A Concise Compendium of Vital Elements in the Noetic Realm

A Concise Compendium of Vital Elements in the Noetic Realm

By Clement Blakeslee, B.A., M.A., M.Sc.Retired public affairs broadcaster, political journalist, human resources consultant, native affairs advocate, social science academic, and environmental advocate

2 A Concise Compendium

Prologue....................................................................................................................................................... 4

Five Fundamental Realms of Reality.....................................................................................................................7Cosmos............................................................................................................................................................................................... 7Geosphere.......................................................................................................................................................................................10Biosphere........................................................................................................................................................................................13Noosphere...................................................................................................................................................................................... 16Diosphere....................................................................................................................................................................................... 18

The Definition of Noosphere................................................................................................................................. 20From Knowledge to Wisdom................................................................................................................................. 22Mind as Metaphor: The Essence of Human Culture.......................................................................................25

Part I: Generative Insights........................................................................................................ 30

The Sages Code: Twelve Transformative Noetic Essentials........................................................................311) Play: A Serious Puzzle......................................................................................................................................................... 312) Wonder: How, Why.............................................................................................................................................................. 313) Gratitude: A Self-Vitalizing Essential............................................................................................................................324) Beauty Will Save the World..............................................................................................................................................325) Joy: Happiness........................................................................................................................................................................ 336) Optimism: Hope, Creativity, and Positive Intuition................................................................................................337) Reason: Logic, Empiricism, Science, Knowledge, Wisdom..................................................................................348) Purpose: Leadership...........................................................................................................................................................349) Harmony: From the Personal to the Global...............................................................................................................3410) Compassion: Empathy, Civility, Respect, and Tolerance...................................................................................3511) Generosity: A Necessary Essential for the Successful Evolution of the Noosphere..............................3512) Spirituality: The Interplay of the Human Mind and the Divine Realm........................................................36

Personal Action – Pragmatic Philosophy.......................................................................................................... 38Socrates’ Cafe: Refinement of Ethics, Expansion of Insight, Enrichment of Wisdom.........................41

Part II: The Pervasive Psychopath....................................................................................53

When your boss is almost a psychopath........................................................................................................... 54Key Symptoms of Psychopathy............................................................................................................................. 56The Sociopath’s Code............................................................................................................................................... 57Thirteen Rules For Dealing With Sociopaths in Everyday Life..................................................................59

Part III: Systems of Survival.................................................................................................... 63

You and Your Emotions........................................................................................................................................... 65Introduction.................................................................................................................................................................................. 65Two Opposite Mind/Body Responses...............................................................................................................................66

Blocks to Fulfillment................................................................................................................................................ 72Introduction.................................................................................................................................................................................. 72

Capacities of Your Mind.......................................................................................................................................... 83Introduction.................................................................................................................................................................................. 83The Three Dimensions of Mind.............................................................................................................................................83Affirmations...................................................................................................................................................................................87The Aura of Expectation...........................................................................................................................................................89

Human Capital/Basic Cultural Wealth............................................................................................................... 93Introduction.................................................................................................................................................................................. 93Evolution of Human Consciousness....................................................................................................................................93Economic Perceptions of Human Capital.........................................................................................................................95Education and Human Capital...............................................................................................................................................97Education as Adult Lifestyle................................................................................................................................................100Human Capital in the Contemporary Workplace.......................................................................................................103

Balancing Social Elements................................................................................................................................... 105Introduction................................................................................................................................................................................ 105Four Scholars’ Work, Presented in Order......................................................................................................................106

Buddha graphic by Wilfredor / CC BY-SA 3.0


Prologue


Five Fundamental Realms of Reality

Cosmos

1. The Book of the Cosmos: Imagining the Universe from Heraclitus to Hawking by Dennis Richard Danielson (Da Capo Press, 2001)

Overview: What is the cosmos? How did it come into being? How are we related to it, and what is our place in it? The Book of the Cosmos assembles for the first time in one volume the great minds of the Western world who have considered these questions from biblical times to the present. It is a book of many authors —Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Galileo are here, of course, in all their genius, but so are Edgar Allan Poe, Annie Jump Cannon (a "human computer" and lyrical classifier of stars), and Sir Martin Rees, who proposes an "ensemble of universes" of which ours happens to be among the most interesting. In these pages the universe is made and unmade in a variety of configurations; it spins along on superstrings, teems with intelligent life, and could end without warning. The Book of the Cosmos provides a thrilling read to set the heart racing and the mind soaring.

2. The First Stargazers: An Introduction to the Origins of Astronomy by James Cornell (The Athlone Press, May 1, 1981)

3. The Cambridge Concise History of Astronomy by Michael Hoskin (Cambridge University Press, 1999)

Overview: Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences, and one which has repeatedly led to fundamental changes in our view of the world. This book covers the history of our study of the cosmos from prehistory to a survey of modern astronomy and astrophysics. It does not attempt to cover everything, but deliberately concentrates on the important themes and topics, including stellar astronomy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—the source of many important concepts in modern astronomy—and the Copernican revolution, which led to the challenge of ancient authorities in many areas other than astronomy. This is an essential text for students of the history of science and for students of astronomy who require a historical background to their studies.

4. The Hole in the Universe: How Scientists Peered Over the Edge of Emptiness by K. C. Cole (Harcourt Trade Publishers, 2001)

Overview: Once again, acclaimed science writer K. C. Cole brings the arcane and academic down to the level of armchair scientists in The Hole in the Universe, an entertaining and edifying search for nothing at all. Open the newspaper on any given day and you will read of a newly discovered planet, star, and so on. Yet scientists and mathematicians have spent generations searching the far reaches of the universe for that one elusive state—nothingness. Although this may sound like a simple task, every time the absolute void appears within reach, something new is discovered in its place: a black hole, an undulating string, an additional dimension of space or time—even

another universe. A fascinating and literary tour de force, The Hole in the Universe is a virtual romp into the unknown that you never knew wasn't there.

5. The Magic Furnace: The Search for the Origins of Atoms by Marcus Chown (Oxford University Press, 2001)

Overview: "Every breath you take contains atoms forged in the blistering furnaces deep inside stars. Every flower you pick contains atoms blasted into space by stellar explosions that blazed brighter than a billion suns." Thus begins The Magic Furnace, an eloquent, extraordinary account of how scientists unravelled the mystery of atoms, and helped to explain the dawn of life itself.

The historic search for atoms and their stellar origins is truly one of the greatest detective stories of science. In effect, it offers two epics intertwined: the birth of atoms in the Big Bang and the evolution of stars and how they work. Neither could be told without the other, for the stars contain the key to unlocking the secret of atoms, and the atoms the solution to the secret of the stars. Marcus Chown leads readers through the major theories and experiments that propelled the search for atomic understanding, with engaging characterizations of the major atomic thinkers—from Democritus in ancient Greece to Binning and Rohrer in twentieth-century New York. He clarifies the science, explaining with enthusiasm the sequence of breakthroughs that proved the existence of atoms as the "alphabet of nature" and the discovery of subatomic particles and atomic energy potential. From there, he engagingly chronicles the leaps of insight that eventually revealed the elements, the universe, our world, and ourselves to be a product of two ultimate furnaces: the explosion of the Big Bang and the interior of stars such as supernovae and red giants.

Chown successfully makes these massive concepts accessible for students, professionals, and science enthusiasts. His story sheds light on all of us, for in essence, we are all stardust.

6. The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the Origin and Meaning of Life by P. C. W. Davies (Simon & Schuster, 2000)

Overview: How and where did life begin? Is it a chemical fluke, unique to Earth, or the product of intriguingly bio-friendly laws governing the entire universe? In his latest far-reaching book, The Fifth Miracle, internationally acclaimed physicist and writer Paul Davies confronts one of science's great outstanding mysteries—the origin of life.

Davies shows how new research hints that the crucible of life lay deep within Earth's hot crust, and not in a "warm little pond," as first suggested by Charles Darwin. Bizarre microbes discovered dwelling in the underworld and around submarine volcanic vents are thought to be living fossils. This discovery has transformed scientists' expectations for life on Mars and elsewhere in the universe. Davies stresses the key role that the bombardment of the planets by giant comets and asteroids has played in the origin and evolution of life, arguing that these "deep impacts" delivered the raw material for biology, but also kept life confined to its subterranean haven for millions of years. Recently, scientists have uncovered tantalizing clues that life may have existed and may still exist—elsewhere in the universe.

The Fifth Miracle recounts the discovery in Antarctica of a meteorite from Mars (ALH84001) that may contain traces of life. Three and a half billion years ago, Mars resembled Earth. It was warm


and wet and could have supported primitive organisms. Davies believes that the red planet may still harbour microbes in thermally heated rocks deep below the Martian permafrost. He goes on to describe a still more startling scenario: If life once existed on Mars, might it have originated there and traveled to Earth inside meteorites blasted into space by cosmic impacts? Conversely, did life spread from Earth to Mars? Could microbes have journeyed even farther afield inside comets?

Davies builds on the latest scientific discoveries and theories to address the larger question: What, exactly, is life? Davies shows that the living call is an information-processing system that uses a sophisticated mathematical code, and he argues that the secret of life lies not with exotic chemistry but with the emergence of information-based complexity. He then goes on to ask: Is life the inevitable by-product of physical laws, as many scientists maintain, or an almost miraculous accident? Are we alone in the universe, or will life emerge on all Earthlike planets? And if there is life elsewhere in the universe, is it preordained to evolve toward greater complexity and intelligence?

On the answers to these deep questions hinges the ultimate purpose of mankind—who we are and what our place might be in the unfolding drama of the cosmos.

7. The Secret Life of Dust: From the Cosmos to the Kitchen Counter, the Big Consequences of Little Things by Hannah Holmes (John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 2003)

Overview: Some see dust as dull and useless stuff. But in the hands of author Hannah Holmes, it becomes a dazzling and mysterious force; Dust, we discover, built the planet we walk upon. And it tinkers with the weather and spices the air we breathe. Billions of tons of it rise annually into the air—the dust of deserts and forgotten kings mixing with volcanic ash, sea salt, leaf fragments, scales from butterfly wings, shreds of T-shirts, and fireplace soot. Eventually, though, all this dust must settle. The story of restless dust begins among exploding stars, then treks through the dinosaur beds of the Gobi Desert, drills into Antarctic glaciers, filters living dusts from the wind, and probes the dark underbelly of the living-room couch. Along the way, Holmes introduces a delightful cast of characters—the scientists who study dust. Some investigate its dark side: how it killed off dinosaurs and how its industrial descendents are killing us today. Others sample the shower of Saharan dust that nourishes Caribbean jungles, or venture into the microscopic jungle of the bedroom carpet. Like The Secret Life of Dust, however, all of them unveil the mayhem and magic wrought by little things.

Geosphere

1. Earth: The Biography by Iain Steward, John Lynch (National Geographic Society, 2008)

Overview: After four and a half billion years, our planet is approaching old age—the perfect time to look back on an extraordinary life. In Earth: The Biography, renowned science writers Iain Steward and John Lynch use groundbreaking imagery and the latest scientific discoveries to tell the epic story of Earth’s birth, life stages, and distant future demise.

Each chapter examines one of the five essential forces—meteor impacts, plate tectonics, the ocean, the atmosphere, and ice—that drive and shape our planet and determine its destiny. New imaging techniques and spectacular graphics combine to reveal hitherto hidden information about these forces, depicting them in action today as they keep the Earth alive and going back in time to show how cataclysmic events played roles in the planet’s development. More than 200 full-color photographs and illustrations present the familiar in a striking new light, while the authors’ straightforward style brings an engaging clarity to advanced scientific concepts.

The National Geographic Channel television series to which Earth: The Biography is the companion volume is expected to reach a viewership of 100 million people. A timely publication as our planet adapts to a warming climate, this accessible, authoritative, and richly visual exploration is a valuable home reference for every family.

2. Earth: An Intimate History by Richard A. Fortey (Vintage Books, reprint edition, 2005)

Overview: In Earth, the acclaimed author of Trilobite! and Life takes us on a grand tour of the earth’s physical past, showing how the history of plate tectonics is etched in the landscape around us.

Beginning with Mt. Vesuvius, whose eruption in Roman times helped spark the science of geology, and ending in a lab in the West of England where mathematical models and lab experiments replace direct observation, Richard Fortey tells us what the present says about ancient geologic processes. He shows how plate tectonics came to rule the geophysical landscape and how the evidence is written in the hills and in the stones. And in the process, he takes us on a wonderful journey around the globe to visit some of the most fascinating and intriguing spots on the planet.

3. Gaia: a new look at life on earth by James Lovelock (Oxford University Press, 3rd Edition, reissued, 2000)

Overview: In this classic work that continues to inspire its many readers, James Lovelock deftly explains his idea that life on earth functions as a single organism. Written for the non-scientist, Gaia is a journey through time and space in search of evidence with which to support a new and radically different model of our planet. In contrast to conventional belief that living matter is passive in the face of threats to its existence, the book explores the hypothesis that the earth's living matter—air, ocean, and land surfaces—forms a complex system that has the capacity to keep the Earth a fit place for life.


Since Gaia was first published, many of Jim Lovelock's predictions have come true, and his theory has become a hotly argued topic in scientific circles. Here, in a new Preface, Lovelock outlines his present state of the debate.

4. The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution by Richard Dawkins, Yan Wong (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, reprint edition, 2005)

Overview: With unparalleled wit, clarity, and intelligence, Richard Dawkins, one of the world's most renowned evolutionary biologists, has introduced countless readers to the wonders of science in works such as The Selfish Gene. Now, in The Ancestor's Tale, Dawkins offers a masterwork: an exhilarating reverse tour through evolution, from present-day humans back to the microbial beginnings of life four billion years ago. Throughout the journey Dawkins spins entertaining, insightful stories and sheds light on topics such as speciation, sexual selection, and extinction. The Ancestor's Tale is at once an essential education in evolutionary theory and a riveting read.

5. Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How One Man's Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science by Curtis Ebbesmeyer, Eric Scigliano (HarperCollins, 2009)

Overview: Pioneering oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer unravels the mystery of marine currents, uncovers the astonishing story of flotsam, and changes the world's view of trash, the ocean, and our global environment. Curtis Ebbesmeyer is no ordinary scientist. He's been a consulting oceanographer for multinational firms and a lead scientist on international research expeditions, but he's never held a conventional academic appointment. He seized the world's imagination as no other scientist could when he and his worldwide network of beachcomber volunteers traced the ocean's currents using thousands of sneakers and plastic bath toys spilled from storm-tossed freighters. Now, for the first time, Ebbesmeyer tells the story of his lifelong struggle to solve the sea's mysteries while sharing his most surprising discoveries. He recounts how flotsam has changed the course of history-leading Viking mariners to safe harbours, Columbus to the New World, and Japan to open up to the West—and how it may even have made the origin of life possible. He chases icebergs and floating islands; investigates ocean mysteries from ghost ships to a spate of washed-up severed feet on Canadian beaches; and explores the enormous floating "garbage patches" and waste-heaped "junk beaches" that collect the flotsam and jetsam of industrial society. Finally, Ebbesmeyer reveals the rhythmic and harmonic order in the vast oceanic currents called gyres—"the heartbeat of the world "—and the threats that global warming and disintegrating plastic waste pose to the seas . . . and to us.

6. The end of evolution: dinosaurs, mass extinction and biodiversity by Peter Ward (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1995)

Overview: A controversial account of the complex issues surrounding the three mass extinctions found in the geological record. The author concludes that the most recent extinction which began at the end of the last Ice Age is directly caused by humans.

7. The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth by Tim Flannery (Grove Press, reprint edition, 2006)

Overview: An international best seller embraced and endorsed by policy makers, scientists, writers and energy industry executives from around the world, Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers contributed in bringing the topic of global warming to national prominence. For the first time, a scientist provided an accessible and comprehensive account of the history, current status, and future impact of climate change, writing what has been acclaimed by reviewers everywhere as the definitive book on global warming.

With one out of every five living things on this planet committed to extinction by the levels of greenhouse gases that will accumulate in the next few decades, we are reaching a global climatic tipping point. The Weather Makers is both an urgent warning and a call to arms, outlining the history of climate change, how it will unfold over the next century, and what we can do to prevent a cataclysmic future. Originally somewhat of a global warming sceptic, Tim Flannery spent several years researching the topic and offers a connect-the- dots approach for a reading public who has received patchy or misleading information on the subject. Pulling on his expertise as a scientist to discuss climate change from a historical perspective, Flannery also explains how climate change is interconnected across the planet. This edition includes a new afterword by the author.


Biosphere

1. The cooperative gene: how Mendel's demon explains the evolution of complex beings by Mark Ridley (Free Press, 2001)

Overview: Why isn't all life pond-scum? Why are there multimillion-celled, long-lived monsters like us, built from tens of thousands of cooperating genes? Mark Ridley presents a new explanation of how complex large life forms like ourselves came to exist, showing that the answer to the greatest mystery of evolution for modern science is not the selfish gene; it is the cooperative gene. In this thought-provoking book, Ridley breaks down how two major biological hurdles had to be overcome in order to allow living complexity to evolve: the proliferation of genes and gene-selfishness. Because complex life has more genes than simple life, the increase in gene numbers poses a particular problem for complex beings. The more genes, the more chance for copying error; it is far easier to make a mistake copying the Bible than it is copying an advertising slogan. To add to the difficulty, Darwin's concept of natural selection encourages genes that look out for themselves, selfish genes that could easily evolve to sabotage the development of complex life forms. By retracing the history of life on our planet—from the initial wobbly, replicating molecules, through microbes, worms, and flies, and on to humans—Ridley reveals how life evolved as a series of steps to manage error and to coerce genes to cooperate within each body. Like a benign and unseen hand—what Ridley calls "Mendel's Demon"—the combination of these strategies enacts Austrian monk Gregor Mendel's fundamental laws of inheritance. This demon offers startling new perspectives on issues from curing AIDS, the origins of sex and gender, and cloning, to the genetics of angels. Indeed, if we are ever to understand the biology of other planets, we will need more than Darwin; we will need to understand how Mendel's Demon made the cooperative gene into the fundamental element of life. What does the cooperative gene tell us about our future? With genetic technology burgeoning around the world, we must ask whether life will evolve to be even more complex than we already are. Human beings, Ridley concludes, may be near the limit of the possible, at least for earthly genetic mechanisms. But in the future, new genetic and reproductive biosystems could allow our descendants to increase their gene numbers and therefore their complexity. This process, he speculates, could lead to the evolution of life forms far stranger and more interesting than anything humanly discovered or imagined so far. Written with uncommon energy, force, and clarity, The Cooperative Gene is essential reading for anyone wishing to see behind the headlines of our genetic age. It is an eye-opening invitation to the biotech adventure humanity has already embarked upon.

2. Dr. Tatiana’s sex advice to all creation by Olivia Judson (Metropolitan Books, 2002)

Overview: A sex guide for all living things and a hilarious natural history in the form of letters to and answersfrom the preeminent sexpert in all creation.

Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation is a unique guidebook to sex. It reveals, for example, when necrophilia is acceptable and who should commit bestiality with whom. It discloses the best time to have a sex change, how to have a virgin birth, and when to eat your lover. It also advises on more mundane matters —such as male pregnancy and the joys of a detachable penis.

Entertaining, funny, and marvellously illuminating, the book comprises letters from all creatures worried about their bizarre sex lives to the wise Dr. Tatiana, the only sex columnist in creation with a prodigious knowledge of evolutionary biology. Fusing natural history with advice to the lovelorn, blending wit and rigor, she is able to reassure her anxious correspondents that although the acts they describe might sound appalling and unnatural, they are all perfectly normal—so long as you are not a human. In the process, she explains the science behind it all, from Darwin's theory of sexual selection to why sexual reproduction exists at all. Applying human standards to the natural world, in the end she reveals the wonders of both.

3. The Female Animal by Irene Elia (H. Holt, 1988)

Overview: Examines the sexual lives and behavioural traits of the female of all species, arguing that the embryo of most mammals is pre-programmed female, that individuation for mothering purposes among females is a relatively recent development, and that selection for mothering traits is linked to intelligence.

4. The Presence of the Past by Rupert Sheldrake (Harpercollins (P), reprint edition, 1989)

Overview: This book develops the revolutionary theory that behaviour and social systems are not only governed by immutable and mechanistic laws, which is the traditional viewpoint, but also by habits transmitted by nature’s inherent memory. Rupert Sheldrake also wrote A New Science of Life.

5. The Design of Animal Communication by Marc D. Hauser, Mark Konishi (MIT Press, reprint edition, 2003)

Overview: When animals, including humans, communicate, they convey information and express their perceptions of the world. Because different organisms are able to produce and perceive different signals, the animal world contains a diversity of communication systems. Based on the approach laid out in the 1950s by Nobel laureate Nikolaas Tinbergen, this book looks at animal communication from the four perspectives of mechanisms, ontogeny, function, and phylogeny.

6. On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins, Sandra Blakeslee (Times Books, 2004)

Overview: From the inventor of the PalmPilot comes a new and compelling theory of intelligence, brain function, and the future of intelligent machines.

Jeff Hawkins, the man who created the PalmPilot, Treo smart phone, and other handheld devices, has reshaped our relationship to computers. Now he stands ready to revolutionize both neuroscience and computing in one stroke, with a new understanding of intelligence itself.

Hawkins develops a powerful theory of how the human brain works, explaining why computers are not intelligent and how, based on this new theory, we can finally build intelligent machines.

The brain is not a computer, but a memory system that stores experiences in a way that reflects the true structure of the world, remembering sequences of events and their nested relationships and making predictions based on those memories. It is this memory-prediction system that forms the basis of intelligence, perception, creativity, and even consciousness.


In an engaging style that will captivate audiences from the merely curious to the professional scientist, Hawkins shows how a clear understanding of how the brain works will make it possible for us to build intelligent machines, in silicon, that will exceed our human ability in surprising ways.

Written with acclaimed science writer Sandra Blakeslee, On Intelligence promises to completely transfigure the possibilities of the technology age. It is a landmark book in its scope and clarity.

7. Nature via nurture: genes, experience, and what makes us human by Matt Ridley (HarperCollins, 2003)

Overview: Following his highly praised and bestselling book Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, Matt Ridley has written a brilliant and profound book about the roots of human behaviour. Nature via Nurture explores the complex and endlessly intriguing question of what makes us who we are.

In February 2001 it was announced that the human genome contains not 100,000 genes, as originally postulated, but only 30,000. This startling revision led some scientists to conclude that there are simply not enough human genes to account for all the different ways people behave: we must be made by nurture, not nature. Yet again biology was to be stretched on the Procrustean bed of the nature-nurture debate. Matt Ridley argues that the emerging truth is far more interesting than this myth. Nurture depends on genes, too, and genes need nurture. Genes not only predetermine the broad structure of the brain, they also absorb formative experiences, react to social cues, and even run memory. They are consequences as well as causes of the will.

Published fifty years after the discovery of the double helix of DNA, Nature via Nurture chronicles a revolution in our understanding of genes. Ridley recounts the hundred years' war between the partisans of nature and nurture to explain how this paradoxical creature, the human being, can be simultaneously free- willed and motivated by instinct and culture. Nature via Nurture is an enthralling, up-to-the-minute account of how genes build brains to absorb experience.

