WHOLE RANGE, and I think it may have been my mother who inculcated society's demand that everything be good or bad, but most of all that everything has to have a VALUE ATTACHED to it. Then go to the magnetic and there MAKE the connection that my fear and frustration in her unpredictability CLOSED DOWN my magnetic, and if it can OPEN more, I can be more open in ATTRACTION AND in judging, or permitting the lack of judging. If I'm OPEN to anything (Art, movies, people), I can be more pan-loving, more maternalistic REGARDLESS of the "value" of what I'm faced with. I want to be more magnetic both in the sense of ATTRACTING more people, both from the point of making more people NOTICE me AND from the point of view of PLEASING those people who DO notice me so that they'll want to get to know me better, AND in the sense of being more RECEPTIVE to the diversity of that which I may attract: no longer SAYING that "this talk of Arnie's is no good" or "got to get away from Mrs. Johnson" or "why is Joan Ann so interested in talking with ME?" and just GO ALONG with it. I think of my bitch-mother inversion reverting to its "normal" acceptance without question, seeking without attempting to make sense out of what I find, looking with prejudice, sensing without quantifying and qualifying what it is that I take in---though connecting, still, and making links as I usually do, but not in a sense of VALUE but in a sense of TRUE connectedness and clarity, which everything DOES have without the temporizing, validating/invalidating, judging, separating, measuring qualities of my mind which have gone far enough. Couldn't QUITE think of ALL the connections that had been made, but I was willing to simply ACCEPT the feeling-good and not even NEED TO KNOW how I GOT from one state to another, just ACCEPT and be willing to go to the NEXT step in the Way.
DIARY 12617
12/21/77
ACTUALISM: JOAN ANN'S BODY SESSION #3
Her class, meeting for the 4th time, is self-conscious and giggly, or abstracted and remote, as they report and brushdown before they leave. I have lemon tea, talk about my great day, and she's not had anything to eat, having lost 25 pounds recently, which I say I never notice. The bodywork seemed scattered: her elbow didn't seem to have the pinpoint concentration of former sessions and I seemed much fleshier; also, she seemed to push less hard after I grunted a few times. Session from 11 to 12:15, but she did the usual thing of listening to her messages, refusing people from the door, but saying how glad she was her sessions brought her in money, because she wasn't getting any work: I contemplated giving her some, but I frankly didn't want her competition with ACC, Raven, or Springer, or even McGraw-Hill with the letters. (AND I JUST CALL JOAN ANN ABOUT HER DOING MANY OF THE LETTERS FOR $10/LETTER!) She's been able to raise her rates to $10 per session, but says she's done over 360 bodies so she COULD be up to $15, but she can't do the work IN a center, as would be usual, AND they're taking a TITHE off the top for all her jobs to PERMIT her the higher rate. We both think that's lousy, but she said she'll go along with it, as she's gone along with ALL the stuff, and it'll work out OK. She gave me a pack of cigarettes to "psychometrize" and I said I felt "activity" and she said "who" and I thought fleetingly of Russell, but of course he's not HERE, so I said "Rebekah" and she said "close" and I wanted even MORE to say "Russell" but then she said "Russell, two years ago." New brochures have PHOTOS of him, now, in a suit. One of her students is a NATURAL for a teacher, "not like you and me, who might have to work at it." Bruce was MAD at her, possibly jealously, she thinks, at the party, Rebekah was VERY nervous, insisting she was wrong for "using Russell's poetry without his permission," but JAN stepped in and said it was great but "He'd like it if you asked permission" and enjoyed the gift-giving. She'd love to bodywork Tony, loves Michael Blackburn who's working out things with her, almost forgot she told Kathy she could use her apartment for bodywork, and is going to be on TV about Actualism NOT through Faye, whom she seems not to care for. She seemed uninterested in my eye, cooked squash, and I felt tired and not-extremely worked-upon, but the DAY was dynamite.
DIARY 12637
12/30/77
JOAN'S MEAL AND BODY SESSION
Dorothy Kent's obviously sick, cause she looks awful and Joan says she should REST. Rose hip tea is served, and she tells me about her paintings in some bar, but she wouldn't say where because the painter wouldn't tell her, and SHE was used to make her short partner look huge. She kept talking about Jan's SEEING the sigils turned on, how the "inner test" for 3rd and 4th advanced is being able to see these tools, but I shouldn't worry if I can't see them with my EYES, since that's only one of the 49 senses, and some people, like Nellie or Crystal or someone, was in for 10 years before coming back from the spa shouting "I can SEE, I can SEE." Of course Winston can teach 1st and 2nd advanced, she doesn't know why people would start false rumors. She HAD to ask Carol Ann a question, she was pierced by a GREAT wisdom light wondering if she HAD to know or if it was just curiosity, and she must have been satisfied because she answered, but now she doesn't know what to DO with the information and has to wait for the opportunity to come to USE it. She'd had low thyroid so she'd NEVER be able to have children, but Actualism and a better diet raised her level so now she's fertile as a bunny. She was about to give me only 15 minutes after 11:30, having called George to find that he'd left at 11:50, and the body session went (after my tea and brownies, great and nutty, warmed up my feet, and I put up the heat lamp a few more inches because people were too warm. She didn't seem to use much pressure on me, but maybe she was tired, and I DID leave at 2 am, paying her $10 in cash as she requested, and EVERYONE seems to be going to Faye's. Told her George was a nebbish in teaching, he didn't use ANY of the suggestions she gave him after he gave the intro to her class, yet he WAS a good person, and she got out "Your Days Are Numbered" by someone and gave me ALL my numbers, which sounded good, in general, but then they all do, and she said she'd let me read anything I wanted to. So did Pope. I'm their surrogates? Felt sorry for him, but glowed when I thought I'd DONE the work of "getting around being rich" by having 3 careers from scratch already: school with fellowships; IBM with management; editing with indexing, and she says I'm in my 2nd 3rd of life from 34 to 44, and who knows how long the THIRD third will be, hopefully more than HALF my life. She's a good cook, too.
DIARY 12658
1/3/78
ACTUALISM MIDNIGHT LIGHTWORK SESSION
First I realize that the Tender Loving Care of the Cosmic Mother MAY have brought up ALL the images of "I ought to write; I haven't written; If I die I will have wasted my time" as PART of LOVE MYSELF AND WHAT I INDEED DO DO, rather than "love myself as I SHOULD or WOULD be," which is rather the way that MOM loved me, only if I did what SHE wanted to do and said what SHE wanted me to say, but not the truth.
Second, I debate about GOING to the Caribbean at all: part of above: I didn't work on the novel of "Throwback" when Dennis was in San Diego as I said I would, so I don't "deserve" a vacation; anyway there's always more than enough to do in NYC; should write; should stay for Actualism lessons, but then I LIKE to travel; this is a chance to travel with someone NEW, Azak, who has money and time and interest in new things, and is independent enough to fight me if he wants, or let me alone if he wants, and maybe it's partly the fear of the flights, though they're all so short they'll be rather fun. THEN I get the idea that we could save AGES of time by taking ONLY ONE shoulder bag (so no baggage claims are needed) on the flights, and I even think of what should be taken: making a list mentally and then on paper, and even get out the Travel Dynamics bag and check that the snorkel tube fits in without trouble, and figure that the bag should contain: a) spare shoulder bag (though this later goes; there must be a BETTER way of carrying the PAPER I bring along THAN by carting along the empty BAG most of the way!), b) reading books and writing notebooks, c) 3 pair socks, d) rainsuit (both for warmth and for rain), e) pullover sweater, f) 1 spare pants, g) two spare shirts, h) shave-tooth stuff, i) plastic bags for rubbers/dirty clothes, j) souvenir stuff and guides, k) tie, l) money, m) snorkel and swimsuit, n) binoculars, o) contacts and fluid, p) hooded jacket, while I WEAR on the flights 1) the only shoes, 2) the only suit jacket, 3) slacks, and 4) shirt. Notice that there's no underwear, for who needs it when one is traveling light? Few socks and shirts because there'll be time to wash things out when we can't stand each other, and I phone Azak and he'd had this in mind from the START; he ALWAYS travels so that he never has to check his baggage. GREAT!
