Becoming Trans Instinctual

1
Our Human Instincts, the Cerebral Cortex, and the Heart
Like the five senses—and the sixth sense of the human brain—animal
instincts evolved over billions of years: first in the ocean, then on land. Key
terms for instinct in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary are “impulse,”
“capacity,” “largely inheritable,” “unalterable tendency,” “response to
environmental stimuli,” lacking “reason,” and behavior coming from “below the
conscious level.”1 This book agrees with these definitions, for the most part. But
it also argues that human instincts are malleable to personal will, rather than
being “unalterable.”2 One afternoon, for example, I heard boiling water spill
from a pot. Calmly, I turned. My adopted aunt yelled at me to rush over. I
walked toward the pot and turned off the electric stove. The fiftyish woman
couldn’t understand why I hadn’t had a meltdown. I told her that I had chosen
not to react hysterically. Not only that. I had chosen not to react that way
beforehand. Had I chosen not to react instinctually after I had turned, then
1
Frederick C. Mish, John M. Morse, E. Ward Gilman, et al., Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary,
Tenth Edition, (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 1993), p. 606.
2
Ibid.
Beyond Our Six Senses & Above Our Lower Instincts 164
Becoming Trans-instinctual/Galarza
stopping a hysterical reaction would have been more difficult—albeit not

impossible. Thus, human instincts are not an “unalterable tendency.”3
Part II of this book contends that human instincts involve behavior and
thoughts. Part II will also use impulse, instinct, and tendency interchangeably,
as these words boil down to the same thing. A point to remember is that human
instincts are, by and large, humanly irrational reactions to externals. More often
than not, our human instincts are unconscious in that they pop up beyond our
conscious control. While lower animals live by biological instincts, however, we
humans live by choice. Even if we live like lower animals, we are nonetheless
choosing. We are choosing because, unlike lower animals, we have a cerebral
cortex. The question is: Do we choose unconsciously—or even consciously—to
give in to our animal impulses, or do we consciously choose to rise above our
maladaptive instincts?
Part II of this book defines adaptive as “leading to biological survival in a
way that doesn’t significantly harm others or the environment.” It defines
maladaptive as “nonconductive to long-term physical survival.” If a human
activity leads to human survival at the expense of a critical mass of life or the
environment, then that behavior begins to be maladaptive, according to this
definition. Our thriving human population, for example, is maladaptive
because, though more of us are surviving than ever before, our physical survival
is threatening 90 percent of life on earth. Humans are expanding everywhere on
this planet with no restraint. Fish varieties may be plentiful on restaurant
menus. But if 90 percent of ocean life is on the verge of collapse due to
overfishing and pollution, then wholesome human diets vis-à-vis fish—or
whatever is being overstressed—are maladaptive for us in the long run.4
3
Ibid.
4
See Richard Heinberg, Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World, (Gabriola Island, B.C.:
New Society Publishers, 2004), p. 6.
The word civilized means that an individual and/or a society is civil,

rational, and refined. A serial killer is not civilized because he lets his lower
impulses drive his actions. Such a person never engages what Fred Travis, a
neuroscientist, calls “the CEO of your brain.” This CEO is the prefrontal cortex,
the part of the human brain in charge of “the judgement, the planning, the
decision making …”5 At a lecture at the University of Washington, Travis added,
“What happens under high stress is this part of the brain [the Frontal Executive
System] is not connected in [emphasis mine].”6 One of the PowerPoint slides of
Travis even spelled out, “Extreme Stress Leads to Functional Lesions.”7 This is
why, even if violent criminals start to think, they will still not engage their
damaged prefrontal cortexes. The implications of this are staggering because
high stress, an epidemic that is affecting virtually everybody these days, leads to
what Travis calls a “stimulus/response” mode of living.8 Consider the account
of psychic John Holland. As Holland writes in Power of the Soul:
Everything seemed to start off really well [Holland’s relationship with a

boss of his], and I enjoyed the new job. However, after a few months, the
relationship began to change as the respect he’d shown in those early
months suddenly evaporated and was replaced by demands that were
often barked across the room. My boss became more aggressive, and
there were occasions when his temper got so bad that I didn’t know what
to do or expect. These were the times when I kept my head down! I’m
sure that this is an all-too-familiar story, but since I needed the job, I
5
Fred Travis spoke at the University of Washington. The November 7, 2005 lecture was titled,
“Consciousness, Creativity and the Brain.” It was broadcast on University of Washington Television
(UWTV) on October 21, 2006. Travis is director of the Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition at
Maharishi University of Management.
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid.
stayed on, suffering in silence.
Early one morning, I’d just returned to the office with my boss’s
morning coffee. He yelled another command from his office about his
upcoming travel plans, departing in his usual whirlwind, without even a
thank-you.9
Hence, an uncivilized person is not just a serial killer like Colt Hawker (Michael
Ironside) from the movie Visiting Hours (Canadian; 1982) but can also be an
abusive boss, stepparent, or spouse. The many such people in this underworld
shows that human civilization is far from civilized. As Michael Newton, a past-
life regressionist, writes in Journey of Souls:
I have been told that our spiritual masters constantly remind us that
because the human brain does not have an innate moral sense of ethics,
conscience is the soul’s responsibility.10
Put differently, conscience is a reflection not of the human brain, but rather, of
the spiritual evolution—or lack of—of the spirit occupying a given human body.
According to Fred Travis, meditation can, over time, heal damaged parts
of the human brain. A dramatic example of this is a prison in Senegal, Africa
that had a 96 percent recidivism rate. Cons in that prison were introduced to
Transcendental Meditation, John Hagelin, a quantum physicist, said alongside
Travis, and their recidivism rate went down to 6 percent.11
9
John Holland, Power of the Soul: Inside Wisdom for an Outside World, (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, Inc.,
2007), pgs. 82-83.
10
Michael Newton, Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life between Lives, Fifth Revised Edition, (St. Paul,
MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2001), p. 70.
11
John Hagelin, “Consciousness, Creativity and the Brain.”
Becoming trans-instinctual does not mean rejecting our animal tendencies.

This is impossible. Rather, it means learning to downplay human instincts that
are no longer adaptive—impulses like possessiveness, hierarchy, territoriality,
greed, and violence. Only through will and practice will we be able to overcome
the maladaptive parts of ourselves, for biological instincts are more powerful
than dynamite. Also, downplaying does not mean suppressing. Instead,
downplaying is acknowledging and even allowing ourselves to feel a lower
impulse when it arises. Anger is an example. One can choose to get it out in a
constructive way, as through weightlifting. If one is away from the gym, then
one can choose not to lash out in rage. The last part of the previous sentence may
sound like repression. But research has shown that indulging one’s anger, for
example, often makes one more angry. On the other hand, acting out grief, as in
crying, helps to get it out of one’s system. It all depends on context.
Before we can learn about becoming trans-instinctual, we must first
understand how the human brain, human body, and human heart have made
human impulses possible. This chapter investigates:
1) The evolution of the human brain and the significance of this

2) Human intelligence as a multifaceted thing
3) Human instincts affecting different “types” of people in different ways
4) The human heart—not the human brain—being the general driver of
our actions
The Evolution and Workings of the Brain
Mentioned in Part I of this book, the human brain is an outgrowth—or

rather, an upgrowth—of the nose. This is according to naturalist Diane
Ackerman. In A Natural History of the Senses, Ackerman argues that the
olfactory bulbs of the nose grew upward to allow processing centers to develop.
The processing of smell, the first physical sense, was all that mattered. In time,
the emerging brain began to specialize in other areas. As Ackerman writes, “We
think because we smelled.”12
In the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) series Cosmos (1980), Carl Sagan,
the world-class astronomer, argues that the human brain evolved in “successive
stages.” The brain stem came first. It regulates elementals like heartbeat,
respiration, and digestion. The reptilian brain then emerged, with its tendencies
for fear, short temper, rage, and snarling. The mammalian (limbic) system
followed suit, with its inclination for tenderness and care for the young. The
various brain regions appear to have evolved from the bottom up. “Down there,
in the basement of the brain,” Sagan narrates in Cosmos, “… hardly a word [of
the DNA language] changes in a century.”13 Genes dominate in that area of the
brain, and learning is irrelevant. On the other hand, the cerebral cortex allows
for the addition of “new volumes” of information through learning. In the
Cosmos episode “The Persistence of Memory,” Carl Sagan narrates:
Emotions and ritual behavior patterns are built very deeply into us.
They’re part of our humanity. But they’re not characteristically human.
Many other animals have feelings. What distinguishes our species is
thought [emphasis mine]. The cerebral cortex is, in a way, a liberation.
12
Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses, (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), p. 20.
13
This is from episode 11 of Cosmos, titled, “The Persistence of Memory.” Cosmos originally aired on the
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) from September to December 1980.
We need no longer be trapped in the genetically inherited behavior

patterns of lizards and baboons, territoriality, and aggression, and
dominance hierarchies. We are, each of us, largely responsible for what
gets put into our brain, for what, as adults, we wind up caring for and
knowing about. No longer at the mercy of the reptile brain, we can
change ourselves [emphasis mine]. Think of the possibility.14
If each of us didn’t have a higher brain, then genes would rule over us
completely. We would be no more evolved than insects. The cerebral cortex is
what makes our animal instincts malleable to social conditioning. For example,
taste buds make newborns crave sweets. But preferences for flavors are acquired
through nurture. As Diane Ackerman writes in A Natural History of the Senses:
The Masai enjoy drinking cow’s blood. Orientals eat stir-fried puppy.
Germans eat rancid cabbage (sauerkraut), Americans eat decaying
cucumbers (pickles), Italians eat whole deep-fried songbirds, Vietnamese
eat fermented fish dosed with chili peppers, Japanese and others eat
fungus (mushrooms), French eat garlic-soaked snails.15
Remember that taste (innate) and flavor (culturally acquired preferences for
different foods) are processed in different areas of the sixth sense of the brain.
Linda Bartoshuk, a taste researcher from the Yale University School of Medicine,
explains the nature vs. nurture aspect of taste vs. flavor. On PBS’s Mystery of the
Senses, Bartoshuk says:
14
Ibid.
15
Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses, p. 132.
The pleasure from taste [taste buds for sweet, sour, salty, and bitter] is
hardwired, but the pleasure from olfaction [our tasting flavors through
smell receptors above the mouth] is acquired, one bit at a time [emphases
mine]. When you start as a baby, you develop pleasure by pairing good
experiences with particular odors. As you get older, you add more and
more to that, you add social rewards, the things that your parents eat or
Mikey down the street eats, become very, very powerful. As we go
through life, we build up these bits of pleasure and displeasure, and they
produce our food preferences [emphasis mine].16
Similarly, there is sex, an inborn instinct, and there is sexuality, a way of

erotic expression that is acquired through social programming. Heterosexuality,
for instance, is a “learned restriction”17 to one sex and is a “specialization” in the
postmodern world. But in ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and Tokugawa Japan,
men were “generalists”18 in the sexual arena. Bisexuality was the learned norm
—although it wasn’t called that then. Another example of nature vs. nurture is
music. Music makes us dance. This is innate. But the type of music one likes
depends on the culture in which one grows up. Hip-hop and rock, for example,
are popular in the United States. But are they the favorite music of Australian
aborigines? The human tendency to form ideologies is also inborn. But the kind
of ideology one forms depends largely on the place and time in which one grows
up. Democratic socialism is popular in Sweden, for example, whereas in
16
Nova Mini-Series: Mystery of the Senses—“Taste” aired on PBS on February 21, 1995. Diane
Ackerman was the host of this five-part series, which was based on Ackerman’s book A Natural History of
the Senses.
17
Joe Sartelle used “learned restriction” in the plural in “Fantasies of Straight Men: Some Thoughts about
Gays in the Military.” The March/April 1993 article (Issue 5) of Bad Subjects is at
http://bad.eserver.org/issues/1993/05/sartelle.html.
18
Garber uses the term “specialist” to refer to straight people and the term “generalist” to refer to bi people.
See Marjorie Garber, Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life, (Oxford, UK: Routledge, 2000), p.
309.
America, “big brother” is regarded with suspicion. The yearning for romantic
relationships is innate as well. But the type of relationships one chooses—such
as monogamy vs. polygamy—depends on the culture of one’s origin. Just as
one’s native language is learned during childhood, so are food preferences,
sexual orientation, musical tastes, ideologies, and romantic preferences. Like the
learning of a first language, habits are easily acquired during childhood. Like the
learning of a second language, habits are harder to modify in adulthood. But
possible to change old patterns are, for the cerebral cortex allows us to unlearn
limited childhood programming and permits us to learn new things. No longer
must we resign ourselves to the biases of postmodern culture if they are
maladaptive. Interracial marriage, for example, was banned in 16 states until
1967. That year, the Supreme Court ruled anti-miscegenation laws
unconstitutional (Loving v. Virginia). For decades now, interracial sex and
romance have been promoted on TV, in movies, in casual conversations, and
online. These days, everybody is dating interracially, and interracial marriage is
up. When and if bisexuality becomes hip, more and more straights will be going
bi. When and if polyamory catches on, more monogamists will be jumping on
the poly bandwagon as well. The cerebral cortex allows us to change our very
human nature when a new way of being becomes adaptive. That increases the
chances of human survival in a changing environment—be it a social
environment or a biological one.
The evolution of the human brain shows that we can cater to our reptilian
impulses. Or we can stress the limbic and rational aspects of our nature. As Carl
Sagan says in an episode of Cosmos, “Deep inside our brain is something rather
like the brain of a crocodile.” On the other hand, “Civilization is a product of the
cerebral cortex.”19
19
Cosmos, “The Persistence of Memory,” (Episode 11).
Becoming trans-instinctual means downplaying our reptilian side,

emphasizing our limbic part, and balancing our irrational nature with our
rational side. This will require will and discipline. But the salvation of our
species may well depend on which aspects of our nature we choose to stress.
Becoming trans-instinctual also means rising above social conditioning when
that programming inhibits our freedom to be anything we want. So long as we
don’t harm others intentionally, we can reinvent ourselves according to who we
want to be. What a departure from allowing society and upbringing to define
one’s self-image and the actions that ensue from one’s self-concept. We can, in
short, rewire our brains.
Different Types of Intelligence
It would be off mark to assume that we have one type of brain and one
type of nervous system. Biology books may show photographs of a single
human brain and human nervous system. But like a car make has different
models, so does the human brain and the nerves tied to it. Some brains and
nervous systems are those of musicians. Hence, composers, singers, and players
of musical instruments are said to have musical intelligence. Some people are
geniuses when it comes to physics. Others have mathematical intelligence. Yet
others have entrepreneurial intelligence. It all has to do with our having
different makes of brains and of nervous systems. Like different car models,
different people think, act, and even feel in specialized ways.
Everyone is a genius in some area. This genius is what one does best,
where one’s hearts is, and ultimately, what one was born to fulfill. Human
ingenuity means, however, that each of our brains must sacrifice space and
neural connections in other areas. Like different species, each of us has different
adaptations. Yet, in Rich Dad, Poor Dad, entrepreneur Robert Kiyosaki writes:
… as a teacher, I recognized that it was excessive fear and self-doubt

that were the greatest detractors of personal genius [emphases mine]. It
broke my heart to see students know the answers, yet lack the courage
to act on the answer [emphasis mine]. Often in the real world, it’s not the
smart that get ahead but the bold.20
Becoming trans-instinctual is about ignoring human instincts like fear—

not to be confused with caution—that no longer serve us. Becoming trans-
instinctual is also about paying attention to tendencies, human and spiritual, that
benefit us. An example is our intrinsic gifts. The world does not encourage this.
But with the global changes looming ahead (see epilogue), never has it been
more imperative for us to be and do what we are best at.
Different Types of Instincts
Our having different brain types and nervous systems relates to our
having different body types. Both affect the style of a person’s temperament.
Mesomorphs, for example, are the muscular type. Mesomorphs can’t sit still,
20
Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter, Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids about
Money—That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!, (New York: Warner Business Books, 1997), p. 110.
toss and turn all night, and “think with their muscles.” Endomorphs, on the
other hand, tend to be jovial, digest food slowly, and tend to have paunches.
Ectomorphs are thin and lean toward being brainy. But along with their
sedentary preferences, ectomorphs have trouble gaining muscle and tend to lose
energy quickly. Biological evolution has produced these three body types—and
the hybrids among them. Therefore, the challenges of reining certain impulses
will be different for different individuals. A jock may need to work at being less
aggressive, for instance, while a nerd may need to learn assertiveness. Some
people tend to be more nervous than others.
Part of becoming trans-instinctual is knowing one’s unique biology, body
type, and psychology. Then, we will be in a better position to overcome human
instincts that are no longer adaptive for us as individuals and for us as a species.
The Brain vs. The Heart
If we have a cerebral cortex, then why do most of us use—at most—a

mere 10 percent of it? Christiane Northrup, a physician, explained a major part
of the answer. In the PBS special Menopause & Beyond, Northrup said:
The heart has an electromagnetic field that is 60 times bigger than the
electromagnetic field of the brain [emphasis mine]. It is our hearts that are
our signatures [emphasis mine].21
21
Christiane Northrup, Menopause & Beyond: New Wisdom for Women aired on PBS on March 25, 2007.
Very appropriately, this segment of Northrup’s lecture was titled, “The heart
always wins.”22
Or the lack of heart. Paradoxically, the human brain—not the human
heart—is responsible for our technological civilization. Consider, for example,
the complexity of the turbofan engine. Mind-boggling is how the human brain
can learn to process aluminum, construct a jumbo airliner, and power its engines
on a runway. All of our technology derives from the human brain. What has
been lacking is heart. This is why, all too often, airplanes are used to bomb cities.
I am convinced that if humanity started to have a heart, then we would
automatically use more than 5 to 10 percent of the human brain. Connected, the
heart and brain may well affect each other’s “wiring” in a positive way.
In the movie Star Trek: Generations (1994), the android Lieutenant-
Commander Data (Brent Spiner) gets an “emotion chip.” At a deserted science
station in space, Dr. Tolian Soran (Malcolm McDowell) fires on Data and on
Lieutenant Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton). Then, Dr. Soran abducts La Forge
and beams over to a Klingon vessel with La Forge in his arms. At stellar
cartography, a special room of the Starship Enterprise, Data tells Captain Jean-
Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart):
I am finding it difficult to concentrate. I believe I am overwhelmed

with feelings of remorse and regret concerning my actions on the
observatory. I wanted to save Geordi. But I experienced something I did
not expect. Fear. I was afraid.
It is said that humans react in two ways when faced with stress or danger: fight
or flight. There is, however, a third possible reaction: freeze. In Generations, a
22
Ibid.
frozen Data can’t prevent Soran from abducting La Forge. Data, the brainy
android, becomes feeling-centered the instant he gets his emotion chip. At stellar
cartography, Data and Picard exchange the following words:
Data: Captain. I cannot continue with this investigation [of the explosion
of the Amargosa star]. I wish to be deactivated until Dr. Crusher
can remove the emotion chip.
Picard: Are you having some kind of malfunction?
Data: [ready to explode] No, sir. I simply do not have the ability to
control these emotions.
Picard: Data. I … I have nothing but sympathy for what you’re feeling.
But right now, I need you to—
Data: Sir! I no longer want these emotions. Deactivating me is the only

viable solution.
Picard: Part of having feelings is learning to integrate them into your life,
Data. Learning to live with them, no matter what the
circumstances.
Data: Sir, I cannot!
Picard: [grating voice] You will not be deactivated. You’re an officer on

board this ship, and I require you to perform your duty. That is
an order, commander.
Data: Yes, sir. I will try, sir.
Picard: Sometimes, it takes courage to try to [emphasis mine], and

courage can be an emotion, too.
As Generations progresses, Data integrates what could be called his android

heart with his positronic brain. Toward the end of the movie, Data tells
Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis):
At first, I was unprepared for the unpredictable nature of emotions.

However, having experienced 261 distinct emotional states, I believe I
have learned to control my feelings. They will no longer control me
[emphasis mine].
Data’s case may seem irrelevant to us non-androids. But many areas of

human life operate by irrationality, and irrationality stems from letting strong
emotions overrule human reason. This may be positive, as in someone having a
spiritual epiphany that defies human logic. But illogicality can also be negative,
as in the following:
1) Slaughtering people who are converts to another religion

(religious crusades)
2) Massacring other ethnic groups (ethnic cleansing)

3) Punching someone who does something offensive, even though

slugging another person may get one arrested and ruin one’s
record
4) Smoking for years, even though this causes lung cancer in the
long haul
5) Drinking lots of alcohol for decades, even though this leads to

cirrhosis (liver cancer)
6) Eating fatty foods, even though this contributes to obesity
7) Pursuing one’s romantic rival from Texas to Florida, as former

astronaut Lisa Nowak (notice the irony of her last name)
allegedly did, even though this is acting like a psychopath
8) Salivating for war, even though war is hell and in this age, can
kill just about every living thing on earth
In Empire of Debt, Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin, two financial writers,
elaborate on point number eight. Bonner and Wiggin contend:
War is rarely taken up with a cool head. And looking in the head for
reasons [for World War I] is as futile as looking for dignity on television.
A better place to look is in the heart [emphasis mine]. Once the mob’s
sentiment is roused for war, there is practically no stopping it. Mass
emotions—whether in the stock market or in war—are infectious

[emphasis mine]. In practically no time, the whole population clamors for
uniforms and murder.23
As Bonner and Wiggin write, President Woodrow Wilson dragged America into
the Great War (1914-1918) to “make the world safe for democracy.”24 The
authors continue that on Remembrance Day (Canada’s Veterans Day), the
Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) “… reminded readers, “ ‘to recall those
many Canadians who died protecting our liberty and our country.’ ”25 Bonner
and Wiggin go on:
Not even the maddest of the Wilsonians would have suggested

that North Americans’ liberty was at stake. The Huns were not going to
cross the Atlantic to attack New Brunswick or New York. What did the
Yanks and Canucks [Canadians] have at stake? Nothing at all. But people
find it easier to die than to think; and for most people, it is probably
preferable.26
Even in Europe, World War I made no sense. As Bonner and Wiggin point out in
Empire of Debt, “The rulers of Britain, Germany, and Russia were all related
[emphasis mine].”27 Even before the war started, the authors write, Germany’s
Reichsbank also projected that mobilizing against France would cost Germany
1,800 million marks. This was way above the 360 million marks that Germany
23
Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin, Empire of Debt: The Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis, (Hoboken, NJ:
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006), p. 113.
24
Ibid., p. 125. This quote of Woodrow Wilson’s is not in quotations on this page.
25
Ibid., p. 122.
26
Ibid.
27
Ibid., p. 112.
had saved in its war chest.28 On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire was assassinated—incidentally, by a bunch of teenage
boys. Historians cite this event as the immediate cause of World War I. The vast
majority of Americans didn’t care about Ferdinand’s death, however. So argue
Bonner and Wiggin. Yet, nearly half-a-million Americans died fighting in that
war.29
Volatile people are said to be hotheads. Like Data in Generations, these
people have let their fiery emotions take control of them. These feelings can be
rage, patriotism, fear, or greed. Hence, such individuals are better called
hothearts, for their hearts are what is driving their impulsiveness. Coolheads are
those humans who use their cerebral cortex before acting out their feelings. Most
of us have yet to become coolheads. As the TV screen on Christiane Northrup’s
stage put it, “The heart always wins.” Or the lack of heart.
On Menopause & Beyond, Christiane Northrup said, “It is our hearts that
are our signatures.” She continued:
All roads lead back to the heart. Dr. Wayne Dyer says, “When you ask
people to point to themselves, they point here [to the heart]. They don’t
point here [to the brain]. They point here [to the heart].”30
Thus, the heart reflects the spiritual evolution of an individual—and ultimately,

of a species. On planets whose inhabitants are more spiritually evolved than we,
their hearts are not into religious fanaticism, ethnic chauvinism, racial hatred,
gluttony, romantic obsessions, and war. The book trilogy Conversations with
God lays some of the principles by which such civilizations operate. Those
28
Ibid., p. 111.
29
Ibid., p. 106.
30
Northrup, Menopause and Beyond.
principles involve living by what works, as opposed to letting negative emotions

rule human life.31
In Menopause & Beyond, Christiane Northrup commented, “Midlife
wisdom is a fusion of the mind and the heart. It’s not one or the other. It’s
both/and.”32 Youth, not just older people, can also bring their hearts and minds
into balance.
The fusion of the heart and mind is, respectively, the union of the
feminine and the masculine. Western culture encourages females to be in tune
with their emotions (hearts) and males to be in tune with their intellects (minds).
A trans-instinctual society, however, is made up of males and females who have
mind and heart balanced within themselves. As The Nature of the Psyche says:
The overly specific sexual [meaning gender] orientation [male or female],

then, reflects a basic division in consciousness. It not only separates a man
from his own intuitions and emotions to some extent, or a woman from
her own intellect, but it effectively provides a civilization in which mind
and heart, fact and revelation, appear completely divorced. To some
degree each person is at war with the psyche, for all of an individual’s
human characteristics must be denied unless they fit in with those
considered normal to sexual [meaning gender] identity.33
The goal for those of us who seek to become trans-instinctual is to

integrate one’s heart (emotions) with one’s brain (thoughts), regardless of
whether or not this violates stereotypes about what makes a woman feminine
31
See Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 3, (Charlottesville,
VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc., 1998).
32
Northrup, Menopause and Beyond.
33
Jane Roberts, The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression, A Seth Book, (San Rafael, CA: Amber-
Allen Publishing, 1979), pgs. 80-81.
and a man masculine. Sometimes, we may wish to favor intuition (heart) over
intellect (brain)—or vice-versa. For example, Chapter 8 of Part II (section titled,
“Beyond the Flock”) shows instances in which the absence of facts (the rational
realm) requires that we go on gut instinct alone (the emotional realm). But
overall, becoming trans-instinctual means using our hearts and our brains—the
yin and the yang. This means not just paying attention to our thoughts but also,
becoming aware of what our hearts secretly long for. If our hearts yearn for
things in line with higher truth (e.g., peace, joy, and abundance), then no change
in our beingness is needed. If our hearts are into other things (e.g., conflict,
sadness, and scarcity), then we may want to try to elevate our hearts. This is the
conscious elevation of our lesser instincts.
The next chapter broaches the adaptive and maladaptive aspects of our
survival instinct in the context of postmodern living.
Exercise
Day to day, do you live more from your brain? From your heart? Or
does the answer depend on context? Write some examples or speak them
into a tape recorder. If necessary, can you integrate your brain and heart?
What do you think is required for this? What do you feel is required for
this?
2
The Survival Instinct
Ever since life first emerged on earth, physical survival has driven
biological evolution. The five senses and the sixth sense of the brain appeared
and transmuted to ensure material survival. Crying, breathing, laughing,
sneezing, yawning, gagging, and hiccupping became possible, as well as touch
inside the physical body. All of these are hidden ways of sensing, and biological
survival is not too far from those fruits of physical life. For example, laughing is
nature’s way of motivating us more to survive. Animal instincts emerged,
evolved, and stayed part of the psyche of organisms. Today, our impulse to
survive physically functions on an uneasy set of scales of adaptive and
maladaptive human tendencies.
In its better form, our instinct for physical survival leads to care for the
young, to altruism, and to group cohesion. In its worse form, our instinct for
biological survival can turn into apathy for the plight of others, paranoia,
xenophobia, overprotection of the young, mass hysteria, and even suicide.
How has our instinct to survive biologically—and even emotionally—
manifested in modern and postmodern times? How has fear and control played
into this?
The Face of Postmodern Survival
One morning, a man came to my New Hampshire apartment to put

insulation around my windows. After setting his equipment in one of my
bedrooms, he asked me, “What do you do for a living?” After I moved west, I
got acquainted with a woman who worked at the deli of a supermarket. One of
the first questions that she asked me was, “Do you work around here?” At the
cash register, another lady asked me, “Did you work today?” Another day, I
received a haircut from a blonde. Guess what she asked me. You guessed it
—“What do you do for a living?” One night, I ordered pizza at a pizza joint and
struck a conversation with a woman. Within a minute, she asked me, “What do
you do?” This is the mindset of much of the world. Americans, in particular, are
obsessed with work. In Florida, acquaintances would ask me, “Have you found
a job?” Each time, I told them that I was writing. My answer didn’t seem to
satisfy them, for then, they would ask me, “Are you making a living off it?” My
never having been hired at a “real” job makes such questions invasive for me.
Many cultures consider “What do you do?” to be the rudest of questions. This
includes the Japanese, one of the most industrious people in the world.
Even progressive TV shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation remain
stuck at the level of work from duty (second chakra of orange)—as opposed to
service from the heart (fourth chakra of green). In the episode “The Best of Both
Worlds,” for instance, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) is implanted
with machine parts and is converted to the Borg (a collective of cyborg-humans
that has no concept of I). The crew of the Starship Enterprise rescues Picard;
most of his Borg implants are removed; and he starts to become human again.
Within a few hours, Picard returns to work, never mind that:
1) Picard is still wearing Borg implants around the right side of his head.
2) It will take Picard several episodes to fully recover from having been
made to kill thousands of humans in outer space.34
Similarly, the Klingons capture Lieutenant Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) in the
movie Star Trek: Generations (1994). Aboard a Klingon starship, Dr. Tolian
Soran (Malcolm McDowell) removes La Forge’s viser (electromagnetic spectrum
glasses) and tortures La Forge psychologically. The same day that La Forge is
returned to the Enterprise, he is back at work on the engineering section of the
ship. In the Star Trek universe, vacations are rare, and when they come,
Enterprise officers have a hard time relaxing. In the Next Generation episode
“The Game,” for instance, Cadet Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) boards the
Enterprise during his school break from Starfleet Academy. At once, he is put to
work on a “Phoenix cluster survey.”35 In “Journey’s End,” Cadet Crusher boards
the Enterprise for another vacation. In Crusher’s quarters, the following
exchange takes place:
La Forge: So you’re just gonna lounge around while we all have work to
do around here?
Crusher: I’m sure I can find some time to help you, sir.
34
This is from the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) titled, “The Best of Both
Worlds.” The two-part episode originally aired in syndication on June 16, 1990—Part I—(Season 3,
episode 26) and September 22, 1990—Part II—(Season 4, episode 1).
35
Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Game.” This episode originally aired in syndication on October
26, 1991 (Season 5, episode 6).
La Forge: Nuh, Wes. Enjoy your vacation. I’m sure you’ve earned it
[emphasis mine].36
Before leaving Crusher’s quarters, La Forge adds, “Don’t sleep your whole
vacation away, alright?”37 In the Star Trek universe, leisure is a privilege, not a
right. Why do I bring up Star Trek? Because like film and most of television, this
program mirrors the society in which we live.
In general, Europeans work to live. In general, Americans live to work.
That Star Trek is an American production reflects the latter fact. The view in
much of the world, however, is that a human being’s worth is determined solely
by the value of his or her labor. People who refer to themselves as, say, writers,
actors, or singers go against the grain because they are defining themselves more
in terms of who they are, rather than what they do. Coming from the heart,
artists express themselves at their craft. In so doing, artists serve others.
Conversely, most people work for the money. Consider my telephone call to a
school district in New Hampshire. Having moved to the Pacific Northwest, I
was trying to find the title and editors of a textbook (see Part I, Chapter 3, section
titled, “White vs. Black”) that I recalled mentioned “red man” in quotes. My goal
was to cite that textbook in this book. I asked the school secretary if she could
remit this reference question to a teacher who taught in a classroom down the
hall from the main office. I told the secretary that I had substituted in that
classroom—where I skimmed over the textbook—in 2005.
“I’m busy right now,” the woman replied. “You’re going to have to email
the principal.” Then, she hung up on me.
36
Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Journey’s End.” This episode originally aired in syndication on March
37
Ibid.
I emailed the principal, but she never replied. This is the face of work
when it is done for money. Like dough, work becomes cold, impersonal, rushed,
and mediocre. Service is not rendered.
Years ago, I part-timed at a public library. At the front counter, library
employees would check library materials in and out for patrons. I specifically
remember a Russian lady who was an otherwise kind woman. But many times,
she brushed off questions that I had about library procedures. I wasn’t even
making small talk. Books, cassettes, videos, CDs, and DVDs, however, were
more important to her than I was. The Russian woman handled those objects
with such care, but her words and demeanor toward me were anything but
loving. In her presence, I felt less valuable than pieces of paper and magnetic
tape. Human life itself takes a back seat to money and work when work is done
for physical survival, rather than from the heart and to serve. The very word
survive can be split into sur and vive. In Spanish, sur means south, and vive
means live. Therefore, survive means “south of living,” as in below living. One
just exists.
Human survival doesn’t have to be just physical. It can be emotional
survival as well. I knew a woman, for example, who lived alone for many years.
She had three part-time jobs. Not surprisingly, the middle-aged lady was almost
never home. Like alcoholism, workaholism is a way to escape from problems. In
the case of the middle-aged woman, I surmise that her three jobs was her way of
avoiding loneliness at home. The broad didn’t work for money because she had
hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank.
In postmodern society (1945-present), the isolation of individuals starts in
childhood with siblings being forced to sleep alone in separate bedrooms. The
increasing isolation of minors and adults has led to an epidemic of loneliness (see
Part II, Chapter 10, section titled, “Being Irrelevant … and Not Understood”). As
another pandemic in the postindustrial world, workaholism reflects the epidemic

of loneliness.
Work—not spiritual expression—is so entrenched in Western culture that
kids are no longer allowed to have a childhood. From kindergarten on, children
are being told, “You have to start thinking about who you want to be when you
grow up.” In secondary school, standardized tests (e.g., “No Child Left Behind”)
are the norm—not discovering and perfecting one’s inborn talents. Learning
“high-tech skills for a global economy” has become the be all and end all of
human life, never mind that most high-tech jobs are going overseas in the name
of profit. This is living to serve an antilife entity called “globalization,” rather
than to express our hearts. Our instinct to survive biologically keeps us from
doing what we were born to do. The economic system, in turn, punishes those of
us who major, say, in archeology instead of business. As a female professor at a
community college told me, “Writing a book for pleasure is a luxury I don’t have
[emphasis mine].” That is the old paradigm of working for physical survival.
Before the 20th century, work was about producing. The first goal of work
was to make and keep one’s family self-sufficient. A common way was to make
soap and candles at home, knit sweaters there, and grow food outside the house.
The second goal of work was to serve one’s local community. In the 19th century,
learning and perfecting a craft was the nature of apprenticeship and
employment. One’s training and craftsmanship brought a certain degree of
psychological intimacy with many people—one’s trainer and the local people
whom one served. Craftsmen had skills that were highly individualized. It took
decades to master one’s craft. Consequently, lifelong relationships were forged
—as in between master and apprentice—and one developed a unique sense of
one’s professional self. A furniture maker, for example, could make rocking
chairs that were one of a kind, rather than from a pre-packaged method that a
corporation ordered. A shoemaker could see his product worn in the local
community. Professional skills were personally rewarding. From this, human
life took special meaning.
Ever since the assembly line came into being, however, work has been
done in a “one method fits all” manner. Nowadays, the goal of work is not to
use one’s inborn talents to serve the local community (e.g., the shoemaker) but
rather, to:
1) Increase a bunch of numbers in one’s bank account

2) Buy consumer products
3) Make one’s employer profits
Even family comes second—and children suffer the most.

A trans-instinctual person works first, for Self-expression (the expression
of one’s spirit) and second, for the sake of others. For such a being, money is a
bonus—not the ends—of work, for the ends ultimately become the means. Many
trans-instinctual people have to labor at something that is unrelated to their
talents because that is what pays the bills in this day and age. Labor isn’t called
labor for nothing, and employment is often referred to as “doing one’s time
before retirement.”
Giving and serving sound easy on paper. In “the real world,” however,
even the heavens often make serving a difficult task. Sometimes, giving becomes
next to impossible, even if one has innate talents to give. Brahma (the god of this
physical universe and of the corresponding afterlife) loves to test people. I, for
example, wanted to give this book to the world. Serving humanity via the use of
my inborn talents was my intention. But the heavens put obstacle after obstacle
in my way. For three years, I visualized this tome in bookstores and visualized
myself presenting to audiences. I also submitted an impeccable book proposal to

literary agents and to book publishers. My query letters got some 70 rejection
letters. On April 22, 2009 (Earth Day), I went into a frenzy of rage, then sank into
my single bed without a trace of energy. Alone, I had to pick myself up. For me,
this was a test of faith and a test in never, ever giving up. The expression “trip
me up” means that a person or a situation tries to cause one to trip. One trips
(the test) so one can get back up (evolve).
Trans-instinctual people never give up their dreams, though, for such
individuals know that when one does what one does best, money ensues, sooner
or later. The global economy, of course, does not encourage us to follow our
calling. Nonetheless, trans-instinctual humans study and do what they do best.
If circumstances make them do something else, then trans-instinctual people still
choose to look at their work as service, for that is what it is. Bills may be the
biggest of psychic whips. But trans-instinctual people see their paychecks not as
money being sucked by bills, but rather, as biweekly opportunities to contribute
to the global economy. After all, if nobody spent anything, money would stop
circulating. Nothing is pleasant in such a society. The ideal, of course, would be
for a gift economy to replace the market economy (see section titled, “Money” in
this chapter). After hours, trans-instinctual humans continue to pursue their
calling. With God as their Employer, biological survival disappears as a
motivation for them. Such people just are, and their doing springs from this.
The Politics of Survival
Politics is the process of deciding who gets what, when, where, how, and
even why—or for simplicity, the process of deciding who gets what. Human
survival is always at stake in politics, sometimes more prominently, other times,
less so. We tend to think that human survival is only about doing what we can
to stay alive. But human survival is often about doing nothing—that is, when
the physical survival of people unrelated to us is at stake.
When “gay cancer” first appeared in the United States in the summer of
1981, the straight press didn’t report it. That well-known syndrome that we
know about today was termed Gay Related Immune Deficiency (GRID). Because
the physical survival of the majority was not under threat, the straight press
neglected GRID. The gay press did no better. It disregarded stories of
“poppers” (toxic aphrodisiacs) being a possible cause of immune deficiency.
Why? Because nitrite ads (ads for poppers) funded over half of the gay press at
that time. By the mid-1980s, the 80 U.S. cases of Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome (AIDS) had spiraled into the tens of thousands.38 Still, President
Ronald Reagan refused to say “AIDS” in public. “Deport Gays” signs appeared,
in turn, at mass rallies in “liberal” towns like New York City. Government
agencies refused to help, and the gay community was forced to form grassroots
organizations that catered to AIDS patients. Not until 20,849 Americans had
officially died of AIDS did the president address this health crisis to the nation.39
The year was 1987, way into Reagan’s second term of office and almost seven
years after the epidemic began.40 And this was the 1980s, not the 1950s.
In the mid-1980s, 1 out of 4 men with Human Immunodeficiency Virus
(HIV) was African American or Latino, according to Charles Nero of Bates
College. In the video Off the Straight and Narrow (1999), Nero comments, “If
38
These statistics come from the movie And the Band Played On (TV; 1993).
39
This is according to the online article by Allen White titled, “Reagan’s AIDS Legacy, Silence Equals
Death,” San Francisco Chronicle, Open Forum, Tuesday, June 8, 2004. The article can be found at
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/06/08/EDG777163F1.DTL.
40
In 1985, Ronald Reagan answered a reporter’s question about AIDS. Of his own initiative, however,
Reagan didn’t broach the issue until 1987.
you had watched either film or television dramas about AIDS, you would not
know that.41 As C.A. Griffith narrates:
More sympathetic portrayals of gay men with AIDS tended to be set

almost exclusively in white, upper middle class families. This made it
difficult to see the real diversity of people with AIDS.42
Biological survival and fear of physical death are different sides of the
same coin. Some people even argue that every human endeavor is motivated, at
some level, by the fear of physical death. The problem with this fear is that it can
turn into xenophobia. I define xenophobia as hatred toward outsiders—not to be
confused with legitimate concerns about preserving one’s group. With
xenophobia, people deemed a threat to the physical survival of a group become
scapegoats, and in extreme cases, victims of genocide. Examples of the latter are
the Nazi concentration camps, “civil” wars in Africa, and guerilla wars in Central
America. Survival of the fittest may lead to “better genes” surviving. But it also
leads to might makes right and to the atrocities associated with that. Just as
dangerous, the imposition of a single set of values (e.g., “My group is superior to
your group”) leads to the homogenization of this planet. How? Through the
extermination of rival groups. As we are slowly learning, homogenization
threatens the very basis upon which biological evolution is founded—diversity
of life on earth.
41
Off the Straight and Narrow: Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals & Television, “Under the Skin: The AIDS
Crisis.”
42
Ibid.
The Morphing of Survival
In an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Admiral Nora Satie (Jean
Simmons) boards the Enterprise to investigate a mysterious explosion in the
engine room of the starship. Satie learns that a Klingon named J’Dan (Henry
Woronicz) transferred files off Enterprise computers via a syringe encoded with
“amino acid sequences.”43 This was so that “the information would be carried in
… [the injectee’s] bloodstream … ”44 Satie also learns that a half-Vulcan (Spencer
Garrett) lied about his Romulan ancestry in his application to Starfleet Academy.
Satie sees a conspiracy onboard the Enterprise. She and her two aides (Bruce
French and Ann Shea) begin a public hearing in the ship’s interrogation room.
The hearing snowballs into an inquest. The Enterprise crew discovers that the
explosion was an accident. Satie is not satisfied. She continues to suspect
sabotage. In the conference lounge of the Enterprise, the following exchange
takes place between Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Lieutenant
Worf (Michael Dorn):
Picard: Do you see what is happening here, Mr. Worf?
Worf: Sir.
Picard: This is not unlike a … a drumhead trial.
Worf: I do not understand.
43
Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Drumhead.” This episode originally aired in syndication on April
44
Ibid.
Picard: Five hundred years ago, military officers would upend a drum on
the battlefield. They’d sit at it and dispense summary justice.
Decisions were quick. Punishment severe. Appeals denied.
Those who came to a drumhead were doomed.
Worf: But we know there is a traitor here. J’Dan has admitted his guilt.
Picard: That’s true, and he will stand for his crime.45
A minute or so later, the scene continues:
Worf: Sir. The Federation does have enemies. We must seek

them out!
Picard: Oh, yes. That’s how it starts. But the road from legitimate
suspicion to rampant paranoia is very much shorter than we
think. Something is wrong here, Mr. Worf. I don’t like what we
have become.46
What led to the witch trial? Satie’s concern for the survival of the Federation. As
Admiral Satie tells Captain Picard earlier in the episode:
… the United Federation of Planets is the most remarkable institution ever

conceived, and it is my cause to make sure that this extraordinary union
be preserved.47
45
Ibid.
46
Ibid.
47
Ibid.
Much as Nora Satie fought to protect the Federation, mothers will do

anything to protect their offspring. The love of a mother for her child is, of
course, the closet thing to God’s unconditional Love. In the eyes of a mother, her
son or daughter is part of her. The larger society also helps to protect the young.
This arrangement is, undoubtedly, one of our adaptive human instincts, as it
insures the biological survival of the younger generation.
Oftentimes, however, protection of the young turns into overprotection.
A mother, for instance, may not let her adolescent girl walk home from school
out of fear of a man kidnapping her child. If a stranger smiles at her boy, a
mother may overreact, as does the mom in the film X-Men (2000) to the well-
intentioned grin of Cyclops (James Marsden) at a train station. Since 1980, both
news and entertainment media have focused on child sexual abuse, ignoring
child poverty, lack of health insurance for 12 million American children, and the
physical and emotional abuse of kids. The sensationalism of the mass media has
made parents especially vulnerable to social panics that relate to youth.48 Rather
than concede that most child abuse—physical, sexual, and emotional—is
perpetrated by men and women within the nuclear family, postmodern
civilization is instead intent on finding scapegoats. One of the black sheep is
gays as “child molesters.” The moral panic over the sexual abuse of children—to
the exclusion of the myriad other abuses that kids are subjected to—began with
Anita Bryant’s Save Our Children campaign of 1977. That campaign targeted
gays as monsters who preyed on minors. It set the mood for the conservative
backlash of the post-1980 era. And it marked the beginning of a child sex abuse
48
Sociologist Stanley Cohen coined the phrase moral panic in 1972. For his theory of how moral panics
develop, see Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics: Creation of Mods and Rockers, (London: Mac Gibbon
and Kee, 1972).
“hysteria” (the words of Camille Paglia, a libertarian feminist).49 This hysteria

has not even peaked. As happened during the Salem Witch Trials and during
McCarthyism, innocent citizens have lost their jobs, been targeted by mobs, and
gone to jail in the fallout. We are reaching the point where no man—not even
boys of the respectable bourgeoisie—is safe from accusations of child sexual
abuse. When everyone becomes suspect of whatever deviousness a society
condemns, that is the moment when, historically, a given mass panic passes at
last. This passing away of a social panic occurred during the Salem witch-hunts
and MacCarthyism. Until we reach the stage when accusations make life
impossible for all, feminists, legislators, laypeople, and even non-fundamentalist
ministers will continue to call for castration of offending men to be used as a
deterrent of child-adult sex. Western civilization has learned nothing from what
happened in the Germany of the 1930s. Meanwhile, children will continue to be
emotionally abused by the tactics of child protection agencies. An example is
suspicious agents hauling kids away from parents in the middle of the night.
The child sex abuse panic of the post-1980 period is, perhaps, the best illustration
of the morphing of human survival. Certainly, children must be protected from
all kinds of abuse. But the protection of minors from men exclusively is being
done less for kids and more for two reasons. These are:
1) To avoid looking at how postmodern society—not just “dirty old

men”—abuses minors by denying them real-life mentors, proper
rites of initiation, and basic human freedoms.
49
In one of her columns at Salon online, Camille Paglia used “hysteria” in reference to the day-care panic
of the early 1990s. See Camille Paglia, “Why We Leer at JonBenet,” Salon, Ask Camille, September 1997.
This column is at http://www.salon.com/sept97/columnists/paglia970930.html.
2) To advance the careers of politicians, psychologists, psychiatrists,

feminists, and ministers, for practically everyone supports any
public figure who talks about “protecting children.”
In fact, a whole child abuse industry is firmly in place.

Not only can the instinct to survive physically—and emotionally—lead to
fear-based reactions. It can also lead to suicide. Oftentimes, suicide is about
biological and/or emotional survival, being a way to “survive” an ordeal, real or
imagined, by preventing a person from having to go through it. Spies, for
example, often carry “suicide pills” in case they are captured in enemy territory.
This is especially true during war. People about to be shamed often kill
themselves to keep their emotional selves from being crushed. For instance,
baseball hopefuls from Latin America leave their home countries in high
prestige. If these hopefuls make it in the major leagues, then their family honor
soars. If they don’t make it, however, suicide can result. Even if these would-be
pros continue to live, seldom do they return to their home countries, for the
family shame of not having made it is too much to bear. In such cases, these
have-beens stay in exile and experience a social death instead.
In this global village, people are apathetic toward the physical and
emotional survival of others unless they are family or close friends. The motto of
instinctual humans is: “Save yourself if you can.” But as Amy Goodman, the
broadcast journalist, paraphrased to an auditorium of graduating college seniors:
First, they came for the communists. I wasn’t a communist, so I didn’t

stand up. Then, they came for the socialists. I wasn’t a socialist, so I
didn’t stand up. Then, they came for the trade unionists. I wasn’t a trade
unionist, so I didn’t stand up. Then, they came for the Jews. I wasn’t a
Jew, so I didn’t stand up. Then, they came for the Catholics. I wasn’t a
Catholic, so I didn’t stand up. And then, they came for me, and there was
no one left to stand up.50
Goodman concluded, “We must stand up for each other. It saves lives.”51
Goodman, by the way, personifies the archetype of nun. She is a nun outside a
convent.
We can choose to care about the biological and psychic survival of others.
Examples are donating more to charity and volunteering at a homeless shelter.
Then, we will have a better chance—although not guaranteed—of others caring
about us. Good deeds tend to create a ripple of good deeds.
Money
One afternoon, I telephoned a man for information about his experience

doing spirit retrieval. He informed me, and I told him about my spiritual
situation. Before I knew it, he told me to visualize the boy in me forgiving a man
who was abusing me psychically. The experience was beyond sacred. Then, the
Alaska native said, “Are you ready to pay me $125 so we can make this an even
exchange of energy?” I agreed to pay him $50 since we had not discussed money
for this information call. But when the man started to talk to me in terms of
credit card payments, the sacred experience of healing the boy in me felt trashed.
50
There are different versions of this quote. The original quote is attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller,
who wrote it after World War II. Amy Goodman voiced her version of the quote on the Cable-Satellite
Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN). Goodman spoke at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts on
May 22, 2004, and her lecture aired on C-SPAN later that day. See American Perspectives, “Amy
Goodman, Pacifica Radio’s ‘Democracy Now’ Host & Executive Producer.”
51
Ibid.
This is why some people refuse to charge money for spiritual work. Moreover,
all work on this planet is spiritual work—even janitorial work. The exchange
between the man and me could have been equalized without money. For
example, we could have agreed that I would lend an ear to someone in need in
the future. I would have passed on his priceless gift to another person.
Another incident taught me about the sin of money. Standing by my
kitchen counter, I asked my spirit guides why pornography is supposed to be
“bad.” Soon after, my eyes landed on a calculator. See if you can read the
answer on the calculator below.
52
If you spotted the answer, congratulations. You are on your way to becoming a
spiritual detective. If you didn’t spot the answer, then read this: SIN, COS,
52
This picture comes from google images. The URL is
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&rlz=1W1GGLL_en&um=1&q=Texas+Instrument+calculator&sa
=N&start=20&ndsp=20and https://www.ezorderschoolsupplies.com/images/Calculator%20-
%20Texas%20Instrument%20TI-30Xa.JPG.
DRG. Do you get it now? Porn, I learned from the calculator, is “A sin because I
am taking a drug.” I am getting high from a type of drug called pornography.
Drugs tempt one to overdose, and overdoses violate the sanctity of the human
body and psyche. What has this got to do with dollars and cents?
Like prostitutes, porn models are selling a priceless thing—the human
body—for money. This cheapens what is sacred. Chattel slavery was a sin
(missing the mark of enlightenment) for similar reasons. What was priceless—
the physical bodies of Africans—was sold for a price in the “New” World. This
is why chattel slavery was so dehumanizing. So is wage slavery and contract-
based work. Whether on stage or in movies, for example, actors and actresses
sell their human bodies and their spiritual talent. Both have infinite value. Yet,
both get reduced to a dollar amount whenever the artists involved become
“employed.” Milk, bread, butter, and meat are priceless, too. When
supermarkets sell them for a few dollars, they denigrate the sacredness of food.
This does not mean that one can never eat. Rather, one is infinitely grateful for
what has infinite worth. Erotica in books and on DVD at the public library is
also high consciousness, divine guidance told me, because learning about human
sexuality is beautiful. So is learning about animal sexuality. Viewing sex on film
is alright, divine guidance told me, so long as money is left out of the equation,
so long as one does not get addicted, and so long as this is kept as private as
possible. Sex, whether one-on-one or with a group, is meant to be private.
Money, however, brings sex into the public arena.
Caroline Myss, the medical intuitive, speaks about charging high prices in
terms of having enough “self-esteem” to know the value of one’s work.53 Myss is
speaking from a human perspective. From a spiritual perspective, one can
charge trillions of dollars for, say, a session of Reiki (a Japanese form of energy
53
Refer to Caroline Myss, Self-Esteem: Your Fundamental Power. This is a 2002 lecture series on CD,
available from Sounds True, Boulder, Colorado.
work), and it still would not be a high enough price. No matter how much one
charges for one’s products or services to show “self-esteem,” one will always
degrade the value of one’s talents by reducing their pricelessness to a dollar
amount. Selling one’s talents is inherently demeaning because, originating in the
spirit realm, talent is priceless. Selling one’s human body or talents—or even
renting them in the workplace—is as much a “sin” as selling one’s spirit. This is
because the spirit and soul are priceless. Beyond priceless. To sell one’s inner
diamonds is not to know the value of this infinite treasure, for if one knew, one
could never do this unless forced to. This book, for example, is priceless not just
because my abilities as a writer are priceless but also, because I spent more hours
creating this tome than can ever even begin to be quantified. For three years, I
visualized my priceless product selling for a dollar amount because money exists
in this world as a necessary evil. Without money, I would end up homeless. In
this sense, money is a blessing that I am grateful for—but only because I exist in
a world where everything has been reduced to a price. If money were to begin to
do justice to what is beyond price—and it can never come even close—then the
price of everything would skyrocket forever. Wages would have to increase ad
infinitum so people could afford priceless food, priceless clothes, priceless
housing, priceless telephone service, and priceless movies. These things are truly
infinite in value. From a spiritual perspective, things aren’t expensive at all.
They are too cheap!
In Self-Esteem: Your Fundamental Power, Carolyn Myss lectures about a
rosary at Tiffany’s that was priced at $1,500.54 From a human perspective, this
price is so exorbitant that it borders on the ridiculous. From a spiritual
perspective, this exorbitant price isn’t high enough. Even at $1 million, the
rosary that Myss mentioned would not even be 1 percent of its infinite value.
54
Ibid.
Health care—or should I call it disease care—is priceless. So is being propelled

above the clouds inside an aluminum bullet, for this is an experience that 99.9
percent of humanity has never had in the entire history of hominids. To be
charged $400 for a plane ticket reduces a priceless experience to the gutter. An
automobile has infinite worth, regardless of whether it is new or beat up. Each
set of wheels is priceless in a different way. One tin box provides one experience
of transportation (the new car experience), and another tin box provides another
experience of transportation (the used car experience). Both experiences have
infinite worth, however, as well as both types of cars. Why? Because if a jalopy
were found on Mars, that beat up car would have infinite value. Its pricelessness
would come from the fact that it would indicate extraterrestrial intelligence. In
this context, even a bobby pin is priceless. If the Mars rover were to find a bobby
pin on the red planet, for instance, that insignificant pin would be priceless, for it
would indicate the presence of aliens on Mars. We need to value human jalopies
and human bobby pins as much as we would value extraterrestrial jalopies and
extraterrestrial bobby pins. Anyone who buys anything for any dollar amount—
no matter how low or high—is lowering what has infinite worth to a finite price.
This is a form of degradation, for every atom in the physical universe is infinite
in value. Why is everything priceless in different ways? Because as a poster said
in the South Bronx in the 1980s, “God makes no junk.” To see everything as
“extraterrestrial” is to view everything as priceless.
To the Wampanoag Indians of Massachusetts, land, plants, and animals
were priceless. This was because the natives saw nature as part of them. In New
England, Mother Nature was not for sale—that is, until the European mindset
corrupted the worldview of the Wampanoag Indians. The Puritans, on the
contrary, saw land, crops, and cattle as commodities.55 There may well be a
55
See We Shall Remain, “After the Mayflower,” Episode 1. This documentary premiered on PBS on April
13, 2009.
relationship between this and the Puritan work ethic. The commoditization of
America began elsewhere, too. In the Georgia Appalachians of the 1600s, for
instance, many species of deer roamed freely. Once a market for deer furs
developed in Europe, however, Europeans introduced guns to the Cherokee
Indians, and the natives hunted the deer to extinction.56 Not just species were
exterminated for the almighty dollar. Entire chunks of continents were bought
and sold like houses. The United States didn’t just buy Louisiana from the
French in 1803—a $15 million purchase of territory that ran from the Gulf of
Mexico to the Canadian border. In 1867, William Seward, Secretary of State
under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, arranged for the U.S. to buy
Alaska from Russia as well. Alaska, a priceless part of planet Earth, was bought
for a paltry $7,200,000. This was some 2 cents per acre. The incomprehensible
irony is that Seward opposed plantation slavery—an institution that sold the
priceless human body for a price. Yet, Seward had no problem with the U.S.
buying another priceless asset—Alaska—for a dollar amount. Humans are truly
complex. In our Westernized world, the moon, Mars, and even the sun itself
would be for sale if governments and corporations could heap profits from them.
In highly spiritual realms, money does not exist. Why not? Because
money reduces the priceless—that is to say, the sacred—to a human price. Since
spiritually advanced beings perceive everything as sacred, nothing is for sale in
such realms. Nothing. How, then, do such inhabitants “make a living?” No one
has to because in such planes of existence, everybody works for free. Nothing is
free, of course, not even in highly advanced worlds. Things there are just free of
monetary value. The joy of work comes from engaging one’s talents and serving
others as a result. Psychic rewards—not monetary rewards—drive the beings of
such places. When money gets injected into the equation, however, one has to
56
See Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People, “Time and Terrain,” Episode 1. This documentary
premiered on PBS on April 9, 2009.
start making money because one has to start paying for things with money. The
more things cost monetarily, the more dollars one has to make. This is a vicious
cycle, and it corrupts even the most spiritually aware person. One prostitutes
oneself, working in order to get infused with biweekly lumps of money. This is
much as drug addicts will do anything to get their next high. Just like money
runs out, the heroin or cocaine high never lasts. One must always seek more. As
the song goes, “You’re a slave to money, then you die.”57 Without money, you
can’t live, just like without cocaine, a cocaine addict cannot live. On the issue of
money, most New Agers are false prophets because they glorify money (a tool
that devalues the priceless). The philosophy of these spiritual materialists is
called, “The Gospel of Wealth.” Its mantra is “love money.” This mantra might
as well be, “Love slaveholding, and the more slaves you have, the better.”
Money is honey only in a world that puts the sacred for sale.
In a trans-instinctual society, a person provides his or her talents for free
and gets goods and services for free. Again, by free, I mean free of monetary
value. This free-dom (realm of being free) exists because individuals are seen as
priceless entities, deserving of priceless things for free. The presence of one
individual is enough “payment” for material things to be given to him or her. As
children of Brahma—the creator of this universe—we deserve the very best that
life has to offer. We should not have to hand over greenbacks or credit cards for
it. That we exist as both humans and spiritual beings is enough to give us the
right to claim material things and earthly services. This is the mode of
consciousness of trans-instinctual beings. On highly spiritual spheres, for
example, the mere presence of a person in need of a refrigerator is enough for the
manufacturer to give it to him or her free of a money tag. The individual has
57
The Verve, “Bittersweet Symphony.” This song is in the CD titled, Urban Hymns. The CD came out on
September 30, 1997. Label: Virgin Records Us.
paid for the fridge with his or her pricelessness—and the agreement that such a
person will provide his or her priceless talents and/or products for free as well.
In this world, by contrast, people are viewed as worthless. If you walk
into a department store and want or need a refrigerator, for example, your
money is what matters—not your individual worth. At restaurants, waiters and
waitresses tend to get impatient after one finishes one’s meal. One is occupying
a booth that needs to be warmed by customers with fresh money. The Mona
Lisa, the 16th century painting by Leonardo da Vinci, was bought in 1962 for $100
million—$700 million in 2009 adjusted for inflation. If Mona Lisa were flesh and
blood, homeless, and showed up in a rental office to rent an apartment, her
presence alone would pay for shelter. Yet, a real homeless person cannot get any
landlord to house him or her. Why not? Because in the eyes of society, he or she
is worthless—unless the individual possesses money. The Mona Lisa, a lifeless
painting, is “worth” $700 million to humans, but a human being is “worth” $0 to
other people. That is why nobody will give you anything without cash or a
credit card. In the eyes of the world, you are worthless. Your money is what has
value. This was the setup of chattel slavery. The worthlessness of the human
being is the underlying premise of the money system. This mindset pollutes the
human spirit. When checks, greenbacks, and credit cards talk over and over, the
worthlessness of the individual becomes a subliminal message. Why subliminal?
Because we turn blind to what becomes common. Street drugs are illegal
because they harm the human body. Money, however, has not been made
illegal, even though it negates the worth of the individual. Human society is
truly beyond comprehension.
If chattel slavery was abolished to end the degradation of human beings,
then wage slavery and money itself can be abolished also. Americans need to
celebrate Abraham Lincoln less and need instead to recognize that other forms of
slavery are still with us. Just like abolitionists began the Liberty Party—the first
abolitionist party in America—in the 1830s, we need neo-abolitionists to start a
Party of Liberty. This party would espouse freedom from enslavement to
money. If there is a campaign for a drug-free America, then there can be a
campaign for a money-free America. We can start by commemorating a Spend
No Money Day (see the sixth exercise at the end of this chapter). See how many
days you—or your children—can go without spending money. You may be
surprised at what you learn about yourself. This would be the equivalent of
fasting for spiritual reasons. From a human perspective, abolishing money is
“utopian.” From a spiritual perspective, it is practical, especially given the
coming of a post-carbon world (see epilogue). So long as money exists, there will
be poverty, and any realm that permits material poverty is spiritually
impoverished. Eventually, the spiritual impoverishment of that society will
become physically manifested for everybody. This is why if one person is
homeless, every member of that society is homeless too.
Whether plantation slavery or wage slavery, slavery is not a human
creation. Rather, slavery is a human replication of a blueprint that exists in the
dark realms of the spirit world. This blueprint is the archetype of slavery.
Humans are merely servants of the forces of darkness, with a minority of us
being servants of the forces of light. Even “spiritually conscious” gurus who
preach the Gospel of Wealth are serving Lucifer—at least in the area of money.
They are serving the dark much like slaveholders defended plantation slavery as
a moral good. Why did John Brown fail at Harper’s Ferry in 1859? As a spirit
guide of mine told me, John Brown failed because dark forces worked overtime
to prevent his success in freeing slaves across the South. All of us are at the
mercy of forces that want to keep humanity enslaved to all sorts of things.
Awareness of this is the first step toward becoming free. So far, however, the
financially wealthy worship money (the forced heroin of human society) as

“abundance.” In reality, the wealthy are promoting drug addiction, a form of
slavery. Nobody is financially independent, for even the rich cannot get
anything without passing the drugs. Everybody is addicted to money because
money forces addiction. In this context, there is no such thing as “financial
freedom.” At best, we can be temporarily free of debt. But since the global
economy is more unstable than ever, even the “financially secure” are vulnerable
to bankruptcy. This will be so as long as money makes the world go round. Any
place where commercial transactions happen is a type of slave market, a place
where wealthy slaves (to money) and poor slaves (to money) go to buy
commodities or to rent services.
In a trans-instinctual milieu, cabinetmakers make cabinets for the love of
the craft and give them away for free. Architects and construction workers build
houses for the love of it, then release the houses to organizations that provide
free housing. Farmers grow crops for the love of it and give their surplus food
for free. Healers heal others for the love of humanity, for free. This is called “a
gift economy.” What we call consumers get the goods and services that they
need on a first-come, first-serve basis. Waiting lists (or waiting in line) are very
appropriate for this. This world approaches a gift economy in the areas of blood
donations (typically given freely), organ donations (typically given freely),
parents raising their children (no monetary compensation), public schools, public
libraries, fire departments, police precincts, museums, and free food and drinks
at parties. In realms where money does not exist, barter is used sometimes, for in
barter, a person gives one priceless thing for another priceless thing. Nothing
gets sold or rented—and thus, cheapened—just exchanged. Barter, however, is
used sparingly because the idea of barter is quid pro quo. You scratch my back.
I scratch your back. That is not unconditional giving. True unconditional giving
is where the favor or gift is returned not to the same person but rather, to another
person. In such worlds, no business is driven out of business because all
businesses provide goods and services free of monetary charges. And businesses
aren’t charged either. All “employment” there is volunteer work, and it comes
from the heart (spirit) of each individual. One pays for the free things of society
by providing one’s talents and/or products without charging customers and
without asking for wages. There will always be people who take and give
nothing back. But most beings—physical and nonphysical—need to feel useful,
or they would be bored to tears. As we can imagine, only beings that practice
unconditional Love could create and live in a system where everything is free of
monetary value.
In a society where people work for free and get things for free, there is far
less stuff around and far less use of natural resources. Why? Because denizens
of such realms only make what their hearts desire—as opposed to what profit
dictates. Serving from the heart and with one’s whole mind is like printing
money that is backed only by gold and silver. Gold and silver are hard to find
and to mine. Thus, gold and silver are always limited in supply. When a
country gets off the gold standard, however, it can print money without limit,
spend it, and go into dangerous amounts of debt. Karmic debt is created when a
people abuse natural resources in the name of profit. A society that makes
trinkets nonstop for money creates worthless trinkets—worthless from
oversupply. Down the road, currency that is not backed by gold and silver
becomes worthless as well. To serve from the heart and to make consumer
goods from the spirit is to get back on the gold standard. The heart/spirit is the
gold—and the mind is the silver. This is fiscal conservatism of a karmic nature.
The “Free” North vs. The Slave South
History textbooks teach that the “free” North won the American “Civil”
War (1861-1865) against the slave South. From the North’s perspective, the
(Un)Civil War began to preserve the Union, while from the South’s perspective,
the “Civil” War was the War for Southern Independence. The horrifying
casualties, however, altered the war’s goal in the North to a broader purpose:
ending plantation slavery in the seceded states. Chattel slavery was abolished in
December 1865. But the Northern version, called wage slavery, emerged
victorious. Wage slavery (renting oneself instead of being sold) spread west and
eventually, south. Before the “Civil” War, the so-called free peoples of the North
spoke about wage slavery as being, at most, a little better than the Southern
version. Public debates were held on this question across the North. Many
thinkers wrote about the differences between the Northern and Southern
versions of a system of human domination. This umbrella system—under which
Southern slavery and Northern serfdom existed—forced millions of human
beings to be cogs in a machine from sunup to sundown for little pay (the North)
or for no pay (the South).
In the 21st century, serfdom persists like a flu that won’t go away.
Southern slavery was abolished in the (Re)United States. But Northern serfdom
continues to this day. Unlike slaves, however, serfs have some rights. For
example, serfs have the right to bear arms. Also, serfs are split into classes to a
greater extent than slaves on a plantation. Given the better lot of serfs over
slaves, it becomes easy to overlook the true nature of work in the postmodern
age.
The lash of bills ties 80 percent of humanity to meaningless jobs.