Noosphere

1. The prehistory of the mind: the cognitive origins of art, religion and science by Steven J. Mithen (Thames and Hudson, 1999)

Overview: On the way to showing how the world of our ancient ancestors shaped our modern modular mind, Mithen shares one provocative insight after another as he answers a series of fascinating questions.

2. The Phenomenon of Man by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (HarperCollins, 1975)

Overview: Pierre Teilhard De Chardin was one of the most distinguished thinkers and scientists of our time. He fits into no familiar category for he was at once a biologist and a palaeontologist of world renown, and also a Jesuit priest. He applied his whole life, his tremendous intellect and his great spiritual faith to building a philosophy that would reconcile Christian theology with the scientific theory of evolution, to relate the facts of religious experience to those of natural science.

The Phenomenon of Man, the first of his writings to appear in America, Pierre Teilhard's most important book and contains the quintessence of his thought. When published in France it was the best-selling nonfiction book of the year.

3. Peripheral Visions: Learning Along the Way by Mary Catherine Bateson (HarperCollins Publishers, 1994)

Overview: The author of Composing a Life provides a thought-provoking study of the art of learning that explains how a continuation of the learning process throughout a lifetime adds pleasure and understanding to human life and helps ensure the future.

4. A passion for wisdom: a very brief history of philosophy by Robert C. Solomon, Kathleen M. Higgins (Oxford University Press US, 1998)

Overview: Readers eager to acquire a basic familiarity with the history of philosophy but intimidated by the task will find in A Passion for Wisdom a lively, accessible, and highly enjoyable tour of the world's great ideas. Here, Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins tell the story of philosophy's development with great clarity and refreshing wit.

The authors begin with the most ancient religious beliefs of the east and west and bring us right up to the feminist and multicultural philosophies of the present. Along the way, they highlight major philosophers, from Plato and the Buddha to William James and Simone de Beauvoir, and explore major categories, from metaphysics and ethics to politics and logic. The book is enlivened as well by telling anecdotes and sparkling quotations. Among many memorable observations, we're treated to Thomas Hobbes' assessment that life is "nasty, brutish, and short" and Hegel's description of Napoleon as "world history on horseback." Engaging, comprehensive, and delightfully written, A Passion for Wisdom is a splendid introduction to an intellectual tradition that reaches back over three thousand years.


5. The Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance by Anthony Gottlieb (W. W. Norton & Company, reprint edition, 2002)

Overview: In this landmark new study of Western thought, Gottlieb approaches philosophy through its primary sources, questions many pieces of conventional wisdom, and explains his findings with clarity. From the pre-Socratic philosophers, Plato, and Aristotle to Renaissance visionaries like Erasmus, “philosophy” emerges here as a phenomenon unconfined by any one principle.

6. Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution by Lisa Jardine (Nan A. Talese, 1999)

Overview: The author of the critically acclaimed Worldly Goods presents a thoughtful reassessment of the Renaissance in terms of its influence on the history of science, relating the era's imaginative, artistic endeavours to the creative inspiration behind the scientific discoveries of the period.

7. Exuberance: The Passion for Life by Kay R. Jamison (A.A. Knopf, 2004)

Overview: The author of the bestselling An Unquiet Mind—and internationally renowned authority on mood disorders—now gives us something wonderfully different: an exploration of exuberance and how it fuels our most important creative and scientific achievements.

John Muir’s lifelong passion to save America’s wild places, Wilson Bentley’s legendary obsession to record for posterity the beauty of individual snowflakes, the boundless scientific curiosity behind Watson and Crick’s discovery of DNA, sea lions that surf and porcupines that dance—Kay Redfield Jamison shows how these and many more examples both human and animal define the nature of exuberance, and how this exuberance relates to intellectual searching, risk-taking, creativity, and survival itself. She examines the hereditary predisposition to exuberance; the role of the brain chemical dopamine; the connection between positive moods and psychological resilience; and the differences between exuberance and mania. She delves into some of the phenomena of exuberance—the contagiousness of laughter, the giddiness of new love, the intoxicating effects of music and of religious ecstasy—while also addressing the dangerous desire to simulate exuberance by using drugs or alcohol. In a fascinating and intimate coda to the rest of the book, renowned scientists, writers, and politicians share their thoughts on the forms and role of exuberance in their own lives.

Original, inspiring, authoritative, Exuberance brims with the very energy and passion that it celebrates.

Diosphere

1. Shamanism: an expanded view of reality by Shirley J. Nicholson (Quest Books, 2nd Edition, 1987)

Overview: Essays discuss ancient cultures, magic, modern shamanism, healing, dreams, ESP, prayer pipes,mysticism, alchemy, and the future of shamanism.

2. The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions by Karen Armstrong (Random House of Canada, 2007)

Overview: From one of the world’s leading writers on religion and the highly acclaimed author of the bestselling A History of God, The Battle for God and The Spiral Staircase, comes a major new work: a chronicle of one of the most important intellectual revolutions in world history and its relevance to our own time. In one astonishing, short period—the ninth century BCE—the peoples of four distinct regions of the civilized world created the religious and philosophical traditions that have continued to nourish humanity into the present day: Confucianism and Daoism in China; Hinduism and Buddhism in India; monotheism in Israel; and philosophical rationalism in Greece. Historians call this the Axial Age because of its central importance to humanity’s spiritual development. Now, Karen Armstrong traces the rise and development of this transformative moment in history, examining the brilliant contributions to these traditions made by such figures as the Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Ezekiel. Armstrong makes clear that despite some differences of emphasis, there was remarkable consensus among these religions and philosophies: each insisted on the primacy of compassion over hatred and violence. She illuminates what this “family” resemblance reveals about the religious impulse and quest of humankind. And she goes beyond spiritual archaeology, delving into the ways in which these Axial Age beliefs can present an instructive and thought-provoking challenge to the ways we think about and practice religion today. A revelation of humankind’s early shared imperatives, yearnings and inspired solutions—as salutary as it is fascinating.

3. Huston Smith: Essays on World Religion by Huston Smith, M. Darrol Bryant (Paragon House, 1995)

Overview: In this challenging and provocative collection of 19 essays on comparative philosophy, religion and culture, one of the foremost thinkers of our time provides his most insightful and important reflections on the state of humans' spiritual life.

4. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age by Charlene Spretnak (HarperOne, 1991)

Overview: Shares the views of the Buddha on the nature of mind, native American spirituality on our relationship with nature, Goddess spirituality on the sacredness of the body, and Judaism, Christianity, and Islam on social justice.

5. Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing by Rosemary Radford Ruether (HarperSanFrancisco, reprint edition, 1994)


Overview: Internationally acclaimed author and teacher Rosemary Radford Ruether presents a sweeping eco-feminist theology that illuminates a path toward "earth-healing"--a whole relationship between men and women, communities and nations.6. The greening of faith: God, the environment, and the good life by John Edward Carroll, Paul T. Brockelman, Mary Westfall (UPNE, 1997)

Overview: No one argues that continuing depredation of our environment threatens our planet and our existence on it, but conflict arises in finding a solution to the problem. Suggesting that the panacea offered by science and technology is too narrow, 15 philosophers, theologians, and environmentalists argue for a response to ecology that recognizes the tools of science but includes a more spiritual approach-one with a more humanistic, holistic view based on inherent reverence toward the natural world. Writers whose orientations range from Buddhism to evangelical Christianity to Catholicism to Native American beliefs explore ways to achieve this paradigm shift and suggest that "the environment is not only a spiritual issue, but the spiritual issue of our time."

7. Belonging to the universe: explorations on the frontiers of science and spirituality by Fritjof Capra, David Steindl-Rast, Thomas Matus

Overview: In this remarkable work, bestselling author Capra and Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk renown for making fresh sense of Christian faith, share insights into how science and religion seek to make us at home in the universe. A remarkably compatible view of the universe.

The Definition of NoosphereThe word “noetic” comes from Greek , for “intellective or of the intellect” (ultimately νοητικόςderived from the Greek word , noûs, is “intellect, higher mind, thought”).νοῦς [1] It is associated with the direct knowing or intuition of noesis. Noetic meaning having the ability to understand. In the Philokalia noetic is used as a translation of νοητικός[2] “intellectual”.

“Noetic theory” is a branch of philosophy concerned with the study of mind and intuition. Among its principal purposes one can mention the study of non-rational ways of knowing and how they relate to reason; it also refers to the study of relationships between human and divine intuition. That is why noetic theory often had very close links with metaphysics. In the Western tradition and Arab philosophy noetic theory was strongly influenced by the theories of philosophers such as Anaxagoras, Plato and Aristotle.

In modern dictionaries, “noetic” is often defined as meaning “intellect,” whereas "noesis" is translated as “insight” or “intellection.” This practice derives from medieval theologians and philosophers who used the Latin word “intellectus” - but for them, this typically meant what we today would call “intuition.”

OED entries

“noetic” -adjective relating to mental activity or the intellect. ORIGIN Greek from Greek noetos ( ) “intellectual” and nous - noun 1 Brit. informal practical intelligence. 2 νοητόςPhilosophy the mind or intellect. — ORIGIN Greek, “mind, intelligence”.

The Philokalia Volume Four Palmer, G.E.H; Sherrard; Ware, Kallistos (Timothy) Publisher Faber and Faber ISBN 0-571-19382-X from glossary

noetic pg. 433. noetic ( - noeticos): that which belongs to or is characteristic of νοητικόςthe intellect (q.v.). See also intellection.

Source: Wikipedia: Noetic Consciousness

no•et•ic: From the Greek noēsis / noētikos, meaning inner wisdom, direct knowing, or subjective understanding.

sci•ence: Systems of acquiring knowledge that use observation, experimentation, and replication to describe and explain natural phenomena.

no•et•ic sci•ences: A multidisciplinary field that brings objective scientific tools and techniques together with subjective inner knowing to study the full range of human experiences.

For centuries, philosophers from Plato forward have used the term noetic to refer to experiences that pioneering psychologist William James (1902) described as:


…states of insight into depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect. They are illuminations, revelations, full of significance and importance, all inarticulate though they remain; and as a rule they carry with them a curious sense of authority.

The term noetic sciences was first coined in 1973 when the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) was founded by Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who two years earlier became the sixth man to walk on the moon. Ironically, it was the trip back home that Mitchell recalls most, during which he felt a profound sense of universal connectedness—what he later described as a samadhi experience. In Mitchell’s own words, “The presence of divinity became almost palpable, and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes. . . .The knowledge came to me directly.”It led him to conclude that reality is more complex, subtle, and mysterious than conventional science had led him to believe. Perhaps a deeper understanding of consciousness (inner space) could lead to a new and expanded understanding of reality in which objective and subjective, outer and inner, are understood as co-equal aspects of the miracle of being. It was this intersection of knowledge systems that led Dr. Mitchell to launch the interdisciplinary field of noetic sciences.

Source: Institute of Noetic Sciences

From Knowledge to WisdomCentral to a noetic exploration is the use of particular knowledge banks as currently understood. I have selected nine knowledges which I regard as particularly important:

Paleanthropology. An interdisciplinary (paleontology, physical anthropology, ethnobotany, molecular biology and mineralogy) approach to understanding the earliest manifestations of humankind physically, socially, and by indirect evidence, culturally.

Archaeology. The study of prehistory in all corners of the world and throughout a considerable span of time before human beings invented writing and related forms of communication.

History. An evolution from the type of historical record typified by Heroditis and Tacitus, which relied on verbal traditions and such sources as accounts of travellers not always verifiable. Evolving to such contemporary historians as Toynbee, Roberts, and Landes, the rigour of scholarship is applied to today's system of history, requiring evidence, verification, and proof that historical material will stand up over time.

Cultural Anthropology. Cultural anthropology is as much an exploration of the human mind and the web of culture created by the human mind, as it is an analysis of macro and micro social systems including exploring peasant societies, urban life, and wide range of humanity around the globe.

Political Economy. A field of economic analysis invented by the British approximately 200 years ago. It provides a means to relate economic institution with political institutions.

Geography. Geography is a "descriptive science dealing with the surface of the earth, its divisions into continents and countries, and the climate, plants, animals, natural resources, inhabitants and industries of the various divisions" (Friend & Guralnik, 1957, p. 605). It straddles areas of physical science as well as areas of social science.

Environmental Studies. Environmental studies cover ways in which human activities interact with other forms of life. The issues raised by scientific work relevant to environmental problems are central to a grand strategy for survival for the entire planet.

Health Sciences. It is a broad concept, which includes more than medicine. It deals with the overall health of the entire population. As with many knowledges, the health sciences are in wide-ranging and fundamental upheaval.

Formal Education (kindergarten to advanced degree). Education is "the process of training and developing the knowledge, skill, mind, character, etc., especially by formal schooling; teaching; training" (Friend & Guralnik, 1957, p. 461). A grand strategy for survival through investment in human capital is the central business of formal education.

The following books are particularly useful in exploring the manner in which wisdom emerges from knowledge.


http://books.google.ca/books?id=uUOdAQAACAAJ&dq

From Knowledge to Wisdom by Nicholas Maxwell (Pentire Press, 2007)

From Knowledge to Wisdom argues that there is an urgent need, for both intellectual and humanitarian reasons, to bring about a revolution in science and the humanities. The outcome would be a kind of academic inquiry rationally devoted to helping humanity learn how to create a better world. The basic intellectual aim of inquiry would be to seek and promote wisdom - wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life for oneself and others, thus including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. * "There are altogether too many symptoms of malaise in our science-based society for Nicholas Maxwell's diagnosis to be ignored." Professor Christopher Longuet-Higgins, Nature. * "a strong effort is needed if one is to stand back and clearly state the objections to the whole enormous tangle of misconceptions which surround the notion of science to-day. Maxwell has made that effort in this powerful, profound and important book." Dr. Mary Midgley, University Quarterly. * "The essential idea is really so simple, so transparently right ... It is a profound book, refreshingly unpretentious, and deserves to be read, refined and implemented." Dr. Stewart Richards, Annals of Science. This second edition is revised throughout, has additional material and three new chapters.

The Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance by Anthony Gottlieb (W. W. Norton & Company, 2002)

Already a classic in its first year of publication, this landmark study of Western thought takes a fresh look at the writings of the great thinkers of classic philosophy and questions many pieces of conventional wisdom. The book invites comparison with Bertrand Russell's monumental History of Western Philosophy, "but Gottlieb's book is less idiosyncratic and based on more recent scholarship" (Colin McGinn, Los Angeles Times). A New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Best Book, and a Times Literary Supplement Best Book of 2001.

Return to Reason by Stephen Edelston Toulmin (Harvard University Press, 2001)

The turmoil and brutality of the twentieth century have made it increasingly difficult to maintain faith in the ability of reason to fashion a stable and peaceful world. After the ravages of global conflict and a Cold War that divided the world's loyalties, how are we to master our doubts and face the twenty-first century with hope?In Return to Reason, Stephen Toulmin argues that the potential for reason to improve our lives has been hampered by a serious imbalance in our pursuit of knowledge. The centuries-old dominance of rationality, a mathematical mode of reasoning modeled on theory and universal certainties, has diminished the value of reasonableness, a system of humane judgments based on personal experience and practice. To this day, academic disciplines such as economics and professions such as law and medicine often value expert knowledge and abstract models above the testimony of diverse cultures and the practical experience of individuals.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=4dFI64TdmOkC&dq

http://books.google.ca/books?id=fBO2wbTMEPwC&dq



Now, at the beginning of a new century, Toulmin sums up a lifetime of distinguished work and issues a powerful call to redress the balance between rationality and reasonableness. His vision does not reject the valuable fruits of science and technology, but requires awareness of the human consequences of our discoveries. Toulmin argues for the need to confront the challenge of an uncertain and unpredictable world, not with inflexible ideologies and abstract theories, but by returning to a more humane and compassionate form of reason, one that accepts the diversity and complexity that is human nature as an essential beginning for all intellectual inquiry.


Readers eager to acquire a basic familiarity with the history of philosophy but intimidated by the task will find in A Passion for Wisdom a lively, accessible, and highly enjoyable tour of the world's great ideas. Here, Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins tell the story of philosophy's development with great clarity and refreshing wit.The authors begin with the most ancient religious beliefs of the east and west and bring us right up to the feminist and multicultural philosophies of the present. Along the way, they highlight major philosophers, from Plato and the Buddha to William James and Simone de Beauvoir, and explore major categories, from metaphysics and ethics to politics and logic. The book is enlivened as well by telling anecdotes and sparkling quotations. Among many memorable observations, we're treated to Thomas Hobbes' assessment that life is "nasty, brutish, and short" and Hegel's description of Napoleon as "world history on horseback." Engaging, comprehensive, and delightfully written, A Passion for Wisdom is a splendid introduction to an intellectual tradition that reaches back over three thousand years.

A Passion for Wisdom by Robert C. Solomon, Kathleen M. Higgins (Oxford University Press US, 1998

http://books.google.ca/books?id=btIm8_a8Ol8C&dq

Mind as Metaphor: The Essence of Human Culture

There is a false distinction that has plagued Western culture for centuries, if not for millennia, dealing with the dichotomy between that which is metaphoric and that which is literal. In our common-sense traditions we are sure that some words and some ideas represent reality in a literal meaning in that there is no doubt about the connection between the object and the idea. Ordinary language philosophy has provided a twentieth-century academic justification for this point of view.

The corollary to this idea is that some words and some ideas represent reality only as metaphor. That is, the connection between the object and the idea is an indirect, symbolic connection. The colour black in China has a very different symbolic significance than the same colour has in Canada. The maple leaf in Canada possesses a very different symbolic charge than it would have in China.

There are those who would see some passages in the Bible as a careful recounting of point-by-point events while others would regard the same passages as an allegorical lesson. Disputes over biblical interpretation can give real poignancy to the distinction between literal and metaphoric accounts. However, the world of mathematics can provide a more objective look at this distinction. Algebraicformulasarenotandcannotbealiteralrenderingoftheobjective environment. Even arithmetic calculations of an accountant are not and cannot be a literal representation of the environment. These systems are culturally agreed upon systems of symbols that are by their nature arbitrary and conventional and therefore utterly without literal representation.

If symbols lack widespread conventional understanding, then they seem esoteric or, if you will, metaphoric. If an individual is highly innovative, then by definition this person is introducing symbolic references that have not established a high level of group acceptance and understanding.

The issue here is not a distinction between the literalness of ideas and the metaphoric nature of ideas but rather the nature of acceptance of symbolic reference points. The argument boils down to this point: the human mind operates in terms of symbols—new and old. The symbolic content of the mind is therefore a metaphoric representation of external objects and events. Therefore mind is metaphor and there is no distinction between literal representation and metaphoric representation.

There may be distinctions at the symbolic level between the simple and the complex, the generally accepted and innovative, the routine and the bizarre, and many other such distinctions. Yet all remains metaphor. This point becomes


important in the way training is done in any organization or certainly in the implications for organizational development.

Often in training the technique of role-play is used. The technique has been used for countless years with widespread acceptance. However, there is a danger in the technique in that it can become cliché-ridden and extremely predictable. On the other hand, if improvisational dramatic techniques are introduced, by its nature innovation occurs and the process becomes less predictable. The process of improvisation seems to some as metaphorical or allegorical when, in fact, the real issue is that it is innovative. Innovation gives freshness to a process because the individuals involved must engage in establishing commonality of meaning and agreement regarding symbols. The innovative process of improvisation theatre elevates role-play to a symbolically richer process. Many would argue that the symbolically richer process provides a more creative climate for learning, which can result in more effective training.

The same point can be made regarding the process of brainstorming. Hanging charts on the wall and allowing people to make lists on those charts often is highly conventional and extremely predictable. Regardless of the situation, the same old words and the same old lists can occur over and over. The predictability of the process drastically diminishes the effectiveness of time spent doing it. Utility is lost in predictability.

However, if the group is encouraged to consciously and deliberately engage in a synectic approach then predictability is exchanged for innovation. That is, the persons involved are encouraged to use metaphor in the process, which means that the connection between symbols and events becomes more removed. The freshness of the symbolic content necessitates a mental process of reaching for understanding and groping for mutuality that may emerge. This deliberate use of metaphor breaks the process of literal-mindedness and conventionality. If trainers accept the idea that mind is metaphor and they consciously use the metaphoric potential of group interaction then innovation can occur. Utility is enhanced at the expense of predictability.

There are some hazards in deliberately and purposefully using innovative techniques for purposes of organizational development or even of training. Many people are afraid of exposure or afraid of rejection. Such people believe they can protect themselves from these fears by routine, predictable behaviour. Consequently, the demand for innovation precipitates exposure and leaves the issue of acceptance more than a little open. Those who govern their lives by fear do feel precarious in the midst of innovative processes. However, if an organization governs its internal dynamics through the shared fear of its members then that organization runs the risk of sterility and complacency.


Part I: Generative Insights

The Sages Code: Twelve Transformative Noetic EssentialsI am developing a curriculum based on the 12 points listed below. I envision this course to be the core philosophy regarding the positive personal potentials vis-a-vis a noetic approach to human life. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

PlayWonderGratitudeBeautyJoyOptimismReasonPurposeHarmonyCompassionGenerositySpirituality

1) Play: A Serious PuzzleThe first item in my list of twelve transformative noetic essentials is the notion of play. I find play to be a difficult essential to define. Commonly, much is included in play such as ruthlessly competitive sports, aggressively pursued games, and activities which involve struggles for dominance or deceptive activities.

For me play is a pursuit which lacks obsessive agendas or tightly structured strategies. For me play is a condition of delight involving a number of people or even solo enjoyment of nature. Fun and relaxation are the essentials of play; a delight in the common place and an intuitive appreciation of social warmth and natural wonders.

I could only generate a short list of books supporting this notion. I would appreciate additional suggestions.- The Spell of the Sensuous, by David Abram- Music Lesson, by Victor L. Wooten- The Hand, by Frank R. Wilson

2) Wonder: How, WhyWonder is the number two transformative noetic essential in my list of twelve. Wonder is a quality of the human condition, which drives the curiosity which expands human culture. This curiosity can be cosmic in nature or deeply personal.

I have chosen a literature base for wonder, which explores the miraculous and the mysterious from cosmology to consciousness. I am listing five diverse books which if read in sequence explores the full dimension of human curiosity. And they are:

- The Fifth Miracle, by Paul Davies


- Nature Via Nurture, by Matt Ridley- The Ape and Sushi Master, by Frans de Waal- Peripheral Visions, by Mary Catherine Bateson- Spectrum of Consciousness, by Ken Wilber

3) Gratitude: A Self-Vitalizing EssentialGratitude is the third in my list of twelve transformative noetic essentials. Western culture, through its Christian traditions, has through the century confused the concept of gratitude with bargaining, pleading, triumphalism and an array of negative baggage.I am attempting in this offering to approach gratitude in a self-vitalizing and multi-dimensional mental, emotional profile.

I have created a graphic entitled Seven Mental/Emotional Polarities to give shape to my understanding of gratitude.Gratitude is the culmination of emotional insight and enlightened comprehension regarding gratitude as the ultimate self-vitalizing mental/emotional profile.

Seven Mental/Emotional PolaritiesSelf-Poisoning Profile Self- Vitalizing ProfileAnger Self-AwarenessFear Self-ConfidenceIgnorance EnlightenmentSelf-Doubt Self-EsteemResentment JoyGuilt TranquilityGreed Gratitude

The list of five books approaches this subject with the above points in mind. They give depth and perspective to my graphic.