DIARY 12676
1/12/78
ACTUALISM FIRST ADVANCED #21
We're across the hall in 1607, which is rather noisy with people thumping above, coffee warmer burbling, people bumping next door, noise in hall, and deep-voiced dog constantly barking from across the way. Rebekah rushes in to get Kim off the window ledge, a beautiful wide-eyed Persian, and there's a sexy new guy who turns out to be Winston, who sits right across from me and spreads out large-thighed legs to show a very full crotch under, sadly, a rather full waist, too, and he reminds me of a football-playing Michael Sullivan with his easy smile and pause-filled speech. We sit about 8:30 and Maureen goes on and on about Patricia McBride in a new Gershwin ballet (and later reports that she felt she was being too cool to people, hm, and when she asked if I went home to Akron over vacation, I said she had a good memory, and she said, rather pointedly, "I remember everything ABOUT you, Bob.") and then he starts by asking for everyone's name, starting with DO-RO-THY, which makes everyone laugh, and after we go around, he nods quickly after me and continues around, then goes back and gets me quickly, faltering on a few, then totally forgets Janet and Richard, then forgets Richard a second time, and at the end (after forgetting Faye and pausing with Kathy---and NOW that I think of it he had NO trouble with any guy EXCEPT Richard, the most negative of the lot!) calls Maureen Marilyn---wonder if that SAYS anything, and then calls Malcolm, pointedly FRED. THEN he asks us to report on what we learned through the past few weeks, and instantly my hand goes up and I say that I'd been activated by the Cosmic Mother and my own, then found about 2/3 through that it's good for OTHERS, too, and HE jumps in with "It's even good for YOU, yourself," and I jump up and down in my seat and point both hands and almost shout, "Yeah, I found that out TOO." Malcolm reports getting in better with his creature body, which he tended to put down before (WHY?!), Tony reports a good feeling at the END of a session, Kathy talks about skiing into a tree, Barbara says she really FELT something, and Maureen came to terms with sorrow and Richard to some extent with negativity. Michael opened up more on his magnetic and didn't get clobbered with people's loads and Elliot, I don't remember, probably glowed in the dark. Then about 8:55 he took us by a slightly different way into formation of the hierarchy, then down to center 9, lighting the pink sun (when they said, "According to the pattern" I shouted out "WHAT pattern?" and found that this was the last from the Foursquare City of Eden Consciousness, from Uriel of the South. So he puts on tape and goes up to 5th level and gets it and I feel myself flowing tears, which seem to mingle with a flow from my nose, and when it hits the Emotional Level I can actually sense the lower part of my heart, and in Center 1 I feel chills up my back and down my arms, and I flow more tears when it clears Center 2, and around Center 5 I'm starting to think this is going to be a perfect session, in keeping with the Energy of Perfection and Love, but then, as he says at the start, everything that happens is perfect, so I feel more obstruction in centers 7-9, but restrain myself from wiping my face until he says we're finished and will do brushdowns so that we'll be better able to assimilate all the good stuff left as essence. Richard taps me on the knee and we do it slowly so that we finish last, Winston brushing DO-RO-THY, and then we change chairs because Michael's sitting in my place, so I sit in his, and Elliot sits next to me, and we report: Barbara felt something in her arms, Tony was startled then lulled to sleep by Kim jumping into his lap and falling asleep, even Richard and Maureen had good sessions, and then Winston said he was sure Bruce had mentioned it before, since they were the very best of friends, that he'd noticed that many of us (me excluded, and he seldom looked at me during the rebuff) said this was "the best" or "the favorite" or "the worst" or some other judgmental variation of allocated energy: but we're all a rainbow of all colors, no one of which is better or worse than any of the others, so we have to report more of the LOW frequency effects, since we seem to be eager to share only the high frequencies, but there can't be high frequencies WITHOUT lots, and the reports should be about what we LEARNED in the session, so that we can SHARE it with others. I reported about the sensations I had, the "perfection" of getting dimmer on 7-9, and then got all the heads turned toward me again as I said that in the last class I'd felt, for the first time, one of the kinds of "relations of love" that Russell talked about on this tape, and that was the intense love of the group, and I wanted to tell them about it, and briefly looked over the group and said "Thank you," and Maureen promptly said back "Thank you," and there was again a good feeling. He said "Everyone's report was good," and Maureen said, "Even the ones who ALWAYS say negative, me and Richard and Tony, had goods; and Barbara FELT. HA!
DIARY 12692
1/20/78
ACTUALISM FIRST ADVANCED #22
Again I take the last chair, and Janet's handing out butterflies for us to put over our hearts, which I wear on my sleeve. Winston starts and doesn't say all the names, but he DOES say mine, and gets right into the session which I hear all of, along with the rattling of the Venetian blinds as the wind blows through to the bedroom, helping us all with our fire-breaths, and with coughs and yawns around the room. I report getting absolutely nothing in SHAPE when I try to extend the various organs out to the FIELD level, and he says sarcastically: "So you think that huge volume has nothing in it, eh?" so I guess more advanced work just fills that volume. Maureen gives a report that I envy the frankness of: doesn't feel anything in any organs, mind's doing a lot of thinking without even thinking how to get OUT of the thinking, lots of dramatizing, lots of wondering whether I'm doing it right or wrong, and I almost tell her at the end, but she doesn't need any encouragement. Winston again announced that Cathy was very good with the body work, and she cornered me in the elevator and I said tomorrow morning would actually be pretty good. My throat was hurting after the fire-breath, but he said that it would be effortless, just put the tongue behind the teeth and DON'T try to over-breathe as Tony did and get all pooped out, just effortless effort---WHAT, you're not perfect YET? Barbara and he got into a long negative discussion at the end that most found boring, and I had to add to it by saying that I became aware that I'm more interested and willing to make myself WRONG and FAIL than I'm interested in being right or succeeding. He talked about images, and the images of what we call images, when someone said there WERE no images---it's all low frequencies, and it comes out in different ways for different people, and he kept saying that what we THOUGHT was happening would keep us from EXPERIENCING what was happening. "NO WAY is your brain-mind going to UNDERSTAND what's going on: just FEEL and EXPERIENCE what's going on, and when that happens you won't NEED the mind to tell you just what went on; you'll KNOW what's happening without even being about to TALK ABOUT why and how and when and wherefore it happened." Just WORK at it, and I GOT early in the session that all the books I'd read about the need for PRACTICING for ESP and all these psi-powers told me to DO JUST WHAT I'M DOING NOW: find a guru and listen and practice and EXPERIENCE the things that ARE true for MYSELF!
DIARY 12694
1/20/78
BODY SESSION WITH CATHY
She's been a nurse's aide for a couple of years, now going for her B.S. which will let her become a professional nurse, only 20% of nurses have degrees, though they're trying to upgrade that, and she "likes to make people feel good, help cure people, she feels good doing that," and I wince for the make, but she doesn't put it on. She starts tentatively, but never so much as Bruce Lieber, then when she gets to the scrubbing at the base of the spine and the backs of the thighs she's VERY professional, and I commend her on that AND on her lighter touch at the top of the scalp, which she said Linda trained her in. She'd started Actualism in Philly 3 years ago (when she was a professional horse rider and shower and knew TJ Watson Jr.'s daughter personally very well---and 6 years ago she was in high school when she went to St. Martin's, but she'll give me the name of a place to stay from her mother. Friends of hers are now becoming teachers in the West Coast center, and she had to repeat her first 14 lessons in Basic because she'd been away so long, but she joined my group before the OTHER group joined it, she said, though she may have AUDITED the courses only since Maureen and Jim Fleming were in my group before SHE was. She says she loved the pink, despite the fact that you're not supposed to love one over another, seemed content to continue forever in Actualism, and agreed with everyone who said they didn't experience what they should, but were looking forward to getting into the more advanced work. She's eager to finish her first 15-16 bodies (I'm #8, and the first man, so she liked my telling her she could go a lot harder), when she can go to the next plateau, and she wants to continue doing this, even though she'd never had any real physical therapy training in hospitals. She'd never HEARD of Rolfing, was intrigued that Michael did it, and there were no others from our class in her training for bodywork, and I complimented her by saying that when BRUCE did the bodywork, I felt I wouldn't want to do it, but when SHE did the bodywork, I felt it might be fun, and I hope I can READ this when I'm debating, since I decided to JUST GO AHEAD WITH IT and SEE WHAT HAPPENS: I'll never regret HAVING taken it, but I MAY regret not getting into it sooner when I need it for correlating with MENTAL advances in the far future, and it's not SO impossible that I become a teacher, especially if you can ACTUALLY see the energies and beams and powers of the various people, AND can read their minds, it might be the only thing to keep me under some sort of CONTROL!
DIARY 12703
1/26/78
ACTUALISM: FIRST ADVANCED #23
Rebekah tells us that Winston's "muscularity" is different from her way of doing things, but she enjoys learning through him, just as we should learn through any new situations and circumstances. She asks for reports, and Malcolm and Elliott give such reports echoing mine, that I say I've been doing more and processing less and getting very little activation, only results, Then she says we can focus on the floor if we like, but we should not stare at the others in the room. Dorothy later reports that she did the whole thing open-eyed and found much more earthing and "forcing to say that something happened." The aim was to experience the copilot, but since I've had no trouble with that, I just went along feeling good, tears seeping down my cheeks and stinging my shave-raked lip. For the part of the body I didn't like I picked brain-mind, but got back the message that it's not really been that bad lately: it's been letting, been observing, been waiting to see what happens, taking what's good, coming up with good feelings of Actualism's ACTUALLY WORKING (checked to see WHICH page it was, and I see I haven't written it yet, so see DIARY 12704), and being pleased with the new sense of BEING WITH Actualism principles. When she told us to look at the activity, I picked shaving (unlike almost everyone else, who picked housework, which doesn't problem me at all since I so seldom do it), and came to the conclusion that since I'd never liked my beard because I couldn't trim it with an electric razor, now that I'm using a STRAIGHT razor, I can trim a beard, and the BEST way I can think to make something better is NOT TO DO IT, but when I share that with Rebekah she sort of smirks and says "That doesn't sound like a very lighted decision" when I say I'll quit shaving, but I think it IS, and Dennis said it'd be OK if I try it while I'm still around before the trip to the Caribbean. Barbara came up with her kvetches again, and Richard has a VERY long and boring report, but Rebekah sat and smiled through it all, and I wanted to hug her and say she was PARTICULARLY lit through the evening, and it DID seem that she spent a LONG time watching my reactions and "being with" me, though she didn't answer my waving hand when I wanted to ask about the spinning BELOW center 9 if the power ray only is LIT through there.
