Happy New You!

Created January 7, 2022

This was the message I received on New Year’s Eve from my great friend and songwriter Stan Satlin. Now the purloined title elegantly captures the sense of a brand-new year of opportunity to choose a new way of being.

Why would you want to choose a new way of being? You may be very happy the way you are.

Because you may be able to appreciate even more of what happens to you—your experiences—starting in 2022, starting right now in fact.

A person who is able to draw the lesson from every experience need not ever label any experience as a bad one. This is not just intellectualizing, it’s a state of being that anyone can feel inside, can experience on their own. Millions of people do it, just not all the time.

Admittedly today these are rare experiences of clarity which occur in specific states of mind I call the Observer state and the Flow state.

The important point is that you can bring on these states to such a degree as to permanently change your mental emotional processes.

It starts with metacognition– becoming and staying aware of what is going on in your mind from one second to the next. The practice of meditation builds the mental muscle for metacognition. Mindfulness programs such as those in MIND MAGIC train you how to consciously use those muscles.

Even for a beginner, it’s pretty easy to maintain such a self-observant state for a short while, and what typically happens unnoticed—it sneaks up on you—is that you get caught up in a thought which takes you away from watching your own mind into being your old self again, that is, either daydreaming aimlessly or talking to yourself without remembering that the real you is the observer of all these inner processes. In effect you identify with a specific process and forget your real identity as the experiencer of all of it.

This may be harmless diversion and fun anyway, or it may be negative ego exercise which is harmful to your own life and to others’ lives.

Neuroscience is bringing true science to the aspiring protoscience of psychology. Someday they will merge completely possibly also incorporating what have until now been classified as spiritual practices.

Dr. Richard Silberstein is a neuroscientist who invented a form of brain measurement that is far more precise than EEG, sort of the electron microscope for tracking brain processes. His descriptions of how different neuron networks in the brain talk to each other are going to bring together a lot of superb work being done across related fields, partly due to the tool he has created and partly due to his thorough experimentation with it. The tool has already become a staple of applied neuroscience within the media, marketing, and advertising industries, winning several Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) awards.

In a fascinating article revealing the potential positive effects of autism and attention deficit disorders, Dr. Silberstein explains that everyone’s unconscious processes are always testing untold numbers of ideas that do not get presented to the conscious mind. Located in the left hemisphere in the frontal cortex and temporal cortex, the Judgment Network—one of the networks of neurons Dr. Silberstein discusses in the article—is the decider which selects the ideas worthy of being let through to consciousness, to the experiencer, you.

In much the same way the Judgment Network is undoubtedly also judging everything that you experience, and judging you. Hasty judgments (I call hasty closure) are swift to condemn something that you’ve condemned before. I call upon the spirit of a brand-new year to inspire you to see if you can reassert control over these unconscious processes and turn them more to your own and humanity’s advantage.

Hypothesis #1: You would enjoy life much more if you sat less in judgment of it.

Hypothesis #2: You would enjoy life much more if you sat less in judgment of yourself—especially as regards the unchangeable past, in which deeds you might still be angry at yourself for, led to changes which helped you grow as a person. Too late to change it and it’s a waste of your mental energy and brings you down. That stuff will be easier to clear out if you make a fresh start right now.

Hypothesis #3: If you, from now on, hear/feel your Judgment Network as just more evidence being brought before you, and deny it the power of issuing final verdicts, you will be more open to creative new ideas, mostly your own ideas which have never been able to escape the oubliette in which they are consigned by your Judgment Network—which is not omniscient, it’s more like an AI, you can’t allow your self to be ruled by it.

Hypothesis #4: You’ll also be more open to new experiences, which may not radically change your behavior, but may vastly increase your savor of situations you’ve merely put up with in the past.

If any of these come out that way for you after you begin standing back from your own automated inner reactions, as it all assuredly will based on the testimonies of thousands of MIND MAGIC readers, it will have been worth what little effort it takes to put metacognition to work for you, in re-creating yourself more consciously than your automated processes have been able to.

This is an especially good year for us all to make a major break with the past.

We need it.

Love to all,

Bill

Make It a Clean Break

Created December 27, 2021

Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog post.

We’ve been accultured to think of making New Years Resolutions. As a prospective pro-survival mechanism, it’s not a bad one. We slip back into old habits and it’s psychologically handy to have a once-a-year official restart to give us a jolt of extra energy to stick with our resolutions to not let this backsliding continue… this new year and forever after.

