We Hold These Truths and Virtues to be Soph-Evident

I was going to repost something from 2006 about Independence Day, but there was nothing there. The closest thing was this one from July 3. It has nothing to do with Independence Day. Then again, I suppose it does, because the day would be absolutely meaningless in the absence of absolute truth, objective morality, and decent music.

Allow me to explain. As I have discussed in the past, the possibility of truth is rooted in freedom. Likewise, the possibility of freedom is rooted in truth. That is, if truth isn't freely discovered, it isn't truth (i.e., you can't compel truth, as the left tries to do). And if freedom doesn't lead to truth, then one isn't really free (i.e., to live a lie is only the illusion of freedom).

There are people who do not believe in free will. For them, truth is impossible. Others do not believe in objective truth. For them, freedom is impossible. And there are others who do not believe in the soul, or an essential self. However, that sophistry can be easily disproved, for if man had no essence, he couldn't know it. To speak a truth is to know -- to be -- an essence.

The same principle applies to beauty and morality. If these were not objective categories, we couldn't even know about them. So when our liberal founders said, "we hold these truths to be self-evident," they said at least two things that are offensive to the modern left, that there is objective truth and that it is self-evident to the intellect (which transcends the reason, or empirical ego).

But for the Founders to add that all men are created equal and that they were made this way by their Creator -- I'm surprised that the ACLU hasn't found a way to overturn the Declaration of Independence on the grounds that it's unconstitutional.

There is horizontal freedom and vertical freedom. The former is "freedom from," the latter "freedom to." The former doesn't necessarily lead to the latter, while the latter always implies the former. That is, if one is truly spiritually free, one is free. But the horizontal freedom of the left -- which is only horizontal -- might as well be tyranny. Note as well that it necessarily excludes beauty and morality, except accidentally, not essentially.

In the post of three years ago, I was musing about music. Let's see if we can't tie it in with the above:

When it comes right down to it, the vast majority of music is just ephemera with no lasting value. There are a lot of things I can enjoy, but then not feel compelled to listen to a second time.

It occurred to me that we’re so focussed on the now and the new, that we may not realize that the musical “now” is not a week, or a year, or even a decade. For example, in my case, the musical "now” extends back to the mid 1920’s or so, when Louis Armstrong emerged as the greatest star in jazz -- which, bear in mind, was the popular music of its day. It wasn’t like today, where jazz is considered a scary or esoteric art form for initiates and idle beatniks who gobble down reefer pills all day.

But Armstrong revolutionized singing in a way that is still felt today. You can trace all pop vocalists in a more or less continuous line that eventually leads back to him. Naturally, in the 1920’s, you couldn’t have known this. The records he recorded then were considered ephemera, just cheap trinkets tossed into the marketplace in hope of some quick sales. It never occurred to anyone at the time -- least of all Armstrong -- that they were producing timeless art that would influence music forever, not just in America, but all over the world.

Another thing the average person wouldn’t have noticed in the 1920’s is how singular Armstrong was. Just like today, thousands of records were made by various pop and jazz acts, but how many of them are of any interest to us today? Very few. In hindsight, we can see that only a handful of musicians were even in the same league as Armstrong.

It’s obviously the same way with classical music. There you can survey even larger expanses of time and see that only a few geniuses stand way above the rest -- Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Brahms, etc. -- all of the usual suspects.

But now the now is more distracting and dizzying than ever, obviously not just with regard to music, but with everything -- religion, philosophy, psychology, you name it. There is so much information, so many choices. On the one hand, this has undeniably positive aspects, but on the other hand, it can leave us drowning in the trivial and transient, when the purpose of life is to see through the accidental to the essential -- to know the truth, and for the truth to set us free.

I am fascinated by things that you might think are subjective, but which are actually 100% objective -- perhaps even more objective than what we call “objective reality,” since that reality is always changing, plus it is colored by our vantage point and by the limitations of our neurology. Does the subatomic world consist of particles? Or waves? Who knows? It depends on how you look.

