Anarchistbanjo's World

During part of my life I worked as an in-home crisis counselor. I would visit families in crisis and try helping them sort the chaos out and find solutions the crisis. Anyone working in this area knows that to be effective it works best if you have gone through similar situations successfully.

This means you can offer insights and suggestions from personal experience and not theory from some book. Fortunately or unfortunately I have struggled through a lot of dysfunction in my life and learned a lot the hard way.

Listening to family members tell their own side of the story made no sense at all. Every family member could justify their own position and say why other family members were at fault.

Time after time the situation would boil down to family members taking unfair advantage and manipulating other family members. People resent being manipulated, especially when it is unfairly done. Educating the family on unfair manipulations and teaching them healthy alternatives was an important part of resolving crisis.

The other factor was when family members would say one thing and their physical actions said another. Sometimes things were so bad that I couldn’t tell who was lying and who was telling the truth. Everyone was very convincing.

That’s when I told people to shut up. I was not interested in hearing reasons why things went wrong. I was only interested in physical actions and physical results. Who did what to who? I didn’t need to know why. Child abuse or Parent abuse both happen. There are ways to get what you want without being abusive. There are ways to fight fairly and maintain self-respect and self-esteem. There are ways to create win-win situations. Abuse is abuse and needs to be confronted. It can never be justified.

In my own life I confronted the same weakness. I talk a good show and my actions are not always backing up what I say. In retrospect I will talk a lot about what I am going to do, perhaps more than I should until people think I’m a windbag. But I reach a point where I will actually do it.

Writing is a perfect example. Since high school I said I was a writer and wanted to write books. I got into arguments and debates with other friends that wanted to be writers too. When I experienced my first heartbreak I did write some teenage angst poetry but that was it. I wanted to be a writer but I was not writing anything.

The desire to write would come and go in spurts. At the age of thirty I took some writing courses and completed the assignments graduating from the courses with honors but still not writing on my own. At the age of forty I seriously tried writing my first two books, OAK:Foundations and OAK:Magister Templi.

I finished them as rough drafts and called it good enough. Several years later I realized my wife was right. They were not readable. I still was not writing other stuff. I remained a writer that would not write. Consider Stephen King. He began writing as a teenager and continued all through his life. Many people think you need to begin when you are young or it won’t work. They forget Edgar Rice Burroughs was forty when he began writing the Tarzan books.

I was getting old and still hadn’t produced much of anything. Was I lying to myself? In a way yes and in a way no. I thought I knew what writing was about but I really didn’t. In this respect I was lying to myself.

It was only when I turned forty eight and took three months off to write Anarchist Knight:Apprentice that I finally understood. Almost two years later I was holding the first copy in my hands. I never dreamed how much work it was to write a book and I never knew how rewarding it was.

There is a big difference between saying you are a writer and actually being a writer. For forty some years I was kidding myself about being a writer. It is only now that I understand the easy competence of writing something every day. Today for the first time I can say with honesty that I am a writer.

It was the same in families I was working with. Many family members were kidding themselves as well. They were saying one thing and not following through on their promises or agreements. It is better not to make a promise or agreement then to break it. It sounds so simple but these families simply needed to be reminded to keep their promises and agreements. They also needed to learn about being fair and allow win-win situations without trying to manipulate each other to get their own way.

Sometimes it helps to have someone tell us that we are not doing the things we say we are doing. This means confronting us and making us confront ourselves.

What are you doing to make your life better and richer? What are you doing to make your relationships with loved ones better? What are you doing that makes life meaningful and worthwhile? Are you taking the physical actions needed or are you lying to yourself?

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We are completely unaware of most of our self-defeating behaviors. If we knew what they were it would be easier to build defenses against them. Some of these come out or our blind spots. Several years ago I learned I had disabilities that were affecting my life. I went to Vocational Rehab and took some tests and evaluations to find out why I was over forty years old and still having trouble making my life work.

These evaluations showed that I had an auditory learning disability. I had trouble processing too much verbal material at one time. Once the material was learned I was fine but learning through listening did not work well for me.

Another issue was short-term memory loss due to a head injury as a teenager. It was not bad but where the normal person can hold five items in short term memory I struggle to hold four. As I get older I need to write things down even more than ever. My fine motor skills are also lower than average. I scored an 80%.

Why was I always attracted to jobs that needed nimble fingers? I was sinking my own ship. Now let’s combine this with a personality that has trouble with authority figures and a slight tendency toward passive aggressive behavior and see what we get.

Memories flash of an employer getting angry at me because I didn’t understand what I was supposed to do and I would forget things that I was told. I couldn’t remember them all. It also seemed like I was working too slowly even though I couldn’t work any faster. I wouldn’t ask for help or clarification because I didn’t want to appear stupid.

I am not stupid but I was appearing stupid and couldn’t understand why I kept having problems. Getting these evaluations were a lifesaver for me. They helped me understand why I was having troubles and also what my strengths were as well.