It’s refreshing to have a powwow with oneself, list the things worth changing, and vow to have the will power and determination for the rest of your life to stick with your own program all the way.

The first thing that may come up is a confidence-besieging attack presentation of why you are laughable to even think of making resolutions because you can never keep them.

In order to pass this gate, you need to change your judgment of your past history. You’re probably still carrying all the bad feelings about things you did. You still see yourself as having some good moments and some bad moments but not being proud enough of where you have gotten yourself. All of that is just one way of looking at it that you have been stuck in.

You need to pause and erase all those self-judgments and just look at it as if watching the life of another person. That objective view is the Observer state. You will know you are there when all the guilt and self-anger have disappeared and you are really indifferent to what you are looking at. This is reality. All the rest is made up in our minds, and we get stuck in it. The people around us affect us deeply and vice versa and so we reinforce and modify each other’s biased inner views and predispositions. Taking all of us away into a made-up world each culture makes up for itself.

What’s it all about, Alfie? What will be the things you see about yourself possibly needing to change? What will this teach you about your deepest motivations, that you maybe haven’t told yourself about lately on a conscious level?

Once you’ve had this contemplation with yourself, you’ll see your own life in its largest perspective. Where you are headed, what you’ll be striving for in terms of effects on the world and/or on yourself. You’ll see the “Why” in why you exist in this life and not in any other. You’ll know the passion work you want to be doing starting as soon as possible.

Once the new year begins, you will fairly quickly have a moment which feels as if your resolutions aren’t working at all. You will be tempted every time this happens to just forget about all that resolution stuff and live your life. But you’ll know in advance that this is the biggest trap to be well prepared for. Remember that line from a song (“That’s Life”), Pick yourself up and get back in the race.

All of this will be much easier if you’ve been practicing the Observer state already. That state is like a muscle it gets stronger with use. Soon you will astound yourself at how indifferent you are able to be, when alone and in your mind, about things which used to obsess you positively or negatively.

Look at the world and strip away all of the things that you’ve read or heard said, all of the thinking and guesswork and subjectivity, and just look at what is – the facts brought to you by your own senses, your own experiences, your own truthsense.

Maintaining that state of mind for as many seconds of the day as you can come back to it and sustain it despite interruptions and distractions will help you stay the course and carry out your resolutions.

Your sense of humor will also help you get back on the horse each time you fall off. Once you are able to leap back on within a second, you’ll start to have Flow state experiences more regularly.

You’ll know that even in this exalted state, above the level in which most of humanity walks around, a part of your own mind is still babbling even though your body takes actions which you realize are not the actions the babbler was just saying it was going to do, and those actions are obviously the right ones.

In these dis-associative moments, you could have an alarm reaction that you are going crazy and your personality is splitting. Deepen your breathing and wait for the alarm to wind down, just keep watching yourself. What you’ve experienced is what I call The Robot, and which I and many others also call it the Ego.

In my explanation of the Ego, it’s the neuron net we build in our brain as a result of our experiences. Teachers of meditation also refer to it as the “monkey mind”. It’s the loudmouth in our minds, and so we often assume it speaks for our true essence self, the Me That Was Born. The Ego is the source of hierarchical thinking, selfishness, possessiveness, and other predispositional biases which work against ourselves and other’s best interests, leading to violence, inequality, and a shallow degree of freedom.

Free will entails a certain degree of trial and error. Our history shows that we are accelerating in terms of our exploration of our own ideas and their material realization. I call this Acceleritis. It is the master culture in which all of the individual cultures of the planet fit (the vast majority), or being counter to the master culture, adapt or perish.

The Ego becomes most useful and least destructive when an individual reaches true maturity, and thus becomes a mensch. This is the same as spending virtually all one’s time in Observer state, and often in Flow state.

As you look to 2022 and make your plans for it, feel free to make best use of these states of mind suggested here.

Wishing you all the best of everything in 2022!

Love, Bill

Our Christmas story continues!

Updated December 22, 2021

Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog post.

Excerpt from my new science fiction novel, The First Son.

We continue our story where we left off last week, with the second part of a chapter excerpted from my new science fiction/alternative history novel, The First Son.

