1979 4 of 5
WEDNESDAY, 7/4/79: DREAM: Dream of glassware falling like snow: On some mountaintop the guide points out how quickly weather can change, and there are dark clouds over to the left with lightning flashing from them, while light planes flying toward them gracefully loop out of the way of them, and the guide says something about "But there's no danger of snow," and I look down a bit to think I see something like feathers floating upwards toward the hilltop on the winds from below, but they quickly resolve into the filaments of light bulbs, to my surprise, and they BECOME light bulbs lightly blowing about like flakes in a snowstorm, and then quickly, from the sky, comes a few GLASSES, and I point them out and shout to avoid them, and then, the sky quite blue from whence they come, the glasses are more interspersed with crystal-white clear glassware of all types: bud vases, flowerpots, candy dishes, punch bowls, ranging in size from small juice glasses to Steuben presentation bowls, all with the clearness of crystal, all successfully avoided, none seeming to break as they fall, though in fairness I don't turn around to see where they fall because we're all so busy dodging them as they fly slantwise down the wind from the clear sky!
MINESHAFT: Truly an orgiast's fantasy: chain-roped hammocks for the benefit of fist-fuckees, complete with spotlights and wooden racks for hanging onto if you're active with someone else on the side; cute kids jerking off on the central pool table with muscular frowzy-haired hippies waiting below, jerking off, to receive the come; muscle-builders walking around without their shirts on; bartenders in blackened jockstraps serving beer and putting booted feet up onto the bar to display hairy calves; Tomita records pulsing away for the front-room-wide backrooms and their fucking and sucking; every corner a sex corner, even the stairwells acting as receptacles for jerk-offs. The only thing that DIDN'T respond WAS the jerk-off scene, though I didn't particularly care to participate where it looked possible: the guy playing with himself on the john onstage, the guy in the backroom. Bill's wry description that it's built like a pyramid, with the sarcophagus room (or was it pronounced suck-off-agous room?), the treasure chamber, the throne room, the antechamber, and various other rooms, with the mineshafts connecting the two levels, and then past the hallway to the bar, where just as much went on before the Arnold's Bellybutton check-stand as went on downstairs. Guys necking, straddling the corral, rubbing their tits seated on the bench, cursing as they got their beers, though with RELATIVELY little affection: didn't kiss anyone, and the only guy I sucked, the black-shirted fellow, got some vibrations from me that made him put his cock away not to be coaxed out. I was swamped: everything was so STRONG (the warmest room was the sarcophagus room with the two bathtubs, and there was a SMELL, but it was more of sweat and occasionally spilled beer than it was of shit and piss, though there may have been some of that around, but they weren't too often occupied, and then the crowd was too awful around to penetrate.) Lots of CUTE people, too: muscle-builders, cute college types, great older bodies in tight abdominals, bulging pectorals, shapely backs, and knotty legs and buttocks looked appealing, but I reached out for only a few and turned down many more, too eager to see WHAT was going on to participate (and not getting enough courage to try too many for fear of being refused). But I guess I want to go back: it's just too FREE not to be tempted to get as free as some of them in doing what I want to do, but I HAVE to see what the CODES are for the HANDKERCHIEFS --- though since I neither like to FUCK or BE fucked, the usual left-right dichotomy is reasonable useless. Then I had my jacket and wallet, which were useless, and next time I'll take my shorts and check my clothes (a bargain for only 50, though Bill has to pay $10 every 3 months for his membership card!), but my $4 admittance (for a holiday night) got me only a beer, so they're not exactly going broke, either, and the former meat-packing plant is hardly in the high-rent district of town, though they will NEVER get complaints from neighbors about the noise --- and surprisingly the noise was NOT at a high level: enough for whispers, the sounds of slurping, and the ineluctable gasping just before a hard-driving orgasm to be heard.
SUNDAY, 7/22/79: MULTIDIMENSIONAL BALANCE: Through two weeks of accomplishment and recrimination for what I didn't do; through sessions long overdue during which I wanted to do other things;
through pleasures during which I thought of work;
through work while I could think only of pleasure;
I finally thought of a title (without trying) that fit: multidimensional balance!
To BALANCE the work against the enjoyment, yet doing both in both.
To BALANCE the relationships against the introspection, using both for both.
Even here: to refrain from writing since 7/5 to write compactly on 7/22!
Even in the microscopic, to balance the hormones and vitamins and enzymes, while in the macroscopic balancing the planets and astrological influences. Seeing "Manhattan" and thinking of Woody Allen the individual churning out movies that are highly respected by the very personalities he satirizes, yet talking of himself, convincingly, that he doesn't produce, doesn't do what he wants to do, isn't happy with himself, while he goes from woman to woman, from opinion of himself as shy and ugly to opinion of himself as sexually devastating, from moviemaking to writing for New Yorker to playing saxophone in a Village bar, yet underneath there's still urges to be FILLED. I think of my metaphor: from childhood through adolescence we're children but want to be treated as adults: to stay up late, have responsibilities, rule our own lives, be independent, do what WE want to do --- but we're told what to do, are supported, must remain dependent, must obey and learn. Yet as adults we harbor frightened children who want to be consoled against the terrors of the world, lazy children who want to enjoy rather than work, bored children who want to be told how to enjoy ourselves, ignorant children who have to be told what to do and when to do it and how to enjoy it. And is there ever a crossover point where all is perfect? Hardly, rather than transiting a point where the adult-inside grows to the adult-outside, or where the child-outside dies as does the child-inside, in the middle we're BOTH: adolescents who are STILL dependent who want to be independent, children with crabby adults inside; but independent and STILL wanting to be guided through life, adults with demanding brats inside our skins.
I get asked what movies I enjoyed in the past six months and can only come up with "The Last Wave" on February 2, all of 24 weeks ago. Dennis and I think of the plays we saw and don't care for them. I go to the Cuban ballet twice and feel unaffected except by the sexuality of the males and by the constructed over-romantic posings of a decadent Alicia Alonso. Yet if I don't go to "outside" things I feel that I'm denying myself, stagnating, overly introspective. Yet when I over-indulge "outside" I feel deprived and craving for expression inside. When I write I want to be reading; reading, I want to write. Playing I think of work; working I crave pleasure. But I said that already.
When I have too much to do I want peace; when I have peace I have to create activity to fill in the empty spaces. With friends I want to get away; alone, I miss them. Think of Dennis's transition from the companionship of Tree to the solitude of indexing and feel sorry for him for that, yet the new freedom of scheduling and income surely repays it. When I get to the BOTTOM of despair of doing anything other than maintenance on indexing I contemplate the alternate: a 9-to-5 job, and KNOW that it just wouldn't work. Wanted a car and now that I have it I don't use it. Look forward to trips until they occur, and then I don't want to leave; away in a foreign land I want to read my mail and look at my porno and walk on the Promenade, which I hardly EVER do when I'm at home. Sexless I'm driven to sex; sex-sated I listlessly know that I have to turn to other things. Yet what kind of BALANCE IS this!? This is a balance on which each side of the scale is DEPRESSED by thoughts of the other EXTREME AS depressing! The right-hand balance-pan bringing down the rising left-hand balance-pan, which in turn lowers the right-hand pan, depressing the left-hand pan more, bringing down the whole system still farther! Where's the ELEVATION!? Why can't the joy of accomplishment in work elevate the play taken in reward, which in turn rewards the work so fully that the following work is increasingly pleasurable? This gets to the NEXT balance: the balance between THINKING about doing, and DOING. When I THINK about exercising, or working, or relationships, or pleasure, the THOUGHTS are depressing, but when I actually DO them, the DOING is usually AT LEAST "even": I hardly EVER feel extreme discomfort while exercising, and usually there's a kick from actually knowing that I'm DOING it at last; when I get into indexing I'm reluctant to STOP, it gets up such a momentum and the accomplishment is so compelling that I go without eating and sleeping, surprised at the incredibly rapid passing of time and amount accomplished. With Dennis, such as the evening at Bruno's and Jimmy Weston's, there was GREAT pleasure at his suggestions and presence and enjoyments. IN the movies, I usually look AT the movies, and it's only afterward that I tend to pull them apart and dissect and discuss them. THINKING about doing the Actualism sessions is so much less fruitful than DOING the Actualism sessions! AHA! A point where there IS no balance: when balancing "thinking about doing" against "doing," the "doing" has it ALL THE WAY.
But there is the point of PLANNING: If I just went from moment-to-moment (as I seem to be DOING these past few weeks: with the "liberation" from the journal I don't have to PRODUCE every day in order to have something to write about to justify myself. I can't use THAT framework for saying "I didn't work enough." I just DO WHAT I DO NEXT, freed even from the need to REMEMBER what I did in order to write it down! I know for a FACT there was little WASTED time --- except when I'd read too long and then feel so lethargic that I'd have to lie down, but then some people take naps every day --- except for "Thinking about doing," which I did too much of.
Yet even HERE there's the balance: I (masochistically?) enjoy DOING after a period of non-doing --- there's the head of steam built for the doing that seems to be dissipated after hours OF accomplishment --- so maybe there HAS to be discomfort before the comfort can follow. Now I remember my thoughts about CONTRAST: if things are BALANCED there aren't any CONTRASTS, though it sounds silly to say you can only be happy if you're UNHAPPY a lot of the time. Maybe the contrast could be built: happy with WORK versus happy with PLAY. Though THAT gets back to why I quit IBM: I felt that I needed a VACATION so strongly that I had to admit that I didn't LIKE the work as much as I should. AT LEAST that situation seems to be improving: I don't feel a drive for vacation to GET AWAY, I feel a drive for vacation to BE AWAY, which is EQUIVALENT to being here in pleasure and desires, yet in lots of ways NOW when I want to be away, I want to take MORE WITH ME: Dennis and friends and reading and most of myself, rather than leaving my "workself" behind as I'd done with IBM. And I can assuage my desires to BE away with the pleasures of BEING HERE --- reflected in the twinge of "I'll have to give up Actualism and the Bolshoi and index-contacts and friends and writing the index book if I take a vacation now." I would PROBABLY merely keep on with the indexing to supply money for pleasure, and concentrate more on the pleasure. I don't really NEED an indexing stuff or a computer. Yet there seems to be need for planning for the future.
