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How To Brain-Wash Friends and Robotize People

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  1. CHAPTER TEN
  2. HOW TO BRAIN-WASH
  3. FRIENDS & ROBOTIZE
  4. PEOPLE
  5. There is no government, no industrial-military complex, no eco-
  6. nomic system, no mass media that can ever reduce us to puppets
  7. and robots as thoroughly as the biological and environmental dicta-
  8. torships have.
  9. — P.M. Esfandiary, Upwingers
  10.  
  11. As noted earlier, when the bio-survival circuit flashes danger, all
  12. other mental activity ceases.
  13. There is no "time" on the bio-survival circuit; reflexes act
  14. without emotional ego, rational mind or adult personality partici-
  15. pating: "I just found myself doing it."
  16. All the martial arts—judo, akido, kung fu, etc.—are reim-
  17. printing techniques for the bio-survival circuit. They are intended
  18. to ensure that what happens mechanically ("without thought")
  19. really does serve bio-survival, since the reflexes imprinted acci-
  20. dentally on this circuit are not that dependable.
  21. The mechanical nature of the bio-survival circuit is of key
  22. importance in brainwashing. To create a new imprint, reduce the
  23. victim to an infantile state, i.e., first-circuit vulnerability.
  24. As pointed out in the last chapter an army begins this process
  25. with the draft notice, which informs the subject that his body no
  26. longer belongs to him but to the government. The S.L. Army,
  27. seeking quicker brain change, began the conversion of Patty into
  28. Tania by taking her at gun point, but the message was the same:
  29. "We can do what we want with your body from now on." First-
  30. circuit bio-survival instincts thus become hooked to obeying
  31. those who have this awesome power—just as the infant learns to
  32. hook its bio-survival circuitry to the parental figures.
  33. Patty's ride in the trunk of a car (after being taken at gun-
  34. point) is a classic rebirth ritual; the trunk is even womb-like in its
  35. contours. When the trunk opened, she was reborn into a new
  36. reality-tunnel, that of her captors. Similarly, where the earliest
  37. forms of masonic initiation survive and have not been diluted
  38. (Note the Adeptus Major Ritual in the Complete Golden Dawn
  39. System of Magic, by Israel Regardie, Falcon Press 1983.) the
  40. candidate is thrown into a well, and then "raised" as a newborn
  41. Freemason. Total submersion, the form of baptism preferred by
  42. Protestant fundamentalists, imitates this, but without the real
  43. anxiety that made traditional masonry and the SLA so effective
  44. as brain change agents.
  45. All brainwashers empirically know (without in most cases
  46. ever having read Leary's eight-circuit model of the brain) that
  47. the oral bio-survival circuit seeks bonding with a mothering fig-
  48. ure. To increase panic and imprint vulnerability, then, the
  49. subject, after being seized by the brainwashers (U.S. or S.L.
  50. Army, "secret police," or whoever they may be in a given case)
  51. 163
  52. 164 Prometheus Rising
  53. is isolated from all those to whom bonding had previously been
  54. established. The draftee is sent to boot camp and sees no loved
  55. ones (wife, girlfriend, parents, etc.) for a number of weeks or
  56. months. The political prisoner is thrown into a dungeon. Patty
  57. Hearst was locked in a closet as soon as she was "rebirthed" out
  58. of the trunk of the car.
  59. Experiments in isolation by the U.S. Marine Corps, Dr. John
  60. Lilly and others—and the records of shipwrecked sailors, as
  61. summarized by Lilly in Simulations of God—show that only a
  62. few hours of pure isolation may be necessary before halluci-
  63. nations begin. These hallucinations, like those of psychedelic
  64. drugs, indicate the breaking down of previous imprints and the
  65. onset of vulnerability to new imprints.
  66. The need to bond the bio-survival circuit to somebody (or
  67. some thing) is indicated by the giraffe who imprinted on the
  68. hunter's jeep as a mother-substitute. Similarly, children without
  69. siblings, especially those in remote rural areas, often invent
  70. imaginary playmates, which can become "real" enough to
  71. frighten the parents into suspecting the onset of psychosis. Dr.
