If there is anyone who qualifies as being my enemy, James Arthur Ray does. In the wake of his terrible and reprehensible actions in November at his Spiritual Warrior Event workshop in Sedona, I have spent countless hours angry at him and what he represents. I have called him names in public and in private, most of which he probably deserves, but none of which have changed what happened (note to JRI’s lawyers: everything I’ve said and written have been my opinions only and not verifiable facts, thus my words and speech are fully protected under the law—just sayin’).

Speaking Truth to Power

When James Arthur Ray came to my home town only a few short weeks after his seminar injured and killed several people, my friend and I stood up suddenly while he was in the middle of a sentence. In a large hotel conference room with approximately 300-500 people, trembling with fear and anger, I looked James Arthur Ray right in the eye and challenged him to take responsibility and cease all his seminars immediately.

With less than four weeks having passed since three healthy spiritual seekers had died in his plastic sweat dome (befitting of a “plastic shaman”), James Ray was still hawking his expensive and dangerous programs—claiming his work was “too important” to stop. We protested that his “work” had lead to the deaths of four and injury of 18. Just recalling that B.S. line Ray spoke that caused my friend and I to stand up and speak out is bringing up anger in me now as I type these words (see the postscript below if you are interested in how I decided to work with these feelings).

My friend and I had brainstormed hundreds of different possible plans (I had even printed 150 flyers earlier that day)—all which went instantly dissolved when we got into that conference room and we saw there would be no space for civil questions and answers. The words that came out of our mouths—while people were standing up and yelling back at us and Ray’s bodyguard staff began surrounding us—were a mix of strong directness and awkward shouting. Even so, confronting this man directly, boldly, and nonviolently (we were escorted peacefully out of the hotel) just seemed like the right thing to do and I’m glad I did it. I hope anyone in my position would and will do the same…meanwhile, the assembled crowd cheered our exit.

Is Loving Your Enemies Just Idealistic B.S., or a Real Human Possibility?

“But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!” ~Matthew 5:44

Growing up my family attended a Protestant church. I don’t necessarily think of myself as a Christian now—I find myself more drawn to Buddhist philosophy and practice—yet I have often contemplated the radical challenge from Jesus to “love your enemies.” When I’m feeling cynical, this famous Bible verse seems like an attempt to shame someone for their lack of perfect love, a manipulative tactic used to “blame the victim,” or even a condescending “I’ll pray for you” from an arrogant bible-thumper. Indeed, we human beings have come up with many ways to use teachings on love as a weapon:

At other, more optimistic times, I can see this outrageous challenge to love your enemies as an idealistic possibility—an ideal that might never be fully realized yet remains a worthwhile virtue to cultivate.

To what extent can we live this challenge of loving our enemies? By what specific methods can we reliably actualize this possibility while also loving ourselves and others? Is it possible to love our enemies while also fully pursuing justice and protecting ourselves and others from the perpetrators of violence? Can we explore this love without blaming the victim or shaming those who cannot or choose not to explore the same possibilities? And what would happen if I…and maybe you too…explore this with current enemy James Arthur Ray?

Loving-Kindness and Idiot Compassion

In Buddhist loving-kindness meditation as taught by Pema Chödrön, there is an understanding that one cannot actually feel loving-kindness or “metta” towards all sentient beings right away, fully and forever. This is an extreme level of attainment, the Olympics of saintliness, and perhaps just an ideal that cannot be fully realized by any imperfect human being. Chödrön emphasizes starting with people you already care about and naturally feel positively towards, and gradually extending your loving-kindness over time towards a wider and wider circle, embracing those whom you feel less positively kind towards, then neutral about, then slightly irritated by, and eventually towards those you intensely or even violently hate. One might never be able to say “May all beings be happy” and really, genuinely, totally mean it—down to the very last asshole on the planet—but the aspiration itself can begin to lead one down a path of more and more kindness as a character trait if practiced wholeheartedly.

In a short article on the Shambhala website, Pema Chödrön explains another concept called “idiot compassion” coined by her controversial Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Idiot compassion is exactly what it sounds like—thinking you are being compassionate, but actually being an idiot and “enabling” harmful behavior in someone else. “It’s the general tendency to give people what they want because you can’t bear to see them suffering.” Malignant narcissist gurus often pull on the heartstrings of their followers and victims by attempting to elicit this kind of idiot compassion. The solution according to Chödrön is not to viciously attack the person, nor to enable the bad behavior, but to set boundaries or otherwise prevent the abuse from occurring. “It’s the compassionate thing to do,” says Chödrön, but “they will certainly not thank you for it.” I can still hear the crowd cheering as we were peacefully escorted out of that conference room on a cold, dark night in Denver, Colorado.

I don’t know exactly how much a person can love their enemies, but I’m curious to find out how much we can—while simultaneously pursuing justice without compromise, maintaining safe and healthy boundaries, and preventing abusive and manipulative relationships of all kinds.

Postscript: An Experiment in Loving-Kindness

The following is a stream-of-consciousness description of a process I did to work with my own anger towards James Arthur Ray which came about as I was writing the beginning of this very article. I used the method of Core Transformation created by Connirae Andreas which I consider consistent with Buddhist loving-kindness practices (this process is primarily focused on loving-kindness for all aspects of the self, however, not “all sentient beings” and thus can be seen as a subset of the complete loving-kindness practices).

The process below follows the specific steps outlined on pages 114-121 from the book Core Transformation, which is what I refer to when doing the process on my own. This postscript is included as one possible example for those who are curious about such practices of self-inquiry and personal development in the context of loving your enemies without succumbing to idiot compassion. This section is very long and will probably not interest all readers, so feel free to skip down to the comments if you wish to simply add your thoughts about the article above. I’ve included many details so as to assist readers in understanding how such a process might occur, although there is no “typical” session in that there are many possibilities for one’s experience whenever you do inner work like this.

Note: I understand that people who have been victimized by James Arthur Ray or other coercive gurus and groups may not want to engage in any such practices. Due to the nature of such abuse which often includes blaming the victim with demands that you “work on your stuff/ego/attachment/etc.” with the technique(s) of the group, it is totally understandable and reasonable to avoid any and all psychological and spiritual practices for whatever length of time you deem appropriate. In fact, I specifically recommend against doing this technique if you are a recent victim of James Arthur Ray for you may be better off with a cognitive-behavioral approach given his heavy use of malignant trance states and contorted logic (this is my guess, but does not constitute medical or therapeutic advice). That said, Core Transformation is my preferred method for deeply transforming my own emotions and I encourage interested readers to pursue further study.

This is also an example of a therapeutic application of hypnosis and NLP, as this transpersonal technique of personal change is derived from the methods of Neurolinguistic Programming and Ericksonian Hypnosis—which most people discussing the “death lodge” have equated with coercive persuasion, despite the many therapeutic applications of these methodologies when used in a non-coercive context.

My subjective experience to inquire into: An inner dialogue says “that is such bullshit–I will not let this man get away with such lies. He needs to be immediately thrown in jail and held to task to the full extent of the law.” The voice has an angry tone, a fast tempo, and sounds like it’s coming from the right and slightly behind my head (a common location for inner dialogue). My jaw is clenched, my throat is tight, my brown is furrowed, and my lips are pursed—I’m seething with anger. I feel adrenaline in my body. My heart is beating faster, there are buzzing sensations in my chest (left side predomantly) and belly. From time to time I take a deep breath and my body buzzes with vibrations along my skin, rushing down my hips and legs and up the sides of my neck and head. My sympathetic nervous system is firing, preparing me to fight. The intensity is perhaps a 5 of 10, but peaked at about an 8 and has dropped to a steady burn. I attempted to continue writing, but felt this angry state was influencing my article (especially given the topic) so I decided to pause and get to know this reaction better. I don’t always do so, and have only done this practice once or twice in the past month, but would probably benefit from more frequent sessions.

Identifying the part: I recognize this is an unconscious reaction. I am not consciously generating this experience–in fact I’d rather not have it for it is unpleasant and interfering with my writing. I don’t have this feeling all the time–I didn’t have it when I started writing this article, when I was feeling much more calm and peaceful about James Ray–so I recognize that this is only a part of me.

Location of part: It exists primarily in my chest and belly. My heart aches, my chest burns. The fire in my belly is ready for action, yet my throat is tight as if swallowing my tongue.

Generalizing the behavior: I recognize that this is a reaction I’ve had before, specifically when I saw James Arthur Ray in person. I was trembling with a mixture of fear and excitement and adrenaline, unsure what I was going to do. I would like to generally feel more resourceful, free from this fight-or-flight response when I encounter James Arthur Ray’s hurtful and deceptive speech, or anyone else I encounter in the future who communicates in a similarly coercive manner.