I have a genius IQ and a near photographic memory for visual things. I take tests well. I have very good communication skills and high mechanical aptitude. I am very good at outside the box thinking and administrative tasks. I have a good understanding of human nature and people trust me. Let’s take physical health as another example. Do you know just how healthy or unhealthy you are? Last year I discovered I have high blood pressure and sleep apnea. Both were fairly severe. I will need to be on blood pressure medication and a CPAP machine for sleeping the rest of my life.

I was not really aware of any of these things. I assumed other people had many of the same problems and issues. I thought it was just as hard for them as it was for me. I didn’t want to believe there was something wrong with me. I wanted to be just a good as the next person. I did not recognize my own limitations.

The trouble was that my life was not working and I was into middle age. What about your life? If it is working great! If it is not working it might be wise to take a few minutes and think about why. Take a few examinations, talk to some friends and experts. Get second opinions. Discover what your blind spots are. We all have them.

If you are running into a brick wall perhaps you are going in the wrong direction even if you feel it is the right direction. The biggest thing anyone can recognize is when they are putting out tremendous effort and it is not working. One of the great secrets in life is to take what works and turn it into the things you want. The things that don’t work will never turn into anything except more failures.

Let go of the things that don’t work and focus on the things that do work. When you are refreshed and full of successful energy tackle those old issues and interests from positions of strength and not weakness. In the area of relationships realize that no matter how much one person might want things to work out, both people need to want it. Both people need to work at it. If only one person is trying the relationship is already lost.

If you are not getting some type of reward or gain from the effort you put out something is wrong. This is a red flag that you need to recognize. When you continue doing what you are doing you will continue to get the results that you are getting. Evaluate the results you are getting and determine if they are enough.

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Magic Initiation involves the gradual development of the soul and its natural powers. The soul consists of several different types of energy. These are Abstract Spiritual (unity),Concrete Spiritual (intuitive),Abstract Mental (philosophical),Concrete Mental (perceptive),Upper Emotional (love),Lower Emotional (Anger),Sexual (sexuality), Physical (competency).

To become a complete person each of these energies and areas must be fully developed through intense effort and the generation of that particular type of energy.

This process is mechanical and cumulative in nature. Once a specific type of energy is fully developed an astral body is created out of that energy and the powers of that energy are available. Activity then progresses to the next level of development automatically.

In this respect the Left Hand Path and the Right Hand Path follow similar methods and strive toward a common goal. The common goal is the synthesis of all these energies into an integrated healthy individual with an immortal soul that will carry on beyond the death of the physical body.

The differences between these paths are profound. The Right Hand Path connects with spiritual energy and works from the top downward in mystical experiences or illuminations. It involves condensing spiritual energy gradually into physical energy. If you think about something long enough you will become emotional about it. If you become emotional enough about something you will be compelled to act upon those feelings. This describes the method used and includes prayer and meditation.

The Hallmark of the Right Hand Path is the integrity of the individual ego. You always remain yourself even though who you are may change drastically as you incorporate new beliefs and experiences. This path takes much longer and has difficulty with physical manifestations. Its focus is inner personal transformation and integration with the universe by adaptation.

The Left Hand Path connects with physical energy and works with physical competency upwards to the spiritual levels. The traditional martial arts are examples of this type of training.

The Hallmark of the Left Hand Path is physical manifestation through physical competency. You do what ever it takes to make things manifest even if those things go against your inner nature. There is always a sense of being compromised as you loose part of who you are to become who you want to be. The focus is to manifest physical change through acts of will.

At the highest levels a Master of the Right Hand Path will assist all students to become unique individuals. He will help them collectively through the formation of groups.

A Master of the Left Hand Path will choose one student to transfer his power to and at the death of his physical body will attempt to “possess” the physical body of his chosen student. He will form groups to find the appropriate vehicle.

PS: I have just started a new Facebook discussion group called Organic Gnosticism. Feel free to join if you are interested.

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The general population fell into a great depression following the failure of the Crusades. God favored the Muslims over his own people, and it was unthinkable! Minstrels and troubadours sang melancholy songs about how God had betrayed them. The people were disenchanted by the Church and by Christianity.

Around this time the Bogomil’s moved out of Bulgaria through Constantinople and Italy and then finally settled into fortified areas in southern France after they had been decimated by Muslim armies.

Now I’m going to have to refresh your memory about the Bogomil’s. The Bogomil’s lived in that area of the caucuses, mountain regions, that is called Eastern Europe or the Balkans. I’ve been trying to trace the thread of Organic Gnosticism from that area to the present so this is a very important addition because the Bogomil’s where there in Eastern Europe long before Christianity. In all likelihood, they were influenced strongly by Zoroastrianism and various ancient goddess religions.

I believe that the continuing thread of Organic Gnosticism traveled with the Bogomil’s to finally end up in southern France. Now, southern France was the promised land for heretics. It was the classic ground of sorcery and witchcraft and it was from southern France that witchcraft spread across to all of Europe in later years.

Southern France was unique as a meeting ground of cultures. It was a melting pot of all kinds of races, cultures and religious beliefs. It was actually the highpoint of civilization at the time.