Globalization demands tons of laborers who will work, work, work for less, less,
less pay. More often than not, overtime goes unpaid in a “free” country like the
United States. People are working overtime for free—not because their hearts
want to but because the global economy demands it. Workers, after all, are
afraid of losing their jobs.
In Your Money or Your Life, authors Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin
describe the typical working day as follows:
The alarm rings at 6:45 and our working man or woman is up and
running. Shower. Dress in the professional uniform—suits or dresses for
some, coveralls for others, whites for the medical professionals, jeans and
flannel shirts for construction workers. Breakfast, if there’s time. Grab
commuter mug and briefcase (or lunch box) and hop in the car for the
daily punishment called rush hour. On the job from nine to five. Deal
with the boss. Deal with the coworker sent by the devil to rub you the
wrong way. Deal with suppliers. Deal with clients/customers/patients.
Act busy. Hide mistakes. Smile when handed impossible deadlines. Give
a sigh of relief when the ax known as “restructuring” or “downsizing”—
or just plain getting laid off—falls on other heads. Shoulder the added
workload. Watch the clock. Argue with your conscience but agree with
the boss. Smile again. Five o’clock. Back in the car and onto the freeway
for the evening commute. Home. Act human with mates, kids or
roommates. Eat. Watch TV. Bed. Eight hours of blessed oblivion.
And they call this making a living?58

58
Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, et al., Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with
Money and Achieving Financial Independence, (New York: Viking, 1992), pgs. 3-4.
Surely, over half-a-million Americans didn’t die for nothing between 1861 and
1865.
Unlike the Free Soilers of the 1850s, most of us barely know that we are
serfs. We Westerners buy the illusion that we are free, in charge of our destiny.
Looking at our dearth of free time, however, one sees that we are anything but
free. What is alarming is that the “free” peoples of the North understood their
serfdom in the 1850s. They debated this issue at taverns, on the street, and in
town halls. Today, by contrast, only a handful of us are aware of our situation.
Worse, those of us who do know subconsciously are afraid of admitting it to
ourselves, for this is called “having a bad attitude toward work.” That is being a
bad boy or a bad girl. The grand debates of the 19th century are long over. As
Wolfgang Von Goethe, the German author, wrote, “None are more hopelessly
enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”59
At best, only a few movies depict the exhaustion of postmodern workers.
In the movie Time Out (French; 2001), for instance, Vincent (Aurélien Recoing)
gets fired for lack of motivation on the job. To avoid the wrath of his wife, the
middle-aged businessman pretends to go to a fictitious job. In reality, he drives
around aimlessly, roams around corporate headquarters, and even sleeps in his
car. Vincent gets his friends and former coworkers to give him money as their
investments in a Russian bank. The bank, of course, doesn’t exist. When the
money runs out, the burned out man is forced to interview for a position so that
he can continue to support his family. The ending leaves the viewer with the
feeling that Vincent will simply drop dead at his new job from exhaustion.
Having to work when one is dead tired from “life” is one of the cruelest tortures
59
This quote comes from “BrainyQuote,” BrainyMedia. The URL of the quote is
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/johannwolf134023.html.
that a spirit can go through. Hundreds of millions of workers are zombies,

forced to labor by the need for money (the forced heroin of human society). Or
should I type, inhuman society?
Whether we concede it or not, slavery and serfdom are at opposite ends of
a continuum (see below).
Slavery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Serfdom
The continuum is called human control. Chattel slavery was the most barbarous
manifestation of human domination. Serfdom is its milder cousin. Both,
however, are part of the same continuum, one that has been present since the
dawn of civilization. In ancient times, human domination manifested as
Egyptian subjects serving their pharaohs. In medieval times, it was European
serfs tending the land of their lords. In the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s, it was
African slaves growing backbreaking crops for their masters. Nowadays, it is 80
percent of humanity working, in some way, for a multinational corporation.
Corporations not only control but also own two of the three ingredients
needed in a capitalistic—actually, corporatistic—milieu like ours:
1) Raw materials (own)

2) The means of production (own)
3) Labor (control)
Until the hordes own—or at least, control—all three of the above, postmodern
serfdom will continue.
Above Serfdom
The challenge of these times is leaving the above continuum for good.
This means going from compulsory serfdom to a world where all people work
from their hearts and have plenty of opportunities to make money doing what
they do best. This is until the market economy can be replaced by a gift economy
(the abolition of money). Remember that a gift economy promotes producing
from the heart and spirit, while a market economy promotes consuming from the
wallet. Western corporatism allows, at most, 20 percent of the population to do
what it was born to do. Hence, a civilization where 100 percent of the populace
was allowed to shine would require a complete overhaul of the global economy.
Making a “living” (actually a dying experience) is necessary, of course,
while we work on attracting material abundance into our lives. But instinctual
humans stay stuck making a “living.” Trans-instinctual humans rise above that,
sooner or later. In so doing, trans-instinctual humans co-create a world where
more of us will be able to live our dreams in the workplace. When everyone
becomes trans-instinctual, nobody will be forced to work for a “living” (dying).
Rather, we will serve from our hearts and spirits. This has never happened on a
mass scale. If planet Earth ascends from being an underworld to a heavenly
realm, then money will inevitably disappear a la chattel slavery.
We cannot escape our instinct to survive biologically. But, at least, we can
choose to set up a system where everyone controls:
1) Raw materials
2) The means of production

3) Their labor
For the first time in the history of life on earth, one kind of life (Homo
sapiens) is on the verge of rising above survival of the fittest. This is because
survival of the biologically most fit is no longer enough, for it has become lethal
on a planetary scale. Just look at the epidemic stress, resulting illnesses, and the
decreasing quality of life that is arising from everyone competing to survive. The
new rule of biological evolution is survival of the wisest. This means decreased
stress, more resulting health, and increased quality of life from everybody
helping one another to live a productive and fulfilling life. Living cooperatively
instead of competitively will require spiritual evolution.
The next chapter focuses on human sexuality in light of the major sexual
issues of today.
Exercises
1) Do you have a conscious relationship with money? If so, how do you feel
about this medium of exchange? Do you love money with all your heart?
Hate it with your guts? Have neutral feelings? Write your feelings or speak
them into a tape recorder.
2) Do you work or have you ever worked for money? For psychic
fulfillment? To avoid loneliness? For more than one reason? Write your
answers or speak them into a tape recorder.
3) If financial survival has ever been an issue for you, did you accept the
worst-case scenario in peace? With an inner charge of bravery? With plain
apathy? If any of these apply to you, feel the inner consciousness of that
experience. You may want to write about it or speak your thoughts into a
tape recorder.
4) Have you ever disregarded the physical or emotional survival of one or

more individuals? If yes, why? Can you see how ignoring that person or
people was the same as ignoring yourself? If yes, how did you come to this
mode of consciousness? Has your changed perception affected your
actions? If so, how?
5) Every time you purchase something, write the transaction into a pocket
notebook. Was the purchase a need or a want? You may want to reduce
gradually the items that you buy. Keep track of the commodities that you
forego. Does buying less make you feel deprived or empowered? Write
your thoughts or speak them into a tape recorder.
6) Stock up on groceries. Pay all the bills you can. If you have a motor
vehicle, fill the gas tank as well. Then, see how many days you can go
without spending a single cent. How does it feel like to become unplugged
from the system of money? Do you feel, for example, like you are getting
off a drug, sex, or food addiction? Examine the word freedom in relation to
this. When, at last, you have to spend money again or use a credit card,
what new feelings—if any—go through you? If you enjoyed the experience
of staying away from money, you may want to set aside a sacred three days
a month—ideally in a row. If you have children, you may want to encourage
them to “just say no” to exchanging money for things during that time.
Staying at home may help.
3
The Sex Instinct
Becoming trans-instinctual means downplaying our maladaptive human

instincts. Although such impulses were adaptive eons ago, they no longer are.
Regarding sex in the 21st century, there is the threat of gun combat from sexual
competitors, the reality of overpopulation, and the danger of sexually
transmitted diseases (STDs). Is our sex drive therefore no longer adaptive? Or
does the solution lie in changing how we negotiate around sex?
This chapter opens with historical developments that have led to the
growing rejection of the either/or view of sexual identity. This history will
present the either/or thinking of doctors, the very people who, one would think,
ought to have transcended the duality of the sixth sense of the human brain (see
Part I). Such a history will show how all or nothing thinking leaves no or very
little room for sexual plurality. The chapter examines how human
(hetero)sexuality is constructed in the Western world, and it closes with some
trans-instinctual possibilities for the future of human sexuality.
Backdrop to Sexual Liberation
While alive, historian Robert Wiebe argued that between 1877 and 1920,
America was engaged in a “search for order,” the title of his 1966 book. 60 In the
60
See Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877-1920, (New York: Hill & Wang, 1966).
late 19th and early 20th century, everything was in the process of being centralized
and standardized: railroad schedules, methods of mass production at the factory,
the time card for check-in and check-out at work, and even time itself.61 Things
that we view as “natural” were artificial creations. Standard time, for instance,
didn’t exist before 1883. Rather, each town set its time based on the position of
the sun. This meant that in the United States, a town 12 miles to the west was 12
minutes behind—give or take a few minutes. Thus, hundreds of time zones
existed in America before the standardization of time into Eastern, Central,
Mountain, and Pacific Standard Time.
Although Robert Wiebe doesn’t mention this in The Search for Order:
1877-1920, the human mind was standardized as well. So was human sexuality.
In the late 1800s, the new “sciences” of psychology and psychiatry began to label
psychological conditions as normal or abnormal. So-called disorders were
medicalized. Year by year, the list of disorders grew like a pile of books on a
wooden table. Laws were passed to incarcerate citizens who didn’t fit into the
standard of “normal.” Sexology (the study of sex) spawned modern psychology
because the human mind (e.g., psychology) was needed to explain human
sexuality. Sexology, psychology, and psychiatry saw the bulk of human
sexuality as bad, however. In fact, sexologists, psychologists, and psychiatrists
replaced priests, bishops, and archbishops as the codifiers of human morality.
Sin became sickness; the couch replaced the confessional; and the mental
institution replaced the dungeons of the inquisition. Elected leaders, especially
lawmakers, backed the new social scientists. Medical doctors, in turn, started to
circumcise American boys in the early 20th century. The belief was that male
circumcision deadened sexual sensation in the “lustful” sex. (Females were still
seen as incapable of erotic feeling.) Male circumcision was thought to lessen the
61
Ibid.
chances of “self-abuse.” Less self-pleasuring was seen as beneficial because, in

the parlance of the day, “Masturbation is a sin and leads to insanity.” Foreskins
also proved to be very profitable for hospitals, as hospitals could either use the
pieces of skin for medical research or sell them for the making of pharmaceutical
products. By 1975, 85 percent of newborn boys were being cut, without
anesthesia, in American hospitals.62 American boys are being circumcised less.
But the absence of laws against male circumcision shows that late 19th century
perceptions are still alive. It is no coincidence that America, a largely Puritanical
country, continues to allow and even encourages mutilation of penises, while
Europe, a sexually progressive continent, has seldom cut its newborn boys.
Female circumcision is outlawed in the West for humanitarian reasons. But
regarding male circumcision, the American medical community has violated its
prime dictum, “First, do no harm.” Since 1900, this medical—actually, anti-
medical—practice has robbed males of the natural beauty of their endowment
and has dulled sexual sensation for 120 million American males.63 Far more
tragically, very few Westerners have voiced any opposition to this form of
standardization. One reason for this is that American men find male
circumcision too painful an issue to confront. Classic defense mechanisms of
American men are denying that male circumcision is a problem and affirming
that circumcised members look “attractive.”
In the late 19th century, youth was standardized as well—into childhood,
adolescence, and young adulthood. This meant the beginning of age
segregation. No longer did children, teens, and young adults attend the same
classrooms. If a teenager or twentysomething befriended a preteen, then the
older one was accused of “arrested development,” if not worse. Suddenly, one
62
This statistic comes from Hugh O’Donnell, “A Century of Circumcision in the USA,” April 2001. Part of
the History of Circumcision web pages. Article at
http://www.historyofcircumcision.net/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=26.
63
Ibid.
was supposed to be interested only in one’s age-mates. By the late 20th century,
one American state was contemplating making it illegal for a man to speak to a
minor on the street if neither knew each other. In 2009, a sign stands at the glass
entrance of a workout club in my town. Similar to “Whites Only” in the Jim
Crow South, the sign reads, “Children under 13 are not allowed.” The result of
these developments has been the most intense segregation of youth from elders
in the entire history of humankind. This form of apartheid has inhibited the
transfer of wisdom from older people to younger people. Age apartheid has
produced the biggest generation gap in human history. Juvenile delinquency,
gang warfare, and school shootings are consequences of minors being forced to
live separate from adults. What goes on in the world of youth—attitudes,
fashions, behavioral trends, and racial composition—is humongous because
youth are the future.
In The Politics of Lust, lawyer and journalist John Ince writes:
The greater the erotophobia [fear of sex] in a culture or family, the less
intimate are relationships between adults and children. Children are
naturally inquisitive, especially about sex. Adults who are afraid of sex
are more apt to lie about the subject, conceal sexual information from their
children, and impose intolerant sexual prohibitions. Children resent such
behavior. Erotophobia enhances the distance between the generations
[emphasis mine].64
This does not mean that youth must always be with elders, for spending time
with one’s age-mates is an important part of self-development. But much of the
64
John Ince, The Politics of Lust, (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2005), p. 301.
distrust between youth and elders has resulted from the standardization of
“normal” and “deviant”—either/or concepts of the human brain.
From the 1600s to the 1800s, romantic-friendships were common in the
West. Males and females were encouraged to form physically expressed
friendships with others of their sex. Sexual intercourse was largely absent, of
course. But males held hands, kissed, and cuddled together in private and in
public. Females did the same with other females. Then, “homosexuality” was
discovered in the late 1800s, just as industrial capitalism took off. Sexologists,
psychologists, and psychiatrists called the new deviants homosexuals, rather
than homoromantics, because it was the sex—not the nonsexual, same-sex
romantic attachments that were already common—that repelled the social
scientists and the rest of society. Suddenly, males were rebuked as
“homosexuals” for being physically tender with other males. Instead, males
were encouraged to be competitive and to distrust one another. Similarly,
females were chastised as “lesbians” for being involved in same-sex romantic-
friendships. As Americanist John D’Emilio argues in “Capitalism and Gay
Identity,” distrust of same-sex bonds was needed in the fiercely capitalistic world
that was emerging, a world that would become corporatistic by the late 20th
century.65 In the 1998 documentary Out of the Past, Linda Hunt narrates:
By 1900, society’s attitudes toward Boston marriages [a type of romantic-

friendship] had begun to change. The new science of psychology had
denounced same-sex love, equating it with arrested development and
mental disorder. Relationships like Sara and Annie’s would no longer be
65
See John D’Emilio, “Capitalism and Gay Identity.” The essay appears in Henry Abelove, ed., The
Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, (New York: Routledge, 1993), pgs. 467-476.
tolerated.66
The problem was that the sexologists, psychologists, psychiatrists split

humans into two “species,” called “heterosexual” and “homosexual.” Human
sexuality was no longer what you did in the bedroom. Now, it was what you
thought and felt toward the sexes. In other words, people were defined
according to the nature of their minds and hearts. The human psyche became
the foundation of who you are sexually and romantically. What you did was the
effect of your nature—not an end of itself, as had been the view before the late
1800s. In the words of Michel Foucault, the philosopher:
The nineteenth-century homosexual became a personage, a past, a case

history, and a childhood, in addition to being [emphasis mine] a type of
life, a life form, and a morphology, … Nothing of his full personality
escaped his sexuality … The sodomite had been a temporary aberration;
the homosexual was now a species.67
Religious conservatives are the last remnant of the pre-1900 paradigm.

When Christian fundamentalists fear, for example, that anyone can fall to
homosexuality, they are implicitly conceding that humans are bisexual in
potential. Were it not for their condemnation of homosexuality as “sinful,” this
would be a radical position to take. Christian fundamentalists also take the view
that homosexuals can be brought back to heterosexuality. The ex-gay movement
66
This quote comes from, Out of the Past, “A Boston Marriage.” The documentary originally aired on PBS
in 1998.
67
Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction, Translated from French by Robert
Hurley, (New York: Vintage Books, 1988), p. 43.
is an example of this. Again, this acknowledges the bisexual potential of

everyone. Sexual liberals, by contrast, refuse to concede that straights have some
gay in them and gays some straight in them. In this one sense, sexual liberals are
really conservative, while Christian fundamentalists are liberal.
Heterosexuality was invented in the sense that it was a standardization of
sexual/romantic attraction and/or behavior toward the opposite sex. Some
forms of male-female attraction and behavior were praised (e.g., consenting
adults). Other forms of male-female eroticism were pathologized (e.g., underage
sex). Heterosexuality was constructed as a mature sexuality. This meant that
only adults could practice it, for only adults could give “consent.” The definition
of adult changed, in turn, as the age of consent was raised from around 12 to 18
—and to 21 for the legal definition of adult in the United States. Any sex under
age 18 didn’t count as “heterosexuality” but instead, was called a “paraphilia.”
Sexologists, psychologists, and psychiatrists pathologized various kinds of
harmless, consensual sex. They even had homosexuals lobotomized through
most of the 20th century. Male-female courtship was discouraged and punished,
as well, if it didn’t fall under the new standard of “heterosexuality.” As late as
the 21st century, a male-female couple—or any couple—is frowned upon if they
are over 10 years apart in age. This isn’t considered normal heterosexuality.
Throughout human history, however, it was common for older men to
court and marry younger women. Not after sexuality was standardized into
same-age couplings under the banner of “heterosexuality” (normal) and
“homosexuality” (deviant). In this sense, heterosexuality and homosexuality as
we know them were invented—not the attraction and behavior per se but their
mega-message.68 The diagram below illustrates:
68
See Jonathan Ned Katz, The Invention of Heterosexuality, (New York: Dutton, 1995).
Innate Constructed/Standardized
Opposite and same-sex The rules, taboos,

erotic/romantic cultural significance, and
attraction and behavior ultimately, the meaning
among humans and frequency of opposite
and same-sex erotic/romantic
attraction and behavior among
humans
As Principal John Caird wrote, quoted over a century ago in Varieties of

Religious Experience:
“In estimating the religious character of individuals, nations, or races, the

first question is, not how they feel, but what they think and believe—not
whether their religion is one which manifests itself in emotions, … , but
what are the conceptions of God and divine things by which these
emotions are called forth. Feeling is necessary in religion, but it is by the
content or intelligent basis of a religion, and not by feeling, that its
character and worth are to be determined.”69
69
William James, Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, (New York: The Modern
Library, 1994), pgs. 473-474. These Gifford lectures were originally published in 1902.
And human sexuality is one type of religion. As the Bible says, “For as he
thinketh in his heart, so is he.”70
In her 1984 essay “Thinking Sex,” Gayle Rubin, an anthropologist, words
the difference between sex and sexuality the following way:
The body, the brain, the genitalia, and the capacity for language are all
necessary for human sexuality. But they do not determine its content, its
experiences, or its institutional forms.71
Time (e.g., historical era) and space (e.g., society) do.

Today, males in particular are thought to be biologically programmed to
be macho, distrust one another, and be “straight.” But looking at the social order
of pre-1870 North America and Western Europe, one sees that romantic-
friendships were widespread. These friendships may have lacked the sexual
element. But everything else, from holding hands to cuddling together, was
there.
Sigmund Freud, the psychiatrist from Austria-Hungary, mentioned
bisexuality as innate to all human beings.72 But he relegated his thoughts about
this to footnotes and to private conversations with other psychiatrists. Freud felt,
though, that erotic unresponsiveness to half the population by the other half
needed explanation. Freud’s colleagues, however, lumped sexual tastes,
romantic feelings, and even platonic leanings under “sexual” orientation, instead
of studying the three as independent variables that often come together.
70
This quote comes from Proverbs 23:7, King James Bible.
71
Gayle S. Rubin, “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality,” Abelove, ed.,
The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, p. 10.
72
Freud wrote that exclusive heterosexuality was as troublesome as exclusive homosexuality. Bisexuality,
Freud concluded, needed to be fully theorized.
Needless to say, Freud and his colleagues instituted the straight/gay mentalité
that continues to this day.
The Construction of Human Sexuality
The fledgling bi movement of today is trying to awaken us to the true

complexity of human relationships. Homosexuality, it turns out, is not a
pathology but rather, a prelude to heterosexuality. As Seth, a spirit guide,
dictates to Jane Roberts in The Nature of the Psyche, “Tendencies toward
lesbianism or homosexuality in children are quite natural.”73 Such proclivities
are a way of learning about one’s sex before getting interested in the opposite
sex. What is rarely mentioned, though, is that failing to integrate homosexuality
and heterosexuality during teenagehood leads to an adult “pre-human”
sexuality. Editor Joe Sartelle explains:
It should be easy to see, then, how an integral part of our “sexual

identities,” whether straight or gay, is a kind of search-and-destroy
program that continually scans for signs of the “opposite” orientation so
that these “confusing” impulses can be neutralized through the usual
array of psychological defense mechanisms. The “success” of the program
is measured by how effectively it blocks conscious recognition of any
attraction to the “wrong” sex, attractions that “confuse” our sexual
identities [emphasis mine].74
73
Roberts, The Nature of the Psyche, p. 63.
74
This quote comes from Joe Sartelle’s online article, “Fantasies of Straight Men: Some Thoughts about
Gays in the Military.” The March/April 1993 article (Issue 5) of Bad Subjects is at
http://bad.eserver.org/issues/1993/05/sartelle.html.
Sartelle continues:
What I am talking about is a fully human sexuality, rather than the pre-
human “sexual identities” that now afflict us. The people we now call
“homosexuals” are most likely, seen in this light, that relatively small
minority of individuals whose homosexual attractions are so much
stronger than our heterosexual attractions as to render those latter feelings
almost invisible. In that sense we “have no choice.” Similarly, we would
expect to find a comparable minority of people for whom the opposite is
true, who “have no choice” but to be heterosexual. But I think that in a
fully human society, the overwhelming majority of people would fall
somewhere in the middle, … Of course there would be varying degrees of
bisexuality, with some people tending to choose one sex rather than the
other. But the important point here is that it would be a choice, and thus
an affirmation of our freedom—and freedom to choose is what makes us
human.75
This doesn’t mean that a person’s core romantic orientation (heteroromantic,

biromantic, or homoromantic) doesn’t take over him or her at a certain age, for it
does. And fighting one’s core romantic feelings for guys, girls, or both is futile.
However, peripheral romantic feelings—of the opposite orientation—and even
peripheral eroticism are more easily suppressed and malleable by society
because they are weaker.
In an online interview, Kenji Yoshino, the Yale law professor, said that in
America, middle-of-the-road categories like “middle class” are seen as moderate
75
Ibid.
and hence, as preferable to being in an extreme category. He told Carole Bass,

the interviewer:
Why is it that certain intermediate categories, like bisexuality, get erased,

whereas in other contexts, intermediate categories don’t get erased, and
are seen as the dominant categories? The notion of the middle class is an
intermediate class, between the upper class and the working class.76
Yoshino continued:
It’s [the middle class] completely swallowed both ends of the continuum.
Why? If we look at multiracials, they are very similarly situated to
bisexuals in terms of invisibility.77
In 1987, mythologist Joseph Campbell said on PBS’s The Power of Myth,

“By participating in a ritual, you participate in a myth.”78 One of the West’s
“hegemonic mythologies” is that people are either straight or gay.79 There is
even a movement to create the myth that genetics, not upbringing, make
heterosexuals and homosexuals in the womb. Ninety percent of the population
believes some version of this. Then, society is ordered according to this
principle.
In truth, the sixth sense of the human brain does most of its wiring outside
the womb. As Diane Ackerman writes in An Alchemy of Mind, the brain of a
76
Carole Bass, “Both Ends Against the Middle: How Gays and Straights Make Bisexuals Invisible.” This
interview of Kenji Yoshino was published by The Hartford Advocate on June 17, 2000. It can be found at
http://old.valleyadvocate.com/articles/biout2.html.
77
Ibid.
78
This quote comes from Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers, “The Message of the
Myth,” (Episode 2). The PBS special originally aired on June 22, 1988.
79
The phrase “hegemonic mythologies” comes from Flo Leibowitz and Lynn Jeffress, “The Shining,” Film
Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 3, Spring 1981, p. 49.
newborn baby weighs about 25 percent of the brain of an adult human. By

contrast, she continues, the brain of a newborn baboon weighs about 70 percent
of the brain of an adult baboon.80 Which species is more apt to live by genes and
biological instincts? Which species is more likely to build its brain in the image
of its social environment?
At a lecture on University of Washington Television (UWTV),
neuroscientist Fred Travis said that our life experiences change the circuitry of
our brains. Travis added:
And every time you use this network [of brain cells], these connections get
stronger [emphasis mine]. You’re constantly creating those brain circuits
that allow you to make meaning of the world. You’re creating your brain
circuits, which create your reality.81
This means that the more experience we have with something like
heterosexuality, the more the pathways to that will be reinforced in our brains. It
is like peers (social environment) persuading one that Atlanta is preferable to
Denver. One then builds roads/brain circuits to get to Atlanta—and does. Not
having constructed highways to Denver, one never gets there. As Caroline Myss
writes, “Your biography becomes your biology [emphasis mine].”82 Seth, the
spirit guide in The Nature of the Psyche, repeats the same thing. In Seth’s words,
“certain beliefs are now built in.”83 Seth goes on:
They become biologically pertinent and transmitted [emphasis mine]. I

80
Diane Ackerman, An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain, (New York: Scribner,
2004), p. 136.
81
Fred Travis, “Consciousness, Creativity and the Brain.”
82
This website quote comes from Caroline Myss, “Chakras,” Library. It is at
http://www.myss.com/library/chakras/.
83
mean something else here besides, for example, a telepathic transmission:

the translation of beliefs into physical codes that then become biological
cues …
If women have felt that their biological survival depended upon the
cultivation of certain attributes over others, for instance, then this
information becomes chromosome data, as vital to the development of the
new organism as any other physical data involving cellular structure.
The mother also provides the same kind of information to a male

offspring. The father contributes his share in each case. Over the
generations, then, certain characteristics appear to be quite naturally male
or female, and these will vary to some extent according to the civilizations
and world conditions.84
The above is why different societies—such as ancient Greece vs. postmodern

America—express their gender and sexuality divergently in different historical
eras. Seth explains:
The brain has abilities you do not use consciously because your beliefs
prevent you from initiating the proper neural habits [emphasis mine].
Certain portions of the brain seem dominant only because of those neural
habits that are adopted in any given civilization or time. But other
cultures in your past have experienced reality quite differently as a result
84
Ibid.
of encouraging different neural patterns, and putting experience together

through other focuses [emphasis mine].85
Creating new pathways like bisexuality will be a challenge for adults,

although less for adolescents because they are still pliant. As Morpheus
(Laurence Fishburne) tells Neo (Keanu Reeves) in The Matrix (1999), “We have a
rule. We never free a mind once it’s reached a certain age. It’s dangerous. The
mind has trouble letting go.” This is like the parrot that spends a “lifetime”
(death time) in a cage. When its new owner opens the cage door, the parrot
chooses to stay inside. Only with enough courage to subject ourselves to new
experiences can we build and strengthen new brain circuits. In other words, we
can change ourselves—and reshape our brains—if a change is desirable.
Entrepreneur Robert Kiyosaki warns, however, that most people prefer to
play it safe. What motivates this, he writes, is fear. In Rich Dad, Poor Dad,
Kiyosaki elaborates:
That [playing it safe] goes for anything, be it sports, relationships, career,

money.
It is that same fear, the fear of ostracism that causes people to

conform and not question commonly accepted opinions or popular
trends.86
David Plummer is associate professor at the University of New England,

School of Health, in Australia. Plummer discovered that homophobia (fear of
homosexuality) increases exponentially from childhood through adolescence.
85
Ibid., pgs. 182-183.
86
Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, p. 70.
His research shows that Australian boys in grades eight and nine use the word
“poofter” 25 to 50 times a day. Such name-calling arises to keep teens in line
with the pack.87 As Gayle Rubin writes in “Thinking Sex”:
Contemporary conflicts over sexual values and erotic conduct have much
in common with the religious disputes of earlier centuries. They acquire
immense symbolic weight [emphasis mine].88
Stereotypes of what homosexuality means—usually false and negative—often

transmogrify teen homophobia to outright hatred against queers (gays, bis,
lesbians, and transgendereds). As Billy Bean, former pro baseball player, writes
in his memoir Going the Other Way:
By the time I reached the majors, I’d heard the terms [“fag, queer, girl, and
pussy”] from almost every coach I’d played for—and many I
hadn’t.
As motivational strategy, it was effective. Coaches invoked the

terms again and again. Players responded, almost reflexively raising their
intensity level, … Even at that age, just a rag-tag band of skinny boys, we
were required to prove our manhood to coaches, teammates, and dads
who roamed the sidelines, keyed up by vicarious intensity.
87
See David Plummer, One of the Boys: Masculinity, Homophobia, and Modern Manhood, (Binghampton,
NY: Haworth Press, Inc., 1999).
88
Rubin, “Thinking Sex,” Abelove, ed., The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, p. 4.
It wasn’t long before kids were berating one another with similar
epithets, especially when we did anything out of the jock norm.89
Postmodern culture pairs male heterosexuality with stereotypes of

“manhood” and male homosexuality with stereotypes of “effeminateness.” Vice-
versa for female heterosexuality and lesbianism. Men, for example, are
supposed to be emotionally cold, except for anger, while women are supposed to
have open hearts.
But as The Nature of the Psyche says:
Basically, however, there are no clear, set, human, psychological

characteristics that belong to one sex or the other. Again, this would lead
to a pattern too rigid for the development of the species, and give you too-
specialized behavior patterns that would not allow you to cope as a
species—particularly with the many varieties of social groupings
possible.90
A few pages later, Seth, the aforementioned spirit guide, continues to dictate to
Jane Roberts:
Generally speaking, there will be a specific overall sexual [meaning

gendered] orientation of a biological nature, but the mental and emotional
human characteristics are simply not meted out according to sex
[emphases mine]. Such identification cuts the individual in half, so that
each person uses but half of his or her potential. This causes a schism in
89
Billy Bean with Chris Bull, Going the Other Way: Lessons from a Life In and Out of Major-League
Baseball, (New York: Marlowe & Company, 2003), p. 108.
90
Roberts, The Nature of the Psyche, pgs. 71-72.
all of your cultural activities.91
According to Seth, gender differences start to be constructed when a boy is

encouraged to identify only with the father and a girl only with the mother. But
as Seth stresses:
Children of either sex identify quite naturally with both parents [emphasis
mine], and any enforced method of exclusively directing the child to such
a single identification [with the mother or father] is limiting.92
In another section, Seth reveals:
Only a basic bisexuality [meaning bigenderism] could give the species the
leeway necessary, and prevent stereotyped behavior of a kind that would
hamper creativity and social commerce. That basic sexual [meaning
bigendered] nature allows you the fulfillment of individual abilities
[emphasis mine], so that the species does not fall into extinction. Man’s
recognition of his bisexual [meaning bigendered] nature is, therefore, a
must in his future.
There are, again, obvious differences between the sexes. They are
insignificant, and appear large only because you concentrate so upon
them. The great human qualities of love, strength, compassion, intellect
and imagination do not belong to one sex or the other.
91
Ibid. p. 83.
92
Ibid. p. 84.
Only an understanding of this inherent bisexual [meaning

bigendered] nature will release those qualities in each individual,
regardless of sex.93
Men who don’t embrace their “feminine” qualities “cannot be expected to love
women,” Seth concludes, for such men will see in women all that they have
hatefully suppressed in themselves.94
Teenagers become most fearful of and hateful toward homosexuality in
their mid and late teens.95 This is when stereotypes of what gayness means hit
pubescents full swing. One stereotype is that gay men wear dresses and lesbians
only wear pants. I argue that gay stereotypes—always negative—are the
primary mechanism for keeping adolescents and adults from embracing the
homosexual side of their bisexuality. Conversely, straight stereotypes—always
positive—are a major way of getting most people to restrict their sexual desires
and acts to the opposite sex. Like white and black, the terms straight and bent
suggest that straight is good and bent is bad. This influences human sexuality
and the fact that 90 percent of the population identifies as straight and 10 percent
as gay, bi, or trans. Hence, stereotypes of what makes a man masculine and a
woman feminine go far beyond mere enforcement of gender roles. What do I
mean?
Adolescence is the time when hormones are most out of control.
Especially for teen males, sexual urges constantly threaten to spill over in
homosexual directions. (Because females tend to fuse sex with romance,
heteroromantic teen girls are, arguably, more likely to keep their sex in a strictly
heterosexual context as well.) The gay side of teen bisexuality is suppressed
93
Ibid. p. 64.
94
Ibid. p. 90.
95
See Plummer, One of the Boys.
through the taunting of queers, through the strutting of one’s heterosexuality,

and through scanning for:
… signs of the “opposite” orientation so that these “confusing” impulses

can be neutralized through the usual array of psychological defense
mechanisms.96
The self-inflicted program is not only conscious, but also, unconscious. The
unconsciousness of the heterosexualization process is why most youngsters
believe that they have no choice but to be straight. The search-and-destroy
mission is so successful that, by adulthood, most people end up incapable of
erotic response to their sex. Being wired for erections to anything that moves,
even men go limp if faced with their genitals on other men. Studies are then
published to “prove” that humans are straight or gay from the womb.97 As late
as 1978, for example, the New York Public Library had but one book about
bisexuality. This is according to sexologist Fritz Klein.98 Animal bisexuality goes
disregarded, too.
Occasionally, female bisexuality is talked about, and women are given
some leeway to explore it. But this is only because female bisexuality doesn’t
threaten the heterosexual order. In fact, lesbianism is a fantasy of “straight”
men. Male bisexuality, however, is the true threat. This is because lesbianism is
seen as “double woman” for a straight man and because, when he is not
participating, he sees lesbianism as women “just fooling around.” Male
homosexuality, by contrast, is viewed as real sex. It involves “tops” and
“bottoms.” This threatens the script of traditional masculinity.
96
Sartelle, “Fantasies of Straight Men.”
97
See, for example, Benedict Carey, “Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited,” The New York
Times, July 5, 2005. Article at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/05/health/05sex.html.
98
See Fritz Klein, The Bisexual Option, Second Edition, (Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press, Inc., 1993).
An excellent analogy can be made between homosexuality and Asperger

Syndrome because everyone has aspects of each. People with Asperger’s, for
example, are said to utter socially inappropriate comments and questions
because they lack social intelligence. But non-Aspies also voice socially
inappropriate comments and questions like:
1) Where are you from? (Tempts one to feel like an outsider and destroys
the unity between people that is the basis of social interaction)
2) Are you gay? (Personal question)
3) What do you do for a living? (Personal question, as people in Japan

recognize)
4) You have an accent. (Tempts one to feel like an outsider and destroys the
unity between people that is the basis of social interaction)
Non-Aspies, however, ignore what they share with Aspies (asking socially
inappropriate questions). Why? So that neurotypicals can demonize Aspies as
“the other.” People with Asperger’s then accept that they are totally different
from non-Aspies—as opposed to partially different—because Aspies have
internalized the overlooking of similarities between Aspies and non-Aspies that
the mainstream has done. Likewise, gays believe that they are totally different
from straights—as opposed to partially different—because gays have
internalized the overlooking of similarities between straights and gays that the
mainstream has done. The discrimination that Aspergians and gays receive is
less because of their difference and more because the “mainstream” refuses to see
those characteristics in themselves. If “normal” people see this commonality,

then they can punish Aspies and gays for reminding them of this.
Discrimination, ridicule, and bashing are some types of punishments. And much
of the above, if not all, happens unconsciously. At most, people accept
Aspergians as Aspergians, gays as gays, and U.S. citizens with “accents” as
foreigners. This is not real acceptance because it keeps the divide between the
“native” and the “foreigner.”
Like taste (see Part II, Chapter 1, section titled, “The Evolution and
Workings of the Brain”), heterosexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality are
acquired from the social environment. In the early 21st century, 90 percent of
boys and girls are made, not born, straight. They grow up in a monosexual
world (straight or gay) that teaches discrimination “on the basis of sex … in our
erotic lives.”99 Through “compulsory heterosexuality,” the brains of the
indoctrinated get used to monosexism.100 The human brain wires itself in that
image. As youth grays, it passes on heterosexual values, heterosexual rituals,
and heterosexual beingness to future generations. This is how human
(hetero)sexuality is constructed in the postmodern world. The process feels
innate but is very artificial. Americans, for instance, tend to be terrible at
languages because their brains have been wired in a generally monolingual
environment (the United States). Europeans, by contrast, tend to be great at
languages because their brains have been wired in a generally multilingual
environment (Europe). A similar dynamic occurs when people are brought up
and live in a monosexual environment (straight or gay) vs. a multisexual
environment (straight, bi, gay, and trans). In the monosexual society, most
99
These are the words of Kenji Yoshino. See Bass, “Both Ends Against the Middle” at
http://old.valleyadvocate.com/articles/biout2.html.
100
The phrase compulsory heterosexuality was coined by English professor, editor, and writer Adrienne
Cecile Rich. See Rich, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” Blood, Bread, and Poetry:
Selected Prose, 1979-1985, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1986).
people will be inept at multisexuality, while in the multisexual milieu, most

people will be adept at multisexuality. This is much like national identity—as in
being French, Spanish, or American—feels natural but is constructed in each
country, called “imagined communities,” and evolves from century to century.101
For example, being American and heterosexual in the late 19th century meant
something different from being a straight American in the early 21st century. As
Dorland’s Medical Dictionary defined opposite-sex attraction in 1901,
heterosexuality was an “ ‘abnormal [as abnormally intense] or perverted sexual
appetite towards the opposite sex.’ ”102 This view of hetEROSexuality continued
in the popular culture until the Roaring 20s. That was the decade when
“heterosexuality” (meaning obsession with the opposite sex) became respectable
—so long as the involved people were of similar ages.
With our acknowledgement that 80 percent of the populace is bisexual in
potential, romantic orientation, rather than “sexual” orientation, could become
the criterion of “sexual identity” and “sexual politics” in the 21st century.103 This
is because biSEXuality would be taken for granted in just about everybody,
whereas romantic orientation and preferences would be the unknown. For
example, “Is he, a biSEXual guy, heteroromantic, biromantic, homoromantic, or
something else?”
101
See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism,
New Edition, (London: Verso Books, 2006).
102
Garber, Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life, p. 41.
103
The 80 percent statistic is an inference based on the classic studies by Alfred C. Kinsey, the renowned
sexologist. Today, sexological studies typically show that, rather than 10 percent of the population being
gay, a mere 2 percent to 5 percent is. What these studies don’t mention is that if gays are at one end of the
sexuality spectrum, then a mere 2 percent to 5 percent of the populace is strictly straight as well. Using the
Kinsey studies, the implication is that if 10 percent of the population is 100 percent homosexual, then 10
percent is 100 percent heterosexual. That leaves 80 percent of the rest somewhere in the middle. See
Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy, and Clyde E. Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, (Philadelphia: W.
B. Saunders Co., 1948). As a rough estimate, the 80 percent statistic also comes from looking at societies
around the world—ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and Tokugawa Japan—where most men were
behaviorally bisexual, and even biromantic too, in some way.
Because males can easily divorce sex from romance—while females tend
to fuse the two—it is likely that if bisexuality increases in the future, it will be
among the sexually looser male sex. There is another reason why any rise in
bisexuality will affect more males than females should it occur. In the words of
Robin Baker, an evolutionary biologist:
Sexually, men are much more similar to one another than are women.
Virtually all men ejaculate (whereas not all women have orgasms).
Virtually all men masturbate (whereas nearly a quarter of women do not).
Virtually all men have nocturnal orgasms at some time in their lives
(whereas 60 percent of women do not).104
A few pages later, Baker adds, “In any given human society, there tend to
be about a third to half as many women bisexuals as men.”105 The tendency of
women to fuse sex and romance is a major reason for this. After all, most women
are heteroromantic. Thus, most women will remain heterosexual as well.
Heteroromantic men, by contrast, can easily have sex in or out of a
heteroromantic context. Only homophobia and the threat of shame and violence
keep males heterosexual as well. Women also tend to prefer sex in a personal
context (e.g., one-on-one). Conversely, men tend to prefer sex in a social context
(e.g., group sex), although men also enjoy one-on-one sex. What keeps men in
line are:
1) Upbringing, peer pressure, the media, and the law
104
Robin Baker, Sperm Wars: The Science of Sex, (New York: Basic Books, 1996), p. 291.
105
Ibid., p. 255.
2) What each of the above enforces—namely, compulsory monogamy,

the monopoly of romantic love over sex, and the illegitimacy of
homosexual expression with platonic love (e.g., romantic-friendship)
The result of all this is that, in the words of Seth from The Nature of the
Psyche:
Lesbianism and homosexuality, as they are currently experienced, also

represent exaggerated versions of natural [bisexual] inclinations, even as
your experienced version of heterosexuality is exaggerated.106
The bi movement, however, is challenging the either/or view of human

sexuality. According to Yale’s Kenji Yoshino, this movement has produced an
“epistemic contract.” Such a contract is an unspoken agreement between
straights and gays to pretend that bisexuality is a “myth,” especially male
bisexuality. This contract exists because bisexuality threatens the straight/gay
paradigm at the core.107
The Bonobo Way
106
107
See Kenji Yoshino, “The Epistemic Contract of Bisexual Erasure,” Stanford Law Review, January 1,
2000, Vol. 52, Issue 2: 353-461. The essay can be found at
http://www.kenjiyoshino.com/articles/epistemiccontract.pdf.
We share 98 percent of our genes with bonobos (pygmy chimps), more

than we share with the common chimpanzee. This makes us as close to bonobos
as “a fox is to a dog.”108 Yet, we behave more like chimps in terms of sexual
competition, social hierarchy, patriarchy, and violence. If two chimps stumble
upon a banana, for instance, they fight over it. If two bonobos trip upon a
banana, they have sex to resolve their conflict. Chimps compete. Bonobos
cooperate. Chimps make war. Bonobos make love. Chimps live by patriarchy.
Bonobos live by matriarchy. Chimps use sex as a tool of aggression. Bonobos
use sex as a tool of conflict resolution.
If humans and bonobos are the closest of primates, then why do we think
and act more like chimpanzees? The only answer has to be: human culture,
human fear, and human ego. Although the most biologically evolved of earth
species, humankind is not the most spiritually evolved creation. Elsewhere in
this universe, other beings far surpass humanity’s level of spiritual evolution,
according to the book trilogy Conversations with God.109 On earth, by contrast,
no longer adaptive human instincts like sexual competition keep spiraling out of
control.
Chimps are innately how most humans have chosen to be. Bonobos are
innately how most humans have chosen not to be. No wonder primatologists are
so obsessed with the common chimpanzee and neglectful of bonobos. Still, as
sages have said throughout the ages, humans are peaceful by nature, not violent.
The bonobo way is the human way. The chimp way is the antihuman way.
Bonobos are, again, the closest nonhuman species to us.110 Their matriarchy and
108
This quote comes from “A Near Relative,” a section of the web article titled, “Bonobo Sex and Society:
The Behavior of a Close Relative Challenges Assumptions about Male Supremacy in Human Evolution.”
Article by Frans B. M. de Waal. Originally published in Scientific American, March 1995, pgs. 82-88. The
URL of the article is http://songweaver.com/info/bonobos.html.
109
See Walsch, Conversations with God, Book 3.
110
See Bruce Bagemihl, Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity, (New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 1999).
bisexuality make primatologists very nervous, however, so most of them study

chimps instead. Most nature programs take the easy way out as well and
educate the public about chimpanzees. Thus, most of us don’t even know that
bonobos exist.
Make Love, Not War
In The Politics of Lust, John Ince, a lawyer and journalist, writes that “…
sexual variety seems inherently attractive to our species. Sexual non-exclusivity
occurs even in cultures where it is punishable by death.”111
As pleasure increases, violence decreases. This applies to us as
individuals and as a society. It also applies at the level of the human mind and at
the level of the physical body. Can one imagine, for example, someone having
violent thoughts after having an orgasm? James Prescott, a social scientist,
analyzed hundreds of societies statistically. He found a correlation—although
this is not necessarily causation—between two variables. As Carl Sagan writes in
The Varieties of Scientific Experience:
And he [Prescott] concludes that all cultures in which the children are
hugged and the teenagers can have sex wind up without powerful social
hierarchies and everybody’s happy. And those cultures in which the
children are not permitted to be hugged because of some social ban and a
premarital adolescent sexual taboo is strictly enforced wind up killing,
hating, and having powerful dominance hierarchies.112
111
Ince, The Politics of Lust, p. 140.
112
Carl Sagan, The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God, (New York:
The Penguin Press, 2006), p. 173.
Even if we overcome destructive impulses like jealousy, possessiveness,

and sexual competition, what about overpopulation and the threat of STDs? Is
“free love” maladaptive nonetheless in the postmodern age?
For all their promiscuity, bonobos don’t reproduce any more than the
chimps on the other side of the Zaire River in Africa. The bonobo population has
long been stable. Human poaching and war in the Congo, not STDs, is what is
threatening bonobos with extinction. On a similar thread, demographic studies
show that if everyone has an average of two children, the human population
would stabilize. People, though, have yet to act out logically what they know
rationally. Many of us continue to have three, four, and five children. In the
First World, having one child is the same as having several in the Third World.
This is because 1 billion Westerners use more resources than the 5.5 billion non-
Westerners. Americans alone consume 26 percent of the planet’s energy. If
humanity were expanding into outer space, then intimate partners having five
children would be no problem. Given federal policy since 1978, however,
colonizing space won’t happen this time around. In the words of Carl Sagan,
sending up the Space Shuttle is not space exploration. Space exploration, he said,
is when humans send spacecraft to the other planets.113 Meanwhile, the human
population is scheduled to jump to 10 billion by the mid-21st century.
The rule of 2.1 children per couple may be turning upside down, however.
This is due to the climatic changes that lie ahead. Such changes will require new
breeds of humans, born through interracial couplings, so that these human
populations have a better chance of surviving the collapse of nature. As the
epilogue states, Mother Nature is experimenting with genetic recombinations in
113
See “Opening Keynote Address: What Is the Value of Space Exploration?”, NASA Center for Mars
Exploration, at http://cmex.ihmc.us/cmex/data/vse/keynote.html. Carl Sagan spoke at the Laboratory for
Radiophysics and Space Science at Cornell University.
humans. This means that people with unique genes—such as people with
Asperger Syndrome—may benefit the future of humanity by having more
offspring than 2.1 children per couple. Although these “disorders” are
maladaptive today, they may well become adaptive in the future, either alone or
combined with other genes. The rules of the ordinary world sure are breaking
down. Seen symbolically, the epidemic of cancer is an inner reflection of humans
multiplying like cancer on the outer world. Cancer will be cured when humanity
stops multiplying without restraint.
So what is the answer? If the human body evolved to be fruitful and to
multiply, then how can we rise above our urge to procreate nonstop? How can
we overcome 4.5 million years of hominid evolution? The answer is, we can’t.
At most, we can play around our sexual instinct and channel it in constructive
directions. Most humans having more than two children is no longer adaptive.
Again, this may change soon, as humanly illogical as this is given our population
of almost 7 billion. Therefore, for now at least, people can delay pregnancies and
minimize the number of offspring. Modern medicine has yielded contraception.
Nature allows homosexuality, a “method” that serves physical, emotional, and
social—not procreative—purposes.114 The trick is to find ways of expressing
ourselves sexually within the confines of nature—in a way that doesn’t produce
harmful results to ourselves, to others, or to the environment.
Many readers will ask, “What about STDs, especially AIDS?” First, the
world is surrounded by disease-think. Disease-speak is a by-product. How
many people have you heard, for example, complaining about some ailment?
They are obsessed with illness. Not surprisingly, diseases materialize on a planet
where a critical mass of the population thinks about disease. I believe that when
114
Social conservatives—whom I call social regressives—argue that homosexuality is a disruptive impulse.
But the criterion of adaptive vs. maladaptive is: Does it harm anyone or the environment? Like everything
else, the answer depends on context (e.g., rape vs. consent). Much as straight sex can be adaptive or
maladaptive, so is gay sex.
the world is ready—truly ready—to enjoy sex without guilt or negativity, STDs
will decline dramatically. Does this mean throwing caution to the winds? Of
course, not. It just means enjoying sex responsibly and thinking healthy.
Smallpox, for instance, was eradicated in 1980. This victory was the effect of goal
setting, and it required curative thinking. Why can’t STDs be eliminated as well?
Second, according to Peter Duesberg, professor of molecular and cell biology at
the University of California at Berkeley, AIDS is not an STD but rather, a
syndrome produced by the abuse of drugs, illegal and legal, in the Western
world.115 The first round of AIDS cases, the classic Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS), was a
cancer of the lungs. In the early 1980s, some physicians thought that “poppers”
(toxic aphrodisiacs that are inhaled) were the cause. Nitrite inhalants were so
popular in the late 1970s that many gay nightclubs sprayed this over-the-counter
drug onto dancing crowds. The 1970s also saw the introduction of hard drugs
into urban areas. The drug epidemic, it turns out, is the AIDS epidemic,
according to Peter Duesberg.116 This is largely why HIV positive people (the tests
can’t measure HIV) who are drug free tend to stay healthy. Conversely, HIV
positive people with a drug history tend to get sick. The key word is tend, as
there are always exceptions. Although rare, there are also documented cases of
HIV negative people developing AIDS, people whose lifestyles are or were
extremely unhealthy. The key word here is extremely. According to Peter
Duesberg, a pioneer in retrovirus research, other factors of AIDS are
malnutrition, drinking toxic water routinely (e.g., people in the Third World),
and sexually exchanging non-HIV toxic fluids (e.g., antiviral drugs in the blood)
with hundreds of sexual partners. The key word of the last phrase is hundreds.
115
See Peter H. Duesberg, Inventing the AIDS Virus, (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1996).
116
See Peter H. Duesberg and David Rasnick, “The AIDS Dilemma: Drug Diseases Blamed on a Passenger
Virus” at Duesberg on AIDS. The URL of the abstract is
http://www.duesberg.com/papers/pddrgenetica.html.
As Duesberg has hypothesized since 1987, all of the above can severely weaken
the immune system.117
In The Stonewall Experiment, author Ian Young adds:
And the system of allopathic medicine subscribed to by their doctors

[doctors treating gays in the 1970s] often attacked symptoms while
neglecting underlying causes. Frequent bouts of sexually transmitted
diseases were treated by progressively stronger doses of antibiotics. The
weaker bacteria and parasites were wiped out; the stronger mutated,
necessitating still stronger antibiotics. When combined with a generous
selection of recreational drugs, the damage to the immune system was
severe.118
This is not to blame the victim, as AIDS is a nightmarishly devastating

syndrome. HIV, however, is not the “killer virus” that the major media would
have us believe.119 HIV does produce symptoms. But other than assume that the
hard-to-find virus must be “hiding” somewhere, medical science hasn’t been
able to explain full-blown AIDS without referring to HIV cofactors. Drug use
and environmental toxins seem to be the biggest cofactors of HIV—although
politics is keeping this truth under covers.
Humans who wish to make love, not war, need to embrace sex education
from an early age. This is because different types of sex carry different risks.
Vaginal sex is safer than rectal sex, for example. People who choose not to wear
protection need detailed information about the various forms of copulation.
Many doctors are prevented from disseminating information about the health
117
See Duesberg, Inventing the AIDS Virus.
118
Ian Young, The Stonewall Experiment: A Gay Psychohistory, (New York: Cassell, 1995), p. 114.
119
See Michael Fumento, The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS, (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1990).
risks of rectal sex—except for HIV—because of political pressures not to reveal

some things. Rectal sex is safer, for instance, if practiced with a limited number
of partners. But such partners need to have intestinal health, especially if
condoms are not used.120 Research on microbicides, the latex-free “condom” of
the future, needs to be funded more as well so that microbicides can be
developed commercially. This includes vaginal and rectal microbicides. Also,
urinating after rectal sex is a good way to cleanse the urethra.
If bisexuality becomes common in the future, then we better heed the
warnings of social conservatives—that is, if we want to prevent more sexual
epidemics. Apprehensions about rising sexual permissiveness are based on
some truth. The biggest worry of social conservatives is that widespread rectal
sex, whether heterosexual or homosexual, may lead to more transfers of bacteria
and viruses to inserters and to illnesses rarely seen today. Add drugs to that,
recreational and pharmaceutical, and you have a volatile mix. This is not to say
that rectal sex per se is lethal. It is, however, more risky than vaginal sex (see
Part II, Chapter 11, section titled, “Gluttony of the Gonads”).
Rectal sex is not merely a gay sex issue, for most of the rectal sex being
practiced is and has always been heterosexual. Therefore, if rectal sex increases
in frequency, everybody will need to be informed about its benefits and dangers
so that everyone can make informed choices. Sex education must be free of
political pressures from the Right and from the Left so that it can be as objective
as possible. Human health and happiness are more important, after all, than
politics. The pros and cons of all kinds of sex are included in comprehensive sex
education, along with the emotional issues of each erotic coupling.
120
There is the possibility that, mixed with water, lime juice makes an effective enema because, like
lemons, limes are a natural disinfectant. Garlic fluid could make another good enema because garlic helps
to combat intestinal worms. I do not recommend, however, trying lime, lemon, or garlic enemas without
medical research having been first conducted on such methods. Garlic, lemons, and limes need to be
studied more so that, if safe, these natural medicines may be used by people interested in another form—
although riskier without condoms—of healthier rectal sex.
The power of mind over matter needs to be exercised as well. If you

believe, for instance, that a sexual practice like rectal sex will give you a urinary
tract infection, then you are more likely to get one. Such an infection may also be
a way of punishing yourself for engaging in an erotic act that you feel guilty
about. But if you practice cleanliness, think healthy, and let go of guilt, then you
are less likely to get physically sick.
A major sign that we are still in the dark ages when it comes to sex is teen
girls and teen boys. In 2009, we have gynecologists and urologists. But in the
words of pediatric professor, medical psychologist, and sexologist John Money,
not a single ephebiatric clinic (for teen health) exists in the entire Western world.
Medical books that are used to train gynecologists and urologists devote, at
most, two pages to the teen reproductive system. When teen girls and teen boys
need medical attention for a sexual—or nonsexual—matter, they must go to the
adult clinics. Meanwhile, American laws restrict whom teens can turn to for
sexual and reproductive help. Minors, who lack comprehensive civil rights, are
powerless to assert their rights on such matters.
One overlooked factor of the prevalence of STDs is the mobility of much
of the globe’s population. Today, someone with an STD can travel around the
world in less than 24 hours. Also, people live in crowded cities. This promotes
the meeting of many strangers, many of whom will have STDs. Not until after
the world peaks in oil production (see epilogue) will sparsely settled
communities become relatively insular again.
A trans-instinctual society revels in the many possibilities for sexual
satisfaction. Its people learn about the joys and risks of the various types of sex
—in schools, in colleges, in health clinics, and via appropriate media. Trans-
instinctual humans learn about sex free of government or political interference.
Then, such individuals make conscious decisions about which forms of sex, if
any, to engage in. If a sexual or reproductive problem arises, then women and
men have access to gynecologists and urologists, as women and men do today.
But so do teen girls and teen boys—to yet-to-be-born ephebiatricians (physicians
who specialize in teen health). After all, the civic freedoms of minors—and their
responsibilities—are taken as seriously as those of adults in a trans-instinctual
milieu.
Trans-instinctual humans don’t necessarily limit sex to one partner—
although this is a valid option. But individuals who practice polyamory (many
loves) don’t go overboard either with dozens of sexual partners. Balance is their
motto. A trans-instinctual society allows males to enjoy sex with an intact
foreskin, as opposed to cutting off this part of nature. Similarly, men are
programmed to rush through sex. Trans-instinctual males, however, learn the
pleasures of delayed orgasms. Tantric sex is one method. Such males are not
genitally focused, as in quick descent from mouth to genitals. Like women,
trans-instinctual men celebrate the entire human body, and this doesn’t just
apply to men caressing women in bed. In a trans-instinctual society, women
caress men, too. Men don’t feel any less manly for permitting a woman—or
whomever—to touch them all over. Rather, trans-instinctual men enjoy being
touched as much as they love to touch their sexual partners. Trans-instinctual
humans embrace sex wholly, not just genitally. Enjoying sex, such people
indulge a primitive aspect of themselves. Humans are, after all, the only species
on earth to stand fully upright. During copulation, however, we lose that
uprightness. Instead, we straddle one another as if riding horses, lie like lizards,
get on all fours like dingoes and lynxes, and twist and turn into dozens of animal
positions. During sex, we leave behind the rational part of our humanity, and
we heave, moan, howl, and scream. In this sense, sex reminds us of our animal
origins and ties us to nature in a way that postmodern civilization cannot. As
Henry David Thoreau wrote, “In wildness is the preservation of the world.”121 A
trans-instinctual society is paradoxically spiritual and sexual. In such a milieu,
both are in balance, and sex springs from romantic love and/or romantic-
friendship. At the same time, not all intimate relationships are erotically
expressed, for this would be sexual addiction.
The next chapter addresses romantic love, monogamy, and ways that we
can rise above their limiting aspects.
Exercises
1) Do you feel that people use each other in everyday life? If yes, do you
see this as moral or ethical? Why or why not? Is there a difference
between being used nonsexually and being used sexually? How do you
define being used sexually? Write your thoughts or speak them into a tape
recorder.
2) If each party is open about its intentions to use each other sexually—
such as male athletes in a locker room—is that moral or ethical in your
view? Or is sex without love immoral or unethical, even when chosen
openly and consciously?
3) Have you ever pressured someone to have sex? If yes, why? Was it
subtle or obvious? How did the other person respond?
121
See Henry David Thoreau and Eliot Porter, In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World, (New York:
BBS Publishing Corporation, 1996).
4) If you have sex, ask yourself what are your intentions for doing so.
4
Romantic Love
The “love bug” is a very important element of human survival. Males

tend to fall in love through sex. Females tend to fall into sex through love.
Women start from the fourth chakra of green (the heart) and drop to the second
chakra of orange (the genitals). Men start from the second chakra, and if they fall
in love, rise to the fourth chakra. In erotic and romantic matters, how does one
know if one is coming from the second chakra or the fourth chakra? If you want
to copulate with someone right away (hormones), then you are coming from the
lower frequencies of the second chakra. If you feel romantic e-motions (energies
in motion) for somebody, then you are coming from the higher frequencies of the
fourth chakra.
A major reason why men are from Mars and women are from Venus is
that sex evolved in the context of reproduction. Romantic love, on the other
hand, evolved in the context of child rearing. So has argued Lisa Diamond,
professor of psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah.122 In other
words, men want to reproduce (sex), while women want men to stick around
after sex (romance) to help raise offspring. Another way of describing the
122
See Lisa M. Diamond, “Emerging Perspectives on Distinctions Between Romantic Love and Sexual
Desire,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, June 2004, Vol. 13, No. 3: 116-119.
difference between sex and romance is the following: Sex arises from the brain
and genitals, whereas romance arises from the heart.
One reason why men and women are from different planets is that each of
the sexes produces different hormones in differing amounts. How do these
chemicals influence sexual reproduction and child rearing? What new
paradigms are emerging with regard to romantic love, commitment, and the sex
that springs from these?
That Aching Need
In Anatomy of Love, anthropologist Helen Fisher lays the foundation of

romantic love. Contrary to popular view, Fisher contends, romantic love is not
the invention of European troubadours of the 11th to 13th centuries. Rather, she
goes on, romantic love has a biological basis in the hormones oxytocin and
phenylethylamine (PEA). PEA, Fisher writes, is a brain chemical, and it
decreases in the human body two to four years after someone falls in love. This,
she explains, is why romantic love is short-lived and why it evolves to a
companionate love down the road—assuming that a love relationship doesn’t
break up beforehand. If romantic desire goes unrequited, Fisher argues, then the
infatuation can last a “lifetime.”123
Women produce more oxytocin than men. A bonding chemical, oxytocin
is why women tend to fall in love before their sex drive kicks in, and explains
why women tend to experience romantic love in conjunction with erotic desire.
Oxytocin produces that feeling of elation and of wanting to cuddle with one’s
123
See Helen E. Fisher, Anatomy of Love: The Natural History of Monogamy, Adultery, and Divorce,
(New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1992).
partner after lovemaking. This has biological benefits. Keeping women lying
down after semen has been deposited into them, oxytocin increases their chances
of conceiving. Oxytocin also causes women to bond with their infants after
giving birth. It is nature’s way of ensuring reproduction and child rearing.
Though men produce oxytocin during sex, they produce less of this “love
chemical” than women. Instead, men produce the sex-and-aggression hormone
called testosterone. This is largely why men can easily divorce sex from
romance, while women tend to blend the two.
In Power vs. Force, researcher David Hawkins distinguishes between love
and Love. Love with a small l (romantic love) is not the unconditional Love of
Mother Teresa nor the unconditional Love of a mother for her child. Instead,
romantic love is what Hawkins calls an “addiction” based on need. Hawkins
writes:
What the world generally refers to as love is an intense emotional

condition, combining physical attraction, possessiveness, control,
addiction, eroticism, and novelty. It’s usually fragile and fluctuating,
waxing and waning with varying conditions. When frustrated, this
emotion often reveals an underlying anger and dependency that it had
masked [emphasis mine]. That love can turn to hate is a common
perception, but here, an addictive sentimentality [emphasis mine] is likely
what’s being spoken about, rather than Love; … 124
Another way of differentiating between romantic love and unconditional Love is

that romantic attraction is based on fantasy, whereas unconditional Love loves
regardless of who the person really is. In other words, romantic love ends when
124
David R. Hawkins, Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior, Revised Edition,
(Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, Inc., 2002), pgs. 89-90.
the emotional high “comes crashing down to reality,” but unconditional Love
goes on loving because it never had a fantasy to begin with. As Arthur Aron, a
psychologist with the State University of New York, said:
It’s not that we fall in love with such people because they’re immensely
attractive. It’s that they seem immensely attractive because we’ve fallen in
love with them.125
What fuels romantic feelings? Love chemicals upstairs, coupled with

socialization. First, the human brain “in love” releases a neurotransmitter called
dopamine. Feeling a dopamine rush is like munching chocolate. Adrenaline,
another love bug, follows in the heels of dopamine, and the heart throbs in
response. The hormone factory of the human brain unleashes another molecule
whenever one meets Mr. or Ms. Right. This third love chemical is called
serotonin. More exhilaration. Oxytocin, that bonding hormone, gets released as
well in the attic of the human body. Oxytocin generates feelings of addiction for
the beloved. PEA, yet another brain chemical, causes one to feel an emotional
high for the person. The reason is that PEA has the properties of an
amphetamine.126 As Jim Pfaus, a psychologist and sexologist with Concordia
University in Montreal, said, “Natural opioids get activated, and you think
someone made you feel good, but it’s your brain that made you feel good
[emphasis mine].”127
While one part of the human brain is busy synthesizing love hormones,
another part is captivated by the mystery of “the other.” Men generally love
women romantically—and women men—because boys and girls tend to
125
See Jeffrey Kluger, Eben Harrell, Kristin Kloberdanz, and Kate Stinchfield, “Why We Love: Breeding Is
Easy, But Survival Requires Romance Too,” Time, January 28, 2008, Vol. 171, No. 4, p. 59.
126
Ibid., pgs. 58-59.
127
Ibid., p. 59.
segregate themselves during childhood. This makes the opposite sex seem
“exotic.” During adolescence, Martians start to get curios about Venusians, and
Venusians about Martians. For those in love, curiosity about the opposite sex
turns into obsession over the beloved. Both love chemicals and human
socialization are distinguishing characteristics of romantic love.
During childhood and adolescence, we develop romantic ideals based on
a volley of factors—family dynamics, unmet childhood needs, and social
conditioning. When we fall in love, we project our romantic dreams onto
another person. Indoctrinated by Western culture, we expect one individual of
the opposite sex to fulfill one’s every romantic need. As Marianne Williamson,
the spiritual activist, said at a lecture, “You’re in love with the picture.”128 Real
people never live up to the illusion, of course. Disappointment, hate, and
divorce often follow. Real Love, by contrast, does not expect anything from
anyone. Love with an L gives unconditionally, is endlessly patient, and loves
without limits.
Some lovers love each other more unconditionally than romantic love calls
for. This is because the hearts of the unconditional Lovers are kindred spirits.
Their spiritual Love is strong enough to override the limits of romantic love.
Such lovers are trans-instinctual enough to have risen above the neediness of
romantic love. Of itself, however, romantic love is needy. It was created to bring
out our wounds so that, in a romantic relationship, we may heal from them and
grow personally and spiritually. Romantic love is thus more about us and less
about the beloved.
Love with an l is rented. When we rent an apartment, we offer the
requested payment to management. In exchange, management gives us a place
to live. Romantic love—and friendship—work very much like this. As long as
128
See Marianne Williamson’s On Commitment, a lecture released on cassette by Harper Audio, New York,
1992.
we offer something, or things, of value to another person, we are loved. The

moment we are unable to keep paying, however, the relationship becomes
skewed. If the balance sheets become too unequal, then our partners leave us—
or vice-versa. In this sense, love is rented. Forms of payment are good looks,
charisma, sexiness, vulnerability, career success, and being a friend. Our
qualities draw others toward us, depending on what currencies others desire. In
return, our friends and love partners give us things we want—or things they
think we want. People with little going for them—such as low social skills—end
up single, celibate, and alone against their will. Such individuals lack the
currency for social relationships. Old men can’t even go to a prostitute because
some forms of payment have been made illegal. Single men and women are also
in trouble if they fall in love—or lust—with someone “taken.” This is because 95
percent of couples refuse to share their partner. Single people are the ones to
experience the pain of being shut out from romantic relationships—and even
friendships—because other people’s boyfriends and girlfriends take precedence
over secondary relationships. As Suzanne Gordon, a sociologist, writes in
Lonely in America (1976), neighbors don’t visit one another anymore because the
assumption is that would-be friends are a bother and a threat to romantic
partners.129 Even my mother, a former nun, came under suspicion when she
visited a female neighbor who was married to a man. The woman’s mother
warned her daughter that my mother might steal her husband. This was despite
their knowing that my mother had a religious background and despite the three
of them being Puerto Rican. That, however, was mild compared to what
happens in Because I Said So (2007). In this movie, Johnny (Gabriel Macht) plain
explodes one night on a sidewalk when he finds out that his girlfriend Milly
(Mandy Moore) wants to be with another man as well. Possessiveness is the
129
See Suzanne Gordon, Lonely in America: A Portrait of Americans—Young, Old, Married, Single, in
Groups and Alone, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976).
ugliest side of monogamy. As Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) tells the
humanoid host (Nicole Orth-Pallavicini) of a symbiont being that Crusher
ditched in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation:
Perhaps, it is a human failing. But we are not accustomed to these kinds

of changes. I can’t keep up. How long will you have this host? What will
the next one be? I can’t live with that kind of uncertainty. Perhaps,
someday, our ability to love won’t be so limited.130
Most romances and friendships look and feel genuine. But these
relationships are delusions because they are conditional on a host of factors.
True love and friendship are unconditional. In this world, that is rarer than
diamonds were in the 19th century.
Jesus said, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” That is in the ideal world. In
“the real world,” love is the answer only if all parties love unconditionally. If
not, then one party will eventually bankrupt the other party—emotionally,
mentally, and/or economically. A tax revolt happens when a giver in a
relationship has been “taxed to death” by the other party. Spouses and lovers
who rail, “I’ve had it” are much like the protesters who staged tea parties across
America on April 15, 2009 (tax day). Some of the more notable slogans on the
pickets were:
1) Bailout. Not My Cup of Tea