- Doubt and Certainty, by Tony Rothman and George Sudarshan- Becoming Animal, by David Abram- A Passion for the Possible, by Jean Houston- Emotional Intelligence, by Daniel Goleman- My Stroke of Insight, by Jill Bolte Taylor

4) Beauty Will Save the WorldRecently, I entered twelve transformative noetic essentials as a base configuration for a course on the transformative dimensions of the noetic realm. The fourth item in the list is beauty. That concept does stir fundamental and crucial notions about the human condition. Writers such as David Abram and Oliver Sacks, beautifully explore the interplay of noetic and biotic forces. Frequently the terms biosphere and noosphere are used to express the same idea as the biotic and noetic realm.

A powerful Russian literary tradition evoked by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and reinvigorated by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, proclaims the transformative power of beauty and beauty's ultimate capacity to be a force of salvation for human kind. I invite contributions to this discussion.

5) Joy: HappinessNumber five in my list of twelve transformative noetic essentials is the notion of joy. Joy, happiness, exuberance are conceptually intertwined as a state of being. Unfortunately, this noetic essential is easily sabotaged by hidden angers and crippling fears. Obsessions and ephemeral guilt are likewise poisonous to joy. If these negative emotions can be flushed from your consciousness, then joy can be released in a tide of healing and buoyant noetic transformations.I have selected five particularly valuable books for developing and understanding of joy, happiness, exuberance. I would recommend these books be read in the order in which they are presented for the sake of continuity.

- Dancing In The Streets, by Barbara Ehrenreich- The Geography of Bliss, by Eric Weiner- The Happiness Hypothesis, by Jonathan Haidt- Happy for No Reason, by Marci Shimoff- Exuberance, by Kay Redfield Jamison

6) Optimism: Hope, Creativity, and Positive IntuitionIn my profile of twelve transformative noetic essentials, number six is Optimism. Without doubt, one of the most healing and generative forces possessed by the human mind is the capacity for optimism. Optimism suffuses creativity, hope, and positive awareness.Learning to use subconscious resources for maximizing the transformative power of optimism is crucial. The list of books presented below provides a wealth of insight for creatively using the subconscious mind. The eight books, when read in sequence, move from subconscious resources to active and concrete everyday behaviour.

- How To Enjoy Your Life In Spite of It All, by Ken Keyes, Jr.- Peace Is Every Step, by Thich Nhat Hanh- The Knack of Using Your Subconscious Mind, by John K. Williams- Your Maximum Mind, by Herbert Benson- The Act of Creation, by Arthur Koestler- Treat Yourself to Life, by Raymond Charles Barker- Head First, by Norman Cousins- Positive Living and Health, by The Editors of Prevention Magazine

7) Reason: Logic, Empiricism, Science, Knowledge, WisdomNumber seven in my list of transformative noetic essentials is Reason. I have connected reason with such intellectual pursuits as logic, and wisdom. All of these interwoven ideas


listed in the title are supportive of the human quest for cultural enrichment and technical accomplishments. Reason needs to be appreciated as a historical dynamic as well as an epistemological accomplishment. The noetic realm is energized by reason and constructively builds civilization.

The eight books listed below, when read in sequence, explores reason and the corollary concepts mentioned in the title. Many more books could be added to the list, yet these eight are extraordinarily brilliant and thorough.

- The Dream of Reason, by Anthony Gottlieb- Ingenious Pursuits, by Lisa Jardine- Science, Order, and Creativity, by David Bohm and F. David Peat- Return to Reason, by Stephen Toulmin- Towards a New World View, by Russel E. Di Carlo- Intellectual Capital, by Thomas A. Stewart- From Knowledge to Wisdomm by Nicholas Maxwell- A Passion for Wisdom, by Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M Higgins

8) Purpose: LeadershipThe eighth transformative noetic essential I have listed as Purpose. It seems reasonable to me to link purpose with leadership.All human endeavours, whether small-scale personal matters, or massive scale national issues, are all fed in a healthy state by creative purpose and constructive leadership.I have selected seven books relevant to this topic which I will list in a sequence for building a coherent approach to purpose and leadership.

- The Power of Four, by Joseph Marshall III- Making Waves and Riding the Currents, by Charles Halpern- Leading with Kindness, by William Baker and Michael O'Malley- Leadership and the New Science, by Margaret Wheatley- Managing for the Future, by Peter Drucker- Microtrends, by Mark Penn- The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

9) Harmony: From the Personal to the GlobalFor at least two and a half millennia, Taoism has energized Oriental culture with the theme of harmony vis-a-vis humanity with nature vis-a-vis the personal with the communal. In recent generations, western intellectuals have borrowed from the east to enrich the west. This process has been troubled with the cross currents of war and civil disturbances of every kind.Now more than ever the west needs to ingest harmony as an ethos and build personal as well as communal life on the energy of harmony.

The books listed below build on this line of thought, from the personal to the global.

- Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl- Love Is Letting Go of Fear, by Gerald G. Jampolsky- No Boundary, by Ken Wilber- The Roots of Coincidence, by Arthur Koestler- The Phenomenon of Man, by Teilhard de Chardin- The Book of Balance and Harmony, by Thomas Cleary- Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu- Speeches That Changed the World (Jesus of Nazareth, Mohandas K. Ghandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. (I have a dream)), by Simon Sebag Montefiore- Civil Society in Question, by Jamie Swift

10) Compassion: Empathy, Civility, Respect, and ToleranceIn my list of twelve noetic transformative essentials, compassion is number ten. For untold centuries, Buddhism has focused on compassion as a central theme. For well over a century, western thought has been borrowing from eastern philosophical streams. Recently, compassion has become a mainstream line of social analysis and even scientific research. Many concepts are woven together related to compassion. I believe compassion is the most active perception of such ideas, however, there are more passive conceptions such as tolerance.I have chosen seven books which develop this line of thought in North American culture. If read in sequence as presented, these seven books provide a powerful shift in the view of the human condition with potential salvational implications for the future.

- Born for Love, by Maia Szalavitz and Bruce Perry- Born to be Good, by Dacher Keltner- The Age of Empathy, by Frans de Waal- The Empathic Civilization, by Jeremy Rifkin- Wired to Care, by Dev Patnaik- A Paradise Built in Hell, by Rebecca Solnit- The Moral Landscape, by Sam Harris

11) Generosity: A Necessary Essential for the Successful Evolution of the NoosphereNo essential in the noetic realm (noosphere) is more crucial than generosity. Humanity is hard wired for sharing as a necessary condition for human survival from the origins of Homo sapiens over 100,000 years ago to the civilized order of contemporary urban life.The literature base chosen for this essential consists of 4 anthropologists, 2 economists and 3 historians of religion. Whether the subject is paleoanthropology or massive nation states, all authors chosen provide powerful arguments for the role of generosity as the essential necessary for human survival in any environmental or organizational context.


The previous essential, compassion, linked with this essential, generosity, characterize the caring and sharing necessary to the noetic realm even though many scientists may fail to appreciate this reality.Without sharing and caring there is no humanity.

- Origins, by Richard E. Leaky- Women's Work, by Elizabeth Wayland Barber- When God Was a Woman, by Merlin Stone- The Way of the Shaman, by Michael Harner- The Spirit of Shamanism, by Roger N. Walsh- A Seat at the Table, by Huston Smith- The Invisible Heart, by Nancy Folbre- Systems of Survival, by Jane Jacobs- Buddha, by Karen Armstrong

12) Spirituality: The Interplay of the Human Mind and the Divine RealmSpirituality, the twelfth and last of the transformative noetic essentials, is a realm of inquiry which brings the entire profile into focus.This noetic essential stimulates an inquiry into five of the most important questions that need to be addressed by any civilization.1) What is the nature of the cosmos?2) What is a truly healthy relationship with the environment?3) What is a generative and vital ethical framework for any civil order?4) What is an intuitive and insightful understanding of oneself?5) How does the human mind engage with the metaphysical dimensions of mind with the mystical essence of spirit?The twelve books presented below attempt answers in an organic and multidimensional manner to these fundamental questions. The interplay of science and religion, and a rich understanding of history as well as a thorough appreciation for cultural anthropology, help to conclude this profile in a thoughtful and clarifying manner.

- The 5th Miracle, by Paul Davies- The Physics of Immortality, by Frank J. Tipler- Belonging to the Universe, by Fritjof Capra & David Steindl-Rast- The Great Transformation, by Karen Armstrong- Gnosis, by Kurt Rudolph- Essays on World Religion, by Huston Smith- Shamanism, by Shirley Nicholson- States of Grace, by Charlene Spretnak- Peace, Love & Healing, by Bernie S. Siegel- Gaia & God, by Rosemary Radford Ruether- An Altar in the World, by Barbara Brown Taylor- The Best Buddhist Writing, by Melvin McLeod


Personal Action – Pragmatic Philosophy

The four items in this package are intended to give a rich resource base for discussion groups, formal or informal. Across North America discussion groups are forming around the problem of bringing the philosophy into everyday life. Socrates advocated this approach two thousand four hundred years ago, and the need now is greater than ever.

Socrates’ Cafe: Refinement of Ethics, Expansion of Insight, Enrichment of WisdomSocrates Cafe: A Fresh Taste of Philosophy by Christopher Phillips (W. W. Norton & Company, 2002)Description: A modern-day Socrates takes to the road to bring philosophy back to the people. Journalist-turned-philosopher Christopher Phillips is on a mission: to revive the love of questions that Socrates once inspired in ancient Athens. With great charisma and optimism, he travels around the country, gathering people to participate in Socrates cafes in bookstores, senior centers, elementary schools and universities, and prisons. In this accessible, lively account, Phillips recalls what led him to start his itinerant program and recreates some of the most invigorating sessions. Harvard psychiatrist Robert Coles praises the "morally energetic and introspective exchanges with children and adults from all walks of life," which come to reveal sometimes surprising, often profound reflections on the meaning of love, friendship, work, growing old, and other large questions of life. Phillips also draws from his own academic background to introduce us to the thought of philosophers through the ages. Socrates Cafe is an engaging blend of philosophy and storytelling.A Passion for Wisdom: A Very Brief History of Philosophy by Robert C. Solomon, Kathleen M. Higgins (Oxford University Press US, 1998)Description: Readers eager to acquire a basic familiarity with the history of philosophy but intimidated by the task will find in A Passion for Wisdom a lively, accessible, and highly enjoyable tour of the world's great ideas. Here, Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins tell the story of philosophy's development with great clarity and refreshing wit.The authors begin with the most ancient religious beliefs of the east and west and bring us right up to the feminist and multicultural philosophies of the present. Along the way, they highlight major philosophers, from Plato and the Buddha to William James and Simone de Beauvoir, and explore major categories, from metaphysics and ethics to politics and logic. The book is enlivened as well by telling anecdotes and sparkling quotations. Among many memorable observations, we're treated to Thomas Hobbes' assessment that life is "nasty, brutish, and short" and Hegel's description of Napoleon as "world history on horseback." Engaging, comprehensive, and delightfully written, A Passion for Wisdom is a splendid introduction to an intellectual tradition that reaches back over three thousand years.Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption are Undermining America by Arianna Huffington (Random Houseof Canada, 2003)Description: Who filled the trough? Who set the table at the banquet of greed? How has it been possible for corporate pigs to gorge themselves on grossly inflated pay packages and heaping helpings of stock options while the average American struggles to make do with their leftovers?Provocative political commentator Arianna Huffington yanks back the curtain on the unholy alliance of CEOs, politicians, lobbyists, and Wall Street bankers who have shown a brutal disregard for those in the office cubicles and on the factory floors. As she puts it:“The economic game is not supposed to be rigged like some shady ring toss on a carnival midway.” Yet it has been, allowing corporate crooks to bilk the public out of trillions of


dollars, magically making our pensions and 401(k)s disappear and walking away with astronomical payouts and absurdly lavish perks-for-life.The media have put their fingers on pieces of the sordid puzzle, but Pigs at the Trough presents the whole ugly picture of what’s really going on for the first time—a blistering, wickedly witty portrait of exactly how and why the worst and the greediest are running American business and government into the ground.Tyco’s Dennis Kozlowski, Adelphia’s John Rigas, and the Three Horsemen of the Enron Apocalypse—Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and Andrew Fastow—are not just a few bad apples. They are manifestations of a megatrend in corporate leadership—the rise of a callous and avaricious mind-set that is wildly out of whack with the core values of the average American. WorldCom, Enron, Adelphia, Tyco, AOL, Xerox, Merrill Lynch, and the other scandals are only the tip of the tip of the corruption iceberg.Making the case that our public watchdogs have become little more than obedient lapdogs, unwilling to bite the corporate hand that feeds them, Arianna Huffington turns the spotlight on the tough reforms we must demand from Washington. We need, she argues, to go way beyond the lame Corporate Responsibility Act if we are to stop the voracious corporate predators from eating away at the very foundations of our democracy.Devastatingly funny and powerfully indicting, Pigs at the Trough is a rousing call to arms and a must-read for all those who are outraged by the scandalous state of corporate America.Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs (Random House of Canada, 2005)Description: A dark age is a culture's dead end. In North America, for example, we live in a virtual graveyard of lost and destroyed aboriginal cultures. In this powerful and provocative book, renowned author Jane Jacobs argues convincingly that we face the coming of our own dark age.Throughout history, there have been many more dark ages than the one that occurred between the fall of the Roman Empire and the dawn of the Renaissance. Ten thousand years ago, our ancestors went from hunter-gatherers to farmers and, along the way, lost almost all memory of what existed before. Now we stand at another monumental crossroads, as agrarianism gives way to a technology-based future. How do we make this shift without losing the culture we hold dear—and without falling behind other nations that successfully master the transition?First we must concede that things are awry. Jacobs identifies five central pillars of our society that show serious signs of decay: community and family; higher education; science and technology; governmental representation; and self-regulation of the learned professions. These are the elements we depend on to stand firm—but Jacobs maintains that they are in the process of becoming irrelevant. If that happens, we will no longer recognize ourselves.The good news is that the downward movement can be reversed. Japan avoided cultural defeat by retaining a strong hold on history and preservation during war, besiegement, and occupation. Ireland nearly lost all native language during the devastations of famine and colonialism, but managed to renew its culture through the steadfast determination of its citizens. Jacobs assures us that the same can happen here—if only we recognize the signs of decline in time.

Dark Age Ahead is not only the crowning achievement of Jane Jacob's career but one of the most important works of our time. It is a warning that, if heeded, could save our very way of life.Zeno and the Tortoise: How to Think Like a Philosopher by Nicholas Fearn (Grove Press, 2002)Description: For those who don't know the difference between Lucretius's spear and Hume's fork, Zeno and the Tortoise explains not just who each philosopher was and what he thought, but exactly how he came to think in the way he did. Nicholas Fearn presents philosophy as a collection of tools—the tricks of a trade that, in the end, might just be all tricks, each to be fruitfully applied to a variety of everyday predicaments. In a witty and engaging style that incorporates everything from Sting to cell phones to Bill Gates, Fearn demystifies the ways of thought that have shaped and inspired humanity—among many others, the Socratic method, Descartes's use of doubt, Bentham's theory of utilitarianism, Rousseau's social contract, and, of course, the concept of common sense. Along the way, there are fascinating biographical snippets about the philosophers themselves: the story of Thales falling down a well while studying the stars, and of Socrates being told by a face-reader that his was the face of a monster who was capable of any crime. Written in twenty-five short chapters, each readable during the journey to work, Zeno and the Tortoise is the ideal course in intellectual self-defense. Acute, often irreverent, but always authoritative, this is a unique introduction to the ideas that have shaped us all.

Infinite Life: Seven Virtues for Living Well by Robert Thurman (Souvenir Press Limited, 2006)Description: In Infinite Life, Columbia University professor and bestselling author Robert Thurman invites us to examine our assumptions about living and dying and to take into account the possibility that not only are our lives not meaningless, they have tremendous impact. He asks us to consider that instead of having one shot to get it right for either oblivion or eternity, we might indeed have an infinite past and future. And if that is the case, if we are evolving over infinite time, then every action in our lives has infinite consequences for ourselves and others. Therefore, we must take responsibility in the present for our actions and their effects—we must live our immortality now. But balanced against that tremendous responsibility is the opportunity for a life of infinite joy, infinite connection with other beings, and infinite power to do good.There is no escaping the facts that our thoughts create actions and that our actions affect others around us in ways we cannot see or predict. The ripples of every impulse last long after we are gone. Following the ancient teachings of the Buddha, Infinite Life introduces seven Buddhist virtues for carefully reconstructing body and mind in order to reduce the negative consequences and cultivate the positive in our lives. Thurman shows us how to let go of our rigid sense of "self" and experience full satisfaction with ourselves, others, and our world. He invites us to take responsibility for our actions and their consequences while reveling in the knowledge that our lives are truly infinite. Infinite Life is the ultimate guidebook to understanding our place in the universe and realizing how we can personally succeed while helping others.A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam by Karen Armstrong (Random House of Canada, 1994)


Description: Why does God exist? How have the three dominant monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—shaped and altered the conception of God? How have these religions influenced each other? In this stunningly intelligent book, Karen Armstrong, one of Britain's foremost commentators on religious affairs, traces the history of how men and women have perceived and experienced God, from the time of Abraham to the present.The epic story begins with the Jews' gradual transformation of pagan idol worship in Babylon into true monotheism—a concept previously unknown in the world. Christianity and Islam both rose on the foundation of this revolutionary idea, but these religions refashioned "the one God" to suit the social and political needs of their followers. From classical philosophy and medieval mysticism to the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the modern age of skepticism, Karen Armstrong performs the near miracle of distilling the intellectual history of monotheism into one superbly readable volume, destined to take its place as a classic.Belonging to the Universe: Explorations on the Frontiers of Science and Spirituality by Fritjof Capra, David Steindl-Rast, Thomas Matus (HarperSanFrancisco, 1992)Description: In this remarkable work, bestselling author Capra and Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk renown for making fresh sense of Christian faith, share insights into how science and religion seek to make us at home in the universe. A remarkably compatible view of the universe.The Phenomenon of Man by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (Harper Colophon, 1975)Description: Pierre Teilhard De Chardin was one of the most distinguished thinkers and scientists of our time. He fits into no familiar category for he was at once a biologist and a paleontologist of world renown, and also a Jesuit priest. He applied his whole life, his tremendous intellect and his great spiritual faith to building a philosophy that would reconcile Christian theology with the scientific theory of evolution, to relate the facts of religious experience to those of natural science.The Phenomenon of Man, the first of his writings to appear in America, Pierre Teilhard's most important book and contains the quintessence of his thought. When published in France it was the best-selling nonfiction book of the year.The World We Want: Virtue, Vice, and the Good Citizen by Mark Kingwell (Viking Books, 2000)Description: More and more, as the globe turns into a billboard for corporate propagation, the nature of citizenship is becoming skewed. For the cellphone-brandishing inhabitants of a world carved up into markets and territories determined by production and consumption, transcending the traditional boundaries of nation-states, what does it mean to be a citizen?In The World We Want, Mark Kingwell explores the idea of citizenship in the current post-national context, arguing that old ideas of civic belonging, historically tied to blood, belief, and law, need to be reconceived. What happens to political responsibility in an age of fractured identities, global monoculture, and crumbling civic nationalism? How do we make sense of a situation where the uniform spread of cola, television, and market rationalism is accompanied by resurgent ethnic hatreds?Kingwell traces the idea of citizenship from its roots in ancient Greece to the contemporary realities of consumerism and cultural banality. It is these voices from the past that provide the much needed context for the conflicts and confusions of the present day.

It is obvious that we cannot simply adopt past models of citizenship that are heavily based on exclusion and nationalism, but Kingwell argues that it is too early to give up on citizenship altogether. We need a new model of citizenship, he writes, one based on participation as opposed to bloodline, constitution, or religion—one that will give voice and structure to our longing to be part of something larger than we are.Adventures of Ideas by Alfred North Whitehead (Free Press, 1967)Description: The title of this book, Adventure of Ideas, bears two meanings, both applicable to the subject-matter. One meaning is the effect of certain ideas in promoting the slow drift of mankind towards civilization. This is the Adventure of Ideas in the history of mankind. The other meaning is the author's adventure in framing a speculative scheme of ideas which shall be explanatory of the historical adventure.The book is in fact a study of the concept of civilization, and an endeavour to understand how it is that civilized beings arise. One point, emphasized throughout, is the importance of Adventure for the promotion and preservation of civilization.Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977 by Michel Foucault, Colin Gordon (Random House of Canada, 1980)Description: Michel Foucault has become famous for a series of books that have permanently altered our understanding of many institutions of Western society. He analyzed mental institutions in the remarkable Madness and Civilization; hospitals in The Birth of the Clinic; prisons in Discipline and Punish; and schools and families in The History of Sexuality. But the general reader as well as the specialist is apt to miss the consistent purposes that lay behind these difficult individual studies, thus losing sight of the broad social vision and political aims that unified them.Now, in this superb set of essays and interviews, Foucault has provided a much-needed guide to Foucault. These pieces, ranging over the entire spectrum of his concerns, enabled Foucault, in his most intimate and accessible voice, to interpret the conclusions of his research in each area and to demonstrate the contribution of each to the magnificent—and terrifying—portrait of society that he was patiently compiling.For, as Foucault shows, what he was always describing was the nature of power in society; not the conventional treatment of power that concentrates on powerful individuals and repressive institutions, but the much more pervasive and insidious mechanisms by which power "reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives."Foucault's investigations of prisons, schools, barracks, hospitals, factories, cities, lodgings, families, and other organized forms of social life are each a segment of one of the most astonishing intellectual enterprises of all time—and, as this book proves, one which possesses profound implications for understanding the social control of our bodies and our minds.

Part II: The Pervasive Psychopath


When your boss is almost a psychopathBy Julia McKinnellAppearing in August 20, 2012 issue of Maclean’s

Forensic psychiatrist Ronald Schouten defines an “almost psychopath” as someone who has an unusual amount of difficulty knowing how to treat people. “Long before you get to the full-blown diagnosis (of psychopathy), there’s lots of bad stuff that goes on.”Schouten, who has degrees in law and medicine, assesses “almost psychopaths” in his daily work. He’s co-authored a guidebook, along with former defence attorney Jim Silver, called Almost a Psychopath: Do I (or Does Someone I Know) Have a Problem with Manipulation and Lack of Empathy? It helps identify the “almost psychopath” in your midst, whether it’s your boss, doctor or caregiver.

Schouten estimates 10 to 15 per cent of people exhibit psychopathic traits, “traits that may actually help an individual become a well-regarded member of society,” the authors write. “A superficially charming and engaging personality combined with a ruthless willingness to do ‘whatever it takes to get the job done’ can be extremely useful in high-stakes pressure-filled environments.”

If you’re wondering if your own charm and ruthlessness places you somewhere on the psychopathy spectrum, the authors explain it’s not likely. “If last week you took credit for a co-worker’s success and in retrospect feel guilty about it, you are probably not an “almost psychopath”. Emotional discomfort is not something a psychopath would feel. An “almost psychopath” would likely feel deserving of the unwarranted praise and would see the hapless co-worker whose thunder he stole as a weak person who isn’t worthy of the credit anyway.”