Another balance and contrast: when I left IBM I felt that I was denying TOO MUCH of the present (vacations and writing and discomfort with the paper-blizzard-handling my job had resolved to --- plus the ultimate giving-in of having accepted a management job as POSSIBLE) to stack up money and stocks for the FUTURE. NOW I feel that I'm not thinking of the future at all: I DO think that I can index through 70, but through 90 and 110? Yet my lack of faith in the money from IBM (wondering if the US dollar was going to be around in 2020, when I'd be living off my investments in the present) seems to have been restored now that I don't HAVE as much as I "ought to have" for the future.
But what IS the future: another balance! Will the stability/instability inflation/recession crisis/relief crumbling government (of the US or of the WORLD) continue or WILL there be the "1981-end catastrophe" on the economic or tectonic (or both) to SO CHANGE the framework of existence that no planning IS possible --- that sheer moment-to-moment activity be the only one that makes any SENSE? That branches off to the balance of "practical/mystical" that's so "up" for me now: Rolf (investment) versus Amy (great changes coming); world stability (both financial and Richter Scale) versus Actualism (Earthpoint as salvation against both). Here the only possibility DOES seem to be a balance: pursue Actualism and Amy WHILE writing the index book and increasing the number of companies supplying indexes.
Then there's the ecological balances: dishes cleaned or too dirty; the apartment vacuumed or linty; shower accomplished or desirable; what I called for Dennis the "maintenance" that now seems to be done "automatically" and it IS a relief to KNOW that I haven't needed a list for the past month, and the ONLY thing that's suffered is the work side of the work/pleasure balance, and the FUTURE side of the future/current balance. So I had to put on the current pressure of "40 hours of working" to get some of THAT out of the way.
Temperature balances between cool at night and hot at noon; humidity balances that have to be wetted in dry indoor winters and dried in moist outdoor summers; mental/emotional/physical balances to be noted and approved in Actualism Identity Freeings. And Actualism, at least, DOES move along, an OUTSIDE "school" with rules and meetings, with "peers" that reinforce progress and share problems, the perfect kind of "job" that IS pleasure. Bodywork that benefits both equally, though a financial contribution to Earthpoint, accepted as insurance by Alice, still rankles a bit.
Now the balance is shifted: no longer do I wish to write (except to recall the ghost-arms fluttering below Alonso and Esquivel in "Spartacus" where the romanticism of the music and the dancing brought tears to my eyes, doubling my pleasure and my vision, then the smile and almost-laughter when she "performs" the last 3 minutes of "Dying Swan" as a curtain call for her slowest-ever "Swan Lake" pas de deux that was more a study in CONTROL than in grace or beauty, more in TRIBUTE than in present adoration, with her enormous blepharistic exotropic eyes distracting from her well-preserved body), so I can put this away, satisfied, and get to the indexing book at last.
WEDNESDAY, 8/1/79: NOTES FOR FIRST "GROUP" WITH DON AND ERNIE
1) The more you DO and HAVE, the more frustrating it is to be UNHAPPY.
2) You can't feel MORE happy about a relationship than you feel about YOURSELF.
3) I WANT peer-pressure to WORK 20 hours a week on indexing WORK and 20 hours on indexing BOOK. I WANT a deadline to push me to productivity.
4) Deciding about doing is NOTHING; DOING is the whole point of it.
5) If Dennis were SICK for 1/2 hour, you'd support him, why not his pleasure in watching Anita Ellis on a repeat? We DID watch it, Don liked it, and Ernie had been sleeping and joined us later. It seemed to be "get Dennis" session in that his money-profligacy was talked about SO long that he said to me the next day that we'd have to have ground-rules that we would NOT talk about money. He and Ernie felt affinity in that they have to be more forceful in standing up for THEIR rights in the relationship, while Don and I agreed that we had to learn to accept others' suggestions, no matter how much we didn't want to do what WAS suggested, just to support them in their MAKING of suggestions (and this was quickly followed by me and Dennis's lovely evening at Weston's with Bown, at Michael's Pub with Mary Mayo, and at the Rainbow Room for Dennis's birthday with Barbara Lea). But Dennis got angry and had the "FUCK YOU" exit and we agreed it was good that he could get to such anger so quickly, despite his caveats that the group should be bigger and not so "incestuous" (gay male couples), and Amy and Adam thought they might like to join, and Dennis thought of Richard and Sylvia, or whoever that couple was. Ernie's therapist said that we should talk for a BIT, then socialize and eat, but not to do it ALL for 4 hours, and then Don was going away and had to prepare and suddenly a GREAT idea seemed to wither for lack of time to devote to it, except that he said that when he got back from his convention in Seattle at the end of August that we'd get back into it: Ernie eager to cook dinner in a wok, Dennis and I willing to get picnic stuff together for dining in the park, Ernie having to work at midnight making it good to be on the West Siee, and Dennis decided on Thursday that he DID want it to continue, even before his Friday deadline.
THURSDAY, 9/6/79: AMY SESSION 1: "Yes, thank you, now, allow me to place myself comfortably into --- that is nice --- into my position. You have many questions of where I inhabit and HOW I inhabit."
"Yes, that's right."
"Well, I will answer one of the questions, as to NOW when I speak, I inhabit the enlarged braincase of Amy. You see, I inhabit what would fill out to be a halo --- a comfortable place to live at the moment! You see it is a point of spiritual power that lies within each individual, and that each individual may cultivate the space, and as Amy is quite talented in the ability to go magnetic, I, for example, may inhabit that braincase that enlarges to that size of the halo. Now, I will bid you hello and say that I am pleased to see you in the physical form. Of course, you know that we have visited each other and communicated in the less physical form, but in form nonetheless. I speak, of course, of the interplay in communication that has taken place already. Now --- there has been healing around you in different areas, mainly related to the spiritual side of your life, although there has been healing in the physical form as well. And I have kept a gentle eye upon your progress in these areas, and at least to note that there has been a definite gaining in abilities to communicate in manners that have been deprived you in the past, and we shall explore the deeper nature of these abilities."
"Good."
"But would you perhaps care to ask a specific question, as we can in that way earth our intention in you."
"Do you have any suggestions of ways I can improve my physical wellbeing in food or work habits in my everyday life?"
"That is for you a most complicated question, as you see I must start with the physical manifestations and proceed to work into the more subtle mechanisms of life. For example, we speak of the food that you ingest, and I can start with a very simple area: for example, the meat, and the bones in the meat. I notice that the habit here is to enjoy with gusto eating of the meat, and as I follow that image of you, I see that you have had numerous experiences upon the Earth-plane as a hunter, and that you have in each case enjoyed great status as a hunter, and have been a leader in the band, so to speak, and that you have always appreciated the protein value of the flesh and the marrow, and that you have always enjoyed esteem in association with meat and flesh, and particularly in an Indian experience, where you were GREATLY honored as the primary hunter for the troop. So we see the most common physical experiences trace back into the more subtle and spiritual experiences. There is, you know, a constant interplay of forces from one realm to the next. If you care to know, perhaps you can supplement the intake so that the strong and pronounced protein intake that you have daily can be distributed throughout the physical system most effectively. I would --- let me think for a minute to see if there is a particular suggestion that I have in this realm."
"It's interesting, I have a little list of supplements ..."
"I would suggest, you see, the most important thing is to trans --- trans --- (pause) transport (pause) the energy that you receive from the protein to the cells. And to do this you need sufficient liquids. The liquids are most important to carry the protein content and to carry out the excess protein content."
"What about wine (she belches), is that a beneficial liquid?"
"It is not harmful for your system --- that is, of course, in moderate amounts, not in excess. Even you would overdo it."
"On occasion, yes."
"I speak of the water and fruit juices." "I see." "As to the vitamins that you would choose to supplement, the yeast is most effective, and still the lecithin that you did use is still good, and vitamin A and E, to keep the system young, which you so much would like."
"Yes. Thank you."
"Particularly the A would help you with that youthful quality that you seek."
"What about C, vitamin C?"
"Well, there is no harm, but one that has never seemed a primary tool to keep the (joke) upkeep of the body at a maximum. I would add, now, you see, that attention through your body comes mainly through the forehead. And if I would choose to reduce stress, for example, I would lay you upon the sofa and take a warm towel, something warm, and remove the glasses, and to go magnetic, as you call it, to reduce the muscle strain, eye strain, and general tension that you build up through the front of the brain and the various muscles and bones of the forehead. In that way, blood circulation will improve."
"A couple of sources have mentioned a method for improving eyesight. Would that be beneficial in my case?"
"I would suggest ANYTHING to improve your eyesight, based on the technique and tools of relaxation. This could be done in various ways: acupuncture, the pressure point of the eyes; the massage around the eyes, or the technique that you speak of too would be helpful."
"I was speaking of the Bates Method in particular."
"Yes, that would be nice as again it uses the healing tools of the sun and warmth is effective in this case. We are looking for warmth and relaxation of the muscles. That would certainly help. You see you build up a great deal of tension in the eyes and in the forehead as well. They are one and the same system in your case, as you have little separation there --- you have blended the energies so totally between the brain function and the eyes that we must relieve one AND the other in simultaneity. I bet you did not know that!"
"No" (laughing).
"See, you think you have figured it all out, and it doesn't take an interest in my (bi ?) standard to assist you in connection?"
"Were there also any senses that you had of mineral supplements, such as zinc or selenium or ..."
"The minerals would be most effective. You know, I trust your judgment to add as you need to, to subtract as you need to."
"I fear taking too much. I fear bypassing my own natural ..."
"Yes, that is important; you must allow the organs to function as they would like to, as well."
"So, I'm most concerned about overdoing anything. Is there anything that you sense that I would be overdoing."
"The zinc you do not need much of, a small amount will suffice. That is a dense material, you know, and it could settle unhappily in the intestinal area, and we do not want you to build up, to be a zinc bar (laugh)--- and it would settle in your intestines, I believe, as you have a receptive intestine."
"Is there any connection between a feeling I've had about an hour after eating of a very slight nausea, almost. Is that connected with the zinc, for instance?"
"No, I do not believe it is the zinc. You do not have a build-up as yet, however, I warn you not to overdo the zinc, you see. I would suspect, you see, it is anticipatory of me to speak of this is these days, as you shall uncover this yourself as you develop the ability to focus in the systems discretely."