  72. Lilly's records of sailors and explorers in isolation show that
  73. such "guides," "companions" or "holy guardian angels" reappear
  74. quickly even in adulthood when normal social contact is
  75. removed. They also come promptly to those undergoing the
  76. mysterious state called "near-death" or "out of body experience,"
  77. (e.g., when the heart stops on the operating table.)
  78. The first human being who appears to the subject after this
  79. isolation can easily become bonded as the mother-substitute, or,
  80. next best, as a father-substitute. This explains why people held
  81. prisoner by terrorists (e.g., on hijacked airplanes) often develop a
  82. "paradoxical" sympathy for those who are threatening to kill
  83. them. It also explains why the draftee begins to look on his kid-
  84. nappers as protectors as well as captors, and why the brainwash
  85. victim begins to please, gratify and eventually "respect" the
  86. brainwasher.
  87. In all cases, since the bio-survival circuit is keyed to nourish-
  88. ment, those who bring food become possible subjects for bond-
  89. ing. The political prisoner, the draftee, the subject kidnapped by
  90. terrorists, all move somewhat closer to identification/bonding
  91. with their captors as they are fed regularly. Again, this is
  92. Prometheus Rising 165
  93. imitated crudely by various religions (without the terror that
  94. creates true imprint vulnerability) by following baptism/rebirth
  95. rituals with a communal meal or Holy Eucharist.
  96. Adaptations of these principles can be applied even to those
  97. who walk into the brainwashing environment voluntarily at first,
  98. as in People's Temple, the Manson Family, and similar organi-
  99. zations. The first step, once the victim is inside the territory
  100. (commune), is to begin isolation by cutting off all communica-
  101. tion with the outer world and its conflicting reality-tunnels.
  102. Meanwhile, a parental-protective atmosphere is quickly created
  103. (sometimes called "love-bombing") and food is provided.
  104. Whether the subject has entered voluntarily as in these com-
  105. munes, or has been kidnapped or arrested (as in police states),
  106. the next stage is to break down the second-circuit emotional-
  107. territorial imprints. That means that the subject continues to be
  108. fed (maintaining first-circuit oral dependence) while the second-
  109. circuit ego is attacked in every manner possible. A point-by-
  110. point comparison of the techniques of a Synanon "gamer" and
  111. U.S. Army drill sergeant, for instance, would show astonishing
  112. similarities, since the basic message is dozens and dozens of
  113. variations on "You are all wrong. We are all right. It is extremely
  114. unlikely that somebody as wrong as you will become right, ever,
  115. but we will try to teach you." The anal vocabulary of territorial
  116. status is, of course, employed extensively. The ideal subject may
  117. almost forget his or her name and become conditioned to answer-
  118. ing to "You asshole, come here."
  119. The sense of bottom dog helplessness can be escalated by
  120. periodic doses of real terror. One of Charlie Manson's famous
  121. sayings was "Fear is the great teacher," and every brainwasher
  122. would agree ardently. In communist countries (as dramatized in
  123. Costa-Gravas's fine and factual film, The Confession) a favorite
  124. trick is to take the subject out of his cell, march him to a court-
  125. yard, place a noose about his neck, and convince him he is about
  126. to be hanged. The relief, when this turns out to be a bluff, creates
  127. ideal imprint vulnerability. A variation in my novel Illuminatus!
  128. has the victim persuaded he has been poisoned, dumped in a cof-
  129. fin and the lid slammed upon him. Those who have been initiated
  130. as Mark Master Freemasons will recognize at once that the same
  131. technique is the "mark that you will carry to your grave."