“Almost psychopaths” are drawn to power “like sharks are drawn to chum.” They target the vulnerable and show a profound lack of empathy for others’ feelings.Watch out at work, the authors warn. On the phone from his office in Boston, Schouten describes the real life case of “Greta,” an “almost psychopath” whose science degree and M.B.A. landed her a job at a top consultancy firm where “she ‘managed-up’ very well, winning over the senior partners of the firm.” Greta’s underlings were less charmed. She treated support staff terribly, made unreasonable demands, and pointed out her superior education.

The authors recommend confronting the person and stating your issues assertively. Avoid using apologetic words such as, “Maybe I’m too sensitive, but . . . .’ ” That language “always puts you one down in addressing a conflict, and for an “almost psychopath,” that show of weakness can be like blood in the water to a shark.”

If confrontation fixes nothing, file a report with human resources. “Framing your concerns in the context of the welfare of the organization rather than saying, ‘She’s picking on me,’ goes a long way toward establishing your reasonableness.” The key point is to get your concerns on the radar of management. “Even if the conclusion is that nothing can be done

right now, there will be a track record and eventually it will catch up with the Gretas of the world.”

For the “almost psychopath” doctor, the end goal is usually sex with a patient. “If something sort of tingles and you go, ‘Hey, wait a second!’ you owe it to yourself to pay attention to that,” urges Schouten. He advises patients to research a doctor’s medical credentials. Next, check the diplomas on the doctor’s wall. “If the diploma says they went to Harvard but the web page says they went to the University of Southern Wherever, there’s a problem.”

The elderly are particularly vulnerable to the “almost psychopathic” caregiver. “In the cartoon version, the patient has died and changed their will in the last four weeks. They’ve cut out the charity, left a pittance to the family, and left it all to the young housekeeper,” the authors write. “It’s funny in the cartoons but it really does happen. Tell a relative or friend, ‘Hey, there’s this new person in my life and suddenly the relationship is ramping up. Now she’s bringing her daughter around and I’m becoming an industry for the entire family.’ ” In the end, “there are no great answers,” laments Schouten. “Get other people involved.”


Key Symptoms of PsychopathyExcerpted from Without Conscience by Robert D. Hare, PhD

Emotional/Interpersonal glib and superficial egocentric and grandiose lack of remorse or guilt lack of empathy deceitful and manipulative shallow emotions

Social Deviance impulsive poor behavior controls need for excitement lack of responsibility early behavior problems adult antisocial behavior

Recently, an ex-con offered me his opinion of the Psychopathy Checklist: he wasn't too impressed! Now middle-aged, he had spent much of his early adult life in prison, where he was once diagnosed as a psychopath. Here are his responses:

Glib and superficial—"What is negative about articulation skills?" Egocentric and grandiose—"How can I attain something if I don't reach high?" Lack of empathy—"Empathy toward an enemy is a sign of weakness." Deceitful and manipulative— "Why be truthful to the enemy? All of us are manipulative

to some degree. Isn't positive manipulation common?" Shallow emotions—"Anger can lead to being labeled a psychopath." Impulsive—"Can be associated with creativity, living in the now, being spontaneous

and free." Poor behavioral controls— "Violent and aggressive outbursts may be a defensive

mechanism, a false front, a tool for survival in a jungle." Weed for excitement—"Courage to reject the routine, monotonous, or uninteresting. Living

on the edge, doing things that are risky, exciting, challenging, living life to its fullest, being alive rather than dull, boring, and almost dead."

Lack of responsibility—"Shouldn't focus on human weaknesses that are common." Early behavior problems and adult antisocial behavior – “is a criminal record

reflective of badness or nonconfonformity?”

Interestingly, he had nothing to say about lack of remorse or guilt.

The Sociopath’s CodeExcerpted from Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of PowerSince the dawn of academic writing over three millennia ago, in both east and west, sages have wrestled with the problem of power. Virtue is seen as the positive use of power and sin is often seen as the negative use of power.

Human society appears to be plagued with the inability to differentiate the sage from the psychopath as leader. For my purposes I find the term psychopath and sociopath as interchangeable terms, although many academics would argue vehemently about significant differences between the two terms.

The 48 Laws of Power generated by Robert Green is offered as a neutral analysis of power acquisition. However, I see these 48 Laws as a brilliant delineation of the personality profile best described as sociopathic.

1. Never outshine the master.

2. Never put too much trust in friends; learn how to use enemies.

3. Conceal your intentions.

4. Always say less than necessary.

5. So much depends on reputation. Guard it with your life.

6. Court attention at all costs.

7. Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit.

8. Make other people come to you; use bait if necessary.

9. Win through your actions, never through argument.

10.Infection: avoid the unhappy and unlucky.

11.Learn to keep people dependent on you.

12.Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim.

13.When asking for help, appeal to people's self-interests, never to their mercy

or gratitude.

14.Pose as a friend, work as a spy.

15.Crush your enemy totally.

16.Use absence to increase respect and honor.

17.Keep others in suspended terror: cultivate an air of unpredictability.

18.Do not build fortresses to protect yourself. Isolation is dangerous.

19.Know who you're dealing with; do not offend the wrong person.

20.Do not commit to anyone.

21.Play a sucker to catch a sucker: play dumber than your mark.


22.Use the surrender tactic: transform weakness into power.

23.Concentrate your forces.

24.Play the perfect courtier.

25.Re-create yourself.

26.Keep your hands clean.

27.Play on people's need to believe to create a cultlike following.

28.Enter action with boldness.

29.Plan all the way to the end.

30.Make your accomplishments seem effortless.

31.Control the options: get others to play with the cards you deal.

32.Play to people's fantasies.

33.Discover each man's thumbscrew.

34.Be royal in your fashion: act like a king to be treated like one.

35.Master the art of timing.

36.Disdain things you cannot have: Ignoring them is the best revenge.

37.Create compelling spectacles.

38.Think as you like but behave like others.

39.Stir up waters to catch fish.

40.Despise the free lunch.

41.Avoid stepping into a great man's shoes.

42.Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter.

43.Work on the hearts and minds of others.

44.Disarm and infuriate with the mirror effect.

45.Preach the need for change, but never reform too much at once.

46.Never appear perfect.

47.Do not go past the mark you aimed for; in victory, learn when to stop.

48.Assume formlessness.

Thirteen Rules For Dealing With Sociopaths in Everyday LifeExcerpted from The Sociopath Next Door, by Martha Stout

1. The first rule involves the bitter pill of accepting that some people literally have no conscience.

These people do not often look like Charles Manson or a Ferengi bartender. They look like us.

2. In a contest between your instincts and what is implied by role a person has taken on—educator, doctor, leader, animal lover, humanist, parent—go with your instincts.

Whether you want to be or not, you are a constant observer of human behaviour, and your unfiltered impressions though alarming and seemingly outlandish, may well help you out if you will let them. Your best self understands without being told, that impressive and moral-sounding labels do not bestow conscience on anyone who did not have it to begin with.

3. When considering a new relationship of any kind, practice the Rule of Threes regarding the claims and promises a person makes, and the responsibilities he or she has. Make the Rule of Threes your personal policy.

One lie, one broken promise, or a single neglected responsibility may be a misunderstanding instead. Two may involve a serious mistake. But three lies says you're dealing with a liar, and deceit is the linchpin of conscienceless behavior. Cut your losses and get out as soon as you can. Leaving, though it may be hard, will be easier now than later, and less costly.

Do not give your money, your work, your secrets, or your affection to a three-timer. Your valuable gifts will be wasted.

4. Question authority.

Once again—trust your own instincts and anxieties, especially those concerning people who claim that dominating others, violence, war, or some other violation of your conscience is the grand solution to some problem. Do this even when, or especially when, everyone around you has completely stopped questioning authority. Recite to yourself what Stanley Milgram taught us about obedience: At least six out of ten people will blindly obey to the bitter end an official-looking authority in their midst.The good news is that having social support makes people somewhat more likely to challenge authority. Encourage those around you to question, too.

5. Suspect flattery.


Compliments are lovely, especially when they are sincere. In contrast, flattery is extreme and appeals to our egos in unrealistic ways. It is the material of counterfeit charm, and nearly always involves an intent to manipulate. Manipulation through flattery is sometimes innocuous and sometimes sinister. Peek over your massaged ego and remember to suspect flattery.

This "flattery rule" applies on an individual basis, and also at the level of groups and even whole nations. Throughout all of human history and to the present, the call to war has included the flattering claim that one's own forces are about to accomplish a victory that will change the world for the better, a triumph that is morally laudable, justified by its humane outcome, unique in human endeavor, righteous, and worthy of enormous gratitude. Since we began to record the human story, all of our major wars have been framed in this way, on all sides of the conflict, and in all languages the adjective most often applied to the word war is holy. An argument can easily be made that humanity will have peace when nations of people are at last able to see through this masterful flattery.

Just as an individual pumped up on the flattery of a manipulator is likely to behave in foolish ways, exaggerated patriotism that is flattery-fueled is a dangerous thing.

6. If necessary, redefine your concept of respect.

Too often, we mistake fear for respect, and the more fearful we are of someone, the more we view him or her as deserving of our respect.

I have a spotted Bengal cat who was named Muscle Man by my daughter when she was a toddler, because OR even as a kitten he looked like a professional wrestler. Grown now, he is much larger than most other domestic cats. His formidable claws resemble those of his Asian leopard-cat ancestors, but by temperament, he is gentle and peace-loving. My neighbour has a little calico who visits. Evidently, the calico's predatory charisma is huge, and she is brilliant at directing the evil eye at other cats. Whenever she is within fifty feet, Muscle Man, all fifteen pounds of him to her seven, cringes and crouches in fear and feline deference.

Muscle Man is a splendid cat. He is warm and loving, and he is close to my heart. Nonetheless, I would like to believe that some of his reactions are more primitive than mine, I hope I do not mistake fear for respect, because to do so would be to ensure my own victimization. Let us use our big human brains to overpower our animal tendency to bow to predators, so we can disentangle the reflexive confusion of anxiety and awe. In a perfect world, human respect would be an automatic reaction only to those who are strong, kind, and morally courageous. The person who profits from frightening you is not likely to be any of these. The resolve to keep respect separate from fear is even more crucial for groups and nations. The politician, small or lofty, who menaces the people with frequent reminders of the possibility of crime, violence, or terrorism, and who then uses their magnified fear to gain allegiance, is more likely to be a successful con artist than a legitimate leader. This too has been true throughout human history.

7. Do not join the game.Intrigue is a sociopath's tool. Resist the temptation to compete with a seductive sociopath, to outsmart him, psychoanalyze, or even banter with him. In addition to reducing yourself to his level, you would be distracting yourself from what is really important, which is to protect yourself.

8. The best way to protect yourself from a sociopath is to avoid him,to refuse any kind of contact or communication.

Psychologists do not usually like to recommend avoidance, but in this case, I make a very deliberate exception. The only truly effective method for dealing with a sociopath you have identified is to disallow him or her from your life altogether. Sociopaths live completely outside of the social contract, and therefore to include them in relationships or other social arrangements is perilous. Begin this exclusion of them in the context of your own relationships and social life. You will not hurt anyone's feelings. Strange as it seems, and though they may try to pretend otherwise, sociopaths do not have any such feelings to hurt.

You may never be able to make your family and friends understand why you are avoiding a particular individual. Sociopathy is surprisingly difficult to see, and even harder to explain. Avoid him anyway.

If total avoidance is impossible, make plans to come as close as you can to the goal of total avoidance.

9. Question your tendency to pity too easily.

Respect should be reserved for the kind and the morally courageous. Pity is another socially valuable response, and it should be reserved for innocent people who are in genuine pain or who have fallen on misfortune. If, instead, you find yourself often pitying someone who consistently hurts you or other people, and who actively campaigns for your sympathy, the chances are close to 100 percent that you are dealing with a sociopath.

Related to this—I recommend that you severely challenge your need to be polite in absolutely all situations. For normal adults in our culture, being what we think of as "civilized" is like a reflex, and often we find ourselves being automatically decorous even when someone has enraged us, repeatedly lied to us, or figuratively stabbed us in the back. Sociopaths take huge advantage of this automatic courtesy in exploitive situations.Do not be afraid to be unsmiling and calmly to the point.

10. Do not try to redeem the unredeemable.Second (third, fourth, and fifth) chances are for people who possess conscience. If you are dealing with a person who has no conscience, know how to swallow hard and cut your losses.

At some point, most of us need to learn the important, if disappointing, life lesson that, no matter how good our intentions, we cannot control the behaviour—let alone the character


structures—of other people. Learn this fact of human life, and avoid the irony of getting caught up in the same ambition he has—to control.If you do not desire control, but instead want to help people, then help only those who truly want to be helped. I think you will find this does not include the person who has no conscience.

The sociopath's behaviour is not your fault, not in any way whatsoever. It is also not your mission. Your mission is your own life.

11. Never agree, out of pity or for any other reason, to help a sociopath conceal his or her true character.

"Please don't tell," often spoken tearfully and with great gnashing of teeth, is the trademark plea of thieves, child abusers—and sociopaths. Do not listen to this siren song. Other people deserve to be warned more than sociopaths deserve to have you keep their secrets.

If someone without conscience insists that you "owe" him or her, recall what you are about to read here: "You owe me" has been the standard line of sociopaths for thousands of years, quite literally, and is still so. It is what Rasputin told the empress of Russia. It is what Hannah's father implied to her after her eye-opening conversation with him at the prison.We tend to experience "You owe me" as a compelling claim, but it is simply not true. Do not listen. Also, ignore the one that goes, "You are just like me." You are not.

12. Defend your psyche.

Do not allow someone without conscience, or even a string of such people, to convince you that humanity is a failure. Most human beings do possess conscience. Most human beings are able to love.

13. Living well is the best revenge.

Part III: Systems of Survival

You and Your Emotions

IntroductionThere is more to the individual person than a physical body. There are energy fields, subtle and extremely complex, which are important parts of the whole person. These energy fields can be experienced in a variety of ways, one of which is as certain feelings. These feelings, although associated with the physical body, are actually forms of energy and are thus not limited to the body. As fields of energy they are also outside the body.

By becoming more sensitive to these energies and by becoming aware of what they actually feel like enables the individual to become more sensitive to similar feelings in others. However, being sensitive to the feelings in others does not mean merely to see sadness in another person’s face, for example, and thus deduce that s/he is unhappy. Rather, in the apparently empty space between two people the feeling energies of each are being transferred and thus experienced by the other. The result is that the first person feels the unhappiness of the other.

It is important to understand this process for a number of reasons. In the first place, you must understand and recognize that you are not always feeling your own feelings. When in the company of an angry person, you may begin to feel angry yourself for no apparent reason. What is happened is that you are feeling the other person’s anger through the transfer of the energies between you. However, the consciousness with which you experience that anger is the same as the consciousness with which you would experience your own, self-generated anger. Therefore, it may become difficult to distinguish just whose anger it is--yours or that of the person you are with.

Furthermore, if you spend time with an angry person and begin to feel his/her anger, the feelings that are generated may bring to mind things about which you could get angry. The result, of course, is that both of you are now angry. Fortunately, this process happens with pleasant feelings as well. Spending time with a happy person elicits a feeling of happiness in you as his/her energies are transferred across the space between you.

Too often, however, your everyday encounters are with people whose feelings are negative; who are experiencing undercurrents of vague fear, anger, worry, hostility. Their feelings may be confused, jumbled or chaotic, causing you to experience confusion, anxiety and unrest. You are then likely to believe these are your own feelings rather than merely feelings you have picked up from someone else. As a result you tend to lose your own sense of identity and authority and start to believe that you are a helpless victim of negative feelings in general.

Being less sensitive to others’ feelings may seem to be the solution to this problem. However, this simply deadens you to what is actually going on. Instead, it is imperative that you become more sensitive to the feelings that are being created through your relationship with others and constantly monitor your own reactions.


In this way you are then able to distinguish whether your negative feelings are a legitimate report of your own inner condition--a signal that something needs attention, or whether they are the result of the energy transfer of feelings from the person you are with. If you are experiencing someone else’s negativity, you are then able to use this knowledge to restore your own sense of balance. At the same time, you are now in a much better position to contribute to the other person’s well-being by transferring your own positive feelings across the energy field between you, allowing him/her to experience your sense of a clear and conscious balance.

Two Opposite Mind/Body Responses

For a generation now a Harvard team, headed by Herbert Bensen, M.D., has been working on the issue of mind/body relationships and the basic responses they generate. Bensen’s book, The Maximum Mind, summarizes the research done at Harvard in a clear and brilliant manner. He, like a growing army of medical researchers, does regard the mind as dominant in mind/body relationships. Therefore, in one way or another the mind ultimately controls whether a given person is expressing a stress response or a relaxation response. If mind and body collaborate in one or the other of these two basic responses, they can be clearly measured in terms of physiological processes and in terms of a variety of neurological events.

Some of my most admired physicians who have contributed enormously to improving the human condition are Gerald Jampolsky in San Francisco, Bernie Segal in Hartford, Carl Simonton in Dallas and Herbert Benson in Boston. Hundreds of clinics, a large number of medical schools and an army of individual physicians are expanding on the work begun so brilliantly by Hans Selye in Montreal. A world-class psychiatric centre in Topeka, Kansas (Menninger) has made a vast contribution to this field also during the last generation.

If the mind mobilizes a stress response, then the body physiologically expresses the stress response. If the stress response surges for coping with a life-threatening situation, then the price the body pays is minimal and the response is appropriate.

However, if the stress response becomes chronic and if its trigger is frequently occurring or vaguely generalized, then the body pays a price, which escalates incrementally over weeks, months or years. A chronic stress response can literally destroy the body bit-by-bit, year-by-year, until the damage may be life-limiting or life threatening. A great many physicians now believe that a chronic manifestation of the stress response may play a very large role in generating various forms of cancer, digestive tract diseases, serious circulatory problems, skeletal pathologies and a host of other debilitating medical issues. However serious the price may be that the body pays, it is also the case that relationships suffer dearly in every dimension of life.

If the mind generates the opposite response, namely the relaxation response, quite a different story unfolds. If a person can contrive to manifest the relaxation response as a dominant experience, then the body regenerates itself. The relaxation response is a healing response, and its power is just as significant as the stress response even though the effect is opposite. My experience with individual clients has demonstrated over the years many unbelievable stories of self-managed regeneration in both physical and mental terms. The relaxation response releases incalculable capacities for constructive and regenerative purposes.

The basic mind/body interface can be seen as a variety of emotional states. These emotional states are either negative or positive and are reciprocals of each other. If the emotional state being experienced is essentially negative, then the positive emotions are crowded out. Happily, the opposite is also true. These emotional states constitute the primordial soup out of which mental and physical events emerge. I see the situation as a four- link chain of causation, which helps me to understand the process much more clearly. The first link is the basic emotional state. Second, thought patterns emerge out of the emotional state. Third, patterns of behaviour are derived from thought. Fourth, consequences are manifestations of the behaviour. In short, consequences can be traced back through the four links of causation to the basic emotional state. If the basic emotional state is a stress response, then the four-link chain of causation will be a negative chain resulting in negative consequences. If the basic emotional state is a relaxation response, then the four-link chain of causation will be a positive one and the consequences are therefore positive.

These basic emotions not only have a mind/body expression, they also have an internal and external expression. The internal and external manifestations are just as important to comprehend because of their impact on the external environment as well as the internal environment. Just as the mind is dominant over the body, the inner manifestation is dominant over the outer manifestation. What you are inside you necessarily radiates outside even though you may believe that your talent for dissembling is flawless. Nobody dissembles with any significant degree of effectiveness. Usually the only one fooled in the process is the dissembler, and those around are not kidded even though they may pretend to be. Thus one’s inner emotional state radiates to the outer world in spite of it all. The four-link chain emerges from basic inner emotions to external consequences by way of either a positive chain or a negative chain of causation (see Table 1).

Table 1 looks at the relaxation response versus the stress response through five sets of emotional polarities. These emotional polarities make sense to me simply because they have emerged out of many years of working with individual clients as well as groups of students. I have tested this scheme involving the five sets of emotional polarities in a wide range of settings with people of many divergent backgrounds. My experience is that it has generally made sense to them.


Table 1Five Emotional PolaritiesStress Response Relaxation ResponseAnger Self-AwarenessFear JoyGuilt TranquilityResentment AffectionSelf-Doubt Self-Esteem

There are two ways of looking at this table: first as the five sets of emotional polarities as reciprocal but opposing emotional states, second as two columns of emotional states under each basic response.

First, if you look at the left-hand column, you readily see an aggregate of five negative emotions, which, in their totality, are a formula for misery. Anger, fear, guilt, resentment and self-doubt can appear each in varying levels of severity or in a variety of combinations. Probably few people are smitten with all five negative emotions to such a high level that they totally crowd out any of the positive emotions. Yet, my experience leads me to believe that all too many of us manifest these negative emotions at levels, which are significantly limiting to our physical well-being and to our relationships.

It is even more unfortunate that these negative states can be deeply programmed at the subconscious level where the mischief potential is enormous because we tend to deal with them through the conscious devices of denial and avoidance. By doing this, any person experiencing these negative emotions at the subconscious level is, by the very nature of things, enslaved by them. This slavery precipitates the compulsive behaviours that a person fails to understand, the self-sabotaging strategies an individual engages in and a host of self-limiting barriers that all too many people generate.

Anybody can come up with a list of negative emotions that may be longer than my five or shorter. However, in my experience I find that I can deal with most issues concerning the stress response through exploring one or another of these five negative emotions whether they are consciously manifested or buried at the subconscious level. Obviously, if their manifestation is conscious, it is usually much easier to deal with them. However, if they are subconscious, their problem takes on a very different dimension. Through denial and avoidance an individual can seriously sabotage his/her own efforts of self-awareness, self-teaching or self-correcting. To successfully deal with the stress response it is certainly necessary to draw on the mind’s innate capacity for self-awareness, self-teaching and self-correcting. This is the same mental resource drawn on for the creative process.

My experience leads me to believe that the two most dangerous negative emotions by far are anger and fear. In North America we tolerate high levels of aggressive, hostile behaviour. Our incredibly high level of domestic violence provides an alarming verification of this point. In the public arena hostile, aggressive behaviour is also extremely pervasive. The police, the courts and the legal system are clogged with the results of hostile, aggressive behaviour, which goes beyond the bounds of social and legal tolerance.

Most anger fails to reach the level of aggressive behaviour, which results in official intervention. For many people the anger remains relatively buried with its behavioural expression being more devious, indirect and non-specific. This sub rosa anger is extremely destructive to the body, crippling to relationships and debilitating to talent. This form of anger unnecessarily feeds arguments that are pointless, antagonisms that are groundless and barriers that are irrelevant. Anger is contagious even if it is subconscious, just as any emotion is contagious. Thus willy-nilly subconscious expression of anger radiates to the external world with poisonous effects.

At this point you may say to yourself that I am trying to push you into being a Pollyanna, spreading saccharine in your wake. This most assuredly is not the direction of my argument. Many people who exude a saccharine overlay are merely trying to cover up for deep and pervasive anger. The laugh of an angry person has a hard edge with a hollow ring. The laugh of a joyful person radiates warmth and delight. If you are in touch with yourself, you can tell the difference instantly. Fear is as debilitating as anger. Many of the same points made about anger can be made about fear. Indeed, these two emotions are actually the flip side of each other.

