Author Archives: Christine Niver

Awakening Your True Will

Powerful Mind Part 16

Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog, November 1, 2024.
Created June 23, 2023

Although the inelegant coinage “Woke” has been given many layers of automatic associations by today’s external world, use the strength of your own personal will to prevent being in any way affected by the word “awakening” – it’s as good as any other word, and it’s important because the entire species is walking around in a kind of dream state.

To review, what we are shifting over to when we cut away remnants of conditioned thinking imposed on us from the outside, is our own God-given self, not just our mind but our body and feelings and intuitions – the “ME” that was born. The unique nature package that will never be duplicated again. With your own gifts to bring to the world. When awakened to your own gifts you will be a soul-inspired and in Flow state for much of the time your gifts will actually help the world.

You are cutting over to your own will power, your ability to force aside old habits, and teach your mind and your body new and better habits, those which come from inside you.

This will take resolution and perseverance because of the strength of the conditioning each of us has received. Hundreds of thousands of hours of habit creation and reinforcement. Each habit repeated over and over tens of thousands of times. Most of the neurons in the brain perform automatically and at a subconscious level to determine 95% of our decisions. This is the part of you that I call “the robot”.

What is not the robot is the real you.

From moment to moment, from thought to thought, feeling to feeling, impulse to impulse, you need to know where it is coming from. Is it coming from you, or from the robot?

If it’s coming from the robot, you don’t want to act on it. If it’s a bad feeling, you want to drop it as if it were a living leech. Because that’s exactly what it is. Habits you have acquired that work against who you are. Leeching energy, time, and attention which you would prefer to use in other ways. Be aware of your own will power as the strength to enforce these decisions in the moment without backsliding into being controlled by a mind invader.

How do you know if you are in the robot or in your own true self?

One sign it’s the robot is the presence of fear. Take control by befriending the robot and discussing the situation with it. It is a biological AI, and you have common interests, so you are leading consensus, not bickering.

What are you afraid of, old chum?

Tell the robot where you are going with this, and why that fear is not useful. You have that situation figured out and are patiently applying the solution step by step, and the robot can cancel those ancient alarm requests.

Of course, if you don’t have the solution worked out yet, you can thank the robot for calling your attention to it, and ask it to turn off the distracting alarm emotions so you can work out the solution clearheadedly.

Anger is another sign that it’s not you. It’s the robot. The real you has reservoirs of courage and forgiveness that prevent flareup of anger. If you are not experiencing that arc, that space between having cause to feel angry and actually letting the anger in, you are not exhibiting metacognition. Metacognition is that arc. The space between neurons is where the synapse connection occurs, and in your consciousness, you need to have that kind of space too, where any action of the mind arises to consciousness to first be inspected, rather than automatically engaging the gears of the fight-or-flight response.

Overwhelming sadness is another sign of the robot. The true you is not overwhelmed by anything. You have your free will, your agency, your resoluteness, and courage. If you are sad you might be in your true self or in your robot, but take the reins and move into your real self by objectively determining the cause of your sadness and your alternative courses of action to remove the cause of sadness. If you come up with some solutions which favor you but not others, be suspicious it could be coming from the robot.

Put aside the fear of schizophrenia. Guiltless housecleaning of the mind, and finding that there is a robot you built yourself by giving yourself a great number of subconscious orders, doesn’t mean you have a split personality. It means you have a lot of externally imposed requests you are still obeying years later and you no longer need to follow those constraints. Your one self is your one self. These other automated parts of yourself are like Clippy the Microsoft Office Assistant and all of the other unhelpful and annoying attempts computer system designers have made (with good intentions) to provide even better service to users. In the case of your personal Clippy inside, you threw every external exhortation that hit you in that steamer trunk and expected it to sort everything out and cause your behavior to be found exemplary in the eyes of others. Your instinct to seek the approval of others is what caused the robot in the first place.

You only need the approval of yourself – and God (if you accept the possibility of the universe being conscious because that is what God could actually be, scientifically speaking).

Running after the approval of others is definitely robot behavior.

Not caring about others is definitely robot behavior.

