When a Man Loves a Woman

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Volume 2, Issue 43

“He’d give up all his comforts, sleep out in the rain 
If that’s the way she said it ought to be”
—from Percy Sledge’s Grammy Hall of Fame song

He had magically met and married the woman of his dreams. She was the same as he was in so many ways. Both devoted their lives to the same thing. They then eventually discovered each other in a way that was a series of improbabilities, suggesting to the average observer that the hidden hand of the Universe had to be involved.

And now, improbably, they were both trying to change each other. He contemplated this from a moment’s lofty perch. He had to LOL (laugh out loud).

He decided he would not resist her attempts to change him — which were all obviously for his own good — and that he would go along with the changes just to make her happy. And further, he would be ultra-cautious to change anything about her, because he might lose more than gained by any change to what she was already to him.

“But don’t change a hair for me
Not if you care for me”
—“My Funny Valentine”, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart

 When he really felt from time to time afterward that he did want to change something anyway, he’d start by merely imagining it. Sometimes she would seem to pick up on these imaginings. She would notch a step in the desired direction and neither would comment. Sometimes when that didn’t happen too soon he would himself notch it up a bit and pray for the desired slight change. That usually worked. If nothing worked, he’d sigh and go on, accepting that it was a part of her that perhaps he wasn’t appreciating enough, and one day he would be grateful she had resisted his gentle nudges.

 These mental/emotional strategies tended to work out pretty well for them. They lived a candlelit romantic life day after day with no end in sight. Sharing these thoughts with other couples everywhere for whatever value they might have, if these thoughts travel well. We hope they do.

Best to all,

Bill

Here is an ad currently running in February on a few websites and in Creations Magazine.

Improve your relationships with our book MIND MAGIC

Each of Us Is Many People, yet There Is Only One of You

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Volume 2, Issue 42

Is this oxymoronic? Or if not, then what am I talking about?

In You Are The Universe, which will be out in the Spring, I explain my Theory of the Conscious Universe in simple terms. The theory is not speculation but science, given my definition of science being its verifiability. This theory is just that sort of science. It is verifiable.

Mass verifiability may only be a dream. Yet individual personal verifiability is available and many individuals have achieved it.

If you’ve read enough of these posts you already know a bit about this theory. For other readers here’s a quick summary of what we’ve written about over the past two years:

The real you pre-existed your present body. The real “you” is also the “you” of the entire universe. There is no space, time, matter nor energy, except as “you” created it.

At the same time, on this planet, each of us is many people. Why is that?

Before we get there, take a look inside. Do you ever surprise yourself by doing something completely out of character? When you debate yourself internally, aren’t there voices taking opposing sides? Do you have the potential for extreme tenderness and extreme harshness? Could it be that there is a slight version of schizophrenia in all of us?

The Theory of the Conscious Universe posits that Acceleritis is what causes each of us to contain widely variant behavioral patterns, almost different selves, but not quite.

The Original Self is always there and always accessible. Acceleritis blocks that accessibility.

We become trapped in EOP (Emergency Oversimplification Procedure), and our actions become more predictable, mechanical outcomes of prior memory storage. The vectors combine with their relative accelerations and the outcome vector can be predicted. Creativity is lost, then effectiveness.

We become constantly distracted. Too much sustained infopressure per second on the human brain.

Having identified the problem, I set about finding solutions, which morphed into a book of tricks I had found to overcome Acceleritis and get in touch with the real me, the creative me.*

This is where the multiple inner selves part comes in. In my book MIND MAGIC, I call them senators. Minipersonalities that in moments of inner debate seem to be different people — perhaps specific people who impressed themselves on us and we retain their amanuensis within to help guide our actions.

Phenomenologically, what we experience most dramatically about our different selves is that we feel quite different (a) when we are oppressed into our EOP selves, versus (b) when we are in the coolly detached observer state, versus (c) when we are in the Zone — Flow state. Those three “selves” are the most obvious.

But those “selves” are not what I really mean by each of us being many people. What I mean is that unresolved emotion tagged experiences each create plucks on certain neuronal strings and set up camp as growing associational clusters of neurons, which become power centers. Together this software built from birth becomes the ego self, the self that is prone to fall into EOP.