2) Don’t Rip Off My Wallet
3) No Bailouts, Freebies, Handouts, and Giveaways
4) Mad as Hell
5) Born Free and Taxed to Death
130
Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Host.”
6) Stop Bankrupting Me
7) Stop Rewarding Bad Behavior
8) Change. That’s All You’ll Have Left in Your Wallet
9) Do Not Make Me Pay for Your Mistakes
10) Tea’d Off
11) Insanitea
12) Stop the Madness
13) We Can’t Live on Change Alone
14) Tax Revolt
15) I Am Overtaxed, Overburdened, and Overwhelmed
16) Enough is Enough
17) Don’t Tread on Me
18) No Taxation without Representation
19) Fed Up. Taxed Out.
20) It’s Tea Time
Sometimes, part of one’s personality revolts against an abusive spouse,

while another part insists on loving him—or her—against all odds. In this case,
the fed up part of us is like the tea protesters who were replicating the Boston
Tea Party of 1773, while the doormat part of us is like congressional
representatives in 2009. More often than not, these “representatives” vote to loan
billions of dollars to unfriendly nations and vote to give tax breaks to
corporations. Each Spirit/soul is as complex as a nation. When a tax revolt
happens, part of us starts a War of Independence against the King Georges in our
lives. We stop being colonies and become independent nation-states.
Women who fall for bad boys are learning not to be attracted to the
“wrong” type of man. This lesson is learned through a type of electroshock
“therapy.” Each treatment session involves lies from the boyfriend or husband,
physical beatings from him, betrayals of all sorts, and even murder. When and if
the relationship orientation of a woman changes, then the electroshock
treatments end. For most people, romantic love becomes unromantic agony.
Like everything else in this universe, this is a paradox similar to: “How could a
Loving God allow Evil?”
Love as “Sacrifice”
Romantic partners are supposed to sacrifice for each other. This is seen as
“compromise” and as a “necessity” for people wanting to live together. This, of
course, sounds humanly logical.
The reality, though, is that compromise and sacrifice foster resentments
toward one’s partner. This is when compromise and sacrifice come from one
person imposing his or her way on another person, rather than when
compromise and sacrifice are absolutely necessary. An example of the latter is a
smoker boyfriend living with his nonsmoker girlfriend. If the girlfriend lets her
beau puff inside their house or apartment, then she is putting her health at risk
and is not loving herself. As the Spanish proverb goes, “Caridad contra caridad
no es caridad” (“Charity [for others] against charity [for oneself] is not charity.”)
In this case, the smoker needs to smoke in a place that does not endanger his
girlfriend’s lungs.
More often than not, however, compromise and sacrifice are unnecessary.
Examples of unnecessary sacrifices (compromises called for because one person
imposes on another person) are:
1) In an episode of Home Improvement, Jill Taylor (Patricia

Richardson) insists that her husband Tim (Tim Allen) go to an
opera fundraiser with her, rather than go alone.131 In an
alternative, trans-instinctual scenario, Jill would respect that her
husband hates opera.
2) In another episode of Home Improvement, Jill Taylor asks Tim

Taylor to have a romantic dinner with her. At the restaurant, Jill
forbids Tim to watch a football game on TV or even his listening
to it on his transistor radio, even though football is one of Tim’s
passions.132 In an alternative, trans-instinctual scenario, Jill
would let Tim enjoy his game at home—without asking for
anything in return—and she would enjoy her dinner at the
restaurant, for Jill would not be afraid to eat out alone.
3) In an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the newlyweds

Miles O’Brien (Colm Meaney) and Keiko O’Brien (Rosalind
Chao) have breakfast in their Enterprise quarters. Keiko, who is
from Japan, has introduced Miles, who is from Ireland, to a light
Japanese dish. Miles is not fond of “ kelp buds, plankton loaves,
and sea berries,” but he toys with the Japanese dish to please his
wife. Miles, however, can’t bring himself to eat Keiko’s meal,
and he tells her, “Sweetheart, I’m not a fish.”133 In exchange for
131
Home Improvement (1991-1999), “Birds of a Feather Flock to Taylor.” This episode originally aired on
the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) on March 3, 1992 (Season 1, episode 20).
132
Home Improvement, “Off Sides.” This episode originally aired on ABC on October 1, 1991 (Season 1,
episode 3).
133
Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Wounded.” This episode originally aired in syndication on
January 26, 1991 (Season 4, episode 12).
his sacrifice, Miles informs Keiko that, for dinner, he will

introduce her to “scalloped potatoes, mutton shanks, oxtails, and
cabbage.” Keiko replies, “Kind of heavy.”134 At dinner, Keiko
makes faces as she asks Miles, “What are these little, dark
things?” (in her husband’s potato casserole).135 In an alternative,
trans-instinctual scenario, Keiko and Miles would let each other
eat what each of them likes.
4) A wife is tidy and abhors clutter, while her husband is messy

and loves to collect things. Most wives will require their
husbands to change—and vice-versa. The wife and husband can
live in separate quarters of their house, however, or each can live
in a separate apartment and sleep together at night.
5) In an episode of Alf, Dorothy Halligan (Anne Meara) leaves

Whizzer (Paul Dooley) because “He doesn’t give a damn about
me. All he cares about is jazz, jazz, jazz.”136 Whizzer agrees to
give up his life on the road, and in return, he asks Dorothy to
move away from the town where Dorothy’s daughter (Anne
Schedeen) and grandchildren (Andrea Elson and Benji Gregory)
live.137 In an alternative, trans-instinctual scenario, Dorothy
would let Whizzer have his life on the road, and Whizzer
wouldn’t ask Dorothy to move away from her family.
134
Ibid.
135
Ibid.
136
Alf (1986-1990), “Break Up to Make Up.” This episode originally aired on the National Broadcasting
Company (NBC) on November 20, 1989 (Season 4, episode 10).
137
Ibid.
6) In the pilot episode of Home Improvement, Jill Taylor

admonishes her husband Tim, “Don’t touch the dishwasher.”138
Jill then leaves their house for a job interview. With Jill gone,
Tim connects a Finley motor to the dishwasher to give it “more
power.” Jill returns home and petulantly asks Tim, “What the
hell is that?”139 Tim turns on the cream-and-black dishwasher to
demonstrate its new compressor to Jill. The dishwasher
explodes—luckily, in a direction away from them.140 If the
dishwasher were Tim’s, then it is Tim’s business what he does or
doesn’t do to it. If the dishwasher is Jill’s, however, Tim needs to
respect Jill’s property. The problem with this episode—and with
most marriages—is that boundaries (e.g., which family
appliances belong to whom) are fuzzy. In such cases, it becomes
impossible to determine when respect for someone’s property
and personal boundaries is called for—and thus, compromise—
and when consideration is not called for.
In each of the above examples, one love partner asks the other to sacrifice
a passion, a food preference, his or her time, or a way of being or doing
something in order to please the partner making the demands. Rather than live
and let live, each partner requires the other to change. This leads to losing
yourself, meaning that you no longer know who you are. Losing yourself
triggers major resentments toward “the one at fault,” and those resentments lead
to rebellion. This is because, like Spirits/souls, humans desire total freedom.
True love asks for nothing.
138
Home Improvement, “Pilot.” This episode originally aired on ABC on September 17, 1991 (Season 1,
episode 1).
139
Ibid.
140
Ibid.
Paradoxically, sacrifice is noble when it is done for God or for one’s

Higher Self. Sacrifice, however, is not noble when it is done for the ego of
another person.
Monogamy
Western culture continues to idealize the portrait of one man and one
woman falling in love and yearning to spend the rest of their lives, if not eternity,
together. Romantic partners are supposed to “meet each other’s needs.” They
cannot have sex with anyone, other than with their significant other. If one party
is not “in the mood,” then the other party is supposed to go without sex. This is
like a husband asking his wife for a sandwich and the wife telling him no
because she is not hungry. If a couple is sitting at a table in a restaurant, then
neither partner can look at an outside party—at least, “not that way.”
The requirement that one’s love interest be and remain monogamous is
one of the most intolerant requirements that one person can impose on another
individual. Such a call for sacrifice—or as most people would call it,
“compromise”—is not only unnecessary but also cruel. Why? Because deep
down, we all know that ownership of one’s physical body belongs to one alone.
The “no sex outside our relationship” rule may bring a sense of security to the
person imposing such a requirement. But this restriction is an attempt to control
another person’s body. And not just the physical body but the emotional and
energetic body as well. Romantic partners even try to control each others’
minds. Wives, for example, often tell their husbands, “You better not fantasize
about that woman.” And this is called “love.” When the freedom to be oneself is
denied, men cheat and lie; women kvetch and leave; and the children suffer.
John Ince sums up the problem of one love partner requiring the other to
restrict his or her sex drive to the existing relationship. In The Politics of Lust,
Ince writes:
Blanket opposition to all sexual variety is intolerant. It forces a partner

who has a great need for some sexual variety to put an end to the existing
relationship. A total ban on sexual non-exclusivity promotes serial
monogamy rather than an enduring relationship. It is also conducive to
cheating. When partners allow some room to engage in sexual non-
exclusivity, they can negotiate healthy limits and restraints upon it
[emphasis mine]. Key to the unhealthiness of much sexual non-
exclusivity is the fact that it must be hidden.141
Ince lays the more serious consequence of restricting even fantasies about a
person other than one’s spouse. He argues:
Humans are sexual beings, and our lust often arises spontaneously. A
person who must constantly shut down those feelings and repeatedly
avoid all sexual stimuli beyond their spouse engages in a potent form of
phobigenic [phobia-causing] conditioning and is likely to acquire phobic
aversions not just to externally directed lust, but all lust …
141
Further, renouncing sexual interest in anyone other than one’s

partner takes energy and discipline, and reduces the amount of sexual
pleasure available.142
Ince continues, “When the pairing of arousal and shame occurs repeatedly,
conditioning will produce a negative association with arousal per se.”143 Sexual
inhibitions, Ince writes, follow as a result in marriages. Other negative effects
happen as well. One, for example, may be more prone to snap at people. These
consequences extend far beyond marital unhappiness.
What is the cause of our sexual no-nos? According to Ince:
Opposing our in-born erotic hedonism are powerful irrational fears

about our own sexuality and that of other people [emphasis mine]. Social
scientists call such fear erotophobia.144
Ince argues that the more democratic a society is, the more erotically free it is.
The less democratic a milieu is, he concludes, the less sexually free it is.145
Does this mean talking about genitals in public? On the contrary, our
repression of sex is what makes us obsessed with it in magazines, at cocktail
parties, and at dinner gatherings. In a sexually free society, sex would be less
talked about. It would be one—not the dominant—topic of conversation.
However, monogamism (the ideology of monogamy) forces a mentality of
scarcity on the population at large. Like male/female, white/black,
straight/gay, citizen/foreigner, and right/wrong, monogamist/cheater doesn’t
tolerate any shade of gray. In each of these binary systems, the first is viewed as
142
Ibid., p. 154.
143
Ibid., p. 150.
144
Ibid., p. 7.
145
Ibid., pgs. 14-15.
good, and the second is seen as bad. The first version reigns supreme and allows
very little, if any, challenge.146 The law, social custom, and peer pressure force
virtually everyone to conform to each of these either/or arrangements.
Regarding the monogamist/cheater binary, a graduate from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) writes in Plural Loves:
Our culture sets us up with a false choice: we are faithful or we are

cheating. Both options are highly scripted and allow the operation of
power through restrictions [emphasis mine].147
In a love dyad, the power to control another’s mind, body, and behavior is
mighty because it remains hidden—and hence, unexamined and unchallenged.
Having sex or an intimate relationship with a third party, even with the consent
of all parties, puts one on the defensive in the larger society. This is like
homosexuality always having to be explained but never heterosexuality;
nonwhites being hyphenated Americans but Anglo Americans simply being
“Americans”; poor people belonging to the working class or underclass but
middle class people being classless; and colored people being discriminated
against for their race but “white” people having no race. Like all hegemonies
(e.g., heterosexism, racism, classism, patriarchy, and ageism), fear lies behind the
attempt to control people. In the case of monogamy being seen as the only moral
choice in a love relationship—as opposed to one of many moral choices in such a
relationship—what do most of us fear?
Numa Ray, a spiritual disciple, puts it as follows in Plural Loves:
146
Graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Pepper Mint makes this same argument
in “The Power Dynamics of Cheating: Effects on Polyamory and Bisexuality,” Part One: Perspectives,
Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, ed., Plural Loves: Designs for Bi and Poly Living, (Binghamton, NY:
Harrington Park Press, 2004), pgs. 60-61.
147
Ibid., p. 60.
Most people choose monogamy because they are afraid to face the pain of
seeing their loved one enjoying himself or herself with another, afraid of
speaking the truth, afraid of being alone. People are afraid to lose what
little joy they have found, so they insist on monogamy while they think
that they can be secure knowing that their loved one shares love only with
them.148
But Ray warns:
Security is monogamy’s biggest illusion! One must always choose

between an old love and a new one, because two loves are not allowed!
Therefore there is actually no security in a monogamous relationship.
People are always falling in love with each other, it is a gift of human
nature.149
She concludes:
In the polyamorous relationship that I now have with my partner, I have a

feeling of security that was never possible before. We can love each other,
and love someone new, and we never have to choose.150
Circumstantial monogamy differs from compulsory monogamy.

Circumstantial monogamy arises because the two partners happen not to love a
148
Numa Ray, “Love Is Born from the Pulse of God’s Heart: An Insight into the Polyamorous Circle
Kamala,” Part Two: Testimonials and Reports from the Field, Serena, ed., Plural Loves, p. 136.
149
Ibid.
150
Ibid., pgs. 136-137.
third party during a given slice of time. Circumstantial monogamy, however, is

flexible to becoming polyamorous should a third party enter the scene.
Compulsory monogamy, by contrast, is a facet of human selfishness. It is
more about you and I being the only one who is loved romantically and sexually
and less about the freedom of the beloved to love several other people
romantically and express that love erotically.
Above Possessiveness
In an episode of Alf, Randy Boylan (Mark Clayman) asks Lynn Tanner

(Andrea Elson) to accompany him to their school dance. Lynn accepts the
invitation from the guy, whom she has been tutoring, because Danny (Ricky
Paull Goldin) cannot attend the dance. Danny believes that he—Danny—and
Lynn are going steady. Having convinced his father to let him go to the dance,
Danny hurries over to tell Lynn. It is too late. At Lynn’s house, Randy and
Danny prepare to box over who is to take Lynn to the dance. Lynn gets in the
middle. The scene unfolds as follows:
Danny: This guy [Randy] is moving in on my territory.
Lynn: Your territory? What do I look like, the Louisiana Purchase?151
Danny reifies the troubadour mindset of romantic love—supported by a

little machismo. Lynn, on the other hand, personifies the polyamoric (many
151
This scene is from the episode of Alf titled, “Torn Between Two Lovers.” The episode originally aired
on NBC on March 6, 1989 (Season 3, episode 20).
love) view of romantic love. She likes Randy platonically but doesn’t let that
“lesser love” keep her from going out with him. Lynn escorts Danny to her
parent’s front porch, while Randy waits in the house for her. The porch scene
progresses as follows:
Lynn: Danny. You raced back here assuming I’d be sitting around
waiting for you. Well, I wasn’t.
Danny: We have been dating.
Lynn: Exactly! We’ve been dating—no more, no less.
Danny: You’re not saying that you wanna stop seeing me.
Lynn: Not at all! Are you saying you want to stop seeing me?
Danny: No!152
At the front porch, Lynn and Danny agree to get “more serious.” The scene
concludes:
Danny: So does this mean that you won’t go to the dance with Randy?
Lynn: No. He’s my friend. He asked me, and I accepted.
Danny: [disappointed] Yeah. I guess that’s o.k.
152
Ibid.
Lynn: [smiling sarcastically] Thank you for your permission.153
A new paradigm has emerged in relation to romantic love. Whereas the

old paradigm was of two halves coming together to form a whole, the new
paradigm is about two or more wholes coming together to grow in their
completeness. One of the two or more individuals may not have expanded that
completeness, much as an apprentice has yet to develop his or her inborn talent
through a master. But the talent is already inside, ready for the sun, soil, and
water that it needs to flourish. In a marriage of the new paradigm, no longer is
the husband supposed to be the breadwinner (the first half of the equation) and
the wife the homemaker (the second half). Rather, the husband and wife can
cook (both are whole here); the husband and wife can work outside the home
(both are whole here); and the husband and wife can raise the kids (both are
whole here). If the wife likes being a housewife, that is acceptable to the
husband. If a wife detests being a housewife, that is equally acceptable to the
husband. The key is that men and women are free to be themselves, instead of
being required—as by feminism or by traditional masculinity—to be this or that.
In a marriage of the new paradigm, none of the partners have to give up their
human individuality or sense of spiritual Self.
The old paradigm saw faults in others. The new paradigm sees wounds.
The old paradigm viewed marriage as a matter of physical survival. The new
paradigm views marriage as an accord of Spirits/souls wanting to grow
together. The old paradigm saw marriage as closed. The new paradigm sees
marriage as open or closed, depending on the desires, needs, and choices of the
involved partners. The old paradigm saw marriage as “till death do us part.”
153
Ibid.
The new paradigm sees marriage as good until the relationship or relationships
have outlived their spiritual usefulness. In other words, human relationships are
cosmic assignments. When the missions of the involved spirits are complete, the
respective relationships end.
The “many love” wing of the new paradigm of marriage is called
polyamory (see Part I, Chapter 4, section titled, “Polyamory”). While romantic
commitment to one person is acceptable, polyamorists propose, so is a love
commitment to more than one person. If a woman falls in love with two men,
for example, she can commit to both. The men, in turn, can commit together to
the woman. No longer is the woman required to “choose,” and no longer are the
men supposed to compete for the woman. This new paradigm of marriage is
about the men tolerating each other, at the very least. (There is also the
monogamous form of the new paradigm of marriage, discussed above.) Even if
the men don’t like each other, trans-instinctual men who are poly respect each
other enough to share the woman. If the men like or love each other, then the
woman allows them to enjoy their sexuality together, with and without her. In
such relationships, everyone is free to be themselves. If the actions of one hurt
another, then the “victim” evaluates his or her role in being victimized, instead of
blaming the other. The person who “caused” the hurt reviews, in turn, his or her
role in causing pain to the other. Everyone takes responsibility for his or her
thoughts and actions.
Undoubtedly, open relationships challenge our romantic idealism at its
core. Possessiveness—one of the hallmarks of romantic love—goes out the
window. So does the idea of one person meeting another’s every need. While
monogamy works for many people, so does nonmonogamy. The key word is
honesty, and more important, feeling safe to be honest with one’s partner about
one’s desires. Such desires could be for a second romantic commitment or for
the fulfillment of a sexual fantasy. Trans-instinctual humans never pressure

anyone into anything. But they claim the freedom to communicate with their
partners—or with prospective partners—without fear of censure. If the answer
is yes, terrific. If the answer is no, grand. Trans-instinctual humans indulge their
better human and spiritual instincts, instincts like to freely express Love. At the
same time, they are detached enough from those instincts to accept nos, examine
other options, and make new choices that sustain who they are.
Unmet Needs
In the movie Confusion of Genders (French; 2000), the young Christophe

(Cyrille Thouvenin) is always throwing himself upon the much older Alain
Bauman (Pascal Greggory). Every time the two meet in private, Christophe
undoes their shirts and pants, kisses Alain hungrily, and drags the reluctant
elder to bed. One can literally see the youth sucking the energy out of the
fiftysomething Alain. And it is not just sexual lust that the aimless Christophe
has toward Alain, the lawyer, but romantic desire as well, for Christophe pines
to move in with Alain. Perhaps more than any other movie, this French film
depicts romantic love—and sexual lust—as a type of vampirism. This flick
shows the following:
1) Sexual desire is a thirst for a person’s flesh

2) Romantic love is a hunger for a person’s emotions
Spiritual masters seek to get rid of their desires—and keep them at bay
once this has been accomplished. Why? Because desire is about wanting, rather
than about experiencing and sharing one’s wholeness (holiness). Being struck by
Cupid’s Arrow is like having one’s neck bitten by a vampire. Instead of
becoming thirsty for blood, a person in love becomes sexually parched for the
beloved’s physique and romantically starved for the beloved’s energy. Because
every individual vibrates at a unique frequency of energy, only the “beloved”
can satisfy the sexual thirst and emotional famishment of the one in “love.”
Kissing, sucking on, or even sniffing a beloved is like drinking joy. This is alright
if the one on the receiving end has energy to spare. The danger, however, is that
the drinker may not be able to stop himself or herself. Why? Not only because
he or she is drinking sunlight but also, because addictions like to another
person’s energy can never be fully satisfied. This is why people in love say, “I
can’t get enough of you,” or “I am addicted to you.” But the more you feed from
the energy vortex, the more the energy vortex feeds off you. Said another way,
the more you feed, the hungrier you get. In the spirit realm, one can feed
nonstop in this manner. But not on the physical plane, for one could die
physically from an overload of energy or dangerously drain another human
being. This would create massive negative karma for the victimizer. One is also
feeding off the joy and pain of the other person—although the pain will taste
heavenly at first. If the other person has an intense “pain body,” then one takes
on that pain.154 In a mutual feeding frenzy, the victim is also sucking the energies
of the victimizer. Each is selling pieces of his and her spirit to the other. This is
called “stealing another’s heart,” or “prostituting yourself” (psychically) to the
beloved for “love.” Like neutron stars in a binary star system—or multiple star
system if several partners are involved—each party orbits the other because of
154
The phrase “pain body” comes from Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose,
(New York: Penguin Group, 2005).
their mutual gravitational attraction. Each partner seeks things from the other
partner, instead of seeking things in God. This is much as energy vampires draw
energies from others, instead of drawing most of their energies from the heavens.
This style of feeding oneself is what romantic love and erotic desire are like when
lower instincts, as opposed to higher instincts, are allowed to take over.
Until most humans become trans-instinctual regarding romantic love—
such as loving unconditionally—most intimate relationships will continue to end
in tragedy. Why? Because most people, being un(L)oving, won’t give the Love
that we crave from them. Only mothers give unconditionally, and even this kind
of love has limits because humans are imperfect. As Gary Zukav writes in The
Seat of the Soul, “The incarnation of a soul is a massive reduction of the power of
the soul [emphasis mine] to a scale that is appropriate to a physical form.”155
Point up your index finger. Look at it. Let’s call him Joe or her Mary—
depending on your sex. The forefinger is your human body and your spirit with
a small s. The boy or girl to whom the finger belongs is your Spirit. Other boys
and girls are other Spirits. Some Spirits are part of your soul (soul group). Other
Spirits are part of other soul groups.
An instinctual person, however, will expect the infinite Love of God from
a mere mortal. Obversely, a trans-instinctual person knows the futility of such
an expectation. This is not to say that we cannot get some love from a beloved.
But more than any other type of earth love, romantic love will have catches—
unless the people in love rise above romantic love.
On PBS’s Mystery of the Senses, Diane Ackerman narrates how, in the
Middle East, a man mines “twisted trees and tortured bushes” for frankincense
and myrrh. The desert trees and shrubs can “be bled to death,” though.156
155
Gary Zukav, The Seat of the Soul, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), p. 35.
156
Nova Mini-Series: Mystery of the Senses—“Smell” aired on PBS on February 20, 1995. Diane
Ackerman was the host of this five-part series, which was based on Ackerman’s book A Natural History of
the Senses.
Ackerman narrates, “Musallim’s art is to know just how much to extract without
killing them [emphasis mine].”157 Just like he chips the bark for the milky tears,
an aura gets ripped whenever someone feeds off it. Energy vampires—that is to
say, anyone who is itching with erotic love for someone—could heed this lesson.
If Love is about giving and letting be, should we set aside our needs and
abandon any hope of fulfillment from getting? Is it possible to want or even
need something from someone—such as affection—and yet, love that person
enough to let him or her refuse one’s request? Can we have unmet human and
even spiritual needs and remain at peace?
To comprehend the answer, we must first realize that even Jesus had
human needs. He didn’t drop them. Instead, Jesus dealt with them. Like our
biological senses, our human needs won’t disappear, for biological evolution has
established needs as a major part of the human condition. Unmet needs itch like
poison ivy, of course, even if one acknowledges them. I, for example, have
grown up on a planet where 90 to 95 percent of males are neither sexually nor
romantically attracted to me. Why not? Because the world programs 90 to 95
percent of the populace to be strictly heterosexual. Bonobos (pygmy chimps) are
bisexual—100 percent of them—and they are the one species most closely related
to us. Humans, I have concluded, must not be too far from that brand of
sexuality. Nevertheless, I have had to accept that at this juncture of human
history, I live on a planet that has encouraged the homosexual side of its
bisexuality to atrophy to the point that half of the population is unable to
respond to me “that way.” I have been forced to set aside my sexual thirst and
romantic hunger. The emptiness never disappeared, of course. But it made me
understand the thirst and hunger of others. I became willing to feed people in
areas where I had milk, bread, and butter and they did not.
157
Ibid.
To be attractive is to be powerful as a U-magnet. To be attracted to

someone is to be powerless as a nearby pin. When falling (notice we don’t say
“rising”) in love, trans-instinctual humans concede that they are really falling
under a spell of romantic need. This is, after all, the very essence of romantic
love—one person has it together (is balanced) in one area of life and another
person (who is out of balance in that area) is therefore attracted to the first
individual. It is much as an apprentice of carpentry needs to be around a mason.
This is how the apprentice catches on. But unlike the traditional notion of one
master/one apprentice, the romantic setup is usually one where both, or more,
partners are all masters and apprentices to each other in different areas.
Consequently, “I want you” and “I need you” are not problematic for trans-
instinctual people to say if that is their truth. The issue is: What do trans-
instinctual humans do with their needs? Do they demand that a sole individual
balance for them every area of imbalance? Or do trans-instinctual people put
their needs on the table—without demanding love—and allow people willing
and able to feed them do so? Do trans-instinctual humans learn from their needs
about the thirst and hunger of others? Do they provide psychic energy for others
in areas where they are abundant? Do they see the healing of unmet biological,
psychological, emotional, and social needs as a major purpose of human
relationships? Or do trans-instinctual people pretend that they are “spiritual
enough” to rise above their human needs?
Trans-instinctual people realize that human needs and instincts are part of
being human. Such people extend the ladle to others’ mouths so that others can
sip some soup. Trans-instinctual humans try to fill their bellies alone, and only if
the do-it-yourself approach fails do they put their needs on the table.
Unbelievable as it sounds, puppies are more advanced than most of us in this
matter. If a puppy is hungry and the can of dog food is on the granite counter,
he barks at his master. If a dog is lonely, he jumps onto the sofa and places his
head on his owner’s lap. Lower animals don’t pretend. What they can get, lower
animals get through the hunt. What they can’t catch, lower animals ask for. This
doesn’t mean that we should advertise our needs to strangers. On the contrary,
wise is to choose carefully whom one is being honest to about one’s issues. As
many of us have learned, others can use our shared information against us. Or
someone may rudely decline one’s opening up to him or her. One assistant car
mechanic, for example, turned on a loud fan as I introduced myself to him in the
waiting room. These are the risks of getting emotionally naked.
A paradox emerges. On the one hand, we should never come from need
in our interactions with others. On the other hand, there is the saying that only
one thing separates heaven from hell. In hell, denizens try to feed themselves
alone. The problem is that the wooden ladles are so long that one couldn’t
possibly bring any of them to one’s mouth. Screams of starvation are thus heard
in hell because there, everyone tries to end his or her hunger without the help of
others. As the Spanish saying goes, “sálvese quién puéda” (“save yourself if you
can”). In heaven, by contrast, people extend each wooden ladle toward the
person sitting across at the table. Soup gets sipped this way, and nobody starves.
Though changing, this world is still stuck in the first version. Humans are
starving to death, yet are paying brutally for advertising their needs to others.
Those who admit to being parched or famished find everyone running away
from them because others have their own problems. Scaring off people with
one’s neediness is all too easy.
Many humans are learning that one person will never satisfy all the sexual
and romantic needs of another person. Hence, more people are expanding their
circle of intimate relationships—beyond two—so that everyone has a better
chance of itching less. Human wounds are more numerous, after all, than the
spots on a Dalmatian, and human needs are the jalopies that bump us toward the
healing center at the end of the muddy road. If in a monogamous relationship,
partners are working to be less jealous. If partners have resolved issues related
to their jealousy—low self-esteem, faulty thinking, and possessiveness—some
will experiment with open relationships. Those who enter extended marriage
(between three or more people) then have not one spouse but two or more spice.
In brief, we are addressing our biological, psychological, emotional, social,
and spiritual needs, taking responsibility for the alleviation of our emptiness,
and making sure not to hurt others or impose too much on them. The balance is
very delicate. But in overcoming destructive human impulses like jealousy and
possessiveness, we are becoming trans-instinctual.
From Here to There
The other night, something caught my eyes. I was at a stoplight. In front

of my red sedan was a dark-blue SUV. Inside the SUV, a DVD screen was
glowing like a square eye. The screen was facing the back seats, and the dark
made the square of light more intense. Amazing how postmodern civilization
presents us with so many goodies and yet, limits our social choices. On the one
hand, Western culture has produced beepers, cell phones, computers, email,
cyberspace, and DVD screens inside SUVs. On the other hand, Western culture
has still to create social diversity. This is not to be confused with racial, ethnic,
and religious diversity, which exist as aspects of a diverse social order. But tune
in to the Delilah show on the radio, for instance, and what do you hear? Callers
talking about “the one” and about wanting to spend “eternity” with Mr. or Ms.
Right. This, of course, can be beautiful. The problem is that for all of its
technological advancements, postmodern society has yet to allow options for
human relationships that go beyond a single model. As this planet currently
stands, many kinds of love are either illegal or frowned upon. So is their erotic
expression. The list of romantic and sexual no-nos goes as follows:
1) No loving romantically or having sex with someone of a different

religion (religious prejudice). This taboo is still alive in many parts of
the world.
2) No loving romantically or having sex with someone even remotely

related to you (exogamy). This includes roommates, who are seen as
“family.”
3) No having sex with friends nor with anyone you are not romantically
in love with (romanticism)
4) No loving romantically or having sex with someone of a different class

(classism)
5) No loving romantically or having sex with someone of a different race

(racism and racialism). This was the norm until the 1960s and
continues in a few parts of the globe.
6) No loving romantically or having sex with someone of a different

generation (ageism)
7) No loving romantically or having sex with someone of the same sex

(heterosexism)
8) No loving romantically or having sex with more than one person at a

time (monogamism)
No wonder love and Love are so scarce in this world.

Intimate relationships, however, need not be confined to popular
prejudices. Furthermore, sex need not be limited to romantic love for the sex to
be legitimate. What about a woman walking hand-in-hand with two men down
the street? What about the men loving the woman romantically and each other
platonically? What about sex being alright in both of these contexts? In the 21st
century, living like this takes courage, to say the least. Courage, in turn, entails
risks. As a graduate from MIT writes in Plural Loves:
Child custody laws and fault-based divorce are two legal avenues through
which nonmonogamy of any sort can be punished. In the case of divorce,
it is possible to lose child custody or monetary awards through sleeping
around. Even outside of divorce, unfit parent laws can be used to remove
a child from the home of a polyamorist … Any form of poly visibility will
generally be followed by similar legal attacks.
A lack of discrimination laws is another concern. Right now it is

legal to discriminate based on sexual or relationship behavior in most
states. Coming out as poly can result in the loss of a job or housing, with
no recourse.
Changing this legal situation should be a priority of the

polyamorous movement. However, the current laws are based on the
assumptions of the monogamy/cheating system [emphasis mine], and
those assumptions must be altered before the laws can be changed.158
According to Power vs. Force, courage is the first breakthrough point to

higher consciousness.159 Moreover, higher truth tells me that romantic
commitment need not be restricted to one person, just like love for one’s children
could never be confined to one child over another.
Yet, for the 500+ channels and myriad radio stations out there, I have still
to catch a program that presents alternative models of love and sex. Endless
work is hailed as necessary for human survival. But more time—let alone, more
choices—for fun are deemed “impractical” and “utopian.” Trans-instinctual
humans are nonetheless bypassing the official channels of postmodern
civilization.
Romantic love spellbinds us not only because of the intense feelings that it
generates, but also, because we have had so little of it. How many hours a day,
for example, do you spend with your spouse? Within those hours, how many
minutes do you spend expressing love for him or her? If postmodern society
moves toward freer loving, then jealousy and possessiveness would diminish
just because practically nobody would fear a scarcity of love and Love. Then,
more of us will be ready to practice unconditional Love. Self and family would
still come first. Friends, community, and the globe would be close seconds,
however, not distant fourths.
158
Mint, “The Power Dynamics of Cheating: Effects on Polyamory and Bisexuality,” Serena, ed., Plural
Loves, p. 66.
159
Hawkins, Power vs. Force, p. 84.
Many people argue that planet Earth (a type of underworld) doesn’t leave
much room for hope. But hope doesn’t depend on externals. In addition, this
earth is but one of an infinite number of earths. If we get it “wrong” this time,
then we will have endless opportunities to get it “right” next time around—once
we learn what is truly important in life. As Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick
Stewart) tells his crew in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “And this
time, let’s get it right.”160
Our definition of right will change, of course, as we evolve to higher states
of spiritual consciousness. Humans lower on the evolutionary scale of
consciousness define right in terms of might. Often, such people have worldly
power. Legislators are an example. With their constitutional power, 535
members of Congress—536 with the president’s signature—pass laws that affect
306 million Americans. The elite worldview then becomes the standard by
which everybody must think and act. Anyone who deviates from the yardstick
is engaging in something “illegal,” “dangerous,” “illegitimate,” and “harmful.”
European troubadours, for instance, developed a view of “true love” in the 11th
to 13th centuries. These poet-musicians in knight armors didn’t invent romantic
love, of course, for anthropologist Helen Fisher shows that there is a biology to
this kind of love. As Fisher argues in Anatomy of Love, romantic love has been
observed throughout the world since ancient times, although arranged marriages
were traditionally endorsed instead of marriages based on love.161 Also,
mandatory monogamy has existed in “only 16% of cultures on record,” John Ince
writes in The Politics of Lust.162 Still, most of us Westerners continue to allow the
long-gone troubadours to influence our romantic ideals. To 90 percent of the
populace, “true love” isn’t genuine unless it involves one man and one woman—
160
Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Clues.” This episode originally aired in syndication on February 11,
1991 (Season 4, episode 14).
161
See Fisher, Anatomy of Love.
162
and for those who are socially progressive, two people of whatever sex. The very
term soul mate, as opposed to soul mates, reflects this bias. If a woman loves
two men, then she needs to “choose” because “she can’t possibly commit to
both.” If a guy has two girlfriends, then he must be “devious,” and the girls
“couldn’t possibly respect themselves.” Child and adolescent crushes, in turn,
are dismissed as “puppy love.”
Such dismissals bring monogamism and ageism—the postmodern
equivalents of racism—into 21st century notions of romantic love. This is the
same as Caucasian men in the 19th century South believing that “white” women
were incapable of erotic feeling. In the American South, this worldview proved
disastrous. It led to the lynching of thousands of African American men who,
though mostly innocent, were accused of making sexual passes at Caucasian
women. Like during the Salem Witch trials, monsters were created out of thin
air by a milieu obsessed with protecting a certain class of people. How
postmoderns feel about an adult having sex with a child is the same way that
Caucasian men in the South felt about a “Negro” man having sex with a
Caucasian woman. Be it the psychic purity of children or the racial purity of
“white” women, purity had to be protected. The post-1980 rage of the media,
parents, the police, mobs, and lawmakers over child sexual abuse is the same
rage that led “white” Southern men to lynch blacks in the South. All that has
changed is the object of purity. Ageism and racism are different facets of the
same golf ball.
Mores about who is permitted to love whom in what way, and who isn’t,
have changed somewhat. Nowadays, interracial romance is not only allowed
but promoted. But the couple paradigm is still hegemonic. It keeps most
polyamorous people from loving openly and from their hearts, rather than from
what society dictates. The rise in divorce and cheating hasn’t caused a critical
mass of us to reexamine the single-model paradigm of romantic love.
Beings at higher levels of spirituality define right differently. As far as
their thoughts and actions, trans-instinctual beings view everything as right,
including alternative ways of loving. This is so long as those things don’t
intentionally cause harm. As far as the thoughts and behavior of others, trans-
instinctual humans see as right anything that others do out of their free will, even
if trans-instinctual people disagree with those things. This is because notions of
right and wrong are opinions. Only to protect the most vulnerable citizens do
trans-instinctual humans interfere with other people’s notions of right and
wrong. Trans-instinctual people simply co-create societies where more options
exist for more people. In such places, humans don’t have to act according to
social roles. Instead, people interact as individuals. Sacrifice is rarely called for
in such environs because, beyond basic rules for social order, trans-instinctual
humans live and let live.
In the short to medium-term, polys may want to settle in one region of
their respective countries. This would give polys the power to:
1) Bring a sizeable enough population together to make alternative

entertainment—in theater performances, films, and radio/TV shows—
commercially viable in a given region of the country.
2) Create a major poly center—and their branches—where information

and workshops on alternative love styles become available.
3) Influence local school boards in their region so that social

conservatives cannot censor the school curriculum. There would be,
for example, no abstinence-only sex education.
4) Lobby to make alternative love styles legal in their state or province.
5) Have laws in such regions—spousal benefits of employment, divorce

laws, privileges of inheritance, and child custody legislation—that
reflect alternative love styles.
6) Live openly without fear of:
a) Being arrested
b) Having police haul away one’s children
c) Having neighbors frown at how one chooses to live
Such political power would help to keep the state off the backs of poly people.
Much as yuppies have settled in Vermont (see 1987 film Baby Boom),
polyamorists of all sexual and romantic persuasions can relocate to an agreed
upon location. This would create a geography of polyamory, as opposed to the
present lack of social space that polys have. An American state bordering
Canada would be an ideal place, for such a location would make more feasible a
cross-national coalition with polys in Canada. A binational, or even just national,
movement for such a move could create a series of poly planned communities at
the state, provincial, and even regional levels. At first glance, this may seem
divisive. But the alternative is to remain scattered minorities with no power to
build communities based on polyamorous trans-instinctualness.
The next chapter explores the evolution of marriage from ancient times to
postmodern times.
Exercises
1) Have you fallen in love with someone most people would call a jerk? If
yes, did you consciously choose to face the unpleasant side or sides of the
individual? Or did you ignore the flaw/wound, only to have it explode on
your face? How, if at all, did you reconcile your irrational heart (“I’m in
love”) with your rational brain (“it is wise to let him go”)?
2) When and if you have fallen in love, have you been able to pinpoint the
part(s) of your personality that is, or was, romantically attracted to that
somebody? Was that part, for example, the child in you? Which aspect(s)
of the child? What kind of “food” is that part hungry or starving for? How
long has it been wanting? Can you identify the source—such as parental
abandonment—that gave rise to that hunger?
3) If you are starving emotionally in a romantic relationship, how can you

alleviate that hunger in order to love unconditionally? Does having a
romantic fantasy about that person or people—away from you at present—
help? What emotions, for example, can you draw in from a person during a
romantic fantasy? Do you give something back in the fantasy? If yes, how?
What effects have your romantic fantasies brought you?
4) Do you see monogamy as the only way to be moral—or ethical—in a

romantic relationship? Why or why not?
5) If you have met people in a poly relationship or single polyamorists, how

have you treated them? What emotions and thoughts did you experience?
Have you ever been attracted romantically to such a person or people? If
yes, how did—or do—you feel about hooking up with such an individual or
individuals? Were you or are you willing to discuss your thoughts and
feelings with that person or people? What agreements, if any, can be made
to satisfy all parties?
6) If you are or have been “in love,” have you experienced jealousy? If yes,
do you see yourself as responsible for this emotion? What part(s) of your
personality might be causing it? How does your physical body feel when
jealousy arises in you? How do you cope with that feeling? Do you, for
example, tell your partner about your jealousy, or do you yell it? Do you act
out your jealousy in concealed ways? In the now? Hours later? What are
the results of your actions?
Ritual
If you feel that you have taken too much energy from someone—such
as during lovemaking—then you may want to perform a ritual. Pick a quiet
and secure place in your home. Make sure you are freshly bathed and
wearing clean clothes. Then, get two three-wicker candles of a light hue.
After sundown, light the three wickers in each candle. Let them burn for
three hours. At the end of that time, blow the three lights of the first candle
back to the person. Inhale the scent of the second candle a few times.
Inhale as consciously as you can. Feel your “diamonds” coming back to
you. Last, blow the three lights of the second candle back into you. You
may want to close your eyes to help you visualize this.
5
The Evolution of Marriage
Although marriage per se is not a human instinct, one of our tendencies is

to want to solidify certain relationships. Historically, security has been the
driver of marriage. From ancient times to the Renaissance, marriages were
arranged just about everywhere in the world. Young ladies and sometimes even
girls were given away as brides, for virginity was more valuable than gold.
Dowries went from the bride to the groom, and the involved families benefited
from the marriage. Romantic love had nothing to do with such arrangements, as
the greater good outweighed the happiness of the individual. Marriage evolved,
in turn, from the need for physical survival (ancient times) to the need for social
survival (postmodern times). Only in the last 35 years has marriage begun to rise
above human survival.
How has marriage changed in postmodern times? Where is this
institution heading?
Marriage for Physical Survival
In ancient times, humans were scattered islands on an ocean of forests,

grasslands, and deserts. At the time of Christ, some 250 million people roamed
the earth, and humanity stayed below 1 billion until the mid-1800s. Surrounded
by wild animals, fluctuating climate, and unpredictable natural events, humans
banded into isolated tribes. To survive biologically, groups formed alliances
across great distances. Resources were traded, commerce started, and

civilization began. Marriage was the chief means to solidify alliances with
outsiders, and the context of marriage was of females being commodities for
trade. Patriarchs owned their wives and daughters, and upon marriage,
daughters became the property of their husbands.
Nowadays, remnants of this gender slavery continue. More often than
not, for instance, fathers go berserk if their daughters have sex “too young.” Big
brothers are also overprotective of their sisters. Such behavior is a relic from a
time when females had to remain “pure” and “protected” to be valuable as
property.
Marriage for Social Survival
Before the 20th century, Westerners married in their teens. As late as 1950,
the average age of first marriage was 18 for American women and 22 for
American men.163 In the Western world, the average age of first marriage rose in
second half of the 20th century. In the early 21st century, American men are
marrying around age 28 and American women around age 25. Babies enter the
scene soon after. If marriage is done for social survival—such as to fit into social
circles—then there may be a link between “heterosexual conformity” and the fact
that the average age of first marriage in the West continues to be in the prime of
life. This time is when hormones are pushing and pulling youth in sexually fluid
directions. A standard closed marriage—and by standard, I mean heterosexual
163
See Wini Breines, Young, White, and Miserable: Growing Up Female in the Fifties, (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1992), p. 50.
marriage—is the best way to close all avenues that lead youth away from
heterosexuality.
How equipped are young people to raise their children? Conversations
with God says that in “highly evolved cultures” of this universe, youth aren’t
required to raise their offspring. Why not? Because people in their 20s and 30s
haven’t yet learned lessons that are crucial for being good parents. Only after
age 50, Book 3 of the trilogy says, do most people become wise enough to be
effective parents. Therefore, “highly evolved cultures” arrange their societies so
that young people have babies during their fertile years without having to worry
about raising a family before they are ready. Elders handle that. When youth
grays, Book 3 implies, it takes over the responsibility of bringing up the next
generation.164
On this planet, by comparison, youth are required to raise their offspring.
In the postindustrial West (1960-present), raising kids necessitates two
breadwinners. With the cost of living rising year by year, child rearing may soon
require more than two parents. Also, Western women are pursuing careers
denied them until the 20th century. Not until after age 35, though, do people
become firmly established in their professions, and in today’s global economy,
security is no longer guaranteed. Many women are thus delaying childbirth
until their mid-30s. The human body has a timetable of its own, however.
Thirty-five is the maximum age at which females can bear young without any
complications. Hence, many women are having kids in their 20s and are finding
themselves giving up the pleasures of young adulthood too soon. Obversely,
women who delay pregnancies until their mid-30s may find their ability to have
a family compromised. Tempting is to conclude that many women are becoming
trans-instinctual in resisting the drive of the human body to reproduce. But
164
Walsch, Conversations with God, Book 3, pgs. 28-38 and 300-301.
because this instinct is partly adaptive—if overpopulation is kept under control

—delayed pregnancies is partly maladaptive. Medical science has found, for
example, that even if a woman gives birth to a healthy baby while in her 30s, that
baby is more likely to have a shorter life than a baby born to a woman in her 20s.
If one’s 20s and 30s is the time to have fun, then why do so many people
continue to marry and have children during this period of life? The answer is:
social survival. Many of us marry in our 20s and 30s because postmodern society
expects us to. Those who delay marriage until, say, their early 40s will find
themselves having to explain their singlehood to their parents, friends, and
colleagues. Friendships may be compromised if one is the only single person at
social gatherings. Mentioned in Part II, Chapter 4 (section titled, “That Aching
Need”), my mother was single through most of her life. A female neighbor in
Puerto Rico feared that my mother would steal her husband, even though that
was the furthest thing from my mother’s mind. By the same token, men fear the
“stealing” of their girlfriends and wives in a society that enforces monogamy as
the only choice. But our time of youth is too soon to get suffocated by another’s
possessiveness. Perhaps, this is why a 21-year-old would-be groom from
Uruguay was, in his words, getting ready to “tirarse la soga” (“throw himself the
rope”). He, of course, was joking. But there was some truth in his view of what
tying the knot means. I felt sorry for all the pleasures of youth he would be
relinquishing in order to enter a standard closed marriage.
People continue to marry for physical survival. But for unprecedented
numbers of women in the postindustrial world, marriage alone is no longer the
only means for that. Nowadays, a career allows a woman to become financially
independent outside of marriage. This is one reason why fertility has declined in
much of the First World. In addition, more Western women are having kids out
of wedlock. If Westerners marry, it is more for social survival, as in being
accepted in social circles. Even here, the survival paradigm is, in the First World,
slowly giving way to the idea of marriage as a spiritual partnership.
Marriage as Spiritual Partnership
The new paradigm of marriage strikes a balance between the need to have
fun during youth, biological timetables, and the existing social order. The idea of
marriage as a spiritual partnership has parents, children, and grandparents
living together—or nearby—to keep a household running efficiently and more in
the spirit of human contact.
For better or worse, most elders resent the notion of having to raise their
grandchildren. The attitude of most senior citizens is that after a “lifetime” of
labor (death time), they deserve time off for golfing, gardening, playing bingo,
and occasionally, doing stuff with the grandchildren. Power struggles between
grandparents and their adult offspring—such as over how to raise the children—
also keep parents and grandparents living separately. In an episode of Step by
Step, for example, Frank Lambert’s mother (June Lockhart) and his wife
(Suzanne Somers) quarrel over which solid foods to introduce the baby to, which
fabric softener to use, and how to burp the baby.165 The result of such power
struggles is that, more often than not, grandparents live in faraway cities and
states. Their adult children often have to make do with the following scenario:
1) The mother works at night
165
Step by Step, “Torn Between Two Mothers.” This episode originally aired on ABC on January 26, 1996
(Season 5, episode 14).
2) The father and kids go to sleep

3) Mom comes home from work in the morning
4) Dad goes to work
5) The mother has to baby-sit the kids, who are now awake
I got to know a mother in this situation. Her parents lived in another state, and
she got an average of three hours of sleep a day. This mom and wife was the
classic double-shift woman.
If humanity is to evolve, however, something has got to give. As
Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner) says in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered
Country (1991), “If there is to be a brave new world, our generation is going to
have the hardest time living in it.”
Retirees could play a larger role in helping their adult offspring raise their
kids. This would end the shortage of time and energy that parents suffer from.
It would help to expand the nuclear family into extended families, and it would
get elders away from their current isolation. As I once read, grandchildren and
grandparents make the best of allies because they have a common enemy. (The
passage was written in jest.) Needless to say, grandparents have much
knowledge and time to share with their grandkids.
Most of us, however, continue with the mindset of the couple—and thus,
the nuclear family—as the only viable option. Responsible monogamy is fine, of
course. But so is responsible nonmonogamy. Moreover, romantic love need not
be the only paradigm for alternative families. Platonic love between two men,
for example, can coexist with their romantic love for the same woman.
Furthermore, sex need not be confined to romantic love. Gay sex, for instance,
can cement homosocial bonds between males. The presence of platonic love, or
plain liking, is often enough to take a friendship to a deeper level. Although the
fusing of sex and friendship may not work for females, it works for most males.
This is because, unlike most females, males can easily separate sex from romance.
With most men being heteroromantic (straight in the romantic sense), they will
continue to fall in love with women. But male homoplatonic tendencies (e.g.,
male bonding) means that men will continue to fall in liking with men, while
their biSEXual potential will open up sexual possibilities beyond strictly
heteroromantic (straight) sex.
The evolution of marriage from survival (of the tribe) to spiritual
partnership (between parents, children, and grandparents) will require two
major things. First, we will have to stop denying human nature, and a major
ingredient of this nature is our desire to love freely. Locking grandparents in
nursing homes and/or parents and grandparents living away from each other
does not reflect our innately loving nature. Second, we will have to discern
between destructive instincts (e.g., the selfishness of grandparents who refuse to
help—in exchange for free room and board—their adult children) and
constructive instincts (e.g., the generosity of grandparents who choose to help—
in exchange for free room and board—their adult children). In just making such
distinctions, more of us are become trans-instinctual.
The next chapter inspects the various human pyramids and the pitfalls of
our hierarchical tendency.
Exercises
1) What do you think is the purpose of marriage? What do you feel should
be the purpose of marriage?
2) In your view, is there only one type of legitimate marriage? Or many

legitimate types? Elaborate on paper or speak into a tape recorder. How
did you come to your view of marriage?
3) At what age, if any, did you first marry? Why did you tie the knot? Have
you regretted it? If yes, why? If you don’t regret your decision, why not?
6
Hierarchy
Throughout human history—or should I say, inhuman history—elites

have decided who gets the things of this world. These things can be material
resources; access to information, services, and jobs; or tickets into prominent
positions of society. At some junctures of human history, certain groups
challenge the hierarchies of the day. Southern evangelicals, for instance,
disparaged the hierarchy of the Anglican Church in America during the Great
Awakening of the 1700s. Such questioning helped to popularize ideas of
equality in the so-called 13 colonies—so-called because Great Britain acquired
more colonies in Canada after the French and Indian War (1754-1763). Southern
evangelicals also reprehended the Anglican Church for being the state religion of
Virginia. This brought to public consciousness the desirability of separation of
church and state. Hence, the First Great Awakening (1730-1750) was a
forerunner to the American Revolution (1775-1783). More often than not,
however, the multitude internalizes elite values, while dissenters are forced to
the fringes of society.
Different hierarchies have existed throughout the human past and
present. Most of us are familiar with the racial pyramid of scientific racism,
shown below.
Caucasians/“the white man”

Asians/“the Mongoloids”
Noble Savages/“the red man”
Africans/“the black race”
As for religions, every one claims to be “the true religion.” This is known
as churchianity. A well-known church hierarchy is:
Pope
Archbishops
Bishops
Priests
Brothers/Sisters
Congregation
As for children, many adults continue to believe that kids “should be seen
and not heard.” Thus, children are part of a broader gender hierarchy that,
historically, has looked as follows:
Men
Women
Boys
Girls
More or less like the “erotic pyramid”166 of Gayle Rubin, the

anthropologist, the sexual and romantic pyramid has held up according to:
Man-Woman couples (married with children—or expecting)

Man-Woman couples (unmarried but monogamous)
Straight, single people
Same-sex couples
Promiscuous straights
Promiscuous gays
Bis
Transgendered people
167
Extreme Sexual Deviants
The class hierarchy goes something like:
Aristocracy
Upper Middle Class

Lower Middle Class
Working Class
166
Gayle S. Rubin’s “erotic pyramid” is more comprehensive than the condensed version in this chapter.
Rubin’s pyramid is in her essay, “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality.”
The essay appears in Abelove, ed., The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, pgs. 3-44.
167
This pyramid is based on Gayle Rubin’s description and graphs on pgs. 11-14.
Underclass
Hierarchy, social mobility, and ideology go hand in hand. Regarding sex,

The New Britannica Macropaedia argues:
Actually, the most sexually liberal are those at the very bottom, who have
nothing to lose, and those at the very top, who are beyond social
retribution.
The great middle class remains the bastion of traditionalism, and it

is here that the double standard of morality is most prominent. The
intellectualized liberalism of the upper level seeps down only slowly, and
the pragmatic egalitarianism of the lower level does not penetrate far
upward.168
There are exceptions, of course. Historically on the higher rungs, for example,
men tend to be more sexually liberal than women. But in general, the higher one
goes in the social pyramid, the more socially conservative members become. For
instance, elders (typically on the upper rungs) tend to be more socially
conservative than youth (generally on the lower rungs). Editors tend to be more
socially conservative than writers. Regional managers tend to be more socially
conservative than local supervisors. The key word is tend. Hierarchy thus
shows the ideological limits placed on those of us who seek to become upwardly
168
Mark F. Schwartz, Keith Dorwick, and editors, “Sex and Sexuality,” Social and Cultural Aspects, Class
Distinctions, p. 248. The New Encyclopaedia Britannica Macropaedia, Knowledge in Depth, 15th Edition
(2003) Vol. 27: 233-252.
mobile. This has serious implications for a planet trying to become socially,
culturally, economically, and politically progressive.
Which groups of people are being excluded by those at the top? How
exactly does dominance lead to the exclusion of nonmembers? How can our
hierarchical instinct be de-emphasized by those of us seeking to become trans-
instinctual? The following sections examine these questions.
The Flipping of Pyramids
Even social liberation movements fall prey to hierarchy. If human history

is any guide, then revolutionaries are replaced by counterrevolutionaries. For
example, the American Revolution started with the promise of equality for all
citizens, defined then as all Caucasian men. According to Noam Chomsky, the
social critic, the colonial revolt was soon overrun by “white” men who believed
that the people who owned the country—namely, Caucasian men—should be the
ones to run it. These men of property, Chomsky said at a lecture, referred to
government by the people as “mob rule” and as “the crisis of democracy.”169
Therefore, such men favored a plutocracy (government by the wealthy). Today,
the lack of universal health insurance in the United States shows how big money
interests have betrayed, in the health area, the American ethic of equality. Poll
after poll shows, for instance, that most Americans want a single-payer system of
health care. For decades, the polls have remained consistent on this issue. Yet,
when it comes to health insurance, Americans are anything but equal.
169
Noam Chomsky argues this in the video Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media. This
compilation of Noam Chomsky lectures was released in 1992 by the National Film Board of Canada. It
was distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.
Americans at the top of the class pyramid—the CEOs, lawyers, and doctors—
have 100 percent health coverage, and politicians get from the federal
government the very socialized medicine that they condemn as “big
government.” Americans in the middle of the class pyramid—the journalists,
pilots, teachers, and mechanics—have some health coverage. Americans at the
bottom of the class pyramid—47 million of them, including 12 million American
children—have no health insurance.170
Another example of how time distorts revolutions is the feminist
movement. The women’s movement of the early 1900s (first wave feminism)
began with the goal of equality between men and women. But as Christina Hoff
Sommers, former philosophy professor, argues in Who Stole Feminism?, “gender
feminists” took over the leadership of the women’s movement by the 1970s.
Gender feminists (second wave feminism) seek to replace patriarchy with
matriarchy, Sommers writes. Men are seen as “pigs,” as “potential rapists,” and
as “the enemy.” Misandry (hatred toward men) is often preached in “feminazi”
circles, much as racial hatred is preached by white supremacists.171 As Sommers
contends in Who Stole Feminism?, gender feminists do not represent most
women. Most women, Sommers argues, are traditional feminists. She calls them
“equity” (equality) feminists. Gender feminists, however, have taken over
leadership positions in education, women’s organizations, and women’s clinics.
So argues Sommers. The many women’s programs, women’s clinics, and
women’s workout clubs—and no such institutions for men—shows that males
are in danger of becoming tomorrow’s “second sex.” As Sommers writes, girls
are being given scholastic attention in school. Boys, she continues, are being
170
This is the official statistic of the U.S. government. Unofficially, the numbers of Americans with no
health insurance—and those underinsured—are much higher.
171
Rush Limbaugh, the radio talk show host, coined the term feminazi.
ignored, and their grades are falling further behind each year.172 In one town of
the Pacific Northwest, three workout clubs exclude men for being male. The
Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids racial segregation in public facilities. This law,
however, hasn’t stopped women’s-only gyms from popping up across America.
Part of me supports women’s centers, for women—and girls—need specialized
attention. But so do men—and boys. Having a sacred place to be with one’s
kind—black student unions, Asian fraternities, and girls clubs—is important for
many of us. Still, consider the following paragraph behind a carton of rice milk:
Get the Calcium You Need!
As part of a balanced diet, WestSoy Rice Beverage is a good source of

calcium that can help build strong bones and teeth. Adequate calcium in a
healthful diet is important for teen, young adult and post-menopausal
women.
What about men—and boys? Boys raised with the above message can only
conclude that males are the second sex. It is the subtleness of messages and their
repetition that makes them effective, for the bylines enter our minds undetected.
Most of us, after all, don’t stop to analyze the propaganda that we read everyday.
When feminist propaganda becomes glaringly visible, then political
correctness keeps dissenting men from being taken seriously. A Florida
company, for example, printed a T-shirt that had a cartoon of a boy trying to get
away from rocks being thrown at him. The T-shirt’s slogan went:
172
See Christina Hoff Sommers, Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women, (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1995) and Sommers, The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming
Our Young Men, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001).
Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them
Glenn Sacks, a radio talk show host, initiated a nationwide campaign to get rid of
the T-shirts. But the National Organization for Women (NOW) dismissed the
anti-T-shirt campaign as peripheral to women’s issues, never mind that boys
with low self-esteem may become men who batter women, girls, boys, and other
men. Some activists within the women’s movement even see as humorous that
boys are being made fun of—as through the lip balm “Boys are smelly” and the
bubble gum “Boys lie—make them cry.” When men point out that if girls were
being degraded, women would not stand for it, gender feminists label those men
“woman haters.”173
Another area of male-female inequality is circumcision. As most of us
know, female circumcision is banned in Western countries because it is an
inhuman violation of the female body. Not a peep is made, however, about male
circumcision. Congress, for example, passed the Female Genital Mutilation Act
of 1996. Despite activism to protect male and intersex babies as well from
circumcision, not a single member of Congress has introduced a more
comprehensive bill. The United Nations also condemns female circumcision as a
human rights violation. But as late as March 2007, the U.N. supported male
circumcision as a way to “prevent” HIV transmission.174 The lack of a real men’s
movement is why issues of women and girls are taken seriously, while issues
pertaining to men and boys—other than sexual abuse, which apparently male
circumcision is not—go ignored by everyone except the National Coalition of
Free Men (NCFM). Evidently, aggravated assault against males is alright if the
intent is to circumcise.
173
See Danna Harman, “Bashing Boys Is, Like, Not OK,” The Christian Science Monitor, Living, Home &
Community, March 31, 2004. The article is at http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0331/p16s01-lihc.html.
174
Laura MacInnis, “U.N. Backs Male Circumcision to Prevent HIV,” Reuters UK, March 28, 2007. The
article is at http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKL2862367220070328.
Women say that men take dismal care of themselves. What is not
mentioned is that men are encouraged to. Each year, for example, about 30,000
American men die of prostate cancer, while per annum, about 40,000 American
women die of breast cancer. Yet, breast cancer research received $699 million in
federal funds in 2005, while research for prostate cancer received $390 million in
federal funds that year.175 As author Allan Heller writes in an article:
The disparity is not solely economic, though. Commercials, public service

announcements, news segments and magazine articles address the issue
of breast cancer, but rarely touch upon health issues affecting men.176
The latest manifestation of females over males is Oprah Winfrey’s

construction of the Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. I, of course,
applaud Winfrey’s efforts to bring equal opportunity to girls in South Africa.
But what about South African boys? Their enrollment in primary and secondary
school is not much better than the rate for girls in South Africa.177 Who is
building a leadership academy for those boys?178
If the feminist movement doesn’t speak about the needs of boys and men,
then a masculist movement is needed to prevent the gender pyramid from being
flipped upside down. This may sound outrageous to many people. But gender
inequality persists, and in the First World, it is moving in the other direction. For
175
These statistics come from Allan Heller, “The Great Dichotomy: Breast Cancer Versus Prostate Cancer,”
AC: The People’s Media Company, Health & Wellness, November 6, 2006. Article at
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/80165/the_great_dichotomy_breast_cancer_versus.html.
176
Ibid.
177
According to educator Barbara Pytel, less than 50 percent of girls complete primary school in South
Africa, and only 26 percent of these girls enroll in secondary school. As for South African boys, 56 percent
of them complete primary school, and only 33 percent of these boys enroll in secondary school. See
“Oprah’s Leadership Academy: $40 Million Going to South Africa for Educating Girls.” The article is at
the website titled, Suite 101. The URL is
http://educationalissues.suite101.com/article.cfm/oprah_s_leadership_academy.
178
Oprah Winfrey stated that she planned to build a second school for girls and boys in South Africa. Still,
far more girls will be attending Oprah schools than boys, and statistically, this is not true gender equality.
example, 56 percent of the American labor force is now female, and that number
is rising. A major reason for the tipping of the gender scale is because, since
1964, gender “equality” has been defined solely in terms of women’s
empowerment. Most people have heard about NOW, for instance, but almost
nobody has heard about NCFM. Gender feminists see no problem with this
imbalance because, in their words, “patriarchy still exists.” There is some truth
to this. But just because most people in power are men doesn’t mean that most
men have power. Women and men are on the same boat as 80 percent of the
populace—barely scraping a living and trying to raise families as honestly as
they can.
Since 1964, manhood itself has been under attack. For example,
testosterone is being medicated away in boys. We keep hearing, “Men should be
as sensitive as women.” In movies, more fathers are being depicted as dead-beat
dads, and on TV, more men are acting like nincompoops. Even worse, the
pummeling of traditional masculinity is not occurring equally across racial lines.
The White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) male is even more under attack than
the black male. The emasculated Anglo male may be why many Caucasian
women are pairing up with African American men. This is because the image of
the African American male is not of wimpiness but of brute strength. Most
women are attracted to traditional masculinity, even as gender feminists attack it
right and left.
The pathologizing of traditional masculinity—and Anglo masculinity in
particular—has led to the beginnings of what could become a male backlash.
The movie Fight Club (1999) shows where emasculated males are likely to turn
to compensate. In a word, hypermasculinity. Barbaric violence is the result. As
usual, the human brain goes from one extreme to the other.
And so it goes. Politicians, movement leaders, and spokespeople (at the

top) seldom speak for the majority of people (at the bottom). Revolutions get
started because those at the top get more exclusionary, more greedy, and more
abusive. For those at the bottom, things go from bad to worse. The process takes
a very long time, often centuries. But eventually, the downtrodden rebel, turn
the pyramid upside down, and replace one hierarchy with another.
How do politics and money enter the fray of survival of top dog?
The Hierarchy of Representation—