Through these two emotions the animal kingdom, as with mankind, has developed the “fight or flight” response as a survival mechanism. We have all seen animals which initiate an engagement with angry aggression only to turn tail and run. We have all seen animals who have run for it but when cornered turn on their attacker with ferocious savagery. Thus, fear and anger are, indeed, the flip side of each other. All of us have been in situations where a difficult meeting reveals certain individuals switching from fearful behaviour to angry behaviour, and vice versa.

Fear, like anger, can become deeply pervasive and generalized. Also, it can be buried at the subconscious level as well as being a conscious emotion. Some common fears I run across are fear of the future, fear of the past, fear of success, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of exposure and a galaxy of other fearful ghosts. These fears can come in elaborate combinations or they can be focused on a particular overwhelming circumstance. Male culture tends to be characterized by denial of fear and elaborate avoidance behaviour around this denial. On the other hand, female culture tends to deny anger and likewise engages in elaborate avoidance behaviour around this denial.


Fear certainly gives rise to a panoply of compulsive behaviour patterns which the conscious mind finds either aggravating or downright embarrassing. These subconscious compulsions emerging out of fear create incredible tensions with conscious, rational thought. Thus stress is born. All too many people see stress primarily as externally induced by way of a lousy marriage or a rotten job. My experience leads me to believe that stress is magnified vastly by internal tensions and contradictions between compulsivity and reason, between subconscious and conscious events, between negative and positive emotions.

I’ll quickly touch on the three other negative emotions that are less serious than anger and fear but do poison both individual and group environments. Guilt, resentment and self-doubt add interesting variations on the theme to the stress response. All of us experience these inner negative dynamics, yet they are not intractable or beyond resolution. It is true that some people can be crippled by self-doubt or guilt or even resentment, but these are extreme situations. Generally, people are merely diminished or limited by these ghostly negative emotions, which are making their contribution to the basic shape of the stress response.

Anyone who is made to feel guilty is diminished by the guilt, resulting in a self-perception of being flawed merchandise. Since nobody enjoys this experience, there is a subconscious tendency to convert heavy-duty guilt into a variety of fears or pervasive anger. Western culture has used guilt as a behaviour-control strategy. Consequently, many parents emerge with black belts and guilt-tripping, and just as unfortunately many teachers and others in authority guilt-trip. This behaviour-control strategy is extremely counterproductive and self-defeating. You may be able to induce guilt in others by shaming them, yet they likely will find a way to retaliate by continuing the behaviour, which drew the shaming in the first place. As a result the behaviour persists, overlaid with the misery of guilt. There are far better ways to create cooperative human behaviour than by producing the stress response.

Another troublesome negative emotion is resentment. Generally, people resent other persons to whom they are closely related or involved with in prolonged association. In short, you resent those you know best. It’s hardly worth resenting strangers or emotionally neutral objects. It lies at the level of aggravation and annoyance. The tendency is to resent someone over a particular item of behaviour or mannerism. Being irritated by someone’s warts and foibles is a diverting pastime but it can become very serious and very destructive. I have been told by friends, in all seriousness, that toilet paper is loaded on the spindle only one way to do it right.

Unfortunately, other members of the family insist on doing it wrong. Out of such nonsense serious conflicts gradually emerge, overwhelming the positive and the delightful elements of a relationship. If resentment is fed generously enough, it can be converted into pervasive anger with all the destructive consequences. If a relationship is worth preserving, it is worth identifying the resentments and releasing them before they fester. This is as true at work as it is at home.

The last negative emotion is self-doubt. The ‘impostor phenomenon’ draws its juice from self-doubt with all the inherent, self-limiting implications. Through self-doubt a person projects him/herself into the future with negative anticipations. Therefore, self-doubt provides the framework for writing a negative script and then acting on the script.

Self-doubt is definitely pervasive, and it is not difficult to aggravate this negative emotion. Male chauvinism not only fosters self-doubt among women, but it also feeds the self-doubt of the male chauvinist. No one wins.


Blocks to Fulfillment

Introduction

“An addiction is an emotion-backed demand or desire for something you tell yourself you must have to be happy. Addictions, or addictive demands, can be on yourself, other people, objects or situations. You can always tell when you have an addiction because:

1. It creates tension in your body. 2. It makes you experience separating emotions, such as resentment, anger,

fear, jealousy, worry, anxiety and boredom. Look into your own experience and notice how the above emotions make you feel separate from yourself and others. Separating emotions are contrasted with unifying emotions, which give you experiences of acceptance, love, joy, happiness, peace and purpose in life.

3. Your mind is insistently telling you that things must be different in order for you to enjoy your life here and now.

4. Your mind makes you think there is something important to win or lose in this situation-- that your happiness depends on the soap opera.

5. You feel that you have a ‘problem’ in your life--instead of experiencing life as an enjoyable ‘game’ to be played.” (Reprinted from How to Enjoy Your Life in Spite of It All by Ken Keyes, Jr., Copyright 1980 by Living Love Publications)

This quote neatly summarizes a point of view toward addictions, which I have found to have enormous explanatory power and practical application. Ken Keyes has contributed, as much as anyone has done, to the understanding of addictions. Another important contribution has been made by John Bradshaw in a television series broadcast by PBS. The series is entitled Bradshaw on the Family. These two men and other people look at addictions from a New Age point of view focusing on the emotional dimensions of the various compulsivities which drive addictive strategies.

Ken Keyes focuses on three addictive strategies of life, which I have adapted and extended as a result of my own teaching and experience with individual clients. In this chapter I will explore the five addictive strategies as blocks to fulfillment and as major themes of the chronic stress response (see Table 2).

I

will explore these five addictive strategies of life to better understand the disinvestment consequences of them along with some insight for unhooking from these strategies. More than you may realize these addictive strategies can become major organizing themes of behaviour in a wide variety of situations but always they will have negative consequences. The negative emotions discussed in Chapter 1 provide the primordial soup out of which these addictive strategies emerge. As systems of behaviour they can therefore be traced back to emotional states. It would be handy to remember the four-link chain of causation discussed in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.

Table 2Five Addictive Strategies of Life

1

1. The Power AddictionThe compulsion to dominate others even though it may be counterproductive.

2

2. The Dependency AddictionA compulsive need to cling to one or more people even if it is self-sabotaging.

3

3. The Conflict AddictionPrecipitating win/lose situations even when there is no need for it.

4

4. The Security AddictionA focused or pervasive drive to eliminate risk even though you may aggravate it.

5

5. The Substance AddictionA periodic or pervasive dependency on one or more chemicals, foods, drugs, etc.


The Power Addiction

As Ken Keyes, John Bradshaw and others see it, this addiction and others are energized by states of compulsivity, which block judicious choice, normal prudence, a sense of discretion and a healthy free will. When you look at a power addiction with these things in mind, it is most likely that several friends or acquaintances pop into mind. All of us know people who have a need to dominate other people in a way, which lacks charm or sensitivity. It may be that such a person will target his/her efforts primarily on one or more family members, or it may be that the target or targets are primarily outside the family. This addiction, like all others, can be triggered by specific situations or particular individuals. Furthermore, the addiction may be episodic rather than continuously present. This addiction and the others can be anywhere from trifling to overwhelming.

The compulsivities, which drive addictions, by their very nature, have self-sabotaging consequences. The self-sabotaging consequences are there simply because of the absence of discretion, prudence, restraint, etc. The drive to dominate another person may so completely discomfort that person that s/he rebels or retreats completely from the relationship. Such a loss obviously sabotages the quest for domination.It is impossible to escape in normal social situations’ power dimensions of relationships. This is obviously true at work, dealing with officialdom such as the police, and even in organized recreational settings. However, it is just as important to recognize the power relationships that exist between parents and children and other dimensions of the kinship systems. Even though power is pervasive, it need not be unjust, unreasonable, irrational or capricious. Ordinarily power is used with a sense of propriety and appropriateness to say nothing of prudence.

When power is manifested addictively, then it becomes capricious and irrational. The compulsivities driving the power addiction generate stress in the perpetrator as well as stress in the recipient. The compulsive capriciousness poisons the relationship and diminishes both the recipient and the perpetrator.Recently I had a client who came to me because she wanted to quit smoking. During the training process I worked with her in regard to a number of dimensions of her life. She was a tough 45 year old who complained bitterly about the alienation of her children and hostility to her on the part of her employees.

It soon became evident to me, and somewhat later to her, that she had more than one addiction. Smoking was definitely a health problem and constituted a deeply fixed addiction. But the power addiction that she radiated toward family and colleagues had built within her an enormous reservoir of stress and vague apprehensions. The stress generated by her power addiction was complicating her efforts to detach herself from the nicotine addiction.

Her conscious struggle with her smoking amplified the stress and seriously aggravated the anger and power-tripping directed toward other people. It gradually became clear to her that she was in a bind of major proportions, which had been protected over the years by an elaborate network of denial and avoidance.

Gradually in my relationship with her the overwhelming question shifted from “Why was she compelled to smoke?” to “Why was she compelled to dominate family and colleagues?” Her power addiction resulted in an intense sense of loneliness and isolation as well as chronic and pervasive apprehensions. She decided herself that if she could unhook from her desperate need to dominate, she could then much more effectively tackle the problem of smoking.

I followed this strategy with her and taught her the necessary techniques to accomplish the first job. She used them successfully and began a process of profound changes in her style of relating to those around her. After this victory was achieved, it indeed was a straightforward matter to teach her how to unhook from smoking.She discovered that her power addiction was traceable to her childhood. In her family environment the parents were both weak and vacillating. They demonstrated affection erratically and ineffectually. Very early in her childhood my client developed the need to control the flow of affection and control its predictability. Over time the problem with affection emerged as a drive to dominate.

As what happens in these circumstances, the pattern became fixed at the subconscious level. As she matured it remained fixed, and through adulthood this childhood problem took shape as an organizing principle of behaviour, namely her power addiction.As she developed her understanding of this deep-seated subconscious emotional hang- up, she was able to reprogram her subconscious fixation to a new program which allowed for relationships relatively free of the drive to dominate.


The Dependency Addiction

The dependency addiction is just another strategy which is generally anchored in childhood. Again, the childhood problem concerns the matter of affection. It is a truism to state that the most crucial issue in childhood is the matter of affection. Of course, nourishment and safety are critical to survival, but so is affection.

If one or the other parent is erratic or unreliable in demonstrating unqualified affection, then the child has a problem. If parents bargain with affection or if they are prone to be neglectful or even abusive, the child has a problem which escalates in severity.The dependency addiction can emerge as a pattern of behaviour which tries to solve problems precipitated by the erratic flow of affection or the withdrawal of affection.An important thing to remember is that children are powerless. In particular, infancy is a totally dependent condition actively shaped by the outside world. At this stage the need for reliable affection is fundamental and utterly essential.

Through the behavioural tactics of the dependency addiction, the child can attempt to manipulate the outside world by trying to get control over the flow of affection. This is done through a compulsive need to cling. The clinging becomes more frenetic and more insistent through time as an effort to assuage fear in regard to the possibility that affection will not be forthcoming.

Thus the subconscious program is set and the person grows up desperately clinging to those identified as sources of affection. The fear of rejection drives this compulsion in a relentless and desperate fashion.

When thinking of the dependency addiction, it is tempting to see it as a problem characteristic of women and half-grown children. Nevertheless, I have worked with senior male executives who have manifested this problem, particularly in the domestic arena. A few years ago a vice-president of a major oil company came to me for some training in preventing stress. Indeed, he was extremely stressed with many of the classic manifestations of a highly stressed life.

Although he functioned competently in his role as vice-president, he was, at age 50, very close to burnout. He was beginning to see himself as inadequate and vulnerable to some of the younger senior staff. While exploring various dimensions of his life, I discovered a revealing and crucial fact of behaviour, although the information did come with very grudging reluctance.

When work ended on Friday afternoon, he went directly home and went to bed. He stayed there until Monday morning and then with difficulty he tore himself from the bedroom to go to the office. Throughout his weekend he demanded that his wife pamper him in every conceivable way. She brought him meals in bed and even allowed the family poodle to stay in bed with him for comfort.

It turned out that his current wife had married him only recently, and she was number five. When I began working with him, she let it be known that he was very close to needing number six wife because she found his clinging suffocating and intolerable. He had obviously used the same strategy in earlier marriages, resulting in the disaster of divorce.My client was an extremely bright man and responded very quickly to the training regime. As he developed insight into his clinging behaviour, he was able to use the training tools to unhook from his childlike dependency. As this behaviour pattern abated, the stress level began a dramatic decline. As the stress level declined and the offensive behaviour diminished, his wife became a good deal more affectionate.

As the domestic situation rapidly improved, there was a clear and dramatic effect on his situation at the office. His self-esteem flowered considerably along with a dramatically renewed sense of joy in his work. His work behaviour improved so much that after only 6 months he received a substantial promotion. Whereas before he began the training regime he was desperately fearful of a demotion.

It may have occurred to you already that the dependency addiction is as much a need to control as is the power addiction. That is true. Indeed, these two addictions are the flip side of each other. It is also quite true that a given individual can manifest both strategies, depending on the circumstances or the persons involved.

Many of us have married friends who engage in an elaborate dance of playing the power/dependency game. In one situation the husband plays a power-tripping role and his wife clings in an infantile manner. Change the situation and the couple may reverse the power/dependency relationship. The effort consumed in this game can be so enormous that it leaves little time or energy for more constructive pursuits.

The dependency addiction generates just as much stress as does the power addiction. Most assuredly dependency debilitates a relationship and diminishes the recipient and the perpetrator alike. The self-consequences of this addiction can easily result in the loss of the very person that the addiction is trying to control. Thus the addiction accomplishes the very opposite of that which the addiction is all about--the ultimate self-sabotaging consequence.


The Conflict Addiction

The cultural ethos of our society provides a social milieu which tends to disguise and to cover up the pervasive conflict addiction. For millennia Western society has shaped its literature, its politics and its social relationships through institutionally sanctioned modes of conflict. A cliché of today provides a sample. A few generations ago the phrase ‘rule of thumb’ was much more than a cliché. In English common law, rule of thumb meant that you could beat your wife with a weapon so long as the weapon was not thicker than a man’s thumb. Many activists engaged in the animal protection movement of last century often observed that the new animal protection laws were more solicitous of horses and dogs than any legal recourse available to children. Only within the last generation has there been a serious effort to legally protect children against excessive parental violence.

However, the conflict addiction most often is not expressed in violent attack. In this era we are becoming far less tolerant of violence, even in such places as prisons. Although the media still foster violence as a problem-solving strategy, our legislative and legal systems are definitely waging a major effort to discourage this form of conflict.

Mostly conflict is demonstrated through disputation, competitive practices and other forms of abrasive relationships. Conflict can be manifested in indirect and disguised behaviour. Even though the conflict may be disguised and indirect, its effects are in no way limited. The counterproductive, negative and stressful consequences are just as present when conflict is socially controlled and socially sanctioned.

The essence of the conflict addiction lies in the compulsivity behind it. The driving need to foster win/lose situations removes the element of restraint, of judicious choice and of prudence from the behavioural context. The compulsivity brings about the self-sabotaging dimension of the conflict addiction. If a person enters into conflict without prudence, s/he is as likely to lose the contest as s/he is to win it.

Because conflict is so widely sanctioned, it becomes difficult to finger the addictive persons. This failure to identify the situation leads to a failure to correct the situation. Worse still, our view of ambition and success is fed significantly by the notion of relentless competition, struggle and conflict.

You may suspect that the alternative to the conflict addiction is wimpiness or the doormat syndrome. In no way am I suggesting such a thing. Some conflict is unavoidable. But much conflict is avoidable, and organizations would be healthier if we used successful techniques for avoiding conflict or effectively resolving it when it occurs.

The roots of the conflict addiction are much the same as they are for power and dependency. This addiction is just another childhood strategy for resolving the problem of affection. The powerlessness of childhood tends to promote the self-destructive strategies very early in the game when affection is withheld or erratic. I am sure all of us have had experience with children who have extraordinary talents for creating a tumult among the adults. Even though the tumult may result in punishment, the fact is the child obtains

attention even if affection is lacking. Thus the self-destructive pattern of conflict is born and maintained.


The Security Addiction

Union contracts, retirement plans and insurance policies all seek to assure a future as free as possible from risk. These efforts are prudent and reasonable and certainly necessary in our complex economic life. It is very natural and understandable that people should seek a variety of devices for reducing risk by making the future as secure as possible. Indeed, one of the main functions of a society is to promote and provide a sense of security for its members. In this regard North America is much more successful than a great many societies around the world. Yet it is a never-ending quest of both government and business to avoid unnecessary risk and all obvious hazards of life.

Unfortunately, mankind has not learned how to cancel all risk. Risk is part of the human condition even though our institutions may considerably reduce major hazards. Capitalism is based on the concept of risk, and indeed life itself is an unfolding tapestry of unforeseen risks.

The security addiction reveals a compulsion to deny risk. This strategy projects the individual into the future with the driving need to prevent risk. It is the denial of risk that is at the heart of this addictive strategy. The behaviour emerging out of the security addiction can be quite bizarre. Compulsive hoarding is one manifestation. I remember a businessman I knew casually who would walk blocks to get a free photocopy. Everyone has a favourite story about a miserly acquaintance whose behaviour provided considerable amusement.

Miserly behaviour can become so irksome to intimates that the behaviour destabilizes intimate relationships--thereby introducing a new form of risk. The same compulsion can lead to the need to make the big score and thus provide a safe future. This may lead to the self-sabotaging strategy of big stakes gambling and imprudent stock investments. In this manner millionaires can be made and unmade with astonishing frequency. I have heard acquaintances boast about making millions, losing them and making them again. When listening to such stories, I am prompted to think, “Isn’t once enough?” Part of the skill of making millions includes the skill of stabilizing the achievement. However, the security addiction can lead such a person to believe that any achievement is not enough, and the compulsion drives that person to take great risks in acquiring more. The irony is the millions can be lost that way.

The self-sabotaging consequence of the security addiction is the tendency to provoke risk. The compulsivity blocks prudence, and therefore an individual may achieve the opposite consequence to the presumed target of the addiction. As a result, stress is magnified, relationships suffer and life is diminished.

The Sensation Addiction

There is little need to discuss this dimension of addictions since there is such a vast literature on the subject. Addiction to food, to chemicals, to pharmaceuticals and to other substances is dealt with by the electronic and print media relentlessly. However, we are schizophrenic about various addictions to substances of many kinds. At the same time the media promotes awareness of addictions, they also foster addictions. The golden era of Hollywood certainly fostered smoking as a sophisticated practice.

One of the most insidious substance addictions concerns sugar. Western society is truly addicted to sugar and has been for more than a century. A splendid book on the subject, Seeds of Change, was written by an English journalist named Henry Hobhouse. As an example, 300 years ago the average European consumed approximately one pound of sugar per year. Today the average consumption is 150 pounds per year.

Hypoglycemia and diabetes appear to be biochemical consequences of excessive sugar consumption. The behavioural consequences for children and adults can be extraordinary. Many people yo-yo between apprehensive and depressive moods to exaggerate frenzies. Recent research in North American prisons suggests that a great deal of pointless conflict and violence is fostered by sugar consumption which may be as high as 7 or 8 pounds per person per week among these populations. When experimental diets have been introduced, removing sugar from the diet, behaviour within the prisons improves enormously. Many school boards across North America have had the same experience with student populations.

Generally, the addiction to sugar and caffeine is taken lightly. However, Dr. Janice K. Phelps, a Seattle physician, argues differently in her book, The Hidden Addiction: How to Get Free. She argues, with some potency, that alcohol and drug dependency constitute a secondary stage of addiction from an earlier sugar and caffeine dependency. Whether this is true or not, Western society does have a very serious sugar problem. The biochemical aspects of addiction provide a general focus of research and therapy in regard to addictions. However, I believe that the emotional dimension provides the driving energy for this addictive strategy just as with the four previous ones.

During my early adulthood I was a very heavy smoker. Before I quit a couple of decades ago, I reached a habit level of about three packs a day. During the 20 years I was an active smoker, I quit several times, sometimes for a few weeks, sometimes for a few months and twice for over a year. My return to smoking was nearly always precipitated by a self-destructive, defeatist and depressive emotional state. I clearly remember the state of mind precipitating the return to smoking. The simple phrase, “Who gives a damn?!” neatly summarizes the emotional climate.

Nearly everyone struggles with a sensation addiction in regard to one substance or another. As a matter of fact, it is reported that some joggers become addicted to the oxygen high from jogging. There are those who become addicted to the adrenalin high of daredevil sports. All too many deaths and serious disabilities derive from this behaviour.


Suffice it to say that the sensation addiction is pervasive and serious, even though we know a great deal about it. Unhooking from this addiction is as much a mind problem as it is a body problem. The social and personal stresses precipitated by this addiction are obvious to all of us. However, these stresses can be reduced by the same techniques of emotionally unhooking as with the other four addictive strategies.

Capacities of Your Mind

Introduction

In the early years of my career as a conventional social scientist, I struggled with the understanding of human culture and its relationship to human mind. During the 50s, 60s and 70s, I was exposed to every school of thought imaginable. Early in my career I was heavily influenced by Freud and his view of the subconscious mind. In more recent years I have been influenced by psychologists such as Stanley Krippner, James Fadiman and Frances Vaughan and the concept of mind as a transpersonal reality as well as an individual reality.

Although Freud’s influence is rapidly dwindling, much of the popular view of the subconscious mind is a legacy of Freudian thought. The popular view of the subconscious mind is characterized by the metaphor of the dirty basement--a dark place full of junk from the past, much of which is at best fearful or more likely obscene. During training exercises to teach clients and students how to use techniques to mobilize the power of the subconscious mind, I typically must deal with this popular perception of the subconscious mind as being a fearful and unpleasant reality. Much of Western religious belief has given theological support to this unflattering view.

The Three Dimensions of Mind

The New Age view of the subconscious mind is very different from the traditional view. It is important to note that the New Age view adds a crucial third, dimension, that of the transpersonal mind (see Table 3). This school of thought recognizes that most human behaviour, meaning internal, physiological events as well as social behaviour, is governed by subconscious wiring. According to the current cliché, 90-95% of all behaviour is governed more by subconscious wiring than by conscious deliberation


Table 3The Dimensions of Mind

1. Subconscious Mind: “Inner Awareness”a) The controller of sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous

systemsb) The archives of total experiencec) The automated stage centre

2. Conscious Mind: “Outer Awareness”a) The referee of ethical standardsb) The filter for unfamiliar experiencesc) The voluntary messenger centred) The guide for skill developmente) The manager of voluntary action

3. Group Mind: “Transpersonal Awareness”a) The source of intuitive insightsb) The focus for creative thinkingc) The realm of archetypal ideasd) The source of psi phenomena

The subconscious mind is simply a total record of all experience within an individual’s lifetime. Some contributions to the subconscious mind are processed through an individual’s consciousness, but a great deal of experience simply bypasses the conscious state. The subconscious mind is neither good nor bad, logical or illogical, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly. It simply is total experience. Some experiences become hardwired into habits, rituals, automatic responses, or unfortunately, cravings. Some of the hard-wired patterns are extremely helpful to the individual, giving the job of managing a wide range of necessary activities to the subconscious mind so that the conscious mind is not paralyzed by an overload of choices. This aspect of the subconscious mind is absolutely essential and extremely valuable to the human animal as a facet of survival.