But there are certain musicians and musical performances that can catch your ear in such a way that you know in your bones that they cannot be surpassed. I'm thinking of, say, Frank Sinatra or Ray Charles between '53 and '61, or Aretha between '66 and '73, or so many others. Sometimes it's just a single song by a particular artist that achieves a kind of perfection that they can never again duplicate.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident.” Today, because of the influence of science, we suppose that the only self-evident truths are found in math or science. But the opposite is true. Science is constantly evolving, changing, progressing, outgrowing old truths. Before Einstein -- the Louis Armstrong of modern physics -- published his revolutionary papers in the early 1900’s, physics was considered essentially complete. College students were discouraged from entering the field, because, with the exception of a couple of “unresolved clouds on the horizon,” physicists had wrapped up their work. But Einstein ignored the received wisdom of his day and forged ahead with his unorthodox ideas.

So, Bob, what's your point? My point is this: religious truth is of the same order as artistic truth, only more so. It too might appear to be subjective, but it is not. In fact, it is the most objective truth available to human beings. There are people who can recognize it, others who, for whatever reason, cannot or will not.

At the time Jesus lived, only a few people recognized what was going on. But they did so in an instant -- John the Baptist, for example. Not to trivialize it, but he clearly experienced something that was as obvious and objective as hearing a perfect musical performance which you just know is true, even though you could never explain why.

More generally, there has probably never been another time in human history when it has been easier to overrun the truth and continue searching for it long after you've found it, as if it never happened. Our founders discovered the keys to liberty, decency, and prosperity. Meanwhile, Obama is busy changing all the locks.

I'm freeeeeeeeeeee!

And the Weird Light Shines in the Dark, but the Dorks Don't Comprehend It

I think we can all agree that there is a real world. I call this world O. This real world is irreducibly horizontal and vertical. There is no vertical in the absence of the horizontal, and no horizontal in the absence of the vertical -- similar to how there is no form without substance, and vice versa.

However, the horizontal is a world of linear effects, while the vertical is the realm of nonlinear causes. Within itself, the vertical is characterized by connections which we experience down here as synchronicities. For example, it is not as if your true self is caused each moment by the immediately preceding moment. Rather, it is ultimately rooted in a vertical archetype that is outside time.

And this archetype is connected to other archetypes reflected in the herebelow. This is how you might be closer to me at this moment than you are to someone in the next room -- or how we can all occupy the same barstool next to Toots. Obviously such a thing would be impossible in profane time and space, or outside Babe's, his favorite watering hole.

Sherrard writes that "Each natural form is the center of an influx coming from its divine archetype or theophanic Divine Name." However, there is no "gap" between archetype and worldly form, at least from the top down: "The one is the other, the archetype is the icon, the icon is the archetype, there is an indissoluble interpenetration of the one by the other." In a way, you could say that this corresponds to the two poles of Christ's -- and of our -- existence, i.e., immanent incarnation and transcendent identity.

But again, these are not two different worlds. Rather, it is more like one world with two ends -- more a way to think about reality than reality itself: "Though there is a disctinction, there is no dualism between the natural and supernatural world. The spiritual world is not another world set apart from the natural world. It intermingles and coexists with, and constitutes the invisible dimension of, the natural world."

But of course, only the saint -- or the Thrice-Cleared Operating Thetan and Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler of the Holy Temple Church of Tonga Pacific -- realizes this truth in its fulness, while the rest of us only get occasional glimpses, or (?!).

Everything is simultaneously within and beyond itself, like an arrow pointing in two directions. Detached from the vertical, no thing is any thing at all; it has no reality, but is merely a condensation of nothingness floating over a sea of dreams. This is what it means to say that creation is dependent upon God. It must be understood in the vertical, not horizontal, sense.

As I described in the book, (k) corresponds to Ø as (¶) corresponds to O; and (k) flows from (•) as (n) flows from (¶). These empty pneumaticons are like algebraic placeholders that must be filled by personal experience. In other words, they have no particular meaning until it is realized by the individual.