Politics
On PBS’s A World of Ideas, Noam Chomsky alluded to the Democratic

Party, which supposedly represents the interests of minorities in the United
States. In November 1988, Chomsky commented:
In each election of the 1980s … the Democrats have been accused of being
the party of the special interests, and then, they hotly deny it … But who
are the special interests? Well, take a look behind the rhetoric, and you
find that the special interests are women, labor, youth, the elderly, ethnic
minorities, the poor, farmers. In fact, it’s the entire population [emphasis
mine].179
Chomsky elaborated:
179
These quotes are from Bill Moyers’s A World of Ideas: A Conversation with Noam Chomsky. The
episode originally aired on PBS in November 1988.
… there is one group that’s never identified as being among the special
interests. That’s corporations. And that’s correct. They’re the national
interest … whereas the special interests have to be marginalized.180
Perhaps, this is why in 2009:
1) At 12.4 percent of the U.S. population, African Americans are 0 percent

of senators and 9.4 percent of representatives.181
2) At 14.5 percent of the U.S. population, Hispanics are 3 percent of

senators and 5.2 percent of representatives.182
3) At 4.4 percent of the U.S. population, Asian Americans are 2

percent of senators and 0.6 percent of representatives.183
4) At 50.7 percent of the U.S. population, women are 16 percent of

senators and 16.3 percent of representatives.184
180
Ibid.
181
See Nancy Frazier O’Brien, “At 29 Percent of 109th Congress, Catholics Remain Largest Faith Group,”
Catholic News Service, November 11, 2004. At
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0406217.htm. Then, see Greg Giroux and Kimberly
Hallock, “Democratic-Led 110th Congress is Old Boys’ Club With a Twist, as Women, Blacks Gain Clout,”
The New York Times, U.S., February 26, 2007. At
http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2007/02/26/cq_2328.html?pagewanted=1
182
Ibid.
183
See O’Brien, “At 29 Percent of 109th Congress, Catholics Remain Largest Faith Group,” Catholic News
Service. At http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0406217.htm.
184
Ibid. Then, see Giroux and Hallock, “Democratic-Led 110th Congress is Old Boys’ Club With a Twist,
as Women, Blacks Gain Clout,” The New York Times. At
http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2007/02/26/cq_2328.html?pagewanted=1.
Only Jewish Americans are overrepresented in national politics. At 2.1 percent

of the U.S. population, Jews are 13 percent of senators and 7 percent of
representatives.185
In any event, Noam Chomsky concluded:
We [in America] only have one political party with two factions.
It’s the business party. We have two factions … called the Democrats and
the Republicans.186
The status quo of two political parties is so entrenched in the United States
that the last time a third party became a major party—the Republican Party in
the late 1850s—a most uncivil war followed. Correlation isn’t necessarily
causation, of course. But the American winner-take-all system is largely
responsible for third parties remaining perpetually marginal. On the rare
occasion when a third party has become a major party, that party abandons its
roots and adopts a pro-establishment platform. An example is the populist
Republican Party of the 1850s going pro-monopoly from the 1870s on. As the
adage goes, “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”187 This
doesn’t mean that power per se corrupts—only power over, as opposed to power
with, others.
Another example of hierarchy in political representation is the
construction of the interstate highway system in the United States after 1955. As
James Howard Kunstler, the social critic, writes in The Long Emergency:
185
Kate Phillips and Kitty Bennett, “New Voices in Congress Will Change the Tone of the Democratic
Majority,” The New York Times, U.S., January 6, 2009. At
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/us/politics/07frosh.html.
186
Moyers, A World of Ideas.
187
This quote comes from Lord Acton. In 1887, he wrote a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton expressing
what is now this popular saying. See the website The Phrase Finder at
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/288200.html.
It’s worth repeating that suburbia [a product of the interstate highway

system] is best understood as the greatest misallocation of resources in the
history of the world.188
The percentages of Americans who have been living in the suburbs between 1950
and today look as follows:
1950 (23%)
1960 (over 30%)
1980 (over 40%)
Today (over 50%)189
Not only did interstates pave over productive farmland. Not only did interstates
allow city dwellers to move from city to suburb to exurb. Not only did
interstates force mass dependence on the automobile, a mode of transport
dependent on a nonrenewable fuel. Interstates destroyed much of the social
fabric of America’s cities.
In New York City, construction coordinator Robert Moses used his toll
funds, ownership of parks, control of housing agencies and government
committees, and the power of eminent domain to bulldoze over entire
188
James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-
First Century, (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005), p. 248.
189
Michael Adams with Amy Langstaff and David Jamieson, American Backlash: The Untold Story of
Social Change in the United States, (Toronto: Viking Canada, 2005), p. 140.
communities.190 On PBS’s New York: A Documentary Film, journalist Ray

Suarez explains:
These were still intact communities. People worked. People kept up their
properties. People did business where they lived. This was a place where
you did your marketing locally. You did your business locally. You got
your First Holy Communion, read your Haftorah for your bar mitzvah. It
all happened right there. It was a culturally and materially self-sufficient
world in a lot of ways.191
But in the words of Marshall Berman, an urbanist, “They [city planners under
Moses] had the power to build in straight lines, and they just did.”192 Architect
Robert A. M. Stern elaborates:
It became incredibly disruptive to people’s lives. You scattered

neighborhoods which might have been very, very poor but still had a very
dense network of associations, and you began through urban renewal in a
city like New York, but it’s true in Chicago and elsewhere, that process
which we are still reeling under of wrenching communities apart and then
families collapsing. The whole support system of the less well-
advantaged in our society collapses, and we wonder why they then
become increasingly unable to function in the society as a whole.193
190
Eminent domain is a power that the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution grants to developers.
Called expropriation in Canada, eminent domain authorizes the state to confiscate private property for
public use. The property owner does not have to consent, but fair payment must be provided to the owner.
The movie Ordinary Magic (1993) shows the process of expropriation in Eastern Canada.
191
This quote comes from New York: A Documentary Film, Episode Seven, “The City and the World:
1945-Present.” This documentary is part of the American Experience series on PBS. It aired on PBS on
September 30, 2001.
192
Ibid.
193
Ibid.
In the words of Jane Jacobs, a New York writer and activist, low buildings
allowed neighbors to look after one another.194 In place of the low buildings,
however, urban planners built 20-story housing projects on huge city blocks
called “super blocks.”195 According to New York: A Documentary Film, neither
the borough president of the Bronx, the mayor of New York City, the senators of
New York, nor the representatives of New York City could stop Moses from
building the Cross Bronx Expressway, now part of I-95. Moses, who “held 12
public jobs at once,” even had control of sewage lines and underground cables.196
After 1957, the pace of “urban renewal” accelerated in New York City. As
more old neighborhoods were torn down, more middle class residents left the
city. Over 250,000 people in 21 neighborhoods were displaced from their homes,
according to New York: A Documentary Film. Middle class people took their
businesses and tax dollars with them. Dark-skinned immigrants, most of them
poor, replaced the bygone Caucasians. With businesses and social networks no
longer in place across more urban areas, property values plummeted, street
drugs proliferated, and crime exploded. Hopelessness became permanent in
many parts of New York City. By the early 1970s, landlords were paying
arsonists money to burn apartment buildings in the South Bronx so that the
landlords could collect insurance money, rather than repair the decrepit
buildings. Much of the South Bronx was already deserted by 1970, and most
social observers agree that the depopulation was caused by the construction of a
mega-housing project on the other side of the Bronx.
In 1960, the Bronx was 62 percent Jewish, and in 1963, what would
become the South Bronx was 92 percent Jewish. Due to the forced displacement
194
See Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Reissue Edition, (New York: Random
House, Inc., 2002).
195
New York: A Documentary Film, “The City and the World: 1945-Present.”
196
These are the words of Robert A. Caro, an author who specializes on Robert Moses.
of Caucasians throughout the Bronx, however, the South Bronx became 95

percent nonwhite by 1980.197 Today, New York City is, for all pragmatic
purposes, a Third World city. To live there, one must be either very wealthy or
very poor. The middle class left New York City, by and large, because it was
driven out. Cheap mortgages in the suburbs also lured the middle class out of
American cities.
Of course, it would be simplistic to lay all the blame for New York City’s
decline on Robert Moses. But he started the downward spiral. As master
builder, Moses personified the archetype of God, as did his lead architect Le
Corbusier. In the 1950s and 1960s, Robert Moses had more political power than
all the politicians of New York City and New York State put together. The
hierarchical structure of politics in New York City then went something like the
following:
Nearly Flat Pyramid
This is hierarchy at its most dangerous because there is no middling class. Only
an upper class and a lower class exist. This is the mark of a truly polarized
society. What happened in New York City in the second half of the 20th century
was the direct result of one person having too much external power.
In Power vs. Force, David Hawkins writes:
Kinesiological [muscle] testing indicates that a mere 2.6 percent of the

human population, identifiable by an abnormal kinesiological polarity
(testing strong to negative attractors and weak to positive attractors),
197
The 62 percent and 92 percent statistics come from Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. The article is
titled, “South Bronx, New York.” It is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Bronx.
accounts for 72 percent of society’s problems.198
It seems that Robert Moses was part of that 2.6 percent.

According to New York: A Documentary Film, only in Manhattan did
enough citizens band together to oppose Moses’s plan for yet another
expressway. Led by Jane Jacobs, Greenwich Village neighbors organized,
formed coalitions, and successfully stopped Moses. In the case of Manhattan,
community activism prevented the densest part of New York City from being
blighted by highways, according to the PBS documentary.
The New York story shows two things:
1) The dangers and even lethality of too much power being at the
top of any political pyramid
2) The possibility for humans to overcome hierarchy through

horizontal organization, of which coalitions is an example
The Hierarchy of Representation—

Media
Besides being politically underrepresented, minorities in America are

underrepresented in the major media. Latinos are hardly shown on American
television—except for crime snapshots in the 6 o’clock news. Working-class
people are another pea on the same pod. This underrepresentation has begun to
change for both Hispanics and working class people. But even Roseanne, a
sitcom about a working class American family, has the characters living in a two-
story house with plenty of lights, TVs in several rooms, lots of household
198
gadgets, and food everywhere.199 Asian Americans seldom star in their own TV
shows. Programs that occur in racially diverse Southern California look as if
happening in Maine. Beverly Hills, 90210 and 7th Heaven are two examples.
Furthermore, 7th Heaven voices the worldview of fundamentalist Christians. But
New Age Christians don’t have a single TV series to voice their worldview—
although New Age ideas are increasingly on television and in movies. African
Americans are the only minority that is well-represented on television. Even
here, major segments of the African American population—poor blacks, black
gays, and blacks outside the hip-hop culture—go unrepresented on the airwaves.
As Aaron McGruder, creator of the newspaper comic strip The Boondocks, told
an audience on the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN), “If Martin
Luther King were alive today and 25, nobody would know who he was because
he’d never get on TV.”200 As for poor “whites,” they are rarely seen on television,
except for on humanitarian airings of organizations like Feed the Children. As
for gays, Caucasian gays are the ones who are overwhelmingly seen in shows
like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Such programs are more about reinforcing
stereotypes than about portraying the true diversity of the various queer
communities.
Same-sex marriage, an issue in both the news and entertainment media,
doesn’t even affect the majority of gays themselves. As late as 2009, most gays
can’t even find a date because of the hazards and difficulties of doing so. This
hindrance is most felt in high school, a place where many straights bully non-
straights. Same-sex marriage is an issue that affects a coterie fortunate enough to
have found a same-sex partner. The majority of gays, by contrast, hasn’t even
reached Stage One: dating.
199
This sitcom originally aired on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC).
200
The American Perspectives lecture was titled, “Free Speech & the War on Terrorism.” It aired on C-
SPAN on September 10, 2002.
Gays of color, in turn, are “even more isolated than the white ones,”
according to Richard Dyer, a film historian. In the video Off the Straight and
Narrow (1999), Dyer relates:
… they’re not that big a part of the market, so therefore you only drop
them in a bit to say, well, do buy Coca-Cola, or whatever it is that’s
being advertised alongside with the program. Do buy it, but we want
you—lots of you white gays—we want you to buy it because you’re even
more important. And as for you straights, you’re the most important of
all, because you’re most people.201
Marguerite Moritz of the University of Colorado at Boulder explains in the

video:
I don’t think there’s any question that there are people of color out there
who are gay and lesbian and who have plenty to say and who want to be
a part of the dialogue. But they’re often not given a choice.202
According to Marguerite Moritz, “gayness often means white men” in the

major news media.203 And not just Caucasian men but socially conservative
Caucasian people, Richard Goldstein, Village Voice editor, said on the 10th
anniversary of the 1993 Gay Rights March on Washington. Goldstein related to a
C-SPAN audience:
Six percent of gay and lesbian people call themselves conservative

201
This quote is from the segment of Off the Straight and Narrow titled, “Dimensions of Diversity: Race
and Sexuality.”
202
Ibid.
203
Ibid.
[emphasis mine]. There’s no gender gap in the gay community when it

comes to voting. Men and women vote alike, and they vote like women in
general.204
Goldstein continued:
More than half of gay people identify themselves as liberal [emphases

mine]. Yet, if you look at who the most prominent gay writers in the
country were by the mid-90s, you would find that they were Andrew
Sullivan, Camille Paglia, Norah Vincent, and that these people were all far
more conservative than the community [emphasis mine].205
Once more, larger groups of minorities go underrepresented.

The very term “gay marriage,” used by the news media, wipes out non-
gays like bis who marry someone of the same sex. William Burleson, an openly
bi activist, explains in Bi America:
Take for example the wedding of Robyn Ochs and Peg Premble. Ochs, … ,
is one of the most visible and active leaders of the bi community in the
past twenty years. Ochs and Premble wed, after seven years as a couple,
on May 17, 2004, the first day of legal same-sex marriage in
Massachusetts.206
Burleson continues:
204
Part of a discussion panel, Richard Goldstein spoke on C-SPAN on April 25, 2003. The program was
titled, 1993 Gay Rights March.
205
Ibid.
206
William E. Burleson, Bi America: Myths, Truths, and Struggles of an Invisible Community, (New York:
Harrington Park Press, 2005), p. 16.
The reporter had chosen the couple for a story in the following day’s
paper to present the human side of the marriage debate. And there it was,
May 18, 2004, on the front page of the Post: “A Carefully Considered Rush
to the Altar: Lesbian Pair Wed after 7 Years Together.” Lesbian pair? A
lifetime of bi activism [20 years], erased in the swipe of the pen.207
Given that self-identified gays outnumber self-identified bis, gay power is

far stronger than bi power. One result is the absence of bi images on TV and on
the big screen—not just in print. As Marguerite Moritz said, “Bisexuality [on TV]
seems to be not on the radar screen at all.”208 In Bi America, William Burleson
writes:
… ; a spate of films have been released in the past few years about people
who are attracted to both women and men: Chasing Amy (1997),
Bedrooms and Hallways (1998), High Art (1998), and Kissing Jessica Stein
(2001), to name only a few. Yet all of these films have in common one
very unexpected trait: almost never is the word bisexual uttered at any
time. The “almost” is because in Kissing Jessica Stein and Bedrooms and
Hallways bisexual is used as a disparaging remark; … 209
Burleson expounds:
These films are a rare exception in that they deal with the subject at all. It
is unusual for anyone but straight people to appear as central film
207
Ibid.
208
This quote is from the segment of Off the Straight and Narrow titled, “Betwixt & Between:
Representations of Bisexuality.”
209
Burleson, Bi America, p. 16.
characters. This must be especially difficult when the film is a biography

of a bisexual person, but this is usually handled by merely ignoring the
uncomfortable facts. For example, the subject of the film A Beautiful
Mind (2001), John Nash, married to a woman, was well known to have
had male lovers.210
Because money has become the be all and end all of everything in the West,
groups with access to influential positions run the show—in business, in
government, and in the media. It is therefore no surprise that in newspapers,
magazines, radio, and television, bis are absent, for the most part.
Another constituency that is underrepresented is parents, according to
writer Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Princeton professor Cornel West. In 1996,
Hewlett and West conducted the first nationwide survey of parents’ “political
priorities.”211 At first glance, one would expect American parents to be
concerned about family values like abortion, same-sex marriage, and prayer in
schools. The poll/focus group survey in The War Against Parents reveals,
however, that “parents are concerned with practical rather than ideological
issues … [emphases mine].”212 Such pragmatic issues are:
1) Tax breaks for parents to help parents cover their children’s

educational expenses and the costs of essentials like diapers,
clothes, food, school supplies, and car seats.
210
Ibid., p. 17.
211
Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Cornel West, The War Against Parents: What We Can Do for America’s
Beleaguered Moms and Dads, (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998), p. 215.
212
Ibid., p. 216.
2) More paid leave and less work hours to free parents from today’s
time crunch, which keeps intensifying. Parents desperately want
more time with their kids.
3) Tax breaks for employers who adopt family friendly policies at

work. Such policies would include “compressed work weeks,
flextime, job-sharing, and benefits for part-time work.”213
4) “A longer school day and school year.”214
5) Solutions to the drug epidemic, to crime in schools and in

neighborhoods, and to the decreasing quality and increasing cost
of education.215
The concerns of parents—62 million Americans—have been overshadowed by

the political agenda of Christian fundamentalists—a mere 40 million
Americans.216 In The War Against Parents, Hewlett and West write:
Just as significant as what is on the list is what is not on it [emphasis

mine]. A whole array of issues often identified as family values simply do
not appear. These include teenage sex and pregnancy (mentioned by 3
percent), TV and movie sex (mentioned by 1 percent), and welfare
(mentioned by 1 percent). What is more, not a single parent in the sample
spontaneously brought up abortion or homosexuality as a major problem
213
Ibid., p. 217.
214
Ibid., p. 218.
215
Ibid., p. 220.
216
See book jacket, Hewlett and West, The War Against Parents, and Daniel Bernardi, Star Trek and
History: Race-ing Toward a White Future, (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998), pgs. 18-
20.
area when asked about significant concerns for his or her children.217
What is more, Hewlett and West write, “—there is enormous unity across race,
class, and gender.”218 Even more significant is that Hewlett and West polled
parents in the $20,000 to $100,000-a-year income bracket. Put differently, the
corporate media and politicians are not representing parents who earn as much
as $100,000 a year. This means that in America, one has to be close to a
millionaire to get real representation. Parents want one set of things: More time
off from work, tax breaks, and longer school days. Lobbyists, politicians, and the
news media push another set of things: Longer workweeks, no tax breaks
specifically for parents, prayer in schools, and more of the 8-to-3 school schedule.
Homeschooling is the same old story—something that applies to the upper class,
for the majority of parents can’t afford to stay home all day to teach their kids. I,
however, must admit that I support homeschooling, for it instills independent
thinking, self-directed learning, and intense family bonding. If only the
government would hire parents—one per household—to teach their children
until they turn 16. Or grandparents to teach their grandchildren. I refer not to
the federal government but to state and county governments. There would be no
“national standards,” no required textbooks, and no required curricula. Each
parent or grandparent would decide what materials to use. Now that would be
an improvement over the factory model of American education. Most parents
and grandparents—not just the upper middle class—would be able to teach their
children and grandchildren.
The news media remains obsessed with abortion, same-sex marriage, and
school prayer—issues of little relevance to the vast majority of parents. Not only
that. The entertainment media depicts parents in demeaning ways. This is part
217
Hewlett and West, The War Against Parents, p. 221.
218
Ibid., p. 216.
of the liberal assault on the family. For instance, in an episode of My So-Called

Life, Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Cornel West write, a teenage girl says to herself,
“Lately, I can’t seem to even look at my mother without wanting to stab her
repeatedly.”219 Hewlett and West continue:
On television, parents tend to be blustering bores, miserly boobs,

overprotective fools, or just plain dopey and twerpy. One show, Party of
Five, has done away with parents entirely, killing them off in a car crash
before the series began.220
Anyone not at the top of the pyramid—whatever the nature of that

pyramid—is either off the corporate media, misrepresented, or
underrepresented. A 40-month study of the news program Nightline found, for
example, that 90 percent of guests on that newscast were Caucasian and male.
Fifty percent of Nightline interviewees were past or present officials of the U.S.
government. Representatives of peace groups made up less than 1 percent of
Nightline’s guests.221 In addition to its review of Nightline, the media watch
group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) studied The MacNeil/Lehrer
NewsHour—now The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. FAIR found similar
percentages for this PBS news program.222 These content analyses were
published in the late 1980s. But more news studies by FAIR revealed the same
patterns throughout the 1990s, and the major news media continues to exclude
219
Ibid., p. 31.
220
Ibid.
221
Refer to the cassette titled, “A Critique of Nightline, MacNeil/Lehrer, and NPR.” Journalist David
Barsamian interviewed Jeff Cohen, a media critic and the founder of the media watch group Fairness and
Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). The interview was recorded in New York City on January 30, 1990. It is
available through Alternative Radio (AR) at www.alternativeradio.org.
222
See Press Release, “All the Usual Suspects: MacNeil/Lehrer and Nightline, FAIR Issues New Study on
PBS’s MacNeil/Lehrer and ABC’s Nightline,” Extra! The Magazine of FAIR, the Media Watch Group,
May 21, 1990. The article is at http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2007.
dissenting views into the early 2000s. In the fortnight before the February 2003
invasion of Iraq, for example, FAIR discovered that 393 pro-war people were
interviewed in the major nightly newscasts—CBS, NBC, ABC, and PBS—but
only three anti-war representatives were interviewed on those TV networks. Yet,
according to journalist Amy Goodman, most Americans opposed an invasion of
Iraq in early 2003.223 Members of the establishment—corporate representatives,
government officials, economic neoliberals, and Christian fundamentalists—
appear as the majority of guests on and hosts of TV and radio newscasts.
Progressives (the Far Left) have no place at the table—and neither do some
traditionalists (the Far Right). Americans who oppose liberals on racial issues,
for example, are often censored in the major news media. The tilt of the major
news media is toward the center of the political spectrum. This is what Extra!,
the newsmagazine of FAIR, calls “centrist propaganda.”224 In the words of Jeff
Cohen, a media critic, the major news media is “a propaganda organ for the
state.”225 Asked why The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour seldom included
progressives as guests, for instance, Jim Lehrer responded that he didn’t want to
be bothered by “moaners” and “whiners.”226 Robert MacNeil backed up Jim
Lehrer, saying, “There is no left in this country.”227 Ted Koppel, former anchor
for Nightline, added, “Policy critics aren’t needed on Nightline since we invite
the policy makers and ask them the ‘tough questions.’ ”228 Tough questions,
however, are almost never asked on Nightline.
223
See Amy Goodman lecture on C-SPAN from May 22, 2004, titled, American Perspectives, “Amy
Goodman, Pacifica Radio’s ‘Democracy Now’ Host & Executive Producer.”
224
See Jeff Cohen, “Propaganda from Middle of the Road: The Centrist Ideology of the News Media,”
Extra!, October/November 1989. Article at http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1492.
225
Refer to Barsamian and Cohen, “A Critique of Nightline, MacNeil/Lehrer, and NPR.”
226
Helen Caldicott, If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth, (New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, 1992), p. 185.
227
Ibid.
228
Ibid.
The entertainment media is, in turn, the mouthpiece of the same dominant
groups—namely, corporate interests, the upper middle class, economic
neoliberals, and Christian fundamentalists. Arguably, this is a form of fascism,
for Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator, defined fascism as “the merger of Big
Business, The Church and the State.”229
The Pitfalls of Hierarchy
According to author Ian Young, scapegoats are exaggerations of real

people. As minorities, scapegoats are distorted into stereotypes to scare and
control the multitude. Young’s list of black sheep include:
The homosexual … the Vampire, the Leper, the Witch, the Gypsy, the
Werewolf, the Jew—figures concocted out of the fears, folk memories and
repressed desires of a civilization, aspects of Christian society’s dark
unconscious, its shadow side.230
In The Stonewall Experiment, Young’s continues:
(The drug addict or “dope fiend” and, more recently, the Satanic child-
abuser are later additions to this spectral menagerie of group fantasies.)
When these scary and distorted shadows are projected onto real, living
229
This quotation is in the Canadian Action Party website. The URL of the quote is
http://paulgrignon.netfirms.com/CAP-PAC_Flash/Flash_CAP_English.html.
230
Young, The Stonewall Experiment, p. 12.
individuals, the results are disastrous.231
Human history shows that when a minority gains rights and respect,
other minorities are blamed for the ills of society. When those minorities fight
back and win, new black sheep are found. The fight to desegregate the American
South stands as a modern example. Most Americans think of Brown v. Board of
Education as the beginning of the civil rights movement. That 1954 Supreme
Court case was, however, the culmination of decades of court challenges to racial
segregation—dating back to 1909 and the Niagara Movement. Who led the legal
challenges? African American lawyers and justices—such as Supreme Court
Justice Thurgood Marshall—and a handful of their Caucasian colleagues. The
“passive resistance” of the 1955-1970 period was simply a new phase of a
struggle for black freedom that began in the 19th century. The struggle continues
today, as African Americans are still being hassled in many ways. An example is
nonblack salespeople treating black shoppers with suspicion.
Bayard Rustin, an African American who later in life identified openly as
gay, was a key organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. While alive, Rustin
commented, “Gays are beginning to realize what blacks learned long ago.
Unless you are out here, fighting for yourself, then nobody else will help you.”232
Bis are starting to realize this relative to monosexuals (those attracted to one sex),
for straights and gays tend to exclude bis. Queers of color, in turn, have heeded
Rustin’s warning in relation to Caucasian gays, as Anglo American gays often
exclude queers of color. Such exclusions have forced bis and queers of color to
build their own communities for support and survival.
231
Ibid.
232
This quote comes from Out of the Past, “Lost Prophet.” The documentary originally aired on PBS in
1998.
The age of leaders is long over, however. As much of the world learned in
the 1960s and 1970s, leaders can be assassinated. Social movements that rely on
figureheads for inspiration, energy, and action are doomed. In The Stonewall
Experiment, Ian Young writes:
The shooting of the nation’s most glamorous leader [John F. Kennedy]

was an event of such enormity that it was usually viewed, in the decades
following, as a singular event. Yet it was one of a series of assassinations
and attempted assassinations that began with Medgar Evers in the
summer of 1963, and continued with George Lincoln Rockwell, Malcolm
X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Althea King, Andy Warhol, Bobby Kennedy,
Allard Lowenstein, Marilyn Monroe, George Wallace, Jimmy Hoffa, John
Lennon, Leo Ryan, Huey Newton and Harvey Milk.233
The social movements of the 1960s and 1970s lost gas because laypeople looked
up to leaders to fuel their movements. When the leaders got killed, the
movements crumbled or lost direction. Hierarchy breeds this state of affairs.
Aaron McGruder, the creator of the newspaper comic strip The
Boondocks, said on C-SPAN, “There is a crisis in political leadership. There is a
crisis in leftist leadership. There is a crisis in black leadership.”234 Nowadays,
leaders are so corrupt that they are no longer adequate for the needs of
workaday people. This, I believe, is by spiritual design. You and I are being
guided—and even forced—to become our own leaders so that humanity may
move to a higher level of spiritual consciousness. This higher level goes beyond
hierarchy and beyond looking up to others to help us.
233
Young, The Stonewall Experiment, p. 195.
234
American Perspectives, “Free Speech & the War on Terrorism.”
In brief, the more out of the mainstream a group is, the further down the
human pyramid that group is. Representation, whatever the type, declines in
proportion to the widening of the pyramid.
Rising Above Hierarchy
Hierarchy, of course, is necessary in areas like filmmaking, construction,

and navigation. This is because such complex endeavors require someone—in
this case, the director, architect, and pilot—to make the final decisions. Chaos
would ensue if, say, the stage manager, actors, actresses, the lighting coordinator,
and camera people were all managing everyone on the set. Going beyond
hierarchy does not mean ditching it. Rather, it means achieving balance between
those instances that require top-down management and those instances where
hierarchy becomes oppressive (e.g., Robert Moses). Only when the majority of
us becomes trans-sensory (seeing beyond the “lenses of difference”) and trans-
instinctual (challenging our lower instincts) will hierarchy diminish—not to be
confused with disappear. In such a world, power will be shared; all of us will be
represented; and democracy (government by the people) will be guaranteed to
everyone by a united species.
Four social developments are showing a tilt away from hierarchy. The
first such development could be termed the alternative community movement.
If you browse the Internet, you will find that some 95 percent of eco-villages,
alternative communities, and spiritual settlements reject the principle of one
leader making decisions for the community. Instead, most alternative
communities go by majority vote.
A second shift away from hierarchy is the alternative press. South End
Press in Boston is an example of a collaborative effort in getting the books of a
collective published. Loie Hayes from the South End Collective told an
interviewer:
I like our structure about sharing work and continuing our training
process as long as we’re at the press. There are losses there in terms of
productivity. But in terms of empowerment, all of us are then able to say,
“My perspective is different from yours.” Then, all of our intelligence gets
used in making those decisions and not just whoever happens to have
done it the longest, whoever happens to have graduated from the best
schools in order to be the best editor, making all the decisions and only
using his or her intelligence.235
Not all alternative presses follow the above principle. But book publishers like
South End Press do. This marks a departure from the top-down decision-making
of the big chain publishers. Perhaps, the move away from hierarchy has surfaced
in some alternative presses because the publishing industry has, traditionally,
been a cottage industry.
A third shift away from hierarchy is the way that forests are being
managed. Bruce Bare, dean and professor at the College of Forest Resources,
said on University of Washington Television (UWTV) that the 20th century was
marked by the “agricultural model” in forestry. That model operated according
to the following: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) exploited forests
for raw materials; decisions were top-down; and local communities had to deal
with the environmental consequences. Global warming is now imperiling forests
235
See the video Manufacturing Consent.
in regions like the Pacific Northwest.236 The area east of the Cascade Mountains
in Washington state, for example, has an average August high of 89 degrees
Fahrenheit. But there, summer highs in recent years have been in the upper 90s
and 100s. Consequently, forests in eastern Washington are under heat stress. As
Bare said on UWTV, forest managers can no longer afford the mindset of
unadulterated exploitation of forests. The 21st century model, he said, is of
balancing the needs of the present with the needs of future generations. To help
insure sustainability, Bare continued, departments like the Washington State
Department of Natural Resources (DNR) are consulting citizen groups at the
local level and are forming coalitions with such groups.237 Pollster Michael
Adams calls this heterarchy (“the idea that groups can be effectively organized
with flat and fluid leadership structures”).238 This is the opposite of hierarchy
(top-down management). In the case of forestry, hierarchy won’t disappear
completely, Bare said. But it will diminish due to the complex factors that must
be balanced in the future. These factors are diminishing forests, a growing
population needing forest resources, and the imperative to protect forest
ecosystems.239 Heterarchy (e.g., coalition-building) is how such complex factors
are being juggled in forest management.
And in business, too. As Jeremy Rifkin, the economist, writes in The Age
of Access, the speed of economic life means that hierarchy in business is being
seen as too rigid, too slow, and too cumbersome. As he writes:
Networks, on the other hand, are far more flexible and better suited to the
236
B. Bruce Bare spoke at the University of Washington. The March 8, 2007 lecture was part of the series
titled, Sustaining Our Northwest World: Creating Futures since 1907. The segment was titled, “Natural
Resource: Issues in the Pacific Northwest in the Next Century.” It was broadcast on University of
Washington Television (UWTV) on September 20, 2007.
237
Ibid.
238
Adams, Langstaff, and Jamieson, American Backlash, p. 112.
239
B. Bruce Bare, “Natural Resource: Issues in the Pacific Northwest in the Next Century.”
volatile nature of the new global economy. Cooperation and team

approaches to problem solving allow the partners to respond more
quickly to changes in the external environment. While the players give up
a degree of autonomy and sovereignty, the spontaneity and creativity that
flow from network-based collaboration give them a collective edge in the
new, more demanding high-tech economy.240
A fourth shift away from hierarchy is the Human Potential movement,

also known as the New Consciousness movement. This movement is, perhaps,
the biggest overcoming of hierarchy in the entire history of our species.
Although the movement has gurus, there is no central leader, no central
organization or institution, no membership lists, no single publisher, and no
rigid ideology. This movement is as decentralized as one can get. Yet, it is
global in scope. A trans-instinctual civilization may indeed be in the making.
The next chapter teases apart the pros and cons of our territorial instinct in
light of a prospective world government.
Exercises
1) Does your place of employment operate by vertical chain of command? If

yes, is input welcomed from workers? Does the business or nonprofit
agency run smoothly? Is the enterprise an older business or an upstart
venture? Do you see this business or nonprofit agency as having a future?
Why or why not?
2) Does your household run by hierarchy? If yes, how are the behavior,
emotions, and even thoughts of children and/or adults of the household
240
Jeremy Rifkin, The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism, Where All of Life Is a Paid-for
Experience, (New York: J.P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2000), pgs. 23-24.
controlled? Who does the controlling? Do members of the household

exhibit open resistance, passive resistance, or both? If yes, how?
3) If your household or place of employment operates by hierarchy, would a

horizontal approach make the place a happier and more efficient place? If
yes, how?
7
Territoriality
Prior to 10,000 years ago, territoriality existed among humans. Hunter-

gatherers were less tied, however, to a single chunk of land, as lower animals
didn’t stay in one place for long. The invention of agriculture changed
everything. Not only did this development take place in the Old World and in
the New World—independently of each other. It also occurred around the same
time—some 7,000 to 10,000 years ago. This suggests that the invention of
agriculture was no accident but rather, an inevitable development of human
evolution. For the first time in human history, humans were able to settle into
agricultural communities. Since then, our territorial instinct has gotten the upper
hand over our hunter-nomadic heritage. First, villages sprung. Then, towns
were born. Cites ensued. Empires formed and crumbled. Modern nation-states
then entered the scene. In the late 1700s, 13 of England’s American colonies—
Great Britain had more colonies in Canada—united to fight a war against Great
Britain. Self-declared as independent nation-states, historian Darren Staloff
lectured in 1996, all that united the former colonies was a military alliance that
resembled the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).241 The American
mentality of independent nation-states remained intact until the Constitutional
Convention of 1787—and some historians argue, until after the “Civil” War
(1861-1865). “These United States” was, however, the first instance of
independent nation-states uniting their currencies, postal systems, and
governments. Hence, the name the United States. Like apple seeds, territoriality
was present all along in the human psyche. But it required a specific climate to
flourish—much like violence and peace.
241
Darren Staloff teaches American history at the City College of New York. Refer to the cassette titled,
The History of the United States, Part III: The Making of a Nation, “The Problem of National Identity,”
Lecture 21. Historians Darren Staloff, Louis Masur, and James Shenton lectured for the Great Courses on
Tape Series, (Springfield, VA: Teaching Co., 1996).
Is territoriality no longer adaptive for the human species? Or will our

need for community always require territorial instincts? For that matter, are
territoriality and community both sides of the same coin? What role does our
need for tribal identity play vis-à-vis building and guarding turf?
Tribal Identity, Community, and Survival
In The Mind of the Soul, authors Gary Zukav and Linda Francis write that
fear is what binds collectives. Fear of what? Of outsiders.242 The desire to
preserve one’s group also keeps groups bound.
What happens, however, when somebody lacks a clear-cut identity?
Biracial Americans, for instance, report feeling like outsiders in the “white”
world and in the “black” community—that is, biracial people of Caucasian and
African descent.
Another group that doesn’t really fit anywhere is New Yoricans (New
Yorkers of Puerto Rican descent). New Yoricans report not being seen as fully
Puerto Rican in Puerto Rico and not being seen as fully American in the United
States. Were it not for the New Yorican community in New York City, New
Yoricans would have nowhere to call home. I am one of them. In Puerto Rico, I
am seen as “de allá” (“from over there”). In the U.S., people ask me, “What
country are you from?” For the most part, bi-national people have no national
identity, no community, and no social recognition. To say the least, these voids
cause most bi-nationals confusion, feelings of alienation, and dissatisfaction.
242
Gary Zukav and Linda Francis, The Mind of the Soul: Responsible Choice, (New York: Free Press,
2003), pgs. 27-29.
Until bi-nationals construct enclaves, they will have nowhere—at least, in this
world—to call home.
Postmodern people decry labels as “meaningless.” The third b word—not
biracial, not bi-national, but bisexual—is an example. Most bisexually active
people refuse to identify as bi, although they have no problem identifying as
straight or gay. They refuse to even say the b word. The saddest result is that in
a country of 306 million people—the United States—bisexuals don’t have a single
bi restaurant, a single bi community center, a single bi workout club, a single bi
fraternity or sorority, or a single radio or cable network to call their own. Gay
bars won’t accept bis as “truly queer,” and straight bars pose challenges of their
own. Bis, in turn, have been unwilling to build their own communities—other
than online and through articles, books, and conferences. The idea of a bi
fraternity and a bi sorority, each with its own house, draws head shakes from
insurance representatives, for insurance companies refuse to insure such
ventures for obvious reasons. Attacked right and left, self-identified bis face the
possibility of extinction, especially bi males, should they cave in to the incessant
social pressure to choose an either/or sexual and romantic identity. Because
postmodern people have safe identities like American, they don’t realize the
damage that their disparagement of language is causing yet-to-be-formed bi
communities. Sure, labels are limited. But so are the terms up and down in
outer space. We keep up and down in our vocabulary because we recognize
that, despite the limits of words, language is our only tool for verbal
communication. Postmodern people have yet to realize, however, that one
cannot build a community, bi or otherwise, while attacking the labels around
which a community is built. No human enterprise has ever succeeded while
calling for an end to language. Imagine, for instance, the invention of radio,
television, and the computer with scientists saying, “Let’s not use labels.”
Modern electronics would have been stopped cold.
In Power vs. Force, David Hawkins lists pride as being below the critical
level of 200. Below 200, human consciousness produces negative results,
Hawkins argues in his book. Above 200, human consciousness creates positive
results. Pride, Hawkins writes, brings division and war, and human desires lead
to frustration.243 But is this always the case? More important, does it have to be
this way? Or can we fulfill our desire for, say, community and belonging, have
tribal identities, and respect others as members of same species? And as spiritual
beings that hail from the same Source?
Comm-unity (unity of commons) is a tricky thing, for we are exceedingly
diverse and the world is getting increasingly impersonal. On the one hand,
diversity doesn’t work by the majority. Rather, differing minority populations
come together to form the smorgasbord of “the majority.” The Caucasian
majority in America, for instance, is an amalgamation of ethnic minorities from
Europe. This is how evolution works—minority populations with x
characteristic here, minority populations with y characteristic there. This means
that minorities are at risk of being isolated against stronger minorities that have
united to form a majority—at least, in a given corner of the globe. On the other
hand, building communities along racial, ethnic, religious, or other grounds may
lead to tension with outsiders. Is there a middle ground? Can we have tribal
identities and understand that there is no spiritual separation? Is a both/and
world feasible?
243
See Hawkins, Power vs. Force, pgs. 81-83.
The Clique Instinct
Haven’t you observed how we live in circles? At work, some colleagues

have lunch together. Then, they invite one another to get-togethers at their
homes, excluding other coworkers. As another example, consider what
happened at a Conversations with God study group. I attended the group once a
week and, like everyone there, joined the discussions. One night, business cards
were exchanged. I gave my telephone number to two of the group’s participants.
A few weeks later, I discovered that several members had gotten together at a
house for Memorial Day 2006. Why, I wondered, wasn’t I invited? I certainly
wasn’t a negative person to warrant exclusion.
Hollywood celebrities associate with the rich and famous. CEOs convene
with CEOs and politicians with politicians. New Age writers and speakers live
in their own circles. Whatever the nature of the clique, elites phone each other
only, write prefaces for one another, panel the same conferences, cite each other
in books, and call each other by first name on the airwaves. Very important,
elites don’t have to like one another. Many of them squabble. Nonetheless, they
are linked through their association with each other.
Haven’t you noted how, in print, the same names come up repeatedly?
And how the same so-called experts keep appearing on television? If one didn’t
know better, one would conclude that 50 people have all the answers to the
world’s problems. Also, haven’t you noticed how, in cities and towns, elites
congregate only in specific geographical areas? An example is VIPs seldom
venturing north of East 96th street in Manhattan. Anyone who is not a club
member will have a difficult time entering it. On March 2008, for instance, I saw
Candy Crowley, a senior political correspondent, on television. The Cable News
Network (CNN) was on at the gym where I exercised in Washington state. The
world that Crowley inhabits felt to me like another planet—inaccessible to 306

million Americans, except by the “telescope” of the television screen.
Jonathan Jackson, one of my most beloved actors, triggers this feeling in
me as well. On November 2006, for example, I decided to drive from my
apartment in eastern Washington to Vancouver, Washington so that I could hear
Jonathan sing in his band Enation. To get to his world, however, I had to cross
the Yakima Valley, foothills to the Cascade Mountains, the Columbia River, the
Cascade Mountains, more foothills, and part of Vancouver. It was like traveling
to another planet—his planet—and my world felt more remote than ever from
his world.
There is, of course, nothing “wrong” with people living within their wave
of consciousness. The problem is that elites remain in their circles 90 to 100
percent of the time—as opposed to, say, 65 percent of the time. This isolates
leaders from the public. Rarely have I seen or heard a workshop where the
audience—not just the presenter—gives its input. To be fair, most lecturers have
websites that answer questions from laypeople. But the format of
question/answer fosters mass dependence on “experts” to provide answers,
instead of allowing ordinary folks to voice their own take on things. If a question
isn’t asked in the manner of a child asking a parent, then it is seldom posted on
guru websites. As C-SPAN anchors repeat to call-in viewers, “If you don’t have
a question, we’ll have to let you go.” Only once did Marianne Williamson find
that, to her pleasant surprise, one of her audiences started to have a dialogue
with itself. In her words, people in the audience gave one another input instead
of relying on Williamson for answers.244
We tend to segregate ourselves into cliques. Then, we exclude
nonmembers. This is one of our human tendencies. In postmodern society, the
244
Refer to the lecture that Marianne Williamson gave at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. The
Sacred Self Workshop, a two-cassette series, was published by Sound Horizons Audio, New York, 1994.
insiders are the experts, the scientists, the gurus, the published writers, and the
leaders—in short, the jet set. The average Joe, on the contrary, has no way of
communicating with elites. Being in an ivory tower, elites are incommunicado.
There are so few of them that they are overloaded with work and speaking
engagements. How easily I can imagine a planet where 100 percent of the
populace was allowed to shine—as opposed to 20 percent. In such a world,
everyone would have time for everybody because plenty of us would be in
positions of prominence to pick up the slack.
Despite myths to the contrary, most of the (Dis)United States is class-
segregated. One Sunday afternoon, for instance, my adopted aunt drove me
around Gainesville, Florida, my college town. I learned that doctors, lawyers,
engineers, and professors live in houses worth—or said to be worth—some
$250,000 to $500,000. Most of those mansions are made of cardboard, however.
If a major hurricane hits the Southeast, tatters will be flying everywhere. The
real houses were the mansions made of solid block, solid concrete, solid bricks,
and solid columns. Such mansions are off limits, even to doctors and lawyers.
Just because America is a “middle class” country doesn’t mean that it is a
classless society. Furthermore, the upper middle class has much in common
with the working class. One night, for example, I entered a supermarket in an
upper middle class part of town. The supermarket had waxed floors of cream-
white, a deli with homemade meals averaging $9.99 a plate, 20 slices of cheese
selling for $6.29 a pack, and no “colored” people. What did I see by the parting
glass doors of the cavernous entrance? Machines for lotto games. I asked
myself, If upper middle class residents of this neighborhood are so well-off, why
are there lotto machines here? As we all know, wealthy people don’t play the
lottery. This is not only because they know that the odds of winning are almost
nil, but also, because wealthy people don’t need the extra money. The upper
middle class has much in common with the working class. In fact, 62 percent of
American workers are in working class—not middle class—jobs, according to
economics professor Michael Zweig.245 These jobs range from janitors to clerks to
cashiers to truck drivers.
Elites are the aristocracy of the CEOs; the politicians; the internationally
known writers and speakers; the Hollywood directors, actors, and actresses; and
the rock and pop stars. Next comes the upper middle class of doctors, lawyers,
professors, engineers, mechanics, airline pilots, and journalists. The lower
middle class of teachers, cab drivers, flight attendants, and waitresses comes
further down the class pyramid. Last is the underclass of people—most of them
minorities—locked outside of the social, cultural, economic, and political system.
This underclass lives in the bombed-out inner cities (e.g., the South Bronx) or in
very rural areas (e.g., the Appalachian mountains). The aristocracy has a voice
and loud megaphones. The multitude does not. Haven’t you noticed how many
Western leaders are WASP? Does Congress, in turn, reflect the racial and ethnic
diversity of the U.S. population? The human tendency to form cliques is where
segregation begins. Then, cliques expand into local, regional, and national
networks, and national networks become the international jet set.
A trans-instinctual society doesn’t necessarily end cliques, for this is a
human impulse that leads to survival-related enterprises like community and
nation-building. Trans-instinctual humans, however, go through great efforts to
spend, say, 65 percent of their time with their kind, instead of 95 percent. As
uncomfortable as it may feel, trans-instinctual humans leave their comfort zones
to spend time with people with whom they have nothing in common. This is
because trans-instinctual humans know that one learns nothing when spending
time with others who are mirrors of oneself. This does not mean subjecting
245
Zweig also runs the Center for Study of Working Class Life. See Bill Moyers Journal. This segment
aired on PBS on October 17, 2008.
oneself to the presence of “lowlives,” for lower consciousness can bring down
one’s consciousness with frequent exposure. Rather, rising above cliquishness
means spending some time with people who are within one’s wave of
consciousness but who are not members of one’s clique. Examples are writers
convening with non-writers, leaders talking to non-leaders, and celebrities dating
non-celebrities. Even here, however, a person with a high enough consciousness
can also associate with lower consciousness if the higher consciousness is high
enough to displace lower consciousness. For example, Walt Whitman, the 19th
century poet, associated with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and
Abraham Lincoln. This was a classic elite circle. But during the American
“Civil” War, Whitman stepped out of his social world and comforted tens of
thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers. Whitman sat by, listened to,
nursed, and even kissed wounded soldiers. The love that Whitman showed
them was one form of trans-instinctuality in action, for though Whitman was a
man of letters, he stepped outside his social world and into the world of the
battlefield hospital.246
The Pitfalls of Turf
Community tempts its members to dilute—and even wipe out—other

communities. Rock ‘n Roll, for instance, began as the blues music of African
Americans. In the 1950s, Caucasian musicians like Elvis Presley borrowed—
some would say, stole—the rhythm of African Americans. Rock ‘n Roll became
246
See American Experience: Walt Whitman. The section is titled, “The Civil War.” This episode
originally aired on PBS on April 14, 2008.
rock, and today, most of us barely concede the origins of rock music. Something
similar happened to the jazz, rap, and hip-hop of African Americans.
Mainstream bands and music labels took on—and have profited from—these
genres of music as if they were theirs.
The banana split is a Canadian invention, as is the chocolate bar, the sweet
McIntosh apple, the zipper, basketball,247 and standard time.248 Ice hockey is also
Canadian in origin.249 Americans incorporated these inventions into their
culture, never acknowledged the Canadian origins of these products, and
consequently, believe that these are “American.” Many “American” movies—
such as the Air Bud films of the late 1990s and early 2000s—are also Canadian in
that most of their film crew, actors, actresses, and even producers are Canadian
(e.g., actor Kevin Zegers), dual citizens of the United States and Canada (e.g.,
actor Fred Keating), or dually-bred in both countries (e.g., actress Cynthia
Stevenson).250 Because the U.S. exports its culture to the rest of the world, much
of the globe is blind, as well, about the Canadiana that it is consuming.
Straight-identified men often wear tattoos, earrings, and nail polish and
grow their hair long. Yet, most straight guys are unaware about the queer
origins of these fashion trends. Given that so many “straight” men dress like
this, bi men who wear earrings, nail polish, and their hair long cannot become
visible to one another. After all, so many “straight” men dress queer that fashion
is no longer a marker of queer identity. Invisibility of bi men is the result. The
net of heterosexuality has expanded without having to change in any
fundamental way. Image—not content. Style—not substance. Bis, who have the
247
Invented by Dr. James Naismith in 1891, basketball was first played in Springfield, Massachusetts.
248
See Andrew H. Malcolm, The Canadians, (New York: Times Books, 1985), pgs. 130-132.
249
Ice hockey is to be distinguished from non-ice hockey, for non-ice hockey is ancient.
250
See the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) for more information about the nationality of the
actors, actresses, and film crew of the Air Bud films.
content and substance of being bi, are denied these fashion markers by a straight
world that co-opted them from queers.
Human territoriality leads to the desire for community. But for all of their
psychological benefits, communities tend to wipe out other communities. Such
extermination is done by swallowing coexisting cultures—that is to say, by
claiming subcultures as part of the mainstream. Afterward, behemoths impose
their values on the remaining weaker populations, who are then asked to
“assimilate.” Converse to the Canadian model of the mosaic, the American
melting pot encourages assimilation within and beyond its borders. One result is
that about 90 percent of Canadian movie theaters show only American—not
Canadian—movies.251 Similarly, some 80 percent of Canadian television is
composed of U.S. programs. Why? Because trade agreements, backed by the
American film and TV industries, have forced the Canadian government to allow
the American media full access to the Canadian market. One major result is that
violence and gore from U.S. shows is growing on Canadian television. Also,
fewer Canadian children are pronouncing z the Canadian way—zed—probably
due to the importation of Sesame Street into Canada.252 That Canadian culture is
losing its subtle distinctiveness doesn’t matter to anyone outside of Canada.
Nations—A Necessary Evil?
251
Actually, 95 percent of movie theaters in Canada show foreign films. Almost all of these movies are
American. See Mel Hurtig, The Vanishing Country: Is It Too Late to Save Canada?, (Toronto: McClelland
& Stewart Ltd., 2002), p. 97.
252
See Malcolm, The Canadians.
The existence of sovereign nations—not puppet nations—allows for

diverse political systems, economic philosophies, and cultures. Imagine, for
instance, if the ascendant Republicans annulled Roe v. Wade (1973) and passed a
federal amendment that limits marriage to one man and one woman. Without
Canada and Mexico existing as independent nation-states, American policies
would affect practically everyone in North America. Progressives would have
nowhere to go on the continent.
After World War II, Albert Einstein commented, “There is no salvation
for civilization, or even the human race, other than the creation of a world
government.”253 If a world government is to work, however, states rights must
be guaranteed on a host of key areas.
Before the (Un)Civil War, American states were, to a large extent,
autonomous. In a sense, antebellum America was more like a confederation of
states. To be sure, the federal government was stronger than under the Articles
of Confederation (1783-1789). But throughout the 19th century, the government
of the United States remained weak by today’s standards. This weakness of a
center led to regionalism. Regionalism, in turn, led to what may be called a mini-
first world war—American states joining in a single block (the Union) and
fighting the other block (the Confederacy). The same thing happened during
World War I and II, when one block (the Allies) fought another block (the
Central/Axis Powers). The schisms that regionalism can lead to must be
addressed if a United States of Planet Earth is to become reality.
After the American “Civil” War, the South blew its right to states rights by
institutionalizing racial segregation and “white” terror. After 80 years of
inaction—1877 to 1957—the federal government resent troops to the South.
Today, the federal government overrides state laws in a manner that the U.S.
253
See “Famous Quotations on World Government and Related Matters” at the website titled, Democratic
World Government. The URL is http://www.voteworldgovernment.org/quotes.shtml.
Constitution forbids. Same-sex marriage is a state issue, for example, not a

federal one. Also a state matter, not a federal one, is age-of-consent legislation.
One would think that a nation as huge as the United States would have 50
different approaches to the many social possibilities out there—one approach per
state, or at least, one different approach per region. Unfortunately, 50 states
hasn’t translated to this form of diversity. The Catch-22 is that, left to their
devices, states often trample individual rights. The pre-1965 disfranchisement of
African Americans in the South is an example. On the other hand, the federal
government can trample the right of states to set their own laws. Finding a
balance is very difficult in a federal system.
Conversely, the existence of different countries allows nation-states to set
their own rules of the game. If a United States of Planet Earth is to exist, then
states rights must exist while the central government prevents states from
abusing the rights of citizens. Supreme Court decisions must be kept to a
minimum, in turn, as they would affect everyone on the planet. Imagine if Roe
v. Wade were overturned and all nations belonged to a United States of Planet
Earth. In this scenario, every nation would be forced to comply with such a
Supreme Court decision. Citizens who disagreed would have nowhere to flee.
Indigenous cultures would meld into a melting pot—that is, if the American
model were followed to the letter. Within a few years, there would be one
national agenda, one national currency, one national media, and one national set
of values. Homogeneity would ensue—with rebellion in some quarters.
Language diversity would diminish due to laws making English or some other
language the official language a la California. Laws everywhere would become
the same. Because one can legislate morality—with exceptions like Prohibition—
religious, cultural, and sexual mores would converge everywhere. Sweden, for
instance, bans TV ads that are directed at children under 12. The Swedish
government rejects such commercials because almost all of them push junk food
on kids. As we all know, empty calories can lead to obesity, including childhood
obesity. The Swedish government argues that kids are vulnerable to
manipulation from TV ads because children don’t yet understand the purpose of
commercials. But because Sweden is a member of the European Union, the
European Court of “Justice” ruled that Sweden can’t ban such ads if they
originate outside Sweden.254 Similarly, under terms of the North American “Free
Trade” Agreement (NAFTA), Canada is prohibited from passing laws that will
protect its workers and environment if those laws threaten corporate profits. In
accord with NAFTA, corporations can sue Mexico, Canada, and the United
States if any of these nations engages in self-rule. NAFTA also makes it illegal
for Canada to cut off its exports of oil to the U.S., even if Canadians don’t have
enough for themselves.
Another example of the dragon overpowering the bobcat is what
happened in 1999 and 2000. In 1999, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that
the official ban on gays by the Boy Scouts of America violates New Jersey’s anti-
discrimination statute.255 The U.S. Supreme Court, however, overturned New
Jersey’s court ruling in 2000.256 Today, New Jersey is powerless to assert its gay
anti-discrimination law. Even more shocking is that both the U.S. House and
Senate voted near unanimously in support of the Boy Scouts.257 Their vote
affirms the right of a public service organization—which the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled was a “private” one—to discriminate, then to have access to federal
(public) lands and to state buildings, including those of New Jersey. The U.S.
254
See article, “Sweden Has an Explicit Ban on TV Advertising Targeted at Children,”
Konsumentverket/KO, March 14, 2001. At http://www.konsumentverket.se/mallar/en/
pressmeddelande.asp?lngArticleId=824&lngCategoryId=659.
255
See the P.O.V. segment titled, “Scout’s Honor.” The program originally aired on PBS on June 19, 2001.
256
The U.S. Supreme Court case was Boy Scouts of America v. Dale. The 5-4 vote came on June 28, 2000.
257
The vote was 391 to 3 (U.S. House) and 418 to 7 (U.S. House) in 2004 and 2005. See “Boy Scouts of
America Membership Controversies” at Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. The URL of the article is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America_membership_controversies.
Constitution limits federal powers by reserving all powers not explicitly stated in
the Bill of Rights to the states. In practice, however, the federal government
overrules state legislation.
A major area of national concern is control over who enters each country.
If all nation-states unite, then any citizen of the world will be able to move from
one end of the globe to the other. For better or worse, this is the global trend,
particularly in the West. Western nations are and will continue to be swamped
by people from non-Western nations. This will destroy the history, culture,
values, and ethnic composition of the West. This is no different from what
happened to Native Americans when Europeans came in throngs to North
America. No group of people wants to evaporate from the face of the earth—or
even become a minority in their homeland. As Connie Fogal, leader of the
Canadian Action Party (CAP), said at a press conference in reference to the
Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) between the United States, Canada,
and Mexico:
Nations matter! Canadians are different from people from the United
States, and we’re different from people from Mexico. And Vive le
France. We respect each other. We’ve had good relations. That will
continue. Trade will always continue. It’s always been here and always
will be here. It’s necessary. These [so-called trade] agreements, these
arrangements are not about trade. They’re about the destruction of
sovereign nations, with the intention, a deliberate intention to destroy
nations and to destroy sovereignty. And it’s about time that we got
political leaders that are prepared to take the bull by the horns and call it
for what it is and say,“It’s gotta stop!” And I’m most grateful for the
leadeship coming out of the United States of America, where we actually
have some political leaders in elected positions saying, “We do not

want the North American Union.” They’re actually calling it for what it
is. And we’ve got state legislatures, 19 of them were saying, “We don’t
want a North American Union.”258
That is instinctual consciousness, something that is understandable because

defending one’s turf is human. We, however, are at a point in human history
when we will have to become trans-instinctual regarding the impulse to defend
our borders, ethnicities, and way of life. Part of me is as nationalistic as Fogal.
Human territoriality has preserved the human races, cultures, and ethnicities for
thousands of years. But like it or not, humanity must now evolve beyond
territoriality—and fast.
Another topic of major importance is the control of money in a world
government. If the example of the European Union is followed, then all member
states would use the same currency. The creation and distribution of money
would be in the hands of a supranational entity, as is the case with the Euro. But
as Connie Fogal said at her August 2007 press conference in Ottawa, Canada:
And don’t be mistaken for one moment that this North American Union
has its intention of a common currency, an Amero … It’s talked about.
And the intention [of the global corporate elite] is to remove the
sovereignty [of Canada, the United States, and Mexico] even further from
the people because any people that have no control over the creation, the
distribution, and the operation of their money has no control over
anything [emphasis mine]. It doesn’t matter … who is in government if
258
See YouTube video titled, “Connie Fogal Speaks Out Against the SPP.” The Coalition to Block the
North American Union gave this press conference at the Weston Hotel in Ottawa, Canada. It was taped on
August 20, 2007. Esialpha added it to YouTube on September 21, 2007. Video at
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kCKsCH2PCs4.
they don’t have control over their money.259
Fogal has some valid points. But as I write in Part I, Chapter 13, section titled,
“Understanding Lack of Control and the Nature of Problems”:
If the United States goes bankrupt—and it might from all the recent
bailouts and mounting debt—then the U.S. dollar will collapse, as will
the Canadian dollar and the Mexican peso. The Amero (currency being
proposed for the U.S., Canada, and Mexico) may be the only way that 443
million people won’t go without food, pay, and other necessities. If I
were president of the United States, I would have the Amero ready to take
over immediately—and I mean immediately—when and if the U.S. dollar
collapses. I would also have an alternate banking system on the sidelines,
ready to rescue America, Canada, and Mexico.
If nations unite to manifest the higher truth that we are one, then the
political balance will be extremely delicate. Give too much power to the federal
government, and states rights goes out the window. Give too much power to the
states, and you have what is transpiring in Canada with its 10 provinces. As
author Mel Hurtig writes in The Vanishing Country:
… Canada’s provinces have far stronger and wider powers than U.S.
states, but are also more powerful than the German Länder, the French
départements, Australian states, or regional governments in England and
Japan.
259
See YouTube video titled, “Connie Fogal Speaks Out Against the SPP.”
Enough is enough, or, more likely, it is far too much already.260
David Cameron, a political scientist at the University of Toronto, said that if the
current trend of decentralization continues in Canada:
It’ll become like the Holy Roman Empire. It will just fade away. There’ll
be no need for it. The dukes and the earls and sovereigns running the
provinces will be what actually counts.261
In light of peak oil (see epilogue), a world government may seem

contradictory. After all, a post-oil world will have to scale everything down, re-
localize, and reduce its population. The possibility of nations fighting over the
remaining oil makes a limited world government necessary in the short to
medium-term, however. The alternative is almost certainty to be nuclear war. A
worldwide, NATO-style military alliance—what America started as under the
Articles of Confederation—seems like the best way to prevent a nuclear
holocaust.
Human territoriality—of which nationalism is an aspect—has adaptive
aspects. In its better form, territoriality encourages us to preserve our ethnic
identities and ensures diversity of language, culture, values, and religion
throughout the world. In its worst aspect, territoriality leads to wars. To
overcome the maladaptive aspects of territoriality, we will need to share power
(the definition of democracy). We will need to respect all groups of people, even
groups that we dislike. We will need to embrace differences and see oneness as
the reality behind those differences. We will need to live and let live, instead of
imposing our way on everyone else. States will need to be governed by the
260
Hurtig, The Vanishing Country, p. 324.
261
Ibid.
brightest of the bright—not by the greediest of the greedy. People who pass the
most rigorous test of service to others must be at the helm. The federal
government, in turn, will need to let states rule themselves, imposing federal
laws only when absolutely necessary. Just as important, strict guidelines will
have to be set regarding how necessary is defined. Moreover, as BusinessWeek
magazine itself stated in an editorial, corporations should “get out of politics.”262
Unlike the globalization of today—which is being imposed from the top down—
a world government would also have to be enacted from the bottom up. “The
people” would be the leaders of elected representatives, not vice-versa. As Ella
Baker, the civil rights activist, said in the 1960s, “group-centered leaders, not
leader-centered groups.”263 Such changes will necessitate comprehensive
education for everyone. The indoctrination that schools are propagating to
youth would be a thing of the past. All of this will require a Spiritual Great
Awakening (an inner revolution) and a Civic Great Awakening (an outer
revolution) on a scale never before seen.
In sum, trans-instinctual humans realize that our territorial instinct will
always be with us. Why will this tendency remain? Because it serves
evolutionary purposes. The safety, pride, and satisfaction of belonging to a
community motivate one to defend and work for it, for example. At the same
time, trans-instinctual humans know that territoriality threatens weaker groups,
communities, and nations with forced assimilation. How to keep the balance
between the pros and cons of our territorial instinct will be one of humanity’s
biggest challenges in the 21st century.
262
The BusinessWeek editorial was printed in response to Aaron Bernstein, Michael Arndt, Wendy Zellner,
and Peter Coy, “Too Much Corporate Power?” BusinessWeek, September 11, 2000, No. 3698: 144-158.
The editorial, titled, “New Economy, New Social Contract,” was written by an unnamed author. It
appeared on p. 182 of the same issue of BusinessWeek.
263
Ella Baker said this to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s.
The next chapter examines the social, religious, political, and economic
dangers of following herds and leaders. The trans-instinctual alternative is
sprinkled throughout the chapter.
Exercises
1) How do you feel about parting with cherished objects? If you share
things, do you impose conditions?
2) At work, how territorial are you? In the home? What, for example, do
you guard as yours? How far will you go to defend your property?
3) Do you consider yourself to have a country? Why or why not? What do

you think is required to belong to a nation?
4) In which social circles, if any, do you feel like an outsider? What lines—
racial, ethnic, religious, professional, or age-based—are used to determine
the insiders and outsiders? How have you coped with being an outsider
inside a group? Outside a group? Is being an outsider easier in or out of a
group? Why?
5) Do you think that children should be the property of their parents? Why
or why not? How did you come to your viewpoint?
6) In your part of the globe, how do you view foreigners? At what

percentage mark, if any, do you think that immigration to your country
should cease? If foreigners don’t work, should they be deported from your
nation?
7) Do you like the idea of your country becoming part of a larger political
entity? Write or speak into a tape recorder the pros and cons. Consider, for
instance, if you like the notion of everyone becoming a citizen of planet
Earth. How does anyone entering and leaving your nation at will tempt you
to feel? Do you feel the need to help preserve the language, history,
culture, ethnic, and racial composition of your country? Why or why not?
8
Following the Flock and Its Drivers
Since the dawn of woman and man, we have tended to tag behind groups
and leaders. We have a deep need to worship something larger than ourselves.
This tendency has pros and cons. In its adaptive aspect, our human impulse to
follow others brings social cohesion. Culture, after all, exists because enough of
us have internalized the values and practices of the society in which we live.
This keeps the social fabric intact. Any civilization is a product of this.
In its maladaptive aspect, however, the human impulse to follow others
can lead to the internalization of outdated taboos, to workaholism, to blind
consumerism, to hatred against outsiders, and to violence. Such negatives arise
from our surrendering our internal power to peers and to leaders in spiritually
unevolved cultures. Charismatic leaders are the most dangerous because they
hypnotize the public into following them and their agendas.
How does “group think” and following elites manifest in Western
society?264 What dangers do these two things pose? Can we balance social
consensus with independent thinking? How does democracy fit into this? What
are the consequences of living in a world with dwindling human freedoms?
Sheep Joining Sheep
Our times illustrate the human tendency to join the flock. What truths
and fallacies can we find around us? What dangers do postmodern beliefs pose
on a planet that is highly techno-logical (logical in a techno way) but spiritually
asleep? What might all of this teach us about our future?
The 20th century was the peak of the oil and industrial age. The two go
together. In those 100 years, technology reached unprecedented heights. For the
264
The term “group think” is borrowed from George Orwells’s 1984, (New York, Milestones Editions,
1949).
first time in the history of our species, oil-based products became available en
masse. Such items, still with us, include plastics, shellacked wood, rubber tires
and sneakers, polyurethane floors at the bowling alley, neoprene water suits,
electronics, cell phones, and computers. Virtually all of these products first
became available in the West. Not surprisingly, materialism and consumerism
first exploded in the Western world. Modern science, a European invention, has
predictably been materialistic. Everything in this universe was—and still is—
reduced to physical and biological laws, even human consciousness itself.
Science is the realm of man because human logic (the cerebral cortex) and
human concerns (e.g., to know, control, and improve material life) drive it.
Religion is also the realm of man because human irrationality (e.g., a loving God
punishes sinners) and the human ego drive it. Spirituality, on the contrary, is the
realm of God because divine logic (from beyond the cerebral cortex) and spiritual
evolution drive it. Human rationality comes from a closed system (the human
brain). If God comes from outside that system, then judging the Creator solely
by human standards—as modern science does—is misguided beyond a certain
point. God exists beyond human rationality, beyond the biological senses,
beyond human instincts, beyond human emotions, and even beyond human
experience itself—simply because all of these are relative to each individual and
Brahma exists beyond the relative.
Humanism displaced religion in the 20th century. In the words of Betty
Smocovitis, a history of science professor of mine at the University of Florida,
Carl Sagan’s Cosmos was “the culmination of evolutionary humanism.” That
PBS series, however, defined human evolution—not to mention, the evolution of
this universe—in purely physical terms. Spiritual evolution was disregarded.
Like astronomer Carl Sagan, futurist Gerard O’Neill defined human
consciousness solely in material terms.265 For these scholars, human

consciousness was nothing more than the product of neurons firing in the brain.
Biological survival, in turn, was the only goal of life on earth, and sex existed just
for reproduction. Whether physicists, chemists, or biologists, most scientists
internalized the matter-survival proxy as the basis of existence. Truth was
defined solely by “evidence,” and evidence was defined only in physical terms.
On whether extraterrestrials have ever visited earth, for example, Carl Sagan
narrates in the Cosmos episode “Encyclopaedia Galactica”:
What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we’d like to believe,
not what one or two witnesses claim, but only what is supported by hard
evidence, rigorously and skeptically examined [emphasis mine].266
While alive, however, how did Carl Sagan define hard? For that matter, how did
he define evidence? What, other than belief in “objectivity,” led Sagan to accept
evidence—defined only in material terms—as the only criterion of Truth? What
about the fact that spiritual evidence can differ from scientific evidence? What if
scientists aren’t aware about spiritual methods of finding Truth—the
metaphysical equivalent of the scientific method?
In Power vs. Force, David Hawkins writes that humankind’s chief
weakness is its inability to tell truth from fiction.267 Sane individuals can tell the
difference between fantasy and reality. Otherwise, one is delusional. Take Carl
Sagan’s above statement—the blockquote. Is it fact or opinion? Science has, no
doubt, brought us technological progress through the scientific method. But the
265
See Gerard K. O’Neill, 2081: A Hopeful View of the Human Future, (New York: Simon & Schuster,
1981), pgs. 256-257.
266
Cosmos, “Encyclopaedia Galactica,” (Episode 12).
267
Hawkins, Power vs. Force, pgs. 19 and 288.
Achilles’ heel of science is its discounting anything that is immeasurable. As