  132. 166 Prometheus Rising
  133. Among the Zuni Indians, the male at adolescence is kid-
  134. napped by masked "demons" who carry him away from the tribe
  135. (away from mother and other imprinted security figures.) He is
  136. dragged out into the desert and threatened with whips. Then the
  137. masks come off, revealing his maternal uncles, and in that
  138. moment of imprint vulnerability the tribal "secrets" (the local
  139. reality-tunnel) are explained in a way that leave an indelible
  140. mark on his consciousness. Similar rites of passage are found in
  141. all tribes, few as cleverly designed as this one. Symbolic and
  142. diluted versions survive in Bar Mitzvahs and Confirmation
  143. ceremonies in our local mega-tribes.
  144. The rebirthing of the second circuit is (relatively) complete
  145. when the Bottom Dog subject begins to seek, sincerely (not
  146. hypocritically) to win the approval of the Top Dogs. This, of
  147. course, only begins as play-acting; the skilled brainwasher
  148. knows that, and does not really object. With subtle reinforcement
  149. the play-acting becomes more and more genuine. Edmund Burke
  150. noted long ago, and every Method Actor knows, that you cannot
  151. make three dramatic gestures of rage in a political speech, with-
  152. out beginning to feel some real rage. You cannot make three
  153. gestures of submission without beginning to feel really submis-
  154. sive. (This is the psychology of the "company man," who truly
  155. identifies with his employer after years of obedience.)
  156. The draftee first tries to please the sergeant, to avoid further
  157. humiliation and punishment. Gradually, he genuinely wants to
  158. please the sergeant, i.e., to prove he is not all wrong and is "good
  159. enough" to be a soldier. Patty Hearst undoubtedly pretended to
  160. accept the SLA reality-tunnel at first, and gradually found the
  161. presence becoming more and more real.
  162. This process is accelerated by a system of occasional rewards,
  163. as the subject more and more often emits (as the Behaviorists
  164. would say) the desired behaviors. Since people are more compli-
  165. cated than Behaviorists know, it is necessary to vary this with
  166. occasional punishments for "insincerity," or "backsliding," so
  167. that the subject learns that after the initial stage, it is not enough
  168. to pretend to accept the new reality-tunnel; to escape further
  169. humiliation, ego-loss, terrorism and permanent Bottom Dog
  170. status, one must begin to accept it sincere/y. After the imprint of
  171. helplessness had been made, this conditioning and learning will
  172. Prometheus Rising 167
  173. proceed fairly smoothly, especially if the Chief Brainwasher's
  174. confederates reinforce it with encouragement, support, and
  175. general "reward" (for sincere submission) and contempt, disap-
  176. pointment and general rejection (for insincerity or backsliding.)
  177. Reimprinting the third semantic circuit can now follow easily.
  178. The human brain is capable of mastering any symbol-system if
  179. sufficiently motivated. Some people can even play Beethoven's
  180. late piano music, although to me this is as "miraculous" as any
  181. feat alleged by psychic researchers; people can learn French,
  182. Hindustani, differential calculus, Swahili, etc. ad. infinitum—if
  183. motivated. When the first circuit security needs have been
  184. reimprinted and second-circuit ego-needs have been hooked to
  185. mastering a new semantic reality-tunnel, that tunnel will be
  186. imprinted.
  187. At this point a certain amount of arbitrary nonsense is of great
  188. value. That is, the new reality-tunnel or symbol-system (like the
  189. old one) should contain pitfalls (gross violations of previous real-
  190. ity tunnels and common sense) so that the subject can be accused
  191. of backsliding (being "all wrong," after all) and thereby incited
  192. to try harder to become part of the new reality-tunnel.