Sherrard perfectly describes what is intended by the distinction between (k) and (n): the latter "combines the reflected knowledge of the data given by Revelation and the most personal inner experience; for without such experience, all that can be conveyed is a mere collection of concepts," or (k) (emphasis mine).

In my book, I compared revelation to the reflectors on the back of a car. They are dark until you shine a light into them, at which time they seem to illuminate from the inside out. Here is how Sherrard describes it: "One might say that the divine revelation is the light that makes it possible to see, while the inner experiential vision of the gnostic is the light that sees. To ignore the first -- the divine revelation -- is to remain permanently in the dark. Not to attain the second -- the inner experiential vision -- is to remain blind."

What a wonderful analogy: scientistic darkness vs. religious blindness. Fortunately there is a way out, but it is only thorough (¶) and (n). To plagiaphrase a formulation Schuon used, revelation is the light of the intellect objectfied, while the intellect (¶) is the light of revelation subjectivized. When you think about it, this makes perfect sense: (¶) and (n) are again two poles of the same divine reality. And ultimately, it is as Eckhart described, God knowing God, i.e., "the eye with which I see God is the same eye with which He sees me."

This eye is (¶), and you might say that it shines in three directions, "up," in, and out. It is what illuminates heaven for us, but also that which allows us to know heaven on earth -- or to understand that "the kingdom of heaven is within."

Again, (¶) is qualitative, not quantitative; it is also a measure of depth. Therefore, to spontaneously apprehend the "deep qualities" of existence is ipso facto to be operating out of (¶). This is why I say that one of the organizing principles of the spiritual life is to follow the depth, from whatever realm, whether science, philosophy, or theology, for the attainment of depth is the realization of soul.

Please note as well that this attainment of depth is not a horizontal phenomenon. In other words, it can never be like the hypertrophied (•) which conflates depth and width, so to speak. This is why some wise man or guy said that an intellectual is just an ass bearing a load of books -- or an (•) bearing a load of (k). For if the (•) in question knows nothing of (¶) or (n), what good is he? True, he can be a good plumber or mechanic, but that's all he can be, no matter how tenured.

In contrast, (n) can only take place now. I don't care how much of a biblical scholar you are. If you can't put down the Book and reproduce and transmit some of its light now, then you are probably fooling yourself. Everyone knows the devil can and does quote scripture with the best of them. Indeed, he has been known to memorize the Koran front to back. But the devil knows only the letter, never the spirit that contains, protects, and illuminates scripture.

Thus, (n) is specifically timeless. It cannot be realized in time, because it is atemporal, like a Vegas casino, where there are no clocks. When you play blackjack with God, you bet everything, with no concerns about yesterday or tomorrow. And you can't beat the house.

Just getting started. There's much more. If I don't see you tomorrow, happy Independence Day. And for Obama supporters, happy Dependent Life.

When Egos Attack!

Sherrard notes that the scientistic reduction and bifurcation of reality into reason and matter ultimately results in the spiritual nadir of Obama worship. Well, not exactly, because he died in 1995. But he might as well say it, because again, as a result of this bifurcation, what is specifically excluded from reality is our mirror of the Real, i.e., the nous, intellect, psychic being, or what I prefer to call (¶).

In one way or another, the elimination of (¶) is always Job One of the left, whatever sophistry they try to hide behind, e.g., "separation of church and state," bonehead Darwinism, multiculturalism, feminism, moral relativism, the "living constitution," etc. Once (¶) is out of the picture, the field is cleared of objectivity, of higher standards, of adults, of timeless truth, of our nonlocal telos, of the very reason for man's existence.

In short, what you end up with is "the triumph of the Demos expressed in such clichés as 'my view is as good as your view'" (Sherrard). You end up in the ironic situation of a "reality based community" that simultaneously believes that "perception is reality." Thus, a scientistic Queegling and hard-left Kosbag find common cause in their magical denial of reality in all of its modes and dimensions. Or, to put it another way, they have a common enemy: reality.