Welcoming the part: Recognizing that this anger and the accompanying inner dialogue and physical sensations are not consciously generated and not always present, it’s as if this experience is being generated by an unconscious part of me. While I don’t know exactly why that is yet, I think it may be most useful to explore the reasons with the attitude that this unconscious part has a deeply positive purpose for me in doing so. Turning towards my experience instead of habitually reacting to unpleasantness, I put my hands on my chest and belly…and breathing in and out I begin to welcome this part of me, appreciating it for bringing me this mysterious message (even though I don’t necessarily like how it’s choosing to communicate).

Discovering the outcome chain: I ask this part of myself, “What do you want? What do you want for me by giving me this angry response to Ray saying ‘the work is too important?’”

The first outcome it responds with is “Justice. I want Ray to Pay. I want his victims to be fully compensated, his seminars to be shut down, and for the man to be incarcerated for a very long time.”

I thank this part of me for this response, which I also consciously agree with (although I’d like to be less vengeful and reactive).

I then invite this part of me to imagine and experience what it would be like if I get this first outcome, fully and completely. I then ask, “if you get justice, fully and completely, what do you want through having justice that’s even more important?”

The second outcome I receive is “I want nobody to ever again suffer from anything like this, from a New Wage guru or anyone else. I want safety and protection for all.”

Again I thank and appreciate this part of me for wanting safety and protection for all. Sometimes parts of me want less refined and mature initial outcomes. I have sometimes had parts respond that they wanted to kill or hurt, or pursue selfish and destructive activities (I’m glad I repressed these parts and didn’t allow them to act on their whims!). This part of me is responding in a more evolved way (perhaps because it knows you’re watching? ), and I am appreciative of that as well.

I ask “if you have safety and protection for all, in your imagination (even if this isn’t possible in the real world), but if you could really experience what that’s like to have now, what do you want through having safety and protection for all that’s even more important?”

Stepping into safety and protection for all, the next outcome is “to know that all is well” accompanied by the breath relaxing with big inhales into the upper chest, a softness in the face, and my jaw relaxing. A feeling of sweet sadness comes over me, and my legs are buzzing with tiny vibrations as if waking up from having fallen asleep.

Again I thank and invite this part to have what it’s wanting in my imagination, and ask what’s even more important. The answer is “to be OK and loved.” I feel sensitive and quite sad, curled slightly inward as if to comfort myself. Appreciating the outcome, inviting having it (I feel enveloped in a Cosmic Mother’s arms), and asking what’s deeper I discover that the buzzing sensations in my chest and belly cease and the room seems suddenly silent—but then I realize it is just the silence of my own mind. I drop into some state of absorption and clarity—an indication I’ve probably reached a Core State. A flying ant suddenly lands on the glowing screen of my Macbook–a synchronicity? I try to blow it off gently but it persists, so I accept the presence of my winged guest as perhaps containing a lesson I don’t yet understand. It paces back and forth across the top of my laptop as I continue to investigate.

How to name this state which feels beyond words? Emptiness, peace, Being come to mind. None fully capture it, but any will do. It’s not too strong or intense—in a way, nothing at all special—but definitely has a sense of the unconditional or the transcendent. I decide Being will do for now for a label, and with that my winged companion walks off across the kitchen table, exploring the world beyond the glowing rectangle I’m usually engrossed in. My words seem unusually poetic to me.

Reversing the outcome chain with the Core State: It’s as if this part of me had a strategy for getting to this state of Being by getting angry in the hopes that this anger would lead to justice, then justice would lead to safety and protection for all, then I’d know that all is well, which would make me feel OK and loved, and finally I’d reach this state of Being which is beyond conditional logic! That strategy hasn’t been working all that well, as I’ve more often simply gotten angry about this whole James Ray thing and been stuck there for hours at a time (often until I’ve done Core Transformation). States of being don’t necessarily come from achieving or doing anything in the world anyway. This kind of conditional logic is more often a prison that keeps us from such experiences—at least that’s what I’ve found. Moreover, it is probably more useful to begin with this state of Being, since it doesn’t depend on actually changing anything in the outside world to experience it (it can be very handy to have access to deep inner resources like that!). James Ray is still tweeting along and my feeling angry about it doesn’t seem to be stopping him. But perhaps I can act from this experience of Being in an ongoing way if in fact I simply step into it and have it.

General reversal: I now invite this part of me to just step into Being and have it, as an ongoing way of moving through the world, a place from which my actions can ideally just flow forth from. It probably won’t always happen this way, but why not imagine this as a possibility for my life. I ask my part, “How does already having this ‘Being’ in an ongoing way make things different?” I feel much buzzing and tingling in my head and lower legs as my breath comes in and out more fully now. I feel freer somehow. The buzzing anger in my chest and belly has dissolved. My throat has relaxed. The big breaths keep coming, and I’m even feeling a bit lightheaded. I ask again. My mind is calm and clear. My heart feels open and “large.” If I can keep this Being in an ongoing way, I expect I will naturally be more compassionate, less reactive, more kind to myself and others. I sincerely intend for this to happen, and humbly ask my unconscious and any other forces that may exist to help this to occur. “May all beings be happy….” Somehow things seem simpler from this state, and some of the mysteries of life make intuitive sense, but I don’t necessarily have words for what that means—it’s just a feeling that everything’s going to be alright, as cheesy as that sounds, even to me.

Specific reversal: I ask my part, “how does already having Being in an ongoing way transform or enrich ‘to be OK and loved’?” I hear “I am already OK and loved, deeply so.” This doesn’t necessarily make much sense rationally, but my heart tingles with warmth and the big breaths come upon me again.

I then ask, “how does already having Being in an ongoing way transform or enrich, ‘to know that all is well?’” The answer comes quickly: “I do know—and feel—that all is well.” “How does already having Being in an ongoing way transform my experience when I’m getting ’safety and protection for all’?” I can rest in that safety and feel secure. “How does already having Being in an ongoing way transform my experience when I’m not getting safety and protection for all?” I can more easily take swift and effective action to get that safety for myself and others while being more resourceful and centered. (I wish this for anyone in a situation of coercive persuasion like that deadly sweat lodge—may we all have the spiritual, physical, and moral courage, the “banality of heroism” of those who dragged out the wounded.)

“How does already having Being in an ongoing way transform or enrich this outcome of justice? How does it transform what was a desire for vengeance, to ‘make Ray pay?’” Lots of big breaths and sensations of “energy” flowing through my legs, arms, and head occur in response to these questions. I still want justice, but now I feel I would like justice to be served fairly and without vengeful punishment. In my ideal fantasy, I would like Ray to plead guilty, accept full responsibility, liquidate all of his assets (including any hidden ones if such exists), cancel all of his seminars indefinitely, and voluntarily do whatever he can to make up for his destructive behavior, including giving every penny of his assets to those he has hurt and repenting day and night to whatever higher powers he believes in for the entirety of his prison term…without seeking any early release or special treatment. For what it’s worth (and this and 50 cents will buy you a Coke), I pray that this or something like it may come to pass.

Finally, I ask this part of me, “How does already having Being in an ongoing way transform my whole experience of James Arthur Ray, his harmful actions, and his response to the deadly outcomes of his behavior?” Many big breaths again, and more moving vibrations on the skin of my legs, head, and arms. I feel some sadness arising as if tears want to come. This whole situation just seems terribly tragic to me, and I’m sorry that it happened. I feel sad for the victims of James Ray and all other coercive gurus and groups. I also feel sad for James Ray—I also feel some disgust when I think about him. This process has not made me a saint, free from all moral disgust (I feel somewhat relieved by that). I have the thought that there could be an opportunity to investigate this disgust in the future, but I’ve done enough processing for one evening, as it has now become very early in the morning.

I ask the question again to see if there is anything else. I imagine being back at his free event in my home town, and him saying “the work is too important not to continue.” I feel a rush of energy, warmth in my arms and chest. I observe myself subconsciously shaking my head “no.” My sympathetic nervous system does seem to be firing off a bit, yet it lacks the “looping” response and so the sensations slowly fade, although my jaw is now a bit tense. I ask again, connecting back with the sense of Being. “He knows not what he is doing…or maybe he does know—I can’t know exactly what’s going on in his head, can I.” A feeling of sadness again washes over me in waves of vibration corresponding to deep inhales and exhales. This was a tragedy. I hope justice is served. I feel more at peace, but not exactly free from sadness or other emotions, yet the buzzing reactivity in my chest and belly are now very calm. I quickly visualize having this Core State of Being throughout my entire body, as well as my past and future as to help solidify this resource as an unconscious and automatic response. The effect is brief but intense, and totally not something I can comprehend consciously, yet feels somehow deeply healing.