Daniel Lieberman, a paleoanthropologist, says on PBS’s Neanderthals on Trial:
We [scientists] delude ourselves into believing variations that we can

measure … that those actually give us information that answer the
questions we’re asking in the first place. And they may not.268
Given that much—in fact, most—of Reality is not measurable, dismissing the
immeasurable can prove dangerous. Other than the polygraph test, for example,
science hasn’t yielded a reliable way of determining whether, say, a political
candidate is telling the truth or lying. And even polygraph tests have been
shown to be unreliable. With Hitlers and Stalins in our past, present, and future,
nonmaterial methods of finding Truth must be invented and discovered.
Still, most scientists—and increasing numbers of laypeople—have
adopted agnosticism and atheism as a way of life. Living one of perhaps
hundreds of lifetimes (death times), more children are growing up believing that
“you only live once” and that physical death is the end for all eternity. Surely,
this is damaging to the psyche of children. But 20th century sheep joined 20th
century sheep. Westerners grew up in a world where, for “hard” scientists,
knowledge (the ends) became their god and the scientific method (the means)
their religion. “Soft” scientists adopted other gods. For economists, the
“invisible hand” of the market (the ends) became their god and privatization (the
means) their religion. For psychologists and psychiatrists, mental health (the
ends) became their god and diagnosis and therapy (the means) their religion.
Whether “hard” or “soft,” scientists claim to have discovered truths that are
supported by “empirical evidence,” by “laws of nature,” by “dictates of the free
268
See Nova: Neanderthals on Trial. This show premiered on PBS on January 22, 2002.
market,” and by “human psychology.” The goal of these scientists is to improve

human life because, in the words of author Alan Ebenstein, the more we know
about the effects of something, the more we can prepare either by doing it or
avoiding it. The problem is that conflicting political, economic, psychological,
and scientific theories exist. Each claims to be the way. Most of us forget Alan
Ebenstein’s words. As he told a C-SPAN audience, “The true test of a theory is
its ability to predict [emphasis mine].”269
Most people join the flock based on popular notions of what is right and
true—rather than on what their minds and hearts tell them. Why were so many
people raised in the 20th century so skeptical about spirituality? Among other
reasons, because Westerners became like Santo Tomas (Doubting Thomas). As
the Spanish saying goes, “Sí no lo véo, no lo créo” (“If I don’t see it, I don’t
believe it”). Even when we see things, many of us still don’t believe our eyes.
The postmodern skeptical mind is, undoubtedly, a product of the
industrial age. Humankind made so much technological progress that it forgot
about everything else. Even my college professor was slightly off mark when
she said that Cosmos, which premiered in September 1980, was “the culmination
of evolutionary humanism.” Cosmos, to be sure, did cover biological evolution,
and evolutionary humanism views humanity as the apex of an evolutionary
progression of consciousness—materially caused—on planet Earth. According to
this worldview, humans are now responsible for what direction biological
evolution takes next. But Cosmos ignored spiritual evolution. In neglecting a
major aspect of evolution—spiritual evolution—Cosmos can be said to be, rather,
the height of secular humanism. This is the brand of humanism that drew a
sizeable chunk of humanity in the 20th century. People like Carl Sagan and
269
Author of Hayek’s Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek, Alan Ebenstein spoke to a C-SPAN audience
on July 31, 2006.
Gerard O’Neill are products of the industrial era, an age that glorified matter
over mind and spirit.
Before 1900, scientists kept God in their science. There were, of course,
exceptions. But, in general, scientists of the 19th century followed a pre-
materialistic paradigm. Scientists of the 20th century, however, explained
everything in physical terms. By the late 20th century, even belief in God was,
and still is, attributed to biology alone. The latest incarnation of this is the book
The God Delusion, meaning the God of traditional religion. This is the work that
Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist, authored in 2006.270 New
Consciousness scientists of the early 21st century—such as physicians Deepak
Chopra and Andrew Weil—are seeking to reintegrate science with spirituality.
Humanistic spirituality is the emerging new paradigm. This paradigm is the
reverse of the “ ‘spiritually corrosive’ ” worldview of the secular humanists.271
Another visage of secular humanism is the study of human sexuality and
the study of the human mind. Through most of the 20th century, however,
sexologists, psychologists, and psychiatrists saw homosexuality as a “mental
illness.” As late as 1992, the World Health Organization classified this form of
sexuality as a “disorder.” As for spiritual epiphanies, shrinks explained them
away as “hallucinations” and as the product of “neurons firing in the brain.”
Spiritual experiences are still suspected to be signs of “psychological disorder.”
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—the bible of the
psychological and psychiatric professions—lists as “disorders” healthy forms of
human beingness. Consider the following list of so-called mental and sexual
disorders:
270
See Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, (New York: Houghton Mifflin, Co., 2006).
271
Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, (New York: Random House, Inc.,
1994), p. 47.
1) Becoming sexually aroused by a woman’s breasts or by a man’s

buttocks (fetishism)
2) Watching one’s romantic partner make love to a third party with

the consent of all (voyeurism)
3) Enjoying the baring of one’s genitals—with the consent of all

parties—to a lovemaking group (exhibitionism)
Sexologists, psychologists, and psychiatrists make no distinction between

healthy and unhealthy forms of the above so-called disorders. Tragically, these
social scientists have influenced popular attitudes—and have created needless
anxiety, guilt, and shame—about harmless aspects of human nature that have
been around since the dawn of humans.
What have secular humanism (which science and psychology represent)
and humanistic spirituality (the blending of the secular and the spiritual) got to
do with following the flock? For starters, any paradigm—material or spiritual,
maladaptive or adaptive, popular or professional—shows that we gravitate
toward the consciousness of the surrounding group. Even professionals, who
ought to have highly developed minds, easily fall victim to ideology, to cultural
mores, and to political pressures. So-called experts adopt the mindset of their
colleagues, era, and culture.
Sheep Following Sheepherders

In the movie The Dead Zone (1983), Johnny Smith (Christopher Walken)
awakens in a hospital after a five-year coma. A former schoolteacher, John finds
his two-story house surrounded by a political campaign. Greg Stillson (Martin
Sheen) is running for election to the U.S. Senate. At a mass rally, Stillson brays
about unemployment, grates about “what the hell has happened to this country,”
and sloganizes solutions to America’s problems. Roger Stuart (Anthony Zerbe)
sits down on a brownish davenport of patterns in his living room. Roger tells
John, who is sitting to his right, to watch the televised appearance of Stillson.
The scene unfolds as follows:
Roger: Can you believe this guy [emphasis mine]? He’s just getting
warmed up. Are you gonna vote for him, John?
John: [smiles] I’m not even registered.
Roger: Well, get registered, pal. And vote against this turkey. He’s
dangerous.
[Stillson keeps bawling at a mass audience.]
Roger: A real man of the people. Jesus, what an ax. Can’t they see
through this guy [emphasis mine]?
Carl Sagan’s criterion for establishing Truth was whether a hypothesis is

testable. Science, a materialistic religion, goes by physical evidence. This
evidence makes science, in Sagan’s words, “a candle in the dark.”272 But as

Commander Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) tells Lieutenant-Commander Data
(Brent Spiner) in a Next Generation episode of Star Trek, “. . . we almost never
have all the facts.” A 21st century boy may believe, for example, that the world
was black-and-white in the 1950s, based on black-and-white movies that he has
seen on the tube. If the lad doesn’t get more facts about that epoch, he will grow
up with such a belief. Sometimes, I myself wonder if men dressed in black suits,
white shirts, and dark ties all the time, as they do in films of the 1940s and 1950s.
Science is a sensory pursuit. As such, it can only tell us so much about the
whole Truth. That which lies beyond what facts can explain must hence be
sought by intuition and feeling. Lieutenant La Forge, however, warns
Commander Data:
But you can’t always go with your gut, either. It’s, well, it’s a
combination, Data … All these feelings [emphasis mine] that get in the
way of human judgement, that confuse the hell out of us, that make us
second-guess ourselves. We need them. We need them to help us fill in
the missing pieces because we almost never have all the facts [emphasis
mine].273
Later in the episode, Data, the white android, observes Romulan Admiral Jarok
(James Sloyan). Jarok has defected from the Romulan Empire. He has military
secrets that he wants to share with the United Federation of Planets in order to
prevent a war between the two space powers. At Ten-Forward, the restaurant-
bar of the Starship Enterprise, Data tells Jarok, “I was attempting to ascertain
272
See Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, (New York: Random
House, Inc., 1995).
273
Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Defector.” This episode originally aired in syndication on
December 30, 1989 (Season 3, episode 10).
what my guts tell me about you [emphasis mine].”274 Intuition comes—partly—

from the gut because this is the area of the third chakra (yellow). This energy
center is, like the sixth chakra (indigo), in charge of our psychic abilities.
In the film The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Professor Jacob Barnhardt
(Sam Jaffe) tells Klaatu (Michael Rennie), the spaceman, “It isn’t faith that makes
good science, Mr. Klaatu. It’s curiosity.” The implication is that religion and
spirituality—the opposite of science—operate by faith. Spirituality, however,
works by awareness. It is an inner knowing that science cannot explain, for
science comes from the premise of, “I don’t know.” While the Spirit/soul knows
everything, the cerebral cortex needs to learn in order for its host, the human
body, to survive. Being matter, the human brain—which should not be confused
with the human mind—pertains to a realm of limits. Unlike our Spirits/souls,
our physical bodies need to learn from the material universe—although our
Minds give our human bodies unconscious wisdom. Thus, human ignorance
needs to be displaced by eating from the fruit of knowledge in the Garden of
Eden. Such a partaking symbolized Adam and Eve’s departure from knowing
(the spirit plane), their descent into ignorance (the human realm), and their
needing to relearn. The material sphere is where relearning occurs. Science is “a
candle in the dark” in that it has led us to knowledge about the physical universe
—not to mention, high technology.275 The word science itself means, in Latin,
“knowledge.”276 But science cannot provide the whole Truth—such as whether a
political candidate is a Hitler about to rise to power. Why not? Because science
is limited to what its instruments can measure.
274
Ibid.
275
See Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.
276
Sagan, The Varieties of Scientific Experience, p. 248.
In an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Captain Jean-Luc Picard

(Patrick Stewart) yells at Dr. Barron (James Greene) about a race of preindustrial
humanoids. In the conference lounge of the Enterprise, Picard lectures Barron:
Your report describes how rational these people are [emphasis mine].
Millennia ago, they abandoned their belief in the supernatural. Now, you
are asking me to sabotage that achievement, to send them back into the
dark ages of superstition and ignorance and fear? No!277
The hallmark of superstition is ignorance of the unknown and therefore,

fear. Superstitious people do something—or avoid doing it—in order to
“prevent bad luck.” To believe in the supernatural is to believe in things,
including laws, that transcend the visible universe. But mysticism isn’t about
ignorance. Rather, mysticism is about knowing. It is about awareness of that
which is beyond the physical universe. A scientist may disagree that mystics
“know.” That, however, is because the scientist is coming from a different belief
system, one that defines material evidence—not spiritual evidence—as the only
arbiter of Truth. But what about false evidence appearing to be real? A
postmodern person may cite quack psychics as evidence that mysticism is hocus-
pocus. Fake psychics exist in droves, after all. But just because many, or even
most, ducks are black doesn’t mean that no white ducks exist. The reason
stereotypes exist is because they are based on some truth.
In “Who Watches the Watchers?”, Commander William T. Riker (Jonathan
Frakes) asks Dr. Barron, “Are you saying that this belief [in the supernatural] will
eventually become a religion?”278 Captain Picard calls such a prospect
277
Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Who Watches the Watchers?” This episode originally aired in
syndication on October 14, 1989 (Season 3, episode 4).
278
Ibid.
“horrifying.” But beliefs have created not just religion but science as well. Like
the religious crusaders of the Middle Ages, scientists claim that science is the
only way to Truth. Beliefs are nonetheless what science is about. These beliefs,
of course, have led to scientific discoveries regarding the laws of this universe—
truths concerning physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics. But just
because science claims a monopoly on the whole Truth doesn’t make it so. The
debate isn’t so much between science and religion as between one type of
religion and another type of religion. (For my definition of religion, see Part I,
Chapter 4, section titled, “People Who Embrace the Teachings of More Than One
Religion.”)
Hard as it is to believe, human rationality is what leads to Greg Stillson’s
election in The Dead Zone. In the movie, Stillson appears to be a member of the
working class. And not just a member but a noble member. For example, he
wears a white construction helmet at a rally. Stillson also smiles at his audiences,
yet rails about unemployment as if he were a man in search of justice. A rational
voter will, very likely, say, “Hey! He looks honest. He sounds honest. I’ll vote
for him.” The mystic mind, on the other hand, will go by feeling and by gut
instinct—not just by surface appearances.
There is a parallel between The Day the Earth Stood Still and the movie
Night Crossing (1981). Near the end of both films, loving, rational, courageous
people seek to escape societies that are heartless, irrational, and paranoid. In the
1951 flick, that milieu is a McCarthyistic America. In the 1981 picture, the world
is that of the former East Germany. Carl Sagan mistrusted mysticism because,
historically, it has existed in societies that have been full of fear, superstition, and
barbarism. But correlation is not causation. Furthermore, technological societies
have often been as paranoid and brutal as prescientific societies. Nazi Germany
is the quintessential example of a scientific society that was not spiritually
advanced. Conversely, Klaatu’s people were faith-strong and technologically

advanced—in fact, more so than humanity. Therefore, metaphysics (the study of
what is beyond measure) is as valid as science (the study of the measurable).
This doesn’t mean that one should replace the other. Rather, it signifies that each
can explain things—and thus, bring human and spiritual progress—in areas that
the other cannot.
Can science help voters see the truth of leaders who spit one thing and do
another? In The Dead Zone, nobody is able to see the real candidate behind the
mask. The only exceptions are Roger, who has political interests in getting
Stillson elected, and John, who has developed psychic powers. At a mass rally,
John shakes Stillson’s hand and sees a horrifying scene in his mind. As it turns
out, Stillson is a Hitler about to rise to power. In John’s psychic vision, Stillson
launches the first nuclear strike in what appears to be the beginning of World
War III. Hence, knowing how to tell truth from lies is paramount for the survival
of humanity. Where science fails—such as the unreliable polygraph test—gut
instinct must fill in.
The arm-testing method that David Hawkins developed is another
method of seeking truths.279 For instance, one holds an object like a CD and asks
oneself, “Does holding this CD weaken or strengthen my arm?” If it weakens
your arm, this means that the lyrics in the CD express falsehoods as far as you
are concerned. You disagree with the lyrics, and thus, with the energies in the
CD. If holding another object strengthens your arm, that means that the energies
of that object are in agreement with (true to) your level of consciousness.
In Missile Envy, Helen Caldicott, the physician and nuclear disarmament
activist, writes that airline pilots are required to undergo physical and
psychological testing, once a year, to prove that they are of sound body and
279
Hawkins, Power vs. Force, pgs. 2, 29, 41-43, 56, 111, 116, and 251.
mind. Obversely, Caldicott states, political leaders are not required to pass
physical and psychological tests. Yet, she concludes, political and military
leaders are responsible for far more people than airline pilots.280 It could even be
argued that humankind is hostage to the whims of elected leaders.
Most people think that Adolf Hitler “seized power.” The fact, however, is
that Hitler was practically elected—by 37 percent of the popular vote. He
received just enough votes in 1932 for the aging President Paul von Hindenburg,
who got 53 percent of the popular vote, to appoint Hitler Chancellor of Germany
in 1933.281 Historians, journalists, and the public blame Hitler for what followed,
and he deserves much of the blame. But Hitler would have never risen to power
had it not been for the low consciousness of political apathy that a critical mass
of the German people exhibited. Even had Hitler seized power, mass popular
resistance could have stopped his agenda. It would have taken time,
undoubtedly. But nothing is more powerful than the multitude united for or
against a cause—hence, the ceaseless attempts to control the public.
Why were so many Germans deceived in the 1930s? The desperation of
the Great (Grave) Depression was one factor that led to the rise of Adolf Hitler.
Jewish influence over German institutions inflamed Germans as well. As James
Shenton, the Americanist at Columbia University, said at a lecture while alive, if
Hitler had not authorized the atrocities that he did, he would have gone down as
history’s “greatest statesman.”282 This is because, in Shenton’s words, Hitler
restored all that Germany had lost after World War I. This included the German
economy, national pride, ethnic self-esteem, and military might.283
280
Helen Caldicott, Missile Envy: The Arms Race and Nuclear War, (New York: Bantam Books, 1986).
281
See the article titled, “Rise of Adolf Hitler,” found at http://history.acusd.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/Prelude03.html.
282
Refer to the cassette titled, The History of the United States, Part V: The Making of Modern America,
“The Coming of World War II,” Lecture 55.
283
Ibid.
But David Hawkins’s Power vs. Force also comes to mind. Humanity,
Hawkins writes, is not very good at separating truth from lies.284 Therefore,
voters let ads sway them during political campaigns; voters let “objective”
political experts convince them; and voters let the news media propagandize to
them. When a demagogue like Hitler appears, many people look up to him
because, in Roger’s words to John, they can’t “see through” the deception. Not
only are most of us unable to separate truth from fiction. “Sometimes,” an
exhausted woman once said, “the only thing that keeps you going in life is
believing what you want to believe [emphasis mine].” This complicates things
even more.
In the West, brainwashing is more rampant in the early 2000s than in any
other period of human history. Even the Catholic Church fell short in the Middle
Ages. Was the typical medieval person exposed, for example, to 3,500 ads a
day?285 To radio stations blaring, “you’re listening to x station” every three
minutes? In the 1980s, radio stations paused for identification once every twelve
minutes—give or take a minute or two. By 2005, my local radio station was
repeating its letters after every song. In the 1980s, radio stations also spent about
three seconds announcing themselves. By 2005, a Florida radio station was
repeating its insignia for 20 seconds—the same slogan, letters, and FM number
one, two, three times in a row. This translates to some 12 minutes an hour of
nothing but gibberish. The announcer—actually, a recording—even admitted to
mind control through the station’s slogan, “In a deliberate attempt to brainwash
you…”286 Also, fewer radio stations are taking song requests from the public. A
major reason is because they have no live DJs. And these stations are
unapologetic about their lack of humanity. One radio station in Washington
284
Hawkins, Power vs. Force, pgs. 19 and 288.
285
According to Jeremy Rifkin, 3,500 ads a day is “—more than double the number thirty years ago.” See
Rifkin, The Age of Access, p. 177.
286
This slogan aired in 2005-06 on Gainesville, Florida’s 98.5 WKTK.
state even warned its listeners, “Stop Calling Our Carefully Selected Blend of
Great Music of Mishmash.”287 This slogan aired on a frequent basis. When I
lived in Florida, one radio station referred to its commercials as “revenue
adjustment time.”288 After I moved to Washington state, guess what I heard on a
local radio station? You guessed it. “Revenue adjustment time.”289 One Florida
station’s slogan was “The 80s, the 90s, Whatever We Want.”290 One Washington
station’s slogan is “The 80s, the 90s, and Whatever.”291 So much for the cabal
theory being “the most absolute rubbish I’ve ever heard … patent nonsense,” as
author Tom Wolfe once claimed.292
Noam Chomsky says that the bludgeon (e.g., secret police) is limited in
democratic societies. “Therefore,” Chomsky says, “you have to control what
they [people] think [emphasis mine].”293 Public opinion polls are to propandizers
what the gas meter is to an automobile driver. Polls are the barometers of what
messages need adjustment in the public airwaves. For example, the Green Party
was approaching 10 percent of voter support during the summer of 2000. Across
the United States, stadiums filled up with thousands of “greens”—up to 50,000
spectators at Madison Square Garden. People paid up to $20 for tickets to these
rallies. Why? Because many Americans, both liberal and conservative, wanted
to hear Ralph Nader voice issues that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats
dared to raise. Alerted by the poll numbers, the Democrats and the major news
media began selling to progressives the message that a vote for Nader was a vote
for George W. Bush. By November 2000, support for Ralph Nader/Winona
LaDuke dropped to 3 percent nationally.
287
This slogan aired in 2006 on Yakima, Washington’s 105.7 KRSE.
288
This slogan aired in 2005-06 on Gainesville, Florida’s 98.5 WKTK.
289
This slogan aired in 2006 on Yakima, Washington’s 105.7 KRSE.
290
This slogan is that of Cross City, Florida’s 106.9 WKZY.
291
This slogan is that of Yakima, Washington’s 105.7 KRSE.
292
Tom Wolfe says this in the video Manufacturing Consent.
293
See Moyers’s A World of Ideas.
Presidential elections are notorious for being, in Chomsky’s words, “a

media show.”294 Like Stillson wears a white construction helmet at mass rallies,
political candidates disguise their real colors during—and after—election season.
Journalists, in turn, examine how candidates dress themselves, what they say or
don’t say, and whether they smile at critical junctures of a televised debate.
When the Democrats lost congressional seats in the 2004 election, for example,
journalists asked them questions like: “What could you have done to improve
your strategy [emphasis mine]?” What the candidates truly stood for, their past
voting record, and their real values were never brought up. When Barack
Obama was running for president of the United States in 2008, Patti Wood, a
body language expert, commented in reference to him:
The cadence and the rhythm are hypnotic. So he actually speaks on a

beat, and it’s a model of the Baptist preacher. And he builds, he builds
the voice up so he starts down here, but then he builds up here, and then
he builds up here and has that long, long pause. It’s so powerful because
what it does is it doesn’t really matter what he’s saying because his voice
tells you what you should be feeling about what he’s saying. The words
become irrelevant.295
Candidates are sold like soda pop. Each day there is an election, the corporate
media also projects who won, instead of waiting until an election is over before
reporting on—and thus, influencing the outcome of—each election. America is
more a society of form and image than of content and substance. The mania with
294
Ibid.
295
Secrets of Body Language. This two-hour special aired on The History Channel on October 13, 2008.
makeovers on talk shows is a sign of this. Worse, a critical mass of us can’t see
through our culture’s “necessary illusions.”296
Groupthink is about sheep following sheep and their sheepherders. It is
about group consciousness affecting individual consciousness. In the Middle
Ages, religion, superstition, and ignorance comprised the dominant thought
system. By the 20th century, godless science, human logic, and denial of the
immeasurable had become the new paradigm. In the Middle Ages, popes,
bishops, and church texts dictated the beliefs of peasants. Today, CEOs,
politicians, and the mass media influence our indoctrination. All of the above
show how groupthink starts and expands throughout a society. What are the
ramifications of this for the future of humanity?
Bucking the Public Good—

Politicians
Democracy comes in degrees. The spectrum ranges from American

polyarchy (representative government by and for an elite) to the direct
democracy (“mob rule”) of the French Revolution. Direct democracy grants
voters—rather than politicians—an active role in crafting social policy. The
initiative and referendum are perhaps the best examples of direct democracy at
work. Representative democracy, by contrast, allows us to elect leaders. But
once in power, politicians do what they want. This isn’t a secret, for senators and
representatives have admitted to voting for or against bills according to their
conscience. On the surface, this sounds moral. Underneath, however, their
admission reveals that politicians often act against the will of their electorate.
296
See Noam Chomsky, Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies, (Boston: South End
Press, 1989).
Poll after poll shows, for example, that most Americans want universal health
insurance. Most Americans agree that some things—food, housing, health care,
transportation, utilities, childcare, and education—are too important to leave to
the market. These polls have stayed consistent decade after decade. Yet, acting
from their conscience—rather than from the will of their constituencies—
legislators have shelved affordable housing, comprehensive health insurance, tax
breaks for parents, and more funding for social services in America. The federal
minimum wage stands frozen at $5.85 an hour ($936 a month/40 hours a week),
while a one-bedroom apartment in any major American city and even suburb
averages $1,000 a month.297 Perhaps, this is why more Americans, inside and
outside the inner cities, are turning to the drug trade to make ends meet. This
development is happening despite Congress’s “War on Drugs.” The link
between an unliveable minimum wage, the drug trade, and the health
consequences of this mix has yet to be made.
The movie The Dead Zone puts it clearer than polished glass. At the end
of that film, the camera focuses on a Newsweek article. The political career of
Greg Stillson (Martin Sheen) is over, for during a shooting attempt against him at
an auditorium, he used an infant as a shield. The subheadline reads, “How Big
Money Is Changing Politics.”
Contrary to popular belief, democracy is more limited than widespread in
the West. As mentioned, the United States is less a democracy and more a
polyarchy.298 Huge sectors of Western society operate by political appointment—
not by popular election of leaders. Examples of political appointees are chief
justices, college presidents, construction coordinators, boards of directors, and
even CEOs. These unelected positions constitute a “fourth branch of
297
Depending on the city, there will be a $200 to $400 rent difference for a one-bedroom apartment.
298
Robert A. Dahl, emeritus professor of political science at Yale University, coined this term in the 1950s.
government,” while lobbyists make up a fifth branch of government.299 By

whim, nonelected leaders can cancel civic groups. This is what John Silber,
Boston University chancellor, did when he banned a gay-straight alliance in
Boston.300 Nonelected leaders craft policies that affect millions, if not billions, of
people. Elected leaders, in turn, are voted into office through voting machine
fraud, visual manipulation of the public, double-talk, and even outright lies.
Consider what happened in the 1980s. In 1983, Brian Mulroney
campaigned to be prime minister of Canada under the banner of “No Free
Trade” with Canada’s neighbor to the south. Canada, of course, has always
traded with the United States. Starting with its first prime minister, however,
Canada placed tariffs on foreign products to protect Canadian industries from
foreign—and especially, from American—competition. Canada was founded on
the principle of John Alexander Macdonald, its first prime minister, that Canada
had to build a strong economy with its own companies. This was seen as the
first line of defense against Canada becoming an economic satellite of the U.S.
As Macdonald argued after Confederation (1867), maintaining an economic
border with America was essential if Canada was not to become the 51st state.
The Canadian goal was the opposite of what the U.S. Marshall Plan sought to do
in Europe after World War II. Referring to post-World War II Europe, historian
James Shenton lectured at Columbia University:
What the Marshall Plan was was the beginning of a process of converting
the divided Europe [after World War II] into a precursor of what would
become a unified Europe, the European Economic Community … In short,
299
Author Robert A. Caro used the phrase “fourth branch of government” in reference to Robert Moses, the
former construction coordinator from New York City. See New York: A Documentary Film, Episode Six,
“City of Tomorrow: 1929-1941.” This documentary is part of the American Experience series on PBS. It
aired on PBS on September 30, 2001.
300
See Richard Goldstein, “Gay History Is Still in the Closet,” New York Times, October 30, 2002, found at
http://www.pflagdetroit.org/HarryHay3.htm.
they [the crafters of the Marshall Plan] were calling for rationalization, for
the development of interdependence. In a sense, you could almost say
that what we have done is to introduce the prospect of creating the United
States of Europe and ultimately also creating not a French or a German or
an English or an Italian or a Spanish or a Belgian identity but a European
identity. In many ways, one might almost say that we are in the process
of creating a prospective unity of Europe by operating from that
fundamental premise that politics follows in the wake of economics
[emphasis mine], that in the aftermath of the development of a unified
European economy, there would almost inevitably develop a European
union, a political union.301
Since the 1850s, Canada kept its policy of bilateral trade with her larger and
stronger neighbor to the south. In September 1984, Canadians elected Brian
Mulroney because he promised voters “no free trade” with the U.S. In 1987,
however, Mulroney overruled the mandate of his electorate, and with the
Canadian parliament, his government negotiated the U.S./Canada Free Trade
Agreement (FTA). It removed virtually all tariffs between the two countries.
John Turner, a Canadian parliamentarian, gave a speech on the floor of the
Canadian House of Commons condemning Mulroney’s actions. In 1987, Turner
said:
We have built a country, east and west and north, on an infrastructure

that resisted the continental pressure of the United States. For 120 years,
we’ve done it, and with one stroke of the pen you’ve reversed that,
thrown us into the north-south pull of the United States. And that will
301
Refer to the cassette titled, The History of the United States, Part VI: Liberalism and the Cold War, “An
Uneasy Peace—The Korean War,” Lecture 60.
reduce us, I’m sure, to an economic colony of the United States, because
when the economic levers go, the political independence is sure to
follow.302
Within a few years, thousands of Canadian companies disappeared or

were acquired by American companies. Canada’s film industry suffered as more
American films were shot in Vancouver, the Hollywood of Canada. As Clayton
Yeutter, a U.S. trade representative, said on October 3, 1987:
We’ve signed a stunning new trade pact with Canada. The Canadians
don’t understand what they’ve signed. In twenty years, they will be
sucked into the U.S. economy.303
In Vancouver, British Columbia, actor Martin Sheen told a crowd:
I come from a land of lunatics. When I come to Canada, I see a country

that represents the way it is possible to live. We’ve been tied together as
nations for a long time on a long, loose rope. You shorten the rope by the
free trade deal and we can hang you with it … you aren’t our equal
partner and never will be.
We are an empire. And we are an aggressive nation. America

doesn’t want Canada as an equal partner. America wants to control you.
302
This quote comes from the online article, “ ‘Harmonizing’ Our Decline: The New American” by William
Norman Grigg. The September 22, 2003 article is found at the website titled, Activate Congress: Stop the
FTAA. The URL is http://www.stoptheftaa.org/artman/publish/article_3.shtml.
303
This quote comes from the website of the Centre of Research on Globalization. See Vive le Canada, “
‘Deep Integration’: Timeline of the Progress Toward a North American Union,” Global Research. The
timeline is at
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=VIV20061220&articleId=4216. The
timeline was posted on December 20, 2006.
Everything you are as a Canadian, you will lose to Americanism. If

I was a Canadian citizen with a heart and a mind of my own, I would
reject the free trade deal.304
Of course, Martin Sheen forgot that “free trade”—which is really about

unfettered corporate investment—was passed against Mulroney’s promise of “no
free trade.”
Similarly, Jean Chrétien ran for Canada’s prime ministership on an anti-
NAFTA platform. On October 1993, Chrétien won Canada’s federal election and
became the new prime minister. As head of government, however, Chrétien did
nothing to “renegotiate NAFTA.” And all of this happened in a parliamentary
democracy with four major political parties. This shows that control, secrecy,
and deception are the general rule in all societies, including so-called democratic
ones.
This is no conspiracy theory. Even the mass media concedes the truth of
the matter. In an episode of Perfect Strangers, for instance, Larry Appleton
(Mark Linn-Baker) instructs Balki Bartokomous (Bronson Pinchot) on how to run
for student body president. Larry, who represents the American way, tells Balki,
who personifies the non-Western way:
Tomorrow, at 10 o’clock, you’ll be meeting with the football team. You’ll

tell them how important you think sports are to the school’s image. Got
it? … Then, at 10:30, you’ll be meeting with the science club. You’ll tell
them you think education is important and too much of the school’s
budget is spent on sports. Got it? … At noon, you’ll be meeting with the
fraternities. You’ll tell them you think entirely too much time is being
304
Hurtig, The Vanishing Country, p. 430.
spent in the classroom and you’re pushing for a three-day weekend. Got
it? … Then, at 3 o’clock, you’ll be meeting with the honor society. You’ll
tell them you think we’re here to study, not to party, and you’re pushing
for Saturday classes.305
The living room scene proceeds as follows:
Balki: … small question from a simple Mypiot boy. This looks like I’m
just telling everyone what they want to hear.
Larry: [smiling] Welcome to politics.306
In the school auditorium, the following exchange takes place between the fourth
cousins:
Balki: I cannot lose the language thing. That’s the reason I’m
running for president. I cannot give that up.
Larry: Balki, your goal is to get elected. Tell them what they want to hear.
Once you’re elected, you can do whatever you want [emphasis
mine].
Balki: Cousin, isn’t that just a bit dishonest.
Larry: It’s the American way.307

305
This quote comes from the episode of Perfect Strangers (1986-1993) titled, “See How They Run.” The
episode originally aired on ABC on February 22, 1991 (Season 6, episode 19).
306
Ibid.
307
Ibid.
The track audience laughs.

In the PBS video A World of Ideas (1988), Noam Chomsky relates:
… I think much of the general population recognizes that the organized

institutions do not reflect their concerns and interests and needs. They do
not feel that they participate meaningfully in the political system. They do
not feel that the media are telling them the truth or even reflect their
concerns. They go outside of the organized institutions to act.308
Chomsky continues:
… it means that the political system … increasingly functions without

public input. It means, to an increasing extent, not only do people not
ratify decisions presented to them [A candidate vs. B candidate], but they
don’t even take the trouble of ratifying them [creating the options on the
voting card]. They assume that the decisions are going on independently
of what they may do in the polling booth.309
Thus, when journalists say that x candidate “carried” x state, they are ignoring
the half of the population that doesn’t vote in the United States. Seen in this
vein, even “landslide victories” are anything but landslides. The voting trend
has been declining in America since the early 20th century. A major reason is that
it doesn’t matter who is in office. Whether Republican or Democrat (“the
Republicrats”), American politicians only represent the right half of the political
spectrum—that is, the interests of corporations and increasingly, those of
308
The quote from Noam Chomsky comes from Moyers, A World of Ideas.
309
Ibid.
Christian fundamentalists. The left half of the political spectrum is excluded

from American politics. Liberals are not leftists but centrists. Lobbyists, in turn,
have replaced voters as the movers and shakers of elected officials. As Ralph
Nader, the consumer advocate, told reporter Amy Goodman on the radio show
Democracy Now!, there are some 35,000 full-time lobbyists and about 10,000
political action committees (PACs) in Congress.310 This doesn’t even include the
public relations industry and the lawyers that work for the Fortune 500
companies. All of these entities form the permanent government that Lewis
Lapham, former editor of Harper’s Magazine, wrote about. Voters, on the other
hand, elect the provisional government (“politicians for hire”) that changes every
four years in the U. S.311
In A World of Ideas, Noam Chomsky elaborates on what voters are really
voting for. He relates:
Ratification would mean a system in which there are two positions

presented to me, the voter. I go into the polling booth, and I push one or
another button, depending on which of those positions I want. That’s a
very limited form of democracy. A really meaningful democracy would
mean that I play a role in forming those decisions [emphasis mine] … But
we’re even departing from the point where there is ratification when you
have stage managed elections with the public relations industry preparing
what words come out of people’s mouth … Candidates decide what to say
on the basis of tests that determine what the effect will be across the
population. Somehow, people don’t see how profoundly contemptuous
310
Amy Goodman interview of Ralph Nader, “Ralph Nader on the Candidates, Corporate Power and His
Own Plans for 2008,” Democracy Now! The War and Peace Report, July 9, 2007. At
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/7/9/ralph_nader_on_the_candidates_corporate.
311
See Pierre Shapiro, “Globalization and the Death of Democracy,” ABC Theorists, 2002. At
http://studentloans.abctheorists.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Subjects&file=index&req=printpag
e&pageid=99&scope=all.
that is of democracy.312
As presently structured, both the American political system and the

parliamentary systems of the world are ill suited to meet the converging
catastrophes of the 21st century.313
Bucking the Public Good—

CEOs
What politicians do to their constituencies—that is, increasingly slight

them—CEOs do to consumers. Each CEO does what is best for his or her
company, rather than what is best for the customer or for the public good. What
is beneficial for each party can coincide, of course. But the bottom line always
comes first.
An episode of Perfect Strangers illustrates the above truism. In that
episode, Balki Bartokomous (Bronson Pinchot) is offered money if he can get his
island nation of Mypos to sell land to a corporation so that the latter may “avoid
certain tax liabilities.” Salivating for the money, Larry Appleton (Mark Linn-
Baker) tells Balki at their dining table:
Worldwide Amalgamated is one of the nicest multinational corporations

in the Fortune 500. We’ve read the annual reports, the press releases, the
312
Moyers, A World of Ideas.
313
The phrase “converging catastrophes” is borrowed from the subtitle of James Howard Kunstler’s book
The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century.
cover story on Time magazine.314
Balki, who is far from greedy, responds, “I’ve got this microfilm. But
reading the tiny print is giving me a headache.”315 At last, Balki learns that a
corporation named Cypher Incorporated has dumped toxic waste in one corner
of the world.
Ecstatic that it isn’t Worldwide Amalgamated, Larry exhorts Balki to “sign
the papers.”
Balki replies, “Worldwide Amalgamated owns Cypher Incorporated … I
learned this fact when I took the microfilm back to the archives.”316
The track audience cackles into laughter.
The above episode could be dismissed as just another example of a silly
comedy. But so-called real life offers other examples of companies ignoring the
public interest. After World War II, for instance, American carmakers started to
make gas-guzzlers. Their motto was “longer, lower, wider.” The 1950s was the
beginning of the Pax Americana. Industrially, the United States was Number
One, something that meant little competition from foreign manufacturers. When
the first oil crisis hit in 1973, the Big Three automakers continued to make mobile
gymnasiums. On PBS’s America on Wheels, Laurel Cutler, a marketing expert,
explains:
General Motors would yawn at me and say, “We don’t want to make
small cars. We don’t know how to make money off small cars.” So they
made what they wanted to make.317
314
Perfect Strangers, “The Selling of Mypos.” This episode originally aired on ABC on January 26, 1990
315
Ibid.
316
Ibid.
317
This quote comes from America on Wheels, “Car Wars,” Part Three. The episode originally aired on
PBS on June 24, 1996.
Not until the second oil shock of 1979 did the Big Three pay attention to the
inroads that Japanese cars were making in the U.S. By then, it was too late. In
America on Wheels, actor Hal Holbrook narrates:
Overnight, made in Japan and made in America switched places in the

public eye as a mark of quality. The Big Three responded by rushing
hastily designed compact cars into production and began running the
assembly line at the fastest speed in history. The pressure cooker
atmosphere did nothing to improve quality, or the relationship between
management and labor … there was a real possibility that two of the Big
Three might actually go under.318
Sam Kirkland, an auto worker, confides:
We were being pushed to put out the product, and nobody seemed to ask
you, you know, “Could this be done better?” The most important
question at that point was, “Could we do more of it? Could we do it
faster?”319
Ron Tonkin, an auto dealer, comments:
They had to make them smaller, safer, and more fuel-efficient. And they
didn’t know how. They started building cars like the Vega. And then, we
had the Chevet, and we were selling Chevets against Hondas and
Toyotas. And it wasn’t gonna happen because it just wasn’t as good an
318
Ibid.
319
Ibid.
automobile.320
Laurel Cutler relates:
The life of a Big Three automotive executive is so insulated from contact

with the consumer. They are driven to work by chauffeurs. They have
never had to buy a car at a dealership. They have never had to wait for
repairs. And what happens to imperially treated people is that they
become isolated, arrogant, and imperial. It is extremely hard not to.321
American cars improved in quality after the fiasco of the late 1970s and
early 1980s. They even improved their gas mileage. Since 1985, however, the
trend has been, once more, a return to the gas-guzzlers of the 1970s. SUVs are
today’s version of the station wagons of the 1970s. As the French saying goes,
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Automakers have
learned nothing from the oil shocks of the 1970s. With peak oil here (see
epilogue), this will prove more disastrous than anything that humanity has ever
gone through. Historian Ron Edsforth puts it bluntly. In America on Wheels, he
comments, “If the automobile industry gets what it’s dreaming about, which is a
world that looks like the United States, I think that the planet will collapse.”322
As predicted in the 1990s, the Chinese are now trading their bicycles for
automobiles. Automakers are thrilled at the potential of this 1.3 billion people
market, caring nil about the consequences of this for a planet that is now the
warmest in 400 years.323 Even worse, the mass protests of the 1960s are long
320
Ibid.
321
Ibid.
322
Ibid.
323
See MSNBC article by Miguel Llanos and The Associated Press, “Earth Warmest in at Least 400 Years,
Panel Finds: National Research Council Report Focuses on ‘Hockey Stick’ Data,” MSNBC, U.S.
News/Environment, June 22, 2006. At http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13474997/.
gone. People are no longer burying the internal combustion engine, as they did
at a 1973 demonstration.
Economists claim that “demand creates supply.” The dirty secret of Big
Business, however, is that profit projections—not demand—create supply. If
profit and demand coincide, then demand is cited as the driver of production.
But when demand is unprofitable for a company—or even a related industry like
oil—then demand does not create supply. Norway, for example, began to make
an electric vehicle, the Think, that was performing well on the road. California
alone had thousands of people on a waiting list of would-be buyers of the Think.
But after an American auto company took over, production of the Think halted.
Capitalism—actually, corporatism these days—is heralded as being about
“diverse choices for the consumer.” In truth, however, the options of what to
choose are engineered by the business elite.
If companies abuse people who pay for their products, then how do they
treat people who actually need their money?
Lording Over Peons
Like voters and consumers, workers are often abused by the heads of
cows. Unfortunately, the need for money (the forced heroin of human society)
forces most of us to line up with the pack, to follow the orders of bosses, and to
surrender many of our freedoms. As Howard Zinn, the Americanist, has said
several times, “In the workplace, the Constitution stays at the door.”324 Even
324
See Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present, (New York: Perennial Classics,
2003).
nonprofit agencies operate by pecking order and vertical chain of command.

These include socialist institutions like public schools, fire departments, public
libraries, police precincts, youth hostels, and museums. There is, of course,
nothing inherently wrong with some inequality. In fact, class differences are part
of human diversity, and as we have seen, diversity rules biological life. Too
much inequality, however, can lead to abuses like those encountered at one of
America’s most prestigious industries.
In 1983, Frank Lorenzo became CEO of Continental Airlines. At that time,
the airline was in a muck of debt. According to the PBS documentary Chasing
the Sun, Lorenzo annulled the employment contracts of Continental’s employees.
He fired all his workers and invited a third back at lower wages. Author Thomas
Petzinger voices:
He simply came in one morning and said, “This is what you’re gonna
make now. And, by the way, that contract that promised you something
else is no longer in force because we just filed for bankruptcy protection.”
That move so outraged and offended his own workforce, certainly, but
also the flying public, certainly the regulators, Congress. Everyone got
into Lorenzo bashing, and he never really overcame the damage to his
reputation.325
In 1986, Lorenzo became CEO of Eastern Air Lines. Like Continental, Chasing
the Sun explains, Eastern was in a financial strap. Once more, Lorenzo applied
his slash-and-burn tactics to save his airline money. Unions of Eastern Air Lines
refused to budge. The airline was grounded, bled more money, and collapsed in
January 1991. As late as August 1996, a graduate student told lounging
325
This quote comes from Chasing the Sun, “The New Breed.” Episode Four. The documentary originally
aired on PBS on July 2, 2001.
collegians in a mailroom of my college the following: “I was a flight attendant for

Eastern since the 1960s. This week, I received a letter from Eastern that said I
‘should’ be able to receive my pension.”326
According to Chasing the Sun, 40,000 employees lost their jobs as a result
of Eastern’s demise. As if that weren’t enough, Pan American Airlines
disintegrated in 1993. The airline had gotten entangled in a war with Lorenzo
over the acquisition of National Airlines. According to the PBS documentary,
Pan Am had no domestic routes and needed to acquire them to get out of debt.
But trying to outbid Lorenzo, Pan Am paid more for National Airlines, a
domestic airline, than it was worth.327 Petzinger relates:
In the years I covered Frank Lorenzo, he was urgently trying to build

critical mass, which to him, as I recall, meant attaining a certain size, that
he was invulnerable, impregnable to competitors, that he would aggregate
so many passengers through his route network that he would be the king
of the hill of the airlines. And for a while, he was.328
The victims, however, were the tens of thousands of employees who lost
their livelihoods. Two of the three airlines no longer exist. Only when the
environment is at stake do workers suddenly become important in the major
news media. Then, as Helen Caldicott writes in If You Love This Planet, it is
workers vs. environmentalists.329
Contrast this world with one where everybody is more equal than not.
On such a world, an educated citizenry orders things—not the rich and
powerful. According to Noam Chomsky, the largest social movement toward
326
I keep her name anonymous to protect her identity.
327
Chasing the Sun, “The New Breed.”
328
Ibid.
329
Caldicott, If You Love This Planet, p. 186.
this end, at least in recent history, was the Spanish “Civil” War (1936-1939).
Before Francisco Franco came to power in Spain, Spanish workers formed their
own cooperatives and lived in balance between agriculture and industry. These
Spaniards settled in small communities, owned things communally, and ruled
themselves.330 As Klaatu tells the scientists at the end of 1951’s The Day the Earth
Stood Still:
There must be security for all, or no one is secure. Now, this does not
mean giving up any freedom, except the freedom to act irresponsibly.
Your ancestors knew this when they made laws to govern themselves and
hired policemen to enforce them. We of the other planets have long
accepted this principle.
Nowadays, however, laws are becoming more nepotistic and less just.
An egalitarian society is a trans-instinctual society in that it is brought
about by humans having undergone, in the words of Noam Chomsky, a
“spiritual transformation.”331 The means toward this is inner growth. But
interior growth must be paired with community organization.
Heap of Ants
Why does the multitude blindly follow the larger consciousness around
it? In the video Manufacturing Conscent (1992), Noam Chomsky explains:
330
331
Ibid.
Very few people are going to have the time or the energy or the
commitment to carry out the constant battle [emphasis mine] that’s
required to get outside of MacNeil/Lehrer or Dan Rather or somebody
like that. The easy thing to do is, you know, you come home from work.
You’re tired. You’ve had a busy day. You’re not gonna spend the
evening carrying out a research project. So you turn on the tube.332
Those of us who question dogma are rarely heard. When dissenters are given a
voice, they are typically portrayed in the mass media as “idealistic youth.” In a
Home Improvement episode, for example, Randy Taylor (Jonathan Taylor
Thomas) questions corruption in corporate America, dirty money in politics, the
for-profit mentality of the medical establishment, and organized religion. Randy
confides to the hospice patient (Eileen Heckart) whom he has been visiting:
They [doctors] run 400 tests, come up with their expert diagnosis, toss
people in the hospital for thousands of dollars a day. Then, if they’re not
sick enough to die, they’ve got no money left to live.333
Randy goes on, “… I’ve been reading a lot of articles on the health care crisis in
this country. It just makes me really mad.”334
At home, the 16-year-old tells his parents, “I’ve been doing a lot of
thinking, and I just realized organized religion doesn’t make any sense to me.”335
332
Ibid.
333
This quote is from the Home Improvement episode titled, “Losing My Religion.” The episode originally
aired on ABC on November 18, 1997 (Season 7, episode 8).
334
Ibid.
335
Ibid.
Randy’s father (Tim Allen) replies, “Well, you question all you want to, as
long as your butt’s in that pew.”336
Similarly, a CEO can believe whatever he wants, Noam Chomsky argues,
so long as he carries out his institutional role—making profit for the company at
any cost.337 Workers can also believe whatever they want, so long as they stay in
line.
Most of us absorb the mores of our milieus—however maladaptive those
values may be. This is because not to creates a psychological gulf between one’s
beliefs and actions. Such an incongruity between the inner and the outer is
unhealthy for two reasons:
1) One isn’t feeling honest in one’s interactions with others. For

example, a voice in one’s head will repeat, If only they knew
what I really think and who I truly am
2) Keeping one’s thoughts separate from one’s actions sucks one’s

energy
The combination is stressful—and ultimately, painful. Thus, the easy thing is to

adopt the beliefs and practices of the time and place in which one lives. One
becomes a product of one’s era and relates to others according to socially
prescribed roles, rather than as individual. The payoff is that the inner sphere
(one’s thoughts) matches the outer sphere (one’s actions). Much energy and pain
is saved this way. As the maxim goes, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” In
Home Improvement, Randy is still at a stage where he is questioning social
336
Ibid.
337
values that most of us have internalized. By the kitchen counter, he tells his
parents:
… I just believe people can experience God in different ways … I’m not
abandoning God. It’s just sitting in that church goes against my
convictions and beliefs.338
In another episode, Randy fires questions at the CEO of Binford Tools—

the company for which Tim Taylor, the lad’s father, works. Randy asks Bud
Harper (Charles Robinson) what he thinks about Binford being rated an
“‘egregious environmental offender.’ ”339
“He’s quite the little dickens, isn’t he?” Tim grates at Bud.340
Not only is Randy not taken seriously. He is soon exiled to Costa Rica.341
Most people say, in the words of Ralph Nader, “I’m not turned on
politics.”342 This is the majority of citizens—such as Americans who don’t vote—
having caved in to political apathy. According to Noam Chomsky, this is what
the American political system indoctrinates us to do. But as Nader has warned
repeatedly:
Right down to the air you breathe, the water you drink, and the health
insurance you don’t have, if you don’t turn on politics, politics will
continue to turn on you.343
338
Home Improvement, “Losing My Religion.”
339
Home Improvement, “Clash of the Taylors.” This episode originally aired on ABC on September 30,
1997 (Season 7, episode 2).
340
Ibid.
341
Jonathan Taylor Thomas left Home Improvement because, as he has stated in several interviews, he
wanted to devote more time to his studies. For viewers who are unaware about this, however, Thomas may
as well have been kicked out of the show.
342
On C-SPAN, Ralph Nader has repeated this phrase several times.
343
Ralph Nader repeated this quote on various TV stations during the 2000 presidential election campaign.
If you recall, politics is the process of deciding who gets what, when, where,
how, and even why. Economics is the exchange of resources that comes as a
result of politics. Politics drives economics. And sometimes, economics—as in
big money—drives politics.
What price will humankind pay in an age of rising consumerism and
dwindling resources? Noam Chomsky sums it up:
It’s long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this
principle [material gain] will destroy itself in time … At this
stage of history, either one of two things is possible. Either the general
population will take control of its own destiny and will concern itself
with community interests, guided by values of solidarity and sympathy
and concern for others, or alternatively, there will be no destiny for
anyone to control … In this possibly terminal phase of human existence,
democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured. They may
well be essential for survival [emphasis mine].344
As Marcus Cicero, the Roman philosopher and statesman, said, “Freedom is

participation in power.”345
344
This quote is from the video Manufacturing Consent.
345
Ralph Nader quoted this on C-SPAN on November 4, 2008. The post-election conference, titled,
Reaction to Election Results was held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
Rising Above the Flock
A trans-instinctual society balances the need for social cohesion with

independent thinking. Democracy, after all, requires citizens who can read
between the lines. It requires free thinkers. Critical thinking isn’t enough,
though. A trans-instinctual milieu goes by gut instinct as well. How many
times, for example, have you heard someone say, “How could something so
wrong feel so right?” This is emotion acting as the barometer of right and wrong
—however an individual defines right and wrong. A trans-instinctual person
may have learned detachment from externals. But he or she is not totally
detached from his or her emotions—just partially—for feelings are a major
barometer of truth. It is through intuition, humanly rational thought, and
observation through sharpened senses—each depending on the situation—that
trans-instinctual humans decide:
1) Whether to vote for someone

2) Whether to join or leave a group
3) Whether to adopt or reject the values and practices of a society
Feelings don’t always tell us truths, of course. If one is emotionally

invested in a spouse, for example, one may refuse to accept that he or she
murdered someone. Love, after all, is blind. Forensic evidence becomes
necessary in cases like this. In the absence of scientific evidence, however, best is
to use one’s feelings as a guide to truths, for this is better than nothing and
emotions are often on the dot. Again, as Commander Geordi La Forge (LeVar
Burton) tells Lieutenant-Commander Data (Brent Spiner) in “The Defector”, “But
you can’t always go with your gut, either. It’s … it’s a combination, Data.”346
346
Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Defector.”
The trick for trans-instinctual humans is knowing when to use which method of
telling the truth.
Trans-instinctual humans resist the temptation to follow the flock if it has
values that are maladaptive. Instead, trans-instinctual humans embrace values
that are conducive to long-term survival—and not just human survival but the
survival of lower animals and plants as well. Trans-instinctual humans band
together because they understand that there is power in numbers. Just as
significant, a trans-instinctual society teaches these things to youngsters, through
example, in public and private spaces.
The next chapter takes a personal look at control in the office and in
friendship. The chapter also looks at how trans-instinctual people can rise above
control in those contexts.
Exercises
1) Are you a leader, a follower, or both? Do you feel that such a tendency in
you is inborn? Due to socialization? Both? If due to socialization, how did
you learn to lead?
2) If you have led one or more people, have you led responsibly,
irresponsibly, or both? Define your concept of responsibility.
3) List instances when you have followed a person, a group, or an order.

Have you followed blindly? If yes, were the results positive, negative, or
neutral? How so?
4) Have you ever followed a person, a group, or an order while keeping your
intelligence? If yes, write about the incident or speak it into a tape
recorder. Do you feel that one must relinquish independent thinking in
order to follow?
5) Do you find yourself leading in some areas of life and following in other
areas? If yes, why? Describe the differences between the two.
9
Control
One of our lower human tendencies, control rules much of our lives.
Control can mean the difference between staying employed or starving. It can
mean the difference between a real friendship and a fake one. And it can mean
getting promoted or staying in the lower rungs of a career.
How does control manifest in the lives of instinctual humans? How can
trans-instinctual humans rise above this human tendency in their interactions
with others?
Domination: At the Job
Years ago, I witnessed a series of interactions at an office. One of the first

things that I noticed was the desk of a heavy woman. Her metal desk of jade
green was smack in the middle at the end of the office—much like a judge’s desk
is the final destination of the aisle in court. The desk of the fiftyish woman was
always cluttered. Usually, there was an air of impatience around her. One
afternoon, I entered the office of the overweight woman and heard a

bloodcurdling sigh.
“You better get those forms before 5 o’clock because I won’t accept them
after then,” she brayed.
The young guy dropped his chin and left her office.
Another day, the lady bawled an order that had not been completed on
schedule. A secretary left one day. About two weeks later, a young intern came
to fill her place. She too left mysteriously.
The woman with short waves of chestnut-brown found herself having to
do the work of two. Most of the time, her coworkers kept a safe distance from
her. Sometimes, they complimented the husky woman on her bracelets or plain
shirt, but overall, her colleagues said nothing. Some days, the lady’s mood was
mildly pleasant, but woe to everybody on those days when she got up on the
wrong side of the bed. Then, there was no escaping her wrath. Even if nobody
was around her desk, she would grumble at herself for things gone wrong at the
office.
I suspect that this woman’s temper was her way of controlling her
coworkers. They feared her so much that they dared not question her, no matter
how unreasonable her demands were. The woman got promoted to another
department. Her colleagues threw her an office party and complimented her on
how “indispensable” she was. About a month later, the obese lady was back at
her old office. I surmise that her control tactics didn’t work in the new
department. If this woman is married, I pity her spouse and kids. If only people
like her knew about the spiritual taxes (negative karma) that they are incurring
by being ogres.
At the other extreme was a blonde who joined my mother at work. My
mom had assumed the duties of a licensed consultant in Puerto Rico. The
licenciado (licensed man) traveled a lot, which meant that my mother had to
complete her duties and his. Because the office was empty most of the time, my
mother became de facto head of the man’s consulting office. This continued for
about a year. Then, the blonde entered the scene. As my mother recounted to
me, the thirtyish woman had a master’s degree, while my fortyish mom only had
a Bachelor’s degree. The blonde, however, didn’t know the procedures of the
consulting agency. My mother was happy to coach her. Late one afternoon, my
mom brought home a tundra swan made of glass. The handheld figurine had
water inside and a red rose in the stem holder. My mother told me that the
young lady had given this to her. I thought, How kind of the blonde. My
mother continued to teach the woman the specifics of the licensed man’s job, as it
seemed that he was not coming back. As my mother told me years later, the
blonde asked her to give her the name and social security number of her son—
that is, me.
“Why?” my mother asked her.
“Just a mix-up at our records office in Texas,” the blonde replied.
“Nothing serious.”
One Friday about a month later, the young blonde told my mother that it
would be my mom’s last day at the office. It happened just before 5 o’clock. The
blonde knew that my mother was raising a child—me—as a single woman and
that this was why my mother couldn’t travel to the mainland of the United States
as part of her job. That, however, didn’t matter to the blonde. All she cared
about was not having a rival who knew more than her at the agency. To add
insult to injury, the blonde’s question about my social security number was so
that she could take me off my mother’s health insurance plan. The blonde didn’t
care that, in 1983, unemployment in Puerto Rico was 23.5 percent of the
workforce,347 more than double what it was in the states (9.6 percent).348 All that
mattered to her was learning every detail of the work that my mother had
performed on behalf of the bygone licenciado. Never had my mother
experienced such betrayal. The kindness of the woman (e.g., the glass swan) was
a means to an end (e.g., gaining the trust of my mother). The blonde’s “letting
go” of my mom meant the emptying of my mother’s old refrigerator. It meant
over a year of part-time and temporary employment for my mother. Last, it
meant the return of my mother, my new stepfather, and me to the Bronx in
August 1984. I pity the karmic consequences that this blonde has created for
herself.
The above are some examples of control dynamics in the employment
world. One of our lower human impulses, control only cares about survival of
the fittest. Hence, control brings out the worst in us.
Manipulation through Friendship
As a community college student, I enrolled in an English literature class.