DIARY 12704
1/26/78
ACTUALISM MAY ACTUALLY BE WORKING
Thought I'd written a page like this before (see DIARY 12703), but here it is. Sitting doing the practicing, I can now ACTUALLY quiet the mind by merging it with the Immortal, and I find that lying in bed before sleeping is MUCH more productive if I can do a session, as is lying in bed before Dennis gets up, though that hardly happens anymore now that he's taken to setting the alarm for 7, hoping for sex. Times when I could have been worried about finishing the indexes on time, or about all the plane flights in the Caribbean, I just merged with the Immortal and the thoughts went away. Even if they come up again, I can just process and process, and there can't be an INFINITE supply of negative, low frequency, horrid images for me to withdraw identity from and consign to the consuming fires. Best of all, it doesn't even matter to me IF these ACTUAL energies EXIST: I can call on SOMETHING and that SOMETHING responds in a way that I like, even though I can't EXPERIENCE that something. Was strongly reminded of Hazel last night when I got a whiff of something sweet and oily, like perfumed hand lotion, during some of the closed-eye processing, and thought of Hazel's constant reports of the sweet-smelling energies. Liked giving my sore thumb to the Immortal and instantly seeing a small blob of red around it, and then, without worrying about it, the twinge of pinched nerve went away. Now I only need to work on the big things like my big stomach and my teeth and my sore ear and my beard, and things will get better and better. This IS what I've been looking for: a way of practicing something day by day, as Castaneda seems to have done, to gradually develop a way of LOOKING at that which I don't understand, but all the while having FAITH in the fact that there IS something there to be seen, and then getting the PATIENCE to last through the initiation phase and the denial phase (which I had to admit last night hasn't been very strong recently), though I have still to come to some place of acceptance of the bodywork. But it's working, and I'm glad I'm in it, and it's paying off in results that I can feel, and even if I AM kidding myself, SOMETHING'S working, and without Actualism I just wouldn't be in the place I am right now, and since I like that place, I might as well say it's PARTLY Actualism and like that TOO.
DIARY 12714
1/31/78
ACTUALISM FIRST ADVANCED #24
Start by asking Rebekah about the difference between the Elimination Function of the Dynamic and the Outgoing Creative Function of the Dynamic, and she says these are just aspects of the Dynamic, which has even more than have been explained so far. "If we told you everything at the start, you'd drop out right away." During the tape, Russell said SOMETHING about "CLEARING UP CONFUSIONS ABOUT THE DYNAMIC, AND I FELT I'D DONE THAT. She said the Being was like a corporation, with The Immortal as the representative of the Owner, Incarnating Ego being the President of the Corporation, and all the egos and tools being different department managers and workers at different levels of the corporation, the different Kingdoms of the Field, Human, and Body. Then the Copilot is being trained to be the new owner, so he sort of goes along with everything. She tells me about the scenario for the tape, and I'm again amazed that I seem to choose such DYNAMITE things to do myself, and she says the group will be with me anyway. Russell's talk about the "dynamic releasing its energy to being formed by the structure of the magnetic, while the magnetic must submit to being exercised by the function of the dynamic," all seemed to be very clearly stated, and Rebekah said she was at Hilltop when the First Advanced tapes were being made (not at Something Center, where the basic tapes were made with wind chimes and birds singing outside, and in one tape a motorcycle racing down the hill) about five years ago, and only Carol Ann could interrupt his task with each tape, which might take a day or two weeks, and she suspected he harmonized with everyone who was going to hear these tapes as he was making them, so personal do they always seem. I came out of the brilliance of the Cosmic Suns in their Colors, the Beings, nameless since they operate at a different level of communication than we do---nameless HERE, at least---in the centers of the suns, the esoteric meanings, one of which I've forgotten, and the countless Souls and numberless Angels welcoming me to this event, and I think of John Martin's book, and say they should make a movie out of it, and Rebekah laughs and says it would outsell "Star Wars" and "Close Encounters" and run forever. We talked earlier about the Caribbean, to which she'd been 4 years ago, and said she liked the boat from St. Thomas that took you for the afternoon to an incredible fruit-food buffet on St. John and let you wander around the island for a bit, and she was sure I'd love the whole thing. At the end, when Russell said "Taking the energy wherever in the world you go," I exclaimed, "He knows I'm going on a trip!" The emphasis on the pelvic bowl, and the appreciation of the drive of the masculine, seemed so appropriate just before the Pelvic session tomorrow night that I even said I probably shouldn't say anything before the meeting to my classmates, and she smiled and shook her head and said "No." I quoted her from last time: "That doesn't sound very enlightened" when I told her I wasn't going to shave, and she said "I never said that." Joan Ann said that she USUALLY said "Wash you face," but she thought mine looked good already, and when Rebekah said it would look nice when she was brushing me down, I didn't have the acceptance to thank her, but said "It's early yet, it'll look better when it's grown for a month." She was delighted that I liked the tape, talked for quite a while before, and took awhile to get into her energy, so we probably went into the room about 1:15, started the tape about 1:37, since we were through at 2:22, and she said that I should sit and absorb essence while she left for a bit. Then someone phoned and wanted to read some of the Great Books, and even Rebekah gave the thing of putting hands over the book and merging with the author to see where he was at, and then said that Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin were all Initiates and members of the Family of Light in their time, and that the Greeks were lightworkers, too, but they were too concerned about the mind and head-stuff. Asked Rebekah if I could have Joan Ann "do something" with my forehead blotch, and she said "She's going to start a 'Contact Healing' course in the energies of the Star Center, which will be good; we like to do such things," and I didn't go farther to ask about the Psychic Surgery, but said that I'd see Joan Ann later in the week and check her first 10 letters, of which she only has 7 now. Great up evening, and DID Winston have a mustache when he first came to class, or is HE growing one now that I'M growing a beard?
DIARY 12719
2/2/78
SPECIAL ACTUALISM PELVIC UNLOADING IN GROUP
Now know all the names: Richard Iltis, Elliott Grumer, Michael Blackburn, Bob Hoberman (looking much better), Bruce Lieber, George Pierson, Neil Sendar, Michael Molthen, Gene Adams, Bob Zolnerzak, and Winston Nelson. Winston was flustered, probably because of the "scheduling problem" he mentioned that we should ALL have had the Cosmic Father Power Ray, because once he said "Gold" when he should have said "Silver." So he said he was debating between Wisdom, Perfection, and Mother, and I figured "anything but Mother" so of course it was Mother. We make a sun out of it and bring it to center in the left kidney, and it takes AGES to get down to the bladder and to the end of the penis, so much time, and I'm so nodding-out, that when he asks to compare the sides, I think in panic that he's DONE both sides, so I'm glad I don't say anything: he's only done the one side. Then he does the testicle and sperm system, and asks for reports from those who haven't shared. Around, then "Bob?" "I can say a lot about what's happening outside (like the HORRID smells from the belches and undoubted farts, and SOMEONE'S been eating spicy salami, who's a SHIT in more way that one!), and it's VERY dry in the room and I keep dipping into my water to salve the tops of my hands), but I can't say anything about the inside, because I didn't feel anything on the inside." "ANYTHING?" with incredulity. I search and feel my stomach pressing down against my belt, conscious that I'm not holding myself in, and say "I can feel constrictions around my kidneys, so maybe I've cleared up enough to know there are constrictions." Then I hate myself, since I told myself that I would NOT evaluate: it seemed (as I told Dennis later) that I WAS doing everything, going through with him, and I didn't feel anything because I NEVER feel anything when it's GOOD, only when it's BAD do I feel an obstruction, or when Michael presses in on Rolfing or Joan Ann bears down on neck and spine do I feel something WRONG, but when things are GOOD, I just go along with it and don't FEEL anything, and as last time I volunteered that I'm FAR more willing to say that things are going WRONG than are going RIGHT, I'm far more willing to think that I'm FAILING, but I'm willing to sit tight with the thought that maybe my pelvis is REALLY OK! I certainly don't have the "neglected, despised, unwanted, rejected" feeling toward it or the WORTHLESS that he keeps trying to describe (and how ODD that Michael would call his testicles rising up as FEAR, rather than just excitement!), and I don't think of it as IDEALIZED, certainly, and there IS the chance that my dynamic is nicely exercised by coming a number of times, mainly the way I want to, and that my magnetic is nicely practiced by making others feel that THEY are having incredible sex with me: John and Dennis and Joe Easter and JJ and Eddie: I'm willing to GO ALONG with them, even to DRAW THEM OUT magnetically, so why shouldn't I BE rather close to being balanced? So we went back to the right side and I felt just a SLIGHT twinge about 1/2 inch from the top of my cock on expulsion of debris, and I took that to mean that I WAS feeling whatever was negative, and THERE JUST WASN'T MUCH NEGATIVE. So at the last report, I said that I really didn't feel ANYTHING except that, that I was angry with evaluating in the previous report, and that I was willing to WAIT for "my liver to sing." Winston had to admit that not everyone's "liver sang," but that it SHOULD feel GOOD if there are good things to feel. I said I was willing to wait. But my voice had a lot of emotion in it, though I was tempted to say that it was the sense of myself as being TOGETHER and CENTERED in some activity, sex, rather than being all messed up in things like brain-mind wanting to find reasons and logic for everything and wanting to KNOW everything, creativity being all messed up when it comes to writing and getting things published, relations with Mother still difficult since I don't really care to see her, and priorities to be reordered: maybe a TV program should NOT take precedence over a romp in bed with Dennis, maybe I SHOULD write more rather than seeing so many movies on TV, maybe my reading could be a bit more centered, rather than collecting special authors, maybe I could be more flexible in jazz, less demanding of dance, less wanting to change Dennis, less kicking of myself, RATHER than devoting effort to getting my supposedly sexual shit together.