As we mentioned last week, many of you will feel a familiarity with the story revealed in this chapter, yet here and throughout the novel, ancient legends and mysteries are seen in a different light, connecting seemingly disconnected fragments of history over a climactic 3100-year period, and introducing the invisible side of things as they might have happened.

Now, let’s continue our story with our five characters witnessing and participating in an epochal unfolding event as Agents of Cosmic Intelligence in Bethlehem…

However, I might choose to let you be born, Perse went on, and share equally with me in everything from this day.

Share insanity with you, brother? Yeshua responded kindly.

The whole multiverse—yes granted, it’s all insane, even me, I get it—but you’re even crazier than the rest of us if you don’t admit it, Perse argued in his best style. Yeshua laughed appreciatively as if this was just a comedy act. However, it did hurt him to know that even The One Self was hurt that Lucifer was going through this hell. This wasn’t fun anymore.

Get thee behind me, Yeshua said. Perse stared at him then laughed ruefully.

What, you can’t say “kiss my ass” like the rest of us? Perse asked and haughtily disappeared.

Mary’s water broke. Layla cleansed her. Joseph sat on the bed and held Mary’s hand. The chickens had settled down in a semicircle watching the humans and seemed to be in a meditative state. A white dove fluttered onto the windowsill above and watched, soon joined by its mate. Within minutes the windowsill was filled with birds of many kinds. The baby lamb and its mother cuddled up at the foot of the bed with a cat, dog and immaculate piglet. There were two horses watching, spouses. The cow also watched.

It seemed as if the gathering twilight outside had rebounded and it were now somehow sunrise, for as the moments quietly passed, listening to Mary’s breathing, it was getting lighter outside. Joseph went outside to see what was going on. Nobody was around. There was a strange light. He looked straight up and saw directly above the brightest star he had ever seen.

Atlantis! Maitreya pathed first, and they all got it.

Wouldn’t miss this for the world, pathed the great ship above, Atlantis by name.

But you were dead, Nastassia said.

Yes, and resurrected, badder than ever, Atlantis said. Great to see you folks again. The Agents and the ship excitedly greeted each other for some time, swapping war stories. To Joseph, who ran inside to report the star, it was a silent night thereafter.

He went into meditation and without moving his eyes he was able to see everything whenever he wanted to focus on the external. He started with his eyes open and drank in the great beauty of the scene. He was already in an exalted state. He had everything he had ever wanted in life. His service to Hillel and now to God was in process of the highest fulfillment. His beautiful and brilliant wife was peaceful, in a state of grace. He himself could see her halo! He had heard of such things but never before had he beheld it with his own eyes. Still his eyeballs did not move to study the phenomenon, for it was not that important somehow.

And these birds and animals, and this young girl Mary, if that was her real name or maybe she meant she was a nun too, all of it was amusing but not important to Joseph. How beautiful they all were, and so caring, and tender. He closed his eyes.

Mary was in a similar state. She need not keep her eyes open to see what was around her, in complete detail as if with her eyes. This had never happened to her before. She felt her first contraction, and Layla and Joseph both sensed it and sprang to hold her, but it had not been so painful.

Many miles away, Elizabeth was in the same phase, and Mary and Elizabeth sensed each other and knew this. They were both aware when Yeshua sent his love and congratulations to the Baptist, and both babies kicked, dancing with joy at the same time.

Yeshua sent greetings to His Father and that’s when Layla first heard the singing. At first it was hard to hear, and indistinct, but as she contemplated it and let it in, it gradually became part of her, as if she were singing, and then as reality merged with other realities superimposed, she found she was singing and somehow knew the words and the melody. Her last verbal thought for a while was that The One Self was now fully in control of her. The difference she had been had vanished.

Yeshua then sent greeting to Hillel and to the other Agents by name, and to Atlantis, and to each Agent on Earth, and he kept radiating these messages to beings both near and far across all of existence. The average heartbeat on Earth stepped up a notch. The Schumann Rhythm became a soliton standing wave in the Earth’s magnetic field. All beings on Earth became more sentient and breathed more deeply of whatever they were breathing. All perceptions for a time were drenched with this suchness to all perceivers.

The contractions were coming more frequently and now Layla was in position at the end of the bed amidst the dog, cat, pig, sheep, and lamb. All necessary implements were at her fingertips. And now the baby was coming!