Again, reality "takes place" between O and (¶). We can never know O. As I explained in my book, anyone who is naive enough to think he can contain O within his reason -- no matter how brilliant -- automatically renders it Ø. Thus, the scientistic clown -- Dawkins, Harris, Queeg, et al -- is always talking about Ø, not O. For him, Ø is reality, the reason being that he is identified solely with (•).

I hope this is not getting too obscure or complicated, because my purpose is to cut through the complexity and to literally present things as simply as possible (but no simpler).

Yes, in a certain relative way, perception is obviously reality. That is, we can only know as much reality as our being will permit. A dog lives in a very different reality than a human being. There are many things a dog senses that a human cannot, but many more things a human can know to which a dog has no access at all.

As I have said before, I am not one of those who believes that the ego is intrinsically "evil," or that it is the repository of fallen man. Rather, I believe it serves an evolutionary purpose (which we'll get into later). In the grand scheme of things, it is like a launching stage for further psychic growth.

Indeed, this is why I use an empty symbol for it, (•). It's rather like the body. It's good or bad, depending upon the use to which it is put. Also, the body can become "bad," so to speak -- or at least an impediment to psychic growth -- if we are completely identified with it, like an animal (when man does this, he renders himself lower than an animal).

I routinely see patients who are more or less identified with the body. Usually they are from third-world countries or from lower socio-economic classes, but not always. Really, it's more of caste thing, as I have described in the past. What does the world look like to such an individual? I don't know. A Big Mac. A vagina. A basketball court. [Sounds good to me! --C.D.]

I once thought about writing an article about the idea of a first world, second world, third world, etc., only applied to the psyche instead of economics. Because there surely exist different "worlds" to go along with different degrees of psychological development. This is why we cannot simply say that "man is the measure or all things," because there is no "thing" in the absence of a psychic container. For example, a shoe is a radically different object if contained in the mind of a dog vs. a person.

Likewise, for an illiterate person, a book is just an object. It is not even as interesting as a shoe is to a dog, unless there are lots of pictures.

Now, I have a huge library. Much of it is filled with books on psychoanalysis, religion, theology, mysticism, and metaphysics. For me, they mirror and disclose various worlds. But to the reified (•), they are just meaningless objects. They do not disclose any reality.

Here again, you can appreciate how this attitude leads to the triumph of the spiritually vacant boobieoisie. But what's really going on beneath the surface is an all out attack on O. If you stand back and look at it abstractly, you will see that it actually takes the form of (•) attacking (¶). You can see it in our trolls. Their dispute is not with me. Rather, it is with (¶) disguised as me -- and ultimately with O.

Likewise, this is the basis of my dispute with Obama, who is really a big Øbama. He is a big vacant somebody who is the result of a lot of big nobodies making him into one. But Ø + Ø always adds up to Ø.

Time's up. To be continued....

Dead Men Waking

So, anything that doesn't have its roots aloft in the divine life is essentially dead -- or undead is more like it, since it is the negation of Life, not its opposite. Our undead self consists of identification with various mind parasites, and it is from this pseudo-self "that we have to be rescued, or saved." Deliverance from this state is a kind of resurrection in this life.

"Basically, then, it is a matter of dying to this false self of our ego-consciousness and to its loves and desires, for this self is our dead self" (Sherrard). We must transition from the egocentric to the theocentric position, which is the true basis for the anthropocentric position; as I mentioned in my book, worship of God activates a kind of latent dialectical space between O and (¶), and this is the fruitful space in which it all goes down.

O "strengthens" and vivifies (¶), while (¶) becomes the "lens" through which the energies of O are refracted. In contrast, the local ego, or (•), basically repels the divine energies (↓). And it is too proud and self-sufficient to reach beyond itself to its source (↑), so the cycle of spiritual metabolism is completely disrupted on both ends. You either asphyxiate or become anorexic.