DIARY 12723
2/4/78
TALK WITH BRUCE ON ACTUALISM AND SEX
He said that HE thought I was doing a lot of processing on Wednesday when I said that "nothing was going on," and I agreed that that might be so, as Michael said that things were coming out in my voice. Bruce said that MOST people in New York would agree with Winston's slant that most images of sex were hated or worthless, but he thought that MY view was idealized (from the point of view that I STATED I thought my magnetic was balanced with my dynamic (see DIARY 12719-12720) and that my sex was pretty satisfactory), and I countered by saying that I always think of my talking about GAY life as some kind of prostelytization: being more available and honest, it's more used and appreciated; being more free, you can't get hooked into it as you can in a marriage; being wide-ranging, you can experience a LOT of DIFFERENT points of view and bodies. Reminded him of Norma's envy of gays, and only NOW is there a Plato's Retreat. Bruce admitted that his images of sex as WORTHLESS were coloring his statements at the start, and that later he saw himself trying to put me down, trying to make me wrong, and I agreed that even WINSTON seemed to be doing that for awhile, but I DID know when things were wrong, and rehashed the old "my life is so good that only 10% is bad, but since I concentrate as much on THAT as the good, that looms large even though it's only DETAIL (annoyance with stray sounds, annoyance with my not writing for publication, eagerness to do even MORE, "former" (I hope) fear of flying and dentists). Laughed at his insistence that my view of sexuality was IDEALIZED when I'm so conscious that Dennis's cock isn't as hard as it could be nearly as consistently as it could be, nor do my "easy" orgasms come easy when anyone ELSE is around, but that STILL gives me pleasure as something to work MORE toward. I said that my voice was choked in class because my views WERE being "challenged" (his word, which I then took), and I was delighted and touched to see that they were HOLDING UP under the challenge: Could hear Dennis admitting that he'd never had such good sex, could feel that I could say that about him and didn't yet, feeling very good about him AND about us, and feeling I should say something about it when I get back from my trip, so as not to make my leaving harder. And tuning back over John Vinton and JJ and Eddie and Joe Easter and lots of occasional tricks, all of whom insisted that I got them to fabulous sex. But admitted that it CONSTANTLY brought up the knowledge that I wasn't having children (but being ready to counter the "10,000,000 sperm of YOURS every time don't have children EITHER" argument), which Bruce said was "anti-evolutionary," and I said that the next batch of children is not the ONLY force toward evolution, that the works of Michelangelo and da Vinci have been forces, though sublimation, to evolution ALSO. Then he started using the term, "It sounds separative, Bob," and I countered "IF you mean 'separated from One, God, the Whole, coming back on the cycle of reincarnation, being so avaricious of life that I want MORE and MORE and MORE,' that's true. But we HAVE a body, so we have to USE it. We don't get spiritual goodies by DENYING physical goodies---only as much as you GET physical goodies. WANT MORE AND MORE, you can get more and more spiritual goodies." "But that's not balanced." "More and more is surely more balanced than less and less. Pity that Tantrism is so down now, and I take Carol Ann's statement about the "immovable cap" on Kundalini rising with a grain of salt: we might learn more about it in 4th advanced, but for NOW it's in abeyance." It wouldn't be the FIRST time Actualism lied, I think to myself now, not WITHOUT reason, but lied nevertheless. If the opposite of separativeness if togetherness with the sex life of Bruce or Rebekah or Winston, I don't think I want any of it. I think of it, I told him, as a celebration, as a WORSHIP, which really rankled Bruce, but I said that that was only using WHAT WE HAD NOW. I admitted that my "highs" in Actualism were still surpassed by about 10% of my highs in sex, but that NON-SEXUAL highs represented the highest I've ever been: LSD in Canada, grass in Pennsylvania with Joan, the nude encounter with that mother figure, and SOME of the grass sessions with Bob Rosinek that were relatively sexless, so I can SEE that there would be something above sex, and I'm waiting for Actualism to SHOW me, maybe that's why it's taking so long to GET THROUGH the impact of the other, since the impact of the other has been so great---but I'm willing to WAIT for it to BUILD UP to the enormous force to OVERWHELM the other, and then I'll let the sex go gladly, and then Actualism will have proven to me, experientially, that it DOES work, actually.
DIARY 12729
2/6/78
ACTUALISM FIRST ADVANCED #25 PRIVATE WITH REBEKAH
Gorgeous guy with a beard's sitting in the corner when I come in, and Rebekah says that soon I'll look like him---I sure hope so. Then we're across to 1607, into the bedroom, and she asks how my week's been. I say that the Wednesday night Pelvic Unloading was very strange, wondering how much DETAIL to give, and she gives the example that had obviously been unloaded onto HER: someone just going "yuch" to an ashtray isn't communicating as directly as someone saying "Would you please empty your ashtrays." She said that since communication is going on at SO many levels, it helps to be as specific as possible on the verbal to help out. I said that I might be "forcing" an abeyance of a problem because I just don't have time to deal with it during the indexing and planning for the trip, but she seemed skeptical that it could work that way. I told her that I wasn't so much worried about the FLIGHT at this point as worried about BEING worried about the flights, and when she got to the pancreas, she said THIS is where "that sinking feeling" is held, NOT in the stomach, and that processing HERE would be of great value. When we got to the spleen I said that the picture in the book was very misleading, it sort of looked like a string bean---she thought I must be thinking of the pancreas, and finally I said, firmly, "No Rebekah, I mean the spleen," and later I ask her to check the book with me, but she says there's a body session training in the room with the books, so they're not available (it's with Mrs. Lieber, who tells me that you now have to have a PARTNER to work with---what a pity I can't maul Winston). Keep saying that I don't FEEL anything in my organs, but when she keeps working with the splenic plexus, I DO get this sensation of a BIG circular expanding area of sensation from my left side, and have no trouble saying that the left seems lighter than the right. Then the liver seems to cause trouble, but finally it, too, lights up, and when she talks about the interrelationship lines, I get an expanding feeling and ask whether this "interconnection" couldn't be as big as the BODY, and she says, "Well, every CELL has a magnetic and a dynamic, so the body has to be included in it." I'd asked her whether the Field's magnetic is ACTUALLY its splenic plexus, but she said that the field's splenic plexus was PART of the magnetic, but wouldn't say much more. I found the interchange stimulating, but when I asked whether "idealized" meant the same as "things are working OK," she rather sternly inquired, "Does this have anything to do with the liver?" which is what we were working on, and I had to say "No," and she said "Maybe more processing will clear up that question." THEN, thinking that the liver was blocked and that the liver plexus was never going to be as "light" as the splenic plexus, I figured, "Well, they SAY you create the whole thing, so maybe the idea that it's blocked is only an IMAGE, so let's process it and see what happens" at which point the liver "seems" to turn GOLDEN with brightness and a great sweeping arc "seems" to extend out from the right, even "brighter" than that on the left. Words are very hard here: I definitely don't SEE or HEAR or SMELL or TASTE or TOUCH this, nor do I sense a change in temperature (though at the end she says she'll put on the heat: "It's FREEZING in here," and I say "If you're leaving, let it be, it's fine for me," and she says "Oh, I see you really have the fires going." So the only facilities left seem to be "where's Hannah Arent when I need her now?" willing, thinking, and imagining. I do WANT it to change, but I don't WANT my "liver to turn golden---NOT EVEN MY LOVER---" but "it's golden with brightness" suddenly leaps into my brain from---my imagination, or from the brain itself. I don't PICTURE it as golden, I seem to "think," but think with a hit of KNOWING, that my liver is golden. I could IMAGINE all sorts of things, but I usually end up imagining something that's VAGUELY appropriate, unless I get my signals crossed like the "matrix" confusion with Lois. But, like Castaneda, I want "proof" to the extent that someone ELSE verify that what I'm seeing either IS true or could be true---EVEN THOUGH THEY MAY JUST BE LEADING ME ON ... do I mean that? Well, they've led me SO far, and it's continually interesting, so why not? As Rebekah says, "If we told you ALL this at the first, you'd never get into