  193. Thus, Jehovah's Witnesses may not accept blood transfusions,
  194. even if their life depends on it: harder still (since all mammals
  195. have an instinct to protect their young) they must reject blood
  196. transfusions for their children, even if the children die of this
  197. neglect. A Roman Catholic woman may not be divorced even if
  198. her husband comes home drunk every night, beats her up and
  199. gives her VD. In the U.S. Marines, a recruit who commits the
  200. hideous crime of calling a rifle a "gun" must walk around the
  201. base with his rifle in one hand and his penis in the other reciting
  202. to everybody he meets, "This is my rifle/This is my gun/This is
  203. for fighting/This is for fun." Theosophists were once required to
  204. believe that there is a hole at the North Pole going down to the
  205. center of the earth; Manson required his followers to believe the
  206. hole was in the Mojave Desert. Nazi Party members were asked
  207. to believe that the lion is an Aryan animal and the rabbit non-
  208. Aryan. Etc.
  209. The neurological and sociological function of such
  210. "nonsense" (which makes the Rationalist gasp in shock) is to
  211. sharply segregate those within the new reality-tunnel from those
  212. 168 Prometheus Rising
  213. outside. This makes for group solidarity, group-reinforcement,
  214. and a strong sense of alienation and discomfort when on rare
  215. occasions it is necessary to talk at all with those outside the
  216. brainwasher's semantic system. The group must ensure, of
  217. course, that this alienation is experienced as "superiority." Those
  218. who are outside the reality-tunnel must be perceived as "all
  219. wrong"—just as the subject was, before being brainwashed.
  220. Drugs can be, and have been, used to fine-tune these process-
  221. es, but the general neurological principles are powerful enough
  222. that it is quite likely that many famous cases of brainwashing
  223. were accomplished as above described, without any drugs at
  224. all—e.g., the American soldiers who confessed to war crimes
  225. which they evidently had not committed, the loyal Communists
  226. who confessed to Trotskyite conspiracies which seemingly never
  227. existed, etc. It takes very few weeks for most armies, without
  228. drugs, to convert a civilian into a soldier, even though the two
  229. species are as different as Roman Catholics and Shintoists.
  230. In one of my Immortal Novels I describe a religious cult
  231. called Loonies, founded by one Neon Bal Loon, in which mem-
  232. bers pray in pig-Latin while standing on one leg like storks. This
  233. is considered satire, but any would-be messiah who understands
  234. the above principles could create such a cult easily; and the
  235. members would soon have a quite sincere sense of superiority to
  236. those outside that reality-tunnel.
  237. Cults and outlaw terrorists generally follow the above proce-
  238. dures by further rewiring of the fourth, socio-sexual circuit.
  239. (Governments usually leave that circuit alone, since government
  240. agents are largely puritanical-authoritarian and afraid to get
  241. involved at all with raw Eros.) It is no secret that the most
  242. powerful secret society of the middle ages, the Knights Templar,
  243. forced recruits to participate in both blasphemy and sodomy. Just
  244. as the deliberate nonsense of all cultish third-circuit semantics
  245. isolates the group from the rest of society, this initiation sepa-
  246. rated the Templars from the rest of Christendom; the alienation
  247. could easily be conditioned into a sense of superiority. The Mau-
  248. Maus in Kenya also insisted on one act of homosexuality to
  249. break the new member's previous conditioning toward hetero-
  250. sexuality and monogamy. Other cults, some quite well known,
  251. Prometheus Rising 169
  252. attempt to repress sexuality entirely—another way of breaking
  253. the statistically normal imprinting of the fourth circuit.
  254. The Manson Family insisted on what might be called, oxymo-
  255. ronically, compulsory free love. The Army serves normal ama-
  256. tive bonds and casts the subject into a world where compulsory
  257. celibacy alternates with whore-house adventures and, quite often,
  258. the rape of enemy women, with homosexuality as an ever-
  259. present hidden option. A current American guru, Da Free John,
  260. imprints his subjects for lifelong monogamy, almost like the
  261. outside U.S. culture, but is indifferent as to whether these pair-
  262. ings are heterosexual or homosexual. Whatever variation the
  263. cult-leader may choose, what makes for successful "separate
  264. reality" is that it be in some respect outlandishly different from
  265. that of the major society.
  266. The easiest way to get brainwashed is to be born. All of the
  267. above principles then immediately go into action, a process
  268. which social psychologists euphemistically call socialization.
  269. The bio-survival circuit automatically hooks onto or bonds to the
  270. most appropriate mother or mothering object; the emotional-
  271. territorial circuit looks for a "role" or ego-identification in the
  272. family or tribe; the semantic circuit learns to imitate and then use
  273. the local reality-grids (symbol systems); the socio-sexual circuit
  274. is imprinted by whatever mating experiences are initially avail-
  275. able at puberty.