Look out for these conditions as you observe yourself. Switch into objective Observer state and do not wish for specific outcomes, start from observation first, then problem statement, then solutions, then a plan. That plan will aim at specific outcomes but do not allow yourself to become attached to the outcome, the situation or your knowledge and understanding of it might change, and that might change the outcome targeted. Stick with the plan and enjoy carrying it out.

If you find yourself rushing, that’s the robot. Set up your plans so that you don’t need to rush anything. You want top quality Flow state within the time constraints that are beyond your control. Reduce the number of specific things on your list to permit non-rushing. If you overbook yourself, you are forcing the robot on yourself.

Love to all,

Listen to my recent interview about my book THE GREAT BEING

In this 15-minute interview with Marianne Pestana on KMET ABC News Affiliate, I talk about THE GREAT BEING, my latest book in the Agents of Cosmic Intelligence series.
Listen here.

You may know that I’ve been publishing a sci-fi series called Agents of Cosmic Intelligence, an alternative history of the Universe, in which some of the main characters put into practice the mental methodologies I’ve compiled into my nonfiction books. All of this is aimed at enabling the human race to become more effective and to undo the messes made in the past. By contradistinction to AI, Artificial Intelligence, I think of this as HI, Human Intelligence. I feel that it’s obvious we should be putting at least as much time, money, and effort into HI as into AI – especially if we are fearful of what AI can do to subjugate us.

The books in the series so far take place long ago or in the near future, but what was missing until now is how the Universe began, and what happened on Earth before ~3000 BC. That is now in The Great Being, which is chronologically the first book in the series.

Two reviewers have already written reviews of The Great Being and they really “get” what the whole series is aiming at. I’ve waited for this feeling of someone really getting it for a long time and it is heartwarming to say the least. Here are excerpts and links to the reviews. — Bill

Reviews of The Great Being Warm the Cockles of My Heart

4.2 stars. A compelling and thought-provoking work of science fiction. Harvey’s sprawling, hugely ambitious exploration of consciousness, free will, and the eternal dance between light and darkness is intellectually stimulating and emotionally resonant. The novel’s central message—that all beings, no matter how lost or misguided, are ultimately part of a greater cosmic unity—is a hopeful and uplifting one…Read the full review. — Indie Reader

A singularly unique and eye-opening work of visionary fiction, Blending realms of historical, religious, spiritual, and mythological traditions, this is an ambitious and epically creative read … The full value will be more readily apparent to those readers who can see the threads of allegory, legend, and science woven into one unified whole. Enlightenment and radical self-awareness are powerful undercurrents within the narrative; the role of dogmatic thinking, hierarchical power structures, and the tyranny of knowledge are explored in various ways through the characters’ revelations, opinions, and personalities. The story within a story here is one of psychological development and the real-life pursuit of higher modes of thinking … A wide-reaching and insightful assessment of human civilization and behavior…Read the full review.—Self-Publishing Review / Independent Review of Books

Tonally amusing, aesthetically fearless, and packed with witty observation and divine incident … By turns accessible, erudite, and hallucinogenic, it is an intriguing philosophical romp that cleverly fuses psychedelic science-fiction and fantasy elements with organized religion’s creationist ideologies and the scientific theories of evolutionism … An ambitious, entertaining novel packed with spiritual curiosity, one that will greatly appeal to fans of intelligent science fiction and alternative history stories alike… Read the full review. —BlueInk Review

Blending spiritual philosophy, alternate history, pre-historic adventure, and brisk life-after-life storytelling, The Great Being is above all a beginning. First comes creation itself, which gets started with the knockout opening line (“The Nothingness felt surprise upon realizing itself.”), … This is the fourth entry published but the first chronological chapter. It shares the swift pacing, spiritual seeking, twisty plotting, and sharply human dialogue of the earlier books, though its focus feels tighter… Read full review, —BookLife by Publisher’s Weekly.