I conclude with the insight to give my Core State to James Arthur Ray (I don’t necessarily believe that this actually does anything in the physical world beyond my own psychology and how that affects my communication, but you never know, and it is an interesting thing to try internally). I imagine being back at the free talk Ray gave. I stand up and I’m in Being. I imagine what looks like a field of heat waves flying out from me, carrying this state, and going into his body up on stage as I hold eye contact. I see him breaking down, crying—this time not crocodile tears, but honest tears of a man who recognizes the harm he has caused. This time in my imagination I say nothing and the room is quiet. I hear in my head “may you be happy…may all beings be happy.” More tingling and sadness washes over my body….

As I return to rewriting this blog post, more waves of anger, disgust, and despair come and go…. More opportunities for healing perhaps, but all in it’s proper time.

About the Core Transformation Method

This session was not especially powerful or unique except that I took much more precise notes than I ordinarily would. This kind of result is a reliably common one with this method, or so I’ve observed (nothing is 100% effective of course). Yet Core Transformation is but one psycho-spiritual technique for welcoming and transforming emotions and behaviors—others prefer EFT, focusing, CBT, vipassana, or one of many other methods of healing. I prefer Core Transformation because I’ve found it to be very reliable in actually getting to the bottom of things, comprehensive in it’s approach to welcoming all parts of one’s being, both very gentle and very deep, and precisely laid out such that one can learn to do the technique on your own or in a workshop without dependence on a therapist or guru.

This method may be too deep and intense for some people, so be careful. Core Transformation seems to work more at levels of unconscious processing and emotion than rational cognition, and I think is therefore complimented by an approach like cognitive-behavioral therapy (or just solid critical thinking—the “meta model” in NLP). This technique is also not a replacement for actions in the world—feeling more centered about doing your taxes for example is not quite the same as actually doing them. Nor is personal psychotherapeutic or spiritual work—however profound—a substitute for changing unjust structures of power within groups of people. And we should always be on guard for the possibility of our using love as a weapon. With those caveats, I strongly recommend learning more about this technique. It is not yet widely known but deserves to be so in my opinion, as it is a wonderfully gentle yet powerful method of cultivating loving-kindness and a fearless sense of one’s innermost Being.

(Full disclosure: I work for the author and publisher of Core Transformation, and am in the process of becoming a licensed trainer. My views expressed in this article however are strictly my own. I have a small private practice facilitating this method with clients. I receive no commission for sales nor compensation including any wages for the writing of this article, but marketing is a part of my job role. I was an evangelist for this method several months prior to even knowing there was a possibility for me to work for the publisher, and would practice and promote this technique regardless.)

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A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley depicts an ordered society where humanity is tamed and controlled through the use of excessive pleasure.   This pleasure comes in the form of unlimited sex, a designer drug named “Soma,” and a caste system that designs people specifically for their social roles, eliminating unhappiness in the work force.  The society as a whole is conditioned to believe in a consistent set of values, primarily designed to keep everyone in line and the system of consumption functioning at a near perfect level of efficiency. Those are not fitting into society are encouraged to enjoy themselves by taking Soma, as its hallucinogenic and anti-depressant effects allow them to snap back into blissful conformity with ease.   In essence, Huxley dreamed of a world where unimportant pleasures distract us from the greater problems at hand, and in the case of the book these problems manifested as the sheer level of control and lack of freedom exerted over all of humanity by the system.

In the past few years, a phenomena known a social media has taken a strong hold on the minds of many internet users.  Individuals are encouraged to attain accounts with a variety of services such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, and others which allow them to attain large amounts of trivial information in a short amount of time.  Most of these services direct users out to Blogs, where users can interact with writers directly.  It is implied within the system of social media that information is “meant to be free,” that all opinions should be heard, and that censorship should be considered unethical.  Those who promote social media as a system suggest that the freedom of great amounts of information allow people to make more efficient connections with others, be more informed about the world, and make their lives better through what are known as “life hacks.”

A Match Made in Heaven or Hell?

Lifehacking as meme began its life when programmers were looking for simple ways to make their coding life easier, by instituting small hacks to the software.  Moving away from the strictly geek demographic, lifehacking has come to be known by a broad set of skills, habits, and ideologies which fit well into the field of personal development.  Within the idea of lifehacking, it can be seen that humans function as cybernetic organisms that can be “hacked” from their original operating systems to become more efficient or better suited to other perhaps more interesting tasks.  This often takes the form of what is known as “lifestyle design” which refers to the ability to design one’s life from the ground up, often in what is called a “non-conformist” way.  This romantic idea of programming one’s life in-turn gave life to the new age of personal development via social media sites like Digg and Reddit.  It can be easily seen how personal development and social media became quite well adapted to each other early on in their union.

Marketing the Father, Social Media the Son, and the Holy Positivity

Social media, the field of marketing, and the positive thinking movement have formed an unholy trinity of influence on the internet.  In many ways this trinity is a series of facades hiding a deeper core of persuasive marketing, without any valuable content within.  The field of marketing birthed the notion of social media, it was originally pitched as a tool for corporations and small businesses to more effectively reach their audiences in an age where anyone can write a negative view and post it for all to see.  While social media may have been marketed to be open in nature, the function of it has always been the dispersion of marketing messages. To consumers, social media promised the democratization of information, where individuals were put on the same rhetorical level as corporations, but in reality the shift of influence has always been in the hands of those with power, regardless of what technological means of sharing are used.  Thus social media sold the facade of “openness” to the consumers using buying into it, but offered new manipulative means of marketing to corporations and their amateur copycat shills.

Enjoy!

The most effective tool the field of marketing uses to distort messages is the notion of positive thinking.  The cult of positive thinking and personal development have had a long and profitable history together, and as a result it was only natural that positive thinking would cross the short divide between personal development and social media. Thus positive thinking formed the very fabric of the facade which prevented any critical discourse from occurring.  By promoting strictly positive attitudes, social media bloggers often censor and limit speech, all the while supporting the well-stated ideal of “openness.” One such example happened a few weeks ago when Duff McDuffee posted a comment on Chris Guillebeau’s blog regarding his shilling of Seth Godin’s new book, Linchpin.  Duff’s original comment:

The only book Godin wrote that didn’t have spin in the title was All Marketers are Liars.

If you’ve read a couple of Godin books, the rest are truly dispensable.

I’ll summarize his collected works: work hard, take risks, be different. Find creative ways to hype the crap out of your products. Reframe ordinary concepts to obfuscate and create a personal vocabulary that makes you look smart. Embrace high-tech. Write in a terse, cryptic style to sound profound, yet say nothing new.

Use the methods of grassroots political campaigns to sell stuff and make capitalism look like protest. Create phony “revolutions,” “manifestos,” political groups (”tribes”) etc. around B.S. “causes” which are really about selling stuff (thus making grassroots political organizing ineffective for actual, non-commercial causes).

In the end, I think Mr. Godin has done much more harm than good. All the “change” that is encouraged is more of the same.

Guillebeau censored this comment from his post, and then emailed Duff back in response:

It’s OK if Seth’s work isn’t for you, but you don’t need to be so rude about it.

This is a big day for him and I am thrilled to support the launch of a great book. The last thing in the world I would want to do is discourage someone who has helped so many people with his ideas, including me. I hope that instead of putting him down so harshly you can do something positive with your own work [emphasis mine].

This response from Guillebeau portrays him shocked as if to say “how dare you question me! Go enjoy yourself instead!”  This response is a common one among those who promote an authoritarian ideology of what is and is not acceptable speech within social media.  The attitude absolutely denies the value of criticism in order to ensure that the blogger’s marketing memes spread as smoothly as possible. Additionally, Guillebeau suggested Duff’s criticism was “rude,” this demonstrates an additional level of context about what is acceptable speech in social media.  This is coming from a man who claims to be “challenging authority since 1978″ and a “fighter of the status quo.” Yet Guillebeau censored comments that challenged his own status quo, this strikes me as quite hypocritical, and very typical of social media bloggers.  While it is an unstated social norm on blogs and twitter to comment only positively, this stems from the positive thinking movement which has thrived [ripped people off] in an arena free of criticism for decades.  Those deeply entrenched in social media almost feel as if critics will bring the whole pleasure party down, that critics would be better off out marketing their own products instead of bringing attention undesirable ideas.