  276. The subjects may not come out of this process ready to
  277. murder women and children, like the graduate of boot camp, or
  278. even willing to believe that Charlie Manson was both Jesus and
  279. Satan simultaneously, or willing to spout New Left slogans while
  280. robbing banks. The subjects come out of normal "socialization"
  281. depending on where and when they were born as Eskimo
  282. totemists, Moslem fundamentalists, Roman Catholics, Marxist
  283. Leninists, Nazis, Methodist Republicans, Oxford-educated-
  284. agnostics, snake worshippers, Ku Kluxers, Mafiosos, Unitarians,
  285. IRA-ists, PLO-ists, orthodox Jews, hardshell Baptists, etc. etc.
  286. The universe or existence, is obviously large enough and
  287. complex enough and the ego self-centered enough, that all of
  288. these reality-tunnels are capable of "making sense," to some
  289. degree, to those imprinted/conditioned to accept them. It is also
  290. obvious that most of these reality-tunnels contain elements so
  291. I JO Prometheus Rising
  292. absurd that everybody not imprinted/conditioned by them looks
  293. at them with astonishment and dismay, wondering "How can a
  294. rational person (or peoples) believe such rubbish?"
  295. What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves... whether you are
  296. living in a Christian reality-tunnel, a Mansonoid reality-tunnel,
  297. an Immortalist reality-tunnel, a vegetarian reality-tunnel, a
  298. Rationalist reality-tunnel...
  299. Everybody has the only true true religion.
  300. Earlier, we quoted some words from Persinger and Lafreniere:
  301. We, as a species, exist in a world in which exist a myriad of
  302. data points. Upon these matrices of points we superimpose a
  303. structure and the world makes sense to us. The pattern of the
  304. structure originates within our biological and sociological
  305. properties.
  306. Prometheus Rising 171
  307. It is to be hoped that this makes more sense to the reader now
  308. than it did at the beginning of our enquiry.
  309. The function of the domesticated primate brain, insofar as we
  310. have described it up to this point and leaving out the higher,
  311. newer circuits, is to serve as an "organ of adaptation" in Freud's
  312. phrase. Specifically, the oldest, most primitive, most mechanical
  313. centers serve simple bio-survival. The more recent (500,000,000
  314. year-old, roughly) emotional territorial centers serve to maintain
  315. pack identity, habitat-space and hierarchy. The distinctly homi-
  316. nid semantic circuit (100,000-year-old?) makes maps and
  317. models—reality-tunnels—which we tend to confuse with reality
  318. itself, and, worse yet, with "all" of reality. The (30,000? year
  319. old) moral-social circuit creates the domesticated adult personal-
  320. ity, or parent-role, or super-ego.
  321. Now, obviously the third, semantic circuit works with and for
  322. these other antique circuits. The maps and models it makes are
  323. tools of adaptation, and what they adapt us to is social roles in
  324. domesticated primate society. Thus, a Midwestern Methodist is
  325. not "misusing his brain" as Arthur Koestler thinks in construct-
  326. ing a Midwestern Methodist tunnel-reality; that is precisely what
  327. his brain is for, to adapt him to the Midwestern Methodist tribal
  328. system—to impose the structure of Midwestern Methodist ideol-
  329. ogy upon the myriad of data-points he encounters in his life-
  330. time. The Chinese Maoist, the Iranian Moslem, the New York
  331. Feminist, the Marin County Hedonist, etc. each has a similar,
  332. equally arbitrary, equally complex reality-tunnel. Each tunnel is
  333. also equally absurd when seen from outside.
  334. The problems of the modern world arise from the fact that
  335. these reality-tunnels are no longer isolated from each other.