it." Probably true, not to mention the impossibility of REMEMBERING all of it at the start. At points I feel tears going down my cheeks again, and at one point rather startle her by reaching for a tissue to blow my nose and wipe my face and beard. When we're working on the pancreas, with all the loads of flight-fear, I actually feel a twinge, a muscle spasm, a flick of a group of cells, a physical, actual, experiential, bodily movement in an area that agrees with the pancreas, and report it with glee, and she receives it with even greater glee. It MIGHT be the start of a breakthrough. But there's nothing much for the rest of the pelvic system and the session, except that when she asks what I feel with the whole digestive tract filled with Cosmic Father, I tell what came into my head moments before: I feel like a giant Chinese character with all the coils filled with gold. She was pleased. I said that things were fast, but she sort of negatived by saying that maybe they're trying to SHOW me that one really shouldn't take a three-week vacation during training, but THEN I said that I felt very SPECIAL and WORTHY and that I might become addicted to these private sessions, and she said that when SHE took First Advanced, ALL the sessions were private. "But the group power is better, AND you don't feel like some kind of strange person doing these things when you're in the middle of a group that's doing these things." Didn't get quite the lift with the yoke that I had before, but some of the kinks were ironed out and she was pleased that I was going to have a body session with Joan Ann. She wished me a pleasant trip, saying that I should unify with the group. She also said that the Immortal really liked to fly and to harmonize with the immortal of the pilot. But everything seemed so REAL and IMMEDIATE and FRESH and DIRECTED TOWARD MYSELF, even to my pre-doing "coils of the intestines" and "ascending colon" just seconds before she'd mentioned them. She brushed me down briskly, saying that I should use the Cosmic Father in anything athletic, like snorkeling or skin-diving, with the Emotional Lifebelt. Tom, the heavy looking drab-faced fellow from the men's group before, was coordinator with a heavy-handedness that belied lightness at ALL.
DIARY 12732
2/6/78
ANOTHER BODY SESSION AT JOAN ANN'S
I mention Rebekah coughing so much through the session because of her silly cigars, and Joan Ann tells me that her coughing is HER way of processing, as Lois hacks, and that the CIGARS help to earthe her: her lungs are her strongest organs, so the smoke from the cigars brings her back from never-never land, I guess. She said there had been a hassle about smoking in the teaching rooms and that someone should tell Winston before he gets into the habit---"with love and light." She has no money and hoped to turn in half the letters, so I have to offer to write her a check for $375, happy that she didn't want the whole $750. And that's only for 61 letters! When I get on the table I feel rather tired, and she seems to go more heavily into the back "I'm getting into the marrow, if you can't feel it," and more lightly on the scalp, which is nice. She hits the bruise on my right buttock from falling onto the railing at Milestone and makes some comment that I should put her lotion on it: it has vitamin C and will clear it up. She suggested I use the Objective Creative Sigil on the plane: and I have to ask for a review, so she says it's Green in the middle with the Father and the Mother on either side, which is appropriate, and then she does the usual: "You can really get high doing a session on a plane." I feel very sleepy by the time she's finished, and she still has to order me around. Also said that I'd be getting a more powerful tool to replace the sigils, but had to work with those for now. She's gotten no one to sign up for some of her classes, and she's glad that Bruce and Jan are gone since they insisted they wouldn't work on anyone's face who had a beard "Why are you hiding?" but she said that George Pierson, with his receding chin line, really looked MUCH more scholarly and impressive with a beard. She's heard good things about the mushroom book, but she can't remember what. I pull out $1 and she says, "What's that? A tip?" and I hope she's not hinting, so I just give her $10. She says that sometimes people become BEST in what they most resist, and since I'm so resistant to the physical sensations I may end up becoming THE most sensitive person in the whole thing. Something to look forward to?
DIARY 12804
3/11/78
ACTUALISM FIRST ADVANCED #26
Malcolm gives me a great big hug, looking great, and Marilyn says I have a tan and Michael says I look great, he missed me, and I tell Faye that Nassau wasn't that great and Kathy that there IS no Holiday Inn on St. Maartin, and she insists there IS. Rebekah starts by warning us that much of it is on the nonverbal level that will leave brain-mind behind, and I find that I'm having a hard time keeping awake during the lengthy trip up through the levels, completely missing the Angelic, and didn't hear ANYTHING about the great green throne that Malcolm sat in. Got it, came back down, missing many of the levels, slightly nodding, but Rebekah was calling on 2-3 other names and not mine. Got hot, too, on the 4-people sofa, arms close in because of the sprawl of Tony next to me, so I rolled up my sleeves, and as we came out of it I had a WAVE of sadness. Kept trying to feel guilty about not having practiced as much as I should have, of not having lessons for over a month, of separating myself from the group, of being out of step with the rest of the class, and then I try to keep to myself but everyone's VERY cheery and talkative during the break and I get sucked in too, and Rebekah is mildly rebuking of everyone. Back for brushdowns, Tony's Bay Rum strong on his hands, and the reports are overwhelming: Janet had the time of her life, Tony had visions of brilliant green suns, Malcolm felt good sitting in the green throne, Elliott reported his 35th increase of powers, and only Maureen talked about the "cement" of her seat of Human Consciousness, and poor Kathy said she was very resistant and had lots of pain and didn't go any farther with her report. Rebekah looked at me, trying to seemingly lure me into negative statements, but I said that brain-mind was out of it and that felt OK, that I'd get lots of it in the future, and that I wasn't concerned about my lack of reaction to the whole thing, having gotten a lot on the nonverbal level. Then signed up for a two-hour hand session on Monday, chatted with George about his beard, and left, again feeling somewhat out of the group, but still confident that if I needed any kind of jolt, Rebekah or Winston would give it to me. Winston said they might NOT be going to Bermuda, but he'd keep the stuff and look it over until next week, anyway.
DIARY 12814
3/17/78
ACTUALISM HAND SESSION WITH REBEKAH
She instructs me to gather the Emerald Green energy, which is good for hands, and I describe my previous session with Jan and the fact that my hands have seemed better since then, though they still bind up arthritically at times. She starts on the left, noting bearing down with nearly the pressure that Jan used, not seeming to get into the CENTER of things with her PHYSICAL body as clearly as Jan did, and it's a very silent session as I don't feel like asking any questions and am busy withdrawing identity from the low-frequency images that nothing's happening. The cat's in the room, sitting quietly mostly, but sometimes meowing which causes Rebekah to issue a monitory "Kim!" I can feel my left hand drawing away from her and making her bend forward, and she flips her wrists and hands around at the 10-minute break from 11:55 to 12:05, so I suggest she prop up my right arm so my right hand will remain more thoroughly in her province. She says that my finger joints are already quite flexible, and mostly I hear the sounds of HER joints cracking when she's working on mine, but a couple of times, like on the middle finger of the right hand, she gets the finger into a crack-the-whip motion that elicits a continuous string of snaps from the knuckle each time it returns to a certain position, and she continues until it settles into a small constant snap. But mostly there were only mechanical methodical motions, though she remarked "Oh, I forgot the wrist," when she'd finished with my little right finger. Her fingertips seemed to heat up during the work, but not at much as Jan's, and the moisture seemed constant though she didn't use anything, just the combination of sweat from our own hands. She dug deepest into the meat of my right thumb, but it didn't feel that anything was adjusted with it, and I couldn't see much reason for getting another session like this until there was someone different to get it from. She seemed pleased that EVERYONE from the class had come in for some sort of bodywork after her comment at the last class, and Michael was there and walked me to the corner, saying that the CF workshop was on recollecting what happened through the day and working out whatever was still left as blockage, thinking how it COULD have gone if there were no blocks at all, and releasing poles at night before sleeping.