Twitter is a Little Bit Distracting

One place where thousands of people have taken this to heart is the social network known as Twitter.  Twitter is a social media site where users can post short, 140 character messages known as tweets that their friends can receive notifications of.  Twitter allows users to follow individuals, and corporations in what often amounts to an overwhelming flood of interesting information.   No other social media site promotes the sheer amount of information enjoyment than twitter does.  People often become addicted to twitter, constantly refreshing looking for new blog posts to read, or tweeting to famous (or twitter-famous) people in the hope that will receive replies.  Twitter itself functions as a hotbed for random, mostly useless information which distracts and creates compulsive behavior in the human mind.

Many wannabe personal development, social media, and marketing gurus have taken to Twitter, proclaiming themselves “experts” in their chosen fields.  Tens of thousands of these people utilize auto-following bots, and spam techniques in a vain attempt to break through and become a guru themselves.  Because twitter is so easy to join and start posting information,  it has become a hotbed for people who have deluded themselves into believing they are experts.  They have literally taken the advice of bloggers like Chris Guillebeau to “do something positive with your own work.”  In some strange way, it seems many people view the most effective means of doing “something positive” as becoming a guru yourself. This only adds to the pleasurable, narcissistic noise that permeates social networks like Twitter.

Dogma and Karma

This surplus of distraction and the compulsive nature of human interaction with social media compares very well with the fears that Huxley portrayed in A Brave New World about a society tranquilized by pure pleasure.  When criticism comes up especially within the area of personal development, the response is often the suggestion to go enjoy oneself with some other distraction, instead of specifically looking at issues and problems that occur within the system.  Thus when marketing, social media, and positive thinking are combined, the result is a wide-spread authoritarian control of ideas within the social network. The most acceptable ideas are those who allow people or corporations to profit via marketing, and by extension the great network of supporting notions of this ideology.   This directly contradicts the common ideology of what social media means to the internet, people often rave about how it allows us so much more  freedom than we had before, however I believe this to be a simple myth of the system.

Fortunately, there is a solution to this hidden authoritarian censorship buried deep within the trinity of marketing, social media, and positive thinking.  The solution is to build a continual cycle of criticism within the social media environment. Criticism is a key part of the progression of thought, and as a result its general removal from social media and personal development has allowed things to spiral horribly out of control.  Not only is criticism necessary, but we have a responsibility to it, else we are just building systems of dogma under the guise of progression.  At that point, why bother?

The story of Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile barrier in 1954 is often cited as proof of the power of positive thinking. The fact is, however, that Bannister’s realism, not exuberant faith, can easily explain how Bannister achieved the feat.

The typical telling of the story is a conflict between negative and positive beliefs. The good guy is Roger Bannister, who uniquely believes that he can beat the four-minute time. The bad guy is everybody else, including the other runners of the world. Bannister’s faith in himself propels him across the finish line, breaking the barrier, proving that the positive is stronger than negative. He wins over converts to his faithful cause, who then proceed to smash the barrier themselves.

A deconstruction of the myth lays bare the underlying message while admitting a more thorough admission of fact into the story. The mythological structure supports three crucial elements of the “positive thinking” message:

• the world is divided into positive believers and negative non-believers
• negative belief is the primary obstacle to achievement
• blind faith in positive belief is necessary for success

The myth makes use of omission and exaggeration of fact in order to communicate its message.

The first element is supported by citing doctors and other authorities who claim that the four-minute mile was impossible if not lethal. The reference to “impossibility”, danger, or death underline the “negative” aspects of the belief.

The second element–that belief, as opposed to physical ability–is the primary obstacle to achievement, is supported by the fact that many runners broke the barrier so quickly after he did. They must have been physically able, for how could they train so quickly to such a high level of performance? The story implies that belief alone explains why runners followed suit so quickly.

The third element is that blind positive faith is able to and required to transcend physical limits. Including the fact that he was the first implies that the barrier at four minutes was real. He had no evidence that it was possible, and people warned him of the dangers. His belief rested in faith alone. There is usually an underlying theme, evident in the title or otherwise, which suggests that the fact that the belief is positive is what give it its power.

To recap the story in terms of the three elements: everyone believed that the four-minute mile was impossible. Everyone, except Bannister. His pure, positive faith allowed him to do what others failed to do. Once he proved it possible to the non-believers, others began to see the light and they could do the impossible as well.

The assertion that most (if not all) believed that the four-minute mile was dangerous if not impossible is easily falsified. The story omits that the other runners of the world were in pursuit of the four-minute mile. They must have believed it was possible or they wouldn’t have competed for it. The tendency for journalists to drum up conflict and drama easily explains why the “barrier” was created. It also explains why so many doctors were quoted saying it was dangerous. Danger sells papers. Bannister himself was a medical student at the time he broke the barrier, trained in the same medical system as the rest of the doctors. It is highly unlikely that he was unique in his beliefs.

The issue that so many runners broke the barrier so quickly is used to show how important belief was. But the fact is that the record was ready to be broken. The graph of world records (shown below) clearly shows that the sport was ready for a breakthrough. The major tension at the time was who would succeed and when, not whether it was possible. The fact that people only succeeded after him is due to the convenient choice of Bannister as the hero. He was the first, so of course there was no one before him.

The final element–that Bannister was bolstered by blind faith–is similarly false. The implication downplays his medical training and his talent as a runner. As a medical student, he was well aware of the physiology and anatomy of the human body. He was also a good runner, so probably had a good intuition for his own limits. The myth omits the fact that Bannister used a peculiar training regimen and pacing strategy for the deciding race. His actions show his belief in planning and strategy, not a reliance on blind faith. Anyone at the time, especially an educated person, could clearly see that the four-minute mile was due to be broken, so need not rely on faith.

As to the fact that he was first, the timing of his and his competition’s races (along with the weather) decided who would break the barrier first. John Landy ran a four-minute mile forty-six days later. What would have happened if the dates of the two races had been reversed?

The myth of the four-minute mile implies that blind faith can overcome physical obstacles. But on closer inspection, the facts of the event support a much different message: that critical thinking, physical endowment, planning, luck, and hard work are “the secrets” to success. Roger Bannister was 6-foot-1 and obviously one of the fastest runners of his day. His race was luckily timed just before Landy’s race, and the weather met the world record requirements. He ran every day to train for the race. Of course he believed he could do it, but it was not blind faith.

The call to faith erodes the more important idea that we are very often wrong so we must critically question our beliefs. We must rely on our intelligence and available evidence to determine what to believe because we have nothing better. It is frightening that we know we are wrong but we don’t know in what way and still we must act in the world. It is much more comforting to believe that “positive” beliefs are truer than “negative” ones and not have to face the real difficulties of the world. Beliefs should not be classified into positive and negative, but into true, untrue, and undecidable. The troubles of the world are too real to rely on wishful thinking.

Raised as an atheist, Eric Normand observes that the more support exists for a belief, the more likely it is to be false. Only mass delusion can produce such agreement. Besides getting him into trouble, this perspective leads him to question popular thought and explore contrarian views with as critical an eye as he can muster. Eric Normand confronts certainty, wishful thinking, and the difficulty of everyday life at The Journal of a Renegade Yogi.

If you are at all familiar with social media, you probably had a  good idea what was going to happen after Bill Harris decided to threaten Duff McDuffee.  Twitter lit up in support of Duff, a smattering of notable blogs wrote about the threat, and in the end Beyond Growth received a ton of traffic.  Perhaps the Law of Attraction works after all–Bill threatened Duff in a blast  of negative energy, and the result was a lot of negative publicity.  Mission accomplished Bill.

Old Media vs New Media

If anything, this ordeal has been the perfect case study for how not to do public relations in the age of social media.  Over on MindTweaks, Tori Deaux wrote a post titled “How To Trash Your PR At The Touch Of A Button: Of Holosync, Bill Harris, and Silencing Critics.”  Deaux explores why it isn’t such a good idea to try to silence bloggers, whether they are in the right or the wrong.  She writes:

You will lose in the court of public opinion, because you’re not really dealing with the ONE small blogger, but the entire blogosphere.  See, threatening a lawsuit against a blogger is like, well…

It’s like pushing a big red button that releases a pack of rabid hounds.

A pack of rabid hounds that  races wildly around the countryside unchecked, braying about it at the top of their lungs until EVERYBODY knows.

It’s not pretty.  It’s very slobbery.  It’s wildly infectious.

And it’s very, very bad PR.

Tori concludes with some exceptional advice for those who have public disagreements with bloggers.  She suggests they try calming down, talking to the blogger about the disagreement, and forming friendships with other bloggers who will support your side.  Effectively playing within the rules of social media  as an alternative to destroying your PR via lawsuit seems like a good strategy.