Cosmic Birth/Sacred Moment in Time, by Mary Southard

Layla felt The One moving within her as her with every movement heartburstingly perfect, the singing ringing from the rafters, her fingers gently on the tiny head of The First Son, in the most important of His births in multiverse history. Tears ran freely down her face in the exultant joy of being thus privileged.

It became clear that they were all within each other’s minds, and that each was fully aware of it, the animals, the Agents, the humans, and The One Self. One could look in any direction and see forever, see all of the creatures ever projected by The One Self, in every action that ever occurred was occurring or will occur. Nothing was hidden from sight, a memory that would be especially hard for the animals to bring back into consciousness, although none would ever forget it. Mary and Joseph saw the full Truth, more than even they had ever imagined—the concept of them each being The One Self having never occurred to them. Now the God they adored and obeyed was their selves.
And now they lifted up the baby and slapped its little tushy, but that was for form, as the baby had joined lustily in the singing, becoming the lead soprano, even before the symbolic slap.

LINK TO KINDLE EDITION FOR YOUR LAST-MINUTE GIFT GIVING 😊

Excerpted from THE FIRST SON, Chapter 24, pp 123–126, ©2018, Bill Harvey
Illustration: Cosmic Birth/Sacred Moment in Time, by Mary Southard / marysouthardart.org/

Peace, Joy & Love to All. Merry Christmas! 

With appreciation and gratitude,
Bill

A Holiday Gift to Our Readers

Updated December 17, 2021

Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog post.

With affection and gratitude for you, our best friends and readers, this post and the next one will be a chapter out of my new science fiction book, The First Son, an alternate view of the great turning points in history over the climactic period from 3100 BC through the Resurrection.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07LCRV3GM/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3

 

Many of you will sense a familiarity with the story in this chapter. What’s new is the viewpoint of five characters who are witnessing and participating in the unfolding event as Agents of Cosmic Intelligence, which is also the name of the series of 15 novels I am currently writing.

In this first published book of the series, ancient legends and mysteries are seen in a different light, connecting seemingly disconnected fragments of history, and introducing the invisible side of things as they might have happened.

Without further ado, let me tell you a story…

One night as Mary sat in meditation in her cell in the Temple, an unusual light crept to the barred arched window high above. It drew her attention and as she watched, the light grew brighter and expanded slowly down the walls until the room shone as if a full moon was exactly at the correct angle to illumine the room. Enchanted by this thought, she stood and tried to step into position to see the full moon but it was not there, and then she remembered that she had seen the full moon a week or so ago, so the light could not be coming from the moon.

Mary, a kind voice said in her mind and she was suddenly very alert. Her heart was beating loudly in her ears. Don’t be afraid, Mary, the voice said, for you have found favor in God’s eyes.

The Agents invisibly present were silent out of respect for an Archangel. It was Gabriel, also invisible, and come from far away as messenger of The One.

Mary prostrated herself on the floor, realizing it was an Angel, and sensing other Angels around her. Technically, Agents were of a different order than Angels, but Mary did not know of such distinctions. She spoke aloud, softly. What can I do for God that He sends you to me? Please name it, and I shall obey.”

You shall have a son, who will be The First Son of God, and you shall name him Yeshua Immanuel. He comes to free Israel and all creatures on Earth of the reign of sinfulness, the Angel responded.

“But I am a virgin, and betrothed to Joseph,” Mary said before she could stop herself, and then regretted having said anything that showed doubt.

You will still be a virgin when you marry Joseph, although by that time God will have planted His seed in you.

“You know that I could be stoned to death as an adulteress. Even Joseph who is good, and trusts me, may depart from me.”

You are protected, Mary, I shall speak with Joseph, and no harm will befall you. When you are married and Joseph knows you for the first time, his faith in you will be vindicated forever.

“Then I am the Lord’s handmaiden, to be done with as He wilt.” She felt something overtake her then and had to lie down. A softness gently pressed her from above, and she felt infinite joy and wellbeing, swooning as she felt the first stirrings of a new life within her.