"I so wish to do that, and yet --- "
"You shall, you are doing it bit by bit. You see, you must have patience with your own development of abilities, and I can sense, for example, that you ARE making your way in this area. I will say that the nausea --- the discomfort, perhaps, is a better word, I do not feel comfortable saying "Nausea," I do not sense that --- the discomfort that comes from the fact that as yet you have not appreciated the true sensitivity that is in the intestinal area and digestive area. You have an extremely kind, sensitive, and loving digestive area. You know you have tromped upon it a bit, and treated it perfunctorily. It is there to do the job for you and you do not want to indulge it, and it does need attention, in terms of allowing the emotional content to drain off when it overloads, and to listen to it gently, so ... "
"Could you say more about that emotional content draining off, I don't --- "
"Well, I speak of the emotional content of the digestive system in general. You have particularly concentrated the emotional content in the area of the body and bodies. Now when you have not listened to them, in totality you know, with true sincerity, the emotional content does not have the chance to release, and at times it builds up, and then when you add food to it and just blithely expect it to digest, it is sometimes overloaded. And you must at that moment in time relax yourself and ask this system to explain to you what it is feeling that is taking up the space. Do you follow me?"
"Yes, yes."
"And chances are that you will hear some things of information relating to your emotional life, as that truly is where you have relegated your emotional content, to that part of the bodies." (Pause)
"Amy said that there were things that you wanted to tell me."
"Yes, there are many areas I should like to discuss with you; many of them you and she have already explored, but I will add to them my own insights."
"Yes, please."
"Excuse me for a moment, I am looking at your bodies, and I am most interested to see. You know, there are prototypes of bodies, and you have a definite prototype, and it is the Aries prototype as upon your forehead there is the mark of Aries. I have never seen this before, and it is most interesting to me. I see the ram's horns upon the forehead of your spirit body, and that is most delightful sight to me, as it speaks of the pure vibration, the CLEAR statement of the impulsive nature of mankind, and the courage to take action, and the desire and enjoyment of exploration. I must say that in this day I see that quality so rarely, and it is usually so masked behind fear and uncertainty that it is, as I say, a delight and uplifting experience for me to visit it so purely in humans."
"I'm please to be a source of delight for you."
"Thank you. That is cosmic humor! (laughs) Humor, you know, is such a healing force and if it could be directed with constructive thoughts you would not need the psychologists, and you know they are so GRAVE ... "
"Ah, yes, no humor at all ... "
"And humor would HEAL so much more quickly. I should love to see in the mental institutions HUMOR used. You know, you said I have political consciousness; I do not call it that, truly, I call it human consciousness. I am so aware of groups of people, that is why you call it political, I suppose. You know, Amy had a dream last night about a mental institution. That was my way of talking to her, and saying I should like to talk about that. You know, there are so many people who have had that experience, and in truest sense they come out worse than they go in, and it is so sad. And truly if humor and light, the white light, could be channeled to these institutions, and appropriate people used to enlighten the atmosphere, you would have such a different experience in these institutions."
"It's remarkable that some of the people in Actualism work in these institutions."
"Do they, that is marvelous; I'm so happy to hear that."
"What is your sense of Actualism? You seem to use the white light, for instance, as Actualism does; bodies, as Actualism does; may I ask, is Actualism actual?"
"Is actual? There are many people who come to me and they each have a different brand of enlightenment. You know, it is beyond brand names, enlightenment, and the truth is that each individual must find a tool that assists for the wisdom within. Now they use color and light, and in that they are absolutely correct to use, and the colors are very powerful healing tools. I am glad that Amy and you have been developing these tools as they are definite vibration raisers/ razors (suppressed laughter). That is to say they raise the vibrations."
"Oh, no, I like you first "are aye ZEE ... "
"Oh, good, I am hoping you understood. Most people do not FOLLOW my jokes." (laughter)
"Your laughter is waves of light."
"Oh, you make me feel very pleasant, thank you."
"It comes right back to me you. I am most touched."
"Do you have ideas for vision of Earth Point. Both Amy and I seem to be concerned about the actuality of Earth Point."
"Yes, I would encourage you and she to discuss and put into form the doubts that you have, they need to hear that."
"For instance, they ask for letters. I was thinking of writing a letter ... "
"Yes, absolutely, You must. Amy has wanted to talk to you about that, and I agree fully. There are many problems with that community. Much to be digested, you know, and if your emotional intestines were overloaded, that would be exactly the situation. It is immediately in need of great assistance and truth-telling and they must hear truth from all the members of the family."
"I'm always so reluctant to think that I know the truth, or even a piece of the trust."
"Oh, you MUST acknowledge that you know your piece of the truth. That would be, for example, to have a body with a fingertip that says "Oh, no, my truth is not good enough. I must not speak about it." That fingertip experiences the perfect truth of the fingertip, and you must share your INVALUABLE insights that you have about it. I too have a sense of discouragement, at this moment in time, about the community, but would be happy to encourage it in any way that I can. It is FLOUNDERING a bit right now: it can be --- and must be --- explored in totality; as the wave of the future, you know, does not look too bright, for the form of living that has been on this planet in this century: with the very self-conscious and selfish nature that each person has and the overwhelming attitude of "I do for myself and damn my neighbor," and you know that has been quite destructive to the environment and to each individual."
"There's also, I sense, a kind of blackmail, almost, by frightening the students with thoughts of either economic catastrophe or physical catastrophe, to increase our commitment to this community."
"Yes, well, you know, my love, you must speak out to them, and you must communicate that, I can feel the tension in your body-systems, and in Amy's as well. You must communicate these feeling to them."
"Is there any correctness to their perception of coming catastrophes, as you see?"
"Yes, there is. We shall speak of that in group formation, and we can heal it only by group energy applied forcefully. I have come to this planet largely in response to the cries I have heard from enlightened beings informing me of impending changes. Now there is a chance for a very unusual revealing of energies, but it must be done in intelligent and enlightened formation, and I would choose to help in that reconstruction. But I do not say this to frighten you, either ... "
"It doesn't sound frightening when you say it, somehow; it sounds frightening when others say it."
"Well, you hear it with fear, my dear; your ears filter in the fear, and that is one thing we must work on, each person's filters, you see. We shall start there. The facts are that there are to be changes. You have been given hints over time, small hints, and ultimately larger and larger hints, and you have a grace period with which to develop your skills, but it is time to develop them."
"Is there a way that I can more greatly assist in the developing of them?"
"You may develop your own spiritual bodies, for example, and in doing so you gain great power that you can use effectively."
"How can I do that?"
"Well, you do that by the work you have been doing, the work on other physical systems, and to have you own work done in enlightenment, to do the daily meditation work that you must do. And ultimately, too, perhaps, dare I say this, change your diet a bit, to include lighter foods ... "
"Such as?"
"The sprouts. Particularly the sprouts, you know, I think you should eat them even now, the long sprouts, the mung sprouts, they are particularly good for you as the cellulose body of the sprout will help tremendously in assimilation in your body. But they MUST be fresh, and you must clean them carefully, and throw away the rotted parts, and that takes time. And you have such a limited time, I could laugh as I speak to you now ... "
"I could laugh, too, when I hear a phrase like that ..."
"You don't like to stand at the sink. That's true, I see that. Well, your friend will be happy to help you, I can see that."
"Dennis."
"Yes, and if you explain to him that you need some of the sprouts in your food, he will happily help you there."
"Yes, I think he would."
"He will truly feel a happiness in that service, so you can mention to him that I have asked him to help you."
"Good. Is there a name I may call you?"
"Indeed, I have a name; the name that I have --- and you will appreciate it --- is not a name that translates into this realm, as it is based on a language that is not human, and it is a SHAPE and a NUMBER, and the shape has many sides, and it is my true identifying term, but as I am working in these realms now, I have used the name which you can contact me and may contact me, and the name that I use is SheLAH."
"SheiLA!"
"The name is spelled "s" --- capital S. small h, small e, capital L, capital A, capital H. It is a generic term for a certain kind of energy, and it is an energy of service, and --- Love-Desire to serve, is how you would translate it into your English language (laughter). I like that translation; I never found words to your English before."
"It sounds very good; I'm sure Amy will like to hear it."
"She has never heard it either. The name SheLAH you may use as it is more vibrationally correct than Love-Desire to Serve."
"May I use that name ... "
"Yes."
"For instance, with Dennis?"
"With Dennis? You must, however, when you mention my name to anyone, you must prepare them by cleaning out their solar plexus before you mention it."
"OK."
"You do that by connecting your brain and your solar plexus to their own and you clear away the cobwebs before you mention the name. As you see, it gives, in Arabic they call the work Baraka, which is to say it is a blessing. The name itself carries blessing and healing powers, and you must make sure that the person is in the right state and time and TONE to receive the blessing, as otherwise you will have pearls before the swine."
"Yes, I feel your trusting me with that is a gift, is a blessing, I thank you for."
"Well, you know you have the timing, you just do not trust it. And if I in any way can assist you in the process of trust, then I will have Love-Desire to Serve you, and that is the greatest service I could do for you."
"Yes, I believe that ... I think I need a few minutes to recuperate, do have anything else you'd like to say?"
"Yes, I shall talk in that case. I shall let you to go to your receptive state --- I, you see, prefer the word "receptive," but I use your language of "magnetic ... "
"No, you may use the word "receptive" sounds fine with me if you wish ... "
"Oh, thank you; I should rather use my own language."
"Yes, please."
"OK, then, now I shall speak of other matters. Would you like to hear of different past lives, perhaps, to fill the time."
"Oh, well, um, yes."
"Yes, very well. You had one life where you were entrusted to guard the fort. Now you guard the fort with a passion, and it was almost an obsession to you, your life lay in guarding the fort. Well, you did a good job, but you kill PEOPLE in the process, you must attend to this quality in this life. You must guard the fort, but USE the human qualities that you have chosen in this life with kindness as well. I know you see that I am speaking of your work and of dealing with people emotionally in the course of your work. Do you follow?"
"Yes. I almost hesitate to ask --- Are you saying that I should lower standards, for instance?"
"I am not saying that you should lower standards; that is a gift that you have, to perceive the correct and appropriate job and its finishing product. I AM saying that you must constantly attend to the emotional content of the individual with whom you have been blessed to work."
"Yes."
"That is the job that you must do. The other half of the job is second nature. The job that is first nature is to attend to the emotional lines and connections between you and the person and the job."
"And of course it's in this area that I can learn the most."
"Well, you HAVE the chance to be truly gifted in this area. You have much energy there to be worked with. The more that you refine it and guide it and enlighten it is the length to which you can go in perfection of it."
"I think coming back in my mind, to my writing."
"Yes".
"I have such an ambivalence toward it ... "
"Yes."