As I've mentioned before, I can imagine some people thinking that the symbolic system of gnotation I use in OCUG to map spiritual growth is a little cold, or idiosyncratic, or abstract. But I explained there that the whole point is that the symbols must be filled with transpersonal experience, otherwise they remain empty categories.

For example, here is how Sherrard describes what I would call (↑): the "condition of being reborn, or resurrected... cannot be accomplished without the fulfilling of another condition: that we continually aspire towards and form links with the divine world, the world of eternity. The purpose of the spiritual life is not achieved through some abstract conception of the Kingdom of Heaven, or even through belief, in the pious sense, in the Kingdom of Heaven. It is achieved through strengthening our living relationship with the Kingdom of Heaven, and through cultivating in ourselves those organs through which we can experience the life of eternity."

This approach properly emphasizes both sides of the dialectic. Obviously, without the grace of (↓), nothing is possible. I mean, you can try, but good luck. More often than not, you'll ether just go in circles while engaging in some kind of glorified auto-hypnosis, or what we call spiritual Ønanism. In reality, it is just unhip gnosis by another name.

If there is a purpose of life -- and there is -- it can only be understood and actualized in reference to eternity. It's not going to be found down here -- that is, unless we have achieved the ability to see eternity in time, or the nonlocal radiating through the lens of the local.

Indeed, this is how human existence is to be understood: man is the local being through whom the nonlocal may be received and transmitted to the others in the form of truth, love, beauty, etc. Our job is to receive and assimilate (↓), but to then propagate it horizontally (<--¶-->).

If we fail to engage in our verticalisthenics (↑) in this life -- and therefore fail to activate and bring forward the (¶) -- then buddy, you've screwed yourself bigtime. "We will remain impervious to the light of eternity and to the blessings of the Kingdom of Heaven, locked up in our subjective dreams which are by now second nature to us. Surrounded by the spiritual world -- as we are in fact all the time -- we will not be aware of it: we will be outside it, exterior to it, in hell."

Do you see why? The local ego is "exteriority" as such. When you think about it, it's the only thing that is "outside" the cosmos. It is merely a kind of Darwinian adaptation to external circumstances, and is therefore largely a mirror of the environment. It is more or less exiled from spirit, and in need of deliverance, or salvation. This is why various cultures are so crazy, because they have no living relationship to the truth that transcends the quasi-animal ego. Ultimately they are just neurotic or psychotic collective adaptations to the ubiquitous problem of having a mind. For example, read Scipio's post yesterday about the gories of Islam:

"Imagine if any other religion acted as does Islam -- Christianity for example. If Christians made war upon cartoons? If Christians made war upon Buddhist statues? If Christians chopped off heads on camera? If Christians sent legions of suicide killers into schoolhouses? If Christians murdered their daughters for violations of ‘honor?’ If Christians boasted about blasting civilian airliners from the sky? If Christians were involved in almost every war on the planet? If Christians at the Vatican regularly stampeded and trampled to death hundreds of their own? If Christian youth made a sport of raping non-Christian girls? If Christians hunted down and killed all who tried to leave the faith? If Christians sent out hit squads to murder all who insulted the faith? If Christians around the globe jumped with glee after the towers fell? If Protestant and Catholic Christians engaged themselves in mutual slaughter? If Christians sexually mutilated their adolescent girls?"

I don't just blame Islam for their mess. Rather, I blame man. Mankind is the problem, therefore more mankind surely cannot be the solution. This actually goes to one of the quintessential differences between the illiberal left and conservative liberals, something which Dennis Prager reminded me of yesterday: the leftist "loves" mankind, but treats individuals with contempt -- in the same way that the Islamist loves the idea of everyone living under a worldwide Caliphate worse than death, but has no problem butchering and maiming individual Muslims, who are worthless to him.