Enlightenment For Sale

From a Buddhist perspective, Marnie Louise Froberg wrote a post titled “The Ugly Face of Commercial Pseudo-Buddhist Self-Help.”  Froberg is critical of the pseudo-Buddhism that Harris spouts as it appears on his blog.  She wrote:

No what’s stuck in my craw is the way this “Secret” afficianado blathers on about Buddhist terminology and concepts on the pathetically amateur blog he keeps entitled The Blog That Ate Mind Chatter. (from the author of The Program that Eats the User’s Ability to Think)   It’s fairly clear that he gets all these Buddhist buzzwords from Genpo since there is nothing but rabid adulation from the second post onward. And if Holosync is so hot why would Harris bother to try Big Mind?

Froberg is also critical of Harris’ claims that Genpo Roshi has  “the largest lineage outside of Japan.”  She demonstrates that Harris doesn’t exactly have a good handle on the lineage business, and goes on to suggest that Harris “attempts quite a reach when he talks about Buddhism.”  It seems Froberg’s post overall adds support to the notion that Harris himself is nothing more than a salesman, and he is willing to say whatever it takes and paint whatever picture necessary to sell his expensive products.  At the end of the post she provides an extensive listing of the coverage  regarding the threats to Duff by Bill Harris from other blogs.

Used Car Salesmen, a Beautiful Marriage, and the Salty Droid

Not willing to be outdone, the Salty Droid wrote three posts regarding Bill Harris, starting out with “Silencing of the Lambs.”  As you will no doubt find, the Droid is quite the direct robot, he starts out calling Harris names like “sleazy used car salesman,” “Bill Hairless,” and “Bill ‘What’s it going to take to get you into this 2002 Chevy Tahoe today?’”  In a delicious twist, it seems that there actually is a used car salesman named Bill Harris, as seen by his website here: Bill Harris Used Cars Inc. “You’re simply the best!”

The Droid goes over the basic turn of events, provides an exclusive on one of the threatening emails that Duff received from Harris, and ends the post with a threatening letter of his own to Harris:

You have 24hrs to notify Andrew McDuffee that you have decided not to pursue legal action against him :: or you are going to have a MUCH more serious problem than one measly post by a mild mannered and fair minded gentleman.  I WILL END YOU and your transparent fucking scam Bill Harris :: with elegance and ease.  It will consume your life :: your bank account :: and it will be HIGHLY stressful {ask around}.  Your deep {and probably intimate} connection to Bringer of Death of James Arthur Ray :: the obviousness of your swindle {including new FTC reg violating testimonial based sales} :: and the surface ugliness of your soul make you a low hanging fruit for an anti-scammer on a roll.  Don’t fucking temp me … don’t.

Think this over Bill.  Look before you leap.

Unfortunately for Harris, the deadline was missed, and he became the Droid’s latest play-thing when he parodied both him and James Arthur Ray in the post “New Year’s Wedding.”  It seems the Droid might have a secret side-hobby of writing old-fart erotica based on his descriptions of the Ray and Harris love affair.  I’ll let you click on the link if you want the gruesome details.

Finally, the Droid put together a brilliant video montage titled “Bill Harris Reccomends“  beautifully demonstrating the link between Harris and James Arthur Ray.  He used a testimonial video uploaded by James Ray International on YouTube in which Bill Harris emphatically suggests that “if you get involved with what he does, it will totally change your life.”  Is Harris more in-tune with the secret than we originally thought?

Why the hell is everyone being so negative?

Bill Harris himself rung in the new year by complaining about the “negative social mood.” Perhaps Harris doesn’t see how threatening to sue Duff was a negative thing, but in my mind he is definitely a contributor to the negativity.  However, there is a bright side to his post, as he writes:

My wish for you, then, is that you move toward your dreams regardless of the prevailing social mood; that you look for ways to be helpful and compassionate to others; that you learn to love yourself, as you are, with all your human failings and quirks; and that you extend that compassion to others (who also have human failings, just as you do).

What Harris doesn’t realize is that by sending Duff that cease and desist letter he has helped us do just that.  Our dream is to make personal development more responsible and make to make those who we believe to be scammers less culturally relevant, and by exposing himself he has furthered our mission by leaps and bounds.   So Bill, in gratitude for your wish to us (and everyone else),  I want to dedicate this image of our web traffic following the lawsuit post to you:

Perhaps that will help bring the positivity back.

On December 22,  Duff McDuffee received an email message from Bill Harris, the founder of “Holo-sync” and the “CenterPointe Institute” claiming that he had been served with a cease and desist letter regarding the post titled “The Hollow Sink of Push-Button Enlightenment.”  Harris claims that he intends to file suit against Duff for “defamation” in federal court.  Harris finally sent the cease and desist document via email to McDuffee, you can read it at the bottom of this post (updated 12/29). In response to Harris’ email, Duff revised the post to insure no defamatory statements exist within it, and that it is clear that everything contained therein is his opinion.  This effort itself was mainly done to in good-will, as we do not actually believe that anything in the original post was defamatory simply because it was clear that the post itself was an opinion piece on a variety of intangible and unprovable subjects.

First off, I want to make a few things clear about what we do here on Beyond Growth.  We are not a news organization, and as such do not claim to offer any sort of “objective” reporting therefore all of our articles are critical, subjective, and opinion based.  While many of our contributors share similar views, each of the opinions expressed in our articles solely represent their authors and no one else.  Thus far, we have found this to be quite implicit that these are our opinions, nothing more.  We generally use forms of literary and critical analysis, of which do not imply nor suggest we are making statements of objective fact.

With that in mind, I will take this opportunity to express my supreme disappointment with Bill Harris’ behavior on this matter.  Harris is a man who implicitly claims to be enlightened, and as such I would think the frivolous and childish threat of a “federal lawsuit” directed at small time blogger would be quite beneath him.  Unfortunately it appears that this is not the case.  He has made no effort to speak to us about this matter before jumping the gun and threatening a lawsuit.   In his email message, Harris effectively threatens to ruin Duff’s life:

Perhaps you do not realize the severity of the consequences for the defamatory statements you have made and how a Federal lawsuit to enforce those rights would work. The costs of such a suit will be huge, both financially and also in terms of time and stress. Legal fees for such a lawsuit can be, at minimum, over $150,000, the time commitment will be extensive, and the stress will be enormous. It will change your life in a way I suspect you will not like.

What Bill Harris does not realize is that Duff McDuffee (and I for that matter) have zero monetary assets to speak of.  Additionally, if Harris does actually bring suit against Duff, we will do everything in our power to make it as public as possible.  This publicity would negate the whole point of a defamation lawsuit in the first place, the preservation of the “public image” that Harris’ seemingly holds so near and dear.  Finally, Harris will have to prove in the court of law that he does not use manipulative marketing techniques and that his “holosync” program does exactly what he says it does.  We are confident that Harris would not be able to prove either of these things in any manner enough to satisfy a federal judge.

Shouldn’t an arahat be able to handle a little criticism without threatening lawsuits?  Threatening to sue Duff in order to maintain a positive public opinion seems to be nothing more than bullying via the courts, in a manner that is quite reminiscent of the legal behavior of the Church of Scientology:

Critics state that the ultimate aim of Scientology lawsuits is to destroy church opponents by forcing them into bankruptcy or submission, using its resources to pursue frivolous lawsuits at considerable cost to defendants. In doing so, they draw particular attention to certain controversial statements made by the church’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, in the 1950s and 1960s.

In my mind this is not the way an enlightened being should be behaving. If anything this action by Bill Harris indicates that we are doing something very right on Beyond Growth.  Expect more in the coming days.

Edit 12/29 : I’ve made it clear that Harris’ “enlightenment” is implicit.

Edit 12/29 : Here is the fabled cease and desist letter:

McDuffee Cease and Desist

Edit 12/30: The Salty Droid humorously joins in; Silencing of the Lambs

What is Reality, really? Does Reality primarily consist of physical objects, spirits, or emptiness dancing? Or perhaps all of the above, or none of the above, or whatever you choose? Our answer determines our approach to personal development, so let’s explore some possibilities….

1. The Case for Waking Life

Waking life is the most real of all human experiences. In fact, everything else is illusion. Dreams are just the brain defragging while the body is in “sleep mode.” What’s real is physical, observable, and measurable reality. The scientific method is the best way human beings have of understanding what is real. Happiness should be studied scientifically. Seeing entities or hearing voices is evidence for insanity requiring immediate psychiatric intervention and heavy medication. You are a physical body and after death, nothing whatsoever happens. Thinking occurs primarily in words. To live fully, be aware of your impending death and make the most of your life.