"That sometimes I feel that life would be easier if I just forgot about it, and said --- if I do it, I do it, otherwise forget about it; don't put pressure on myself. At other times I say, if I don't put pressure on myself, I won't do it; I don't know quite which side to come down on."
"I have mentioned that. Months ago you mentioned this issue to me, and I said to Amy that I would like to speak to you about an issue that concerns you, and I would like to tell you that I will speak to the group members about it as well, as everyone will profit from it, for which I will use you as the example if you do not mind. The issue is the Creative Use of Time. Now, time can be used in many ways. To use it productively is to use it creatively. What that means is, if you have the creative impulse for five minutes, then you use it in creative areas for that five minutes. When it is over, you release it, and you do what is NEXT on the agenda. And if you STICK with it beyond five minutes, you have wasted time. And you see you have built a structure for yourself which is hard, in part a denial of the creative use of your powers."
"Yes, I've been in the process of destroying some of these structures, and I felt that it's been the right direction. Do you feel it's the right direction?
"It is the attitude that concerns me, I sense you with an axe in hand going in hacking down the structures. They are not hateful structures; you know they have served you once."
"Yes."
"And what we need to do is notice that you have reached a period of selfhood where you have more creativity available to you, and that you need a new set of structures that can carry you in many DIFFERENT directions rather than --- You see the structures you had, for example, I see like the jungle gym; you know, they are square built upon squares, with bars connecting to bars, and the new structures that you need are more like rounded tunnels, carrying you to ANY direction and back, to center, and from center, a new tunnel in a new direction. In a sense it enlarges your scope, but channels it more intensely. You have less times at destruction and more direction. If you can think of that image, you may find the door unlocking. You know that jungle gym of directions did serve you in the work that you have done in math and physics and connections of those kinds. And in the lifetimes you have led. But now you have more creative options, and that jungle gym do not carry you through that. Does that in any way provide a source of inspiration ... "
"Yes."
"I hope it does."
"But I still read things in physics which seem so fascinating, and I think there should be some combination of physics and --- the word that I would use is mysticism, although ... "
"Yes, you need the tunnel AND the jungle gym. Now truly, I do not mean to deny you of physics, you know, that is at the end of a tunnel, too. But explore in a new way, that is what I would tell you. And if your five minutes is up, then come back to center, and then spend the next ten minutes in a different tunnel."
"That sounds appealing."
"You will have much more satisfaction, I am sure. Try it and play with the experience and see how far you get. We can refine it at a later date."
"Good, good."
"Let's see, did you have something, did I have something ..."
"How are we on the time, I sense that Amy is tiring ... "
"We are coming to the end of the 45-minutes tape ... "
"Thank you (laughing)"
"I wanted to ask you about Seth and Jane Roberts."
"Yes?"
"Do you work with them?"
"Well, let me think about how to answer that. We ARE united, you know, and have come from related spaces and purposes. They have made it possible for many other entities to enter your realms, and Seth was the icebreaker in that way, and Jane Roberts did serve a tremendous service by externalizing and manifesting this method of communication, such that many people now are willing to listen to such a method of communication."
"Is it useful to ask about where you're from, or how you get here?" Or how you know what it is you know, or is this a distraction from ..."
"Well, it is not truly a distraction, but at this time I can give you only a sketchy detail, as I should like to explain that in a group more distinctly. I come FROM the Outer Spaces, so to speak. That is, that I come from a point which is beyond the Solar System that YOU know, and I am located in consciousness and ..."
"Do you have a form?"
"Yes, I do, but it would not be recognizable in its essence; as I earthe on this level, I take on a form that can be recognized by some people with optical vision. But it is truly not MY form, I take it on as a vehicle. That form blends more easily with the earth elements of the body of Amy that I USE."
"Is it easiest to say that you are at a different frequency?"
"Yes, that is an excellent way to put it. Thank you. I was hunting about for the explanation. I am not so skilled as Seth, for example, in explaining the methods of things. I operate more from a Love-Desire to Serve; he operates more in Love-Desire to Bring to Wisdom. In that way he has different skills than I do, and can END OF SIDE ONE
"The filters of who I use to channel through makes a difference as well. If I chose to channel through a different individual we would have a very different content. To a certain extent I am limited by the experiences and the language of my medium, that is why I have encouraged her to branch out into places that she has not wanted to."
"I would love to ask you about Time and Space, but I feel that it is just too big to get into at this point."
"Yes, that is time and space. I agree; it would be most valuable to explore, but also we must remember what is the purpose for the exploration, and at what level can you use that information, and that is something to consider in what we discuss about, too. It is, of course, not as it is conceived of in your nature, you know that. Mr. Einstein has PROVED it, in fact. I should enjoy to speak about the remarkable people of this century and of the last and to notice the trends in human development. That interests me tremendously."
"Who would you speak of?"
"Well, the political leaders intrigue me tremendously, but various scientists and individuals of service, of course. People who have taken a particular quality and raised it to excellence are always of interest."
"A friend of mine is very much tied up with the work of Gurdjieff..."
"Yes, I thought you would mention him"
"Is his work still of value at this time?"
"Most definitely, but you know that a teaching crystallizes when the impetus is gone, when the individual who gave it such a special quality is removed. While he himself, Mr. Gurdjieff, has retained an interest in his own work and has meddled a bit in the running of his schools..."
"Since his death?"
"Yes."
"But he has lost of bit of interest and has only taken a cursory interest in directing things."
"Would it still be of benefit to my friend to attach himself to the work?"
"Yes, each person can get a certain amount out of the teaching. It does, as I say, lose the power of the individual. You see, that person could effect a more powerful change in a person, for example, if your friend would have gone when he was alive, he would have moved much quicker and much faster through the difficulties of his personality, if Mr. Gurdjieff could have---well, the gurus in India today "pung" you (laughter) ... it is TRUE, you know, in India they have their feathers, and in Japan they have their sticks, it is a very important part, to bang into awareness the pupil."
"Even in Actualism they have---the teachers have their way of banging into awareness."
"Yes, it is most important, for the purpose to have the most highly educated and skilled individual, to do that. I, of course, would always advise, if you can, to choose a living school to study in. But that is not to say you will not get the work that you need. Of course, Confucius is no longer in life."
"No."
"And his teachings are most valuable."
"Are there other schools, aside from Confucius, that are most valuable now?"
"Of course, I only mention Confucius as I studied with him myself and did find his heartfulness and kindness and sensitivities to be unbelievable, and I was most touched by him. Oh, there are infinite schools that one can follow. The only limiting factor is your cultural background and your personality requirements. You find the one that suits you best. And you know some people never find any, and they must act this life out in some way. Of course, the Christian one is most special too, and I am in this work that I do now amplifying that work most greatly. I think that you know they speak of this being the end of the Piscean Age, which in a sense is to say the end of the Christian Age, and I should like to tie up those teaching and to scatter their awareness as far and as powerfully as I can. I truly am here to magnify the work of the Master, Jesus, and that is important at this day, as we tie up the age of Christ and move forward into yet a new age. We can't name it as yet."
"Will there be a figure as ... "
"I believe will be one, perhaps two figures ... for sure."
"Have they become manifest yet?"
"No. You are in the preparatory stages, in kindergarten."
"I'm still impatient."
"Oh, well, you know you must go to kindergarten, learn to do the finger-paints, and develop the fingertips, and move your way up."
"You mean I'm still in kindergarten? (insincere laughter)"
"The world is exactly in kindergarten. Most people are so lost in terms of being ready to support the New Age, even to support the Old Age. You know there is much to learn there. Well, I believe that I shall give you my final blessing, which is to say that "My love for you is sent with the hopes that you can use it and its energy in whatever way you need to at any moment, and you may feel free to use it in your relationships, in your sexual experiences, even; in your mental and spiritual development, and use it any time that you may need it to call upon me and ask my assistance is what I crave most: Love-Desire to Service, again I mention it. And if I can serve you, you mention it on the inner if you like or you can mention it to Amy, too, as of course I HEAR most clearly what is said to her, and I do tend to stick around her environment as she is the anchor in the world, the physical world. But you can, of course, call upon that energy whenever you need to, I would suggest that when you choose to call on me to use the color pink, and I will respond to that most clearly. Pink, is a great color for me to use, I am most fond of it. I would say blue to some people, you know, but blue is already overemphasized to you, so I say pink."
"OK."
"I send my blessings to your friend as well, his presence is most apparent to me in this room right now. And I would like to help him in his body as he has stiffened incredibly in the neck and the spine, and I would like to mention to him that he need not carry so much compression in his body like that, and if he chooses to develop himself, he can grow straight and tall towards the sun."
"We have a sense that the Actualism neck-spine-and-hip would benefit him, is this true?"
"I certainly would say any type of loving touch on that part of his body will help, but it is in the heart itself that the changes will be made."
"I thank you."
"You are MOST welcome. I am of course delighted to see you in the physical and I have seen you so many times before in the spirit bodies and astral bodies. You know you have visited this apartment, and I have seen you here many times, and the astral body does you well: it is full of color and bright design and easily recognizable. You should carry the body in such a bright colors too."
"I SHOULD carry my body in such bright colors?"
"Yes."
"I'll have to think about that. (Laughter)"
"It is easy to identify you in that way. But I will not miss you, no, you need not worry. I'll know who you are."
"I thank you."
"Well done. I shall channel upon you the pure light of love. Its steadying influence is always apparent. And I would add the blessing of the Masters whom you have always been willing to serve. And the healing that you so happily take in and use in your physical systems and your substances as well. And I send also a prayer to the women in your life who you are so concerned with as well, to your mother and to your sister as they too are loving souls and have always sent their good wishes. So I shall see you soon."
"I hope so."
"Thank you for the visit."
Pause. Sounds from Amy. Laughs and sighs.
Amy: "Intense energy, isn't it?"
"I bet you're tired."
""I'm tired, but not in the usual way of tired. I'm not in my body, that's the first thing---when I first see this body, I always look at it as if newborn." I shut off tape.
Throughout the session Amy, sitting cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed, moved her arms and hands about a foot and a half from her head, as if adjusting an enormous hat decorated with dangling flowers that were in need of constant adjustment to produce the vocabulary or the very MECHANICS of the communication. When she mentioned Dennis she first motioned off to the left and then off to the right, and then in her final blessings her hands lowered to waist-level in a series of horizontal palm-on-wrist reversals that put me in mind of Japanese waitresses with their hands moving under towels, and the accent at times seemed Japanese, as did the arch happiness at the ability to joke in another person's language. There was much smiling, great affectionate laughter, almost no judgmentalism, and a feeling of two people getting to know each other, yet possibly overly considerate of the feelings of the other, concerned that a beginning relationship be established with as much loving and tenderness as may be, consistent with communication, knowledge, and the transmission of much-needed information and data.