In Harvey’s retelling of the creation myth, heavenly agents combat a growing rebellion unfolding on Earth … this story deftly explores human nature—the uplifting qualities and dour traits alike … enthralling tale of humanity’s origins and cosmic espionage… Read full review, — Kirkus Reviews

Midwest Book Review A real standout…The radically inviting nature of this story brings with it the opportunity to view life and God in an entirely different light…Designed to awaken and introduce new interpretations of spirituality and life meaning. As readers who may not have expected such nuances come to absorb the greater gift of The Great Being‘s message, they will find the radically inviting nature of this story brings with it the opportunity to view life and God in an entirely different light … The story evolves with a reinterpretation of myths, events, and concepts that doesn’t just invite, but demands discussion and insights on the parts of all kinds of spiritual thinkers as the story evolves a unique and compelling flavor of discovery … One of Bill Harvey’s great talents lies not just in his storytelling ability, but his focus on translating life events and history with new interpretations … Readers interested in transformative reading… will find The Great Being‘s message to be one of hope, discovery, and new ways of viewing the universe [and] will find The Great Being a standout. Read the full review. — Diane Donovan for Midwest Book Review

THE GREAT BEING is available in print and Kindle. Read an excerpt.

Powerful Mind Pt. 4

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Created March 31, 2023

Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog.

To read Powerful Mind Pt. 3, click here.

Chapter 2

The Observer State

A clearer, more effective state of consciousness —
only seconds away from your daily state of consciousness.
Just knowing it exists can benefit you

This entire book is about states of consciousness. In this chapter we will focus on one particular state of consciousness we call the Observer state. The Observer state is more powerful than the state most of us are in most of the time, and leads to the Flow state, which is more powerful still in terms of your ability to make an impact on others around you and on the world. We speak about both states as being “The Upper Mind”. The purpose of this book is to show you the simple yet easily missed doorways into the Upper Mind.

Why is it important to think about consciousness at all? Because life is all about consciousness. We do not exist without consciousness. While modern science has made brilliant progress in almost every other sphere of reality, too little is known about consciousness.

Yet all the ills of the world are rooted in ignorance of how consciousness works. We have made the world we see around us. It all started in our minds. Every day we do things we regret because we listen to and act on whatever our minds dish up to us. We need our minds to perform better, to become powerful, to gain insight into ourselves and others, to come to better decisions on a moment to moment basis.

The extreme anti-heroes who have become powerful on the world stage, who have driven much of our history so far, might not have chosen paths of destruction if their genius had been creatively channeled, if they had not lost touch with their compassion and love.

If we collectively knew our own minds better we would not go to war but rather we would find creative win/win solutions — the ones we get to in the end anyway after all the bloodshed. The path to a better world lies through the terrain of consciousness. One day when we all really do know our minds better the world will be a relative paradise compared to the way it has been throughout all recorded history. As the great science fiction pioneer H.G. Wells said, “History is a race between education and destruction.” If we can make our minds powerful now, we can gain the maturity as a race necessary to not destroy ourselves, given the extreme weaponry we have now at our disposal and our habitual disregard of our destructive effect on the environment (the air we breathe, the water we drink).

Because war is a pattern repeated throughout recorded history, we tend to assume this is the way it has to always be. And yet, “recorded history” literally means since the onset of written language. In short, written language and the thinking processes that go with it have led to acceleritis, information overload and Emergency Oversimplification Procedure (EOP), which blocks upper mind and leads not only to war but also to crime and personal cruelty born of our disconnection from innate compassion. Our minds need to become more powerful in order not to be confused by the information overload so much that we are easily led and manipulated into a life nearly devoid of positive feelings, squandering the opportunity of life.

Each of us knows intuitively that the only thing we can change is ourselves. This is the only way we can make a better world.

Powerful Mind seeks to reveal specific information and techniques for attaining specific states of consciousness. We will be talking about waking states of consciousness, not about sleeping states. Sleeping states are important too, but in the interest of focus we’ll leave these to another book.

A Broader View of What Science Is

Around 400 BC, in the Golden Age of Greek philosophy, one branch of philosophy called “epistemology” focused on understanding “how can we know”? Over time, different schools of thought evolved about how we can know: rationalists believe that we can know things directly through our intellect; authoritarians believe we know by listening to authority figures who tell us what we know; empiricists believe that we know by direct experience, by testing things in the real world; intuitionists believe we can know directly through a mysterious faculty.
Science developed out of empiricism, basing what we consider to be “truth” on factual experience, testing and validation. In the case of science as practiced in the West, especially in the last few hundred years, that “experience” is usually the taking of measurements using instruments with dials and displays from which one takes readings. The person taking the readings is the “observer” often mentioned in relativity and quantum mechanics, the latest forms of science. In the East, science is also based on experience, and there the experience can often be inner experience where dials and displays are not involved. This is still science and still based on empirical experience.