Reincarnation is utter nonsense, as are out-of-body experiences, which are easily explained by neurochemistry. Meditative experiences of oneness and peace are also just brain states, although meditation has been scientifically shown to reduce stress. Physics is the most real of the sciences. Human beings are products of evolutionary biology, and biology is just chemistry, and chemistry is just physics. All thoughts and emotions are just neurons firing. Neuroscience is really exciting because we are finally understanding something real about the brain, and getting rid of all the superstition that has plagued humanity’s past. God is a persistent delusion. Coincidence is random chance, and people are easily fooled if not trained in critical thinking. Human progress and personal development depend on sober rationality.

2. The Case for Dreams

The real world is hidden from sight, yet obvious to those who have eyes to see. Everything is energy. Spirits, gods, angels and demons are everywhere. Coincidences are meaningful synchronicities. You have a soul, and so does everything else. Thinking occurs primarily in images. Visions are really important, and dreams are the most important basis for big decisions in life. Psychedelic drugs and plant medicines open the portal to the Real. The rational mind is a filter that all-too-often keeps us from experiencing deeper realities. Science and technology are destroying our Mother Earth. Progress is a myth. Cultivate ecstatic states and your third eye will open, and you will experience Reality for yourself—which, by the way, is really freakin’ trippy.

We have fallen from the original state of paradise, where everything good was naturally in abundance. Language and rationality caused the fall from grace—we can get it back by expressing our deepest feelings, embodying feminine wisdom, and envisioning the better post-apocalyptic world our hearts reveal to us as possible (for apocalypse really means “revelation”). Don’t be surprised if the post-apocalyptic utopia looks a lot like Burning Man. What is created on the astral or visionary plane must come to pass on the material plane, therefore holding positive intentions is of the utmost importance. Dreams are expressions of the individual and collective unconscious. You are an immaterial soul that can travel in many strange realms, either with aid of plant medicines or rigorous spiritual practices.

Magick is real and everywhere, and prayer works if you work it. One of the first steps towards expanded personal development is keeping a dream journal. In the Dreamtime, we can all dance around the sacred fire together, as one tribe, with One Love.

3. The Case for Nothingness

All the world of the senses and the mind—including dreams—is illusion. Thinking that this stuff is real is the basis for suffering. Reconnect with the ground of all being (luminous emptiness, rigpa, prajnaparamita, dharmakaya, your True Nature/Buddha Nature, your Holy Guardian Angel, Cosmic Consciousness, etc.) in order to attain ultimate liberation and insight into the Truth. And the truth is that all of it is empty, devoid of permanence, satisfaction, and lacking in any “self.” Thinking is what keeps you from the truth. All your notions of self are impermanent and untrue. You are not your body. You are not your social roles. You are not your ideas of who you think you are, and new ideas don’t fit the bill either. But throughout all of it is something that it permanent, timeless, vast, spacious, etc. and that is who you really are.

Until we awaken, everything we do in life is to avoid the Void. Stop running, stop craving, stop resisting, and sink into the emptiness and you will die to what wasn’t really you anyway, and wake up into the Real of the profound Truth of life as-it-is. Science, while useful, studies illusion—only the science of the mind can discover Reality. Visions of gods and demons are ephemeral—look deeper to find what does not change and you will find liberation in the Truth. Abandon self-improvement, for there is no self to improve. Either meditate, or simply and directly give up seeking for anything to be different altogether. And if you don’t get it this round, aim to be reborn as a human so that you can try again.

4. It’s All Good

Yes, yes, and yes. All the above are real. This simple chart explains it all:

Impressive, isn’t it?

Don’t understand yet? Let me make this so simple a 2nd grader could get it: unmanifest Reality tetra-arises holonically via eight primordial perspectives or zones that develop through multiple lines and levels on a hierarchical spectrum or spiral from ultraviolet to clear light (or beige to coral, through two—or three—tiers), and through gross, subtle, causal, and nondual states which can—through meditative practice—solidify into state-stages (not to be confused with structure-stages), and appear in infinite masculine and feminine emanations, thus guiding the Kosmos (which is Consciousness) in an ever-unfolding evolutionary impulse towards greater integrated complexity.

If you understand the sentence above, you are part of the chosen few who will usher in the Integral Age™, which means you are very cool. Or to put it even simpler, the states of waking, dreaming, and deep dreamless sleep are all included in the non-dual, which is consciousness, and consciousness develops in ever more complex ways. We know this because some very advanced meditators can experience being awake during all three states, and because various developmental models seem to line up pretty well, at least if you fudge the details a bit.

Postmodernism misses the point, and breeds extreme relativism (also known as the Mean Green Meme) with the performative contradiction “there is no absolute truth.” 2nd Tier consciousness solves this problem by making a place for all perspectives, yet allowing for natural hierarchies—which I just so happen to be at the top of, naturally. Develop yourself in all lines with a consciously designed Integral Life Practice. Nobody’s smart enough to be 100% wrong—well, except our critics.

5. Reality Construction is Violence

What is this “Real”? If you are wanting something “objective,” then there is no such thing. Stop lying to yourself and accept this—the sooner the better. We construct ideologies of The Real primarily to gain power over others. While it is horrifying to peer into the void, when you do so, it peers back into you—which is somehow liberating or something. All so-called “realities”–including meta-theories like Integral theory–are socially constructed, therefore subjective. In our postmodern condition, there is no hope for creating a unifying meta-theory anyway.

Reality depends on people to create it. The notion of “objectivity” simply deletes the observer, the one who does violence to the Real, thus entrenching us deeper in the lie. All elements of human society and culture are simulacrum–copies with no original. All communication is violence, distortion, bias—including spiritual and religious ideologies of “unconditional love” (which we all know is bullshit, given all the wars started in the name of God).

God is dead. Every notion of the Real is violent, and we create such notions to a-void facing self-annihilating meaninglessness. Values are relative, life is irrational and absurd, and there is no absolute ground to stand on. If you’re not feeling a kind of existential anxiety, you probably aren’t asking deep questions about life. Searching for the Real in a romanticized past will not give us any escape, nor will praying for a techno-optimistic singularity. In fact, we must give up all hope entirely and embrace the absurd. One of the most important questions an individual can ask is “Does the realization of the meaninglessness and absurdity of life necessarily require suicide?” Now excuse me while I get back to my cigarette and absinthe.

6. Reality Selection for the Metaprogrammer Within

Realities are like clothes. You have to wear one to function in the world, but once you realize you can take one off, you can try on some radically different realities—for fun and profit. What the thinker thinks, the prover proves. Nothing “is” real, but some realities feel more confining or freeing than others. LSD, psychotherapy, Neurolinguistic Programming, General Semantics, and various spiritual practices can help dismantle currently realities and engineer more a more interesting trip.

There’s no way to see the blind spots of your preferred reality tunnel without stepping outside of it and looking at it through a different reality tunnel. So if you want to have more freedom, break out of your habitual reality and try on some new ones. Have fun fellow traveler, and try not to fry your nervous system with too much experimenting.

image credit

What is Real?

Feel free to either argue for how I’ve misrepresented your preferred reality and how it is in fact the most real reality, or experiment with arguing for all 6 (or others not mentioned here) in the comments below. Which reality do you live in primarily, and how does it affect your approach to personal development?

This week saw the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia. The Parliament is a significant interfaith event with the bold mission “to cultivate harmony among the world’s religious and spiritual communities and foster their engagement with the world and its guiding institutions in order to achieve a just, peaceful and sustainable world.” The history of the Parliament dates back to the World’s Congress of Religions of 1893 in Chicago which, bringing together Eastern and Western religious traditions, is seen by many as the birth of inter-religious dialogue. In 1993 a centenary event was held in Chicago, and the Parliament has since been held every five years (Cape Town in 1999 and Barcelona in 2004).

The 2009 Parliament was epic in scale with around 6,000 delegates from more than 80 countries, hosting more than 650 separate programs populated by an even larger number of speakers. The major speakers at the event included some of the world’s most influential inter-religious voices such as His Holiness the Dalai Lama, President Jimmy Carter, His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, The Most Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh, President Obama’s religious adviser Jim Wallis, editor of Tikkun magazine Rabbi Michael Lerner, and the heavy-hitting theologian Dr Hans Küng.