SATURDAY, 9/8/79: NOTE ON AMY'S READING: Suddenly, in the shower, it seems clear. Thinking to ask SheLAH (and does she capitalize ONLY because it's accented on the second syllable?) whether her "frequency" differs in SPACE (any of the three space coordinates) or in TIME (along the time coordinate) or along a RESULTANT of both, it dawns on me that THIS representation can have a THIRD dimension: that of FREQUENCY ITSELF, so that it differs OUTSIDE aspects of EITHER space or TIME, so that at EACH time-space point in the universe, there are possibilities of MANY frequency-choices. They are probably not INFINITE frequency choices, since something that happens "close" to "our" frequency would appear as a shadow, or a disturbance, or certainly as a DISTURBER (so that interpenetration of two frequencies would cause death, for example), while the "other" frequencies might be so far (is a million times different too close, then go to a million-million times different; still too close? Try a quadrillion-quadrillion then) that they would be "untouched" by present reality, just as a human eye is "untouched" by the bullet's path, the hummingbird's wing, or the voice of God. (Then my fantasy leads me to think of SheLAH acknowledging me as a TRUE-VOICED medium, where the medium SO inhabits my brain that I think it's me talking, but the transcendency of my thoughts makes it clear that it has to be someone ELSE! And as she said (though I doubt) that Seth and Jane Robert were the icebreakers for the trance mediums, I might be the icebreaker for the NONtrance mediums!) FASTER seems better for "speaking entities" since it seems easier to SLOW DOWN rather than to SPEED UP, though something like "the breath of the universe" or the "music of the spheres" or "the rhythm of the cosmos" might occupy a SLOWER band as much LOWER than our frequencies as the astral is ABOVE. Frequency is times (dimensionless) per second (dimensioned). There should be a frequency which is IN FACT dimensionless: times per---what? But as science posits an ultimate unit of length, so they posit an ultimate unit of TIME, so it would be number-of-occurrences ("times" is complicating) per UNIT---NUMBER/UNIT, so that UNIT (1) per UNIT would cancel TOTALLY: energetically, "unit"ly, TOTALLY! What WILL SheLAH say?
WEDNESDAY, 9/26/79: WORTHLESS ASIS MEETING: This is the last meeting on mini-, micro-, and word processing computers, and there'll be a new series for the 4 meetings per year. $45 membership too much for awful people, company-oriented computers, and "too-professional" orientation. She had the system since July and did one month's indexing by September, which she thinks is good. Jessica Harris Milstead's company Research Publications, Inc, at 12 Lunar Drive in Woodbridge, CT 06525 is indexing the Washington Post newspaper, started project January 1979. Done by graphic arts composition, ask her for sample. Controlled vocabulary, now human maintained. Printed monthly, cumulated annually. Online database companies will take over any online process coming up. Microcomputer is running: by Bibliographic Retrieval Service in Scotia New York, with a PBX system using Basic, Pascal, and Lisp. Sent TO Scotia for main processing; THEY only have an Alpha micro, 64K core going quickly to 128 K, with a hard disk system of 10 million characters, and since they only need 1.25 million characters/month they thought they'd do LOTS with 10 million, but with BLOCKING fixed at 512 characters they're lucky to get ONE month's work on! Key online, rough sort, HAND edit, and sent to BRS for processing. THEY MUST POST-EDIT INDEX: at least to combine Abzug, Bella and Abzug, Bella S. IBM said HARDWARE would be about $80-$100,000, since she said that was TWICE as much as the about $30,000 cost for THEIR system! TOO EXPENSIVE. Turnkey system: "format and commands not IDEAL, but workable. TOO small memory. No tape, transmission by PHONE lines (and someone from The Foundation said that HER phone lines were cheap at $8/hour, which the company paid for). "Today the new modem came, and it didn't work; and the phone lines didn't work either, so we don't have samples. We couldn't print for the last 3 days. Keep asking questions, don't assume ANYTHING, there's a staff of 5 now, the system is "tolerated and accepted" and they're sad that forward cursor-movement ERASES data, rather than just moving the cursor, and there are times that all the terminals lock up and they have to RE-INPUT all the data that has been lost to that time, and it just DOESN'T sound like the perfect system to WORK with at ALL, maybe I should stay away from it completely??
THURSDAY, 9/27/79: ACTUALISM COMMITMENT OF 9/13: Since I AM DOING Actualism, I may as well do it ALL. If I'm being conned, I might as well be conned ALL the WAY and get "suckered" into "sensing." Could aging (the rigidifying of the body) be merely the OUTWARD sign of a rigidifying of the MIND? So that CONTINUOUS OPENNESS might lead to permanent second childhood?
THURSDAY, 10/18/79: AMY SESSION 2.
S: I am most pleased to speak with you.
B: Good, I'm glad Amy has her sickness over with and can speak with us.
S: One thing I would like to mention to you and to her has to do with sickness. I am amused by the way that you people wear it as a costume. But there is a value to it, of course. You might have wondered what the sounds were that I made to you briefly there, a moment ago. They were the vibrations of the mustard plaster (highly amused). One can use the vibrations to extract the same energy-change as one can use the physical substance. And of course in the former days of ancient medicines, mustard plasters were very popular---with good reason, I might add, applied to the heart and lungs, they were quite a good vitalizer. So for you, as you have congestion, that I see, I use the mustard plaster vibrations.
B: Maybe I should use a real mustard plaster or will you teach me the vibrations?
S: Well, I cannot teach the vibrations, I conduct them.
B: I see.
S: You of course could use it, but you will not need it as you receive the vibrations.
B: I wish I did not have to wear the coat of disease. It seems I get congestion and sneezes much too often. Is there anything I can---?
S: Well, you have the habit (pronounced "hobbit") of remaining inside too much. You must move about vitally to receive the air in and out of the lungs. If you were to take a brisk and brief walk daily, you would cleanse the system such that you would not get what you would call "sick" as often.
B: That sounds good.
S: Well, THANK you (laughing).
B: May I ask---you were asking if I were curious about the noise, I'm also curious about Amy's hands. Could you say if that performs a function for your transmission.
S: (Laughing) You are nosy. Well, yes, of course it does, you are correct to question that. I animate her body, so to speak, and of course from the hands there is a great release of energy. This is true of the physical body, in general. So I find that I can release my energy through the throat, but effectively and more subtly through the hands. And the more receptive an individual is, the more I can manipulate the hands.
B: You speak of other individuals, I wondered if there were other people in New York that you talk to, who might be interested in joining with us in Amy's upcoming group.
S: In the group? Oh, I am pleased to answer the question. You must tell to Amy to use that blue energy that she is so fond of since birth, and to send it forward in a circular motion, and to draw towards her and to the group already formed the new individuals who are needed. And of course as I speak, I send energy now from the pinky to inform you. Yes, it is true it has been a slow process to gather together the individuals.
B: Because you mentioned the last time we spoke that other people would come to you with different brands of enlightenment, and I wondered if those were people who were nearby, nearby in New York, that we could combine with.
S: I do not follow the question.
B: People that we could communicate with, on the physical level, that you may already be in contact with as transmitters, of your energy.
S: I am not sure I follow, but there is no other body that I use---is that your question?
B: Yes, essentially that's my question.
S: I do not use different bodies, though I have some portions of attention rooted elsewhere.
B: I see. May I continue asking questions about my personal health?
S: Please do.
B: I was wondering, and Amy also said that she thought, you might be interested in talking about homosexuality. I wondered if there was anything damaging, or anything that should be emphasized in my sexual practices, that you would tell me about.
S: Well, what I had to speak to you about related to the past, and that you are correct in supposing this is not your first experience of homosexuality (ho-mo-sex-you-al-ity). You did enjoy it greatly in the Greek time, and did find it, to say the least, satisfactory, and as you incarnated in this century you did have memories that were always quite strong WITH you, and of the enjoyment that many others did have of it as well. The difficulty is, of course, that you are not in an environment that is friendly toward this preference. It is rather hostile.
B: Yes.
S: And you do receive damage from the group thought towards the issue itself, and then towards yourself personally.
B: It may be one of the reasons why I'm not receptive in general; that I've closed myself down from the criticism of society against that.
S: Yes. I would say that is the damage that is to be done with this issue, not so much the preference itself. But you have something hankering behind that question now.
B: I was wondering if anything I did was damaging. For instance, I went to a place called the Mineshaft the other night, and it seemed very unpleasant. And I remember Amy talking about Aviva's "creatures of darkness" and I wondered if this was just a personal feeling on my part or if there was some objective darkness in this place.
S: Well, that is quite perceptive of you. To tell you, there are two answers to that question. The first is that there is alcohol served in this environment. Now alcohol will attract darkness, as there are entities who search continually for the alcohol binge. They are not physical; they are the ghosts of alcoholics, or in fact just beings who search for dissolution.
B: Dissolution? You mean dissolving?
S: Yes, Is that not the word---?
B: Yes, yes.
S: Now the other half of the question is that there are individuals who show up in this environment, who are of a lower nature. You do know this?
B: Yes.
S: They are coarse. There are of course races of humankind, and you will attract sexually, to environment that are sexually oriented, that is to say. You will attract these lower races. And they bring a coarse nature to the environment.
B: Maybe I need a guide to show me where the finer races are---I suspect that might not be part of your knowledge.
S: Well, they are scattered all about.
B: Yes.
S: And you have befriended them.
B: Yes.
S: They are your friends.
B: Yes.
S: And of course you sense those who are not of the more refined races. Races, I must explain, does not mean the same.
B: No, I understood you to mean personality types, or feeling types, something of that sort, rather than genetic races.
S: Yes.
B: What about the substance amyl nitrite. Is that damaging to the physical body?
S: It is damaging to the tissues of the nasals.
B: Yes.
S: You must make decisions. You know that yourself, that it cannot be good for the tissues.
B: Yes. But it seems that the good is---the damage is very little as I understand it, and as I experience it.
S: Well, it affects the aura. Now this is the deeper answer. No drugs can, of course, just affect the physical system, but the field energies. Now any drug, and this one is included, will unbalance what has been balanced. In many people, they have never been balanced, so it is just further disarray.
B: Yes.
