The Basic Elements of Mass Psychology

All of us to some extent are students of life. We all begin in childhood, especially when we witness our parents or family in general argue with each other over all kinds of matters. An extremist by nature, I have found that the best way to get to the bottom of anything is to do just that - dig down as deep as I can and try to uncover the foundations upon which any argument rests. I did this professionally for thirty years as a documentary film and television producer.

I started with ethology, which is the study of animal behavior and worked my way up from there, working with Stone Age Bushmen in the Kalahari studying the actual effects of animism on a hunter/gatherer life style; then worked my way up each subsequent level of our evolving consciousness - through shaman-based Bronze Age agricultural tribalism, Iron Age industrial craftsmanship and rigid scriptural dogma; Middle Eastern Sufism, Hindu yoga and Buddhist Zen. In that long process of both self and collective discovery I ended up with a lot of basic conclusions about our current Steel Age of scientific determinism and religious argument that one does not find in standard text books. The fruit of all that work is published in my book "Psyche-Genetics" which I hope you may end up reading one day.

Anyway, here is a bit of base knowledge about ourselves that you might have already figured out for yourself.

Three fundamental Archetypes of Human Consciousness.

On top of the pile are the most blessed among us;
The most physically attractive.
The most industrially accomplished
The most courageous
The most loving
The most artistically accomplished
The most visionary
The most creatively inventive.

In the middle of the pile are the bulk of us, who can only marvel at the best, be thankful that they exist as living examples of what we all can be like and try our own level best to be like them.

At the bottom of the pile are the misfits, all struggling with some form of natural distortion - some applying super-human efforts to rise above their handicaps, and in that process rising above mere mortal level. Others are trying their best to hold their own, or sinking into apathy. Some, too many alas, turn rogue.

Death and Wisdom

I have been hotly challenged on several philosophical forums by young whippersnappers regarding my claim that only age and experience brings on wisdom.

The immature challengers have fallen into the pseudo-intellectual trap of thinking that natural or book-learned smarts, in mechanics or the arts, embellished by a modicum of practical experience, equates with the holistic view of life and the ability to penetrate its enigmas that I am referring to when I talk about the wisdom that comes with sagehood.

I have been at pains to inform them that all they know only forms the fount from which wisdom is distilled; that only when the promise of death becomes a constant factor in the psyche, does the summation of all their life experiences bring on the enlightenment of true wisdom.

They have cried in response the age does not guarantee wisdom, which is true.

Naturally, there are degrees of wisdom attained by the elderly, but no natural smarts or any amount of book learning or practical experience can even begin to equate with the inner realizations that death brings to the table of even the most uneducated psyche.

Mercifully, for those elderly who have led ineffectual lives and have not learned to come to terms with themselves, senility sets in with age and screens them from dealing with the frightful aspect of the grim-reaper.

The blinders of religious Faiths, who's artificial Scriptures promise an after-life, have served to save many from confronting the finality of death head on. Though Faith may comfort the heart of the devout when one is in the cold Shadow, it does not keep enlightening the enquiring mind, and so religious dogma severely narrows the macroscopic view that the Cosmos really offers.

For those old-timers who manage to keep one eye open and embrace Death as a learned companion, the enlightening boon of sagehood arrives to keep the surprise of new discoveries eternally alive.

True sages are Seers with clear hindsight. Summation of the past places them squarely in the present, which in turns gives them endless visions of future possibilities.

Only when Time and Space are fused as a singularity, is wisdom evident.

Proposal for Political Reform

There are two basic political ideologies in our country that made sense when they were formulated two and a half centuries ago, but which make no common sense today. They are in effect the leading cause for the acrimonious political confrontations and congressional dead-locks that we have experienced since WWI, WWII, The Cold War, the debacle in Vietnam and the current insanity of poking our noses into an ancient Middle-Eastern family feud that goes back to Abraham's time.

They are:
1. One man, one vote.
2. Representational Government.


ONE MAN - ONE VOTE

As it stands now my son, who is 18 can cancel out my vote at the ballot box if he so chooses.
I am a senior citizen. I am well educated. I have mastered several crafts and business occupations. I have lived and worked around the world. For the past 25 years I have faithfully executed my duties as a husband, father and grandfather, while improving our family estate. I am also the director of a non-profit foundation that is working to further the health of the general community. With death around the corner, I have no more self-centered personal ambitions to fulfill, other than to try an make sure that the future is better than the present.

Since there are many more inexperienced voters than there are elders, and who consequently have the majority say in government, what does the future portend? As far as I can see, the political disarray of the moment can only continue unless some form of change takes place and which puts much of the decision-making, especially in foreign relations, in the hands of more experienced voters.

One more point on this before I make my proposal for mass change on Prop 1.
Every man and women over 18 has an undisputed human right to one vote. Why not every new-born? They are immediately and directly affected by political decisions and their parents should be given the regency to execute their rights at the ballot box until they become of age.