But the conservative liberal has no great regard for mankind. Rather, he loves individuals and individualism. Which is why an illiberal statist such as Obama must be his sworn enemy. The leftist pretends he can cure mankind with various material inducements, or simply by coercively rearranging the socioeconomic floors of the cultural titanic.

Won't work. Can't work. Wrong species. You're not going to get people out of hell by imposing it on them. Rather, they must realize where they are, and then make the effort to leave. Obama says, "don't worry. No need to change. We love you just the way you are. We'll just change everything else but you."

Real change and real hope can only result from real rebirth. First and foremost, we must nourish and cultivate the subtle organs of spiritual perception, or cʘʘnvision. Engaging in a serious spiritual practice simultaneously opens us to spiritual energies and influences (not just from God, but from certain authorized Deputies and helpful nonlocal operators).

Equally importantly, this will "awaken and galvanize in us the latent spiritual potentialities of our being, those that foster our rebirth, that allow us to transmute our consciousness, to free it from its hidebound ego-centered state in such a way that it is once again able to perceive and mirror divine realities and to interpenetrate with the consciousness of God" (Sherrard).

So the day-to-deity work of spirituality involves severing certain links and nourishing others. Conversely, egoic death-in-life consists of feeding and strengthening the links that keep us bound to illusion and sin, and ignoring those energic channels that would liberate us from our fetters. So the choice is yours: undead man walking, or dead man waking.

More tomorrow on how to circumnavelgaze and I-ambulate around in Bob's peculiar map of hyperspace...

Maps, Legends, and Seven-Dimensional Cartography

Sherrard writes that "In our post-mortal state our habits continue, though the means for satisfying them are now different." They continue "because we are still in the thrall of those images, or apparitions, or fantasies" which ruled us in this life. And these ghostly fantasies that we call "thoughts" are often themselves the byproducts of mind parasites.

Sherrard mentions the example of Hamlet, who hesitates to plunge in the knife for fear of "what dreams may come": "for it is in the post-mortal state that we are caught up in those passionate, parasitic sequences of thought and image -- those streams of consciousness -- which we have set moving in this life through some 'vital congruity'... of our soul and which we are compelled to follow, like a dream, as they unfold in our post-mortal state."

So be careful what you obsess over. Have you ever had a real obsession, something you couldn't get out of your head, and which just kept replaying over and over, like broken record or Keith Olbermann show? Well, those are just extreme cases. Much of what we call "thought" is really disguised obsession.

In turn, one of the primary purposes of prayer or meditation is to break the link in the obsessional chain. Being that obsessional thought always skitters along the surface horizontally, you can disrupt it at any time by going vertical, or up and in. Remember, you always have inward mobility and upward nobility.

In a later chapter (we'll get back to the present one), Sherrard talks about how even the senses "are false witnesses for those with impure souls." In other words, what we think of as the most "objective" source of data becomes thoroughly subjectivized in the wrong hearts. This is why science, which is neutral, often leads to the pneumapathology of scientism. You might say that scientism is a form of metaphysical OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), in that it is entirely circular and self-enclosed, and yet imagines that it is adequately describing "reality."

Which, of course, is why you could never "debate" someone with such delusions of adequacy -- such as Charles Queeg about Darwinism -- because it would be like trying to talk someone out of a hand-washing compulsion. It's just a mental tic, as his thousands of former readers well understand. I've had patients who wash their hands, or who check their locks or windows or stoves, hundreds of times a day. Saying "don't do that" would be entirely beside the point. It would be as helpful as asking an Islamist to stop hating Jews. You can't break into that closed circle. It is their map of reality, and if you take it away they'll be utterly lost in the cosmos, with no one to contain their unbound hatred.

Sherrard writes that "We must always remember that we can see things only as they appear to us after passing through the filter of our own perceptual equipment, and the degree to which this filter will admit or exclude the reality of what we see, or think we see, will depend entirely upon the modality of our own particular consciousness." Doors of perception, and all that.