The job of the conscious mind is to process matters involving ethics, problems requiring logic, experiences which are unfamiliar, and techniques for developing skills. Therefore, the conscious mind becomes the arbiter, the analyzer, the negotiator, the communicator. If the conscious mind and the subconscious mind are in congruence, and they generally are, then behaviour is consistent and the inner state is free of turbulence. However, if these two facets of the mind are not in congruence, then the personality is disrupted by self-sabotaging and self- defeating inner struggles.

If the subconscious mind is hardwired for negative behaviour or disadvantageous behaviour, then conscious processes are thwarted, diminished or seriously crippled.

As an archive, the subconscious mind constitutes a storehouse of images, memories, feelings and experiences, some of which are wonderful and some of which are a bit ugly. However, it simply is not necessary to focus on the ugly and thereby ignore the beautiful and the wonderful dimensions of subconscious reality. The conscious mind can be taught to gradually access subconscious material for constructive purposes. Moreover, the conscious mind can be taught to release that which is negative. This does not mean repressing or denying the negative; it means releasing it. And this is a very important distinction.The process of releasing negatives and affirming positives is a simple process relying on step-by-step training over a period of time. Some preliminary discussion of this point was made in Chapter 2.

The training process is aimed at reducing the energy devoted to negative emotions and raising the energy devoted to positive emotions. In this process the trainee does not repress, deny or forget unpleasantness or negative emotions; he simply removes the energy from them. The energy thus saved can be more profitably invested through affirmations to the constructive and positive elements of mind.

This training sequence switches emotional orientation from the stress response to the relaxation response. As the trainee mobilizes the relaxation response, his/her abilities are enriched in a profound way through this redirection of energy. The investment enables each person to build skills more easily, to focus on talents without sabotage and to expand innate capacities without diverting struggle. As each individual masters the technique of mobilizing the relaxation response, s/he enables him/herself to draw on the third dimension of mind, group mind, in a more direct and focused manner.

Group mind in Western tradition is as suspect as subconscious mind. However, during the last decade in both Europe and North America there has been a dramatic and profound change in academic circles and among scientists in their perceptions and research regarding group mind. More and more we accept the idea that our personality does not end with the skin. As discussed in Chapter 1, your mental energy extends well beyond the limitations of your body. By virtue of this extension individual minds relate not just to each other but with each other through transpersonal awareness. This inner relationship among individuals becomes the essence of group mind and the capacity for transpersonal awareness.

By releasing the negative blocks in the inner self it is possible to expand the connections with transpersonal awareness. Creativity, intuition, flashes of insight, appreciation of others become a new enriched dimension of mind which vastly increases availability of ideas and receptiveness to innovation.To the degree that an individual is able to mobilize the relaxation response, s/he opens her/himself to group mind and the personal advantages inherent in transpersonal awareness.

The synergism of individual contributions to group efforts is magnified to an almost limitless degree by unfettered transpersonal functions of mind.


Before talking about the seven states of being which comprise the last section of this chapter (see Table 4), I need to make a couple of connections. The seven states of being are the essential elements of group mind which offer a focus to life and the value, purpose and meaning necessary for group relationships. The simplest way to focus on the seven states of being is through affirmations. If you recall, this subject was briefly dealt with in Chapter 2. Now, a more thorough discussion of affirmations will help you understand the means by

which the seven states of being are made more clearly manifests in life.

Affirmations

First and foremost, affirmations are a positive statement about some aspect of your physical, emotional or mental being. They can also be positive statements about situations, about other people or about aspects of work performance or even of performance in sports.

Table 4The Seven States of Being

BeautyThis state expands the awareness and acceptance of the miraculous and wondrousdimensions in life. Indeed, beauty is in all things, including oneself.

JoyThrough joy the individual mobilizes laughter and an engagement with life that is full of zestand pervasive pleasure.

AffectionThe inner focus of affection is as essential as its outer manifestation replete with caringgenerosity, non-judgemental acceptance and a connecting sense of kindness.

CreativityThe state of creativity requires openness and receptiveness achieved through the creation ofpeaceful and harmonious emotions.

KnowledgeThe affirmation of knowledge is the awareness that the universe is overflowing with thebuilding blocks of life, and affirming knowledge focuses the mind on this availability.

HealthPhysical health needs affirming as an abundant and perfect state of being, as with all sevenstates. The aura of expectation is thereby focused in a constructive fashion.

Material AbundanceWealth is a greater concept than money. Material abundance recognizes the plenitudeoffered by the universe and the availability of this plenitude to everyone.

Elizabeth Manley, a silver medalist in ice skating at the 1988 Winter Olympics, described her use of affirmations in clear detail in many of the interviews given to journalists. It may be fair to say that the sports world has been a major leader in the use of affirmations to enhance performance.

Even if reality falls short of your affirmation of perfection, this is no reason to qualify your affirmation with negative references. Affirmations are meant as a device for changing the aura of expectation, rather than as a way to delude yourself. When affirmations are stated as achieved perfection, you build the anticipation of moving toward that perfection, careful step by careful step. The aura of expectation provides the goal orientation, even though the affirmation itself is presented to yourself as though you have already achieved the goal. If you qualify the affirmation with acknowledged limits, shortcomings, difficulties or other limiting conditions, you sabotage the aura of expectation and your clear focus on that expectation. Consequently, each affirmation must be stated as a condition or state of perfect being in regard to the particular matter being dealt with.

Another principle to be remembered concerns the time reference of affirmations. They must always be presented in the present tense; never qualified by past shortcomings or future difficulties. Again, the aura of expectation is important in regard to time frame. The aura of expectation is irrelevant to the past since the past is dead and gone and therefore cannot be changed. It follows, then, that connecting the aura of expectation to past events is a major self- sabotaging error. Likewise, if the reference for the aura of expectation is placed in the future, you have thereby removed it from your grasp because the future is the future and it is ever receding. To hang the aura of expectation on future references is just as much a self- sabotaging error as on past references. Therefore, the affirmation must be stated in the here- and-now of the individual’s experience. This practice connects the aura of expectation to the rewiring process of the subconscious mind in a direct, relevant and effective manner.

Affirmations are not only useful in rewiring negative, subconscious connections, but just as importantly the aura of expectation created by the affirmations focuses the mind on transpersonal awareness. The seven states of being are integrated into the mental state through disciplined use of affirmations when correctly expressed.The message in this section is very clear: there is a right way to do affirmations and there are plenty of wrong ways. Thus, it is necessary to make sure that you carefully follow the principles of constructing affirmations for your own use.

The power of each affirmation is greatly enhanced if you repeat them to yourself during a meditative state. By slowing the body and mind down through meditation, all dimensions of mind are much more receptive to the impact of the affirmation. Moreover, the meditation itself trains the body and mind to experience the relaxation response, and by experiencing this state there becomes a growing acceptance of it as well as a desire to achieve it throughout the day.

It is possible to focus attention on each affirmation by writing it out and placing it where it will be seen on a regular basis. The posting of affirmations is certainly useful, yet it should


be understood that this approach is not as effective as stating the affirmation to yourself in a totally relaxed state--provided by meditation or other techniques.

The Aura of ExpectationA few more words are required regarding the aura of expectation. This concept, the aura of expectation, is essential to the understanding of affirmations and how they work. Superficially, the idea of the aura of expectation appears to be in some ways self-contradictory. However, if you follow the argument carefully, you will probably recognize that this concept possesses enormous power in writing your personal scripts for your own life.

An everyday example will make this concept regarding the aura of expectation quite clear. Imagine a young person receiving for a springtime birthday a full outfit for trout fishing. The fly rod, the waders, the hat, the net all create an instant image of the accomplished fly fisherman deftly making each perfect cast. This is what the youngster has in mind at the moment he begins his frustrating career as a fly fisherman. This youngster, being bright and alert, will start the process by acquiring some books and magazines on the subject. Next, he will seek out some friends who are already well into trout fishing. Then the day comes when they go out to a carefully chosen stream for the big initiation. The equipment is carefully donned, the fly rod prepared and the first cast is made. Horror of horrors, the line arcs out over the water and then swings back over his left shoulder and hooks firmly in the back of his hat. So much for the perfect cast! The second cast reveals the line disappearing altogether and captures a willow 10 yards behind. Something has got to change if the perfect cast is ever going to occur.

The difference between the notion of the perfect cast and the slightly tragic initiation reveals a vast gulf. The idea of a perfect cast is the aura of expectation. Reality is the hooked willow. If the young trout fisherman says to himself, “I know what the perfect cast is but I will never achieve it,” chances are the waders and the rod will be relegated to the attic and that will be the end of his fishing career. However, he may say to himself, “I know what the perfect cast is and I am perfectly capable of making it.” Now he has made the right affirmation to enable him to launch a successful fishing career.

His idea of the perfect cast is not lodged in his mind to delude himself but rather it is there as an aura of expectation which he can affirm for himself day by day and accomplishment by accomplishment. If he qualifies his aura of expectation by focusing on his first halting casts, he will corrupt the area of expectation by writing a script crippled by qualifications. If his affirmations remain clear and without qualification, then his script focuses on excellence and success and the aura of expectation is thereby pristine.

Moreover, his aura of expectation is a current concept, not a future concept. If he places it in the future, then the target is ever receding and ever receding. Therefore, he affirms his goal as an aura of expectation in the here-and-now, devoid of time reference and absent of judgmental criticisms. Again, this is not to delude himself but rather it is an effective method of getting all of the junk out of the way so that skills and talent and capacity can be realized.


Another example may add further light. An elderly gentleman, 101 years old, goes off to his physician complaining of a very sore knee. The physician examines his elderly patient and after careful diagnosis the doctor proclaims gravely that there is nothing medicine can do for the sore knee. George, the elderly gentleman, greets the diagnosis with utter scepticism. The doctor assures George that he must expect such untreatable ailments to occur because, after all, George is 101 years old. Then a sudden flash occurs to George and he says, “My left knee is 101 years old, too, and it’s just fine.”

The doctor and George clearly reveal two opposite ideas about health. The aura of expectation of the physician is that if a person is 101 years old, then physical breakdown is to be passively accepted. George’s aura of expectation is that even though he is 101 years old, he might as well be healthy and therefore he regards the defective right knee as an aberration to be dealt with by remedial action. Given the two auras of expectation, George and the physician write two opposite scripts regarding the problem knee.

Now you can apply the idea of affirmations and the aura of expectation to the seven states of being as presented in Table 4. Again, these seven states of being are beauty, joy, affection, creativity, knowledge, health and material abundance. A hard-nosed manager or professional in the fast track may look at these seven concepts as wimpy. However, my rejoinder is, in no way are they wimpy; instead, these auras of expectation focus on excellence in life that write scripts free of crippling and corrupting junk. Through affirmations, the auras of expectation are given focus and clarity. This enables the auras of expectation to provide purpose, value and meaning for each individual. A further consequence generates behaviour that expresses dignity, integrity and continuity. The effect on personal and professional life is an ongoing expression of excellence.

The simple and effective techniques described in this chapter and the next two chapters are meant to be applied in daily life. If affirmations are used to build an aura of expectation for each one of the seven states of being, then excellence is made manifest. It is a training process and it does take time, just as is true for fly fishing. The training process, set in motion by affirmations, pushes debilitating junk aside. Although the junk remains present, you do not need to qualify your affirmations by intruding it on the scene. The fly fisherman does not preoccupy himself with the willows on the bank; instead he focuses on the trout in the pool.

If you build an aura of expectation around the seven states of being, you automatically focus your energy in the most efficient fashion on your inherent skills, talents and capacities. Just as automatically, your individual investment in your own human capital is likewise made manifest.

Now the time has come to quickly look at each of the seven states of being as an expression of excellence. Of course, it is possible to devise your own list which might identify any number of such states of being. In my own experience I have found these seven adequate and particularly relevant.

As identified in Table 4, the first state of being is the concept of beauty. Of course, this is not a cheesecake notion of beauty, but rather an appreciation of the miraculous and wondrous qualities of life. Obviously, the marketplace, the neighbourhood and democratic government offer a wide variety of warts, blemishes and assorted ugliness. If you wish, you can expend your energy focusing on the ugliness and thereby poisoning your inner space. The alternative is to devote your energy to appreciation of the wondrous and miraculous aspects of life and thereby enrich your inner space. Focusing on beauty is not a process of self-delusion, repression and denial; rather, it is merely making a choice about how your energy is to be spent. If you affirm beauty, you build an aura of expectation which allows for script writing in harmony with the aura of expectation.

The second state of being is that of joy. The essence of joy is laughter and a sense of connection with life. This sense of connection expresses a relish of life and a zest for life. As Warren Buffet, the Omaha billionaire investor has often said, he likes people around him who feel like dancing when they get to the office. Since Warren Buffet’s aphorisms are repeated around the world with great mirth, it is obvious that this billionaire understands laughter as the essence of joy. One of my favourite sayings concerns his views of whiz-kid MBAs as compared to seasoned, successful managers. “I don’t hire young MBAs because in my experience you can’t teach a new dog old tricks.” This quote comes from an interview on the television program, Adam Smith’s Money World.

Affection is the third item in the seven states of being. Affection focuses on kindness, generosity and non-judgmental acceptance. Your first reaction may be to say that affection so defined would be crippling to ambition and destructive to competition. However, if each individual would approach himself with affection, the critical mass of such individuals, through the connections of group mind, would radiate affection as a quality of social life. This becomes the main means to eliminate internal friction caused by “we” and “they” thinking. By reducing adversarial relationships within the group, creativity and innovation are left unfettered, and the energy of the group is not negatively diverted by internal friction.

If the first three items in the list are systematically affirmed, then the fourth important state of being becomes much easier. Focusing on creativity is infinitely easier if you can first affirm as states of being in your life beauty, joy and affection. When the negative junk is pushed aside, then creativity can flower as a natural condition.Affirming the seven states of being is definitely a cumulative process. That is why I put knowledge as number five. Being open and receptive to information, learning easily, retrieving effectively all make use of knowledge in a more dynamic and efficient way. The four previous states of being open the individual to learning skills and the units of information in a very powerful way. The capacity of the human mind to gather information and to analyze data is nearly limitless. As wonderful as the computer is, the human mind is infinitely more miraculous in its capacity for acquiring and comprehending a wide array of knowledge. To do it effectively you don’t have to be a genius, but you do need to push the negative junk out of the way.


Health is the sixth item on the list. I see this state of being as a holistic concept involving mental, emotional and physical dimensions of self. Of course, the aura of expectation begins as a mental presence which then becomes expressed in emotional and physical states of being. Everyone is aware that the North American marketplace suffers dearly from absenteeism, avoidable illness and physical debilitation. To invest in health as an aura of expectation once again contributes not only to the well-being of the individual but in direct financial ways it contributes to society. Avoidable health problems cost American companies hundreds of millions of dollars each and every year. Eleven percent of our GNP is committed to medical services, and yet avoidable health problems debilitate the North American economy. When the U.S. is ranked by well-accepted health measures in comparison to other developed countries, instead of being number one it is approximately number sixteen.

If the first six states of being are affirmed with discipline, then the seventh and last state of being falls into focus with some ease. The concept of material abundance is much broader than bank account numbers. Material abundance starts as a state of mind, accepting the availability of material things for individual use. This point of view is contrary to placing your sense of worth and value in external material objects, such as a mink coat or a Mercedes. This state of being begins as an internal acceptance and appreciation of material things as being available for use. This is not a concept of enslaving oneself to external items of property, but a concept to liberate oneself from property as a reference point for internal value. When you are free from hang-ups about property, it is much easier to appreciate the abundance of material goods and the easy use of them as a joyful dimension of life. Money and property are useful and they can offer a deal of pleasure as long as you approach them in a liberated mental state. This state of being becomes a capstone to the six previous states of being and their accumulated effect through their auras of expectation.

Human Capital/Basic Cultural Wealth

IntroductionThis chapter focuses on the human mind as human capital. This focus will include:

a look at human consciousness as it has evolved to today; its perceived economic value and mental potential in today’s organizations; the role of education--conventional and alternative--in the development of human

capital human capital in the contemporary workplace.

Evolution of Human Consciousness

Any work of this sort must look into the future. Although futurism is a risky game, we must be able to anticipate what humankind may create for itself 5, 10, 20 years in the future, or longer. Some trends are obvious; some are likely hidden from us. However, it is possible to write scenarios that examine some of the more probable courses of development. The future, however, is the future, and there are no guarantees.

One of the ways of looking into the future is by exploring the past. The growth of human consciousness over the last 100,000 years and longer is a truly exciting exploration and this growth has proven to be of great practical use. Not only has the human mind developed greater technical skills from the Ice Age to the current age; even more importantly, the human mind has explored its inherent capacity to study itself, to change itself, and to purposefully raise levels of consciousness. The last 100,000 years and more have witnessed the human spirit at work. This spirit has increasingly brought forth technical ability and mental awareness to provide ever-greater degrees of personal freedom and personal control. The next 100 years will most assuredly provide a test for the lessons learned throughout the previous 100,000 years. The genius of humankind is a double-edged sword: one side destructive, corrupting and disinvesting; the other side creative, and investing through positive understanding of human potential. Centuries ago it was clearly understood by those in the slave trade that human beings represented capital of enormous value. The bitterness of emancipation demonstrated clearly the strength of the understanding that human beings were, in the simplest and most direct form, capital (Hobhouse, 1990).

Modern industrial societies have generally lost sight of the recognition that human talent and human intellect, as well as human sweat, represents wealth. One of the clearest thinkers about this matter was the historian Oscar Handlin (1973). Even though North America was blessed with natural resources, and colonial powers poured financial capital into the New World, real investment was in importing human skills and human intellect, through immigration.


Since World War II, modern research and personal development programs have grown with vigour. Many streams of philosophy, psychology, medicine, organizational management, training strategies, and personal growth strategies have combined to provide a new world view concerning human resources and the fundamentals of worth and value. Modern managers and professionals understand that the human mind possesses the capacity for self-analysis, self-teaching, and self-correction. The human mind is now regarded as a vast storehouse of unused resources. A cliché in literature suggests that most people fail to use 90 to 95 percent of their mental resources. However, through simple and effective programs of self-investment and self-training, humans can learn to expand their available mental resource for problem solving, growth, and an expanded knowledge base. Such personal investment generates capital growth in the most fundamental and essential form.

One of the great contributions made by current thinkers and writers concerns a better understanding of the human mind, subconscious as well as conscious, and even the trans-personal nature of mind. Because the human mind has the capacity to be self-aware, self-teaching, and self-correcting, culture is built in a cumulative fashion through the generations. Of course, accumulated science and technology are the most obvious expressions of intergenerational accumulation of cultural resources. However, we can look at knowledge and creativity in a broader context with a clearer understanding of the generative quality of individual human minds and the synergistic potential in cooperative effort.

Economic Perceptions of Human Capital

The human mind creates culture; culture expresses and defines value. Therefore, the organizational culture of any company or government department is the collective creation of its members and their predecessors, as a sharing of individual minds, for constructive and creative purposes, or, alternately, for attitudes which diminish and devalue. The ultimate value and worth which lies within the human mind and the accompanying useful array of human talents, can be mobilized and husbanded effectively and creatively; or all of it can be squandered.

As the human mind learns to study itself, it also learns to invest in itself through growth-oriented self-change. If the human mind is the primary and only form of true capital, then the economic implications of human resource development become not only clear, but also quite liberating. By a positive program of individual investment in mental resources, each person can create an avenue of personal growth and freedom from the enslaving bonds caused by external controls. In short, personal growth can lead to personal freedom, as well as to profoundly enhanced economic worth.

As the economic value of the human mind becomes clearer and better understood, organizations are increasingly realizing that they must give as much central attention to talent inventories as they do to concrete capital inventory. In our North American economic system, there is often a prevailing distinction that suggests human resources are soft, ill-defined, and unreliable as compared to financial resources, deemed to be hard, precise, and reliable. This work views this as a false distinction, seeing the perception of money based on the notion that value can be externalized from the human mind, then shifted and anchored in material objects or currency. This false distinction motivates policymakers to view employees as primarily an expense item; thus, managers fail to understand the capital value represented by the mental resources of employees through their aggregated talents. Traditionally machines and equipment tended to be seen as assets, with employees tending to be seen as liabilities. There is a real danger in our technological age that the continuing effort to replace people with machines may lead to a reckless abandonment of human capital, and with it, the expensive loss of some rare skills.

Value does not lie outside the human mind, even though the mind may attribute value to such things as a tar sands plant or a pocket full of coins. Although often prevalent, this work sees all such value as arbitrary, therefore changeable, dependent upon collective agreement through the dynamics of culture. This work sees human talents as expressions of mental resources; therefore, they constitute the true form of capital. We can quantify talent; we can measure it carefully; we can identify strengths and weaknesses, as well as the synergy of reciprocal talents. Just as chemicals can express a reciprocal synergy, which magnify their group effect, so it is with human talents. When human talents are properly identified and mobilized synergistically, the magnifying effect is significant. This process has two aspects: the creative function and the integrating function. It is important to recognize that these two functions are not inherently incompatible (Blakeslee, 1988).


We must get away from the idea that an employee only brings to the company or organization the talent called upon in the job description. A company limiting its attention to narrow perception of its employees often denies itself a vast array of human capital, which could enrich the company beyond measure. No company or organization is so rich that it can afford to deny itself human resources vastly greater than the array of job descriptions.

In The Next American Frontier, Robert Reich (1983) believes strongly that the next frontier is nothing more nor less than a focusing of our attention on human capital and a consistent and wise strategy for enhancing this form of wealth. Arguing that the most competitive industrial societies are those which truly respect the concept of human capital, and consistently pursue the enrichment of human capital, Reich believes that North America during the last half-century has failed to understand the wealth that human capital represents; therefore, for a half-century, North America has failed to husband this crucial resource. In the broadest national and corporate terms, our society tends to squander human capital, treating it as though it were merely an expense, except for the small percentage of humans, which occupy senior executive levels. Even at those levels, we in North America can be inconsistent and wasteful.

Education and Human CapitalThere is a change in the way education is viewed in North America. Rather than university being a rite of passage for the professions, to be accomplished between high school and career, today’s society perceives it very differently. Education, like product development, is a never-ending process which should be seen as a systematic investment in each and every individual’s human capital. Increasingly we understand enhancing human capital at an individual level through programs of continuing education and various programs for personal development. Economic reversals seem to sharpen this focus at the individual level, since it is a practical strategy for competing in the job market. However, a proactive strategy for utilizing human capital requires continuing personal development at all times, especially when the economy is buoyant.

The ‘Great Books’ program developed by the University of Chicago in the 1930’s carefully built a curriculum revering the creative quality of today’s mind, by winnowing the accumulated knowledge of yesterday’s great writers. Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler, who co-created the program, were convinced that knowledge was power and that individual students could vastly expand both their knowledge and creative potential by focusing on less than 80 great books written during the preceding 2,500 years. Their perception was that the human mind could accumulate through the generations a wide range of knowledge other than science and technology. They saw that ethical awareness could be enlarged, social tolerance could be expanded, political understanding could be increased, along with many other enriching dimensions of mental growth. The University of Chicago was careful to avoid reducing the program to an elitist exercise of literary catechism. They were concerned about the nature of North American education as a failure to appreciate the human mind in all elements of the population. They thought the University of Chicago could lead the way in building an educational philosophy that would celebrate the resources of all citizens throughout North America (Adler & Gardner, 1994).