S: But in your case, you do reach point of equilibrium, within your physical systems and your sensitive systems, and when you use a drug, you unbalance the work you have done. With this drug in particular, along the left side of the body, coming out in emanations from the solar plexus. And it cramps it in two. It has a corresponding function to what happens in the physical systems, that is to say. No one is going to bend your arm, of course. You ask for the information and I give it.
B: Right.
S: You may of course take your time to come to realizations about how you would choose to use these substances and these environments. You CAN be there and be transparent TO the darker natures. But if you find that they are no longer transparent to YOU, then the best is to find a newer environment.
B: That gives reinforcement to the feelings that I had: that at a certain point I WAS transparent, and that was OK, and then when it appeared that I was becoming more visible, I did leave, so I appreciate the correspondence of our observations in that. Thank you.
S: Well, thank you, too.
B: Is there anything---Seth had mentioned something about the benefits of sleeping for short periods of time.
S: Yes.
B: For my physical type, or for Amy's physical type, would the benefits of this be good enough to use?
S: A-ha. Let me answer that: you ask about two very different physical types.
B: OK.
S: For Amy it would not be satisfactory; she needs to dream. She is a dreamer and that is one of her greatest talents. She does not know this yet, and she must spend an extended period of time reaching the different levels, so the most she can cut her sleep to is six hours. More than that is a great damage to her whole being. Now you have a different constitution. You can produce more energy from these than she can. You could cut your sleep down---well, you DO have minimum sleep now that I look at it, you sleep less than most individuals. You could experience the two-hour sleep that he suggests, and then back it up, later in the evening, with a five-hour sleep.
B: Would there be an optimum time of evening for me to take these?
S: Two in the morning to sleep.
B: 2 am for the five-hour sleep? And what time for the two-hour sleep?
S: 3 o'clock.
B: 3 in the afternoon.
S: But that one you may vary. The 2 am is when your bodies are tired.
B: Yes, I've observed that. Is there anything else about my living circumstances that may be profitably changed? I tried---I've taken more liquids and that seems to benefit. The doctor said that I should take more meals with less food, which I will now try. I was wondering if there was anything in my apartment, for instance, or my environs that could be changed to my benefit.
S: Well, allow me, then, to take a look around the apartment.
B: OK.
S: The thing I notice, first of all, is the need for color. You could use a greater color.
B: OK.
S: Flowers once a week would be a sophisticated touch.
B: (Laugh) OK.
S: I have the urge to carry through the apartment a scarf.
B: Do you mean it's dusty?
S: No, I do not mean dusty, I mean---it is like the way that you enjoy ballet. It is the floating qualities, the use of movement in a living manner, and I would like to interpret that into the apartment. Do you follow me?
B: VERY slightly. Is there someone you could suggest who might help me with that?
S: It is not that I want you to hire a decorator.
B: No, no, but sometimes friends have suggested things.
S: Well, your friend Dennis is---would be helpful, of course, as he could understand what I'm saying.
B: Uh-huh, and what about Amy?
S: Well, of course Amy could lend an opinion as always, but I THINK Dennis would be the more helpful, in the use of shape in a rounded and lyric manner. It is all so rectangular.
B: Square.
S: No, it is not square to me, it is rectangular, but yes, square, if you like. And to emphasize the windows, to allow the light in, in particular I'd take the scarves there, over each window. Now, you see I may have to do these things in vibrations and some of them do not translate into the physical with ease. I would hang garlic---and you might laugh at that, too---but I would hang garlic in the kitchen. This would have an effect toward repelling the bugs from the kitchen, and to repel the darker forces. I notice, as they enter, they enter through the kitchen.
B: OK, interesting, thank you. Anything more on that?
S: Well, too, you know that---I suspect they are drawn to the marijuana plants, that grow there. So, should you choose to grow them further, you must make sure that the energy is kept within the greenhouse effect; that is, that you put the protective cover over the plants, so that they do not draw darker forces.
B: So ideally then, I would replace them with other plants.
S: You could do well to have a flowering plant on the sill---I do not mean to meddle in your environment, though.
B: You may certainly make a suggestion, and I can accept it or not, if that's acceptable to you. I would prefer you to say what you wish, and then permit me to let you meddle or not, if that's OK? (nervous laugh)
S: Well, I would put a red geranium, bright red with a slight orange, BRIGHT red, on that windowsill. And I suspect, I do not know if it is an individual who has peered through the window, or if it's just forces attracted to the drug growing, but you know there has been---that is the entryway for the dark forces that would come. Anyway, the garlic hung on the---as you look toward the window, the left side of the window.
B: OK. AT the window?
S: Yes, BY the window.
B: Good, thank you.
S: It will add a rustic touch. (Laugh)
B: Yes, thank you. I bet Dennis will like that too.
S: He will, as a matter of fact. See, it will remind him of his own past.
B: Of his---please say more---of his own past?
S: Well, we spoke once of his being a physician in a Slavic environment, and he did use natural remedies as well, and did encounter many peasants who hung garlic. He will smilingly remember, on one level, that he has of course been in houses where garlic is hung by the entryways.
B: VERY good, very good. I tried in some way your suggestion to follow the tunnels and not concentrate on something too long, but what I fear in doing that is that I work only for the moment, and be drawn from one thing to another to another, and let things that I consider important, such as writing, just go, just slide.
S: Well, you must make the attempts in the beginning. You're training yourself in a new method, you must not expect instant perfection, my friend.
B: Yes.
S: You are impatient again.
B: My impatience, yes.
S: Yes, we see it. Now, you must spend two weeks in attempting this again, so please try it once more. Do not judge if you are being frivolous. If you follow this, you will have greater resources available to you, and then in that manner you will be able to concentrate more greatly. I did not say you can only spend five minutes with each topic, of course.
B: I understand that, of course.
S: Good. I want you to follow the natural rhythm of the creative impulse. Do you understand that is what we are going towards? You wanted the method to harness creativity, and this is it.
B: Yes.
S: I-T, IT!
B: (Laughing) Yes.
S: Now, you will have to cultivate it; it will take time, and then the impulse will stay longer, and it will embroider itself. You do not have to embroider it, rather follow it. Do not give up on one try. You do yourself dishonor. And do not expect each time that you can follow it, too. You know, there will be times when you are more successful than others.
B: Right. There are times when I despair ever becoming a published writer, and I keep trying to think of ways of improving my chances.
S: Well, fluidity will help, and if you use this technique you will develop a greater fluidity and spontaneity that will carry into the writing.
B: That's a very pointed remark.
S: Yes, I noted that. I said it with that intention. It looks to me that your prose does get heavy, and it weighs on my hands, and I want to say "poof," make it light. So you see it will help you greatly to develop this talent.
B: Yes, very good. Do you---I have down a question that may be no sense, but I wonder if you see any books that would be good for me to read. I spend time reading, I enjoy reading, and I wondered if there was any particular or CLASS of books that you would see that would assist me in this spontaneity, this fluidity" (Pause) Or if my ordinary impulse is really good enough to be followed.
S: I would like to experiment with you in this area, in the choice of reading matter. It will benefit you in the creation of spontaneity if you were to develop listening towards the inner voices. Now, this will be a valuable experiment to do in group union as well, but we would be happy to do this with you. If you were to walk into a bookstore of large---you know, a large one, I particularly like the one that's on Fifth Avenue, the old-fashioned one, Rizzoli, as you would have many options there. If you were to, as to say, float through it, and allow the gentle touch of unseen presences to help you choose a book in an area you would not expect.
B: Uh-huh, that sounds like an interesting experiment, I'd like to try that.
S: Well, we would be happy to assist in the experiment.
B: By we do you mean Amy?
S: No, I mean myself and your own beings of guardianship.
B: My own beings of guardianship? Would you---
S: Those who are your guardians.
B: Could you tell me something about them.
S: Well, I will, let me finish up the thought about the books.
B: Yes.
S: If you were to do that---to choose a time, and to tell Amy, so that she may, and I may, hear it, and we will work on the inner, as you know, and we will help you choose a lovely book.
B: VERY good.
S: And---I give you a hint, it will not be with many words.
B: (Laughing, since I'd been WORRIED about READING more) OK.
S: We are going to approach you through a different channel than you are used to being approached.
B: That sounds like a marvelous experiment, yes.
S: Good, then the pact is sealed.
B: Yes.
S: Now, you want to know about the beings who are in charge of the guardianship. Well, there is one who does guard the physical body itself, and he is a heavenly warrior. He has a harp and an arrow, and his job---by the way, they are nonverbal, these energies. So they will not speak, I will speak for them, and he does ward off potential dangers to the physical systems. He says that sometimes you do take your physical systems lightly, and do walk into environments where there is danger; that you get what he calls "a kick" out of that. But he does keep a careful eye upon your physical body. And he says "You see, I have done very well."
B: Yes.
S: As you have not been in accidents. He does quite a good job.
B: I hope I don't offend him by taking TOO many chances.
S: Well, you DO sometimes, but he is a good worker.
B: Maybe these are my horns that seek for adventure, my---
S: Your prototype body, you mean. Well, that is a joke so I will not go on with that. But, let me see. Now the other being of guardianship is a female, and does rule the mental and emotional nature. She has been helpful to you in many directions. She is not concerned with the structures of the body, but more the functions. She has been instrumental, she says, in preventing you from smoking cigarettes. That is interesting, I have never heard such a thing. (I'm gasping in background) She says that she has always told you not to smoke, and she is correct, by the way, in your body it would have serious repercussions, so she has been valuable in that sense, but also a caretaker of the emotions. She has had to be conciliatory to you at times in your life when you have suffered emotional pain. She has assisted you and bound the wounds, she says. They are guardians of the physical systems, you see. Not everyone will have such a cooperative pair. (I laugh with delight) Some have impatient guardians etcetera. (She speaks of Amy!?)
B: I feel very honored to have such cooperative guardians.
S: Well, it is a two-way blessing; you have always been responsive to them, they say, and in that sense you have given them much support.
B: I'm happy to hear that.
S: You have created them to be as they are, is the truth of it. But it has been a relationship that has been over time. Now you must not speak to people of these things; they will not understand. Most will say, "Well, what do MINE look like?" Some do not even have them. So you must take this as your own personal physical guardians; now MOST will have them, but not all.
B: I wonder, I'm tempted to ask about Amy's; if Amy knows them, or would like to hear about them, or if I should be more personal?