So the meaning of the title is that:

1.  There is only one virtual point, it is consciousness. The rest is maya.

2.  Observed as if for the first time, one finds multiple points of view conversing within oneself, and maintaining this observer stance is a powerful learning strategy.

3.  Personally verifiable evidence is available to everyone. You can verify this theory yourself, including the truth that one consciousness underlies our apparent separateness from each other. Once in Flow, in inner contemplation, over time, you come to see that this is true. You gather information from other minds and verify that you have done so. You intuit what is about to happen next and it happens. This is verification. Many people have reached the same state of universal consciousness at least briefly, and saints, sages, prophets and gurus (all essentially the same thing in my estimation) have resided permanently in that state once achieved.

Go with your flow,

Bill

*I am happy and excited. Through the miracle of the volunteer team at the Human Effectiveness Institute, the new Sixth Edition of MIND MAGIC, wearing its pretty new cover (over in the right-hand column), is in my hands. And it can be in yours — it’s now available in all bookstores through Ingram. Just text your friend at any bookstore and it will be in the store in a week if it isn’t already.  

What Can Be Done When You Are Experiencing Emotions You Don’t Want?

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Volume 2, Issue 41

Such as when you are unhappy, anxious, scared, feeling guilty, mad at yourself, ashamed, bored, depressed, or not enjoying simply being alive and who you are? Measured against the alternative, just being alive is an amazing opportunity one must logically be grateful for, except perhaps during rare cases such as physical torture.

Nor is the Vulcan alternative really desirable. We do not espouse the strategy of killing off all emotions. Emotions are part of what makes life life. Being a robot and repressing all emotion not only shrinks life it also cuts one off from valuable information that helps optimize actions. Without an operating emotional center one becomes cut off from sensing and deeply grokking the emotions of others. Observer and Flow states become impossible or less likely with a goodly part of the sensorium (psyche, experiential panoply) edited out.

The word “control” has negative connotations, as in “mind control”, which raises specters of brainwashing, hidden persuaders, subliminal advertising, Nazism and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Yet we admire people who exhibit cool self-control when the average person would either fly off the handle, blush, show fear, or surrender to intimidation, so in that sense “control” is not always such a bad thing. In other words, as with most of life, there is always a balance point, a grey scale, where some amount of a thing is “good” (pragmatically valuable), and then too much of it is “bad” (counterproductive). Here we are speaking of being able to mediate, to a degree, the emotions we feel so as to make the whole of us more happy, creative, effective, and successful in the moment. And more likely to be in Observer or Flow.

A general “solution” to the types of negative emotions listed in the first paragraph above relies upon a better understanding of the causes and the phenomena themselves. If we can recall that the brain contains parts such as the limbic system, which can assert and draw energy to themselves, causing chemicals to flood our bodies during moments of unwanted emotion, this realization has the effect of giving us some degree of a more detached perspective. We may then become less stuck, less trapped in and overwhelmed by those feelings.

Many negative emotions are the result of one’s own ego. My Acceleritis theory is that the ego (software in the brain, built from proteins after birth, which is sort of one’s own built-in press agent, politicking with the outside world for a better deal) is made more powerful relative to the rest of our sense of self, by information overload — itself the result of visible language invented only about 300 generations ago, a relative eyeblink in evolutionary time. This is my putative explanation for the excessive competitiveness (e.g. continuous intraspecies war going on somewhere on Earth at all times) that has characterized us as a species since the dawn of written language.

When I feel negative emotions, I go after answering the question: what do I want so badly that I either fear I will not get or am angry that I have not gotten? Then I look inside to see why that thing is so darned important to me emotionally and whether having it is worth these tormented feelings. Typically (now after decades of such practice) I am able to rise above the attachment and negative emotion fairly quickly. What I value (Flow state) is something I would rather have than those other attachments, which when inspected are self-evidently ignoble motivations like wanting praise.