I therefore propose a multiple vote system. (MVS)

Vote 1. Registered at birth and administered by parents until 18.
Vote 2. After graduating high school or completing a trade apprenticeship.
Vote 3. Advanced degree from a recognized educational facility
Vote 4. At Age 42, after 21 years of full time occupation mastering a trade or profession.
vote 5. Sustained marriage and parenthood till the youngest child is at least 14.
Vote 6. At least 1 year international experience serving abroad.
Vote 7. Ten years volunteer community service.


REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT

Congress

It no longer takes a man a week or more to ride to Washington to represent a congressional district. We have an instantaneous mass communication system. Every local or national issue can be thoroughly investigated and aired. With our votes only an electronic click away every single one of us can fully represent ourselves and our views.

I propose that the House of Congress be turned into a political museum


Political Parties

Without a Congress the party system becomes passe.


Senate

The needs of each State should continue to be represented by two Senators from each.

Personal qualifications for election to the Senate

1. Minimum age 65. (The word senator, denotes senior)
2. Gender equality: Same amount of male and female senators
3. Holder of 7 votes.


Presidency

Purely ceremonial


I believe that these common sense political changes will get our nation functioning at full efficiency and get rid of all the pork barrelling and special interest influences.
A Senate of internationally experienced elders will ensure that our world leadership role gets our planet mangement responsibilities up to full steam.

Fathering

It is my experience that men in general are not ready for fathering until their forty second year (male menopause.) Prior to that time our psyches are almsot exclusively involved in self-improvement. I '"fathered" my first child at 21. I was so busy and ambitious at that time that I felt no intrinsic need to become deeply involved with his upbringing - so basically all I did was procreate an unplanned child. That marriage ended in an inevitable divorce. It was only in my mid-forties that I felt an emotional need to remarry and father children and pass on all the knowledge and crafts that I had learned and teach them how not to make the same mistakes I did. It might be interesting to note that traditionally among the amaZulu in Natal, until recent times, a man did not get the marriage headring until his 42nd year. Prior to that he was initiated at puberty and trained to be a bachelor lion-fighter - protector of the herds and also serve his time as a warrior against rival tribes. Only after having served his prescribed time and proved his worth as a man, did he received a portion of the tribal herds and retire from the battle field with enough wealth to buy young wives and rear children and finally have the right to his say at tribal council. It would seem to me that focused modern young businessmen and craftsmen remain biologically inclined to follow that ancient path of male development - and that young women who feel the urge to mother and discover the true depth of their own femininity, should look for a reliable marriage partner among matured men and not those still trying to discover their own potentials.

The above refers to men in general and ambitious men in particular. There are always exceptions. Men are also able to evoke powerful nurturing instincts at any age. The problem of young fathers is that they cannot raise and teach their young from direct personal experience. They have to rely solely on custom.

Sexual Morality

Yesterday I watched Dr Phil on TV try to analyse why a beautiful young girl wanted revenge on her cheating lover.

The 18 year old girl was gorgeous and naive. Her lover was a 36 year old bachelor. She had found out that he was having sex with three other women during the same time he was dating her. His defense was that he had made no formal engagement proposal while dating her. As for dating younger women - it was because "older women carried too much baggage." He had no qualms about having multiple sexual relations simultaneously - and cited the reality series "The Bachelor" who did the same thing in front of million of viewers, before choosing the partner he would marry.

Cuts to the audience during the interview showed a lot of women listening to the conversation. Most of them looked inwardly confused. Their smiles at Dr Phil's humor over the situation were strained.

Dr Phil was in the bachelor's corner. His only reservation was that he felt the guy should have been more forthcoming about his other liaisons while dating the girl. He gave the girl a hard time about wanting revenge and told her that she should drop the guy and her feelings of rejection and move on.

The irony of the show (completely missed by the good doctor) was that he was analysing the behavior of a man, complaining that older women were too messed up to date, while at the same time being the sexual predator who callously preyed on the feelings of impressionable young women and in the process was directly responsible for gradually turning them into the baggage-laden garbage that he would not date when they were older.

The show reinforced my view that American sexual morality is skating on a very thin edge. The unhappy faces of the women in the audience reminded me of the fact that the women's lib movement has a price to pay in their fight for sexual freedom. There are times when I wonder if the price is too high. The ever-climbing divorce rate and broken homes seem to support my view.

A century ago, if that naive young girl had been my daughter or my sister, it would have been within my rights to label the man as a cad and a scoundrel and shoot him in a duel. I have three beautiful young daughters of my own. Maybe I am old-fashioned, but I am not so sure if my feelings about men who prey on young women for their private enjoyment have changed.