S: We'll pass that at the moment, but your thoughtfulness for her is noted. It would be a deep question for her, as she has fought with her guardians and has wanted to deny them power. You see she has long been frustrated with the physical system in general and has chosen to escape it as often as possible, and they try to mention to her by frequent bangs on the head---
B: "Pungs" as you said before? (Laughing)
S: That is an appropriate sound, yes.
B: Is there any way that Amy can ease this relationship between herself and her guardians---if there a way that I can tell her to listen to you, for instance, or---?
S: Well, she must process that anguish that resides in her inner systems, and that is the large job that cannot be avoided. It is that anguish that lives literally in the digestive and the soft organs of the torso. She is aware of this, and IN HER WAY has made great strides towards the resolution of this anguish, and more than that would be to take us away from the focus we have now.
B: OK. What---you spoke of the guardians of my mental and emotional natures---I was wondering if I could ask about your nature, and whether it is---
S: Multidimensional.
B: I see, not trapped, so to speak, in one dimension, or not---
S: Not at all.
B: Not more flexible at a particular dimension?
S: You mean, do I favor?
B: Yes.
S: Well, yes, of course, I do. I am most unified with group energy. That does not translate appropriately. I BRAID, so to speak, I blend, I mesh, with other energies of similar vibrations. Well, you do this too when you meditate in group form. You braid upwards and form a---what is called here---a lover's knot.
B: This is good then, a group meditation?
S: Oh, of course, yes. It is the best.
B: I was approached by someone who was forming a group for Actualism work, and I, at one level, judged I was too busy; it sounds like you would suggest that I pursue this.
S: Well, you do it already, when you enter once a week in group formation.
B: Yes.
S: But you enter into group formation in the sleep state, too, so you don't need to replicate, only if you choose to, another form in the physical.
B: I see.
S: Of the group merging.
B: Do you know the group of which I speak?
S: I looks to me that it has not formed yet, it is forming. It will be a nice group, by the way, if you choose to be part of it; it would be a lovely group.
B: And it would help my development of receptivity?
S: It would not move you much faster, but it would be a pleasant experience. Do you follow: it is not---you know, some things will be more quick and have more distinct effect. This will be pleasant, but not POWERFUL in the way you might expect or want.
B: My impatience, I think, would direct me toward the more powerful, rather than to merely the pleasant.
S: Yes, that is what I would suspect, and chances are, if you would join the group, you would relinquish your spot at a later date. But that is not to dissuade you.
B: No, I would be---
S: It is to prepare you.
B: Yes, I would be curious to see: the group seems to be Ken Miller and Pat Mandino and Dorothy Kent and, these people, who would be doing an Actualism type of meeting.
S: And your friend, BRUCE?
B: Yes, and Bruce.
S: Yes, he is a significant factor. You left his name to the end, I wondered---
B: Just an oversight, sorry.
S: (Smiling) He will not stand for it.
B: You're quite right.
S: It will turn into a different thing than you expect. You might be disoriented there perhaps, or dissatisfied---not quite the word, but somewhere between disoriented and dissatisfied.
B: And this disorientation wouldn't be beneficial to my preset connections or to my closed---
S: You will grow frustrated with the different turn or events. It will take on an emotional nature, this group, and a sort of a social therapy.
B: Oh. I feel I don't need that exactly.
S: It will be pleasant, I will stress that again, but not powerful in the way that you like to be zonked, you know, through the nerve-axis. You like that stimulated. It will not hit you that way. It would gentle the nervous system.
B: I suspect Amy's group will zonk me.
S: Of course, that is why you are so attracted to it, and of course with you group power there we can reach greater levels of manifestation which will intrigue you tremendously. As we work together, all of us will experience manifestation, the Laws of Manifestation, which will enlighten many.
B: The Laws of Manifestation? Are you speaking of specific laws?
S: Yes, of course.
B: Can you say something about that, or---
S: It will be more experiential, and we shall recap what is learned.
B: OK.
S: I will take the joy out of it, spilling the beans (laughing), the BLUE beans.
B: I like that.
B: You once told Amy that she was going to Mexico, and I said, just as a joke, maybe, when are we going, because I would like to go to Mexico. What do you see---
S: Yes, I did mention to her today, again, that I would enjoy to have her visit it. There is much to be learned there. There are calendars upon the walls made of gold, which are great spiritual focuses of energy, and in the Mayan culture were symbols of man's creativity on earth. I say "man," as man was in charge in that time.
B: "As man was in charge?"
S: The male, the male, of the species.
B: Oh, I see.
S: Now much was earthed in pure intelligence in that culture. And much spiritual teaching was transmitted, and she would be uplifted to see the ruins of this great and glorious civilization, as she was once a part of it.
B: Do you have specific locations in mind that would be specifically uplifting?
S: If you can bring a map to me, I can tell you. There are ruins that will be greatly moving. Some of them are still quite small, and not in Mexico itself, but in Guatemala.
B: What a coincidence. There's a cheap fare to Guatemala at this point, I said "Oh, that's good, I want to go to Guatemala."
S: Guatemala would be a very good choice for the two of you, if you were to choose that. She's frightened of Mexico; she does have her reasons; she does not know them. She says she fears the stomach, well, that will be true; she will easily have problems with the food. But it was the blood that was shed in that environment that does frighten her.
B: But now she has the commitment to the Alexander work, that would make the time difficult.
S: You discuss it with her, my friend.
B: OK.
S: The idea is planted, you must water it. Do not jangle it, water it. You know, there is a difference. You do not shake the tree to make it grow, you water it.
B: I will try to act under that kind instruction.
S: Just hold it as an impression; it will guide you. She is very sensitive and does not require much more than water.
B: I see, thank you. I would like to ask a question about how you know what you know. Do you (end of side one)
S:---you will perhaps clearly take to. I know what I know by receptivity to the truth. That is ambiguous, but what is true is TRUE, and it is being receptive that I allow truth to come in. And what is not true does not have room to enter. It is as if the square cannot enter the oval. And truth comes in a variety of methods of perception. Yes, I do see, and I am a keen see-er of vision, a seer. Now that is one method. Now, of course, we do hear it, as well; that hearing, though, is a second order, is a little bit below.
B: I have some concern about grouping questions, for instance, so that the answers may come from one location rather than jumping all around. Is this of use or is this---
S: It is not of use. No.
B: It's too artificial.
S: You must follow the spontaneous creative urge. You will find that it fits better---yes, it does, it fits better. And one question appears to come from one direction and the other from the next, but they meet in the center in appropriate pieces.
B: OK.
S: You would do well to follow that urge. And even if you have your questions written in linear fashion, if it occurs to you that a question on the next sheet is more valuable, then do ask it. It will make far greater sense to the intuitive side of you that is asking.
B: For instance, then to get back to these entities of darkness, as I think Amy put it once, at one time I feared that people may create their OWN entities of darkness.
S: They draw them to them, yes.
B: But they don't create them, they draw already actual entities.
S: Well, yes, there are those who will in fact create them; they are the highly creative individuals who direct it in the wrong direction, and they can create an individual of darkness. But it is MUCH more common that one will be drawn. There is a wide scope in which energies do inhabit, and if they look down upon the levels of earth and see a spot that is aching for darkness, they will be happy to oblige.
B: I had the impression, and I don't want you to spill any blue beans, but I have the impression that Actualism was based on creation of pieces of personality, in order to work with them, rather than dealing with pieces of personality that actually exist. I wonder if I was just making it difficult for Actualism (Pause)
S: I'm not prepared to answer that question. Let me see if another individual of that school of thought will care to answer it. (Long pause) There is truth in both sides of the question. They do indeed call upon the creative forces to manifest new aspects of personality, so as I deal with the unenlightened side of Self at all levels. However, they do work with Self at all levels to bring it towards its own enlightenment. But you are correct in assuming the first half of the process is the thrust of the work.
B: It seems similar to Gurdjieff's speaking of "coating the bodies"---is that---
S: The words are part true---it is of course to coat the bodies in a protective covering and to coat them in a covering that will enlighten that which is within it, but it is also to start from the cell within and to sprout outwards with light and awareness. It is from inside out and outside in that one works. With that which is already existing, and that which is to be created. You cannot create JUST from inside out or outside in, you work together to create dimension.
B: There are two directions to go, it seems, one towards simplicity, in saying that everything is very unified, and then there seems to be another direction where everything has many dimensions and many extensions and many parts of pieces, and many bodies ...
S: Neither you nor Amy can take the answer at the level at which it is. And you must in that sense remain in the dark. (Laugh) You cannot know the answer mentally, you must reach it spiritually, and as you peel off the extraneous matter, you will find a greater simplicity, and of course a greater complexity. But it will be a synchronous complexity. I cannot answer that, you see. It is, just IS, true.
B: Do you see anything extraneous that I concentrate on that might be better---
S: To cast off, you mean?
B: To cast off.
S: Well, you are approaching each issue that needs to be approached. I have just acknowledged to you that that is what you are doing. And I trust in your ability and your unceasing I---
B: (Stuttering) Is that "I" or "eye"?
S: It is both---the unceasing investigation and analysis that you do upon yourself, and I will leave you that job. It is not in this case---I must not---excuse me---in your case, I need not do it, as you do it for yourself. Others come to me who refuse to do it; I must do it in that case. But YOU have handled that responsibility with MORE than gusto, so continue, gently, to probe, and when you have issues that look to be cloudy, of course bring them, we can discuss them, or if you completed it and you want me to acknowledge that you have, I would be delighted to. With that, then, I will give you two silver pats upon the back and tell you that, yes, you have done well; we are most pleased to see how joyfully you have incorporated concepts that we gave to you last time. It is most delightful to us to know that you have such a love and appreciation of the playfulness and the depth at which we operate. Now (working with hands) I will wrap around you---and your guardian, your female guardian, does assist me---a blanket of warmth and security and love, that you may bathe in the energy that we are all sending you, and you may have that sense of well-being and comfort that you do deserve. As you are a blessed child of God and of the universe, and are an integral and necessary component to the complexity and the simplicity. (I laugh) We of course appreciate the good will you have consistently been sending to us, and we magnify it back to you ten times the frequency. So I will leave you again with a golden shower of love and appreciation and will see you soon in your bookstore.