This Eastern willingness to accept internal evidence explains why science in the West has not validated the existence of the more effective states of consciousness. Starting toward the end of the 19th Century, inner experience or introspection fell out of favor in psychology, after William James, the last of the giants of psychology to accept inner evidence directly. The more externally-oriented culture of the West created a blind spot. In psychology, work shifted to behaviorism, the focus on externally quantifiable actions, along with the study and social application of conditioning to alter these actions.

Eastern epistemology actually fuses empiricism and intuitionism. No conflict is seen between these ways of knowing because they both involve experiencing reality for oneself.

Although based on empiricism, Western science became authoritarian and elitist in its epistemology: the common person was excluded from “knowing” by the reduction of all science to mathematics, a difficult language to master. Science at its cutting edge moved out of the sphere of something the common person could totally visualize and comprehend.

Science and States of Consciousness

Regarded academically as a “soft science”, traditional Western psychology recognizes only three states of consciousness: dreamless sleep, dream sleep, and waking consciousness. Eastern psychology since the fifth century B.C. recognized ten states of waking consciousness: the normal everyday waking state, the access state which precedes meditation, and eight progressively deeper states of meditation. Oscar Ichazo, a modern student/teacher of consciousness techniques and founder of the Arica Institute in 1968, fuses ideas from consciousness explorers throughout history (plus his own) to propose fifteen waking states of consciousness ranging from psychosis, through six levels of neurosis, three levels corresponding to the Eastern access state, and five levels of higher consciousness.

It is revealing that Western psychology reduces waking consciousness to a single state. William James was the first prominent Western psychologist who warned against “prematurely closing the book” on the existence of other states of waking consciousness. More recently, Mihaly Czikszenthmihalyi (pronounced “cheek-sent-me-high-ee”), former head of the University of Chicago Psychology Department, coined the term “Flow state” (known in show business as “Being On”, and in sports as “The Zone”), and conducted valuable research into this state, which was published in his 2008 book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

Details to follow in the subsequent posts.

Love to all,

Bill

Powerful Mind Pt. 3

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Created March 24, 2023

Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog.

To read Powerful Mind Pt. 2, click here.

Latest brain science has validated the existence of states of consciousness above the normal waking state — called the Flow state, or the Zone. For example, Master Marvin Chun of Yale, a leading neuroscience expert, says that activity which looks in a scan like a continuous background of random self-chatter goes away when the brain goes into the high performance Zone — Flow state. One of the 12 simple keys in this book will increase your ability to turn off your own mental chatter at will.

Imagine if books like this become popular and more and more people use these techniques along with meditation. These techniques are the analogue of meditation for the rest of the waking day when one is not alone with eyes closed, meditating. Imagine the leaders of nations and corporations using these techniques, and making more effective and sustainable decisions.

There is a spiritual level within Flow state. In that state, you are clearly connected to the rest of the Universe. Life feels “numinous”, magical. You know that your own consciousness is in some way a part of a single Consciousness that is the Universe. You can see that what is called God is in fact a scientific reality. You realize there can be no death. Some people reach this state just once, and come back from it refreshed and energized. Some reach this state permanently.

As an individual becomes connected with this universal consciousness or Cosmic Mind, there are so many beautiful stages. Your ability to pick up on things as-if-telepathically increases. You are able to read messages that are meaningful for you in things going on around you, whether snatches of other people’s conversations, lyrics in songs on the radio, or billboards on the highway, as if the Universe knew that you needed that idea just then. Without trying, you seem to have just the right answer for people who come to you with emotional problems. You are living in each moment drawing out its sweet nectar without thinking of the next one. Even things that would have upset you are now just interesting puzzles to unwrap like gifts.

This is not a religious book. I believe that all religions are true — many paths to one God — and that the latest thinking in Quantum Mechanics will lead to a synthesis between QM and religion in which the word “faith” will be used less often because everyone will speak from certain knowledge.

This is a practical guidebook to help you tune your mind more effectively. It provides tools for internal information processing optimization — similar in a way to the media optimization tools I’ve helped invent for the marketing industry. Tools for sublimating negative emotion into learning and into action. Leaving only positive emotion. And leading to higher levels of consciousness.