Psyche Development

The holistic advantages of dual brain stimulation

Split brain experiments by Roger Sperry in the 1960’s “Hemisphere Disconnection and Unity in Conscious awareness” , and further work by him together with R. Gazzaniga and J.E. Bogen: “Interhemispheric Relationships: the Neocortical Commissures; Syndromes of Hemisphere Disconnection” (which eventually led to the Nobel Prize) presented a general conclusion that the left and right side of brain respond to distinctly different, yet mutually compatible sets of stimuli.

The diagram above, which first appeared in Betty Edwards’ multi-million-seller book; “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” illustrates the masculine/analytical; feminine/ intuitive dynamic that governs the individual human psyche very clearly.

What Betty discovered by applying Sperry’s findings to her art classes, was that by designing drawing exercises that forced pupils to see artistic images and perspectives with the right side of the brain, instead of trying to mechanically regulate them with the left, which most of us do, students (children and adults) with almost no artistic ability to begin with, could without exception, make sudden dramatic breakthroughs in artistic expression and progress to near professional levels inside three months.

Betty’s book got me to read up on Sperry’s findings – that study, together with some thirty years of research I had done myself on child development, among a wide range of cultures around the world, eventually got me interested in developing a dual brain child educational curriculum of my own which I called HeartStart. For the past eighteen years I have applied this home school developmental program to the education of eight of my own children. I have mentioned the outstanding results each have achieved, not only in the high marks in the academic subjects required by the State, but also in their exceptional artistic creativity and ethical social behavior. The threads it was mentioned on generated remarkably little reaction from the members of this forum.

As the future of this nation – and indeed its powerful influence on the rest of the world, will be determined by the next generation if children, such lukewarm interest in how we are continuing to educate them is somewhat puzzling – especially when there is a general consensus that our current education system is failing, while the potential for a revolutionary break-through in dual brain creativity and motivated ethical behavior, uncovered by Sperry, has been languishing in the offing for nigh on forty years.

Perhaps the lack of interest has been because I have failed to mention that dual brain exercises are efficacious not only with children, but among adults of any age as well. In essence dual brain development refers to our grasp of the both the physical world as well as our metaphysical potentials.

We have all been more or less well-trained in physics and know something of its finite limitations, but very few of are aware (other than via the distortion of biased religious instruction) of the infinitely more fascinating field of metaphysics. Specific exercises in right brain stimulation almost immediately open a whole new world of creative potential to those who first attempt it. Most people who have become involved with yoga, tai chi and meditation classes, etc, can attest to this to some extent. But there is also a wide range of other interesting metaphysical drills and exercises that not only further stimulate your creative impulses and allow you to execute skills in every walk of life that you only presently dream you have, but also awaken within you to a deeper sense of affection and altruism for mankind in general - and a more profound grasp, even reverence, for the workings of the Cosmos.

I would like to take interested members through a step by step process, describing the fascinating journey our family has experienced over the past eighteen years as we applied this new dual-brain approach to the development of the child psyche – as well as the general improvement of the adult psyche we have also experienced. I do this in the hope of perhaps giving the dual brain message more substance than previously, and thereby hopefully generating a more lively discussion on a vital subject that has the potential to give us an entirely new perspective on the way we all look at and share this life on this home planet of ours.

The Anatomy of a Police State

The absurdity of defining ethical social behavior via a written Constitution
This hard fact is made real by the endless expense of trying to enforce it.

The trinity of Truth, Love and God, are one and the same and can only be known directly from within.

Although there is a foundation of common agreement based on the fundamental human values of sharing, working, courage, affection, creative expression and reason, together with the seven virtues that accompany social actions, the Absolute subtleties of Truth, Love, God, which continuously shift and change in Time and Space within the evolving social matrix, will always remain individually and inexplicably unique.

Nobody in history has ever been able to satisfactorily define or explain, in a universal sense, the meaning of the Trinity. Not via inspired Scripture or any rationalized treatise.
Endless “holy” wars, massive bureaucracies, legions of armies and policemen, back-logged courts and prisons over-loaded with law-breakers, have given increasing testimony to this ever since the first law book was ever penned.

There is not enough space in the cosmos that will ever be able to house a library that can contain the law books in which Truth is unambiguously defined via nay amount of clauses and all loop-holes closed.

Yet we have a multi-trillion dollar public education system and an even more expensive, bureaucracy, backed up by a huge legal and police system, trying to do just that.

Up to 80% of the budget of the average city is spent on trying to prove that we can govern human behavior via the rule book.

Though a semblance of peace and stability is sustained, ostensibly via this policed effort – most of that peace is because most citizens respond to the innate sense of goodness this is born in them If this was not so, no amount of regulation could forestall chaos.

Thus we live in a policed state, constantly supervised and legislated by endless new laws, from cradle to grave.

All that history of wasted effort and expense can change inside one generation – by moving from the current Head Start state-sponsored education program, which concentrates almost exclusively on left brain analytical book learning, to a more eclectic home-based dual brain Heart Start education program, which evokes in the individual psyche, an intuitive sense of social and spiritual ethics and the self-policed motivation to excel in each of the seven walks of life