Over 70 years later, we are still lamenting the failure of the educational system in firing the creative capacity of young students and competently guiding them in the acquisition of knowledge. This failure is costly, not only to the individual who fails in a personal sense, but is also extremely costly to North America’s economic order, as innumerable books and articles point out (Laxer, 1998; Swift, 1999; Willinsky, 1998).

We endlessly compare our educational system to that of Japan or West Germany, and we don’t like what we see. The problem is not so much with the top 25 percent of young students; rather, it is with the bottom 50 percent. The bottom 50 percent is condemned, for the most part, to occupational instability, frequent unemployment, work that remunerates poorly, and often to living circumstances that are as tenuous as their work itself.This bottom 50 percent of our social system is treated wastefully by our failing to understand that there are mental resources left unused, undeveloped, and unrespected by our educational system and by our marketplace. It should be acknowledged here that progressive business leaders and educators are recognizing this problem and are trying to do something about it. If we systematically waste half of our population, then we cripple


ourselves in the international marketplace--already all too evident. We also cripple ourselves socially and politically through widespread alienation and even overt hostility to all of our major institutions. Nearly half of our population fails to vote, even in major federal elections. Traditional religious institutions have lost an enormous amount of popular support. This trend is reflected throughout other major structures of society.

If we socialize a large proportion of our fellow citizens in self-perception of failure or personal worthlessness, then we fail to invest purposefully and positively in all of those individual minds. So it should come as no surprise that if we fail to invest appropriately and effectively, then we fail to get any return on investment. In fact, instead of getting a social return, what tends to happen is that we get enlarged cost factors in a variety of social and health programs. A culture of failure easily develops into a culture of illness; a culture of illness becomes a serious personal and social liability, costly to everybody.

Many societies have understood the connection between the culture of illness and the disinvestment in human capital that damages the marketplace (Wynn & Wynn, 1979). Bismarckian Germany, well over 150 years ago, understood the connection between a vibrant economy and a competent population (Taylor, 1955). The economic and scientific miracle of German society that predated World War I was more than frightening to all of its competitors. And of course, out of the ashes of World War II, Japan had its own economic miracle resulting from their own careful investment in human capital with all the resulting benefits.

The four mini-dragons of Asia--South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore--likewise experienced the same growth for the same reasons. On the other hand, the Philippines’ failure to grow illustrates the plight of a number of other Third World countries who have failed to grow because of failure to understand human capital in any terms other than sweat. Fifty years ago, Finland clearly understood this problem and in one generation moved their economy from a Third World profile to a successful modern profile. A decade later, France came to the same realization and likewise developed a systematic effort toward capital investment in the vulnerable segments of their population. It is no accident that France has had an economic miracle parallel to their new social effort. This lesson is not just a recent one.

Implied so far, but not clearly distinguished, are two forms of human capital:

1. sweat capital--simple physical labour. Modern technology is rapidly diminishing the importance of human labour. Also, physical power is little more than an alternative to animal power derived from horses, yaks or even draft dogs.

2. mental capital--the resources of the mind.

Those societies that restrict the view of human capital to that of mere labour reduce the view of human beings to being commensurate with donkey power. Much of the Third World is severely crippled by this tragically incomplete view of human worth (De Soto,

2000; Mazrui, 1986; Salvucci, 1996). Thus, country after country in the Third World is condemned to economic stagnation, social instability, and financial mismanagement.


Education as Adult Lifestyle

The learning society is growing because it must . . . When life was simpler, one generation could pass along to the next generation what it needed to know . . . tomorrow was simply a repeat of yesterday. Now, however, the world changes faster than the generations, and individuals must live in several different worlds during their lifetimes. (Cross, 1981, p. 272)

One distinction our culture has historically made is between education and work: Education: we have arranged our institutions so that education is that which is done

in schools and colleges. Work is that which is done in plants and offices.

This leads to a further distinction: Education is for young people. Work is for mature people.

While it is true that companies are increasingly providing staff development services, it is also true that school boards and colleges are offering adult education programs. Historic traditions and distinctions are still dominant, however, and our support for adult education is still weak and erratic.

It is sad to observe that a significant part of our adult population is relatively incompetent in written and spoken language skills. Even sadder, all too many professional people read very little and are less than enthusiastic about continuing education. Many adult education course offerings consist of little more than recreation. It is also evident that universities reach out to the community with reluctance and hesitancy; therefore, they do not seriously engage the adult population in a focused, ongoing educational regime. Although the situation varies greatly across North America from one institution to another, and from one locale to another, the North American scene could certainly be improved. Typically, if individuals in our society wish to acquire graduate degrees, they must quit their jobs and return to the dependent, adolescent role associated with undergraduate life.

These traditions are kept alive by a false sense of standards; also by a total misunderstanding of human capital, and how to invest effectively in human capital. Those who function as professionals in human resources have an obligation to promote, in both private and public sectors, a healthier understanding of human capital and a commitment to invest in human capital and human resources through continuing education that is convenient, effective, and growth-oriented. We must invest in the work force as a deliberate and focused strategy, leading to personal growth for every employee. There is simply no alternative to continuous personal growth through formal educational programs, and through work experience, which recognizes personal growth (Blakeslee, 1988).

In spite of reluctance of traditional universities, a vigorous industry has grown up during the last generation through private universities that serve adult workers while they remain

on the job. These universities--even though they are not subsidized--have achieved this spectacular growth by recognizing this clear need in the adult population, and effectively meeting that need. Some public universities are beginning to move in this direction with a greater sense of priority; yet in the United States, as in Canada, they tend to suffer from bureaucratic ossification and a blunted sense of purpose (Ghosh & Ray, 1991).

Today’s competitive environment simply demands that we enrich the mind throughout the work years and afterwards by investing in personal growth through purposeful educational programs.

Alternative Educational Programs‘Student as employee, and employee as student’ is rapidly becoming the theme of today’s workplace. Career flexibility and career development are increasingly entwined with educational enrichment as an ongoing and inseparable relationship. For over a generation the concept has been around of a university without walls. Both Britain and the United States have had a limited number of publicly supported educational institutions which actively promote off-campus services (McGeveran, 2001). However, this concept has only recently become widely acknowledged in the Western world. Some private universities are actively promoting programs in the workplace and other off-campus learning environments. Some of these programs are extremely high quality even though they are non-traditional.The Internet system is now changing, and will probably continue to change, the technology of education and the availability of information as well as formal courses. As a result, interest in education is beginning to cut across all demographic and regional categories. In fact, a recent survey confirms that Canadians are increasingly turning to the Internet for education.

According to the survey, 26 per cent of Canadians have searched the Internet for on-line courses, 8 per cent have taken an on-line course and 7 per cent have taken an in-person course that includes a significant on-line component . . . . Among those who studied on-line, the great majority, or 90 per cent, said they would recommend studying on-line. They said they liked on-line courses because they saved a significant amount of time, the courses improved their employment possibilities, and the Internet provided them with a means to take courses they wouldn’t otherwise have sought. (Kapica, 2002, p. 1)

The survey concluded that education is making significant inroads into the way Canadians use the Internet.

Educational institutions need to take advantage of this opportunity by exploring this area more closely in order to determine the types of courses potential participants are interested in taking on-line. . . . Besides being an effective medium for the actual delivery of on-line educational content, the Internet is a significant marketing tool for institutions who are offering traditional in-person educational courses. (Kapica, 2002, p. 1)

The advantages of on-line education are further evidenced by these considerations: It is no longer necessary to quit work or to take a prolonged leave in order to further


a university program. This means the cost of the education can be drastically reduced because there is no need to lose income for two or three years.

There is no need to absorb the expenses commensurate with residential settings. The structure of on-line education means that institutional staff costs and capital

costs are greatly diminished by more rational planning and utilization of facilities.

An individual can acquire solid and competent academic recognition for academically valuable job experience. Through a variety of testing services and practicum arrangements, it is possible to get substantial academic recognition for job-related experience.

Modern communication and transportation greatly facilitate individualized instruction and off-campus services. Weekend seminars can draw instructors from across the continent with great efficiency, thereby making most locales accessible to some of the best brains in a given field of study. Modern telecommunication, facsimile transmission, and the Internet expand the information base beyond belief. Many graduate programs provide short, on-campus experiences during the summer, which can be integrated with a holiday schedule. This allows an annual gathering of the students, which provides the bonus of a certain amount of traditional university environment.

Through night courses, correspondence courses, teleconference courses, and websites, students can avail themselves of a more individualized, if less systematic, approach to ongoing educational development. Although this approach involves a significant proportion of the adult American population, a certain ‘ad hoc’--even random--characteristic tends to accompany this approach. Sometimes the interests do not rise much above the hobby level. If all one wants is to further a hobby, this issue should be clear both to the providers of the service and the students--although some hobbies can actually have considerable academic value and can lead to new career opportunities.

Human Capital in the Contemporary WorkplaceThe social and technical impact in the workplace imposed by advances in communication technology constitutes one of the most important foci of changes in the marketplace as well as the workplace. Innumerable books have been written about changes in the North American marketplace. Of course, these changes in the marketplace will have profound effects on the nature of the workforce, with corollary changes in the technical and social environment of work.

Technical advancements in telecommunications have reshaped the way we communicate from building to building or from city to city. As cellular phones become miniaturized, they have become as much a part of personal paraphernalia as the ballpoint pen. Electronic publishing, along with advances in photocopying and facsimile transmission of information, have further revolutionized the style and impact of communication. Each office has the capacity to generate information as a self-contained electronic information system. Furthermore, the capacity of an office to receive, process, and use information has been magnified considerably. There has also been a shift from blue-collar to white-collar employment. Automation on the shop floor is radically changing the nature of the factory and its human requirements. Obviously there is a point beyond which this change cannot proceed. Even with robotic energy, there will always be some requirement for human power to manage, organize, or perform dirty, unpleasant, and manual labour. The percentage of blue-collar labour will probably not shrink to less than 10 to 20 percent. Although women on average are still paid less than the male population, there is no doubt that the female population is moving overwhelmingly into white-collar areas in the service industry and in office work. Women are now close to 50 percent of the workforce and will probably remain at this level for the foreseeable future (Reed, 1998). Doubtless the salary differential between men and women will lessen, but how it happens is up for intense argumentation in both business and government.

The average age of the workforce is rapidly rising, giving us a very different population pyramid than during the baby boom. Twenty-five percent of the population will soon be in the retirement category (Statistics Canada, 2002). This shift will mean a rapid decrease in the availability of cheap, youthful, and inexperienced workers. Table 5 presents a comprehensive summary of these statistics.

Table 5Shifts in Population Size of Various Age Groups

Cohort Year of BirthAge in 2001

Avg. Births per year Size

Pre-WW1 Before 1914 88+ 201,000 Relatively small

WW1 1914-1919 82-87 244,000 Relatively small

1920s 1920-1929 72-81 249,000 Relatively large


Depression 1930-1939 62-71 236,000 Relatively small

WW2 1940-1945 56-61 280,000 Relatively large

Baby boom 1946-1965 36-55 426,000 Very large

Children of the boomers 1980-1995 6-21 382,000 Relatively large

Children of the baby bust cohorts 1996 on 0-5 344,000 Relatively small

(Statistics Canada, 2002)

Another serious challenge concerns the educational profile of the population. Half the workforce will be technically competent and fully acclimatized to the communication demands of the coming white-collar world (Statistics Canada, 2002). However, the other half of the workforce will represent serious impairment in communication skills, and the technical and personal aptitudes characteristic of the white-collar world. To change this situation requires a profound re-examination of the causes of this condition, and strategies required for dramatically changing it.

The modern marketplace demands effective communication and unfettered creativity. If we truly believe in these things, then it is essential to teach people how to maximize their mental resources. Both large governments and multinational companies constitute the primary targets for change. The bloated and the ossified must be decentralized, streamlined, and simplified--or else they run the risk of bankruptcy or disintegration. Tom Peters (1988) argues, as do others, that small is beautiful and flexibility an imperative.

Fortune 500 has shed hundreds of thousands of jobs through automation and offshore manufacturing. North America is rapidly becoming a marketplace of service companies, involving perhaps as much as three out of four in the workforce. Along with the flattening of management structures goes a decentralization of research and development, marketing strategies, and product modification (Thurow, 1980). The marketplace is becoming an elaborate array of small, specialized niches responsive to small, flexible companies (note the explosion of small beer companies with unique products filling a specialized niche all over North America). More creative product development and higher-quality products are essential to the new style. It is just as imperative for people to change as it is for companies to change.

Healthy leadership is important through a clear understanding of mentoring; yet leadership is not enough. Each individual must take responsibility and control of his/her own personal investment program as a positive contribution to him/herself and, therefore, to the organization. A healthy personal investment program will most assuredly build a healthy organization. Leadership can coach, urge, and facilitate, but it cannot take control or responsibility for the personal investments of each individual. Ultimately that lies with each and every person.

Balancing Social Elements

Introduction

This piece includes many ground elements of a blueprint for a Fifth Societal Model. It is an effort to balance social practices and social elements for humanity to escape the hazards of previous mistakes. The work of the four scholars discussed below has been chosen in the belief that they provide an innovative approach toward balancing major elements of society. These elements are presented through these authors’ work, providing a synergistic web of social policy imperatives relevant to the post-industrial era and the very survival of humankind. The four scholars are in concurrence about

the necessity for decentralizing society, in most aspects of social institutions and societal functions.

the concentration of power and property in the hands of a minute segment of society propelling the existing four models of society.

This piece begins by introducing three age-old questions. Answers to these three questions will provide balance and integration for a society and its various institutional components. The four scholars presented in this section, taken as a totality, provide an intellectual package, exploring these three questions and offering clear, poignant answers. To begin this process, this piece begins to move backwards and forwards simultaneously, so to speak:

backwards, to once again ask the three questions; forwards, to attempt to address these three questions in the context of modern

society.

The three questions:

Question one: “How do we relate to the Divine?” What is the nature of the divine order and how do human beings relate meaningfully to the spiritual dimension of life and the divine order of the universe? This theological problem cannot be ignored, denied, or avoided. Of course not all theological systems are composed of elements easily transferred from one system to another, yet each theological system must have internal integrity and continuity, which provide ultimate meaning and direction for human existence.

Question two: “How do we relate to nature?” This question concerns humanity’s relationships with nature, including all dimensions of the environment. Urbanized, post-industrial life tends to separate human beings from contact with, and a sense of, the interwoven web of nature. This state of psychological separation can lead to such misguided policies and practices that human life itself becomes threatened. Our technological and scientific success in previous centuries has tended to blind commercial and governmental leadership towards environmental mistakes of the past and our disregard of nature itself.


Question three: “How do we relate to each other?” This question is simply, “What are the moral/ethical imperatives of one human being relating to another or one societal element relating to another?” The great sages as far back as Confucius, Buddha, and Isaiah have admonished their fellows about this question and the answers offered. Often these answers are given with a sense of urgency, because societal survival may rest on the need to eliminate unjust and unfair practices which can contaminate any society. History is littered with societies which failed to ask and answer this vital question in a way that provided moral/ethical integrity and balance. Collapse of great empires and destruction of polities can often be understood by examining the internal corruption and decay of the moral/ethical core of a society.

Four Scholars’ Work, Presented in Order

Three of the four scholars whose insights will be examined are women. This may be no mere coincidence, and may have some connection to their non-patriarchal, non-lineal, non-mechanistic, non-reductionistic, and non-traditional approach to social inquiry and social policy.

These four do not appear to regard themselves as an integrated cadre who consciously relate to each other. They may or may not be aware of each other’s work. However, elements of a fifth societal model emerge when their work is arranged in the order below.

They are:

Fritjof Capra:The Tao of Physics (1983) and The Turning Point (1982). Capra’s value lies in fusing insights from his own field of physics with wide-ranging societal insights. Capra’s analytic paradigm, in both physics and societal ethos, is contemporary and post-positivist.

Hazel Henderson:Creating Alternative Futures (1978) and The Politics of the Solar Age (1988). The question most central to this work concerns humanity’s relation to nature. Although interested in the moral/ethical order, the principal value of Henderson’s work is her clear understanding of the relationship between society and nature. She examines the marketplace and government in terms of social policy which will either sustain the environment or destroy it. She attacks traditional economists and their dogmas masquerading as science. She argues that economics and the social sciences must release their tight grip on ideologically driven nostrums for social policy.

Ursula Franklin:The Real World of Technology (1990). A retired professor of physics, Franklin is primarily concerned with the way in which science and technology have been used in the marketplace and the way in which the marketplace drags society to the brink of environmental calamity. Concerned with the moral/ethical dimensions of society,

as well as with humanity’s relationship to nature, Franklin has relevant and insightful understanding of the social sciences, most especially economics. She clearly understands that the physical sciences and the human sciences require different methodological approaches, resulting in differing epistemological and ontological principles. Maintaining a proper relationship between technological systems and vital social institutions is one of her concerns, as well as the moral/ethical needs of society and the requirements of nature, meaning that technology must be subservient to social policy.

Charlene Spretnak:States of Grace (1993) addresses the third great question: humanity’s relation to the divine order. Spretnak relates humankind’s spiritual quest to the moral/ethical core of any society and the way in which it becomes translated into social policy, be it economic or environmental.

Fritjof Capra

Capra (1982), in The Turning Point, views the waning decades of this century as a generation of crisis for the entire planet. Capra argues that the crisis is multidimensional and potentially terminal for humankind. In the first chapter of this book he introduces several major paradigms for examining the human condition. He certainly sees the current climate of Western culture as overwhelmingly sensate. Another paradigm is the Taoist concept of yin and yang. Again he sees Western culture overwhelmingly dominated by the yang ethos or, if you will, the hyper-masculine. He also introduces the Marxian dialectic and its focus on struggle and conflict as a social dynamic.

Capra (1982) views the solution to crises facing society as being a shift from the patriarchal focus to a more humane and egalitarian set of social relationships. One dimension of the crisis is an imperative shifting of all human societies toward a greater respect for nature and a diminution of exploitative economic and technological strategies. A further dimension of the intellectual and scientific crises involves most major disciplines, most especially economics, but also includes psychology, medicine, and other disciplines important to human survival. He believes these crises aspects are forcing humankind toward a new grand strategy or set of master ideas, a social paradigm which addresses the very crisis state we are in, and a healthy solution.

In Chapters Two and Three, Capra (1982) deals with the development of science and the philosophy of science from 1500 to the current time. These chapters follow the shift in Western cultural ethos and academic contributions through massive shifts in worldview. From 1500 to 1700, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, Newton, and others moved Western thought from a medieval, organic, grand vision to a clockwork, mechanistic, rationalistic, and empirical worldview.

Capra (1982) argues in Chapter Two that Bacon represented a current of scientific thought that was highly empirical and inductive as a central methodology. Descartes represented another stream of thought which was mathematical, deductive, and highly mechanistic as a central methodology. Capra argues that Newton’s contribution was a unification of these two streams of thought in a methodology which became known as Newtonian mechanics. It was based on a broad system of philosophy--some parts explicit, some implicit. This system seemed to satisfy most of the scientists and intellectuals in Western Europe from the 1600’s until the 20th century. Capra’s treatment of the change in European culture, particularly scientific and philosophical aspects of culture, parallels the interpretation offered by Arnold Pacey discussed above.

In Chapter Three, Capra (1982) discusses the great scientific achievements during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Where Capra differs from other historical treatments of Western intellectual development in his adherence to the idea that the Newtonian worldview is no longer adequate for scientific inquiry, and may be erroneous as a methodology for social sciences. He draws on other physicists such as Chew and Bohm to support his philosophical stance. In the years since Capra wrote The Turning Point, Stephen Hawking, along with John Gribbon and other cosmologists, have redirected science down a totally new road divergent

from Newtonian mechanics. Capra’s central point is that classical economics, as systematized by Adam Smith in 1776, has served the commercial, industrial, and financial class very well, but it has not at all well served nature, the base population, or even the lower ranks of the middle class. Capra’s historical analyses cover 3 centuries of intellectual development vis-à-vis the marketplace. Although Capra has a considerable interest in the humanitarian dimensions of Marxist thought, he argues that both communist and capitalist societies have become obsessed with a narrow notion of growth, and an irresponsible hostility to environmental issues. He further argues that the United States possesses an inefficient economy in spite of massive profits, because it is fed by exploiting the Third World, as well as the domestic American base population. He focuses on the massive multinational corporations as an aberrant human enterprise. To Capra, size alone can become pathological among human institutions, because of their adherence to growth as a first concern. To Capra, healthy human institutions need to be small, flexible, and local (with a few exceptions for truly national and international functions). This idea is very much in keeping with Ursula Franklin’s (1990) notion of “earthworm social action.” Like Franklin, Capra (1982) talks a great deal about the question, “Whose benefits; whose costs?” (Franklin, 1990, p. 124). Capra (1982) follows up on a question asked by Ursula Franklin about Capra’s own ironic observation that foreign aid is a process which takes money from the poor people of a rich society and gives it to the rich people of a poor society.

Capra (1982) believes that we apply utterly improper methodology to economic inquiry. Whether economists are monetarists, econometricians, or institutional analysts, for over 300 years they have designed their models in tune with Newtonian mechanics and with the mechanistic, reductionistic, and segmented conceptualizations derived from Cartesian thought. Capra passionately argues that classical economics has become intellectually bankrupt by virtue of clinging to this classical model-building analytic process. He quotes more traditional economists such as Milton Friedman, who ruefully acknowledged that the discipline of economics had oversold itself. As Capra sees it, economics must abandon its narrow perspective on Newtonian mechanics by developing a more organic systems style of modelling. This would require the inclusion of ecology, public health, political science, psychology, and sociology. According to Capra, the Newtonian model has either limited utility in the social sciences, or even no use at all!

He treats the mind/matter issue in keeping with Oriental thought as expressed in Zen Buddhism and Taoism, as well as in some branches of Hinduism. In a certain sense this discussion reflects his subsequent book, The Tao of Physics (Capra, 1983). However, while dealing with the mind/matter issue, Capra reviews a number of thinkers in anthropology, psychology, theology, biology, physics, and physical chemistry. His ontological and epistemological construct views mind and matter as co-extensive, and thereby co-manifested in all phenomena.

Another set of terms Capra explores is life/non-life. The Gaia hypothesis developed by James Lovelock and Lynn Margolis (Lovelock, 2000) is dealt with extensively as one scientific approach for grappling with vast systems which we have historically treated as either living or non-living. Again, like the mind/matter issue, the Gaia hypothesis views all


phenomena as expressing the quality of life, in some fashion or another. The idea of self-regulation is dealt with as one aspect of the entire earth and its many sub-systems.

Capra (1983) also sees biological evolution and even the existence of individual organisms as being guided by two complementary functions:

1. the adaptive function guided by genetic drift, genetic selection, and mutation,2. the creative function guided by self-regulation and mentation.

Capra heavily criticizes social philosophy and biological methodology, which distorts Darwinist thought by exaggerating the adaptive function to the exclusion of the creative function. Another problem with social Darwinism is that this view of life generates a methodology driven by a notion of struggle, conflict, domination, and competition. Capra argues persuasively that co-operation and symbiosis are even more important to life than competition.