These more effective levels of consciousness are what we are designed to experience all the time, and we would, except for the Information Overload. Techniques are needed to bolster the mind against the unavoidable daily overload. These are the techniques you will find in this book. They are designed to bring back the magic of reality. And to kick off an upward spiral in your positive creativity.

Powerful Mind creates a mood conducive to mental optimization. The content is all about mental optimization and the resulting better decisions — decisions that work better in the real world.

Using the techniques in Powerful Mind has made a positive difference in the lives of thousands of people. I’d like you to let me know what your experience was from reading the book — I look forward to hearing from you.

Get ready for an unusual and fun experience.

Hope you enjoy the book.

Details to follow in the subsequent posts.

Love to all,

Bill

Powerful Mind Pt. 2

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Created March 17, 2023

Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog.

To read Powerful Mind Pt. 1, click here.

States of Consciousness

Flow state, or “being in the Zone”, is a shift of gears in the brain that happens when you are doing something you love — your life’s work — your true work. Your contribution to the Universe. What you leave behind for others to share. In Flow state everything seems to do itself while you watch blissfully. Flow state then gradually carries over to everything that you do.

Ironically, if you do an optimization model to figure out how to end war and make the world fun all the time, it comes down to matching each person with the thing they do best, and bringing that work out as a social value. Whether it is a great car mechanic, administrator, teacher, dancer, whatever it is that is your gift. We would all be having too much fun to want to fight wars. The value of the goods and services we produce would be increased to more than enough to go around. After all, Earth is still rich in resources and it is not too late to bring her back to mint condition. There is no end to our technological inventiveness. We just need to rechannel it positively, together.

Logically, since each of us is a unique package of Nature, a combination of genes which never existed before and will never exist again, we are like a precious piece in a cosmic museum. Irreplaceable.

Therefore, born with certain specific innate potentialities. The game of Life is to find these and capitalize on them. Get better and better, entering the Flow state. Leading to… leaving something behind. Making a difference.

Throughout history, many people have experienced the Flow state and some seem to live in it continuously. But is it out of reach for the average person?

You would think so just based on what you see around you. What if everyone is capable of Flow state but there’s something in the way?

The Cause of Poor Global Performance

There has been an acceleration in the amount of information the average person has been asked to process each day. This is actually the strongest possible deterrent to the Flow state.

The brain we have now is the same brain the first of our species had 200,000 years ago. Life back then was far simpler. There were fewer dimensions of life to cope with. The number of communications received each day was in the dozens. Today it is in the thousands. Advertising and marketing messages alone number around 1700 per day for the average American adult.

Every incoming message or experience we consciously notice generates questions for the inquisitive biocomputer that is the brain. When those questions never get answered, the brain starts to clog up. Emotionally-charged messages produce negatively creative defense reactions we are not even aware of. It’s been so long since we faced all the questions in our mind we go into an “Emergency Oversimplification Procedure” (EOP) to just get through each day. You can’t get into Flow state from EOP, though.

Making Powerful Mind

It’s possible to train the mind to stay focused through complexity, and to maintain emotional equipoise through stressful circumstances. It’s possible to get out of EOP. It’s possible to experience Flow. Over time it is a process. Eventually you might be able to live continuously in Flow — others do. Or spend half your time in it, getting better every day at moving toward Flow all the time.

Powerful Mind is your guide to a new level of mind Flow, using one simple key at a time. You will discover self-limiting behavior patterns in yourself and, remarkably, change them with little effort, because of your clarity. You will rediscover what you love doing and get flashes of inspiration about it. You will have the power and the will to persevere resolutely with confidence in reaching your goals. You will move into greater control of your life.

Details to follow in the subsequent posts.

Love to all,

Bill

The Human Effectiveness Institute

New tools to focus the mind, enabling higher performance

Author Archives: Christine Niver

Awakening Your True Will

Listen to my recent interview about my book THE GREAT BEING

Reviews of The Great Being Warm the Cockles of My Heart

THE GREAT BEING is available in print and Kindle. Read an excerpt.

Powerful Mind Pt. 4

Powerful Mind Pt. 3

Powerful Mind Pt. 2