DIARY 12819
3/17/78
ACTUALISM FIRST ADVANCED #27
We fill the room with 8 women and 6 male students and Winston, and through it all I'm uncomfortably hot, quite sleepy, until when we're about to go to the Pineal I sort of fall over into sleep with a snort, except it's not quite like that, but unlike anything ELSE I've ever done, and immediately I feel a nice cool breeze on the left side of my legs and torso, which keeps me going for the rest of the session, sorry that I don't seem to EXPERIENCE anything. Everyone else is sleepy, too, and Winston seems to be extra-joyful to compensate for it, talking about boredom and self-images and how the only thing that's NOT an image is from the Higher, which makes US rather useless, somehow. Meg feels bigger, Janet had physical ailments for the first time, Michael felt too exhausted to give his report, my impatience with wanting to DO something leads Winston into his talk on boredom, and Barbara at LAST seems to intuit what images are: everything she's been going through! The importance of withdrawing of identity, since the consuming fires won't attack anything that retains identity, was stressed at the start, and that flowed into the need for assimilation at the end, where the spaces are drained and empty if they haven't absorbed all the GOOD that's left in the room. I ask Winston after if there's something I can do to increase my sensing of things to report on, and he says that reports are usually comprised of details that seem unimportant, but they're not, and suggests the "surgery series." "What series?" I ask. "It's marked on the board (which I can't find) of hands, feet, spleen, liver, pancreas ... " and so I sign up for a splenic surgery on Monday. Russell wrote a letter about the "leaving form" of Morley Raeside, "losing control to help someone," and I ask Winston after Michael says "I wish I knew," and he says Morley had dived into a river to rescue a student near Hilltop, and the student rescued himself and Morley drowned in the flooded stream. Heavy. I pointedly remained away from the socializing to absorb more during the break, and it seemed better, even though it was separative, and Rebekah was busily working on the schedule sheets. Kathy and I brushed down with love and affection, and she was pleased she had a better trip this time.
DIARY 12830
3/29/78
ACTUALISM: SPLEEN SURGERY
I said that I never knew what to say: that if I didn't say anything, nothing would get done and the time would be wasted, though I suspected that something would be done at SOME level. He said that I shouldn't worry about it and just get into it and see what happened. I felt myself, when he said to move into the spleen, as if I were trying to DIVE from a diving board about at the level of my eyes and fall down the FRONT OUTSIDE my body and hit in the area of the spleen, but he kept saying to harmonize brain-mind with Incarnating Ego and let it SLIP DOWN into the spleen, and that seemed more possible, sliding down the throat like a piece of mucus dislodged from a sinus. When I rather determinedly sat in silence and non-thought, I "looked" out and seemed to see a shadowy form taking place "around" me, and when brain-mind came in to interpret, told me that I COULD be seeing the form of my chest around my spleen from some viewpoint inside it, as if a moonlit night were gradually being obscured by the form of a body being built up around my vantage point. I felt a jolt of triumph with this form of visualization, again not something that I'd INTENDED to see, coming in a way that SURPRISED me, so that I wouldn't think it was my imagination BEING LEAD by me, but in a sense LEADING ME. And the jolt dissipated the image. I reported it to him, and he seemed pleased. Then the keyword for the rest of the session seemed to be "mistrust." I didn't trust that what I was seeing was actually happening. I didn't trust that Actualism was the only or even A way of getting to occult knowledge, I didn't even trust Winston to stay awake, since his breathing at times seemed to take on a suspiciously deep and regular pattern. And I surely didn't trust myself with accurate observations of what was going on, if I could believe what he kept telling me about things ACTUALLY HAPPENING, except that I wasn't in the position to observe them. So I busily processed those images and sat through a period of blankness again (and I remembered something ELSE that came up in the Appendix surgery on 3/27: he said that I should sit and let these thoughts sift through my mind before I start my session, and I told him that I sometimes had to sit for 20-30 minutes before my mind would be calmed down enough to start on the work, and he said THAT was a bit too long.) and came up with a few cricks in the back of the neck and minor physical things (and on 3/27 I reported what could ONLY feel like the pressure of a finger on my head, which I duplicated exactly by placing my left index finger on my left temple, almost on the pulsing vein that can be sensed through the thin skin), but didn't feel that I was getting anywhere. But I took THAT to be an image and busily processed that in the approved way, and it DID seem to go away in that precise form for a time, to return only in a slightly altered form that could be considered an independent image: I'm wasting time, I should be doing something more useful, where is this going, what am I spending my money for, why couldn't I be home writing rather than sitting here wondering if I'm going to fall asleep? We worked with the Radiant Warrior sun, picked up from Center 9, brought to the organizing center of the spleen, and then expanding to fill the entire field with its light violet light. When that was over, the final blaze-up was done to process the last remaining bits of low frequency THAT WERE READY TO BE PROCESSED, again emphasizing that the fires won't TOUCH anything that still contains identity, and then shrink down to 3" size and return to home base, and then to bring up the Ruby Red Left Hand of the Physician into the spleen center and expand THAT out into the field to soothe and assimilate the essence. I felt rather good after finishing the lesson, and immediately scheduled the next, the appendix, for the next week. I said that I hoped to balance off this emphasis on the magnetic, since I was currently HIGHLY activated by my upcoming meeting with Don Richardson this afternoon. (Remembered on 3/27 that the Appendix helps to earth the Dynamic, so it DOES balance off this emphasis on the magnetic). Reached for a tissue at one point to wipe my eyes, made teary by the feeling that progress CAN be made, that things CAN be cleared up, that my life CAN be made simpler and more effective and more productive, and it felt so good that the tears flowed down my cheeks and into my beard, which I wiped.
DIARY 12835
3/29/78
ACTUALISM: FIRST ADVANCED #28
Winston waited for Tony, the last of the 15 of us, and then said that this was going to be one of the most difficult (later he said there were 3 of these types of workshop (or 3 MORE) in first advanced) sessions we'd ever had, and Brain-Mind would come up with confusion and not understanding, but we were to be calm and let it all pass by: we'd survive. With this inauspicious low-frequency-producing warning, we closed our eyes and he spent SUCH a long time dealing with IE in Center 2 that I figured we were FORMING Hierarchy and I wasn't following, but it turned out we WEREN'T. As I said in my report: "It seemed Brain-Mind only came in to say that "Magnetic" is over here and "Human" is that level---it sort of acted as a translator of your instructions, and my "will" said "Um-hm," and then BOTH of them just left and I was sitting there in COMPLETE blackness, sensing absolutely nothing from Brain-Mind or Human or Field, feeling ABSOLUTELY no difference when you said to send our dynamics to your magnetic and then draw them back, or when we opened our magnetics to your dynamic, and then asked us to report on which felt weaker (and only NOW as I type this do I realize why MOST of the women said their MAGNETICS felt weaker, because they had to contain HIS (mwa-ha-ha-ha) dynamic, while his magnetics had only to accept THEIR dynamics without making THEM feel tiny!), and I could feel ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. I kept insisting that this was not a NEGATIVE report, it was only as factual and accurate a report as I could make. I suspected there were things going on at other levels, and this time I CAUGHT the catch in my throat and said "I even feel now that there's some emotion coming up, so things ARE happening," and I'd earlier reported that my stomach had actually felt NAUSEOUS coming here on the subway, for the first time EVER, and I felt nauseous (but only to the slightest degree) during the session, and then it went, to be replaced by a butterfly-y feeling as the reports came around to me. I even went up to him afterward and said that I hoped he knew that my report wasn't NEGATIVE, only factual and EMPTY because Brain-Mind wasn't there, and he smiled and clutched my shoulder and said he'd see me on Monday. He came to me at the break to ask how I was feeling since Monday, and I said that THIS was definitely the low point, and he sort of frowned and I said I'd tell him about it. Barbara started reports by saying that she was angry and furious and non-hearing and feelingless and frustrated, and then she laughed and said she guessed she now knew what images were. Elliott said that he was uncharacteristically agitated, but that calmed down and he felt better. Marilyn waved her hands around and got emotional deep in her throat and talked of throwing off old burdens and "needing this very much, the perfect place for just what I needed." Janet went into GALES of burping, laughing, and said it was a VERY activating session and she felt great about it. Richard said that it cleared up lots of negative impressions and felt very good, almost like an orgasm. So they went around the room, dramatizing their highs and dramatizing their lows, and I felt that I added another voice to the crowd. Even during my Appendix session I mentioned to Winston that if I ever felt as BAD as Maureen seems to feel when she's feeling GOOD, I'd not know what to do with the pain, so I AGREED with his statement that we all come from different points of view. When Barbara asked for the directions later, I SWEAR Winston was being thoughtlessly vague about them, and when Barbara asked HOW to do it, he got very defensive and accused her of not relying on her sense of inner knowing to get the details for herself. But he finally got to details, which lots of us wrote down, and then I took over the questioning for her, and when the class broke (Tony giving his usual good brushdown) I told her that I, for one, was with her on the questions, so she shouldn't think that she was the ONLY one who needed it, for I did too, and she said she identified with something I'd said, too, and we smiled at each other. Meg seemed smaller than ever in voice and self-esteem, but she said at the elevator that she'd started with the FIRST group and went through "about 5 or 6" and seemed surprised when I said I THOUGHT I was only about 4 groups from the top, that many had merged, and she seemed flustered and agitated about almost anything, and when I turned abruptly to follow a guy with a dog in FABULOUS blue jeans (yes, I know!), I'm sure she took it personally.