Mary confided to Joseph what had happened the next time he visited her. He believed her but still felt conflicted until Gabriel visited him in a dream and set his mind to rest. Once Mary told Hillel, he advised her to spend the rest of her pregnancy with Mary’s cousin Elizabeth and Elizabeth’s husband Zachariah in a hill town of Judea, in order to avoid trouble as the pregnancy began to show and most people would be cynical. Elizabeth, he told her, had an unusual pregnancy too, given her advanced age. An Angel had also come to Zachariah to inform him that as he and his wife had long prayed, they would have a son, who would be an important servant of God. When Elizabeth welcomed Mary, Elizabeth felt her son jump for joy in her belly. Her son would later become an Essene known as John the Baptist. He had also been Ezekiel. His real identity is Melchizedek, an Agent of Cosmic Intelligence.

Mary returned home in time to give birth in Nazareth, but upon arriving, Joseph told her they would have to set out for Bethlehem to register in the census ordered by Caesar Augustus. Bethlehem was back in Judea, from whence Mary had just come. “Why Bethlehem?” she asked.

“Because I am—and we are—of the house of David,” Joseph said, and Bethlehem was the city of David. Now that they were married, Joseph fully trusted her, having confirmed for himself that she was still a virgin on their wedding night. This miracle affirmed everything he had been taught by Hillel and everything that his intuition had told him was true since his earliest memories.

I suspect the whole census hokum was cooked up to find Him. Templegard/Menachem expressed all of their feelings, except Melchizedek’s, who was only half-awake within the Baptist, in Elizabeth’s womb.

Herod’s magicians sensed it and read it in the omens, Maitreya/Hillel reminded them. All of Herod’s Arya were semi-awake Rebels. Kings decreeing the slaughter of all male sons was a well-established Rebel practice whenever the shamans sensed an enemy being born. It had gone on for millennia on Earth, and much longer across the multiverse. This was old hat to the Agents.

When Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem, Mary was weary and felt her time to be near. Joseph had rehearsed and was ready to tell a guard at the gate why he was ordered to enter and about Mary’s condition, when the guard winked. Joseph was startled and stared as the guard gently led them in, suspiciously not even saying a word of explanation to the other guards and the officer. Nastassia, appearing as a burly young male, led the couple in and although a foreign mercenary who would be expected to be hustling them along all the more cruelly for supposedly knowing Mary’s condition—Joseph somehow had a feeling that he knew—did nothing to hasten their pace, which given the journey was that of a much older couple.

“She’ll be coming soon,” Nastassia observed to Joseph. Joseph looked at him levelly, wondering at the intimacy and if the guard had evil intent.

“We could have found a room, actually. Despite the horde of visitors there are still kin who have space,” Nastassia explained, leading them to an active barn with many animals, many of them chickens trailing chicks, but no other people. Layla was also there but not presently visible. Joseph’s nose crinkled in disgust at the smells of animals where Nastassia now pointed at a very clean and large bed made of hay in a charming corner with outside lighting. There were rose petals on it. Mary petted a baby lamb that had rubbed her calf and looked up adoringly. The chickens ran in all directions with their tail of chicks as the humans and pseudohuman came into the space.

“There are misguided people who want your child to die,” Nastassia whispered in Joseph’s ear, confirming his worst fears. “Don’t panic, we your friends are all around you. You’re always safe in God’s hands.”

Joseph and Mary both profusely thanked the young man, who smiled back and said, “My sister will be here to help with the birth. She’s right outside.”

In the alleyway where nobody could see, Layla appeared in a clean white apron, with towels and pockets stuffed with things, and holding a silver bowl of slightly steamy water. She had a red bandana on her blonde head and a pink scarf, and no shoes. She peeked in and saw the couple waving her to come in, so she did. Nastassia disappeared as soon as “he” stepped out of sight.

Joseph and Layla helped Mary get comfortable on the bed. “What’s your name, sister?” Mary inquired respectfully of the girl even younger than herself.

“I’m a Mary too,” Layla said, and Mary took her meaning that they were both nuns.

“Thank you so much,” Joseph said to the other Mary.

Inside the soon-to-be mother Mary was a confrontation of which she was caused to be unaware, although this was against Perse’s will. Perse had come to intimidate his older brother, or perhaps even tempt him, depending on how it went.

You know I could kill you right now, Perse pathed, and Yeshua merely smiled inside Mary’s womb. Maitreya, Templegard and Nastassia prepared for mental combat, as did Layla, though showing no sign of it.

Excerpted from THE FIRST SON, Chapters 23–24, pp 118–123, ©2018, Bill Harvey

Best to all,

Bill