  336. Throughout most of human history and up to 100 years ago—up
  337. to 20 years ago, in some parts of the world—a man or woman
  338. could lead their entire life snugly within the cocoon of the local
  339. tunnel-reality. Today, we all constantly collide with persons
  340. living in wildly different tunnel-realities. This creates a great
  341. deal of hostility in the more ignorant, vast amounts of metaphys-
  342. ical and ethical confusion in the more sophisticated, and growing
  343. disorientation for all—a situation known as our "crisis of
  344. values."
  345. 1J2
  346. Prometheus Rising
  347. The average person has a deluge of contradictory and conflict-
  348. ing reality-tunnels impinging on him or her, with little training in
  349. either cultural or neurological relativism. Speed of travel has
  350. increased by a factor of 1000 since 1900, and speed of commu-
  351. nication by a factor of 10,000,000, according to J.R. Platt. The
  352. deluge is accelerating and intensifying. One symptom is the fact
  353. that TV Guide has been taken over by a band of terrified conser-
  354. vatives, who cannot understand and can only dread this down-
  355. pour of "alien" signals; instead of being merely a guide to what
  356. is on the tube, TV Guide has become a continuous wail that the
  357. tube's tunnel-reality is wider, stranger and more varied than the
  358. narrow tunnel-vision of the small-town WASP.
  359. There has also arisen a profession of "deprogrammers," so-
  360. called. These are neuro-technicians who will, for a fee, kidnap a
  361. child (even a "child" over 21) who has wandered off, departed
  362. the parental reality-tunnel and been brainwashed into the com-
  363. peting reality-tunnel of some new (i.e., not established—not
  364. acceptable yet) "cult." This is known as restoring the victim to
  365. normalcy.
  366. Prometheus Rising 173
  367. It is all hypocrisy and neurological ignorance, of course. The
  368. "de-programmers" are actually re-programmers. The parental
  369. tunnel-reality is as arbitrary (and, to an outsider, as bizarre) as
  370. that of any "cult." A special system of tricky semantics allows
  371. most people and some courts to ignore these facts. Just imagine
  372. what would happen if a wayward child of Methodist parents had
  373. wandered into the Roman Catholic Church, say, and the parents
  374. attempted to have that child coercively "de-programmed" (repro-
  375. grammed) into Methodism; or if the child had joined the U.S.
  376. Army, like Calley, and the parents kidnapped him and tried to re-
  377. program him into civilian reality-tunnels.
  378. These problems will not go away; and the abrasions they
  379. cause, as various brainwashed robots continue to collide with
  380. each other, will accelerate. Speed of travel and of communica-
  381. tion are still continuing to accelerate.
  382. Fortunately, higher circuits are forming in the human brain
  383. and offer broader vistas than the narrow tunnel-visions of the
  384. antique circuits. That is the topic of our concluding chapters.
  385. Since everybody "prefers" one circuit over the others, there
  386. are people in each society who are easily recognizable as Narcis-
  387. sists (first-circuit robots), Emotionalists (second-circuit robots),
  388. Rationalists (third-circuit robots) and Moralists (fourth-circuit
  389. robots).
  390. Rationalist robots, like the other robots, may be totally mech-
  391. anized or may have some slight flexibility, or "freedom" built
  392. into their circuitry. The totally robotized make up the vast horde
  393. of the Fundamentalist wing of the Materialist church and the
  394. other True Believers in the scientific paradigms of 1968, 1958,
  395. 1948 or whenever their nervous systems stopped taking new
  396. imprints.
  397. These are the people who are perpetually frightened and dis-
  398. mayed by the large portion of human behavior mediated through
  399. Circuit II mammalian politics. They think that because this terri-
  400. torial-emotional ("patriotic") behavior is not Rational, it should
  401. not exist. They accept Darwin as dogma, but are nervous about
  402. "Darwinism" (because it accepts mammalian politics as an
  403. Evolutionary Strategy that has worked thus far) and are repulsed
  404. by the data of ethology, genetics and sociobiology. They don't
  405. like the rest of the human race much, because it is not guided by
  406. IJ4 Prometheus Rising
  407. their favorite circuit, and they are uneasily aware that the rest of
  408. the human race does not like them much.