B: Yes, thank you. (Clacking struggle to turn it off)
WEDNESDAY, 10/31/79: URGE TO WRITE SOMETHING: But I'm now not sure what. Write of the getting to Center 12 in Actualism which seems like something I'd been waiting for for two weeks: the ability to move, to take action, to change, where I'd been feeling stuck and bound up by too many obligations and too busy to move: reading books I didn't need to read and watching too much TV and movies. Then talk with Susan yesterday about Bill's ability to throw EVERYTHING out, and I think of the files of programs that I LITERALLY HAVEN'T USED except in the act of filing itself (though I think that I MIGHT want the plot summaries of some of the classic movies given out by Cinema 16 or the Cinemateque), and think of throwing all THAT away, and then she zooms into what I'd been thinking about: saving ticket stubs to make a collage of them into something like "monument" and she talks of some 70's artist who made collages of old lady's rooms in which EVERYTHING from the current culture appeared, and when I mentioned to Susan that my mother had given me my baby stuff, she asked how it affected me and I said that maybe THAT was what gave me the feeling that if I didn't save and accumulate and protect my past, NO ONE would. So I thought of throwing out programs and ticket stubs (will I REALLY make a collage in the form of "monument"?) and not collecting them anymore except for TITLES so that I could see what it was that I DID see, if only in the form of the ENTERTAINMENT ABSORPTION list, but then got into other things so that the urge of the moment wouldn't carry me away into something RASH, remembering all those things that I DID throw away and NEEDED a few months later: the shelf brackets, the shoehorn, the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, some novels. Still turning over in my mind the idea of making the bedroom into a storage room (though that would FREEZE the storage into STORAGE, rather than allowing me to gracefully RID myself of stuff), the living room into a bedroom (but I'd have to keep the bed made at all times, yet I USUALLY keep the bed made these days), and the bodyroom into a living room---though the bedroom-storage room would make a POOR bodyroom, that's for sure. Then there's the stuff that I have to do: indexes and Coal Age proposal and correspondence and letters to JOYI people and the indexing book and other writing and tasks given by SheLAH, but that's not ANY of it what I WANTED to write about! What I wanted to write about was the feeling of moving into a new mental-emotional stance that accepts mysticism FAR MORE fully than I'd done it before: not MENTALLY accepted it, but EMOTIONALLY accepted it:
THURSDAY, 11/1/79: AMY SESSION: Amy gave me my "woman" on my left shoulder to keep me in touch with my emotionality, which I thought agreed with Actualism's bodies but it didn't. Then time whirls on and I read and work and entertain and keep trying to clear off my desk so that I can get to the indexes that have to be done so that I can get to the indexing book, but decisions seem to be making themselves: the computer purchase seemed remote since the companies went out of business, and when I PRESSED myself for the answer to "WHAT do you want to do?" I had to respond that the MOST money came from doing indexes MYSELF, and if the student-load would have done ANYTHING, it would have been to make the framework for writing the indexing book which might be the first chance I have to break into publishing. I put things into the notebook (misnumbering them so that this page has to become 135A), but only recently send the book Paul wanted to him, see "Whose Life Is It Anyway" and get a shoehorn and all the meaningless things that add up to a life. And then I find this page on the table and feel I must finish it, but I can't think of anything I want to say, so I'll go on to type up some notes that have been hanging around for about a month on Assertiveness Training (see NOTEBOOK 143), write letters to Bill and Rita, and maybe get the desk cleared off.
FRIDAY, 11/2/79: FIRST ROOM AT MAN'S COUNTRY: What a difference it made! First there were the two blacks who came in to be sucked off before they went home from the first shift, at 9 pm, one with a small cock and nice legs who just wanted to COME, the second with a sweet body like a dancer's, a delicate sucking technique, and an eagerness to come that all went together to make me think of a newly-out person. Then there was the pretty-faced Jewish fellow with the tiny cock that just WOULDN'T come up, and he had to reluctantly leave after we tried getting each other excited without results. Then Darryl came in and I advised him to find someone ELSE who was fresh, as he didn't seem to be exciting me and I couldn't see that it was worth it. Then the balding fellow with the large muscles came in and tried to excite me, but it just didn't get going, so he finally took the hint and left. In the meantimes I'd wander the halls and find them boring, looking into the rooms to find nothing I wanted to try (except for the Rolf-like fellow right at the end, when I was too far gone), finding the steam room too steamy, the shower interesting but I couldn't sit THERE and watch all evening, though it seemed to have the best clientele, and the orgy areas were too Mineshafty and agitated for my tastes. The TV room was too full of people watching TV and the neat tenth-floor restaurant closed rather early in the evening. But I was DETERMINED to come, and enter John, with this smooth blond hair over a rough exterior, shaved balls and shaft and loose cock ring, and then he'd get very hard sucking on me, I'd suck on him, he admonished me not to come, until I got so into it and said "I WANT to come" and he left me go, sucking me up, and keeping onto me as he whipped away on himself, feeling like RAIN was his sweat on my skin, and then he finally brought himself off, I sucked in his come until he forced me away, and then we necked, caressed with sweaty grandeur, and he left to shower, and I showered with him, finding him much younger and cuter than I'd thought, and then went up to dry off until 4:05, not being charged for the 5 minutes over the 8-hour time limit for my $10 room, and when they ask for floors AGAIN I should say 7, since that's the best of the lot, and it's NICE in a room!
SATURDAY, 11/3/79: Recorded September, 1979, EARTH POINT LETTER 1:
Dear Carol Ann:
This is my response to your letter to the "Actualism Family Members" of July, 1979. I declined many invitations to the preliminary New York meetings for Earth Point; I felt that those who were interested should participate and that those who were not interested should be free not to participate. The February 10th Earth Point meeting in New York was announced as somewhat less than voluntary: I sensed a PRESSURE to attend, if only to give a fair hearing to the details of the project so that a more enlightened option could be held by the students. Although I didn't particularly WANT to attend, I yielded to his felt pressure and attended. Some points that had worried me were cleared up:
1) Earth Point was not an "airy-fairy" dream project of idealists: business, agricultural, and financial experts earthed a plan that could succeed, given a core group of dedicated students.
2) Optimism about fundraising seemed high, and from a business point of view it seemed to offer interesting investment potential.
Some points became more worrisome:
1) A constant reminder of the "strong possibility of difficult times ahead in the U.S. economy" seemed to be used more and more as a threat, almost as a bludgeon for cooperation and participation.
2) The atmosphere of earth Point itself was defined specifically to be the sort of atmosphere that I left Ohio and moved to New York City to avoid.
At this point it might be useful to give points of self-description:
1) I left Ohio at 21, the day after getting a B.S. in physics and mathematics, to get away from an overly-possessive mother, an alcoholic father, and a neurotic sister. My other relations were so "middle America" we had nothing to communicate about. At this point, I feel that my "family members" are MY choice to make. I may agree that the members of my group advance MY work enormously, but I would NOT want to live with them.
2) I moved to New York City and instantly discovered the heterosexual and homosexual communities which afforded me the friendship, sexuality, culture, and sense of openness and aliveness which, without knowing it, I had missed totally in Ohio. I could speak of pleasures (sexual, gustatory, visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile), entertainments (opera, ballet, classical music, art, modern dance, jazz, travel), and ideas (philosophy, psychology, economics, government, history science) with like-minded men and women who had come from THEIR Ohios to find me and people like me in New York City.
3) I left IBM at 32 because IBM paid too well (and I knew the dollar wouldn't buy much in ten years), demanded too much time (and I knew that I was working to live, rather than living to work), and pressured me to advance to management when I actually liked systems analysis and playing with the computers. All the fun had gone out of the job; it wasn't worth the money.
4) For the next five years I traveled and wrote, enjoying New York and the rest of the world, meeting people who became friends and lovers, building a life of comfort and independence and excitement and expansion.
5) When I spent much of my IBM savings I (to oversimplify) went into indexing, which pays an excellent hourly rate ($15-$50/hour) that allows me to work few hours and read books that I'd ordinarily not read, having the rest of my time free. My average work-month is 60 hours (sometimes over twice that, sometimes zero). For the rest of the time I meet friends, enjoy sex, explore the never-ending fascination of New York's entertainment, restaurants, and people, many of whom come from other cities and other countries.
6) All through my life has been "the quest," that took me from books to LSD to Aureon (the defunct East Coast Esalen) to group encounters to est to Actualization to Rolfing to mysticism (in numerous forms) to Actualism---and because none of the above were "the final solution" I have no reason to suspect that Actualism is "a final solution." I quest for the sake of questing, not for the sake of finding.
Now, given the person described too briefly above, add the following points:
1) Since I work to live, I earned less than $12,830 in 1978. In 1978 I spent $1283 on Actualism. More than a tenth of my money is spent on Actualism. My Actualism costs this year will exceed last year's.
2) My average of 60 hours/month includes index-delivery time (travel time), so I note that travel to and from Actualism takes 1.5 hours. Therefore, in a month, three meetings take 12 hours, 2 coordinating sessions take 14 hours, 2 Identity Freeings take 6 hours, 8 home body-sessions take 12 hours, and 30 daily sessions (averaging 2/3 hour) take 20 hours, which comes to 64 hours, not counting special sessions, pelvic sessions, Intro course sessions, etc. I spend more time now on Actualism that I do at my work.
To tie the data together, here are my reactions to specifics in the letter:
1) My present concept of my total Beingness (sexuality, culture, quest) could not be "experienced and expressed without stress" at Earth Point.
2) I am not "skilled in construction, welding, administration, and animal husbandry."
3) I am not interested in "working together, playing together, raising children together" where I feel that I do not have "adequate space for special individual needs."
4) I already donate "a tithe to Actualism" and look forward to continuing to do so. I do like what I get from my contract with Actualism, but Earth Point is not part of my contract.
Now for some "alternative ideas and plans":
1) There seems to be an increasing need on the part of some New York Actualists (myself excluded) to find SHARED accommodations. I would like to see this get as much attention as Earth Point as an "East Coast Alternative."
2) I would hope that Earth Point never becomes the CONSTANT focus of attention at Actualism that the Hunger Project has become at est.
3) It might be a good idea to send to me, and to other students who might express an interest or curiosity, a summary of the history of the Consolidated Coal (or whatever it was) investment that lost money for several students and teachers in the past.
4) I would be interested in seeing a prospectus for INVESTING in Earth Point on a strictly business level.
5) I would like to see more explicit awareness of people like myself, who would willingly live in Earth Point ONLY at that time when my concept of myself had changed so that NO OTHER ALTERNATIVE WOULD APPEAR AS ATTRACTIVE as Earth Point. I know this is true for some students now (myself excluded).
I hope that some of the above viewpoints will be of assistance to you.
Love and Light
Bob Zolnerzak
Second Advanced
New York Star Center