Southern France was filled with Jews and Saracens as well. Rabbis held public schools everywhere and formed bonds between Christians and Arabs through their trading exchanges in Salerno and Cordova.

Cordova was the seat of black magic where the arts and sciences were turned to criminal purposes, such as the creation of distillations, syrups, ointments, and surgical instruments as well as the study of Arabic numbers, arithmetic and algebra. In addition to those forbidden subjects the Kabbalistic teachings of Jews were a tremendous influence on the non-Christian population in that area. So southern France was the big meeting point as I trace Organic Gnosticism and its arrival in southern France with the Bogomil’s.

The Languedoc region had always been the hotbed of heresy and a problem for the Church that just wouldn’t go away. But it included the entire population in southern France. They were totally disenchanted by the teachings of the Church and now were being influenced even more strongly by other non-Christian beliefs.

We’ve already mentioned that the Social Enforcers were represented by Christians who were trying to establish moral teachings upon the population. The Rational Atheists were represented by Jews that didn’t really believe in an afterlife, but believed in logic and reason.

The Arabs were leading in the medical sciences and if anybody was interested in studying these things, they would study from the Arabs because Christianity had plunged the rest of Europe into the dark ages.

We hear a lot about the Languedoc region in southern France. There have been movies about that mysterious area and this is the area where a new form of Manicheanism developed.

Manicheanism existed centuries before and it got stamped out by the Church. But these same old ideas sprang up again among this new group of people called the Cathars.

Somehow Organic Gnosticism also sprang up again in the use of the energies of the physical body to develop the soul. In particular, Tantric practices and love relationships applied for the purposes of spiritual development and soul growth, and it was experiential. It appealed to the non-educated as well as to the educated elite.

We are also going to see how these secret Tantric teachings were incorporated into alchemy, and guess where alchemy had its start? Right here in Salerno and Cordova because this was the central meeting spot. This was the hub of activity.

This entire area was a great threat to the authority of the Catholic Church which was really having some bad problems at the time.

As we talk about distillations, syrups, ointments, surgical instruments and the study of mathematics and the other sciences you can just imagine the excitement that existed in that entire area. Just imagine the passion, the vitality that existed.

Especially in contrast to the repression. In contrast to the inquisitions that were happening elsewhere. This is where the excitement was. This is where the vital life force of the entire Western mystery traditions coalesced in a confluence of emerging sources.

But the important thing here is the reemergence of Organic Gnosticism and how it could very easily be traced to the arrival of the Bogomil’s into that area of southern France.

PS: I have started a new Facebook discussion group called Organic Gnosticism. Feel free to join if you are interested.

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Sometimes our attitude sucks! Attitude is a mix of emotions and thinking. Said another way attitude is how our emotions and thoughts meet physical reality. When our expectations are realistic and positive our attitude is positive. When our expectations are unrealistic or negative our attitude becomes negative as well.

What I’m trying to get at here is the idea that attitude embraces the completeness of us at one time. Attitude is a reflection of who we are body, mind and spirit in a unified way at any given time. It reflects our true intelligence and will to live.

Using the metaphor of a robot there are two ways of programming a robot to do a task. One way is to write a computer program line by line and step by step. The computer will read the program and take the robot through the task one step at a time.

This way of programming a robot is roughly equivalent to mentally thinking a project or problem through before physically acting on it. Thinking before acting is a useful way of describing this way of dealing with things.

The problem is that sometimes we get stuck mentally or emotionally. Because our thinking is wrong or our emotions are clouding our judgment we are not able to function as well and we become frustrated. Our mind and emotions are not in accord with physical reality and our attitude sucks.

The second way of programming a robot is to place a programming device or sensor in the robot’s hand and physically move the robot’s arm through the cycle that is desired. The movement is recorded through the device and the robot is instantly able to repeat and perform the desired activity.

Let’s take a newborn infant as an example. The newborn child has no ability to move its arms or legs in a conscious or deliberate manner. No neural pathways have been developing within the brain for such movement. The mother or father plays with the infant moving its arms and legs.

This movement causes nerves to fire within the brain and nervous system and soon the infant learns to control its arms and legs by using the same circuitry within the brain. Physical movement created the neural pathway. Conscious intent used the neural pathway once it was created.

When we are stuck in life and can’t find our way out of a situation mentally or emotionally raw physical activity will burn a new neural pathway we can use. This is why people need to hit bottom when they are stuck. Hitting bottom forces raw physical activity just to stay alive. That physical activity allows a fresh start into new neural pathways. Hitting bottom will either kill us or force us to change our attitude!

An even better solution is raw physical activity without hitting bottom. We don’t need to hit bottom to change our attitude. All we need is to physically doing new things and grow through those experiences. A healthy individual finds joy and excitement in physically doing new things and learning new skills. This new knowledge and these new skills are what allow him or her to find continuing satisfaction and enjoyment in life.

The next time you find yourself stuck in a rut go out and try doing something new, something physical! Burn new neural pathways into your brain, pathways that work!

PS: I’ve created a new Facebook discussion group called Organic Gnosticism. Feel free to join if interested.

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