It was a mandatory course. I had the habit of studying at a magazine shelf—my
stand-up desk—in the middle of the college library. A fellow student came up
and struck a conversation with me. The guy was clean-cut, and he always wore
a deep-blue baseball cap with some logo on top. I was impressed that a “frat
347
This statistic comes from James L. Dietz, Puerto Rico: Negotiating Development and Change, (Boulder,
CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003), p. 71.
348
Unofficially, the unemployment statistics were higher—as they always are. The official statistic of 9.6
percent comes, however, from the website of the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
See “Where Can I Find the Unemployment Rate for Previous Years?” at
http://www.bls.gov/cps/prev_yrs.htm.
boy” was talking to me. The young man with khaki hair the texture of a
hairbrush told me that he was in the same class of English literature. He asked
me if I could clarify an essay question for him. I did. Another assignment
required that each classmate see and critique four plays. The heartthrob with
hazel irises invited me to see each play with him. Never had I had an age-mate
—let alone, a “cool dude”—open up to me like he did. I began to tutor him. A
couple of times, he invited me to his first-floor apartment. One day before class,
we had lunch in his sunlit dining room. I continued to tutor him. His warmth
was awesome. Fall semester ended, and I telephoned him over the Christmas
break. No answer.
When spring semester began, the “frat boy” sat behind me at another
English literature class—another of the required courses. I asked him what he
had done for the holidays.
“Visiting family out of town,” he answered.
Again, the medium-built guy asked me if I could help him with a class
assignment. I agreed to tutor him some more. After final exams, the young man
told me that he was moving from Gainesville, Florida to Tampa, Florida. I gave
him my telephone number and said that, if he wished, we could stay in contact.
Never again did I hear from him.
I believe that the guy’s kindness toward me was a tactic to get me to help
him with his schoolwork. I was the intellectual. He was the jock. I was
responsible. He was irresponsible. The young man even ran a red light one
afternoon—with me on the front passenger seat. His “friendship” toward me
was his way of manipulating me. I was the puppet. He had the strings. At the
time, I didn’t know this. Now, I do.
Success through Networking
It is said that the job world is the most political of all avenues of civilized
life. Networking is to ordinary folk what lobbying is to the lobbyists in
Congress.
Once, I noticed a woman who worked behind a main office. What I
assume were her secretaries had to deal with clients day in and day out. In the
central office, people would come and go. The woman with shoulder-long hair
of walnut-brown never had to deal with anyone, however. Never did I see her
give orders or insult anyone. This lady was quiet as a mouse. A woman told me
to be careful about this broad. I heeded her advice.
About a year later, I bumped into the silent woman at another building.
She had gotten a corner office, one that was down the hall from the office of the
president of the company. The lady’s computer unit, flat screen, printer, and fax
machine were state-of-the-art. How, I pondered, had this quiet woman risen
through the ranks? I am sure that she had the qualifications. But job skills, I
have learned, are never enough. People skills are what makes or breaks one in
the end. I surmise that this woman knew how to ingratiate herself in the eyes of
those in power at her company. I have no idea how this is done. But one thing I
know for sure. Those are skills of the personality—not of the Spirit/soul.
Instinctual humans live by their human abilities. Trans-instinctual humans live
by their spiritual qualities.
Rising Above Dominance

Instinctual humans rise to positions of external power because of their

savvy. Knowing about people may be more valuable than knowing about
things. People with Asperger Syndrome may be intellectually brilliant, for
example. But because they are “mind blind” regarding humans, seldom do
Aspies become professionally successful—outside the computer world, that is.
Success that is based on advantages of the person(ality)—that highly
individual persona of each individual—is not real success, for one controls others
by being savvy about people. Real success comes from the spirit. So does true
friendship. Trans-instinctual humans are kind—not to get something nor to
avoid conflict with toxic people. Rather, trans-instinctual humans are kind for
the sake of kindness. They are also understanding for the sake of understanding.
Trans-instinctual humans realize that what you put out will come back to haunt
—or bless—you. Thus, trans-instinctual humans weigh carefully their thoughts
and actions toward others. A trans-instinctual society is based on such
principles.
The next chapter inspects the many ways that postmodern civilization
encourages aggression and violence in us. The chapter also proposes some trans-
instinctual solutions.
Exercises
1) What power plays, if any, happen at your place of employment? At

home? Are they obvious, subtle, or both? How? Who is involved? Why do
you suppose? If you are part of the power struggle, how did you get
involved? Were you, for example, unconsciously dragged into it, or did you
willfully choose to play the game?
2) Are any of your battles based on gender issues, cultural

misunderstandings, ethnic animosity, personal dislike, religious morals, age
differences, or family issues? Elaborate on paper or speak into a tape
recorder.
3) Have you ever been involved in shouting or shoving matches? If yes,

what have been the benefits to you? What are, or have been, the penalties?
How could you prevent, or disentangle yourself from, any future dramas?
What might be the benefits?
4) Can you think of people who deliberately stay out of interpersonal

conflicts? If yes, what do you imagine are their motives? Would you like to
emulate them? Why or why not? Are you willing to?
5) How, if at all, have you managed to stay out of a power play? For how
long? If you are involved in a power struggle elsewhere, how could you
apply the tactics that you used successfully? Are you willing to do it? Why
or why not?
10
Aggression and Violence
In Roots of Violence in Black Philadelphia, 1860-1900, historian Roger

Lane argues that job and housing discrimination forced African Americans to
live in a vicious underworld in 1890s Philadelphia. This was before the Great
Black Migration (to the North) during World War I. In 1890s Philadelphia, Lane
writes, “whites” were not accustomed to a “black” presence. Shut out from
respectable employment, he contends, African Americans had no choice but to
engage in dangerous and illegal work to make ends meet. Such work included
prostitution, drug dealing, and petty theft.349
In the 21st century, job and housing discrimination continue underground.
More of us are giving in to rage, aggression, and violence—the weeds of
injustice. The mass media, in turn, is reinforcing our aggressive instincts. Just
watch the incomprehensible amount of violence on television. In a twist of irony,
traditional masculinity is being pathologized as being “too aggressive” and “too
antisocial.”
349
See Roger Lane, Roots of Violence in Black Philadelphia, 1860-1900, (Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1986).
How does injustice relate to violence? If we are to choose our higher

instincts, should we blame the entertainment industry for teaching us violence?
Or should we stop subsidizing the major—not to be confused with alternative—
media? How does society’s pathologizing of masculinity, meaning traditional
masculinity, lead to more aggression in males? How does the repression of the
energy and sexuality of youth contribute to violence? How does not being
understood by anyone add fuel to the fire? Most important, how can trans-
instinctual humans overcome this society’s fostering of resentment and
aggression?
The Trials of Postmodern Society
Western civilization has not provided its youth with rites of passage.
Without being initiated into adulthood, youngsters are being asked to face the
challenges of adult life. Youth who choose higher education learn the following:
1) Higher education throws most collegians into a quicksand of debt
2) Universities don’t adequately prepare students for the realities of

postmodern work
We are supposed to acquire the skills of Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey
(1968) and update them every six months. Such a requirement assumes that
everybody was born to be a high-tech worker. Even minimum-wage jobs require
the juggling of high-tech skills—the computerized cash register, the credit card
machine that just went digital, the 400 series chicken rotisserie, the buttons on the
order-taking headphones, and the multitasking between these different things.

The pace of work keeps quickening, in turn, to the point that store managers say,
“We don’t have time to train you.” And these are entry-level jobs in the ever-
growing service industry. Middle positions, on the contrary, stay filled by the
Baby Boomers. This leaves either entry-level jobs or upper management
positions as the only choices for college graduates—with minor exceptions. For
youth, the old system doesn’t work. Comprehensive education takes decades of
training, inside and outside the classroom. High schools—and some college
classes—are teaching rote memorization for standardized tests, however. “No
Child Left Behind” is driving much of this. Then, companies expect graduates
who are well versed in critical thinking and quick decision-making. In the best-
case scenario, frustration will run riot. In the worst-case scenario, violence will
go amok. Four years of postsecondary education may no longer be enough. At
least, six years are needed, with the last three years spent in the outside world.
This will require free education—beyond grade 12—for anyone who can keep his
or her grades up to minimum standards. Tuition hikes are now periodic, after
all, and have stayed percentagewise in the triple digits. Without free education,
postsecondary education will become impossible for all but the richest of the
rich.
If human aggression is to be overcome, then the world must become
human. For starters, it must slow down and simplify. Things have gotten way
too complex; community has disintegrated; and money has become the be all and
end all of life on earth. Species themselves have become commodities. The most
disturbing example is genetically engineered organisms that are patented.
Human life itself has become “a paid-for experience.”350 Everything is losing its
humanity. Things are going faster … and faster … and faster. This rate of
350
See Rifkin, The Age of Access.
change is unsustainable! Even corporations are becoming unworkable. Just call

your telephone company, Internet service provider, or power company. See how
quickly you can get their customer service representatives to stop bouncing you
from one department to the other. Most of the reps don’t even know who is in
charge of what division. I once waited 40 minutes to get technical assistance on a
computer that I bought. One hundred years ago, corporations were practical in
that they allowed bigger companies to produce expensive things at lower costs
than smaller companies. Corporations have become so large, however, that they
are now unwieldy.
Young adults don’t have the life experience of 50-year-olds. Many 20 to
30-year-olds are unable to enter—let alone, function in—the “mainstream”
because it no longer works properly. Young people are disillusioned with the
planet that elders are leaving them—a corrupt system of systems, melting ice
caps, a population explosion, and wasted natural resources. Violence is a likely
result. Many young adults are able to handle the economic system, of course,
including its psychological tolls. But barely. Meanwhile, youth who are
unprepared for a hyper-hectic, hyper-globalizing planet are growing in the
ranks.
In the 19th century, work was physically hard. But it was psychologically
easy. Why the latter? Because people worked to make or keep their families self-
sufficient. This gave work meaning. In the 21st century, work is physically easier
because of machines and automation. But it is psychologically difficult. Hunter-
gatherers, for instance, rarely spent more than three to four hours a day hunting.
Compare that with today’s 8-to-14 hour day. Other than the money aspect, work
lacks meaning for about 80 percent of the populace.351 This is why, instead of
351
According to Marcus Buckingham, a motivational speaker, the precise statistic is 84 percent of American
workers. See Oprah, “ ‘I Hate My Job’ Interventions.” This episode aired on ABC on April 18, 2008.
being energizing, work drains most people of energy. The inner battery of each
worker has just enough power left to carry him or her through the evening.
Postmodern civilization is out of balance with millions of years of
biological evolution. Children are being told to “grow up” without parents,
without grandparents, without community, and without practical education. In
American Backlash, pollster Michael Adams adds:
Not to mention the fact that Americans, unlike Europeans, are working
over 200 hours (five weeks) more per year than in 1973, and have less and
less time for all kinds of personal activities from which people derive
satisfaction: spending time with family, reading, volunteering, exercising,
meditating, or praying.352
The pace of human life is speeding up faster than an airliner taking off a runway,
and everyone is being asked to become a computer. This was never the context
of biological evolution. Rage, aggression, and violence are likely results for
unhappy campers.
… And Justice for All
In the 1800s, Theodore Parker, a transcendentalist, said, “The arc of the

moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”353
Since the start of downsizing and restructuring in the 1970s, more of us
are being laid off. Remaining workers are being asked to work more hours for
352
Adams, Langstaff, and Jamieson, American Backlash, p. 52.
353
This quotation is at Schipul: The Web Marketing Company. The URL of the quote is
http://www.schipul.com/en/q/?2604.
less pay. Youth, in turn, are having a hard time entering jobs that are well paid
and that have benefits. These days, one hears stories of college graduates
spending six, nine, thirteen months searching for a position. When, at last, they
land a job, graduates are required to get with the program on the first day. As an
anonymous young man said, “You’re unemployed for two years. Then, you land
a position with high responsibility. You can’t handle it!”
If the work ethic has eroded, then the business world must accept
responsibility—part of it—for creating idleness and for forcing employed people
to do two jobs: theirs, plus the jobs of laid-off workers. Businesspeople blame
Western workers for not updating their job skills. What isn’t mentioned is that,
in the West, engineers are losing their jobs—not just unskilled laborers. Why?
Because an engineer is paid about $6,000 a year in India, whereas in the United
States, he or she would make about $50,000 annually, if not more.354 This is the
proletarianization of the professional class. As authors Bill Bonner and Addison
Wiggin write in Empire of Debt:
There are more engineers in the city of Bangalore, in India, than there are
in the state of California. They work well and cheaply, … And they seem
to be just as innovative as their American counterparts. The software for
DVDs was developed in Bangalore, not in Silicon Valley, says the French
newspaper, Libération. In the seven short years of its existence in
Bangalore, the Philips research center alone has come up with 1,500 new
inventions.355
With more aircraft parts being made in China, more workers—blue-collar and
white-collar—are becoming unemployed in America. Skills, or the absence of
354
Bonner and Wiggin, Empire of Debt, p. 266.
355
Ibid.
them, are no longer the issue. As Jeremy Rifkin, the economist, writes in Mother
Jones magazine:
The hard reality is that the global economy is in the midst of a

transformation as significant as the Industrial Revolution. We are in the
early stages of a shift from “mass labor” to highly skilled “elite labor,”
accompanied by increasing automation in the production of goods and the
delivery of services. Sophisticated computers, robots,
telecommunications, and other Information Age technologies are
replacing human beings in nearly every sector. Factory workers,
secretaries, receptionists, clerical workers, salesclerks, bank tellers,
telephone operators, librarians, wholesalers, and middle managers are just
a few of the many occupations destined for virtual extinction. In the
United States alone, as many as 90 million jobs in a labor force of 124
million are potentially vulnerable to displacement by automation.356
Generation X was the first generation to see overworked laborers—their

Baby Boomer parents—and the health insurance, paid vacations, and pensions of
senior employees erode for newcomers. Why, Generation Xers asked, should
they bust their ends for so little? Why should they, as Western society coaxed
them, get married in their 20s and have 2.1 kids? With what money? Besides,
there had to be more to life than all work, dwindling benefits, and no play.
Many Generation Xers thus became “Twixters”—joined by Generation Y—
worked part-time at the new jobs that globalization (the child of CEOs) created,
356
Jeremy Rifkin, “Vanishing Jobs: Will There Be a Job For Me in the New Information Age?” Mother
Jones, September/October 1995. At
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/1995/09/rifkin.html.
and enjoyed life as much as they could.357 Underneath, however, rage brewed
like water slowly coming to a boil. Passive aggression—such as deleting
important files from a company computer—was one result. In the inner cities—
and some suburbs—outright violence was another result.
If postmodern civilization is to nip the bud of aggression, then it needs to
be just. But is $5.85 an hour just when a bag of groceries costs $30? And a Super
Bowl ad $2 million for 30 seconds—just for airtime? What message does this
send about the value of an ad vs. the value of human labor? Is it justice that
people are slaving for $5 to $15 an hour, while banks sit on their derrieres and
collect millions of dollars in fees? Is it fair that banks pay us 2 percent interest for
a $10,000 CD but credit card companies charge us 18 percent interest for a $100
balance? Why do banks play by one set of rules and the commoner by another
set of rules? Who sets up such imbalances? This isn’t a class issue. It is a human
issue that is affecting women, men; African Americans, Caucasians; gays,
straights; younger people, older people; and Asians and Westerners. The
following will be hard for many readers to comprehend, particularly those who
have always had a stable career. Nobody owes you a job. But you owe
payments. Jobs aren’t guaranteed. Bills are—and taxes.
On a planet with more people than jobs and resources, the first task is to
humanely reduce the exploding human population in the Third World. That
way, its population is more up to par with the First World’s. Some ways are
using contraception, having two children per couple, and adopting unwanted
children. Only then can more opportunities open up for humankind and justice
begin to be served. Only then can rage subside in people who have fallen
through the cracks, people like natives and foreigners who find themselves
competing for the same jobs. As the proverb goes, “There can be no peace
357
Lev Grossman, “Grow Up? Not So Fast,” Time, January 24, 2005, Vol. 165, No. 4, p. 42.
without justice.” If justice isn’t served, then the aggression of the underdogs will
affect not only the underdogs but the top dogs as well. This is because, at the
highest levels of creation, everything is connected.
In suburbia, parents live in McMansions that have three, four, five
bedrooms and three bathrooms. These houses are the most spacious dwellings
that humans have ever had. The McMansions are empty most of the time,
however. Instead of letting their adult children live with them, American
parents push their offspring into apartments and college dorms when their sons
and daughters turn 18. With $250,000 mortgages crushing parents, 18-year-olds
are forced to pay for more housing—their own—as if college tuition weren’t
enough. Grandparents, in turn, are locked away in nursing homes and in
retirement communities. Would “primitive” people consider wasting space—let
alone, human resources—to this extent? No wonder loneliness, worthlessness,
debt, and inefficiency dominate the American landscape.
The Extreme Media
If television and movies are any guide, then one would conclude that we
have deliberately set ourselves up for destruction. TV and film executives say,
“Violence sells, and seeing an act of violence on the screen doesn’t cause a viewer
to become violent.” The problem is not so much that violent shows and films
exist. The problem is that they are given disproportionate airtime on TV and
playtime in the movie theaters vis-à-vis films and programs that focus on the
better qualities of being human. For example, TLA Video, Facets Video, Wolfe
Video, and Spiritual Cinema offer thousands of quality films. Most of these
movies are made independent of the big studios. To see them, however, one
must set aside a substantial budget. Video stores that rented rare films over the
mail are renting less and selling more. The movies are out there. But most of us
aren’t aware that they exist because the big studios—in charge of 90 percent of
media marketing—aren’t promoting them. The 500+ channels available on cable
television don’t air the vast majority of movies either. Nor does cable TV run
series with petitioners asking for them to be re-aired. The few of us who know
about such films and shows must spend big money to view them. Contrast this
with the release of United 93 (2006). Visiting the Internet Movie Database, I
didn’t have to look for United 93. There it was, the horrible events of 911
replaying on my screen without my having asked imdb.com for this. My only
choice was to leave that website—an otherwise superb site online—until that ad
disappeared some days later.
This chapter raises the issue of mass media because it is the principal
means by which youngsters are being socialized these days. Even schools are
paling by comparison. Parents work 40 to 60 hours a week. Grandparents are
seldom around. Minors are talking less, watching more, and emulating what
they see. Even Japanese youngsters are retreating into their bedrooms in a
withdrawal reaction called hikikomori.
American teens have it hard. But Japanese teens have it twice as hard, for
Japanese society offers one-shot deals as far as making it into colleges,
universities, and lucrative careers. Japanese youth who fail college entrance
exams feel a sense of failure unmatched anywhere in the West. Japanese
collegians who do make it into respectable careers find, like Western graduates,
that they have the job responsibilities of a 50-year-old. One result is that over a
million Japanese people—most of them under 18—have locked themselves up
for days, months, and even years. In their bedrooms, they are punching walls,
sleeping all day, or escaping into TV, movies, CDs, and the Internet. The
hikikomori segment of Japanese youth doesn’t die of starvation because their
parents leave food outside their bedrooms. As a reviewer for the 2001 Japanese
film All About Lily Chou-Chou quoted:
“The Internet here acts as a kind of last beacon for human exchange and
kindness. The creation of idols, a particularly intense and fraught process
in Japan, is the seed of societal destruction. And finally, the undefinable
power of music remains the only salvation for those left alienated by an
uncaring world.”358
In an age of information and impersonality, screen and audio thus play a central
role in postindustrial countries. Japan, it should be noted, is the only non-
Western country to be fully industrialized. Japan also has a long tradition of
communal values. The explosion of the hikikomori phenomenon in Japan—and
the beginnings of this in South Korea and Taiwan—shows the perils of
transplanting Western ways throughout the globe.
How do we cater to storylines and lyrics that are hopeful and uplifting—
as opposed to violent and depressing? First, we must understand that drama is,
by its very nature, about conflict and violence. Still, there is gratuitous violence,
and there is meaningful violence. There are loud beats of music that demean
women, and there are loud beats of music that express love. The average person
must learn to distinguish between higher truth and lower truth. David Hawkins
provides an arm-testing method for this in Power vs. Force. For example, does
holding a CD weaken or strengthen your arm? Why is such a method necessary?
358
This reviewer, I assume, is quoting Shunji Iwai, the director of All About Lily Chou-Chou. The
reviewer is unnamed, but the review appears in the “Facets Features—Cinematheque” section of the Facets
catalog, Fall 2002 issue, p. 8.
Because in Hawkins’s words, “Mankind lacks the capacity to recognize the

difference between truth and falsehood.”359 I add that even Truth (e.g., spiritual
laws) is opinion because Truth is God’s subjective view of how Reality must be,
rather than how Reality could be (e.g., alternate universes). Second, instead of
blaming Hollywood and the music industry, we could simply refuse to pay for
films and music that don’t express higher consciousness. If a critical mass of us
did this, then Hollywood would start to produce more thought-provoking
movies and fewer explosions. The music industry, in turn, would allow local
musicians to be heard on the airwaves. The alternative for these industries
would be bankruptcy.
Many people insist that watching violence doesn’t cause violent behavior.
But as Norman Solomon, the media critic, told an audience:
… the essence of propaganda is repetition, the frames of references, the

code words, the catch phrases, most profoundly, the assumptions that are
reiterated again, and again, and again.360
Solomon continued:
Some people say it doesn’t matter very much what’s on television. It

doesn’t have much effect on how people think, or how they vote, or what
they do or don’t do politically. The reality is, though, that the advertising
industry knows better. Ask yourself, why would billions of dollars
be sunk into television advertising every month [emphases mine] in this
country [the United States], if it didn’t work, if it didn’t affect how people
359
360
Norman Solomon gave this lecture at Black Oak Books in Berkeley, California. His August 11, 1997
lecture is in the cassette titled, “The Orchestration of News.” It is available through Alternative Radio (AR)
at www.alternativeradio.org.
perceive the world and their behavior?361
Solomon concluded:
There’s no room for sentiment or theory in the advertising agencies or

those who hire them in this country. They deal with cold, hard, empirical
facts [emphasis mine]. You don’t see the same commercial once or twice.
You see it 10, 20, 50, 200 times because it’s the repetition that gets the
message across [emphasis mine].362
The trick is not to watch the ads, to mute the television during commercial
“breaks,” and best of all, to throw away the hunk of junk. Turn off the radio
commercials as well. Rather than watch those eight screens in front of you at the
gym, close your eyes and visualize instead the dreams of your heart. Refuse to
sit through the 45-minute previews at the movie theater. Go late. Better still,
don’t subsidize corporate mind control. Just a few suggestions.
Being Irrelevant … and Not Understood
In Real Boys, William Pollack, a psychologist, argues that neglected

children often shut down emotionally. Sooner or later, he writes, bottled
emotions spew in harmful directions. According to Pollack, the April 1999
361
Ibid.
362
Ibid.
massacre at Columbine High School is an extreme example of where

unexpressed thoughts and frustrated feelings can end up.363
If we are to transcend our destructive human impulses, then not only
must we use our energies constructively, rather than suppress them. We also
must create environs that are conducive to human conversation.
Unfortunately, urban areas tend to cram people. Such crowding generates
the urge to escape into the home. Freeways, parking lots, and supermarket aisles
aren’t friendly to conversation. The seat arrangements in waiting rooms tend to
be such that people rub shoulders, rather than face each other. Loitering outside
an apartment complex or in a shopping mall is illegal in an increasing number of
cities. In 1976, Suzanne Gordon, a sociologist, wrote about the mass isolation
that industrialization, urbanization, suburbanization, social mobility, and the
nuclear family have produced in the United States. In her book Lonely in
America, Gordon argues that people have experienced existential loneliness
since the dawn of humanity. But postmodern loneliness, she goes on, is more a
result of the structure of postindustrial civilization. Suburbia, Gordon writes, is
so spread out that one may have to drive for miles before getting to a populated
area. Increased social mobility means having to leave friends behind every few
years, Gordon laments. Therefore, she types, there is less of an emotional
incentive to get friendly with neighbors. According to Gordon, this encourages
crime not only because neighbors do not know their names; they don’t even
know what they look like. In premodern times, she writes, lonely people had an
extended family outside the bedroom. Today, Gordon contends, one can go to a
university for four years and never really get to know anybody.364 This, I add, is
especially true in the larger universities because an institution of higher learning
363
See William Pollack, Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood, (New York: Owl
Books, 1999).
364
See Gordon, Lonely in America.
like the University of Florida can have up to 70,000 students. On July 1990, for
example, I visited UF while my mother took a state exam in Carleton
Auditorium. Throngs of students were roaming the sidewalks and crossing the
streets along University Avenue and SW 13th Street. The students looked like
ants. Ever since the arrival of email and the Internet (1993-94), however, far less
students are walking outside UF. The paradox is that each UF student is a
number—like at the other major universities—yet most of the 70,000 UF students
are out of sight and reach of one another. It is a separation in the midst of plenty.
This scenario repeats outside the nation’s campuses. Maybe this is why,
according to one study, the average American reported in 2004 that he or she
could confide to two people, down from almost three people in 1985.365 Also, the
percentage of Americans who report nobody to confide to has doubled from 12.5
percent in 1985 to 25 percent in 2004. As usual, nonwhites share the brunt of
these statistics.366
The inhuman costs of living in isolation are nobody to talk to, loss of social
skills, and unexpressed thoughts and feelings. Not being listened to—let alone,
understood—is one of the biggest causes of frustration and anger. If one doesn’t
find ways of unleashing socially induced negative energies, they will sputter out
somehow.
When enough people become trans-instinctual, the problem of isolation—
physical, mental, and emotional—will be addressed in this milieu. Until then,
hordes of people will continue to be ignored, and postmodern society will pay
the price.
365
Sci/Tech News Staff, “Loneliness Is Getting Rampant in America—Survey Found That the Number of
Both Family and Non-Family Connections Dropped,” Behavior/Humans. Article at
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Loneliness-Is-Getting-Rampant-in-America-27518.shtml.
366
Ibid.
Pathologizing Masculinity
Since 1990, children have been increasingly diagnosed with conditions

like Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Not only are kids being given
medications to calm their hyperactivity. Nowadays, Ritalin and Prozac are being
prescribed to children who don’t have ADD. The idea, unspoken in most circles,
is to tranquilize healthy kids at home and in the classroom. As Christina Hoff
Sommers argues in The War Against Boys, boys tend to be aggressive, for that is
their nature. Instead of letting boys spend their energy, however, many middle
schools have cancelled recess. As Sommers writes in her book, involved parents
and educators—most of who are women—are trying to turn boys into, well,
girls.367 Zero Tolerance policies punish children—especially boys, who tend to be
restless—for minor infractions. Schools also expect students to sit still in a
classroom for hours at a time. Even I felt restless when I was in secondary school
and college, and my energy wanes easily.
If the aggressive tendency of boys isn’t allowed to be expressed through
sports, running, and recess activities, then where is that energy supposed to go?
Male sexuality, in turn, is being pathologized as dangerous to women. Sex
education has become abstinence education. Childhood sexuality has been
criminalized. Boys, in particular, are being locked up for engaging in consensual
sex with girls. The presumption is that boys are always the aggressors. Such
social extremism was hardly the case before the sunset decades of the 20th
century.
If we are to embrace our better instincts, then we must neutralize our
aggression like a lightning rod shoots down lightning. For better or worse,
medication won’t do this, as medicines treat symptoms, rather than prescribe
367
See Sommers, The War Against Boys.
cures. Sports and physical activity, on the other hand, make energy flow
outward. Just watch a 10-year-old after he or she has played soccer for 90
minutes. Is that boy or girl likely to keep bouncing that paper cup at the dinner
table?
While classes on respecting others are necessary in middle school and
high school, so is allowing minors to unleash their energy. The rise of juvenile
obesity is no doubt related to fewer children being permitted to walk home from
school. Junk food has contributed to juvenile obesity, of course. But lack of
exercise is a major factor. Major reasons why children are getting less exercise
are:
1) Recess is being cancelled at many middle schools

2) Parents are afraid to let their children walk outside
3) Kids are being forced to sit in class for hours on end
The campaign to cancel recess will be counterproductive in the long run,

for the energy of boys and girls must go somewhere. The failure of the anti-
recess campaign will be as Wayne Dyer related on PBS’s Change Your Thoughts,
Change Your Life. As the author and lecturer said, when you stab the fuzz balls
of dandelions on the grass, what happens the following spring? More
dandelions appear across more areas of your lawn because you have spread their
seeds. Fighting violence with violence, Dyer concluded, only makes the problem
worse.368 Not allowing children to unleash their energies, I add, is an act of
violence.
Big changes are needed if we are to channel our aggression in constructive
directions. Classrooms can have stand-up desks, for instance, providing
368
See Wayne Dyer: Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life. This program originally aired on PBS on
September 13, 2007.
students with the option to stand if they want. Not only would stand-up desks
allow students to shake off their excess energies. Stand-up desks would also
encourage better learning, for the human body is more active on its toes. For the
record, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence at a stand-up
desk, one that he made himself. As for recess, this school period could be
reinstated in middle schools. Sports and exercise programs could be expanded.
Testosterone could be pathologized less and allowed to run its course—so long
as it doesn’t harm others. I believe that repression of energy, including sexual
energy, is what contributes to things like assault and rape. And energy isn’t just
about the physical body but also about getting things off one’s mind. Thoughts
are energy, after all, and the unfulfilled desire to be understood can lead to
aggression.
In short, aggression could be permitted in productive settings.
Embracing a New Masculinity
More testosterone in males correlates with men being more aggressive

than women and boys being more aggressive than girls. The glorification of
aggression as manly has contributed as well to male violence against others and
against the biological environment. Since aggression is more a “male” trait than
a “female” trait, postmodern society must address maleness relative to changing
notions of masculinity in the West.
For starters, males must be permitted to express their thoughts and
emotions without feeling that this will compromise their masculinity. Males
must be allowed to appreciate their maleness openly—and that of other males—
without homophobia (fear of homosexuality) inhibiting this. Just as momentous,

females must permit males to be sexual with one another if that arises naturally,
just as men allow women to “get physical” with other women. This may sound
radical, but the sad truth is that most straight women refuse to date openly bi
men. When men hide their bisexuality, women then complain that men aren’t
being truthful with them. The lesser of these two evils is for men to repress their
bisexuality, cheat with guys on the side—as reflected through the downlow
phenomenon—and resent women for not allowing men to be themselves in an
open, negotiated, responsible way. What a pity that straight women and straight
men reject openly bi men, for one could argue that bi men love themselves more
than men who abhor the reflection of their physiques and genitals in other men.
After all, in appreciating other males physically and sexually, bi men appreciate
themselves, while “versatile” bi men understand better than straight men the
“receptive” role of women in bed. In theory, this makes bi men more sensitive
lovers than straight men. The same argument could be made relative to bi
women.
Major shifts are needed in how boys, men, and even women are socialized
—that is, if we wish to encourage a constructive unleashing of the energies,
thoughts, and emotions that are currently suppressed. The required changes are
in the dynamics of male bonding. Alcohol, for instance, was never meant to be
digested by the human body, according to Book 1 of Conversations with God.369
Still, binge drinking with “the guys” is a major ritual of manhood. The irony is
that in getting drunk, men disrespect the very body that they are trying to
present as a “man’s” body. Smoking is also seen as a “manly” activity, one that
many women have likewise embraced in an attempt to be equal to men. Alcohol,
a depressant, and nicotine, a stimulant, may dull our sexual inhibitions. But each
369
Walsch, Conversations with God, Book 1, (Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Company,
Inc., 1996), p. 191.
also makes aggression more likely in social settings. Hazing is another ritual of
manhood, and it tends to occur in the military and in college fraternities. The
perpetrators are “men,” while the victims need to endure torture to “prove” that
they are “man enough to take it.” Laws forbid hazing nowadays. Yet, one still
reads articles about hazing. This is how entrenched old precepts of masculinity
are.
The old masculinity needs to make room for a new masculinity. The old
masculinity was, and still is, about abusing one’s physical body through alcohol,
nicotine, and self-flagellation. The new masculinity is about channeling
aggression in positive directions like sports, construction, and physical labor.
The old masculinity was about homosocial bonds being based on homophobia
and misogyny. The new masculinity is about homosocial bonds being based on
admiration of other males and love of females. In a nutshell, the new
masculinity is flexible about how males are allowed to think, feel, and act in
social settings.
A trans-instinctual society is human when it comes to its better instincts
and trans-instinctual when it comes to its destructive instincts. Postmodern
society, by contrast, promotes its lower instincts by warping its higher instincts.
Trans-instinctual humans make the effort, however, to learn and live according
to new principles—such as the new masculinity for males—when old ones are
found to be maladaptive. Like learning a second language in adulthood, this
may be hard compared to learning a first language in childhood. But trans-
instinctual humans know that the process is worth it—and today, more
necessary than ever for personal and global survival.
The next chapter explores the various facets of judgement and ways to get
around the lower aspects of this instinct.
Exercises
1) Do you consider yourself to be a violent person? Why or why not? Is

your answer based on your actions alone? Or do you count your thoughts
and emotions as well?
2) What violent thoughts and emotions, if any, do you recall having

recently? Have you acted on them? Why or why not?
3) Do you think that the movies you watch make you prone to violent
thoughts, emotions, and/or behavior? The programs you view on
television? The people you associate with? The places you frequent? If
yes, how? Why? Would you like to change that? How could you go about
doing this?
4) Do you suppress your masculinity? Your femininity? What aspects of

your masculinity or femininity? What other parts of yourself do you put a
damper on? Why? If you repress any part of yourself—such as your
emotions—what role do you think this plays in your violent thoughts,
feelings, and/or behavior? What are the consequences?
11
Judgement
The above tendency is inherent in all that we do. From the moment we
wake up, we are measuring things like: slippers over there, my feet over here;
bladder full, bathroom behind that door; one-hour drive to work, traffic heavy
outside my bedroom window. At restaurants, we order some meals and not
others. We wear particular outfits and stay away from others. We invite specific
people into our homes and don’t answer the voice mail of certain others.
Scholars accept some ideas and methodologies and reject other approaches. This
very book couldn’t have been written—at least, not properly—if I didn’t analyze,
intercompare, and discriminate from an ocean of ideas. Synthesis would have
been impossible.
Still, there is the judgement required to drive around town, build and use
vacuum cleaners, and set up governments and economic systems, and there is
the judgement of making someone, or some group, wrong. The second type of
judgement is what this chapter will refer to, for this is the maladaptive brand of
this instinct. At its worst, this type of judgement leads to war.
Judging is different from making an observation. To observe is to see,
hear, smell, taste, or feel what something is. To judge, on the other hand, is to
think that something should or should not be what it is. An observation is a
neutral thought about something, while a judgement is loaded with negative
emotions. Seen from this vein, positive evaluations about people and things are
not judgement, even though feelings may be involved. Negative feelings are
what, under this chapter’s definition, qualify as judgement. Another way of

putting it is that judgement is turbulent. As the saying goes, “Would you rather
be right? Or happy?” An even more powerful way of expressing this is, “Would
you rather be right? Or at peace?” This doesn’t mean that we must change our
negative views about, say, world hunger. It doesn’t mean that we need to get all
goody feely about injustice so that we may not be guilty of “judging” it. Rather,
being nonjudgmental means that, concerning things that we feel negative about,
we can choose to focus away from them. We don’t even have to change our
negative views about specific things. We, however, can choose other thoughts or
work on constructive solutions to whatever we perceive as negative. So long as
it doesn’t violate individual or collective rights, this is a positive development. It
is judging the sin, not the sinner.
The realm of judgement is the realm of perception. This is the sphere of
relativity (point of view). To rise above judgement is to rise above relativity. In
an age of epidemic divorce, unstable employment, automatic guns, and nuclear
weapons, judging others is more maladaptive than ever.
What are the facets of judgement? How do we learn to judge? How can
we overcome the negative side of this instinct?
Subjectivity of Judgement
In an episode of Perfect Strangers, Larry Appleton (Mark Linn-Baker) gets

his cousin a car. A peach-hued elevator door parts, and Balki Bartokomous
(Bronson Pinchot) steps onto a basement, arm-led by Larry. The thirtysomething
men step toward the center of the parking lot. The scene unfolds as follows:
Balki: Cousin, I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it!
Larry: I got you the most reliable used car in Chicago. O.K. Open your
eyes.370
Balki uncovers his eye sockets. A coupé is in front of him, its chrome shiny and
fire-engine red. The scene proceeds:
Balki: [looking right] Oh, cousin, it’s beautiful!
Larry: [looking left] I think so, too.371
Balki hugs the front of the red coupé, embraces Larry, and reclines on its pulled-
back black top. Balki hugs Larry again, rushes to the driver’s side, and pulls
open the door. Larry grabs Balki by the white lapels of Balki’s flower shirt and
says, “This isn’t your car … This is your car.”372
Balki turns to the other side of the basement. A gas-guzzler from the
1960s awaits, gray as a winter sky. “Oh, God!” Balki utters.
The scene continues:
Larry: I knew you’d like it. Hey! Thanks to the Appleton [used car]
system, this car is so reliable, you could be driving it forever.
Balki: [making faces] That long.
370
Perfect Strangers, “Car Wars.” This episode originally aired on ABC on March 17, 1989 (Season 4,
episode 18).
371
Ibid.
372
Ibid.
Larry: So what do you say, we start this baby up and take her for a
spin.373
Larry tosses the keys up for Balki to catch. The keys fall to the ground. Balki’s
legs lock, and he has to be pushed toward the gray gas-guzzler as though he
were a robot. In Larry’s mind, the gray car is a success. In Balki’s mind, it is a
disaster. Larry’s judgement of the vehicle differs from Balki’s because Larry’s
father taught him to shop for used cars based on an automobile’s “mileage,
previous service record, coefficient of drag, and then the ratings are factored
against the sales prices of the cars … ”374 Larry, who always has money in mind,
is glad to have found a car for less than $2,500. Balki, who could care less about
money, wants the red sports car.
At work, Larry explains “the Appleton Used-Car Ratings System” to an
elevator operator (JoMarie Payton) and to an advice columnist (Belita Moreno).
Lydia, the columnist, asks Larry, “Were you a bed wetter?” The women leave
the basement of The Chicago Chronicle, the newspaper where Larry works.
Balki enters. Larry explains his father’s rating system to Balki. Balki glances at
Larry head to toe and says, “You weren’t breast-fed, were you?”375
This episode shows how we infer things about people based on their
utterances and behavior. The episode also shows how subjective judgements are.
New things are the most quickly judged because we have never encountered
them before. There is something in us that needs to evaluate novel things, and
good vs. bad is the criteria that we use. Our judgements, in turn, are based on
our upbringing, on past encounters with things, and on the very newness of
something. Judgement is a human impulse that comes up automatically.
373
Ibid.
374
Ibid.
375
Ibid.
Barrier to Self-Knowledge … and to Truth
In the movie The Matrix (1999), Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) leans

forward from a padded, red chair and tells Neo (Keanu Reeves), the young man
who is sitting across from him:
You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and
believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in
wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Neo reaches for the red pill.

“Remember,” Morpheus interrupts. “All I’m offering is the truth, nothing
more.”
Neo swallows the red pill and learns that he is not living on earth in the
year 1999 but rather, in a computer program. The true year is, in Morpheus’s
words, “closer to 2199.” The earth is but a cinder, and a race of artificial
intelligence has put humanity to sleep inside pods so that the robots can use the
electricity of human bodies as raw energy. Upon learning this, Neo breaks down
mentally and pukes aboard Morpheus’s spaceship.
Later in the film, Cypher (Joe Pantoliano) asks the head agent—one of the
personifications of the giant, insect-like robots—to put him back to sleep.
Cypher tells Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving):
Ignorance is bliss … I don’t wanna remember nothing. Nothing. You

understand? And I wanna be rich. You know? Someone important, like

an actor … Get my body back into the power plant. Reinsert me into the
Matrix. I’ll get you what you want.
As writer T.S. Eliot said, “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”376
In the flick A Few Good Men (1992), the following shouting match takes
place in a military court between Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) and
Colonel Nathan R. Jessep (Jack Nicholson):
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Jessep: You can’t handle the truth.
Likewise, in the film As Good as It Gets (1997), one of the dates of Carol
Connelly (Helen Hunt) sees Connelly’s 6-year-old son from Connelly’s living
room. The boy (Jesse James) is sick, and Connelly must attend to him. The
thirtyish man (Randall Batinkoff) rises from Connelly’s leaf-print sofa of dark-
yellow. “Just a little too much reality for a Friday night,” he tells her. The guy
then leaves her apartment. Indeed, humans cannot stand too much reality.
What causes us to reject some truths, whether about Reality or about
ourselves? The answer is our judgement of truths as good or bad. Truths that
we define as “good” we accept more readily. Truths that we define as “bad” we
tend to reject. Kindness and bravery we judge as good, for example, while
cruelty and cowardice we judge as bad. Thus, in the flick The Neverending Story
(West German-British; 1984), the elf Engywook (Sydney Bromley) tells Falcore,
the dragon:
376
This quote comes from “BrainyQuote,” BrainyMedia. The URL of the quote is
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/tseliot107488.html.
… kind people find that they are cruel. Brave men discover that they are
really cowards. Confronted with their true selves, most men run away
screaming.
Hence, judgement can lead to fear of self-knowledge (egophobia?).

In short, judgement can become a hindrance to self-awareness, to the
acceptance of uncomfortable truths, and to personal and spiritual evolution.
Judgement can make us prefer to go back to sleep (e.g., the blue pill), rather than
awaken to truths that we see as problematic (e.g., the red pill).
Self-Righteousness
As a student at the University of Florida, I often hung out at the

university’s Plaza of the Americas. Ministers would stand in the middle of the
viridescent grass, would wave their Bibles, and would preach “the Word of
God.” Different preachers came on different days. But all of them berated
“adulterers”, “fornicators”, “masturbators”, and “homosexuals,” each
pronounced with four extra s’s at the end. As their tongues hissed those s’s, the
pastors would stoop halfway toward the grass and squeeze their eyes shut. I
sensed their pleasure as they s’ed the list of sinners. One woman with dark curls
reaching to her shoulders would walk around the middle of the plaza. She was
the wife of a minister. Every two hours or so, the husband and wife would
alternate places in their sermons to the collegians. The lady always wore a dress
to her ankles, and her children would wait under some trees. Day after day, she
belted, “Sinners are going to burn … in the lake … of … fyrrrrrrr!” Under the
noon sun, the fair-complexioned lady would shake her finger at the students,
most of who were sitting and lying on the grass. The woman’s cream forefinger
looked like a slithering snake.
One noon, the following scene took place:
“When I came to the University of Florida in 1979,” the lady hollered, “I

got drunk!”
“Whoo-hoo!” some guys shouted.
“I went to wild parties!” she yelled.
“Yeah!” more students cheered.
“I stayed up all night!” she said, continuing in crescendo.
“Alright!”
At last, the woman screamed at the top of her lungs, “I smoked pot!”
The crowd whistled and clapped.
“But then,” she said, her shrill voice calming down, “I found salvation in
Jesus Christ.”
Deep-voiced ministers started to come to the plaza. They were, literally,

an army of campus preachers. The students called them “the red coats” because
the ministers wore red suits.
Early one afternoon, a preacher began to rail against homosexuals.
Another scene erupted.
“When you eat peas,” the sexagenarian preacher grated, “you don’t stick
them up your nose!”
“Gay sex is fun!” a young man called out. “You should try it.”
Stressing each syllable, the wrinkled man retorted, “Homosexuality is a

sin in the eyes of God.”
Two dudes kissed on the lips—and kept sucking for a few seconds.
The man continued with his tirade.
I began to feel good about what the guys had done. From my perspective,
they had courageously challenged the minister. In retrospect, however, I see
their smooching as a defense—a result of the guys having been sucked into the
preacher’s whirlwind of judgement.
Another week, a guy began to climb a leafy tree at the plaza. He must
have been 20 feet up the trunk. But he kept climbing … and climbing … and
climbing. I asked myself, What in the world is he doing? The young man
disappeared into the canopy of the quivering green leaves. Moments later, a
Frisbee came tumbling down from near the top. Never had I seen anyone shin so
high up a tree. My mind began to judge this form of novelty, and I found myself
getting petulant because I couldn’t understand the behavior of that “neo-hippie.”
The judgement of the preachers was starting to affect me.
Self-righteousness comes from somebody getting locked in one point of
view. It makes us intolerant to other ideas, approaches, and ways of living.
Judgement shuts off our biological senses, for it makes us see and hear only what
we want to see and hear. Self-righteousness may give us a temporary high. This
high can be anger, the feeling of being right, or the pleasure of the preachers
when squeezing their eyes shut. But the good feeling wanes, and a negative
emotion takes its place. When we judge another person, we often get more
moody. Nothing makes us happy. No matter what another person may do to
gain our approval, we are not satisfied. Often, we become more cross. It is a
self-feeding cycle. When I judge someone, for instance, I find that after the high
wears off, sadness descends upon me. I feel worse off than before I judged. I
find myself wanting to hug the person whom I judged. But because the person
closes up, I can’t show him or her affection to “make up.” This makes me feel
even worse. Judgmental people are negative people, and generally, their
judgement influences others and the vibes in the air. Despite their influence,
however, judgmental people never win people over to their side—just to their
negative way of being. I, for example, doubt that the campus preachers have
converted anyone to their Christian fundamentalism. In fact, UF students have
organized to get them out of the Plaza of the Americas.
One reason many of us shun religion is because, in the words of my
stepfather, “Todo está mal!” (“Everything is bad [in the eyes of religion]!”).
Spirituality is much the same. For example, if a person just takes in a
relationship, spiritualists say, then that individual is an energy vampire. But if
that person—or even both of them—take and give, then the relationship is still
out of kilter. Why? Because in psychopop parlance, the give is conditional on
taking—never mind that all human relationships are conditional. Everything
being bad reminds me of El Cuento del Burro (“The Story of the Donkey”). As
my mother recounted to me, a swarthy man with a wrinkled face, a light-skinned
boy, and a brown donkey were strolling on a dirt road one afternoon.
In Spanish, one passerby said to another, “How stupid of those two not to
ride that donkey. The feet of that man and boy will get tired.”
The man with a curved back stopped walking and reined the donkey to a
halt. He told the detained boy, “Let’s get on this donkey because that seems like
the right thing to do.” The man and boy sat on the back of the donkey, and the
donkey resumed his gait.
“How cruel of you two,” another passerby hurled at the riders. “The poor
donkey’s back is getting broken.”
The compadre (“old crony”) reined the donkey to a stop and gurgled to
the boy, “Why don’t you get off since that seems like the right thing to do.” The
lad complied, and the three resumed moving forward.
“Lord of Heaven!” a third passerby said. “An old man like you must have
enjoyed his life, but you’re making life tough for a boy by making him walk. Let
the boy have the good life, too.”
Again, the compadre reined the burro to a halt. He hopped off and told
the chap, “Why don’t you climb onto the donkey since that seems like the right
thing to do.” The boy did as told, and the three resumed inching forward.
“What a selfish boy!” yet another passerby blabbed. “A boy whose whole
life is ahead of him makes life tougher for a man who has surely suffered
through life.”
To the boy, the elderly man half-whispered, “Stop. Get off, and carry the
burro by its hind legs. I’ll carry him by the front legs.” In this manner, the three
resumed their afternoon travail.
Another passerby said, “How idiotic can two people be? Why carry a
donkey when they can ride it?”
This time, the compadre hummed to the lad, “Just ignore everyone. Let’s
continue like this because no matter what we do, it will be wrong in some way.”
The list of paradoxes on Part I, Chapter 4 is much like “The Story of the
Donkey.” Most things being “bad,” especially things that feel good, is dangerous
because this tempts one to have disrespect for the law, be it human or spiritual
law. It is like having a father that one can never please, no matter how hard one
tries. The top of one mountain (the learning of a spiritual lesson) becomes the
bottom of the next. Therefore, we have to be constantly looking over our
shoulders, checking with God on whether or not we are sinning (missing the
mark of enlightenment). Prophets and ministers have preached the following as

forbidden fruits:
1) Seeking money (worldliness)

2) Eating a fruit too lusciously (sensualism)
3) Craving status (being reputation conscious)
4) Wanting recognition (not being a meek servant of God)
5) Staring at a beautiful woman or at a handsome man (lust)
6) Dancing (having too jolly a time)
7) Lifting weights (vanity)
8) Enjoying sex (lust)
9) Voicing one’s opinions (refusal to be humble)
10) Remaining single (not fruitful and multiplying)
11) Staying up late (being undisciplined)
12) Getting up late (being undisciplined)
13) Reveling in sensual pleasures (asceticism is noble)
14) Seeking comfort (discomfort is the way to spiritual growth)
15) Focusing on oneself (selfishness)
16) Looking for security (insecurity is noble)
17) Laughing too much (suffering is the way)
18) Desiring things (not being grateful)
19) Taking anything (it is better to give)
20) Wanting to control (wanting to be God is a mortal sin)
21) Wishing things were perfect (perfectionism)
22) Fantasizing (escapism)
23) Standing up for oneself (engaging in a power struggle)
24) Yearning for love (refusal to be comfortable being alone)
The above list could fill an entire book. Even my writing much of this
tome was a no-no. As divine guidance told me, “Some things are better left
unsaid.” Once again, I couldn’t eat my cookie, the cookie being the pleasure of
expressing myself without self-censorship. When I started to see apples
everywhere—on a car sticker, in my fridge, and on a T-shirt—I saw this as a
metaphor that I was giving the world the fruit of knowledge. This is the
knowledge that distinguishes between “Good and Evil.” Adam and Eve’s
partaking of the apple led to their suffering because much knowledge is painful
to know. Hence, books on restricting your thoughts to positive thinking try to
limit how much of the apple one eats.
In the film Prayer of the Rollerboys (1991), Speedbagger (Julius Harris)
tells Griffin (Corey Haim), “Evil is God-damn tempting, ain’t it?” Here, I define
evil (at the level of the individual) and Evil (at the level of the collective) as
anything that brings pain, ugliness, disease, and/or death. Evil is another word
for lower consciousness, lower energies, and lower frequencies. Why is Evil
(Live spelled backwards) so tempting? Because the “good” things in life often
bring “bad” results. Paradox again. Examples are:
1) Using petroleum (makes postmodern society go but causes global

warming)
2) Eating and drinking sweets (tastes great but contributes to tooth decay,
obesity, and diabetes)
3) Smoking (feels awesome to smokers but causes lung cancer)

4) Feeding off psychic energy (keeps one fueled with energy but depletes
others)
5) Injecting street drugs (one gets high, but one can die from an overdose)
6) Overeating (feels terrific but leads to becoming overweight)
7) Expressing certain things (gets things off one’s chest; yet, some things
are better left unsaid)
8) Oversleeping (feels amazing, but one then feels groggy throughout the
day)
9) Having lots of sex partners (one experiences a variety of orgasms, but

one also has more chances of catching and passing STDs)
As Yoda (Frank Oz) warns Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) in The Empire Strikes
Back (1980), “If you choose the quick and easy path, as Vader did, you will
become an agent of evil.” Evil, of course, is a continuum. This scale of Evil
ranges from the left (most Evil) to the middle (less Evil) to the right (least Evil).
Killing . . . . . . . . . . . . . Smoking . . . . . . . . Overeating . . . . . . . . . . Giving Up
The karmic message is:

1) “Look, but don’t touch.”

2) “Smell, but don’t taste.”
3) “Taste, but don’t swallow.”
4) “Breathe in, but don’t breathe out.”
Making matters worse is that the heavens are always testing us. Each of
us is set up to sin. Why? So that we may grow spiritually from wrongdoing.
This is like a bully provoking one to fight. When, at last, one gets mad and
fights, one “creates” negative karma for losing one’s cool. How could a “Loving”
God create such a “Complete Setup” (this was printed on the control panel of a
treadmill at the gym)? There is no humanly logical answer, for even “spiritual
growth” (the ends justify the means) is incomprehensible from the point of view
of human decency.
In The Seat of the Soul, author Gary Zukav writes, “How exquisite is
temptation. It is the magnet which draws your awareness to that which would
create negative karma if it were allowed to remain unconscious.”377 Imagine!
Zukav calls the agony of temptation “exquisite.”378 Author Byron Katie calls it
Loving What Is, the title of her 2002 book.379 On the same wavelength as Zukav
and Katie, positive people remain unperturbed by the problem of Evil. All of
this reminds me of a quote. As Jiddu Krishnamurti, a spiritual teacher, wrote, “It
is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”380 And
this physical universe is a type of society. What is considered “sick” versus “well
adjusted” are human perceptions, of course.
377
Zukav, The Seat of the Soul, p. 144.
378
Ibid.
379
See Byron Katie, Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life, (New York: Harmony
Books, 2002).
380
See “BrainyQuote,” BrainyMedia. The URL of the quote is
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jiddukrish107856.html.
Religious—and spiritual—prohibitions against the good life reflect some

higher Truth. The long column of no-nos is much like the endless nos that adults
hurl at babies. For example, “Don’t put this in your mouth”, “Don’t crawl over
there”, and “Don’t touch that.” When we can’t do anything—or “You’re gonna
be sorry”—what do we live for? Everything being bad is a sign that we are
cosmic babies, always doing the “wrong” things. The other night, for example, I
passed the baby section at a supermart. Hanging from the shelves were toilet
seat locks, fridge door locks, cabinet latches, doorknob locks, and electric socket
safety caps. Parents do everything they can to keep their babies from danger.
The heavens, by contrast, merely warn us with endless nos, then let us burn
ourselves. Why? So that we may learn experientially the consequences of
unevolved actions. As a species, we are in our spiritual infancy. The state of
planet Earth is an effect of the freedom that God has granted us to hurt ourselves
in our ignorance. This is a freedom that parents don’t give their babies. Earth is
like the nation of Bangladesh because most humans are spiritually impoverished.
Some extrasolar planets are like the Kingdom of Norway because their
inhabitants are spiritually wealthy.
Religious prohibitions against the good things in life stem from the
judgement of organized religion that “good” things are bad and “bad” things are
good. Religious restrictions are, in short, our instinct to judge, institutionalized
in the name of God. At best, judgement makes the one on the receiving end
uncomfortable. At worst, judgement prompts defense and rebellion.
At the same time, the prohibitions of organized religion reflect the
narrowing of choices that occurs as one evolves spiritually. One’s choices
narrow because one observes—rather than judges—that more things are
unevolved.
Criticism
Criticism is an offshoot of judgement. When we judge, the judgement

starts in our heads as thoughts. Then, we either keep the thoughts to ourselves
or we voice them. Criticism is more the voicing of judgement and less the
thinking part. Like judgement, criticism is about making someone wrong.
Constructive criticism points out errors in another—or in something—with the
goal of having someone correct them. Constructive criticism springs from the
first type of judgement—the judgement of discriminating among the endless
pieces of data that we encounter every day. Destructive criticism, on the other
hand, is a merciless rubbing in of errors in somebody. Never does the second
form of criticism lead to positive changes.
When I was in fourth grade, my teacher gave a classroom assignment.
Her pupils were to write some paper about a subject that I can’t even remember.
I filled a yellow notebook page of mine with words. The redhead with wavy hair
sauntered around the sunlit classroom, looking over the shoulders of her
students. I kept writing. The short lady approached me from my right. She
skimmed over what I had scribbled. Slowly, she lowered a red pen. Then, the
redhead scratched its ballpoint from the top-left corner of my paper to the
bottom right. She pulled up the ballpoint and drew a second line to form a big X
of red over my yellow paper. It might as well have been blood. I could sense the
kids staring at me, stunned at what had happened. I felt ashamed, sad, and
angry that a schoolteacher—a supposed paragon of virtue—could be so cruel.
This was the epitome of destructive criticism. It certainly didn’t help me get her
assignment right. Rather, her behavior stabbed me so brutally that I have yet to
fully recover.
Criticism is endemic to our species—although some people have this

tendency more ingrained in their psyche. Perhaps, critics learned criticism from
their judgmental parents and teachers. Or maybe, their criticism is their way of
making up for low self-esteem (low psychic steam). Stepparents often criticize
their stepchildren because the kids are seen as a burden that the stepparents
should not be responsible for. My stepfather, for instance, criticized me if I left
the bathroom light on. He criticized me if I left a loaf of bread on the dining
table, if I left the refrigerator door open “too long,” and if I brought the TV
volume on “too loud.” Even biological parents can be critical of their children.
In a Gimme a Break! episode, for example, the mother of Nell Harper (Nell
Carter) comes to visit from Alabama. In her California house, Nell picks up her
mother’s pale-blue suitcase. Mama Maybelle (Rosetta LeNoire) explodes. The
scene proceeds as follows:
Maybelle: [pointing accusingly at Nell] I can carry my own bag!
[Maybelle wrests the suitcase away from Nell.]
Nell: Well, fine, mama. I’ll just show you to my room.
Maybelle: And I know where your room is, too.
Nell: Well, fine, mama.
[With her suitcase, Maybelle knocks a plant over.]
Nell: Mama … are you O.K.?

Maybelle: [pointing accusingly at Nell] I suppose it was you who put that
plant right where people walk.
Nell: Actually, mama; you’re the first one to ever knock it over.
Maybelle: I knew you would find a way to make it my fault.381
In another episode, Maybelle lets Nell’s adopted boys (Joey and Matthew
Lawrence) into Nell’s New York apartment. Seconds later, Nell and her best
friend Addy Wilson (Telma Hopkins) enter the hallway of their floor. The
moment Maybelle hears their chatter, she sighs, shakes her head, and crosses her
arms. The scene unfolds as follows:
Maybelle: Well, it’s about time you got here. I told you I’d be back with
the boys at three.
Nell: But mama, it’s only four minutes after three.
Maybelle: That’s what I mean. You’re never on time. When you were
born, you were three days late. Oooh, the pain.382
Although funny, the above scenes provide more examples of destructive

criticism. It does no one any good. Situation comedies are an instructive way to
381
These quotes are from an episode of Gimme a Break! (1981-1987) titled, “Mama.” This episode
originally aired on NBC on November 2, 1985 (Season 5, episode 7).
382
Gimme a Break! “I Love New York.” This episode originally aired on NBC on November 5, 1986
see such criticism at work, for they can act as a reference for us to consult
whenever we feel like indulging the judge in us.
Generalizing
When we judge someone, we often generalize about the group that he or

she represents. In the film Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), for example,
a Klingon commander (Christopher Lloyd) orders the execution of “one of the
prisoners [on planet Genesis].” The blond son of James T. Kirk ends up stabbed.
“You Klingon bastard!” Admiral Kirk (William Shatner) yowls from the
Starship Enterprise. “You’ve killed my son!”
Eight years pass. In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), Kirk
voices to his computer log, “I’ve never trusted Klingons. And I never will. I can
never forgive them, for the death of my boy.”
At a classified meeting at Starfleet Headquarters, Kirk tells the
Commander in Chief (Leon Russom), “The Klingons have never been
trustworthy.” After the meeting, Kirk tells Federation Envoy Spock (Leonard
Nimoy), “They’re animals … Don’t believe them. Don’t trust them … Let them
die.” Kirk generalizes about Klingons based on his experience with Commander
Kruge—the Klingon who had Kirk’s son killed—and Kruge’s officers.
Generalization is a type of judgement. It is the application of one incident,
one example, or one experience with someone to an entire group. Stereotypes
are the result. Stereotypes reinforce the judgements that spur them and create
prejudice. Hooked in a chain, generalizations, stereotypes, and prejudice feed on
one another. In the case of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Kirk’s view
of Klingons makes it difficult for him to accept the proposal of Klingon

Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner) for an end to 70 years of war between the
Klingon Empire and the United Federation of Planets. As the next chapter shall
show, forgiveness becomes next to impossible under such conditions.
Gossip
Because most humans are social creatures, most people are embroiled in
thoughts about others. Think about anything, and chances are that you are
thinking about a person in some way. Only a handful of humans—writers,
painters, composers, inventors, and chemists—live their lives alone. Yet, even
the isolation of their work exists to serve humanity. Most individuals, however,
are extroverts. As such, most people spend time gossiping in groups.
It is said that inferior minds talk about people; average minds talk about
events; and superior minds talk about ideas. Under this book’s definition,
positive words about people—if the words are genuine—don’t qualify as gossip.
To gossip is to talk negatively about one or more people behind their backs.
Judgement about people is always involved in gossip. One motive for gossip is
to fill social space with random conversation. Another motive is to satisfy the
need to confide. After all, getting things off one’s chest can be therapeutic. The
most serious motive is to get back at someone by ruining his or her reputation.
There is a fine line between this and therapeutic confiding.
One night, I emailed one of my aunts about a blonde who my mother and
stepfather visited when I was about 11. This was circa 1985. The lady lived in
Soundview, a neighborhood of the Bronx that is directly under the flight path of
airliners taking off from LaGuardia Airport. My parents arrived at her two-story
house around noon on a Saturday. Hearing the aluminum birds roaring above
the sideboards of her house, I asked the blonde if she could take me to a location
where we could see the runway. The middle-aged woman promised me that we
would all be going later. This was around 1 o’clock in the afternoon. I waited,
and waited, and waited. I asked her if we would be going soon.
The blonde with shoulder-long hair assured me, “In a little while. Your
parents and I are having coffee in the kitchen.”
The afternoon hours dragged, and my impatience grew. As nighttime fell,
my parents got ready to leave her house, and I realized that I would not see the
jet planes. The fact that I mentioned this incident to my aunt—and am writing
about it here—tells me that the boy in me has not forgiven that woman. I was
not just a boy who capriciously wanted to see airplanes one afternoon. Through
much of my childhood, I wanted to be an airline pilot. Not only did the blonde
betray my trust in her word. Her smiles were very disarming. This made her
betrayal more brutal because when you are a boy or girl—or an adult, for that
matter—you don’t expect a charming person to destroy your optimism,
innocence, and excitement.
In August 1989, my parents and I relocated to DeLand, Florida. One
Saturday afternoon, we were sitting in the living room of a dark-haired woman.
Out of the blue, the lady mentioned the name of the woman from Soundview. I
surmise that the heavens were reminding me that I—and probably, my parents
too—had unfinished business with the Bronx woman.
Not until April 26, 2008 did the boy in me get his wish. There are lots of
airplane videos on YouTube, a website that I didn’t even know existed until late
2007. God bless the people who tape and upload those videos.383
383
One of my favorite videos of LaGuardia Airport is titled, “LaGuardia Airport Landings and Takeoffs.”
This video was shot from Planeview Park, New York. AceVideoFlyer added it to YouTube on April 7,
Whether the motive for gossip is ruining someone’s reputation or just

unloading negative feelings, forgiveness has not occurred. If one engages in idle
chitchat, then bitterness may be hiding beneath the filler-up conversation.
Forgiveness means that one has forgotten about the incident. One gossips
because one remembers the violation, meaning that someone acted in a way that
one disagreed with. Lower animals forget negative incidents because they don’t
have a cerebral cortex to remind them of the past. To hear malicious gossip or
emotionally wounded gossip—as opposed to social fillers—is to hear the absence
of forgiveness.
Judgement—Nipping It in the Bud
To become trans-instinctual vis-à-vis judgement, we must realize two

things. First, emotions drive our judgement of others, not just thoughts. These
emotions are negative. They are also primal. Why primal? Because the feelings
originate in the part of our brains that we inherited from the dinosaurs (see
introduction to next chapter). This is why judgmental people act like reptiles.
The downside of having “the brain of a crocodile [at the core of our brains]” is
that it is hard to break away from our impulse to indulge savage emotions.384
The upside is that we can use our reptile feelings as a barometer of where we are
heading. Second, to become trans-instinctual relative to judgement, we must
monitor our thoughts on a constant basis. This is because, as mentioned, we are
2008. Video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stWimcXcBJE.
384
always judging and measuring things. The important thing is to distinguish

between the first type of judgement (e.g., choosing between vegetables and
chocolate) and the second type of judgement (e.g., making someone—or
something—wrong).
One afternoon, I was sipping hot coffee outside a café. A lady in her 60s
strolled past my umbrella table. Her pale arms and legs were thin, but she had a
lot of fat packed around her waist. Immediately, I started to lean over to my
adopted aunt. I found my mouth opening, as if it were a life-form separate from
me. Something stopped me, though. I felt uncomfortable not expressing my
feelings about that woman, but I continued to resist the instinct to voice my
judgement. Not only did I keep my mouth from opening further. I refused to
even think further thoughts about the lady. In that instant, I consciously
practiced trans-instinctuality in relation to judgement.
Even religions can choose to be nonjudgmental—at least, outside of their
churches. At UF’s Plaza of the Americas, for example, the “red coats” railed
against sinners. In the background, however, Hare Krishnas served lunch to
students. All that the Krishnas asked for was a $1 donation. The food was
vegetarian because devotees don’t believe in eating meat. But other than
through their menu—and some pamphlets for those who wanted to pick them
up—the Krishnas didn’t broadcast their opposition to meat. The contrast
between the loudness of the “red coats” and the silence of the Krishnas was so
stark that, more than 10 years later, I still remember. The gentleness of the
Krishnas got me curious about their philosophy, and I attended one of their
sermons at the Krishna house. Their presenter said that homosexuality was
practiced by people who were “too materialistic.” Eating meat, he said, also
went against Hare Krishna philosophy. The difference was that, unlike the
preachers at the Plaza, the man voiced his beliefs in a detached way. This was as
close to trans-instinctuality—vis-à-vis judgement—that I have seen a religion go.
Believe it or not, my fourth grade teacher transcended her judgement of
my classwork—at least, late one morning. Outside the school lunchroom, the
redhead asked me if my mother had, at last, found permanent employment. This
was the early 1980s, a time when unemployment in the states reached 11 percent.
In Puerto Rico, it was double that, as unemployment usually is there. Confusing
the terms permanent and temporary, I answered, “Yes”, when all that my
mother had found was temporary employment. The woman’s concern was an
instant, however, of her having risen above her tendency for destructive
criticism.
In the movie Star Wars (1977), Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) visits the
adobe of Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness). Kenobi wants Skywalker to help him
rescue Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), for the princess is imprisoned in a space
station called The Death Star. The scene proceeds as follows:
Luke: Alderan? I’m not going to Alderan. I gotta get home. It’s late. I’m
in for it as it is.
Obi-Wan: I need your help, Luke. She needs your help. I’m getting too
old for this sort of thing.
Luke: I can’t get involved. I’ve got work to do. It’s not that I like the
Empire. I hate it. But there’s nothing I can do about it right now.
It’s such a long way for me.
Obi-Wan: That’s your uncle talking.