Capra’s (1983) organic systems concept views phenomena as a set of relationships and reciprocal functions, rather than as an array of segmented structures with clear boundaries. The systems approach is a way of seeing phenomena without focusing on boundaries, and without reducing phenomena to ever-smaller components. He does raise the matter of micro-systems and macro-systems as distinguishable from one another, but reciprocally related in an elaborate web of relationships. This causal framework is a two-way street; thus, micro-systems and macro-systems influence each other reciprocally. This holistic systems scientific view can be applied, according to Capra, to most areas of inquiry, without the distortions or limitations of classical methodology. Capra does not regard the Newtonian model as wrong; he simply regards the holistic systems approach as being more intellectually advanced and providing a much wider application.

The threads of thought woven throughout this book come together in Chapter Twelve, while focusing on economic issues and environmental concerns. The sense of crisis permeating the entire book once again becomes the theme of this chapter. Humanity faces an imminent crisis due to brutalizing the environment and wasting human resources. This chapter argues that if humanity chooses the right grand strategy, with due regard to the health of society and the health of the environment, then the imminent crisis could be averted. However, if the trends of the last few centuries are allowed to continue unrestricted, then human survival is at stake.

Capra (1982, 1983) draws heavily on two economists for focusing this chapter: Hazel Henderson (1978, 1988), our second featured author in this chapter, and Kenneth Boulding (1981). The thrust of the arguments concerns such matters as entropy, appropriate use of human labour, a concern for regenerative and self-correcting systems, and a plea for using renewable energy to the greatest degree possible. Large bureaucratic systems, Capra argues, are inefficient and dissipative of human and natural energy. This entropy state is the driving engine of imminent crisis for the planet.

Capra (1982, 1983) also raises concerns regarding de-urbanizing society. By this, he does not mean returning to a rural or feudal past, but rather to an imaginative future of smaller communities on a more human scale, in which the production/consumption cycle would become more localized and labour-intensive. This new social trend would avoid the dissipation of energy through global bureaucratic networks of production, distribution, and marketing. De-urbanizing society does not mean a village-based xenophobia, but rather a way for people to relate to each other politically, economically, and socially, with minimal costs to human health and social viability. A term Capra coins for this new survival strategy for humankind is “think globally; act locally.”

A key element in these arguments concerns the inefficiency and environmental hazards surrounding the nuclear industry, whether for electric power or for war. Capra’s credentials as an atomic physicist provide sharp bite to his concerns regarding nuclear energy. Environmental hazards from the petroleum industry and other fossil fuels also threaten the globe climactically and ecologically. Reliance on fossil fuels in a competitive drive for dominance contributes heavily to the problem of entropy.

Capra (1982, 1983) does weave threads of optimism throughout his books as counterweights to the sense of crisis emphasized in the discussion immediately above. He sees the holistic health movement (which has flowered at least in North America since he wrote) as a vital redirection of traditional views in the organic systems direction. He sees the feminist movement and its strategies as sympathetic to an organic systems approach to social analysis. The human potential movement and its parallel academic expressions, such as humanistic and transpersonal psychology, are of similar effect. And the ecological movement has provided focus to political debate over economic and industrial strategy, as well as over social policy itself.


Hazel Henderson. A well-known social policy activist who has held a range of positions in U.S. and international organizations concerned with social policy, and particularly with the environmental implications of social policy, Hazel Henderson (1978, 1988) believes that our plundering of the environment threatens societal survival for post-industrial societies, as well as for the Third World.

Henderson’s (1978, 1988) grasp of the institutional dynamics of government and the marketplace is both original and well-informed. Much of her work attacks traditional economics. Part of the paradigm shift she imagines would necessitate fundamental revision of the Adam Smith paradigm and the social policy constellations derived from that paradigm.

Even though Capra (1982, 1983) and Henderson (1978, 1988) are anchored in different academic disciplines, there is much in their analyses that is quite compatible. Capra is certainly aware of this compatibility, clearly acknowledged in his book Uncommon Wisdom (Capra, 1988). This book provides extended discussion of Henderson and her role in creating a new societal model for the salvation of humankind.

Capra believes that Henderson’s perception of the misuse of technology and the instruments of the marketplace are essential to an understanding of today’s crises.

Henderson criticizes the fragmentation in current economic thinking, the absence of values, and their failure to take into account our dependence on the natural world. . . . she extends her critique to modern technology and advocates a profound reorientation of our economic and technological systems, based on the use of renewable resources and the attention to human scale. . . . The reason for the impasse in economics, according to Henderson, lies in the fact that it is rooted in a system of thought that is now outdated and in need of radical revision. Henderson shows in great detail how today’s economists speak in “heroic abstractions,” monitor the wrong variables, and use obsolete conceptual models to map a vanished reality. The key point of her critique is the striking inability of most economists to adopt an ecological perspective. The economy, she explains, is merely one aspect of a whole ecological and social fabric. (Capra, 1988, pp. 233-234)

Henderson makes it clear that economic and institutional growths are inextricably linked to technological growth. She points out that the masculine consciousness that dominates our culture has found its fulfillment in a certain “macho” technology--a technology bent on manipulation and control rather than cooperation, self-assertive rather than integrative, suitable for central management rather than regional and local application by individuals and small groups. As a result . . . most technologies today have become profoundly anti-ecological, unhealthy, and inhuman. (Capra, 1988, p. 237)

The rest of the discussion regarding Henderson’s ideas will be drawn primarily from her work, The Politics of the Solar Age (1978). However, she presented her concerns over a

looming societal crisis succinctly in a later work, Creating Alternative Futures (1988). “Whether we designate them as ‘energy crises,’ ‘environmental crises,’ ‘urban crises,’ or ‘population crises,’ we should recognize the extent to which they are all rooted in the larger crisis of our inadequate, narrow perception of reality” (Henderson, 1988, p. 134).

An important theme in Henderson’s (1978) work concerns the 500 or so massive multinational corporations. Henderson, like a great many other scholars, is alarmed at the political clout possessed by these massive corporations through their control of the marketplace, whether domestic or international. Quite simply, they use their economic power as a lever to manipulate political power.

Corporate power is encountered daily by millions of citizens who attempt to fight polluted air, oil-smeared beaches, plagues of non-returnable cans and bottles, supersonic transports, rampant freeways, deceptive advertising, racial discrimination in employment, exploitation of natural resources, mushrooming shopping centers, and housing developments, as well as huge military appropriations. In all such battles, sooner or later, they come up against some corporate Goliath, and find their slings unavailing. Newly radicalized, they learn that the 500 largest corporations not only control more than two-thirds of the country’s manufacturing assets but also influence elections by carefully channeled campaign contributions that avoid legal restrictions. (Henderson, 1978, p. 48)

In the next quote, Henderson draws on a St. Louis economist, Elmer G. Doernhoefer. Henderson quotes material from Doernhoefer, drawn from a memo to Congress. She uses this material to demonstrate her concern regarding the concentration of wealth in the United States in the top one percent of the population--the concentration is even more dramatic when the top ten percent of the population is considered. (It should be mentioned, however, that various scholars do treat this concentration in somewhat different fashion. The resulting description of this concentration may vary in particulars, but the picture remains very much the same.)

“The situation stems from the fact that fully 25 % of personal income in the US consists of dividends, interest, and rentals,” and he cites studies by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, that “1% of US families with the largest income accounted for 47% of all dividend income and 52% of the market value of stock owned by all families, and that 10% of the families with the largest income accounted for 71% of the dividend income and 74% of the market value of stocks.” (Henderson, 1988, pp. 58-59)

Another view important to Henderson’s work concerns the misuse of analytic models, and a resulting perversion of social policy, not only in conception but also in implementation.

The heroic macroeconomics conceptualizers in Washington miss important trends and huge geographical differences in the real functioning of the economy as well as the larger society. For example, they do not measure the growth of the countereconomy, because they cannot conceive of its existence. Similarly a “national level of unemployment” of, say, 6 percent conceals enormous geographical and group differences, so that a “national,” buckshot approach, such as an across-the-


board tax cut, will miss most of its targets and simply increase general demand and inflation. (Henderson, 1988, p. 61)

This last quote from Henderson reveals her perceptions regarding the professional and managerial functionaries supporting mega-corporations and mega-governments. The following point is an important one, because if Henderson has ‘got it right,’ it has implications for the communications media and the material they communicate.

Perhaps the most dangerous expression of the old, either/or thinking is the growing sense of despair and loss of confidence of leaders who see that they are losing control of that part of the system they created and the dreams of technological glory slipping from their grasp. They rigidify their grasp on the wildly gyrating “controls” and redouble their efforts, not seeing that it is only they who are falling from their collapsing hierarchies. They cannot see what is growing in their societies: the cooperative, localized countereconomy, our safety net and bridge to the dawning solar age. (Henderson, 1988, p. 64)

Hazel Henderson is not alone in viewing current trends in the human quest as possessing some pathological dimensions. Although she doesn’t use the term ‘social pathology,’ what she describes in terms of misuse of technology, socially dangerous concentration of power and wealth, and plundering of the environment is close to a straightforward discussion of social pathology.

If the globe is to have a workable fifth model, such social pathology must be recognized for what it is, and dealt with as such. However, before the pathology can be identified, and before social policy can be formulated to correct this pathology, it is essential that relevant analytic models be used as holistic analytic tools, recognizing the complexity of reciprocal, causal relationships. The environment must be included in such models, both in short-term and long-term aspects.

Hazel Henderson (1978, 1988), like Ursula Franklin (1990), our third author, reveals some optimistic faith in the hidden, alternative economy. Both Henderson and Franklin believe that this hidden economy is more important to the gross domestic product than is recognized by conventional economic models. Whether in such vital social functions as business, education, governance, etc., this hidden community-based social order constitutes the greatest hope for societal renewal, as well as reconnection of people with nature.

Ironically, several components of the post-industrial technological system may assist the process of decentralizing the concentration of power and property, in providing neighbourhoods and communities with collective capacity to take greater control of their day-to-day existence. The vast array of satellites which now facilitate multimedia communication, involving computers, telephones, and other such devices is enabling communities and individuals to bypass conventional communications media. For many concerned about the role of communications media as agents of the power elite, a technological system which bypasses these conventional structures offers revitalizing possibilities.

Ursula Franklin.

Professor emerita of physics at the University of Toronto, Ursula Franklin’s interest as a research physicist has focused throughout her professional life on metallurgy. One of her particular interests concerns Bronze Age casting technology, and its social context in ancient societies. Her book considered here goes well beyond technology to examine societal dynamics and the place of technology in the vital functions of society.

It is my conviction that nothing short of a global reformation of major social forces and of the social contract can end this historical period of profound and violent transformations, and give a manner of security to the world and to its citizens. Such a development will require the redefinition of rights and responsibilities, and the setting of limits to power and control. There have to be completely different criteria for what is permissible and what is not. Central to any new order that can shape and direct technology and human destiny will be a renewed emphasis on the concept of justice. The viability of technology, like democracy, depends in the end on the practice of justice and on the enforcement of limits to power. (Franklin, 1990, p. 14)

Franklin presents a very clear and compact argument about technology in society in its several dimensions. She makes a helpful distinction, seeing technology characterized by two very different manifestations socially, intellectually, and technically. The terms Franklin uses for this distinction are:

The production model, essentially a factory model, whether done in a factory or in some other context such as a high school or university.

The growth model, whose essence understands the individual craftsman, artisan, artist as central to the production process, and in control of the process, more or less, from beginning to end.

The production model emphasizes the idea of maximum output and minimum input. It also contains the idea of standardized production, facilitated by division of labour segmenting the production process into discrete steps, with specific individuals assigned each step in the process. This notion of technology has been an emergent by-product of the Industrial Revolution and the machine age concomitant with it. With the explosion of the use of chemical energy and electrical energy to drive machines, the human worker moved to the periphery of the process and literally became adjunct to the machine. Although mass production is facilitated in this manner, massive human cost happens, spiritually separating the individual from the production process, because of the centrality of the machine and the segmentation of the production process.

The growth model view of technology has been a feature of human society for millennia. It was the dominant model before the Industrial Revolution (even though Franklin [1990] identifies some cases in classical Rome and ancient China when some use was made of the production model). In the growth model the emphasis is on the skills, talents, and capacities of the individual person making the item--even trading it. A specialist in ancient


bronze casting, Franklin draws on this production method for many examples. Although bronze casting in the Shang dynasty over 1200 B.C. was done in a manner which can be called a production model, the ancient Peruvians and west Asians exercised this technology in a manner which can be called a growth model.

A metaphor useful to understanding the growth model is the image of a horticulturalist tending the garden throughout the entire cycle of nature’s reproduction. The process is a web of relationships between gardener, plants being tended, and all of the natural forces and relationships relevant to the gardening process. In this model there is a reciprocal dance among all the active agents, with the person central to this web and mindful of the considerable extensiveness of this web of reciprocity. Franklin (1990) obviously believes that such a model is more mindful of nature and environmental requirements as a set of reciprocities than is the production model. In fact, the hazard of the production model is the mindlessness of its relationship to the environment and the accompanying web of reciprocities.

Franklin (1990) does not have blind faith in science and technology. She does trust means of knowing other than mathematics, logic, and experiment. She values the intuitive, experiential, reflective, and spiritual dimensions of individuals and their immediate social circles.

Today’s scientific constructs have become the model of describing reality rather than one of the ways of describing life around us. As a consequence there has been a very marked decrease in the reliance of people on their own experience and their own senses. The human senses of sight and sound, of smell and taste and touch, are superb instruments. All the senses, including the so aptly named “common sense,” are perfective and it’s a great pity that we have so little trust in them. (p. 39)

Another important insight is offered in the following quote.

The fact citizens are more and more stringently controlled and managed is often considered as normal and fundamentally beyond questioning, as a necessary feature of technological societies. Technology has been the catalyst for dramatic changes, in the locus of power. Traditional notions about the role and task of government, for instance, or about what is private and what is public, are in the light of these changes more often akin to fairy tales than to factual accounts of possible relationships of power and accountability. (Franklin, 1990, pp. 55-56)

Franklin (1990) is concerned with the explosion of prescriptive technology and the production model as the ethos of Western society during the last century. Her discussion of the sewing machine is an example. The sewing machine was initially seen as a useful household device for women to use for family production (a holistic view of technology--a growth model). The sewing machine was intended to liberate women from the drudgery of hand sewing for family use. The notion of the sewing machine was as a device for every household and therefore a mass production product in itself. The machine would be produced as an expression of prescriptive technology, clearly within the production model.

However, an irony of the sewing machine was that entrepreneurs saw the possibility of using it within a factory environment for improving the process of commercially making garments. Thus, in the sweat shops of New York, Chicago, Montreal, and Winnipeg, women were enslaved to the sewing machine in the commercial production of clothing. The device intended to liberate women certainly contributed to that liberation, but it also became the means for enslaving women in a dehumanized factory environment. In one context, the sewing machine facilitated a holistic growth model of technology; in the other context, it became a central feature of prescriptive technology in a production model of technology.

This, along with other important inventions mentioned by Franklin, reveals a deep irony. What may start out as a device for enriching life and liberating the consumer may, through the process of time and factory application, become the very opposite. She also draws parallels in the prepared food arena, frozen and otherwise. Cars can liberate but they can also enslave. In the same way arguments swirl around the home computer and computerized network as either an expression of liberation, or as one of enslavement. Franklin (1990) is deeply concerned with the matter of the interplay between humanitarian concerns and technical solutions. She poses the pre-eminent questions to be asked of technology.

Should one not ask of any public project or loan whether it: (1) promotes justice; (2) restores reciprocity; (3) confers divisible or indivisible benefits; (4) favors people over machines; (5) whether its strategy maximizes gain or minimizes disaster; (6) whether conservation is favored over waste; and (7) whether the reversible is favored over the irreversible? (Franklin, 1990, p. 126)

Franklin focuses over and over again on matters of justice, fairness, reciprocity, and the overall integrity of persons and society. It is her opinion that narrow technological efficiency need not be, and frequently is not, the guiding concern for a manufacturing process or a technical innovation. She cites examples from ancient Peru in regard to bronze casting to illustrate that other social, political, and cultural concerns can limit or guide technology as subservient to other master ideas. Furthermore, Franklin argues that in the post-industrial global context, technology must be the servant of humanitarian and humanistic values, if the integrity of human society is to be promoted or sustained. She links the broader cultural concerns of humanitarian nature as being intrinsically related to honoring nature as a guiding feature in the relationship web for the maintenance of life.

In Franklin’s (1990) view, technology can intrude into the web of reciprocity in a way that segments, separates, and subverts the quality and dignity of life. However, the good news is that technology can be harnessed for human benefit in a way that liberates and enriches life. To accomplish this end, the relationship between the industrial/commercial arena and political institutions must be profoundly changed. Political instrumentalities can no longer be passive instruments of business to further their narrow and exploitative commercial and technical interests.


Charlene Spretnak

A highly visible activist in matters of social policy, Charlene Spretnak’s activity in the ecological movement has resulted in several other works besides the one discussed in this section. In addition to her environmental interests, Spretnak has a central concern with both feminism and spirituality. States of Grace (Spretnak, 1993) weaves these things together in a balanced and insightful manner. Like many scholars, Spretnak views the patriarchal system, which evolved integrally with the feudal/military societies spanning the last five millennia, as responsible for the inequities and devastation characteristic of today’s world. Like the other three women in this chapter, Spretnak is deeply troubled by the disparity in property and power between top social elements and base populations. She is also concerned about the economic and physical predation of women, not only in the U.S., but around the world.

In spite of these things, Spretnak (1993) does not come across as bitter or defeated. On the contrary, she sees great hope in the eco-consciousness of women and the crumbling structures of patriarchal society. Another element of her optimism emerges from her spiritual perspective. She believes that the salvation of the planet rests in large measure on a heightened consciousness of spiritual awareness and a coming together of spiritual traditions from a wide range of cultures.

Although raised in the Catholic tradition, Spretnak’s (1993) interests go beyond parochial Christianity. Her work dealing with Oriental thought is insightful and illuminating. Moreover, she has a thorough appreciation for Aboriginal religions, as expressed in North American Shamanism. Spretnak’s spiritual awareness draws on theologically sophisticated world religions, as well as folk religions lacking formal organization. The book title, States of Grace, appears to capture the depth and scope of Spretnak’s work, not only in terms of spiritual consciousness, but also regarding the intertwining issues of the marketplace and the environment.

The following few quotes capture the optimism emerging from Spretnak’s (1993) perspective.

The three groupings of the Eightfold Noble Path (morality, meditation, wisdom) are viewed by Sulak Sivaraksa, a Thai who is chairman of the Asian Cultural Forum on Development, as vehicles of self-knowledge that can lead to what Paulo Freire calls “conscientization” in Latin America, an awakening and awareness of the dynamics of one’s socioeconomic situation. Sivaraksa sees the “awakening into awareness” in a spiritual sense as well as a materialist one, emphasizing that only wisdom can avoid the hatred, greed, and delusion served by partial knowledge. (pp. 59-60)

There is a connection between spiritual awareness and eco-consciousness:

Truth is pluralistic in that it is relational and intersubjective--but humans are not the only subjects in the universe. Indeed, the universe itself is a grand subject.

When we cultivate sensitivity toward other forms of being, we begin to recognize the value, requirements, and movement toward satisfaction that are located in plants, animals, communal structures, events, and place. In such a condition of receptive awareness, the truth we grasp has greater depth than that arrived at through a denial of engagement (Spretnak, 1993, p. 212).

Spretnak (1993) reveals clear awareness of the scientific implications, as theological perspective merges with post-rationalist science.

The new attention to process in recent decades is an expression of the spiritual awakening of postmodernity. Indeed, the father of general systems theory, the biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy, was inspired by the creation-centered mystic Nicholas of Cusa, and numerous scientists working in postmodern directions of theory and experimentation grapple with issue of being and becoming that have long been central to the wisdom traditions. (p. 215) Another dimension of her more hopeful outlook is clearly revealed in the following

quote:

In the work now required of us, both the immediate and the long-term, a seeming flood of pressing needs demands attention--recognizing our kinship with the Earth community and acting to protect it, nurturing and protecting that which cannot be commodified, and replacing politics of denial with a renewal of coherence based on wisdom and compassion. (Spretnak, 1993, p. 231)

Charlene Spretnak does not use her engagement with spiritual matters as a mechanism for blissful denial of the world’s wide array of ugly manifestations, be they environmental or pathological social institutions. Although the previous quotes reveal her fundamental optimism, the following demonstrate Spretnak’s awareness of humanity’s capacity for harm.

The perception that life in the Unites States is becoming increasingly violent is no mere paranoid delusion. The number of violent criminal acts per hundred thousand citizens annually has nearly quadrupled from 1960 to 1988. Rates of rape and assault have climbed sharply in recent years. Every fourteen seconds a woman is battered somewhere in our country. Child abuse, including sexual assault, is coming to light in vast numbers in all socio-economic classes. Drug-related murders terrorize many urban neighborhoods. (Spretnak, 1993, p. 73)

A more global perspective is focussed on the exploitation of women.

A study of Third-World women, which was not intended to focus on “battering” by men, repeatedly found it to be a common thread among women’s experiences in a variety of patriarchal cultures. Moreover, the female body is not only abused but exploited: women worldwide contribute two-thirds of the work hours, earn one-tenth


of the income, and own one one-hundredth of the property. Patriarchy is real. (Spretnak, 1993, p. 117)

Spretnak (1993) goes on to acknowledge the disparity between rich and poor in American society. Her arguments reveal a social policy perspective, seeing such disparities as insufferable in a humane, civilized and healthy society.

In our own country, attention to structural injustice can hardly overlook the fact that the richest 1 percent of American families own more than 40 percent of the net worth owned by all American families. The top 20 percent of American households hold nearly 90 percent of the net financial assets. The poorest 50 percent of all American families combined, many of whom are single mothers and their children, own roughly three cents of every dollar’s worth of all the wealth in the country. (p. 168)

With Spretnak’s work, the elements for the Fifth Societal Model come together with consistency and balance among the four scholars. Only a decade ago, the inclusion of a spiritual component for new integrated societal model would have enjoyed little academic acceptance. A wide range of disciplines, however--from physics to ecology--are now sensitive to the intertwining nature of post-positivist scientific theory and spiritual insights.

Spretnak’s (1993) work is a great single discussion of the intertwining realities: societal, environmental, and spiritual. Moral and ethical dimensions of social policy are enriched by a non-parochial spiritual perspective. Purpose, value, and meaning expressed in social institutions are humanely and humanistically enriched by an accepting and inclusive spiritual consciousness. Charlene Spretnak’s optimism seems to spring from a clear understanding of this issue. Only time will tell whether her optimism is sound or misplaced. This work chooses to accept her optimism as a viable alternative to moral/ethical paralysis and political despair.

No one of these four works in itself covers all the elements needed for a Fifth Societal Model. However, when they are arranged in the order presented here, elements to form a clear and coherent framework for a fifth model emerge in organic fashion out of their totality.

A Concise Compendium of Vital Elements in the Noetic Realm

Documents

Transcript of A Concise Compendium of Vital Elements in the Noetic Realm