  409. These Rationalist robots are also very uncomfortable with the
  410. newer circuits—and some of them spend most of their lives
  411. writing articles and books devoted to "proving" that the newer
  412. circuits do not exist and that all scientists who have recorded the
  413. behavior of these newer circuits are liars, fools, bunglers, charla-
  414. tans or some manner of Damned Heretics.
  415. Like the Emotional robot, the Moralistic robot, the Narcissist
  416. robot etc., the Rationalist robot cannot be "argued" out of his
  417. narrow reality tunnel. We can only emphasize, one more time,
  418. that each and every reality-tunnel created by a domesticated
  419. primate brain is a finite cross-section of that brain's personal
  420. history; and each such finite reality-tunnel is as "personalized" as
  421. the music of Bach or Beethoven, the paintings of Rembrandt or
  422. Picasso, the novels of Joyce or Raymond Chandler, the comedy
  423. of the Three Stooges or Monty Python, the religions of Roman
  424. Catholicism or Zen Buddhism, the politics of Libertarianism or
  425. the IRA, the architecture of St. Peter's or Disney land...
  426. And each of these art-works seems like "reality" to the people
  427. who have created them and live in them. Rationalism is just
  428. another such group art-work, a little less tolerant than most, a
  429. little more useful to technologists than any other, a little stupid
  430. when it can no longer transcend the last paradigm it has created.
  431. The totally robotized Rationalist, the one whose nervous
  432. system has stopped growing entirely, can be recognized by two
  433. signs:
  434. He or she is constantly trying to prove that much of the daily
  435. experience of the rest of humanity is "delusion," "hallucination,"
  436. "group hallucination," "mass hallucination," "mere coincidence,"
  437. "sheer coincidence," or "sloppy research."
  438. And he or she never thinks that any of his or her own experi-
  439. ence would fit into any of those categories.
  440. EXERCIZES
  441. 1. Become a pious Roman Catholic. Explain in three pages
  442. why the Church is still infallible and holy despite Popes like
  443. Alexander VI (the Borgia Pope), Pious XII (ally of Hitler), etc.
  444. Prometheus Rising 775
  445. 2. For those of you who remember Mai Lai, become Lt.
  446. Galley. Say aloud, and really feel and believe, "The Army comes
  447. first. I'm for the Army all the way." If you don't remember try
  448. Jerry Falwell. Say aloud, and really feel and believe, "Help us
  449. fight moral decay, send your checks in today."
  450. 3. Refute this whole book. Demonstrate that everybody else
  451. has been brainwashed but you and your mother (father) has the
  452. one, real, objective view of the universe.
  453. 4. Accept this book, if not in whole at least in general out-
  454. lines. Assume you have been brainwashed. Try to learn as much
  455. from every human you meet about their separate reality-tunnel
  456. and see how much of it you can use to make your reality-tunnel
  457. bigger and more inclusive. In other words, learn to listen.
  458. 5. James Joyce said he never met a boring human being. Try
  459. to explain this. Try to get into the Joycean head space, where
  460. everybody is a separate reality-island full of mystery and sur-
  461. prise. In other words, learn to observe.
  462. 6. Read Aldous Huxley's The Genius and the Goddess. Note
  463. how the Circuit III scientific Genius reverts to Circuit I helpless
  464. infant when his wife leaves him.
  465. 7. After experimenting with the Nazi reality-tunnel, the
  466. Catholic reality-tunnel etc., re-enter your "normal" reality tunnel.
  467. Does it still seem totally objective, or do you begin to recognize
  468. how much of it is your own software and hardware running
  469. programs?
  470. 8. Finally, explore the tunnel-busting reality of Christopher S.
  471. Hyatt' s book titled Undoing Yourself With Energized Meditation
  472. and Other Devices. What tunnel-reality is he selling and how
  473. sincere is he about his writing? Also, do you think he has read
  474. my work and I his, or is this last statement a gimmick of the pub-
  475. lishers played on two innocent authors and the trusting public or
  476. even worse did I write his book, or could it be, that we are one
  477. and the same?
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