Similarly, one needs to recognize when one’s “uncle” is voicing his

opinions, for the human psyche loves to judge. In distinguishing the voice of the
tyrant within from the voice of God, we will be in a better position to curtail our
impulse to judge. Then, we will be on our way to becoming trans-instinctual
relative to judgement.
Important is to remember that when we judge someone, we reveal more
about ourselves than about the person being judged. In a Home Improvement
episode, for instance, Irv Schmayman (Alex Rocco) runs into somebody at the
“VIP elevator” of a football stadium. Entering Box 12 of the SilverDome,
Schmayman comments in reference to that someone, “What a chatterbox.”385
Tim and Jill Taylor (Tim Allen and Patricia Richardson) give each other a
puzzled look.
Likewise, Lynn Tanner (Andrea Elson) takes a telephone call from a friend
of her grandmother’s (Anne Meara) in an Alf episode. Dorothy Halligan, the
grandmother, says, “I wonder what that crackpot wants now.”
In the bright living room of her daughter’s (Anne Schedeen), grandma sits
on a chesterfield that sports white polka dots over blue. Grandma continues:
The woman is so selfish. I mean, that’s all she thinks about is self. Self,
self, self … One thing is certain. I am not going to Hawaii with a crazy
woman.386
385
Home Improvement, “Thanksgiving.” This episode originally aired on ABC on November 25, 1997
386
Alf, “Mother and Child Reunion.” This episode originally aired on NBC on January 12, 1987 (Season 1,
episode 13).
Watching these scenes, one associates the adjectives not with the people off-
screen but rather, with Schmayman and Halligan. The same happens when we
judge people in the sight of others.
Maybe someday, judging people will be a thing of the past, seen only in
movies and on television to make us laugh at and remember who we used to be.
The alternative is nothing short of rage, violence, and counterviolence.
The next chapter covers the offspring of judgement—revenge. The
chapter also zeroes in on forgiveness as the trans-instinctual solution.
Exercises
1) List instances in which you have judged yourself, other people, and/or
circumstances. Were most of those judgements rationally thought out,
driven by emotions, or both?
2) List instances in which you have generalized. Was each generalization

due to the absence of more information? If emotions were involved, what
generated them? Can you change your feelings? If so, does this affect your
thought process? Are you, for instance, more or less prone to generalize
after shifting how you feel?
3) List instances in which you have criticized one or more people. Then, list
instances in which one or more people have criticized you. On the surface,
what was the criticism about? Beneath the surface, what was the criticism
really about? Were you aware about this distinction at the time? If no,
would knowing have kept you from criticizing? Would knowing have
prevented you from getting hurt?
12
Revenge
One of the most potent of human instincts, revenge shakes the very
foundation of one’s being. Revenge is a human impulse and a spiritual
challenge. Feelings of revenge—and their trigger, grief, fright, or rage—
overwhelm us because they originate at the very core of our brains. This area is
one of the oldest parts of the human brain. It is primal. Savage. Reptilian. In
fact, it descended from the dinosaurs. That is why this region of the human
brain is named the R-complex. R means reptilian.
How can we navigate around our impulse to avenge wrongs? This
chapter examines this question.
Getting Even
In the Lifetime movie A Mother’s Fight for Justice (TV; 2001), a drunk
driver smashes Andrew Stone (Eric Lively) with his car. At a hospital, 19-year-
old Andrew undergoes round-the-clock surgery. His injuries are so extensive
that his mother (Meredith Baxter) runs out of health insurance. Seething with
rage, Terry Stone sues the collegian responsible for her son’s wounds. Court case
after court case, Terry wins. Still, she is not satisfied.
Terry’s son, on the other hand, lets go as soon as he regains consciousness.
Wearing an azure casket to protect his skull-less head, Andrew tells his mother
one night on the courtyard of their house, “Whatever they do to him, it’s not
gonna change anything. It doesn’t matter.”
The drunkard gets into another car accident. Terry explodes. She
escalates her legal battle. At last, Andrew asks his mother to end things. By a
flight of stairs in the courthouse, mother and son exchange the following words:
Terry: I am proud of you. But I can’t be like you. I can’t forgive him for
hurting you, and for hurting me. I hate him for not caring.
Andrew: I know. But I don’t hate him. And I don’t want you to hate him
for me.387
Watching this movie, my first impression was that the mother had so
much to be grateful for. Andrew had not turned into a vegetable. Terry still had
her husband, her daughter, her two sons, her career, and her upper middle class
life. Andrew had his skull back. Yet, Terry chose to hold on to Andrew’s pain
and to the financial difficulties that the car crash brought to her. Terry finally
forgives Gary Curtis Gordon (Landy Cannon) when the perpetrator comes clean
to her in court. He tells her:
I am so sorry I hurt you. I wanted to tell you that for so long. They
said I couldn’t talk to you. [In tears] I lived it over and over. I just
wished to God it would’ve been me and not your son.
Terry blubbers, “Thank you.”388

One could argue that if Gordon were truly sorry, he would not have
gotten drunk—and in another car accident—after incapacitating Andrew. But
author Wayne Dyer related how, sitting in a circle, his family told one of his
daughters how her actions were hurting them. One would think that such
knowledge would have kept such behavior from reoccurring. After all, few of us
387
This movie premiered on Lifetime: Television for Women on February 12, 2001.
388
Ibid.
deliberately set out to hurt others. But in the PBS special Inspiration, Wayne
Dyer said:
That night, she went out and behaved in the same way that she’d been
behaving all along, almost as if to say, “I just don’t need to hear how bad I
am any longer.”389
Dyer continued, “… today, she’s this soul who devotes a big part of her life to
helping people who were as troubled as she was at one time.390 Quoting a
woman named Peace Pilgrim, Wayne Dyer said that a South African tribe puts
an offender in the center of its village. Each member tells the accused about all
the good deeds that he or she has done in his or her lifetime. No detail is left out.
The ceremony often lasts for days. If he had to do it over, Dyer said, he would
take this tribe’s approach in how he dealt with his daughter. In front of an
audience, Dyer concluded:
If we could teach those who are troubled, those who cause us pain, those
who use language that we do not approve of, those who dress in ways,
those who do things to their bodies that we don’t think they should do, if
we could just immerse them in a culture of acceptance and love, even if
they’re behaving in ways that, that seem so anathema to you. If you
could just find a way to continue to do that, eventually, that spirit has to
raise, and your consciousness expands in every direction.391
389
This quote from Wayne Dyer comes from PBS’s Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling. The special aired
on February 27, 2006.
390
Ibid.
391
Ibid.
Justice vs. Revenge
On September 2005, Sister Helen Prejean spoke at a Catholic church in my

college town. The nun without a habit expressed her deep sorrow for parents of
murdered children and said that she understands their rage. Never, Prejean
stressed, would she propose that criminals get away scott-free. Never would she
claim that forgiveness is a cup of tea. But, Prejean lipped, when society says that
it wants justice against perpetrators, it really wants revenge. She opposes the
death penalty because it repeats the cycle of violence that this society wishes to
end. The Catholic nun related her first trip to the prison where Elmo Patrick
Sonnier, the alleged killer of two adolescents, was incarcerated. In Prejean’s
words, she expected to see a “monster.” What struck her most was that “he
seemed so human.” Sister Prejean began to visit Sonnier. Never did she
condone what he did. But she understood the lifetime of inhumanity—actually,
death time—that led him to kill the teen couple.392
When someone insults, rapes, or murders another, that person’s false self
(ego) is active. Most of us take the false self literally, confusing it with the real
Self (soul). In the 19th century, for instance, the United States had a movement to
rehabilitate criminals, for the belief was that the social environment made or
broke a person. The view of many Americans then was that people who commit
crimes were as much victims of their surroundings as their victims. The 19th
century solution was to rehabilitate the offender.
Since 1900, however, the approach has been to punish the perpetrator.
The view nowadays is that criminals are beyond redemption. Revenge is thus
the driver of the prison-industrial complex. But the definition of behaviors “in
need of redemption” keeps expanding year by year. More things are being
392
See Helen Prejean, Dead Man Walking, (New York: Vintage Books, 1994).
criminalized. Men who kiss boys on the cheek are being arrested on suspicion of
“sexual abuse.” People who commit minor crimes like possession of marijuana
are being thrown together with hard criminals. Male-on-male rape is one of the
most atrocious punishments that postmodern society has metered out by
allowing it to occur behind bars. Because African Americans and Latinos are the
majority of the prison population, such men often rape Caucasian men in
revenge for the injustices committed against minorities in the outside world. The
result is that, more often than not, prison makes racists out of men—Caucasian
and non-Caucasian alike. Overwhelmingly, people emerge from prison worse
than when they went in. As if this weren’t enough, ex-cons are then denied jobs,
the vote, and friends. Mob attacks are all too common after someone’s release.
Postmodern society gives ex-cons no reason to live—and worse, nothing to lose.
Hence, Western society creates the very monsters that it condemns. Meanwhile,
big business heaps profits through the use of slave labor. The classic example is:
“Prisoners at Work.” The revenge mindset is so prevalent in the United States
that in the 21st century, America “has more prisoners than Communist China.”393
That all-American number was 2.1 million prisoners in 2004—up from under
300,000 in 1980.394 Worse, the majority of prisoners are behind bars for minor
offenses that, since 1980, the West has relabeled as grave and serious.
Rehabilitating criminals requires the willingness to forgive. This isn’t
easy. But the alternative—revenge—creates a vicious cycle of counter-revenge,
more victims, and an escalation of rage and violence. Revenge creates white
supremacists, black supremacists, Israelis vs. Palestinians, Palestinians vs.
Israelis, gender feminists—not to be confused with equity feminists—and so
on.395 Revenge turns victims into victimizers. Revenge is, by and large, why
393
Ralph Nader said this a few times on C-SPAN during the 2000 presidential election campaign.
394
Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, p. 75.
395
The terms “gender feminists” and “equity feminists” are borrowed from Christina Hoff Sommers, Who
Stole Feminism?
victims of past oppression don’t learn from their experience. Instead of

becoming understanding, victims often turn less tolerant. One would think, for
example, that gays have learned to accept others because of the sexual
discrimination—not to be confused with gender discrimination—that gays have
experienced. But most gays, albeit not all, vilify bis for not being “gay enough.”
Justice is about rehabilitating victimizers, as well as treating their victims.
Justice is also about minimizing the obscene number of laws in place, for each
piece of legislation is someone’s opinion of how we should behave. A trans-
instinctual society realizes that, more often than not, laws imprison people
outside of prison. An example is one-year leases that force tenants to stay in a
suddenly changed neighborhood. Human laws—or should I write inhuman
laws—create taboos and fears. Human laws make us vigilant against those who
think or act differently. Human laws inhibit our freedom to live and let live.
Human laws enforce the morality of majorities on minorities—and sometimes,
vice-versa. Violators often become desperadoes, and as we all know, desperate
people do crazy things.
Most laws in the books are unnecessary. They criminalize things not so
much to avoid harm—as most illegal acts are harmless—but rather, to control the
multitude. Such control is achieved by making illegal things that will hinder
profits, and making legal what will promote one set of morals over another.
Justice is not about passing more laws but instead, about working to change any
environments that will lead to maladaptive behavior. A trans-instinctual society
realizes that the need to forgive arises from different opinions of right vs. wrong.
The fewer the laws, the less the opinions of one group are being forced on other
groups. Only what causes genuine harm is made illegal in a trans-instinctual
society. Genuine harm is defined, in turn, in a limited but strict way so as to
avoid the old slippery slope of more and more things being classified as
“genuine harm.” A trans-instinctual milieu has no jails or prisons—only

rehabilitation centers.
Forgiveness—Action vs. Feeling & Thought
In the film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), Klingon
Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner) crafts the Gorkon Initiative. The Initiative
proposes the demilitarization of Klingon and Federation “space stations and star
bases along the neutral zone, an end to almost 70 years of unremitting hostility,
which the Klingons can no longer afford.”396 Gorkon is an “idealist” who wants
peace between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire.397
Aboard the Enterprise, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) hails the Klingon
vessel that is carrying the chancellor. The following exchange takes place
between Kirk and Gorkon:
Kirk: [looking at the view screen] Chancellor, we’ve been ordered

[emphasis mine] to escort you through Federation space to your
meeting on earth.
Gorkon: Thank you, captain.
Kirk: Would you and your party care to dine this evening aboard the
Enterprise with my officers, as guests of the United Federation of
396
These are the words of Federation Special Envoy—and Captain—Spock (Leonard Nimoy).
397
The word idealist is used by Azetbur (Rosana DeSoto), the Chancellor’s daughter.
Planets?
Gorkon: We would be delighted to accept your gracious invitation.
Kirk: [tightly] We’ll make arrangements to have you beamed aboard at

19:30 hours.
Gorkon: I shall look forward to that.
Kirk: [to Envoy Spock] I hope you’re happy.
Kirk’s olive branch remains at the level of action. In thought, however, Kirk
can’t forgive the Klingons for the murder of his son (Merritt Butrick). At the
dinner table with the Klingons, Kirk’s attitude is one of reluctance. Later in the
movie, he tells Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley), “It never even occurred to
me to take Gorkon at his word.”
Similarly, authors Gary Zukav and Linda Francis write that ethnic
hostilities ended in Eastern Europe in 1944-45. This was when the Soviets took
over what would become Iron Curtain countries. But the peace that ensued after
1945 was not genuine. As Zukav and Francis write in The Mind of the Soul,
harmony in Eastern Europe held for decades but only because the penalty for
disobeying Communist rule was too big to risk. The hatred between ethnic
groups kept brewing under the surface, however. As soon as the Soviet Union
collapsed, fighting broke out between “Bosnians, Croatians, and Serbs,” among
other ethnic groups.398 Forgiveness may look like forgiveness. But if it is solely
at the level of action—or lack of action—then it is not forgiveness. True
398
Zukav and Francis, The Mind of the Soul, pgs. 129-130.
forgiveness happens in the mind and heart. This is the brand of forgiveness that
lasts.
Like a phoenix, a trans-instinctual milieu rises above its revenge instinct.
Forgiveness, after all, is the flip side of the coin. That coin splits divineness (e.g.,
“to forgive is divine”) from humanness (e.g., “to err is human”). Forgiveness is
the toughest of life challenges because of the powerful emotions that revenge sets
loose in us. Revenge stems from the part of the human brain that is “rather like
the brain of a crocodile.”399 It is no piece of cake to overcome the reptile in us.
Feelings of revenge are like a black hole that keeps pulling us in. The harder we
try to get away, the stronger its pull. Nonetheless, a trans-instinctual society
realizes that, in the end, forgiveness lessens harm to all parties across a
community, region, nation, and the planet. In an age of automatic guns and
nuclear weapons, trans-instinctual humans seek to end the neverending cycle of
revenge. They choose, however difficult, to forgive. Trans-instinctual humans
give forgiveness all the time it needs because forgiveness is a process. It may
take 20 years, but each and every day, trans-instinctual humans consciously
choose to make some effort. A trans-instinctual person knows that if one got into
the shoes of a victimizer, one would see him or her too as a victim. After all, why
else would he or she have become a victimizer? Understanding and compassion
follow for those of us who have transcended our revenge instinct.
To forgive another is not about “letting them off the hook, despite their
being jerks.” Rather, forgiveness is about realizing that, in a trans-sensory sense,
the perpetrator did nothing to you. Hard as it is to believe, all is happening in
accordance to divine plan. As Caroline Myss said at a lecture, in heaven, we all
Love one another.400 Only the human brain has difficulty comprehending how a
399
400
Refer to the Caroline Myss workshop titled, Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential. The
CD of this workshop was published by Sounds True, Boulder, Colorado.
divine Love can cause an earthly hell. This is because, in Myss’s words, divine
logic is, very often, antithetical to human logic.401 Thus, in matters of forgiveness,
a trans-instinctual person makes every effort to rise above the blind spot of
human rationality. Repeating the word forgiveness is often enough to get one in
the mood.
How does one know that one has truly forgiven someone or something?
When the infinite pain of the incident is no longer felt. To forgive is to transcend
the mental, emotional, and even physical pain of an incident. This is a Herculean
feat. But one must first allow oneself to experience the pain—as opposed to
forgiving without first going through the inner hurricane. Equally important is
that reliving the hell, whether voluntarily or not, may not be enough. Some
injuries are so immense that they can’t be healed in one “lifetime” (death time).
I, for example, thought that I had forgiven my stepfather for being emotionally
distant from me when I was a child. But when a man reminded the boy in me
about the emotional starvation that my stepfather caused me, I realized that I
had not truly forgiven. Why not? Because my buttons were still being pushed
by that man—who symbolized my stepfather. This is when I realized that
forgiving both that man and my stepfather—as in allowing myself to experience,
then forget (heal) from that infinite pain—was a universe harder than I had ever
imagined. People who have transcended their infinite pain, however, have risen
above the limitations of their humanness.
At the end of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the Chancellor’s
daughter (Rosana DeSoto) sees the sincerity of Captain Kirk in wanting peace
between the Klingons and the Federation. This is despite Kirk’s lingering hatred
toward the Klingon responsible for his son’s death. Azetbur tells Kirk, “You’ve
restored my father’s faith.”
401
See Caroline M. Myss, Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential, (New York: Harmony
Books, 2001).
Kirk replies, “and you’ve restored my son’s.”

Overcoming our revenge instinct is more adaptive now than ever. This is
a time of instability, of conflict between the old and the new, of destructive
weapons, of overpopulation, and of competition for resources. Trans-instinctual
humans realize that the interest of humanity is for people to practice forgiveness
at all levels. This goes from the personal to the familial to the global.
Willingness to forgive may prove to be even more important than succeeding or
failing at this art.
The next chapter examines human greed and human gluttony, and how
these twin “sins” apply to junk food, loud and abusive music, and risky sex. The
chapter closes with how to strike a balance between restraint and indulgence.
Exercises
1) Have you ever plotted revenge against somebody? If yes, did the plan
backfire? How? If the plan did not backfire, did you feel better afterward?
Did the feeling last?
2) What is your definition of forgiveness? In your view, is forgiveness

possible in fact or just on paper? Think about a person you have yet to
forgive. Write the details on paper or speak into a tape recorder. Are you
willing to work toward forgiving him or her?
3) Have you ever thought that you forgave someone, only to learn that you
did not? If yes, what led you to have both perceptions—of having forgiven
vs. not having forgiven? Once you saw that you had not forgiven, what did
you do about it? Was the result positive, negative, or neutral?
13
Greed and Gluttony
The Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines greed as, among

other things: “excessive … acquisitiveness: … ” It defines gluttony as, among
other things: “1: excess in eating or drinking … ”402 Greed and gluttony are odd
twins, for they can arise in the presence of bounty or as a reaction to previous
scarcity.
What causes human greed and human gluttony? The ancients called it the
temptress; Christians, Satan; and postmoderns, ego. Whatever the label or
image, a low consciousness is what I am talking about—a hunger, a thirst … for
more.
What vicious cycles do human greed and human gluttony promote?
What adaptive and maladaptive aspects do these instincts have? How can a
trans-instinctual society avoid going to excess?
Greed throughout History
When Europeans discovered the riches of the New World, a remarkable

thing happened. They got greedier. With bounty for everyone, European
colonists wanted more. Settlers of the 19 British colonies in North America—
Great Britain had six colonies in Canada—cut forests as they marched westward.
European settlers demanded “more land” from the Native Americans—never
mind that there was plenty of it—polluted the air and water, and drilled so much
oil that Americans had to start importing some of the black gold from overseas
after the 1960s. The transmogrifying of capitalism (competition) into corporatism
(monopoly) is the epitome of the vicious cycle of human greed. Corporatism is
now institutionalized at the global level. Children in developing nations are
working for cents an hour; peasants are being forced into factories; and middle
402
Mish, Morse, Gilman, et al., Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, pgs. 511 and 498.
class jobs are going overseas in a race to the bottom as far as wages and benefits.
This is the dark side of globalization. The wealthier the gold prospectors get, the
more gold they want.
How easily I can visualize an alternate earth where so-called primitive
peoples were allowed to remain primitive after Columbus discovered America
for the Europeans. In such a world, Europe, Australia/New Zealand, and parts
of Asia and the Americas would have modernized. But substantial areas of
primitive lands would have been set aside—not to be interfered with—along the
periphery of modern and then postmodern civilization.
On this planet, by comparison, human greed has brought Western ways to
the ends of the earth. Primitive values like contact with nature and balanced
living have virtually disappeared. Western media, especially advertising, has
corroded primitive cultures. Globalization—a euphemism for the
corporatization of the globe—has converted primitive regions into
“underdeveloped countries.” With polar ice caps melting, everybody wants to
adopt the American way of life.
A major driver of global greed is commercials because they encourage
consumption. According to an episode of PBS’s American Masters, however,
television writers and directors had the freedom to create programs from their
hearts—not from the bottom line—in the 1950s. TV playwright Rod Serling is
the best example. His Twilight Zone series wasn’t just about entertainment.
Each episode had a social commentary as well. In Serling’s day, sponsors paid
for programs but, typically, only announced themselves before and after a
show.403 In the early 2000s, by contrast, commercials interrupt the flow of
programs every seven minutes or so. In other words, television began as a
medium for programs. TV ads paid for the shows. Today, TV is a medium of
403
See American Masters, “Rod Serling: Submitted for Your Approval.” This program originally aired on
PBS on November 29, 1995.
commercials. Shows pay for the ads. In this new millennium, the tube is nothing
more than an advertising box. Shows merely lull audiences toward the ads. No
wonder television is a wasteland. Commercials promote neither spiritual nor
social evolution. Instead, they encourage social devolution—more greed, more
consumption, and more competition for resources. Artistic freedom, so essential
to an artist’s creativity and sense of spiritual Self, is also gone. Imagine, for
instance, director Stanley Kubrick being required to switch camera shots every
five seconds—the standard for television shows and commercials now.404
Kubrick would probably have left filmmaking altogether, for he paid meticulous
attention to the angle and timing of each camera shot.
On June 2006, I went to the movies. Not since October 2004 had I seen a
film at the theater. Superman Returns was playing, though, and I was in the
mood to see actor James Marsden on the big screen. Although I enjoyed the film,
I was stunned at the transformation of movie theaters in less than two years. As
late as October 2004, one would see, at most, 15 minutes of movie previews. The
night of June 30, 2006, however, I saw on the big screen ads for bottled water, for
cell phones, for tickets to a Brooklyn concert, for sitcoms on cable TV, for
automobiles, for more TV programs, and for more tickets to the same Brooklyn
concert. Half an hour later, the movie previews began. Scheduled to start at
10:45 p.m., Superman Returns started at 11:30 p.m. I had paid $8.50 to watch—
and to subsidize—45 minutes of commercials. If this isn’t capitalism-turned-
corporatism gone amok, I don’t know what is. On a planet with dwindling
resources and with species going extinct, the powers that be are stoking our
greed instinct. Even worse, very few people are making a twitch of protest.
Even New Agers have caved in to consumerism gone mad. Seldom have so
many good people done so little to stem evil (at the level of the individual) and
404
See Michael Medved, “American Values versus Television Values,” Friday, November 1, 2002. At
http://www.michaelmedved.com/site/product?printerFriendly=true&pid=19058.
Evil (at the level of the collective). This time, however, the clock is ticking. One
thing is for sure. I am not going to the movies again, for I refuse to subsidize
commercials.
If postmodern civilization doesn’t collapse from the effects of peak oil (see
epilogue), then I think that, somewhere down the line, corporations will force us
to buy their products in exchange for employment within the given company.
Already, employers require new employees to sign on to alternative—read
privatized—social security programs. Why then not require employees to
become customers of x company, travel exclusively with x airline, go to x movie
theater, and buy at x supermart? Why not require that employees watch 30
minutes of commercials before work? Why not require employees to sell and
buy company products? The above prospects may sound far-fetched. But 35
years ago, the idea of commercials on paid-for cable TV would have sounded
ludicrous. A few years ago, the idea of 45 minutes of commercials before a paid-
for movie at the theater would have been just as unthinkable.
A trans-instinctual society overcomes the human penchant for material
things. In the postmodern world, though, ads and consumerism flood our
psyches like Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans. By and large, earning
money and buying things are all that most of us Westerners think about. The
problem is that money, being numbers, never ends. Consequently, the fixation
on money goes on forever because one can always have more money. Natural
resources, by contrast, are finite. The issue is not “The love of money is the root
of all evil”—nor the vogue these days, “ ‘The lack of money is the root of all
evil.’”405 Obsession with money is, after all, only a symptom. So is human greed.
The root of all evil and Evil is lack of spiritual evolution. This dearth has caused
405
Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, p. 13.
us humans to cater to our lower natures. Trans-instinctual people use the power
of choice, however, to overcome their maladaptive human tendencies.
Gluttony of the Palate
The human biological system evolved to eat in order to survive. Physical

labor kept the human body in shape for hundreds of thousands of years. Today,
however, many of us live to eat. With the average Westerner having, through
machines, the energy help of between 75 and 300 slaves annually, most of us lead
sedentary lives.406 Gluttony of the palate is thus more maladaptive now than
ever.
The human body is built for times of famine. Naturally, our physical
bodies want to indulge in the many temptations present during times of plenty.
But many temptations are far from salutary. Salt, for example, is in practically
every food. Yet, the human body cannot process—healthily, that is—more than
1,500 mg of sodium a day. If you read the nutritional label of the typical canned
food, however, you will find over 1,000 mg of sodium in just one serving from a
can. Most cans have more than one serving. Sugar is also in practically every
food. This includes most fruits, according to microbiologist Robert Young and
nutritionist Shelley Young. In Sick and Tired?, the Youngs argue that sugar and
starches are unhealthy because unburned, they become fat. This wipes out from
one’s diet oatmeal, muffins, pancakes, bread, pasta, wheat grains, and pastries.
Protein is unsalutary, in turn, if it comes from meat because that is “dead food”
406
The 75-slave statistic comes from The Sustainable Scale Project, “Quick Facts: Energy.” The URL is
http://www.sustainablescale.org/AreasofConcern/Energy/EnergyandScale/QuickFacts.aspx. The 300-slave
statistic comes from Life After the Oil Crash at http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html.
laden with hormones, the Youngs write. Most nutritionists disagree with the
Youngs. Still, sugar and starch are in practically every food. Vegetables are the
exception. Green foods, the Youngs contend, are the healthiest because they
have stored sunlight converted to chlorophyll. Genesis 1:30, the Youngs argue,
says, “ ‘To everything that has the breath of life in it, I give every green plant
(herb) for food.’ ”407
When Sick and Tired? was published (2001), the food pyramid of the
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) looked as follows:
407
Robert O. Young and Shelley Redford Young, Sick and Tired? Reclaim Your Inner Terrain, (Pleasant
Grove, UT: Woodland Publishing, 2001), p. 128.
Robert Young argues, however, that bread, cereal, rice, and pasta—at the
base of the pyramid—are too starchy to consume as the base of one’s diet. Most
fruits, the Youngs continue, are too sugary. This includes apples, watermelons,
bananas, strawberries, cherries, mangos, and grapes. Only lemons, limes,
avocados, tomatoes, and grapefruit are low-sugar enough to eat, the Youngs
write. Sugar, starch, and dairy products, the Youngs warn, encourage the
development of yeast, fungi, and mold in the intestines, and such organisms
block the absorption of food. To prevent microorganisms from growing in us
and causing disease, Young recommends the Young Pyramid. It looks as
follows:
Low Sugar
Fruits
Essential Fats
Omega 3 & 6
Seeds & Some Nuts
Sprouted Grains & Legumes
Dark Green & Yellow Vegetables408
Dr. Young proposes that protein comes from vegetables as much as it does from
animals. The muscular strength of cows, he writes, is proof that living on a
408
Ibid., p. 129.
vegetable-centered diet is enough for physical health, for cows eat grass for the
most part.409
The human body craves salt, sweets, starch, and animal protein, however.
Even vegetarians sometimes report a feeling of “needing meat.” But if God
meant for us to live off plants, then our rampant cancers and heart problems
must be proof that our Western diet needs revolutionary modification. At the
very least, we know that we eat far too much salt, far too much sugar, far too
much starch, and far too much animal protein. This is why 95 percent of diets
fail. A real dietary change, the Youngs argue, is based on the Young Pyramid.
The human body stores fat for times of famine. Some people, however,
are overweight no matter how little they eat and no matter how much they
exercise. One would think that biological evolution would not have developed
excessive fat cells—just some fat cells for times of famine. This is because
excessive fat is sexually unattractive, and sexually unattractive people will not
attract many sexual partners. How “fat” people have come to reproduce
throughout human evolution—passing along their genes for excessive fat—is a
biological mystery. Being fat does not encourage sexual reproduction.
Will the majority of us be willing to give up cereals, oatmeal, and muffins
for breakfast in favor of vegetable soup? What about giving up steak, bread,
butter, and pasta for dinner in exchange for more vegetables? The human body
may not have evolved to digest coffee—a stimulant discovered in Ethiopia in the
1500s. But even I cave into temptation whenever I see chocolate-flavored coffee
beans on the shelf of a coffee joint. Barely 500 years ago, sugar, chocolate, and
tobacco were introduced into the Western diet—courtesy of native peoples and
African slave labor. These delicacies aren’t given up easily. Those of us into
alcohol—also not meant for the human body—will no doubt find it hard to give
409
Ibid.
up beer, wine, and champagne.410 Also, many of us can digest neither gluten (a
protein in wheat products) nor casein (a protein in dairy products). For millions
of years, our ancestors evolved without these foods, stimulants, and ingredients.
Today, we ingest them more than ever.
We crave what the human body wasn’t meant to digest. The paradox is
that our sweet tooths are inborn. Just watch newborns. Our tongues, in turn,
crave fat and salt. We get addicted to certain foods. Peanut butter—all sorts—
and milk chocolate chips have been my food addictions for decades, and giving
them up has been extremely difficult. Still, Genesis 1:30 could be laying the
natural balance for eating. Any departure from that diet may lead to
consequences like cancer—maybe not immediately, but effects nonetheless.
If vegetables ought to be the base of one’s diet, then why do they taste
yucky compared to carrot cake, whipped cream, meat loaf, pot roast, lasagna,
and pancakes? Why, I have wondered, didn’t Brahma make the heavenly tasting
foods good for us? Are the gods sadistic? Or is the setup of tasty foods/bad
health deliberate—to act as spiritual temptations that, resisted, will build
character in us and strengthen our spirits? Can we Westerners strike a balance
between eating less salt, sugar, starch, and animal proteins and giving them up
entirely? Also, if we touch our food as we eat, then perhaps we would satisfy
our hunger more. This is because we would experience the food more—in our
hands, not just on our palates. If we consciously satiate all of our biological
senses during mealtimes—focusing on the smell, sight, touch, taste, and sound of
our food—then maybe we would eat less.
410
Walsch, Conversations with God, Book 1, (Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Company,
Inc., 1996), p. 191.
Gluttony of the Ears
The human ear didn’t evolve to listen to loudspeakers. Nor did the
human ear evolve to listen to headphones. Yet, loudspeakers and iPods are
everywhere in Western culture, and speakers and headphones are maladaptive
to human hearing.
Paradoxically, the human ear craves hypnotic beats. As Sandra Ingerman,
the shaman, explains in Soul Retrieval, shamans beat drums because the beats
induce them into a trance. Ingerman writes:
Why drumming has this kind of powerful effect is not clearly understood.
However, scientists have discovered that listening to a monotonous beat
facilitates the production of brain waves in the alpha and theta ranges, in
contrast to the beta waves characteristic of ordinary, eyes-open
consciousness. According to Maxwell Cade’s inventory of an
electroencephalograph called the Mind Mirror, theta waves (4-7 cycles per
second) are related to creativity, vivid imagery, and states of ecstasy.411
She continues:
Many Native Americans refer to drumming as “the heartbeat of the earth”

… It appears that drumming allows shamans to align their brain waves
with the pulse of the earth.412
411
Sandra Ingerman, Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self, (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), p.
29.
412
Ibid.
How often I have ached to listen to loud music. Youths have this hunger
the most. I love 80s rock because for the first time in human history, musical
beats became loudly and rattlingly metallic. Compare the sound of a pre-1979
rock tune with an 80s rock song, and you will hear the difference. At night, I
have two options. First, I could play my boom box speakers at full volume—and
incur negative karma on myself for perturbing neighbors. Second, I could play
my headphones at full blast and endanger my hearing, nerves, and peace. (At
times, adrenaline is more exciting than peace.) I have realized that like the
impulse to overeat, there is the instinct to abuse one’s ears in the name of losing
oneself in loud and abusive tunes. Why, I have pondered, did the human body
set us up to crave things like junk food, loud music, and (as we shall see below)
“bad” sex and then punish us for giving in to those temptations? There has to be
a spiritual explanation, and a way to compromise. For the moment, I have
chosen to wear earplugs—except in the noisiness of the gym—before cranking
up the volume of my headphones.
Gluttony of the Gonads
Biologists once thought that the goal of sperm was, simply, to inseminate
the egg. But biological studies have found that only 1 percent of human sperm is
genetically programmed for this task. As John Ince writes in The Politics of Lust:
The rest [of the sperm] are “fighters” and “blockers” that nature created to
prevent the sperm of other men from inseminating the woman.413
413
This sperm war is called sperm competition.414 If human males evolved to be

monogamous, then human sperm wouldn’t be fighting rival sperm. The size of
men’s testicles is another clue that males are promiscuous by nature. Male
gorillas, for instance, should have bigger testes than adult men, for gorillas weigh
an average of 450 pounds. But the testicles—and penises—of gorillas are close to
nothing in size compared to men’s. Why? Because the huskiness of gorillas
makes them lethal to rival gorillas. Consequently, male gorillas have females all
to themselves. Human males, by contrast, aren’t deadly to one another, so men’s
sperm had to adapt to sexual competition from other men. The crucial thing to
remember is that bonobos, a primate smaller than humans, have bigger genitals
than humans possess—relative to body size. Because of the promiscuity of
bonobos, their males need more room inside their testes to produce more sperm.
This is in order to have more “fighters and blockers.” Like men’s testicles, men’s
members are middle of the road in size—relative to other primates. This means
that pushing their semen deep into a vagina—what penises are built for—is
important for men but not as important as it is for primates with bigger penises
—again, relative to their body size. The in-between size of men’s genitals
suggests that human males are not monogamous by nature. But neither have
men been excessively promiscuous throughout human evolution.415
Mentioned in Part II, Chapter 4 (section titled, “The Construction of
Human Sexuality”), females tend to fuse sex with romance, while males can
easily divorce the two. This means that free of the “civilizing” effect of women,
men go wild in the sexual arena. There are always exceptions, but generally,
men tend to be gluttonous when it comes to sex. Women, of course, have slept
with different men throughout human evolution. The biological argument is
414
The concept of sperm competition was first introduced in 1970. Geoffrey Parker, a biologist, coined the
term.
415
See Baker, Sperm Wars.
that a woman wants sperm from several men in her vagina so that the fittest of
the sperm may get her pregnant, insuring the healthiest children. Some women
are more biologically programmed for this than other women. Overall, however,
women are a curbing influence on men’s promiscuity because women have sex
more in the context of romance. Given that romantic feelings in women happen
less often than sexual lust in men, men will always have fewer opportunities for
sexual intercourse with women.
The casual sex of the 1960s and 1970s threw the evolutionary context of
human sexuality into imbalance. Gay liberation, in particular, showed that men
left to themselves can go to unprecedented extremes. Before AIDS (a medical
construct), many gays had dozens and even hundreds of sexual partners free of
commitment. Romance is now the backdrop to much of gay sex. But should
vaccines be made for the major STDs, there is always the potential for more
sexual extremism in the future. It behooves us to keep in mind the evolution of
human sex, which is a middle ground between unrestrained promiscuity and
strict monogamy.
To my shock, I discovered that, free of STDs, semen can still be a
traumatic shock to non-vaginal areas of the human body. As Robert Young and
Shelley Young write in Sick and Tired?:
With the primary U.S. AIDS groups, or with any group for that matter, if
you … consider the blood as a flowing tissue, it will be seen in general
that body fluids which find their way from one individual directly into the
blood of another are a stress factor on the body. This is by virtue of the
introduction of foreign tissue … In fact, a major danger is blood
transfusion itself [during rectal sex], essentially a “tissue transplant,”
which is a threat or irritant to immune function. There is no reason to
believe that such repeated stress will not, by itself, overwork and weaken
immune function and drain overall energy reserves.416
Because sperm programs cells to divide quickly, sperm may also pose a
cancer risk for people who frequently practice rectal sex without a condom.417
The key words are frequently and rectal, as the vagina has protections to prevent
sperm from entering the bloodstream of the woman. Also, ejecting semen “in the
backdoor” may cause a woman to develop immunological resistance to sperm.
This is because there is a chance that, during rectal sex, sperm may be injected
directly into the bloodstream via anal tears. According to urologist Donald
Tyler, the immune system may then program itself to attack sperm genes in the
future. In theory, this could make conception harder later on.418 If this is true,
then rectal sex is probably best practiced as part of homosexual, not heterosexual,
activity. Some doctors believe, on the other hand, that anal tears are rare. The
key phrase is sperm entering the bloodstream through the rectum—not to be
confused with simply swallowing semen. Clearly, medical studies are needed on
these topics, especially ways of getting around these obstacles (e.g., methods of
getting thoroughly cleaned up inside after rectal sex). For now, however, many
of us believe that STD vaccines will mean a return to “safe,” as opposed to safer,
sex.
Male biology explains men’s tendency toward unrestrained promiscuity—
versus restrained multi-sex partners within romantic and/or platonic
commitments. Historical repression of human sexuality is another factor that
leads to extremism during times of social liberation. Those of us in love yearn, in
416
Young and Young, Sick and Tired?, p. 271.
417
See Donald E. Tyler, The Other Guy’s Sperm: The Cause of Cancers and Other Diseases, (Palo Alto,
CA: Discovery Books, 1994).
418
Ibid.
turn, to unite carnally. As is the case with sweet food, though, many types of sex
are “bad” in that they present health risks.
Our sexual, romantic, spiritual, and psychological needs often go against
our biological limits. Separation rules much of the biological world. But unity is
the truth of the heart and soul. That urge to unite pulls lovers together, and their
oneness in bed reminds them of the unity of everything. It is much as one
forgets something and remembers upon returning to the place where one first
had the idea. Lacking enough opportunities to “get love”—and reexperience our
spiritual oneness—we become obsessed with sex and romance.
Striking a Balance
Sadly, the human body cannot stand too much pleasure and liberation, for
biology places limits on what we can do free of painful results. We may want to
eat mountains of chocolate cake. But we have small stomachs. We may hanker
for music that rattles a stadium. But we have the smallest bones of the human
body inside our ears. We may crave sex without condoms. But microorganisms
exist. We may pine for love. But too much love can spoil people. Just watch a
child become moody after 30 minutes of being showered with gifts, kisses, and
praises. After years of constant adulation by fans, most celebrities grow full of
themselves. For better or worse, the limits of the human body and psyche are
often at odds with the hungers and thirsts of the Spirit/soul, psyche, and flesh
itself.
While eating junk food, listening to loud music, and having certain kinds
of sex carry worthwhile risks, trans-instinctual humans measure these risks
carefully, for they recognize that the human body is a temple and a gift from
God. Balance is their mantra—not too much, not too little. Tapping the power of
the human mind—such as not believing in illness—may be a way for us to rise
above our biological limits.
Human liberation movements have the potential to make us freer in our
pursuit of personal bliss. But human liberation poses a dilemma—how to end
the social and physical deprivations of the past while not going overboard with
gluttony and excess. As far as sexual and romantic happiness, polyamory is
perhaps the best balance between indulgence and restraint, for polyamory is
about romantic and/or platonic commitment to more than one person. This is
for those of us who choose this, whether for ourselves or as an option that we
teach our youth. The key word is option, not force. Because romantic and
platonic commitment is the basis of sex here, multi-partner sex has healthy limits
placed upon it as far as the number of sexual partners that polyamorous people
have. Two men, for example, can love each other platonically, the same woman
romantically, and everyone in the triad sexually. Given that commitment takes
time and energy, most polyamorists are bound to restrict the number of people
that they are intimately involved with. There, of course, will always be
exceptions. Bisexuality, in turn, allows a woman to direct the homosexuality of
her male partners toward sexual and platonic—or sexual and romantic—
commitment to each other, while the men stay sexually and romantically
committed to her. Vice-versa for triad relationships involving one man and two
women. What a difference from the gay liberation movement of the 1970s, for in
its tendency to exclude women totally—as opposed to partially—that otherwise
positive movement excluded women’s power to rein male promiscuity.
Food, music, and sex are powerful human instincts. Overindulgence
comes from our instinct to eat (food), to experience the transcendent (music), and
to unite carnally and reproduce (sex). In moderation, such impulses lead to
physical pleasure, to emotional and psychological fulfillment, to spiritual

experiences, and to reproduction. Taken to excess, however, such instincts can
lead to the endangerment of our physical health. A trans-instinctual society
indulges its human impulses, while overcoming the temptation to carry them to
gluttonous ends. As we all know, a little chocolate prevents chocolate cravings
from developing.
From Getting to Giving … and Receiving (As a Bonus)
Human greed and gluttony come from letting human—and even spiritual
—wants spin out of control. The human impulse to get is a challenge to rise
above, especially as this instinct can easily lead us to go off the deep end.
The other night, I was at the supermarket. At the fresh produce section,
people were taking apples, carrots, mangos, avocados, and bananas. I recalled
the saying, “It is better to give than to receive.” But in the case of food, I thought,
getting (eating) is the only way for the human body to survive. If you just give
food to others, you will starve to death. In another section of the supermarket,
people were grabbing envelopes, soaps, deodorants, and toothbrushes—myself
included, as I had run out of those things. Again, I wondered about the sheer
amount of essentials that we need just to get by. Try going to work without
wearing deodorant, for example. Try leaving your home without brushing your
teeth. Try showering without a shower curtain. Try cooking without pots and
pans. Quickly, you will see how essential a great deal of “nonessentials” are.
Getting is a major part of being human because neediness is a dominant element

of the human condition. Giving is a spiritual challenge because it goes against
the grain of human needs.
Like with things, most of us come from getting when dealing with people.
Someone who just gives draws suspicions because most humans aren’t like that.
In the movie D.A.R.Y.L. (1985), for example, Joyce Richardson (Mary Beth Hurt)
gets frustrated at her foster child (Barret Oliver). As she tells two neighbors of
hers (Colleen Camp and Amy Linker) in her kitchen, Daryl “… irons his own
clothes, makes his own breakfast, polishes the bedroom floor. He’s a better
mother than I am.” In Joyce’s words, “He doesn’t seem to need anybody.” This
makes Daryl seem “different” to her, for she sees needing people as normal.
Unfortunately, the human impulse to get from others usually leads to
frustration. Why? Because when you need someone, people tend to desert you.
On the other hand, if we didn’t need others for sex, for relationships, and for
social endeavors, then the human race would stop reproducing, raising children,
and cooperating. Nobody would need anyone.
The trans-instinctual challenge is to recognize that as humans, we want to
get for evolutionary reasons (e.g., reproducing), while acknowledging that our
spiritual challenge is to give unconditionally. Of course, we need to have
something in abundance to give it, or we are depleting ourselves. In other
words, giving has to feel good, or it is an unhealthy form of giving called co-
dependence. Rising above human egoism means accessing the infinite well of
abundance that we all have inside, giving only what we have in excess, and
accepting what others give us as a bonus. Don’t expect anything from anyone.
This is to become trans-instinctual regarding the human tendency to get, of
which human greed and gluttony are the epitome.
The next chapter looks at the tendency of human societies to swing from
one extreme to the other. The chapter sweeps through recent Western history
and ends with today’s homogenizing world.
Exercises
1) Can you spot elements of greed in your life? If yes, what are they? What
do you suppose is driving that greed? External scarcity? Internal scarcity?
Both?
2) Think of a time when you overate. Was your physical body in need of the
extra food, or was your hunger nonphysical? If your hunger was not
physical, what issues are or were involved?
3) Have you ever felt like overeating, listening to music extra loud, or
having reckless sex but refrained? If yes, what were the pros and cons of
restraining each of these human impulses?
14
Extremism
The Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines extreme in terms of

“going to great or exaggerated lengths.”419 Excess, in turn, surpasses “usual,
419
Mish, Morse, Gilman, et al., Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, p. 413. Definition 1 b.
proper, or specified limits …”420 Domination (power over, rather than with) is
often the result.
How has excess manifested throughout human history? How does the
world tempt us toward extremism? Is the dualism of the human brain partly
responsible for the tendency of one social system to overpower competing
systems?
The Pendulum of History
Throughout human history, societies have cycled between extremes. In

ancient Greece, for example, men competed naked at the Olympics; pederasty
was practiced openly; and phalluses were everywhere. In A Natural History of
the Senses, Diane Ackerman, the naturalist, writes that the ancient Romans:
… staged all-night dinner parties and vied with one another in the
creation of unusual and ingenious dishes. At one dinner a host served
progressively smaller members of the food chain stuffed inside each other:
Inside a calf, there was a pig, inside the pig a lamb, inside the lamb a
chicken, inside the chicken a rabbit, inside the rabbit a dormouse, and so
on.421
420
Ibid., p. 404. Definition 1 a.
421
Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses, p. 144.
Ackerman goes on:
The Romans were devotees of what the Germans call Schadenfreude,

taking exquisite pleasure in the misfortune of someone else. They loved
to surround themselves with midgets, and handicapped and deformed
people, who were made to perform sexually or cabaret-style at the
parties.422
Slaves, Ackerman continues, so abhorred the excesses of Roman citizens (slaves

were not citizens) that:
… Christianity arose as a slave-class movement, emphasizing self-denial,

restraint, the poor inheriting the earth, a rich and free life after death, and
the ultimate punishment of the luxury-loving rich in the eternal tortures of
hell.423
As Camille Paglia, humanities professor at the University of the Arts in

Philadelphia, commented on C-SPAN in August 2003:
… the rise of Christianity was a backlash against Graeco-Roman paganism

… and it’s now 2,000 years later [emphases mine].424
Human history continues to repeat itself in cycles. The Roaring 20s, for
instance, was a period of erotic raunchiness (e.g., the rumble seat), of the flapper
smoking cigarettes, and of people dancing provocatively. The Great (Grave)
422
Ibid., pgs. 144-145.
423
Ibid., p. 145.
424
This quote is from In Depth with Camille Paglia. The program originally aired on C-SPAN on August 3,
2003.
Depression brought a somber mood to life in America and Europe. The Second
World War changed that. With men fighting overseas, women had to pick up
the slack at American factories. Women in the United States made jeeps, tanks,
airplanes, and other war items. African Americans flocked north, in turn, to fill
job vacancies. The post-1945 era saw the return of American women to the role
of housewives, the firing of African Americans to make room for Caucasian
soldiers returning home, and the McCarthy witch-hunts. To the shock of the
world, the 1960s exploded with mass demonstrations. African Americans, then
women, demanded equality before the law. Chicanos, Native Americans,
queers, environmentalists, and college students joined the ocean of mass
protests, backed by a hippie counterculture and by demonstrations against the
Vietnam War. Even welfare recipients were organizing for equal rights in terms
of how government agencies were treating them. In the 1960s, the federal
government implemented affirmative action, and in 1973, the Supreme Court
legalized abortion through Roe v. Wade. At the grassroots scene, the 1960s and
1970s saw the widespread use of soft drugs like marijuana. Many of these
communal drugs encouraged sexual looseness. The “sexual revolution” ended,
by and large, because of the introduction of hard drugs like cocaine and crack
into urban areas. Such drugs isolated individuals and encouraged violence more
than libidinousness. With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and the dawn of
AIDS in 1981, a sexual counterrevolution began, as did a “War on Drugs.”
Organized labor faced a crippling blow. For example, Reagan fired over 11,000
air traffic controllers in August 1981. In the post-1980 period, abortion and
affirmative action came under attack. Sex education became abstinence
education. Sexual minorities found themselves under siege. Countercultural
trends of the pre-1980 era went underground. Europe escaped the initial wave of
backlashes. But social regressivism (called “neoconservatism” in America) had
washed upon European shores by the 1990s. Even the Netherlands found itself
questioning some of its progressive values. Backlashes ensued in country after
country as the pendulum swung toward social conservatism (being socially pro
status quo) and toward social regressivism (wanting to turn the social clock back
to the 1950s).
The Excesses of Social Change
Not a single revolution has ever lasted—at least, the initial blast. In a way,
this is positive, for human society tends to go from one extreme to the other. If,
for example, Western women claimed their sexuality in the 1960s, then “gender
feminists” had to belittle this—along with all forms of heterosexuality—as
“giving in to the patriarchy.”425 By the 1970s, radical feminists were calling for an
end to all pornography—including same-sex male porn—because in their view,
it was “demeaning to all women.” These gender feminists made no distinction
between selling one’s priceless human body for money and baring oneself before
the camera, free of money entanglements, for educational purposes. In a
Machiavellian twist of fate, these “gender feminists” hopped in bed with the
Christian Right—which also denounced pornography—and the two groups
formed an unholy alliance. After 1980, American men found themselves being
disparaged as “pigs,” as “monsters,” as “dangerous” to women, girls, and boys,
and as “potential rapists.” As Gayle Rubin, the feminist anthropologist, wrote in
her 1984 essay “Thinking Sex”, “Feminist rhetoric has a distressing tendency to
reappear in reactionary contexts.”426 According to Christina Hoff Sommers,
425
The terms “gender feminists” and “equity feminists” are borrowed from Christina Hoff Sommers, Who
Stole Feminism?
426
Rubin, “Thinking Sex,” Abelove, ed., The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, p. 26.
author of Who Stole Feminism?, not all of American society agrees with the
“gender feminists,” and “equity feminists” disagree as well. 427 But I argue that
the misandric (anti-male) child abuse panic—defined only in sexual terms—and
the resulting witch-hunt of the post-1980 era has been part of the fallout of
gender feminism. In the 21st century, one sees gentlemen taking another aisle
whenever a child appears in a supermarket. Men who enjoy teaching youth are
choosing other careers, too. This exodus of men from the classroom has become
so severe that not only is formal education now female-dominated. Many boys
are reaching adulthood without a single, real-life—meaning outside TV—male
role model. Sensitive fathers are also afraid to get physical with their sons. Why
all this? By and large, because men have been locked up for being tender with
kids. Like violence, extremism breeds extremism.
Like the women’s movement, the gay movement sprung from a people
being oppressed. Author Ian Young calls the 1970s the age of The Stonewall
Experiment, the title of his 1995 book.428 Part of a broader trend toward sexual
freedom, the gay movement took the sexual revolution to unprecedented
heights. In the 1970s, gay men often slept with 50, 100, and 200 men, inhaled
“poppers” (an over-the-counter drug that corrodes skin upon contact), and
developed “gay pneumonia” in the early 1980s. Of course, not all gay men went
to such extremes, and many queers remained in stable relationships that were
limited to one or two other partners. But like many “straight” people, non-
straights often abused drugs, alcohol, and sex. Gay men also tended to exclude
women—a restraining influence on sex—from their lives. When AIDS struck,
gays found themselves asking lesbians for forgiveness. Since the early 1980s,
most gays have sought stable partnerships, same-sex marriage, and sexual
427
Sommers, Who Stole Feminism?
428
See Young, The Stonewall Experiment.
discriminateness. But beneath the restraint, impatience lurks in many quarters,

waiting for an AIDS vaccine.
Poppers are coming back. So are unsafe sexual practices and multiple
sexual partners without platonic or romantic commitment. On college campuses,
there is pressure to smoke, drink, and do drugs. People forget that abusing any
substance can lead to conditions similar to AIDS. Therefore, it follows that even
if an HIV vaccine is concocted, AIDS-like illnesses will continue in those who
engage in indiscriminate sex and who abuse toxic substances.
In sum, women can be equal to men and retain their womanhood—
instead of trying to be men in order to make it in this world. The planet, after all,
needs more female power if it is to deflect increasing aggression, territoriality,
and violence. Women, of course, can be as male as they want. But this wouldn’t
be a requirement in a trans-instinctual world. Men, in turn, can indulge their
libido (arguably a masculine trait) and withhold it (arguably a feminine trait)
when indulgence is inappropriate or becomes excessive. Similar balances are
possible with other groups of liberating people. But personal liberation and
social change always bring the potential for extremism. If a civilization lacks
spirituality, then human greed, gluttony, and excess are guaranteed. The
challenge for a trans-instinctual society is sowing the ground so that all of us
may live our lives to the fullest without abusing our freedoms.
Our Monolithic World

The process is the pendulum of human history swinging back and forth,
as in social developments going to extremes. The result is one group of people
subduing other groups or one system subduing another system. Be it moral or
immoral, might makes right in the biological and social worlds. The winning
entity affects not only society but the individual as well. Europe’s expansion into
the Americas, for instance, was a golden opportunity for “the fusion of two
cultures.” So said Marianne Williamson, the spiritualist, at a lecture.429 Instead,
she continued, European culture bloodily defeated that of Native Americans.
The irony, Williamson said, is that today, we Westerners need aboriginal values
more than ever to balance our civilization on a planet turned upside down.430
Even better than “the fusion of two cultures” would have been leaving the
Native Americans alone.431 This is because fusing any two things—cultures,
ethnicities, or races—dilutes both entities in the process. If each entity can keep
its separate identity—such as English Canadians and French Canadians
coexisting in Canada—then fusion is nondestructive of the component parts.
The effect of might makes right is, regrettably, a globe of monolithic
regions. Quebecers, for example, fear an erosion of their French language.
Hence, their government has imposed a set of laws designed to make Quebec
French-only. English Canada, in turn, refuses to become bilingual. As usual, an
either/or paradigm has taken hold. In Canada, it began with the overturning of
the Manitoba Act of 1870. That act guaranteed English and French in the schools
of Manitoba, the first province of the Canadian West. Had English Canadians
allowed French to coexist with English, Quebec separatism wouldn’t be an issue
today. With bilingualism set as a precedent in Manitoba, other Western
429
Refer to the lecture that Marianne Williamson gave at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. Refer to
the two-cassette series titled, The Sacred Self Workshop. Also, refer to Williamson, The Healing of
America. This two-cassette audio book was published by Simon & Schuster, New York, 1997.
430
Ibid.
431
Ibid.
provinces—and eventually, all Canadian provinces—would have been likely to

adopt official bilingualism. English and French would have been taught to
Canadian students, coast-to-coast, from first grade through college. After all, this
was what the Manitoba Act of 1870 promoted in the Canadian Prairies. Print,
radio, and television would have bilingualized, starting in the prairies and in
Quebec, to meet the language needs of Anglophones (Canadians from English
Canada) and Francophones (Canadians from French Canada). But what could
have become a functionally bilingual country (English/French) became instead a
monolingual country with English and French at opposite camps. Only at the
federal level is Canada bilingual. Even here, federal policy in Canada does not
require schools to teach Canadian children in English and French. Nor does
federal policy require that the major media be in English and French across
Canada. Thus, what could still become a functionally bilingual country
continues to be either French-speaking (Quebec) or English-speaking (the rest of
Canada). As Michael Bliss, history professor at the University of Toronto,
commented, “Effective bilingualism or biculturalism ends in Canada about five
miles west of Ottawa [Canada’s capital].”432 And Canada is ostensibly the most
tolerant nation-state on this planet.
In the United States, regional cultures are vanishing as a homogenized
national media and a multi-cultural Americanism take over. Homogenization
and multi-culturalism are, curiously enough, opposing trends. Yet, both are
“in.” Mass immigration from non-Western countries both enriches American
culture and dilutes it, while the cookie-cutter mass media simply erodes regional
cultures in America. For the most part, for example, diverse local bands are
heard neither on commercial radio nor on public radio. A cacophony of local
writers, producers, directors, actors, and singers have no local or regional
432
Michael Bliss, “Is Canada a Country in Decline?” National Post, November 30, 2001. Article at Hydro:
The Mail Archive. The URL is http://www.mail-archive.com/hydro@topica.com/msg00362.html.
TV/radio networks to air programs of their own. Imagine, by contrast, having a