DIARY 12846
3/29/78
ACTUALISM: APPENDIX SURGERY
We're into the bedroom at 1:40 and talk until about 2:20: I say that I feel under some obligation to HEIGHTEN my report so that my "nothing" that is being reported can't be interpreted as DISAPPOINTMENT or DENIAL on my part: this is what my report IS, and I'm pleased with it, if only because it means my brain DID take such a back seat that I have no way of remembering what happened during it, can't remember the sequence of the instructions, and even had very few value judgments on the "goodness or badness" of what was happening to me. He seemed to agree that the others tended to heighten the high or low frequencies and that it might be good for me to be in the middle, but then he suggested that I might subject myself to greater emotional swings, and I assured him that I had great emotional swings OUTSIDE of class, where it seemed more appropriate. I kept telling HIM that my brain was the "culprit" that had to be beaten into submission to something that it didn't understand, and he detoured by saying that "The brain doesn't want to admit that it DOESN'T run the whole show, that it DOESN'T have everything to say about the feeling or operation of a particular organ," and then he sums up what I've been trying to say in a way that's meaningful to HIM: "You have a very arrogant brain, and it just has to realize that it doesn't know everything." I agreed, and he said that maybe next time we'd try another brain surgery before another organ surgery. He did give me ONE nice insight when he said that "I" can feel pretty cruddy but an organ be fairly stabilized. When I asked if it was productive or divisive to talk of "my brain-mind confused me" or "my human didn't react" or "emotionally I felt very good," he said that it was more accurate than simply saying "I" felt this way or that way, and I reiterated that it didn't mean that I felt fragmented, it was only that COMPONENT of what I thought of as "me" giving a particular feedback. Like reading many gauges on ONE jet aircraft. He seemed to bring up more and more things, content to chat with me, and then we went into the session proper about 2:20, and I didn't say very much for a long time, then I again felt the pressure of saying something, so I described the bubbles trickling around in the area around the appendix, which I didn't feel directly---in fact, I said that I had a much more distinct, though still shadowy, sense of my spleen than I ever got of my appendix---through the surgery, except that I felt "small in a big dark wet place"---WORDS always SO much seem to overstate the RETROSPECTIVE, THOUGHTLESS, REFLECTIVE, SUBTLE feelings that I had---but only after the plunge of a metallic key into the lock on the door behind me of a maintenance person, causing Winston to call out, "Not right now," pulled me OUT of that thoughtless "place" into a place that was BY COMPARISON more intimate, lighter, and dryer. When I felt myself IN a new place, BY COMPARING WITH THE OLD PLACE, I felt that I had been in a darker, wetter, smellier place. But (and I consciously put it in a more positive light) since Carol Ann stressed that we should be on the WATCH for the very subtle, I would have to admit that that was JUST above the level of consciousness AFTER I was pulled out of it, so that ONLY by the process of comparison could I say I "was" somewhere previously that I'd not DETERMINED to go to, that didn't coincide with my prejudgment that my organs were giving me no trouble, that I feel didn't come out of my imagination---my imagination only entered when I felt that I HAD to apply words to the FORMER state. Then I felt myself still struggling over "looking from the level of the eyes" and "looking from the level of the organ," and I felt that I spend far more time in my head than in the organ, even though I follow the rubric of intensifying the fires, withdrawing identity from the images, consuming the debris, and assimilating the essence. He again mentions the "getting into the organ and feeling it large around you," and I repeat what came up with Lois: the child-sick feeling of being at the edge of a VERY large space, that echoes in my tiny-there ears in a different way from the room I'm actually in, which I could INTERPRET as being what I should feel like inside my organ. Then I got a feeling of disgust with the darkness inside my own body, possibly some of the loads which are there which I wouldn't like to admit are there, and put it into words: "I feel again that same cycle: getting into my body and being disgusted with the MECHANICS of it, the wetness and mutability and death-containing potential of it, but then reversing to the idea that WITHOUT the body I wouldn't be able to enjoy the foods and rollercoaster rides and sex and I DO enjoy, so I should feel GOOD about it." There's another moment of glory when I feel that, as I put it, "I'm reminded of what Russell said about our bodies being crystals that more or less deviate the light shining through them. I feel like in the processing I'm wiping off some of the crud from a window to let the light shine through brighter," and I can feel my voice filling with emotions of gladness and "why couldn't it have been like this before?" and tears start to trickle down my face. Earlier, in the conversation, I got into grass again: "I identified with Carol Ann when she said that LSD had turned her on to another area. Up till about 12 years ago I was even more in the brain than I am now; then I had LSD in a hospital with supervision and found for the FIRST time that there were levels of emotion that I'd been burying, with my family, with friends, with lovers, and I've been much more open since. But THERE, for the first time, I associated feelings of JOY with my body: there wasn't only the negative of pain and the 0 of feeling normally senseless to anything, but there was also the positive of feeling JOYOUS about living and experiencing and knowing what there was to know. When I report that nothing's going on, it means that there's no negative, but there's no positive, either. My view is that I usually experience a VERY LITTLE negative: I don't have headaches or backaches or stomach problems or insomnia, so my range is small: from TINY discomforts to NO discomfort, but that doesn't explode into positive-loaded descriptor-appropriate emotions." He used the word "expanded," and I said "That seems to me like a positively loaded word which I wouldn't use: I'd say that what HAD been cluttering my head just WENT AWAY, but that didn't expand my space, it just cleared out the SAME space that was there before." He seemed a bit annoyed with me. (Thought comes to me very strongly now: I'm writing these notes just as I imagine Carlos Castaneda (assuming his narrations are true, which there seems to be lots of debate about) took notes during HIS training, and I can EVEN NOW be as impatient with my linguistic hemming and hawing as I was with HIM: the idea that I should just LET IT GO and GET ON WITH IT!) I said that LSD and grass gave me the feeling "above zero" and I was sort of blackmailing Actualism to REPLACE those now-forbidden "above zeros" with "above zeros" of its own, and he hastened to say that ALL this was image and I should let loose of it. Though he said that maybe next time I'd have another BRAIN surgery, to get through more of this. He suggested that I didn't get into my body for fear that there WOULD be pain, and intense pain, there. I was afraid that I'd use the est technique of CREATING pain there by EXPECTING pain there, and when I didn't EXPECT it I wouldn't CREATE it. I could hear him moving about, giving me the confidence that he wasn't falling asleep, so when he didn't ask what was going on, I didn't volunteer. I stretched a few times, rubbed my face and said that I felt it was settling into some sort of EXPRESSION, and once I told him about that cycle, then I said "And I said 'absorb the essence' and a little voice said 'there IS no essence from THAT'," and he later said THAT was arrogant of my brain. He cracked his knuckles with a marvelous cadence of tones, and when I went to adjust my fingers, saying that my back was tired from working this morning on a job, I got only one tiny crickle, thinking that I was more flexible than he was. Felt my stomach against my belt and again resolved to eat less. Felt that it was going on a VERY long time, and at one point I fought against it, felt reabsorbed in the work, and reported that. When we finished it was about 3:40, and he let me sit while I drank water and put on my shoes and looked at his bird, which had squawked a few times in the processing too. Later found a photo of him in Air force helmet, and he seemed so to fit into it as to be automatic. Again liked the processing, SENSING in the flesh of the backs of my hands the CHANGE of energy when we went from Radiant Warrior to the Ruby Red, and he said "Now you feel the ENERGY, you have to get down and feel the CHANGE in your organs as a RESULT of the energies." Oh.