One of the great spiritual dangers of "education" is that it inevitably involves a greater or lesser degree of indoctrination. As a result, the most educated people will often be the most indoctrinated. This is because the "educational establishment" becomes a thing in itself, the result being that those who best adapt to it are the ones who "move up" -- again, we would never deny the workings of natural selection, confined to its proper role.

The same is true of the MSM. The reason why they all think alike is because they are adapted to a ghostly reality that they co-create in adapting to it. It only exists in their heads, but they all mutually reenfarce one another, so that the dream appears real.

I well remember taking the state examination for my psychology license in 1991. The written test in particular is utterly irrelevant to what I would call "psychic reality." Rather, it's like a huge body of knowledge that one must master just for the sake of mastering it.

But there is a more sinister implication, because it forces one to defer to the state's definition of the mind and of mental health. But it does not correspond to the human mind. It is mostly a patchwork of disconnected fragments of knowledge compacted together like some sort of monster. And many of the fragments are inserted there by various political interest groups -- all the usual suspects, i.e., sodomites, feminists, cross-dressers, perverts, pagans, and liberal racists. You must regard the abnormal as normal -- or at least pretend you do -- or you cannot be a psychologist. Period.

The purpose of a theory is to mirror a world. As I have mentioned before, this is also the purpose of revelation and of theology: to mirror the divine reality. In the case of both science and religion, it is always a mistake to confuse the map with the territory or the menu with the meal. And in neither case is the map ever complete. Rather, we spend our lives as cartographers, and there is reason to believe that we take our maps with us when we go on the Big Hike.

Looked at in this way, the very purpose of a spiritual practice is to internalize an accurate map of reality in the full sense of the word. To put it another way, it should be the "cure" for various distorted or partial maps. You simply must have an accurate map, or you won't get anywhere. Or, alternatively, if you don't change maps, you're liable to end up where you're headed.

Sherrard discusses one of the subtle effects of the scientific revolution, and that is the bifurcation of reality into mind and matter, or the physical world and the reason. Excluded from this closed world is the intellect, which is our organ of perception of higher worlds (in my book, symbolized as ¶). Note that this bifurcation creates an intrinsically false map, but that the map can't destroy the intellect, any more than the Islamist's bad map of sexuality eliminates the sex drive. Rather, it simply returns in perverse form, as we see in Iran.

So when we are compelled to internalize a false map of reality that excludes the intellect, the intellect will then roam free, like a ghost, and try to make its own map, to the exclusion of the other two (sense and reason). This is how you end up with, on the one hand, fundamentalism, and on the other, the Deepaks of the world. Both have insanely inaccurate maps, the former because their map is two-dimensional, the latter because it corresponds only with his bottomless narcissism.

You might say that the fundamentalist fetishizes the map, turning it into a graven image, while in Deepak's case, his narcissism leads him to devalue the God-given maps, so that his alternatively vacuous or sinister babbling in no way mirrors the divine world.

As Sherrard writes, "This is a dark and hellish world, the world of the ego's self-deception.... This exaltation of our ego-consciousness, and of the pseudo-knowledge that goes with it, are evidence of the fall." In short, "what does not have its roots in [the] divine life is essentially dead."

When Christ says "let the dead bury the dead," he might as well be saying, "let Deepak bury Michael." This is not a casual asnide, but the essence of Christ's life and his example: "He is uttering a universal horation to all those who wish to live: that they have to die to and bury their dead selves; for when identified with these selves, they are as dead."

So crucify and bury those manmade maps, because they don't chart the torahtery.

Of Icons and Ocons

If you want to understand the power of mind parasites, just consider the fate of Michael Jackson, who was literally entombed in them by the time his corpse ceased dysfunctioning. A newspaper report says that at the time of bodily death (which occurred years after psychic death), he weighed 112 pounds, had nothing but pills in his stomach, was covered with needle wounds, had a mass of scars from all the body mutilation (i.e., cosmetic surgery), and had shed virtually all his hair.