Andrew Cohen: Fans and Critics

Listed also among the major speakers was the “visionary thinker” Andrew Cohen. Cohen’s intentions for the Parliament, in which he was granted the unusual privilege of two full sessions to himself, was “sharing the profound spiritual perspective of Evolutionary Enlightenment and holding an Open Space/Question & Answer session on the role, meaning, and purpose of an evolutionary perspective on timeless spiritual wisdom.” Cohen also addressed the 2004 Parliament. Cohen’s popularity has been on the rise in recent years, thanks in part to his magazine EnlightenNext which can be found on newsstands around the world and in which he aligns himself with the great and the good of both orthodox religion and alternative spiritualities. Clearly he is speaking to issues that many people find compelling, and his two sessions at the Parliament suggest that the international interfaith community also finds Cohen’s message to be of high importance.

However, not everyone is so accepting of Cohen’s “evolutionary thinking.” Cohen’s own mother wrote a book called The Mother of God and critiques “the abuse of power, the incessant fear, the psychology of obsession” that went with her time as a devotee of her son. The blog What Enlightenment??! carries numerous other claims about Cohen’s allegedly unsavory methods. And Cohen’s 2009 Parliament appearance coincides with the publication of William Yenner’s American Guru, which catalogues “numerous examples of abuse on Cohen’s part.” The Parliament’s PR representative did not respond to inquiries about whether these allegations were taken into account when placing Cohen on the schedule. It is with the knowledge of both Cohen’s popularity on the one hand, and his detractors on the other, that I offer a brief account of Cohen’s two sessions at the Parliament. This is not intended in any way as an exhaustive critique of Cohen, rather a reading of one particular event that offered Cohen an opportunity to share the same platform as some of the world’s most established spiritual leaders, and in the process gain new levels of legitimacy.

Cohen’s Parliament Sessions

The first of Cohen’s sessions attracted a good number of attendees, with a bias towards middle-aged women. The first two rows of the audience appeared to be populated by people who knew one another, and had some existing knowledge about Cohen. A small handful of people appeared to be connected with Cohen, preparing the podium for him and observing the audience. Cohen came into the room pretty much on time, was introduced by a young female ambassador of the Parliament, and began to settle into his talk.

The body of his talk was no doubt nothing new to anyone familiar with Cohen’s work. Early on he declared “I have no solutions,” but that his teachings were directed towards “leading edge” individuals: the highly educated, the wealthy and the privileged. He spoke of how everything is plotted against an evolutionary process. He asked, “why live an ordinary life if we all have the opportunity to live an extraordinary life?” And that in order to answer this question we had to “think big, feel big” and tap into the “authentic self.” In order to achieve this we must draw upon a source of inspiration that has been in operation since the Big Bang. He claimed that he was “only interested in creating that which is new and hasn’t existed before,” following a godly creative principle that is characterized by “ecstasy and urgency.” Those who did not follow this principle, those who are not “turned on,” are “boring, uninteresting, uninspired, safe, predictable.” This was the core of his message, which was repeated and re-framed in a number of ways for the duration of the 90-minute session. During this first session, Cohen came over as a perfectly charming individual. He spoke well, cracked a few jokes, gave a few strangely geeky chuckles, and told a cute story about his dog. Apart from a brief mention of EnlightenNext, he did not plug any products or workshops, nor direct the audience how to find out more about his teachings. He finished the session bang on schedule, declaring that there was now no time for questions, but that he would dedicate the whole second session to these if the audience wished.

There is nothing specifically problematic about the content of his talk. The only real concern is that Cohen explicitly speaks to “the highly educated, the wealthy and the privileged.” But what of the poor? The poor, Cohen says, “need a different message”: exactly what message remains something of a mystery. Cohen’s message, of course, is that leading edge individuals should “affect the world for the better,” but the nature of this is not addressed. While it may be reasonable to claim that privileged Westerners need to be related to in a different way to the less privileged, the problem arises when we pursue Cohen’s evolutionary model: only the privileged are at the “leading edge” of evolution. Such a suggestion resonates with a long history of elitist thinking that can be found in its worst forms behind the history of colonialism, racism and eugenics, and in its more benign form in upper-middle-class “radicals” who wish to guide those who they perceive as the less intellectually capable proletariat. But apart from this elitist shadow, Cohen’s message was hardly controversial.

During the second session Cohen loosened up. As promised, he dedicated it to questions which largely consisted of positive feedback from the audience: “I want to thank you so much for your work,” “you’re so refreshing to hear” and so forth. The un-challenging nature of the questions meant that the majority of the second session comprised a re-telling of the first. The only shift in focus was that Cohen moved to distinguish himself from other spiritual teachers (of meditation, non-duality and so on), noting how he was one of only “a few” teachers focusing on evolution as a guiding spiritual principle (which is hardly new given the likes of Teilhard de Chardin and Sri Aurobindo). In this session we started to see a few glimpses of Cohen’s infamous “rude boy” style: cutting people’s questions with a short “yes” or “no” answer, being slightly edgier. At one point, about to launch into a comment about being judgmental, Cohen quipped, “I’m at the World Parliament, so I have to be a bit softer than usual” (to which one woman shouted “No, don’t!”). But, again, the session was uneventful.

So, given that Cohen presented himself quite reasonably at the Parliament, we are left with two possible conclusions. First, the accusations leveled against Cohen by some ex-students are gross misinterpretations of his teachings and methods. Second, Cohen was very careful to cultivate a reasonable persona at the Parliament, thus simultaneously enjoying the legitimacy it bestows upon its speakers (disclosure: myself included) and funneling new students into his program where they come to know a somewhat less reasonable Andrew Cohen. The choice is yours.

Joseph Gelfer is an Adjunct Research Associate at the School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University, Australia. He is author of Numen, Old Men: Contemporary Masculine Spiritualities and the Problem of Patriarchy and editor of Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality. His edited collection 2012: Reflections on a Mark in Time will be published next year.

At first this new, more authentic way of communicating was awkward as I found myself searching inside for an answer I felt was really authentic. But after a few days or weeks, it became more comfortable for me.

From this experiment I found that this more authentic way of communicating sometimes appeared to be refreshing to the other person, but at other times annoying or uncomfortable, and often led to the other person giving me unwanted advice! This experiment in authenticity lead me to understand experientially why inauthenticity is useful if not required in some contexts.

After some time, I went back to answering “how are you doing?” inauthentically by again saying “good, you?” like most people do. At first, I did so with some incongruence, for it took effort to repress the desire to spew my guts. But after some time, I was able again to be congruently polite and reserved. In other words, at first I was incongruently inauthentic, but with practice became congruently inauthentic again. In addition, I later found that experimenting like this, I could be more open and honest with people close to me by communicating more about my feelings, while remaining comfortably distant from strangers and acquaintances.

Authentic According to Whom?

If you agree that authenticity is always “according to whom?” then the story is a little bit different. In this case, I am authentic—according to me—to the extent that I feel congruent about my behaviors. Therefore, I was authentic up until I felt that small-talk is inauthentic, when I then felt incongruent and became inauthentic (despite my behavior being the same). Then when I was first learning to be more expressive emotionally, I was also inauthentic, because it didn’t yet feel congruent. Then I was congruent and authentic when being more open felt comfortable, and then I was inauthentic again until I had greater practice in being emotionally reserved, in which case I became authentic again. And finally, I became authentic by holding back with strangers and opening up to friends.

This is an unusual way to think about authenticity—that by repeating a new and uncomfortable behavior enough it can become authentic, that being emotionally reserved can be authentic or inauthentic depending on how it feels (which itself can change), etc., but how else are we to make sense of claims to authenticity? If instead we posit a typical definition of authenticity, which is to express whatever deepest feelings are being experienced in the moment, then we are stuck with the curious problem that sometimes it is best to be inauthentic. Or even worse, one could conclude that aspects of my self (e.g. my shy side) are inauthentic or not-me, thus leading to repression or projection (“other people are shy and reserved, but I’m not like that”).

Or let’s take the position of the other—when was I being authentic according to others? In this case, many would probably report that I appeared most authentic when I was congruently emotionally expressive, despite the fact that I both felt authentic being expressive and being reserved, depending on when you would have asked me.

Being recognized and celebrated for one’s “authenticity” usually occurs when authenticity conforms to certain notions but not others. Many people are acknowledged as being “the real deal” if they are very emotionally expressive to the point of being obnoxious or overbearing, but few are celebrated for their authentic tactfulness, authentic intellect, or authentically reserved emotional expression—at least in the U.S., for it’s different in collectivist cultures like Japan or China (“the nail that sticks up gets hammered down”). For example, shock jock Howard Stern is popular in large part because of his crass “authenticity,” but a subtle and wise spiritual teacher like Jack Kornfield is celebrated more for kindness or balance than authentic expression. We then tend to conform our feelings and behaviors to those that are rewarded by others, turning our quest for authenticity into a quest to be celebrated by others for displaying what is seen as authentic.