DIARY 12879
4/11/78
ACTUALISM FIRST ADVANCED #29
Rebekah starts with a long discussion of just how to use the poles (which she says are not POINTS IN the field, but the whole "halves" of the object) more practically. She described "at attention" as being "parallel," which is NOT turned directly OUTWARD, letting ANYTHING come in and scattering all the energy all over the place; and not turned directly INWARD, in the state of closed circuit that she mentions some people go to parties in and wonder why no one relates with them, which is how I went to the Christmas party; but which is aligned and receptive TO WHAT THE CENTER OF ATTENTION IS, and I get the image of them sitting side-by-side rather above my shoulders, facing toward Rebekah. She asks us to feel the power of the poles when we open them, and we sit there, eyes open as directed, and everyone says they feel something, but I don't particularly. Then she announces that we're going to get the Higher Will power ray, with a normal component of people excited and reacting around the circle. As the tape goes on and on, I find that Russell's voice seems to become more and more awed as he watches the spectacle, and the fruitiness of his voice (Bruce said he actually USES the term "grape juice," but I don't think so) gives me the impression of a GREAT richness of a thick, syrupy gush of shiny purple liquids, and I think that THIS must be something like the richness of the GREEN that Malcolm was so delighted with. I heard every word as he slowly went up the dimensions, with increasing emotion, until he hit the top, and I heard the descriptions of the beings rich in joy and felt a physical thrill of gladness that I could at least hear SOME of the tapes with a degree of sensitivity, where the last few have been such NOTHING experiences. I can follow the thing all the way down, too, which delights me, and I can barely keep my smile contained as we move around at the break. Kathy had said that she was too busy with school to give body sessions, but after she brushed me down I said that she'd had time for THAT, which was good. I sat contained until Rebekah hesitantly looked around to see who'd start, and she overreacted when my hand shot into the air, and I reported my emotionally (FORGOT the whole emphasis on JUDGMENTALISM AND IRRITABILITY that affected me so much---as WELL as the emphasis on abundance that I needed, having done preliminaries on my income tax today---and I said I'd never connected them so strongly before, and Barbara just laughed and said SHE'D always known that judgmentalism was very strongly connected to irritability.) charged report, and she sort of beamed and smiled and said fine. Marilyn to my left gave the same old report about "something I really needed at this time," with her emotion-choked voice and her repressing attempts to keep calm, but OTHERS in the room seemed to report having TROUBLE with it, particularly Malcolm, ironically, and I even TOLD him afterwards that I'd so envied his results with the GREEN that I wanted to GIVE him some of the fabulous results I had with the PURPLE. He smiled. Michael said that he felt he was still processing a lot, shaking his head at the dimness of his memory (and I'd said that I'd gotten so much out of it that I almost wished I could hear some of the EARLIER tapes so that I could hear what I'd MISSED the first time---no reaction from Rebekah). Then, after a number of reports from people who felt like the experience was "underwater," Barbara surprised me by reporting a GOOD experience, one that she felt in places in her body, with reactions that seemed appropriate to the words being spoken, and it seemed strange that the group either seemed to be FOR AND AGAINST in definite proportions on ONE energy and in the SAME proportions AGAINST AND FOR on ANOTHER energy. Elliott came up with his usual "I thought it was such-and-so before, but this time it was REALLY such-and-so, and I didn't know it would be LIKE THIS," and going on and on so that it was difficult to think of any differences in ANY of his reports. I wanted to ask WHAT it was of the Higher Will that hadn't been earthed yet, but at least now I know we'll have to go through at LEAST July before starting into second advanced, which would make it, though I missed a lesson, 40 lessons, which is about what Joan Ann said was IN first advanced, and then I'll be able to find out how far I am behind Bruce's going into second just now and Joan Ann's group going into third after the summer break. Kathy just felt GREAT during the brushdown, and I hugged her with real affection. Dorothy had been curled up on the sofa, getting lots of strokes from concerned people, and Michael made sure to say goodnight to me. Barbara confused me in the elevator by talking about "second," and she said that SHE thought of Basic as first and THIS as second, which she rather dizzily excused for herself.
DIARY 12895
4/12/78
ACTUALISM: PSYCHIC SURGERY ON GALLBLADDER
Flub what I'm supposed to be working on, and he figures we'll do the organ rather than the brain, but when I get into the middle of it and blame the BRAIN for being frustrated and angry, he insists that I leave the brain OUT of it, the arrogant thing, and sense the frustration and anger as coming from the GALLBLADDER (which he's hinted might be connected with anger when he said something about "bile" to clue me in). We started, he blazed up Radiant Warrior for me and I tried to get SOME feeling of its intensity, but it didn't come during the session. I kept going through the ritual of withdrawing identity, blazing up the fires, and trying to concentrate on the gallbladder, but I NEVER got a good idea of being down there, though I sort of slid down partway at one time. Then I got a STRONG image of having sex with some guy, and I mentioned that OFTEN I get strong sexual images, but he didn't say a single word about them. Then I blamed the brain for mediating the anger and frustration, and we talked about that, and then the only other report was toward the beginning when I said (feeling the pressures of my new blue jeans) that my intestines felt somewhat active, so if he wanted to get a match to do away with the gasses, he could, and for a moment there was a pencil of slight pain inside the left side of my face, running up alongside my nose and touching the back of my left eyeball, but otherwise there were no physical sensations, no emotional reactions other than the usual spate of "Why am I doing this?" "How can I believe this?" and "Why doesn't he help me more?" He doesn't even make as much noise as before moving about, though he comes up with TWO enormous consecutive belches, and when he starts ending with the Ruby Red (and I don't get nearly the rush I had before with it), I figure I haven't been saying enough to warrant his time, but then when he leaves I'm surprised to see that it's 3:55 and it's been almost 90 minutes, and I tell him that. He agrees that maybe next time, in 2 weeks again, we might just have a look to see what the brain's point of view is, and he says that it's fine to look at these organs as EQUAL to the brain in necessity to the body, and TREAT them as brain-equals, which for me is pretty highly and respectfully.
DIARY 12899
4/13/78
ACTUALISM FIRST ADVANCED #30
Michael is last in, sitting next to me in front of the door, and Winston asks for comments about the week, and when only two can be convinced to say anything, he repeats the exordium to perform the daily evaluation every day and take NOTE of what's happening to ourselves: it's all part of the system. I don't mention the stoned black who loves touching me on the subway, but probably should have. Then we're into the Emotional Lifebelt with the Higher Will Power Ray, and at first I'm nodding to sleep and very itchy, and then I figure I'll have to get INTO it, and I slide into ILL Will and then very quickly into HATE-RAGE, very surprised that I feel SO awful about it, but really WALLOWING in it so that I WON'T have another of those nebbishy, repressed, nothing-happened sessions, and I DON'T: I HATE everything Winston says, and his system and Russell and Carol Ann, I HATE everyone in the group, individually and collectively, for making minor noises; I HATE the flutist outside that I can't get out of my mind, and PARTICULARLY hate the coyness when Winston says "If you're activating low energies, just think of the treasure of ESSENCE that's waiting for you," and later he gives one of his few bows to the higher, saying that "My Immortal and your Immortal get together and find what I can say that will REALLY produce results for you," and I give a twist with my fingernail in the air, and even Janet said she was brutalized by my report. Michael gasped "Why didn't you TELL me?" after he gave me a marvelous brushdown, and I had to get myself out of it, and even reported the actual feeling of "Withdraw IDENTITY, God damn it!" But I kept intensifying, loving the feeling that I could FEEL, even though I hated my guts and my organs and my brain and the processing, but seeing that I HAD something inside, that I HAVE been repressing anger and hate-rage, and lots of people reported quiet, sleepy sessions until somewhere around the pancreas, when things started getting excited, and Barbara Lea at the end said "So you won't say I was holding out on you," that she was appearing on Cavett tonight (Thursday) and Friday morning repeat, and I left feeling pretty high, but amazed at the FEELINGS I got, dramatization good for me or NOT.
DIARY 12924
4/20/78
ACTUALISM FIRST ADVANCED #31
Before we started, I asked whether the "Central Vertical Axis" remains vertical when we're lying down, and he said it stays CENTRAL, and I say "Even Center 1?" and he says "Yes." Janet remarks about dinner for her father's birthday party, and I fliply comment, "Yours or cosmic?" and she later says that I'd plugged her in to her father's DEAFNESS and didn't HEAR the rest of the session, but she said it taught her a lot and she thanked me. Then I heard he was going to work with the Egos, so I asked, "I never feel that ANY of the Egos is ME, where is ME?" And he responded at length to say that it was ALL part of me, all egos, including all organs, all poles, and all Immortal and Presence and Incarnating Ego, as well. Later, Barbara thanked me (she'd also sort of held court while people told her they liked her TV program, and SHE admitted she thought she came over rather well) for asking THAT question. The flutist was again playing, and I tried and tried to get away from the sound, but the more Winston kept saying "Just drop it, just let it go," I kept hearing it more and more. He SAID that when he asked me what I was feeling and I said "Hate-rage," I was SMILING (see DIARY 12949), and I didn't bother to argue that I more probably would have considered it a rictus of rage. I could barely get the details, felt TERRIBLY frustrated, but at the same time had to admit when he said "Sense the PRESENCE, no matter how deep into low frequency you are," I DID get a lifting. Then stayed and talked about my report's "X," saying I feared getting the GROUP turned toward the flute judgmentally, and he said that was probably wise, but said that my brain ENJOYED thinking of all these reasons, that I should get it BEFORE IT STARTS BUILDING by bringing in presence when these things START in my consciousness, that I shouldn't get INVOLVED with them, and he again, like Rebekah before him, said that this might be a turnaround session in that I felt myself pressed BACK TO THE WALL with NOWHERE TO GO except to admit that what I was doing I was doing because I WANTED to be doing it, that I got PLEASURE out of doing it, and he said that I might have the NEXT surgery on the Thymus, out of order from Pancreas, Adrenals, Thymus, and some other T gland. I felt somewhat better, loved the loving brushdown from Kathy, and smiled at Elliott's being absent because he had to study for a test. We STARTED by saying our week's LEARNING!