What is life after all? In my view (my Theory of the Conscious Universe) each of us is a microcosmic mask of the One Intelligence, which is all that truly exists. In Flow, one can actually contact that Original Self and feel fully one with it, in which perspective all annoying matters dissipate instantly with no effort whatsoever. One can be happy simply being Bill Harvey or whatever your name happens to be this time round. It’s more than enough just to be alive. This is what I intuit is the original meaning and intent of the Jewish toast “L’Chaim” (“To Life”).

Hoping these thoughts are useful in making your life more continuously blissful,

Bill

The Human Effectiveness Institute: A Personal View

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Volume 2, Issue 40

Many people ask me how my books compare with the flood of self-improvement books crowding the psychology/philosophy shelves nowadays. When my first book appeared there was not so much of a glut of such titles and the question rarely came up. Instead people told us they had never seen that kind of book before. Funny how things change. And it’s great that writers and publishers are filling so much bookstore shelf space with books to help people master the art of life — arguably the single most important practical topic imaginable from the standpoint of the pursuit of happiness.

My first book Mind Magic is still unique in the sense that it’s a set of techniques that came out of trial and error in my personal experience. Some of you know that my showbiz parents had me on stage at age 4 and my ensuing early experience of Flow state is what caused my concentration on learning to “control” and/or trigger desirable inner states. Mind Magic is a collection of what worked for me. Originally written just for myself as my “Book of Programs”, friends insisted I publish it because it worked for them too. Over 2000 readers have written that the book changed their lives, which encourages us to go on and add to the body of techniques we make available as widely as we can, in hopes that someday Flow state is a common occurrence, and its lead-in Observer state even more common.

Other books sitting near Mind Magic on the shelves are not so precisely focused on bringing on these two states. More generally, books “like” mine are aimed at making people feel better about themselves, and handling stress in their lives in a more effective and peaceful manner. Some are excellent condensations of latest psychological science or of ancient Eastern psychologies/philosophies, and some blend these together. Ram Dass and Daniel Goleman are two of the best in the world in this genre. Both have written endorsements of Mind Magic. Ram Dass and Dan aren’t just condensers and reporters, they teem with their own brilliant creative insights.

A long time ago Dan, his fellow former Harvard psychobiology professor Dr. Richard Davidson, and I were partners in a pioneering and successful brainwave research venture in the advertising industry. Dan and Richie coined the term “hijack the brain” to describe what happens when the limbic system and the amygdala in particular become energized to produce extreme attachment and cognitive distraction. This is exactly what I write about when describing the fall from Observer/Flow states into what I sensed as a child, EOP for Emergency Oversimplification Procedure, an ineffective involuntary bodily “strategy” for dealing with challenging external situational and/or internal mentation challenges.

Another friend and exceptional brain-trainer-psychiatrist/author/artist is Dr. Phillip Romero, who uses the term “triggering” to describe the brain’s program of switching into a limbic-system-control state. He created Logosoma Brain Training, a consilient algorithm that integrates theories of Buddha, Darwin, and John Bowlby for his patients. Logosoma training helps people master Relationship Stress, the most powerful stress trigger that hijacks our capacity for mindfulness, creativity, connectedness and compassion. Where Phillip is focused on training people to liberate themselves from Hostage Relationships and Reconnect with compassionate creativity, my colleagues and I at the Institute are focused on helping people achieve the exceptionally higher states of consciousness above normal waking consciousness.

Phillip has taken me to task for creating my own language that I find useful in inner space, where I find that I am dealing with parts of myself that respond to metaphor and imagery. As noted above, some 2000 people have reported that the heuristics presented in Mind Magic, even if more symbolic than scientific, are useful to them in attaining more creative and effective states. Phillip is right in that agreement on terminology will be critically important in pulling together the work of many people in order to turn the art of life into more of a science to the degree that is desirable.

My vision is that techniques for increasing personal success in dealing with all of life’s challenges will someday permeate the syllabi of the public education system. The books, audios, videos, television programs and movies that we envision for the future are aimed to be a resource for when the culture becomes even more attuned to this dimension of inner space navigation.

Best to all,

Bill