Reality Hacking Exercize

This week, try answering the question “how are you?” more openly and “authentically” than usual with both strangers and friends. Notice how you feel and how the other person responds. Continue doing so until it feels comfortable to be so open and expressive. Then try answering in a more reserved manner until it becomes comfortable. During both experiments, try to answer from the depths of your being, but the first time in a more brutally honest way, and the second time in a more reserved way. Post your results in the comments below.

I just watched the fascinating and beautiful documentary Pageant which follows several female impersonators on their quests for glory in the Miss Gay America competition. These gay men transform into stunningly beautiful women, and perform choreographed dances and songs that make Miss America look like a 5th grade talent show.

One thing that struck me in relation to the themes of this blog was that many of the competitors spoke about the importance of “being yourself,” i.e. authentic. Fascinatingly, many of these men have felt from a young age that part of their authentic expression in the world was to impersonate the opposite sex. If impersonating a different sex is authentic, than what is meant by authenticity?

Authenticity and Gender: WTF?

I’ve written several articles here on Beyond Growth critiquing pick-up artist gurus who teach men how to transform into “authentic” badboys and players. This movie got me thinking—to what extent are all gender displays impersonations?

It seems to me that putting on a believable gender display is what matters to be recognized as “authentic” masculinity or femininity by others, and feeling congruent about your display of gender is what matters to be felt as “authentic” by the individual. Is there more to it, or is authenticity just a convincing story we tell ourselves and others? Is one’s level of authenticity to be measured by how much we are convinced the story is true, or is there “really” truth above and beyond the story?

The Authentic Man Program teaches men  to have “a magnetic presence,” which is defined as “women just notice you and feel drawn to you, before you even say a word, and naturally just love to be around you” (from their marketing squeeze page). Being “authentic” in this context is for a heterosexual man to give a convincing, congruent display of a particular socially-constructed masculine gender identity that nonverbally elicts a certain response from (some?) heterosexual women. In this case “natural” means “cultivated to appear natural,” for authentic magnetic presence is made, not born. What these men are selling is basically how to adopt a particular gender identity in order to have sexual power in certain heterosexual social contexts.

In contrast, being “authentic” to the men who compete to be Miss Gay America is to put on many layers of thick makeup, padding to hide their crotch bulge, and a sequined evening gown to convincingly appear as a beautiful woman. In this case, such a man (woman?) might get heterosexual men to naturally notice them for their “magnetic presence”—at least until they learn the true sex of this lovely lady that has caught their eye. I wonder if any former Miss Gay Americas have created any information products on how to be an authentic drag queen? Unfortunately, there’s probably not as much of a market.

In my previous critiques, I have challenged the notion that the “authentic” pick-up guru is truly authentic. But now I don’t know if there is such a thing as true authenticity when it comes to notions of gender, besides that of a convincing display and inner congruence. Is the quest for authenticity simply to find a character we can convincingly play and feel good about it? To become typecast in a social role of our (apparent) choosing?

In an early part of the movie, contestants were interviewed by the judges as men. Some had quite a magnetic presence or charisma when displaying masculine gender, wearing a suit, etc. If a man developed the ability to both have a magnetic presence when displaying masculine gender identity as well as when in drag, would he thus be doubly “authentic”?

Just as a straight man might fail to appear “authentic” in his display of alpha male magnetic presence and thus lose a woman’s attention, a gay cross-dressing man might fail to appear “authentic” in his (her?) display of femininity on stage at Miss Gay America and thus lose the competition. Both fail tests of authenticity when they appear incongruent to others.

Authenticity FTW!

Here’s a question for you: who’s more authentic—the gay men who are impersonating women in Miss Gay America, or the women who are impersonating women in the regular Miss America competition? Both give a convincing display of a socially constructed notion of femininity, and I assume that both are convinced that they are “being themselves.”

The eventual winner of the Miss Gay America competition (spoiler alert!) was a woman (man?) who shared a heartfelt and authentic story of surviving a personal hardship. Other competitors inauthentically boasted of their guaranteed victory. One wonders if the winner was chosen due to his (her?) convincingly authentic story—or was it actually more authentic to communicate in this way?

Almost everyone would say that authenticity is about “being yourself” regardless of how you appear to others. Yet if our displays of authenticity aren’t seen as authentic, we will modify them until they appear convincing. To be authentic is to be praised by others for being so, as in “he’s the real deal.” Central to the notion of authenticity is a lie about what the very quest is about. I wonder if in order to “truly be authentic,” we must lie to ourselves about the reasons for doing so, or else risk incongruence and thus appearing inauthentic.

Personal development relies on the fact that who we “really” are is a personally- and socially-constructed narrative. If we are the roles, feelings, and behaviors we currently exhibit, they wouldn’t be possible to change. But most personal development gurus go further and posit that their preferred narrative is who you really are—then they sell you the means to convincingly display this new role in a way that promises to someday feel congruent. A new role is still an act, new conditioning still socially-constructed, new beliefs still limiting. My bias is towards greater flexibility and perhaps even wisdom in those roles, conditioning, and beliefs, but I’m not sure that “flexibility” and “wisdom” are less problematic than “authenticity”!

Consciously becoming something else is perhaps the greatest act of inauthenticity imaginable—yet we all do it all the time. Perhaps we can be honest about the lie, even if in order to function effectively in society we have to act as if we believe it. I wonder if this honesty about the lie inherent to the quest for authenticity can perhaps free us from the notion that our authentic self is found in someone else’s high-priced advice.

In any case, I highly recommend you watch Pageant and consider these questions for yourself.

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I know what you are thinking, “those pain medications are really getting to his head.” Unfortunately I’m not talking about narcotic pain medication in the title.  I was going over some (un)conscious marketing blogs today, and I started noticing a theme in the rhetoric of the authors. Almost each and every one of them rants and raves about how everything is “awesome.” When rhetorically analyzing a text, it is important to explore what words the text uses, and how those words contribute directly to the text’s persuasiveness.  It didn’t take long for me to build an initial hypothesis about how and why such a flood of “awesome” positivity exists in this subculture: it’s all in the hype.

Too Much of a Good Thing

Positivity itself is ubiquitous in personal development culture, primarily because generally positive moods are very persuasive when impressed upon the ordinary un-critical consumer.  Impressed attitudes of positivity also have the effect of wiping out all criticism of the guru and their process.  If you’ve been around Beyond Growth for any time at all, you’ve probably realized that our blog is built on a foundation of criticism; we believe criticism to be absolutely vital when personally developing, inside and outside of its popular culture.  As a result of this positive culture, we find that it becomes quite easy for a guru to sell products and services when he makes it clear that criticism is not allowed, and only a rose-colored glasses outlook paves the path of success.

While the conscious capitalist culture’s use of positivity is much less underplayed than in pop-personal development, it is deeply ingrained and used heavily.  As far as my research goes thus far, no other word defines the (un)conscious marketer more than the word “awesome.” A few rough searches using Google site search brought this even more into perspective: Mark Silver’s blog brought up 46 mentions, Jonathan Mead’s blog has 67 results for the word, Clay Collins’ ProjectMojave.com had 93, and finally Charlie Gilkey’s blog showed 105.  While many of these posts are likely in the comments, and there could be doubles, this gives us an interesting look at the word choice of the culture.  Not unwilling to critique myself, I ran a search on Beyond Growth and found four hits, three of which were comments, and one in a post. Humorously enough, it was my critique of Mead’s “Freedom Manifesto” containing the word “awesome” and it seems I subconsciously picked up his wording and used it in my criticism.

An Overdose of Hype is More Like It

It would be easily possible for me to write an entire book on the rhetorical choices of the (un)conscious marketing movement (which I may do).  For now I just want to explore closer to the surface, to get a lay of the land of their persuasive techniques.  Then, what do these bloggers use the word “awesome” for?  They use it to describe products, people, blogs, videos, themselves, and the list goes on.  My initial hypothesis is that this boils down to hype.  Why not just present the content or people with less of a skew?  They use the word “awesome” because this culture absolutely depends upon recommendations, leveraging networking, and trading customers. Adding a positive light to these recommendations definitely increases sales across the board. So who then benefits from this deluge of “awesome?” Could it be that the (un)conscious marketers are just using the same old tricks of the cult of positivity, all the while claiming that they are “different,” “conscious,” and more “awesome?”  These marketers are just spreading the hype around … and I’m having an overdose.