But what is even more fascinating to the forensic psychologist in me is that now the family wants to sue someone -- anyone -- and that their sub-bottomfeeding spokeshole, Jesse Jackson, is talking about "foul play." Foul play? Foul play? Of course there was foul play! There always is. How do you think the mind parasites got there in the first place? Too bad Joseph Jackson can't sue himself and win punitive damages -- or maybe even send himself to prison for child abuse. From wiki:

"Jackson said that he was physically and emotionally abused by his father from a young age, enduring incessant rehearsals, whippings and name-calling.... In one altercation, Joseph held Michael upside down by one leg and 'pummeled him over and over again with his hand, hitting him on his back and buttocks.' Joseph would also trip or push his male children into walls.

"One night while Jackson was asleep, Joseph climbed into his room through the bedroom window. Wearing a fright mask, he entered the room screaming and shouting. Joseph said he wanted to teach his children not to leave the window open when they went to sleep. For years afterwards, Jackson said he suffered nightmares about being kidnapped from his bedroom....

"[Jackson] said that during his childhood he often cried from loneliness and would sometimes start to vomit upon seeing his father.... [Join the club -- Ed.] Jackson recalled that Joseph sat in a chair with a belt in his hand as he and his siblings rehearsed and that 'if you didn't do it the right way, he would tear you up, really get you.'"

As I've mentioned before, no matter how horrid the abuse, the mind parasites will nearly always come to the defense of their creator. Thus, Jackson "also credited his father's strict discipline as playing a large part in his success."

Who could ever begin to estimate the financial cost of mind parasites to society? For example, Joe Jackson, who co-created his son's mind parasites, now wants to be reimbursed by someone -- anyone -- for the fact that the parasites finally went a little too far and actually killed the host -- the ghoost that laid the golden records. They were just a little too strong. Either that, or Michael was just a little too temperamentally weak to survive them (no doubt a combination). "Ironic" is just too insufficient a word. The child who murders his parents and then pleads for mercy because he is an orphan is just too insufficient a joke.

One of the reasons you cannot calculate the cost of mind parasites is that you cannot calculate their value. It's analogous to the so-called cost to society of smokers. They never factor in the billions of dollars saved in social security that will never have to be paid out. Plus, you have to die of something. They calculate the medical cost of smoking as if the person wouldn't eventually have had some other costly medical problem.

Mind parasites can create a kind of economic bubble to go along with the psychological bubble. In the case of Jackson, countless people lived in, and fed off of, that bubble -- not just his worthless family members, but various plastic surgeons, pharmaceutical companies, handlers, and a devolving door of rented friends. Plus, because of his essential emptiness, he spent millions upon millions trying to fill it. How could you possibly calculate the economic activity?

Truly, if you could wave a magic wand and instantly make all of the mind parasites disappear, I'm afraid that the economy would grind to a halt. Look at me. I'm not holding myself out as any kind of model, but I lead a very simple life, and that's the way I like it. Complexity merely interferes with the essential bliss, or contentment.

And if the bliss isn't happening, I don't blame it on circumstances, let alone on an absence of complexity. Rather, the bobstacle force is nearly always within. Or we're out of grog. But I think it's fair to say that most people pursue the complications as a replacement for contentment. It's mostly an exciting distraction that lasts as long as the illusion can hold out against psychic reality.

It reminds me of how people complain about our political system, and how the most important job in the world comes down to how many idiots you can influence with 30 second TV commercials. So people talk about limiting the amount of money you can spend on a campaign, or banning political commercials.

But such "solutions" are entirely beside the point. The problem is, people are stupid and impressionable. And one of the main reasons they are stupid and impressionable is that liberals have near total domination of the educational establishment and mass media. Unless we solve the problem of TV and college, we're going to continue to get vapid but dangerous clowns such as Obama. There is something fundamentally wrong with a society that elevates the perverse nightmare of a sadistic father to an icon, and elevates the vacant dream of an absent father to an even bigger con.