Pacific Northwest Cable Network, a Rocky Mountain States Cable Network, and
a Northeast Regional Station, each aired for the local citizenry of those regions.
Instead, we have one Hollywood, one national media, and national bands on
radio and television. The result is all American—actually, Western—bands
sounding the same because that is what local bands are emulating. Not
surprisingly, local bands are losing their diversity of style. With harps, clarinets,
oboes, French horns, violins, mandolins, harpsichords, and hundreds of musical
instruments available in our “global village,” the rock/pop format stops at
guitar-bass-drums. Even synthesizers, which allow for the greatest diversity of
sounds and styles, are out of fashion in popular music. Therefore, pop hits today
sound like those of a quarter of a century ago.
Homogeneity exists outside of the United States as well. Once, for
instance, there was such a thing as German, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish,
Finnish, Russian, and Indian folk songs. But check out the music videos coming
out of these countries, and what do they sound and look like? American music
videos. Such music videos have hip-hop beats, loveless sex, and gratuitous
nudity. Watching a few such videos online, I asked myself, What happened to
Russian music? Where is Indian music? What about German music? There
were no traditional instruments in most of the videos that I saw. As Jeremy
Rifkin, the economist, writes in The Age of Access:
Indigenous music often expresses the plight and circumstances of a group

or speaks to their spiritual yearnings and political aspirations. In its
cultural form, music is a strong conveyer of social meaning. It mobilizes
deeply held feelings. When appropriated, packaged, commodified, and
sold in the form of world music, the central message of the music often is
watered down or lost altogether.433
Two pages later, Rifkin continues:
The commercial sphere is in a constant search for novelty, which means

that when indigenous music is packaged in the form of world music, its
life span is likely to be limited to the short attention span of consumers. If,
in the process, the native form of that music is lost and the cultural context
that gave rise to it is devalued, the local culture is seriously
compromised.434
When a country like Japan opens itself to foreign music, it is usually because one
region of the world (e.g., the West) is expanding its sphere of influence—not
because a genuine exchange of cultures is taking place. Cultural diversity is in
peril, just like biological diversity. South America and Greece are two regions of
the world that have kept their traditional music. They, of course, are not totally
immune to the forces of globalization that are pushing commercial music, called
“world music,” on every culture. I surmise that the reasons for the partial
cultural immunity of South America and Greece are:
1) South America is one of the most geographically isolated areas of the

world. Also, the relative poverty of the region has kept satellite dishes
—among other consumer items of the global corporate media—at bay
in the majority of South American households.
433
Rifkin, The Age of Access, p. 248.
434
Ibid., p. 250.
2) Greece has some 2,000 islands. This must make it difficult for a global
entity like corporations to impose its soulless music on this country.
To do so successfully would be as difficult as trying to pick up every
bit of broken glass from open waters.
The leitmotif of assimilation—a type of homogenization—being imposed

from without repeats with:
1) The politicization of religion

2) The commercialism of New Age spirituality
Notice how religion and spirituality have been co-opted by politics and
commerce, respectively. Religious fundamentalists have taken on the values of
political control. An example is their attempt to get creationism taught in the
classroom. New Agers, on the other hand, have internalized the values of
conspicuous consumption. An example is Caroline Myss talking about how she
has “a designer’s closet.”435
Another facet of homogenization is the march away from farms. In 1790,
for instance, 88 percent of Americans lived on farms. By the year 2000, a mere 6
percent of Americans lived in farms.436 The dangers of practically nobody
knowing how to grow food didn’t seem to concern the majority of Americans.
Yet another example of one thing overpowering another thing is
adolescence. This is a time when most teenagers find the same-sex
experimentation of their childhood being overshadowed by their emerging
435
Refer to Caroline Myss, Self-Esteem: Your Fundamental Power. This is a 2002 lecture series on CD,
available from Sounds True, Boulder, Colorado.
436
Refer to James Shenton in the cassette titled, The History of the United States, Part V: The Making of
Modern America, “The Twenties—A Cultural Revolution,” Lecture 50. Historians Darren Staloff, Louis
Masur, and James Shenton lectured for the Great Courses on Tape Series, (Springfield, VA: Teaching Co.,
1996).
feelings for the opposite sex. Rather than allow their budding heterosexuality to
compliment their childhood homosexuality—leading to a balanced bisexuality in
adulthood—most teens adopt instead this society’s either/or imposition of 100
percent heterosexuality. Because what you focus on expands, straight muscles
strengthen, and gay muscles weaken to the point of extinction. Once again, one
field subdues the other.
In March 1861, Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, sent
representatives to Washington, D.C. The representatives proposed to pay for the
Union’s property in the South, including Fort Sumter, and for the Southern part
of the national debt. Just sworn in as president of the United States—or rather,
what was left of it—Abraham Lincoln refused to meet with the Confederate
representatives. Napoleon III of France stepped in, offering to mediate a peace
treaty between the North and the South. Again, Lincoln turned a deaf ear.
Lincoln’s Unionism and anti-slavery stance incited the “siege mentality” of the
South. Not surprisingly, the South felt provoked into firing the first shot at Fort
Sumter. Lincoln ordered Federal reinforcements. As the casualties mounted in
1862 and 1863, Lincoln strengthened his resolve to win the (Un)Civil War. His
mind was so dead-set on preserving the Union—and soon, abolishing chattel
slavery in the seceded states—that he preferred some 620,000 deaths. This is
about the population of the State of Alaska. And it didn’t end there. Lincoln
preferred tens of thousands more maimed and a bill of $6.2 billion—not adjusted
for inflation—instead of a peace treaty. For the record, one American dollar
today was worth 30 American dollars in 1860.437 In 1861, 1862, and again, in
1863, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. This resulted in the military—not
civilian—arrests of over 13,000 peace advocates (called copperheads by their
enemies). Then, Lincoln ordered that all Northern newspapers that questioned
437
Refer to James Shenton in the cassette titled, The History of the United States, Part V: The Making of
Modern America, “The Compromise of 1877,” Lecture 41.
the war effort be shut down. From a human perspective, all of this makes
Abraham Lincoln the worst president in American history and one of the most
fatal leaders in world history. Lincoln acted toward the South the way King
George III of England acted toward the rebellious 13 colonies. Neither man
would let the rebels go. The Union talked about liberty, yet did not give the
Confederacy the freedom to secede. Union soldiers blew up Confederate camps,
twisted railroad tracks across the Confederacy, and burned buildings to impose
its way of life on the South. And the South retaliated with cannons and machine
gun fire.
Most historians of antebellum America contend that the “Civil” War freed
Southern slaves. This argument misses that, throughout the 19th century, chattel
slavery was on its way out in the New World. Great Britain, for example, had
abolished chattel slavery in the 1830s—although not wage slavery—and Spanish
America had been abolishing chattel slavery from 1813 to 1873. Brazil abolished
plantation slavery in 1888. This trend of peaceful abolition was bound to catch
up with the American South, sooner or later. What, we must ask, would have
transpired had Abraham Lincoln let the Confederacy leave in peace? Two
socioeconomic systems would have co-existed—Southern slavery downriver
from the “free labor” of the North. Instead, one system (Northern serfdom)
overpowered the other system (Southern slavery) through a mini-First World
War. After the War for Southern Independence, Southern “whites” terrorized
“Negroes” in misplaced revenge for having being forced to give up that peculiar
institution.
But de facto (in fact) slavery didn’t end—just de jure (by law) slavery. De
facto slavery was sharecropping, an economic system that arose in the South
after the (Un)Civil War. Sharecropping forced “freedmen” to grow crops like
cotton for planters. In the South, this was the only way that the freedmen could
pay off their mounting debts. Former slaves, after all, had no money because the
promise of “40 acres and a mule” never came to fruition. Sharecropping tied
former slaves to the same plantations. Former masters owned everything—from
salt and pepper at the plantation store to fertilizer, plows, and horses.438 This
form of peonage continued in the South until the 1950s. In this sense, Abraham
Lincoln did not free the slaves. What truly broke the back of the plantation
(company town) was automation in farming. Oil and technology—not the
(Un)Civil War—freed blacks from toiling the earth. And even the (Un)Civil War
was but a conflict between elites—the slaveholding elite of the South and the
non-slaveholding coterie of the North. More than two-thirds of Southern
“whites,” the yeoman farmers, never owned slaves. These so-called rednecks
lived in the Appalachian Mountains, a geographical area that was unsuited for
plantation agriculture. The popular press, of course, manipulated the lower
classes into fighting a war that was really between elites.
Whenever two or more systems exist side by side, the trend is toward
union. The tragedy and irony is that union—a higher force—dilutes one or more
of the composite parts. The American “Civil” War is one example of this process
of unification-dilution.
From a divine perspective, Abraham Lincoln may well be the most
successful American president. His success was not so much that he abolished
chattel slavery in America, for sharecropping replaced plantation slavery until
sharecropping dissolved in the 1950s. Also, neither the 14th Amendment
(establishing citizenship for blacks) nor the 15th Amendment (establishing the
vote for blacks) was enforced until the mid-1960s. Not until the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 was racial segregation banned in public areas, and not until the Voting
Rights Act of 1965 were African Americans enfranchised. Rather, Lincoln’s
438
Ibid.
success was that he kept the Union together. Had the South seceded
successfully, a weaker America would not have become a global superpower.
Without being a superpower, the United States would still be a republic.
America the Beautiful would not be declining now because she would not have
been so high up to begin with. From a cosmic perspective, the United States
needed to become a global superpower. Don’t ask me why. That goes beyond
human understanding. Becoming a global empire was the destiny of America,
however, even if this meant the imposing of one system (Northern serfdom) on
another system (Southern slavery). In forcing the Union back together, Abraham
Lincoln fulfilled a divine calling.
Competing systems—and their peoples—are either wiped out or driven
under. Mentioned earlier, Christianity drove paganism underground. Speaking
about unassimilated people in recent history, Richard Goldstein, editor of The
Village Voice, told a C-SPAN audience:
Every group … that enters liberal society faces this … process [of
assimilation]. In the 19th century, when Jews were first admitted
into liberal society in Europe, they were … expected to look exactly like
Christians, act exactly like Christians, drop all of their distinctive manners,
and drop their language.439
Goldstein went on:
And that … is a real trap at the end of that process because it’s not real
acceptance. It’s assimilation … Real acceptance is a dialogue between
both parties that results in a third way of being in which both parties
439
Part of a discussion panel, Richard Goldstein spoke on C-SPAN on April 25, 2003. The program was
titled, 1993 Gay Rights March.
interact and influence each other [emphases mine]. When you

don’t have that, you have assimilation itself instead … you can end up
with what Jews ended up with in Europe.440
Goldstein concluded, “Don’t mistake assimilation for liberation. They’re not the
same thing at all.”441
Our internalizing of postmodern society’s—generally either/or—values
runs so deep that we think we are thinking and acting naturally when
assimilation is what has occurred. This happens with regard to one’s native
language (e.g., Americans being monolingual, not multilingual, as Europeans
are), with regard to musical tastes (e.g., Westerners listening to Western music),
with regard to economic ideologies (e.g., most Americans seeing capitalism-
turned-corporatism as unproblematic), with regard to sexual, romantic, and
platonic orientation (e.g., Westerners believing that 95 percent of humanity is,
and has always been, straight), and with regard to other aspects of our
humanness.
Most likely, the dualism of the human brain—such as its two hemispheres
—reinforces the human impulse to drive out competing social systems, instead of
letting competing things coexist in a both/and reality. Conversely, a trans-
instinctual milieu permits diversity of its adaptive human traits, however varied
they may be.
The next chapter analyzes ritual, a traditional human impulse, and
routine, a postmodern human tendency. The chapter outlines what failing to
break out of our destructive routines means for the future of this planet.
440
Ibid.
441
Ibid.
Exercises
1) Looking upon your childhood, do you recall the process of being

assimilated into your culture? If yes, what areas were you being
assimilated in? Was black-or-white thinking and beingness taught to you,
or were you taught to think and be in shades of gray? Elaborate on paper or
speak into a tape recorder.
2) Has someone you known ever participated in a social movement called

“radical” or “extremist”? If yes, write about this movement or speak into a
tape recorder. What was his or her rationale for being in the movement?
3) Have you ever participated in a social movement called “radical” or

“extremist”? If yes, write about this movement or speak into a tape
recorder. What was your rationale for being in the movement? Has your
view changed? If yes, how? What have your feelings—not thoughts—been
about your being part of this social movement?
15
Ritual & Routine
So-called primitive peoples have valued ritual. But us postmoderns are

relying more on routine. Instincts like territoriality, social hierarchy, and
aggression have shaped much of our personal and global routine.
What are routine and ritual? How do they differ from each other? How
can we overcome the maladaptive aspects of human routine in particular? In
addressing such questions, this chapter will focus on human routine because in
the postmodern world, routine has largely displaced ritual.
One vs. The Other
Routine (a habitual repetition of an activity) can arise from conscious

planning. For example, program managers schedule the repetition of certain
songs on the radio. But more often than not, human routine arises unconsciously
and thus, tends to be informal. Even when going to work is planned each
morning, it becomes automatic, less significant, and less analyzed than activities
done for the first time—or once a year. Repeated enough, anything becomes
routine.
Ritual, on the contrary, is a formalized version of routine. When priests
burn incense at mass, that is ritual. When Native Americans dance
ceremoniously, that is ritual. When we light candles at someone’s funeral, that is
ritual.
Ritual and routine are preferred modes of human behavior. Perhaps, the
human brain selected for these adaptations to bring us stability in an unstable
environment. In a primordial earth with ice ages coming and going, the hunt
good one year and dismal the next, and trees abundant in some areas and scant
in others, routine and ritual brought continuity and meaning to human life.
Ritual, though, is more a conscious activity engaged in for a clear purpose.
Obversely, routine is more an unconscious behavior. If either ritualistic or
routine behavior is adaptive to human survival, dandy. If the behavior is
maladaptive, then ritual and routine can prove disastrous. An example of a
maladaptive primitive ritual—and a maladaptive postmodern routine—is
circumcision. Female circumcision is performed in many non-Western countries,
often as an act of initiation, while male circumcision is performed as a medical—
actually, anti-medical—routine in the United States. Circumcision, however, is a
form of mutilation, for mutilation is, by definition, the removal or alteration of

body tissue. Whether done on a male or female, as part of ritual or as part of
“medical” routine, circumcision is not only anti-hygienic. It is a violation of a
fundamental human right, the right of an individual to have full—not partial or
nonexistent—sexual pleasure.
How is the routine of the postmodern world operating?
Hellish Cycles
Routine is what Phil Connors (Bill Murray) goes through in the movie
Groundhog Day (1993). At 6 a.m. each day, “I Got You Babe” starts to play on
his alarm clock.442 The meteorologist rolls out of bed, pads to the bathroom,
splashes water on his face, and stumbles toward the snow-plastered window of
the bed-and-breakfast where he is staying. In his 50s, Connors is a bored, tired,
cynical man with a short fuse. Rita (Andie MacDowell) is his news producer,
and she calls his egocentrism his “defining characteristic.” The film suggests that
Connors’s negativity is what produces the time-warp of a “cold … gray” day in
Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania that, in Connors’s words, will last “for the rest of
your life.” February 2 (Groundhog Day) is that day. Already experiencing a
midlife crisis, Connors cannot stand to wake up on Groundhog Day every day.
At first, Connors ignores the bum that he passes on the street corner. He listens
exhaustedly to an old high school nerd who wants to sell him life insurance
further down the sidewalk. One day, Connors drives a gas-guzzler onto a train
track with two drunks on board. Another day, he drives off a cliff. On different
442
Sonny and Cher, “I Got You Babe.” This song is in the CD titled, The Beat Goes On: The Best of Sonny
and Cher. “I Got You Babe” debuted in 1965. The CD came out on November 5, 1991. Label: Elektra /
Wea.
days, Connors drops a plugged toaster into a bathtub (with him in the tub), steps
in front of a moving truck, and jumps out of a window. Yet another day, he
splurges on pancakes, coffee, and sweets. Connors tries to bed Rita, but she slaps
him each day. Trying to change the routine of things, Connors goes different
places and does different things. He remains, however, selfish at heart. At last,
Connors gives up on his old self. He gives money to the bum on the sidewalk,
brings coffee and pastry to his producer and cameraman, begins to take piano
lessons, treats the homeless man to warm soup at a restaurant, catches a boy who
tumbles from a tree, jacks up a car for three women who have a flat tire—telling
them to “just be comfortable” in the vehicle—performs the Heimlich maneuver
on a choking man at a restaurant, and lights a woman’s cigarette a table away.
With Connors’s negative routine changed into positive thoughts and behavior,
the time warp ends. Groundhog Day no longer repeats itself.
Similar to Connors, Byron Katie, a real estate agent, was an angry, cynical
woman. In Loving What Is, Katie describes the depth of her negativity. Lacking
enough energy to go to work, she had to do business deals from bed. Katie’s
children feared her like mice fear cats. One day in 1986, Katie found herself a
changed woman. Nothing bothered her anymore. Katie’s children continued to
leave their dirty socks on their bedroom floor. Katie, however, was no longer
irked at their disobedience of her past orders to pick up their socks. To her
astonishment, Katie found herself starting to enjoy picking up the socks. With
Katie’s old self gone, a new routine materialized in her home. Katie’s children
started to talk to her. They asked her for advice. Katie began to help people with
“the work,” a technique that she invented. Like Connors, Katie took her anger,
cynicism, and selfishness to the extreme, learned that it still made her miserable,
and changed her routine of thought and action.443 As essayist Marcel Proust said,
“We are healed from suffering only by experiencing it to the full.”444
The world has yet to discover what Connors and Katie learned. Just like
“I Got You Babe” replayed each morning on Connors’s alarm clock, “Give Me
One Reason” keeps replaying on my local radio station.445 Although I don’t
particularly like that song, my ears have been assaulted by it at least three times
this week. Every time this song comes on the radio, I turn down the volume
until a different tune comes on. But out of 10,000 hits over the past 40 years, the
same 30 to 50 songs keep replaying over and over. Why? Because radio
producers order this form of brainwashing. They deliberately want the public to
turn away from conventional radio so that satellite radio, based on subscription,
can take off. This is the routine that corporatism has spawned on American
radio. The result has been that, in recent years, radio has lost 35 percent of its
listenership.446 Globalization has its own routines, based on maximizing profit
and minimizing people. Until the consciousness of this globe changes, old
routines will continue ad infinitum—social, cultural, economic, and political.
Routine—and even ritual—can lead to rigidness. This can prove
disastrous because it prevents our adapting to changing times. In the 1600s, for
example, astronomer Galileo Galilei supported the Copernican theory of the
planets revolving around the sun. Because this contradicted the Ptolemaic view
of an earth-centered universe, the Catholic Church threatened Galileo with
excommunication. Galileo died in 1642. Not until 1992 did the pope pardon
Galileo.447
443
See Katie, Loving What Is.
444
See “Quote DB” quotations at http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/3993.
445
Tracy Chapman, “Give Me One Reason.” This song is in the CD titled, New Beginning. The CD came
out on November 14, 1995. Label: Elektra/Wea.
446
A radio insider emailed me this statistic around May 2004.
447
See Duane K. Troxel’s “Intelligent Life in the Universe and Exotheology in Christianity and the Baha’i
Writings,” found at http://bahai-library.org/unpubl.articles/extraterrestrials.html.
Just as the Catholic Church controlled peasants in Middle Age Europe,

corporations have increasingly controlled nation-states since the late 19th century.
As late as the 21st century, however, corporate representatives don’t sign
agreements at international conferences on climate change. With corporations
being more powerful than nation-states, politicians continue to be the
forerunners at conferences like Kyoto. Given that CEOs are the true movers and
shakers of the world, not to put them at the frontlines of global negotiations
assumes that we are still living in a pre-corporate epoch.
Regarding the anti-abortion movement in the (Dis)United States, Helen
Caldicott, the physician, writes in If You Love This Planet:
Thirty million species are endangered by our relentless procreation, yet

we still argue about abortion as if we lived two centuries ago, when the
human population stood at one billion.448
Today, the world is racing toward 10 billion people.

At the same time, Western countries like Russia are having more abortions
than births. Since Roe v. Wade (1973), 40 million fetuses have been aborted in
the (Dis)United States.449 With Caucasians crashing demographically around the
world, this is racial suicide. Abortion has gone from being an option of last
resort—due to the failure of birth control—to being a routine procedure.
Westerners have seesawed from abortion being illegal to abortion being
promoted ferociously. The routine of old mindsets—such as going from one
extreme to the other—has inhibited the revolutionary changes that are needed if
we are to survive beyond the opening decades of the 21st century.
448
Caldicott, If You Love This Planet, p. 118.
449
Buchanan, The Death of the West, p. 97.
About a week ago, I read that the past 25 years have been the warmest on
earth since the year 1600. Alpine glaciers are forecast to disappear 100 percent by
the year 2100. Already, they have lost 35 percent of their ice pack.450 Still, I see
people driving gas-guzzlers. Ours is a society of inertia. Inertia is the tendency
of something to remain still or in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.
Since the 1980s, the routine has been for scientists to write or say that global
warming is a reality. People must recycle, one hears, and we must switch to
alternative fuels. Like a mantra, this has been the message that scientists have
sent us. But recycling requires massive amounts of energy, and fossil fuels
supply much of this energy. That humanity needs to scale down—population-
wise for the Third World and consumption-wise for the First World—is almost
never proposed. No real solutions are presented; corporations are never held
accountable; and neither is the Western way of life. So-called environmental
programs seem more designed to kill hope than to give constructive solutions
(see epilogue for needed solutions).
I no longer watch “environmental” programs because a deluge of global
problems is presented, and the average person is left feeling powerless to change
the planet. How, for example, can a lone person—or even groups of organized
people—change the fact that China, a country of 1.3 billion people, is trading its
bicycles for automobiles? How can the average Joe alter the fact that seeds are
being genetically engineered—something that is threatening the world’s natural
seed stock? How can a single person stop the desecration of planet Earth? The
routine is for scientists and government officials to bombard us with facts about
the state of the earth. At the end of the program, article, or press conference, a
couple of solutions—always do-it-yourself and never come-together-as-a-
community—are bandied out.
450
This is according to The Weather Channel. The segment, titled Forecast Earth, aired on Wednesday, July
26, 2006.
CEOs, lobbyists, and politicians remain off the spotlight, however. Cars
aren’t being taxed yearly, based on our incomes, to lure us toward public
transportation and to help pay for it. Trains have been allowed to atrophy in the
United States. Houses keep getting built 20, 30, and 40 miles from American
cities, on productive farmland, and freeways keep expanding. Even when
hybrid cars are proposed, the solution is a mere refurbishing of the old system.
The fact that most car pollution comes from the process of building a vehicle is
never mentioned—let alone, the implications of this for “green” cars. That
constructing a single car uses, on average, 120,000 gallons of fresh water is not
considered.451 Damns (notice the irony of the word) keep getting raised so that
more water can be diverted from agriculture to houses. This problem is
especially severe in the American Southwest. No one proposes the simpler
solution of legally requiring homeowners and landlords to lock the oval-shaped
knobs under sinks in a half-closed position. Imagine the millions of gallons of
water that could be saved this way. In northern states and countries, one must
let faucets drip to avoid the freezing of pipes in the winter. Why not legally
require homeowners and landlords to have a drip receptacle by each sink so that
collected water could be used?
One of the most important causes of global warming is the concretization
of the planet. As we all know, concrete, asphalt, and tarmac hold in far more
heat than cotton plantations and dirt roads did in the 19th century. This may
explain why, lacking electric fans and air conditioning, Southerners were able to
tolerate the heat of 19th century summers in the American South.
Making things from scratch has become cheaper and more efficient than
fixing existing things. Consequently, very few mechanics are willing to retrofit
used cars with new engines. This forces one to dispose a 12-year-old vehicle for
451
This statistic can be found at the website Life After the Oil Crash. The URL of the statistic is
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html.
a newer one—as I had to do—rather than continue with one’s car for another 10
to 15 years. In this case, more efficiency means more waste. On a similar vein,
VCRs over seven years old can seldom be repaired because, favoring newer
models, manufacturers stop making older VCR parts. For all the laws in the law
books, there isn’t a single one that requires manufacturers to continue to make
parts for models of older VCRs, TVs, and stereos. The so-called environmental
movement hasn’t even raised the issue. But the dumping of used VCRs—instead
of getting them repaired for another 10 to 12 years of use—is the dumping of
lead, something that VCRs have in lethal amounts. Not a single “environmental”
program has addressed this. Neither has the major news media reported that
alternative fuels will never be able to replace the versatility of oil in the making
of plastics, computer chips, and fertilizers—let alone, the ramifications of this for
a world in desperate need to relocalize and scale down. Unmentioned is the fact
that planet Earth cannot support 6.7 billion people—regardless of whether or not
they adopt Western lifestyles. The message, repeated like a broken record by
“environmental” programs, is this:
Global warming is accelerating. There is nothing you can do to stop this

because it is too late.
Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on your view—this is all too accurate.

It must be our resistance to the above message that makes the heavens repeat it
to us over and over. For only when we awaken—truly awaken—to what is
coming climate-wise can we begin to make the changes that need to be done now
(see epilogue).
L. Hunter Lovins is the founder and president of Natural Capitalism
Solutions. On November 2006, Lovins spoke at the University of Washington.
The focus of her lecture was the need for corporations to do business based on a
model of energy efficiency and resource sustainability. If companies continue to
ignore resource depletion and environmental damage, Lovins said, they will
threaten the very profits upon which corporations depend. She continued:
Go back and look at corporate charters. Companies were chartered

because they were going to deliver a public service. Go back and read
Adam Smith. Adam Smith’s next book was on moral philosophy, because
his whole mental model of how a market would work was within a larger
context of a social contract in which people were moral beings [emphases
mine]. Take that morality away and you have an institution [the
corporation] that lives forever with no ethics. That’s arguably the
definition of a psychopath.452
Business as usual will prove disastrous within the next few years. I see as no
accident that the Mayan calendar places December 21, 2012 as the end of an old
astronomical cycle. This date, it seems, is the true dawn of the Age of Aquarius.
Living in postmodern times is like playing in the World Series at the
bottom of the 9th inning. The score is 20 to 7. Our global predicament is the
opposing team. Most of our teammates aren’t even trying to win for our league,
called humanity. In such a situation, it takes utmost optimism—which requires
tremendous spiritual evolution—to keep fighting to get our team on top of the
game. This is especially hard when so many of us—myself included—are
dejected about losing. In each movie, the good guys lose throughout most of the
film. But in the end, the protagonists are victorious over the forces of darkness.
Will this, however, occur in “the real world?”
452
L. Hunter Lovins’s lecture was titled, The Business Case for Sustainability. It was recorded on
November 8, 2006 and aired on University of Washington Television (UWTV) on July 7, 2007.
Near the climax of the film The Neverending Story (West German-British;
1984), a conversation takes place between Atreyu, an adolescent warrior chosen
to save a place called Fantasia, and G’mork, a black wolf who describes himself
as “the servant of the power behind the Nothing.” Atreyu (Noah Hathaway)
stumbles upon the beast (Alan Oppenheimer) in a primordial cave that has lit
paintings around. The scene unfolds as follows:
Atreyu: But why is Fantasia dying then?
G’mork: Because people have begun to lose their hopes and forget their
dreams. So the Nothing grows stronger.
Atreyu: What is the Nothing?
G’mork: It’s the emptiness that’s left. It is like a despair destroying this
world. And I have been trying to help it.
Atreyu: But why?
G’mork: Because people who have no hopes are easy to control, and
whoever has the control has the power [emphasis mine].
Those who fund “environmental” programs are some of the entities to which
G’mork is referring.
Why doesn’t postmodern civilization start the revolution that is needed to
stave off global collapse? Because like the ancient Romans, we Westerners are
set in our ways—Americans, in particular. When the United States could be
leading the world toward a post-fossil fuel era, it is instead leading the world
toward a new coal and nuclear age. Oil will be needed, however, to build
alternative energies, and it will get increasingly expensive to extract oil from the
ground. This will make alternative energies—the oil-synthesized solar panels,
the oil-made nuclear plants, and the oil-based “green” machinery required to
mine and transport coal—harder to fund the longer we wait. The simpler
solution of scaling down the human population and human activities is seldom
proposed. The reason there is such fascination with vampires and dinosaurs is
because, like them, we take energy. We take energy—in the form of resources—
from the organism called planet Earth. In return, we give very little back. Like
the victim of a vampire or of a dinosaur, earth is helplessly submitting. But just
as people pray for the healing of illness in an individual, people can also pray—
ideally at the same time every day—for the healing of planet Earth and for the
healing of the energy vampire called humanity.
Routine is a human instinct. It leads the zombified rabble to go about its
ways, locked in a system that, at most, permits tampering at the edges. Not until
things go seriously south do individuals and civilizations break from destructive
routines. As the axiom goes, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”453 By then,
however, it is often too late. If so much weren’t at stake, then perhaps waiting
until forced to change wouldn’t be so tragic. But our environmental dilemmas—
melting ice caps, genetic engineering and patenting of life, our exploding human
population, the genetic dissolving of the human races, eroding topsoils, ozone
depletion, and so on—are grave enough to be called a nuclear war in slow
motion. The converging catastrophes of the 21st century—environmental, social,
economic, and political—“will make the Great Depression look like a dress
453
Plato originally said this. The quote is at “BrainyQuote,” BrainyMedia. The URL of the quote is
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/plato163267.html.
rehearsal.”454 At the other end of the darkness, those of us who are still alive will
hopefully be trans-instinctual enough to rise above routine when given human
behaviors are found to be maladaptive.
Our Failure to Break Out of Routine
For what it’s worth, ideas only impact those of us who are ready for them.
Drama, on the other hand, gets the attention of everyone. The more immediate
the drama, the more powerful the impact. In the movie The Day the Earth Stood
Still (1951), for example, Professor Jacob Barnhardt (Sam Jaffe) suggests that
Klaatu (Michael Rennie) demonstrate his powers so that world leaders will listen
to the spaceman’s proposal for global demilitarization. Throughout the film,
government and science leaders refuse to meet with the alien. Exasperated,
Klaatu tells Barnhardt:
Must I take drastic action in order to get a hearing? … Violent action, since
that seems to be the only thing your people understand. Leveling New
York City perhaps, or sinking the Rock of Gibraltar.
454
The source of this quote is unclear, for it appears in several peak oil websites.
Through Gort—the silver robot that stays in Klaatu’s flying saucer—Klaatu

neutralizes the world’s electricity for 30 minutes, excluding hospitals and planes
in flight.
The Story of Noah’s Ark repeats the leitmotif of voice in the wilderness.
In the Bible, Noah warns others that it will soon be raining for 40 days and 40
nights. People laugh at him.455 We all know what happens when it starts raining
and Noah is unable to let the screaming people into his arc.
In an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the white android
Lieutenant-Commander Data (Brent Spiner) is unable to get colonists to listen to
him about their need to evacuate in light of aliens about to invade their planet.
Data tells Ard’rian MacKenzie (Eileen Seeley), “Perhaps, that is a part of our
difficulty. Words are all we have been using. Humans seem to take much
stronger notice of actions [emphasis mine].”456
Data sets up a harmless but shocking demonstration that involves the
stunning of some colonists (putting them to sleep with a phaser), the blowing up
of their central fountain, and a show of lights through their pipelines.
Shocking things impress us more than rational conversation. Yet,
everything begins not as action, but rather, as an idea. This includes huts, towns,
notions of romantic love, the institution of marriage, democracy, capitalism,
skyscrapers, cars, computers, the book you are reading, everything! As the Bible
says, “In the beginning, there was the Word.”457 And as the rock song goes, “We
built this city on rock ‘n roll.”458 Those lyrics convey that rock music inspired the
thoughts that led to building the city sung about in the song. Adaptive ideas like
455
The Story of Noah’s Ark is found in Genesis 6-9. New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures.
456
Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Ensigns of Command.” This episode originally aired in
syndication on September 30, 1989 (Season 3, episode 2).
457
Loosely translated, this quote comes from John 1:1, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures.
458
Jefferson Starship, “We Built This City.” This song is in the CD titled, Starship’s Greatest Hits. “We
Built This City” debuted in 1985. The CD came out on May 28, 1991. Label: RCA.
constructing a town lead to human survival. Maladaptive ideas like bombing it

do not.
Seeing emerged as one of the most adaptive of the bio-logical senses
(logical in a biological way). In the 21st century, however, it is our inability to see
that is threatening us and 90 percent of life on earth with extinction. If we, for
example, actually saw 90 percent of ocean life on the verge of collapse, then
action to prevent this would follow quicker than the falling stack of fish cans.459
For the first time in the history of life on earth, living just by our physical senses
is no longer adaptive. Neither is living by the limiting parts of our biological
instincts—such as responding only to clear and immediate dangers. If we are to
kick out of our destructive routines, then we will have to start living not just by
the senseable, but also, by the unsenseable … and not just by our surroundings,
but also, by long-term trends to which our human instincts aren’t programmed
to react. This will go a long way toward ending business as usual.
Snapping Out of Our Zombieness
In Revenge of the Stepford Wives (TV; 1980), Kay Foster (Sharon Gless)
withholds a zombifying drug from Megan Brady (Julie Kavner). Within a day or
two, Megan snaps out of her zombielike stupor and becomes human again. The
survival program of the human body, facets of our personalities, peer pressure,
and religio-cultural conditioning steer us toward a zombielike existence. As
Megan tells Kay in a fleeing sedan of green-gray:
459
See Heinberg, Powerdown, p. 6.
That siren, I remember hearing it, over and over and over again, until I
couldn’t think of anything. I know I was trying to concentrate on
something else, but that siren just kept getting me confused. I couldn’t
keep fighting back.460
Trans-instinctual humans have snapped out of their zombie program—

away from the pressure to “work for a living,” away from limited sexual and
romantic scripts (e.g., “Mr. and Mrs. Right together for all eternity”), away from
the negativity that permeates many a social conversation (e.g., “My ulcers hurt,
and I’m gonna need to see a doctor”), away from blind consumption of the
“mainstream” media (which, in the words of reporter Amy Goodman, is really
an “extreme, corporate media”), away from caving in to peer pressure (e.g., high
school students doing something because “it is popular”), and away from filling
their schedules to the hilt because “that is how successful people operate.”
Sensory humans follow the crowd and never enjoy life truly. They are too busy.
Too dazed. Too automatic. Obversely, trans-instinctual humans steer away
from the crowd when it is dysfunctional.
The epilogue of this book examines peak oil (the point at which oil
production reaches its maximum). What transpires after this halfway point will
be the biggest challenge that we humans will ever face. The epilogue concludes
with trans-sensory and trans-instinctual choices that we can make during our
transition to a post-carbon planet.
460
This movie premiered on NBC on October 12, 1980.
Exercises
1) What rituals, if any, do you participate in? Why? Are they individual,
collective, or both? What are the pros—and, if any, cons—of each ritual?
2) Do you feel that you and/or your family could incorporate some rituals?
If yes, which ones? What might be the benefits?
3) If you have adolescents, have you provided them with rites of passage?
If yes, what, if any, have been the benefits to them and others? If no, what
rites of initiation might you introduce to your adolescents? What might be
the benefits to them and others?
4) What routines, if any, do you follow? How long has each routine been
going on? When did you become aware of the action or thought as a
routine? Is the routine helping you? Hurting you? Neither?
Epilogue:
The Destruction of the Buffalo, the End of Cheap Oil, and

Apocalypse
This last chapter examines the most critical issue that humanity will ever
face. As such, trans-sensory perception and trans-instinctual beingness are—and
will continue to be in the coming decades—more consequential than ever. This

epilogue brings a global context to the Human Potential movement, something
that most books on self-development haven’t done.
This chapter addresses:
1) Humanity’s transition to a world of post this and post that

2) Human nature
3) Whether we can meet what will become the biggest challenges of the
21st century
4) What we can do as individuals and as groups of organized people
Transition to a Post-Carbon World
In the mid-1990s, Marianne Williamson, the metaphysical lecturer, told an

audience:
The world ten years from now will not look like it looks today. Whether
it’s earth changes, whether it is merely governmental changes, whatever it
is, there is a world which can no longer stand.461
Christians have their version of the end times, recorded in The Book of
Revelation. Native Americans share similar prophesies, events that some of their
shamans foretold centuries ago. For example, elders of the Hopi Indian tribe of
Arizona prophesized the arrival of “the ‘black ribbon’ that would be built across
this land and that they would travel across these black ribbons.”462 Asphalt
roads? Hopi elders also said that “there would be a cobweb built around the
461
Refer to the two-cassette series titled, The Sacred Self Workshop.
earth and people would talk across this cobweb.”463 The Internet? But how,
many of us may wonder, does all of this relate to the crumbling of the old
paradigm and to the birth of the new paradigm? How does it relate to Christ’s
return, whether the traditional Christ that Christianity preaches or the Collective
Christ Consciousness that New Agers discuss? How exactly will the old
paradigm crumble and the new paradigm (the thousand years of peace) come
about?
For all the diseases, massacres, and pestilence that Europeans brought to
the Americas, nothing destroyed Native Americans more quickly and more
profoundly than the destruction of the buffalo. Long before Europeans arrived
in “the New World,” the buffalo proved indispensable for American Indians.
The buffalo was hunted for food. Its skin was used to make clothes, tepee covers,
and moccasins. The buffalo’s bones were used to make pots and pans, jewelry,
and hunting weapons. European settlers were mindless, however, to the
sacredness and importance of the buffalo to Native Americans. Consequently,
“white” settlers slaughtered tens of millions of buffalo throughout the 19th
century. By the dawn of the 20th century, the buffalo no longer stood in the way
of the transcontinental railroads, the advancing settlers, and the growing towns
and cities of America.
Postmodern civilization—much of which began in Europe—now needs
“primitive” values, knowledge, and ways of living. In an age when oil has
become the lifeblood of the postmodern world, the West can’t afford to have
even a 2 percent drop per year in global oil extraction. This is because oil fuels
not just cars, trucks, and airplanes. Some 500,000 consumer goods cannot be
made without oil-based synthesizers. Modern agriculture cannot exist, in turn,
462
Matthew Mooncloud, “Native American Prophecies,” p. 3. Pamphlet compiled by Steve Morrison and
Four Worlds.
463
Ibid., p. 4.
without the oil-derived pesticides and fertilizers that allow the earth to feed 6.7
billion people. Furthermore, the food industry cannot exist without the oil-
fueled tractors that allow one farmer to do the work of 500 people in a fraction of
the time. Agribusiness cannot survive without the fleets of 18-wheelers that
transport the average meal 1,500 miles to our plates. The health care and
pharmaceutical industries would lose big time without the oil-based medicines
that heap them profits. The discovery of oil is the chief reason why humans have
expanded from under a billion people in the 19th century to 6.7 billion people in
2009. This is because the huge quantities of food, medicine, and technology
available today derive, by and large, from the discovery of oil in 1859 and from
its subsequent exploitation.
Like Native Americans depended on the buffalo for their survival, we
postmoderns depend on oil for our continued existence. But unlike the buffalo,
oil is nonrenewable. The more efficient the oil rigs, the faster the oil goes. This
planet is somewhere around the halfway point of oil depletion. On the upward
slope, oil gushes from the ground, gasoline is cheaper than milk, and consumer
items are priced reasonably. But after the halfway point, geologist Marion K.
Hubbert proposed in 1956, oil becomes more difficult to extract. This is the
downward slope that “peak oil” scientists have been warning businesspeople,
politicians, and the public about. Just as more oil (black gold) becomes available
on the upward slope of oil extraction, less oil becomes available on the
downward slope.464 See the graph below:
464
In 1956, geologist Marion King Hubbert predicted that American oil production would peak around
1970. Indeed, the United States peaked in domestic oil production in 1971. Given the soundness of
Hubbert’s methodology, the Hubbert Peak has been used not only to forecast oil production, but also to
predict peak coal, peak natural gas, and peak grains.
465
Even a 2 percent drop in annual oil extraction can mean a gradual but permanent
rise in prices. Since black gold is used in practically everything, this means the
end of cheap food, cheap gas, cheap soap, cheap plastic, cheap computers, cheap
DVDs, cheap clothes, cheap cars, and so on. If things get too expensive, then
businesses will sell less. If businesses sell less, then businesses will lay off
workers to make up for the profit shortfall. The more workers are laid off, the
less consumer demand there will be. Peak oil will start this downward spiral.
This will mean the beginning of permanent layoffs, the end of full employment
as we know it, and the end of globalization. In brief, the end of the Age of Cheap
Oil (1859-2010?) means not just the end of the abundant energy that we have but
also, the end of the abundant materials that companies use to make products.
Worse, no other element—natural or artificial—comes close to oil in its versatility
as a material and in its energy per unit. Put another way, one gallon of gasoline
has the equivalent energy of 500 hours of human labor.466 In this sense, the
465
This graph comes from google images. The URL of the graph is
http://homepages.ius.edu/kforinas/E/HubbertCurve_html_m75091b6b.png.
466
See Life After the Oil Crash at http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html.
average Westerner has the energy equivalent of between 75 and 300 slaves doing
his or her work everyday. And even 300 slaves would not be enough to haul
SUV occupants to work at 60 miles an hour.467 Spelled backwards, oil is lio. In
Spanish, lio means “trouble.”
In the late 1800s, the West began an orderly transition from coal to
petroleum. Our transition to a post-carbon world won’t be as smooth because no
abundant energies are left to switch to. Alternative energies will, at most, replace
a fraction of the energy that oil provides. In the 1970s, the West had a golden
opportunity to start a long scaling down of energy use. It would have been a
tidy shift to renewable energy. Europe took some bold initiatives in that
direction. The United States took smaller steps. For example, President Jimmy
Carter installed solar panels in the White House in 1979. By 1985, American cars
had become fuel-efficient relative to the gas-guzzlers of the 1970s.
With the end of the Middle East oil embargoes of the 1970s, however,
cheap petroleum returned. The year 1985 was a turning point in this respect. By
the 1990s, SUVs had replaced the mobile gymnasiums of the 1970s; suburbs had
expanded into exurbs; and fast-food joints had spread like cancer. Also,
shipping and air transportation had tripled as corporations transplanted the
world’s labor and manufacturing base from West to East. More oil was used to
transport finished goods from Asian factories to the West’s shrinking middle
class, and more of the earth’s resources were used to produce junk for a
consumer class.
The United States imports 60 percent of the oil that it uses. A major
reason for this—besides its refusing to scale down—is because America peaked
in its domestic extraction of oil in 1971. Global peak of oil extraction is what is
467
The 75-slave statistic comes from The Sustainable Scale Project, “Quick Facts: Energy.” The URL is
http://www.sustainablescale.org/AreasofConcern/Energy/EnergyandScale/QuickFacts.aspx. The 300-slave
statistic comes from Life After the Oil Crash at http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html.
occurring now. Domestically on the downward slope of oil extraction, America

is expected to import more than 60 percent of its oil in the coming years. Even
worse, the Middle East is scheduled to peak in its domestic extraction of oil
sometime between 2005 and 2015. Once this happens, a plateau of oil production
may hold for a few years. But after the plateau comes the drop. Then, the cost of
living will start its slow but permanent rise in the oil-dependent areas of the
globe. This may be already occurring, in fact. The price of regular gasoline in
my town is now $3.44 a gallon, for example, and food prices are up. This
suggests that peal oil may already be here. The American presence in Iraq may
well have something to do with securing control of the planet’s largest oil
reserves—reported to be in Iraq—after the peak in global oil extraction. As for
the rest of the world, it won’t be able to adopt the American way of life. This is
because, as a scientist said, if humanity were to do so, seven planet earths would
be needed to feed that lifestyle.468
In 2009, the postmodern world stands at the brink of the global collapse
that prophets have been speaking about for millennia. Unlike 10 years ago, the
causes, nature, and effects of this collapse are becoming crystal clear. Whether
we are Christians, New Agers, or agnostics, we are increasingly recognizing that
this is the end of a long epoch. In light of America’s cumulative debt of $36
trillion (before the bailout); of Baby Boomers being near retirement; of the effect
that their reduced income will have on the American—and hence, global—
economy; of climate change; and of corporate control of the globe’s food, media,
and means of production, peak oil will be the straw that breaks the camel’s
back.469 For the first time, the world is in a situation it never has been in since the
468
The scientist’s comment comes from a C-SPAN broadcast of the 2006 OPEC Summit in Caracas,
Venezuela. The scientist’s name was not mentioned.
469
The $36 trillion statistic comes from Bonner and Wiggin, Empire of Debt, p. 17.
dawn of anatomically modern humans. This is the Coming Darkness that

Christians, New Agers, and others have been talking about for a long time.
One human—and ultimately, spiritual—reason why the Third World is
coming to the First World is global warming. As earth heats up like an oven, a
massive die-off of humans will, very likely, occur in most of the planet. As
modern agriculture plummets and transportation stops, the human population
could drop from 7 billion to just under a billion people. More than likely, Africa,
Asia, and much of Latin America will become uninhabitable. Because people of
European stock occupy the cooler parts of the globe, this uni-verse (one verse) is
calling Caucasians to share their house with the rest of the world. The
alternative would be for most of the world’s races and ethnicities to disappear
before they can contribute their diverse genes to the next generation. The
massive immigration of colored people to Caucasian countries is happening not
because people are rationally thinking about any of this. Instead, the flooding of
the First World by “outsiders” is by spiritual design. Until earth cools again,
Europe, North America, southern Australia, and the southern part of South
America will become too crowded for comfort. There, historically
unprecedented racial mixing will be needed to recombine human genes in every
conceivable way. This will help to maximize the chances of human survival.
Racial amalgamation will bring peace from its advocates and violence from those
who resist the process.
One thing is clear. At the other side of the darkness, only people who live
according to enlightened spiritual principles will make it. The rest will perish.
Values that “primitive” peoples have had for millennia are what will ensure the
survival of our species. These values include cooperation, community, organic
farming, locally made foods and items, local distribution of products, less
consumption, a stable population, a steady-state economy, respect for all forms
of life, more time spent with family and friends, and a simpler life. Issues of
human greed, human selfishness, and the relentless pursuit of external power
will be a thing of the past. Species like the buffalo will never again be hunted to
near extinction. Christ Consciousness, Buddha Consciousness, Muhammad
Consciousness, and Spiritual Enlightenment—rather than religiosity or
materialism—will be the prevailing paradigm among the surviving populations.
Spiritual principles will guide daily living. As Marianne Williamson said at
Esalen Institute around 1995, human survivors will be as different from us as
“we are from the cavemen.”470 This is the thousand years of peace that the Bible
prophesizes. This is the New Species of Homo Sapiens that will emerge. For
those of us wanting to survive biologically, there is no other alternative. The
meek indeed shall inherit the earth. But their numbers will be few.
Why Multi-racialism, Bisexuality, and Polyamory?
Meteorologists predict that, over the next century, earth will warm up as
much as 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Africa may see average daily temperatures
of 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Europe may become the next Africa—both
temperature-wise and population-wise—and the United States and Canada the
new Central America. Probably most of the plants and animals that are alive
today will go extinct. Modern agriculture will collapse not just because of the
crash of oil—and honeybees—but also, because crops like rice, beans, corn,
wheat, and barley will burn into space. Cattle, which most of us depend on for
milk and meat, will die because 40 percent of the world’s grain is used to feed
livestock.471 When the grain goes, so will the cattle. Making things worse is that
470
Refer to the two-cassette series titled, The Sacred Self Workshop.
471
This statistic comes from author Michael Pollan. See Bill Moyers Journal. This segment aired on PBS
on November 28, 2008.
of all the varieties of crops that exist, agribusiness plants a smattering of them.
For example, supermarkets sell two varieties of rice—white rice and brown rice
—when as much as 5,000 different varieties of rice exist. When crop failures
come, the two or so varieties of each crop will get wiped out easily and quickly.
Anatomically modern humans will be ill-equipped for a diet that is deficient in
these foods. Anatomically modern humans will also have difficulty breathing
from an atmosphere that has increasing amounts of carbon dioxide.
Since the salad days of the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide has risen
30 percent in the atmosphere. Humans went from burning wood and coal to
burning oil and natural gas. Never in the past 600,000 years has carbon dioxide
increased so much. Not surprisingly, five of the ten warmest years since 1860
have occurred in the past decade.472 Because we are connected with nature, if life
on earth changes dramatically, then human biology must also change radically.
Nature needs new genetic combinations in humans, plants, and lower
animals. This is to ensure that biological life is adapted to a tropical earth. The
genetic blending of the human races is how humanity is evolving. As the
opening of this book says, evolution—whether cosmic, biological, spiritual, or
social—is the reorganization of something. Biological evolution is the reshuffling
of genes. This is why Greeks are being found in Alaska, why Chinese workers
are being brought to Romania, why Nigerians are settling in Iceland, and why
Ethiopians are being shipped to Maine. The goal of nature, the heavens, and the
liberal-conservative establishment—they are all connected in a cosmic sense—is
for these genetically divergent populations to interbreed. Why? From nature’s
point of view, so that their offspring will have new genetic blueprints. Then,
babies will be born who are Greek-Chinese-Romanian-Nigerian. This will
increase the odds of mutations in humans, and some of those mutations may be
472
These statistics come from Peter Larsen, former director of the climate change program with The Nature
Conservancy in Alaska.
adaptive to the effects of global warming. The reorganization of the human

genome, that is the future of human evolution. Interbreeding is not so much
natural selection (the biological environment selecting adaptive traits). That
comes later. Rather, interbreeding is one type of sexual selection (humans
selecting, consciously or not, partners who have the “right” genes to combine
their DNA with). Whereas natural selection takes forever in a world out of time,
sexual selection can yield new breeds of humans in a generation or two. This is
what planet Earth needs now—quick biological adaptations. Convergent
devolution (the unification of biological life) is the fast destruction of “pure”
gene pools, whereas divergent evolution (the speciation of biological life) is the
slow reconstruction of mixed gene pools.473 How does bisexuality, polyamory,
and sperm competition enter into the convergent devolution happening now on
earth?
Under the old paradigm, one woman paired with one man and they had a
child or two. The new paradigm is for two or more men to sleep with the same
woman at the same time. This way, sperm from the two—or more—men can
compete in the vagina (sperm competition). The goal is not just to fertilize the
egg. After all, the sperm of one man can do this. But if sperm from two or more
men compete (blocking and fighting the sperm of other men) in the vagina, then
whichever man impregnates the woman is the biologically most fit. Again,
nature needs genetic recombinations—and fast. Sperm competition is a tool of
nature for promoting the best biological recombinations. In light of global
warming, human DNA is racing against time to adapt. Condoms, a product of
oil, will not be around for long. Therefore, nature will need to adapt
“rubberless” to whatever new strains of microorganisms global warming
produces. STDs will always be a risk. But with human populations becoming
473
See Richard McCulloch, “Racial Nihilism,” The Racial Compact. This online chapter is at
http://www.racialcompact.com/racialnihilism.html.
isolated from one another after the peak in oil production, diseases won’t be able
to travel far and wide. Whatever the risks, sexual reproduction will have to be as
natural as possible—and this includes uncircumcised penises—if it is to be
adaptive to the evolution of the human species.474
Bisexuality encourages sperm to prepare for competition. This
preparation can occur days, weeks, and even months before heterosexual
intercourse. The process is too complex to get into here. But because women
aren’t always predisposed for sex, nature has devised other ways for men to get
rid of aging sperm. Mutual masturbation and oral sex between guys is one
method. This shedding of old sperm makes room for the superior sperm,
increasing the odds of reproductive success. Why not masturbation alone?
Because no other men are present. This inhibits sperm from preparing for sperm
competition. According to one study, just seeing another man being sexual is
enough for the viewing man to produce more sperm for sperm competition.475
Masturbating alone won’t do this—although watching other men in porn can.476
When women aren’t around, men can also practice thrusting into each other.
Thrusting (the displacing of rival sperm in a vagina) is adaptive for sperm
competition. Like exercising muscles at the gym, male homosexuality helps men
to stay sexually fit. This has reproductive value, especially if such men share a
woman with men who are “out of practice.” In other words, heterosexually
active men will have, on average, less sexual intercourse than bisexually active
men. This is because women aren’t always “in the mood”—a downer for
straight men—whereas men tend to be disposed for sex (practicing for
reproduction) at the drop of a hat. Bisexually active men may be at an advantage
474
See Gordon G. Gallup, Jr. and Rebecca L. Burch, “Semen Displacement as a Sperm Competition
Strategy in Humans,” Evolutionary Psychology, 2004, Vol. 2, pgs. 12-23. Article at
http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/ep021223.pdf.
475
See Rachel Nowak, “Rivals Spur Men to Produce Better Sperm,” NewScientist, Life, June 8, 2005.
Article at http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7487.
476
Ibid.
here over heterosexually active men. Whatever method of bisexuality men

employ, male homosexuality is one way that nature tells the male body that
sperm from other men are around. This process of impregnating women could
become the wave of the future. Why? Because it is adaptive to promoting
survival of the fittest genes. The idea is not just quantity of sexual partners but
also, quality of offspring. Polyamory compliments the aftermath of this. How?
Each woman will be having more children by different men, and each
man will be impregnating different women. This will facilitate maximum gene
flow between different races, ethnicities, nationalities, and classes. Childrearing
will become more complex. For example, children of different racial
backgrounds will be living with parents of different races and ethnicities. And
not just one mother and one father, but two and three mothers and two and three
fathers being all part of that family—not to mention grandparents.
More women are birthing multiple babies than ever before. Most of these
births are due to fertility drugs and to more Western women having children
after age 35. Some multiple births are occurring naturally, however, and their
numbers are increasing. This may be yet another way that nature is adapting in
advance to the climate upheavals that lie ahead. As human mortality increases
in the future, more women will be having more children per pregnancy. This
will increase the odds of some children surviving a radically changed
atmosphere. Whether bisexuality, sperm competition, polyamory, or multiple
births, the idea is numbers. And not just numbers but maximum genetic
combinations and recombinations.
But how are one woman and one man supposed to raise septuplets or just
triplets alone? Almost impossible. The smarter way, in nature’s view, is for two
husbands and one wife to raise the kids together. Or two wives and two
husbands. Or three husbands and two wives. Ideally, grandparents would be
part of such families. Polyamory means that more time, more money, more
energy, and more love will be available for future generations, no matter how
bad things get in the outside world.
Race is disappearing as both a social category and a biological reality. The
American melting pot is a liquefying of apples, bananas, grapes, and blackberries
in a blender. Racially speaking, America has, up to now, been more of a mosaic.
A mosaic is a salad bowl where tomatoes, lettuce, and olives keep their separate
identities. For me, the ideal is the mosaic. This is because, once the human races
dissolve into a melting pot, the original races can never be brought back.
Mourning the loss of the distinct human races will be necessary for healing, even
if another part of us celebrates this. The grieving is healthy because 40,000 years
of divergent racial evolution is coming to an end. Many Spirits/souls will be so
stricken by this genetic and aesthetic loss that they will want to recreate our
racial distinctions on other planets. And some will try to keep those distinctions
here. This is valid. Still, a spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood is now needed on
earth to deflect the tsunami of negativity that is being unleashed.
Each of the “four” human races is in a prison. A prison is nothing more
than a place or state of being (mental, emotional, racial, ethnic, sexual, gendered,
or religious) beyond which one cannot go. All human groups are in different
prison cells. These groups may talk to one another, trade, or punch each other
through the bars. But they remain distinct groups so long as each group remains
behind bars. As the song “Desperado” goes, “Your prison is walking through
this world all alone.”477 Each human group is lonesome for other human groups,
just as humanity is lonely against the backdrop of a biologically empty universe.
This is why astronomers keep asking in the most morose way, “Are we alone?”
The moment groups truly unite, they leave their prison cells. Separation—
477
Eagles, “Desperado.” This song is in the CD titled, Eagles—The Very Best Of. “Desperado” debuted in
1976. The CD came out on December 4, 2007. Label: Asylum Records.
mental, emotional, and physical—no longer rules them. The catch is that when
the prison bars disappear, so does each group. Each race, ethnicity, and religion
ceases to be a unique entity. A larger group is born, and the smaller groups
dissolve. When a spirit leaves the prison of the human body, the spirit
experiences spiritual freedom. But the biological body dies. This is what is
happening with humanity. The distinct human races, ethnicities, and religions
are dissolving because they are leaving the prisons of their earthly identities.
This is both a triumph of the human spirit and a tragedy of human existence. It
is both Armageddon and Genesis.
As this planet is heading, the future of humanity belongs to brown and
black people—although their physical forms will be altered through
interbreeding. This is adaptive because colored people are adapted to a tropical
climate. Given that earth is becoming a tropical planet, jungle fever (the thirst of
many Caucasian women for African and African American men) is on the rise.
Literally, the jungle is coming to the Caucasian parts of the world. Therefore,
historically unnatural matings—as between “whites” and “blacks”—have
become natural. These sexual couplings are now biologically adaptive, given
what is coming climate-wise. Of course, biologically adaptive does not
necessarily mean the aesthetic ideal. But nature has a psychic field, one that
changes the sexual behavior of a species like humanity when times call for this.
Each of our cells is linked to the global environment. As the climate of earth
changes, that information is transmitted to each of us at the cellular level. Our
alerted cells (cellular intelligence) then influence our sexual behavior. Whatever
erotic couplings are biologically adaptive become more common, and eventually,
the norm. The Western ideology of a color-blind society is another psychic field,
one that has grabbed hold of a critical mass of Westerners. In time, this energy
field will likely displace all preservationist energy fields. Brute strength,
resistance to tropical diseases, and dark pigmentation—qualities brown and

black people have—will be required in a hot, humid, post-oil world. This is a
major reason why interracial love, interracial sex, and multi-racial children are
the wave of the future.
The more people in interracial romances breed now, the more interracial
babies will be young adults by 2030, capable of reproducing without modern
medicine and capable of surviving without the help of parents. Having
interracial offspring as soon as possible is very adaptive at this time, and the
more interracial babies people have, the better. Why? Because the climate of
earth will radically change in the next 30 years. The more genetic
recombinations around then, the better the chances that some subgroup of
humanity will survive what is coming. We must allow ourselves to get sexually
excited about all those Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans who are flooding
into Western nations. In particular, Western youth must be taught to welcome
intimate relationships with such people—so long as they exercise caution toward
strangers. Western governments could encourage interracial reproduction by
giving tax breaks to parents of such offspring. There will be much resistance to
these ideas. But these end times require that we be flexible.
We have to move beyond Caucasian women being with African American
men and Anglo men dating Asian women. Certainly, these pairings need to
continue, for they are biologically adaptive to any resulting offspring. More
diverse genetic recombinations than those are required, however. For example,
Anglo men and African American women rarely pair up but need to because
their genes combine all too well. The genes of Caucasian men and Indian
women also blend beautifully, as do the genes of Caucasian men and Native
American women. These races would do well to sleep together—and have
babies. Enjoy those contrasts of skin colors. Get sexually excited by them. Say
“Yes!” Whatever your race, your cells (cellular intelligence) are guiding you
toward interracial sex and romance. Why? Because your cells are connected to
the changes in the global climate that are happening not in the far future, but
now. Listen to those cells, and follow your heart. And it may not be enough for
each couple to have one child. At least, two interracial children per couple are
needed. This is because the more interracial children become adults by 2030, the
greater the chances that some segment of humanity will survive 120 degree
weather, high humidity, tropical diseases, and scarcity of food and fresh water.
Waiting till one’s 30s to have children won’t do either. Why not? Because there
is no time to waste. As the divine has communicated to me in the most urgent
language, men and women need to start having interracial babies as soon as they
are biologically able to. Financial resources or the lack of them will soon become
irrelevant because the global economy is going down anyway. Other ways of
making a living will soon surface, more humane ways than slaving to earn green
paper. As Spanish people say, “Sí El cuida de las aves, El cuidará de mi” (“If He
takes care of the birds, He will take care of me.”). Have faith.
Welcome all nonwhite immigrants to your country because you and they
are meant to be together, especially if you are of reproductive age. Most people
enter interracial romance unconscious about the bigger picture that I have given
you. Now that you and I are aware of the bigger picture, let us reconfigure the
human genome as consciously as we can. This is conscious evolution—cosmic,
biological, spiritual, and social. On this planet called Earth, the Cosmos is
becoming aware of Itself. Why is this such a big deal? Because self-awareness
means that we now have conscious choice—as opposed to unconscious choice—
about what direction to evolve toward as a species. A bad boy, for example, does
not know he is a bad boy. Even if he thinks he knows and revels in being bad, a
bad boy does not truly know what that means. Hence, he continues to act like a
loose cannon. Once a bad boy sees—truly sees—that he is a dark companion, his
disgust with himself will generate in him the iron will to make amends and to
become a gentleman. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself
anymore.
After 2017, the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia will become
hotbeds of male bisexuality. Said in more familiar terms, the “downlow”
phenomenon will explode. There will be a sharp rise in polyamorous
relationships and an explosion of interracial romance, sex, and babies. The
creation of a North American Union will end all separations—cultural, economic,
political, ethnic, racial, and sexual—between the United States, Canada, and
Mexico. The same will happen in Europe and Australia between First World
peoples and Third World denizens. We will do better to welcome and celebrate,
rather than fight, this orgy of oneness. Tough times are ahead, and eventually,
life on this planet will become impossible for everyone. Highly advanced spirits
are now incarnating on earth. Most of these spirits are as advanced as the
Spirit/soul of Paramhansa Yogananda, the 20th century spiritual master from
India. Some people call these spirits indigo children. The future of planet Earth
belongs to this doctoral class of Spirits, for only they can handle the privations
that are coming and bring in high enough energies to start the process of healing
earth from our abuses. Us kindergarteners will soon be incarnating on other
planets, simpler and easier planets. While we are still here, however, we will
have to deflect global negativity as much as we can. The only way to balance
this negativity will be for a critical mass of us to get excited—including sexually
excited—about the convergence of humanity. Orgasms of all sorts—male-on-
female, female-on-male, male-on-male, black-on-white, white-on-Asian—will
become more powerful than ever, simply because human civilization itself will
be climaxing. Not only that. We are about to give birth to a new species of
human, called post-racial humans. Throughout this universe, there are very few
times and places when this occurs. In this sense, we are very lucky to be alive at
this time. Youth will be the luckiest of all because they will be at the peak of
their sexuality during the peak of human civilization. Making things even more
orgasmic for them is that Mother Nature will soon be requiring youth to have
lots of sex, lots of sexual partners, and lots of babies. This is what will be
required to produce maximum genetic combinations and recombinations.
Nothing less than that will do. The biological world will even be calling older
teenagers to reproduce. Why? Because the sooner humans start reproducing,
the sooner their offspring will become adults, able to reproduce and fend for
themselves in a hotter, more humid planet. I am not endorsing teen sex. Nor am
I discouraging it. I am merely writing what the divine has communicated to me.
The sooner we start preparing for the changes that lie ahead, the faster we will be
able to adapt biologically. Mass deaths of one species of human (us) will require
mass births of another species of human (post-racial humans).
Most interracial relationships are occurring in the First World because the
First World will be the future stage of the human drama. Caucasian territories
are where the global climate will be cool enough—although it will still be too hot
and humid for most Caucasians to tolerate. Again, people are not rationally
thinking about any of this. We are just following a cosmic program, one that
includes the Higher Calling of our Spirits/souls. This psychic program is
directing more of us toward interracial romances—and soon, into bi and poly
relationships as well. In the First World, each of the original four races—so-
called whites, blacks, yellows, and reds—can effectively say, “This is my body,
which will be given up for you [the new species of post-racial humans].” As
Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) tells Anthwara (Ned Romero) in a
Next Generation episode of Star Trek, “ … there are times when the greater good
demands that certain sacrifices are made.”478 The military term is “acceptable
losses.” In the movie Russkies (1987), 13-year-old Danny (Joaquin Phoenix)
describes this process another way. Reading from War and Peace, the grand epic
by Leo Tolstoy, Danny lips in his bedroom at the end of the film, “There are
those who may think it dishonorable. But I succeeded in uniting all parties.”
The “I” refers to a character named Pierre. But outside this epic, the “I” could
also be interpreted as God, the universe, or the group consciousness of One
Worlders.
In The Death of the West, however, Pat Buchanan writes:
But the painful truth is: We cannot “all just get along,” because we are
going through a civil war of the soul, a clash over who we are, what we
believe, what we stand for as a people. It is an irrepressible conflict, for it
is about first things. Those who deny that the culture war is at root a
religious war have not dug down to its roots.479
The reason there is such interest in the American “Civil” War is because that is
not ancient history. What led to the (Un)Civil War is happening here and now.
The difference is that in the mid-19th century, the North was pitted against the
South. The conflict was between clear-cut regions. In the early 21st century, by
comparison, One Worlders are pitted against Preservationists everywhere, for
everything is getting mixed like rice and beans on a plate. Even within the “red”
states there are One Worlders, just as within the “blue” states there are
Preservationists. This chaos makes the situation even more volatile.
478
Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Journey’s End.”
479
Buchanan, The Death of the West, p. 247.
As I think about all this, half-asleep and half-awake in bed, the Star-
Spangled Banner blares out of what seems to be a car parked in the parking lot.
A baritone voice is singing it. The time is around 5 a.m. The first verse goes:
Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?480
It never ceases to amaze me how the Divine communicates with us.

According to Caroline Myss, one of America’s archetypes is the pioneer
archetype (spirit of the frontier of the American West).481 If this is so, then we can
expect the United States to surpass Brazil in leading the Western world toward
racial amalgamation. The rise of a mixed-race person to the American
presidency—Barack Obama—symbolizes the rise of mongrelization in America.
Abandoning oneself to the destruction of the human races can be partly
orgasmic, however. We must have the courage to admit this. As Lev Grossman,
a novelist, quotes in Time magazine:
“I’ve been struck by the number of New Yorkers who have actually said
to me [in reference to the movie I Am Legend], ‘God, it was so much fun
480
The lyrics of this song were written by Francis Scott Key, a lawyer and author. The backdrop was the
British invasion and burning of Washington, D.C. in 1814.
481
Refer to Caroline Myss, The Sacred Contract of America. This is a 2007 lecture series on CD, available
from Sounds True, Boulder, Colorado.
watching the city fall apart like that,’ ” says [author Alan] Weisman.
“There is on some level a secret longing that people have, saying, ‘Let’s
just give it up. What a mess we’ve made just by being alive.’ We all have
this footprint now. We’ve redefined original sin.”482
When children play with toys, they look down from above. This is
playing God, and it is fun. Children enjoy constructing buildings of block—kid
blocks. But like God, children also enjoy watching those buildings get destroyed
to sweeping hands. For better or worse, this is human nature. Like Father, like
Son.
Interracial sex plays according to a similar dynamic. Many Americans like
the idea of exploring interracial sex and interracial romance. In particular,
African Americans and “black” culture have long fascinated Caucasian people in
the United States. Yet, European Americans have also been ambivalent about
fully embracing African Americans—and now other racial and ethnic minorities.
The reason is because European Americans fear that “once you go black, you
never go back.” This refers to the bedroom. Many Caucasians fear the genetic
consequences of this: the dilution of the European gene pool. The fear of
miscegenation is the same fear that straights have about exploring gay sex.
Rather than consider a bi identity, most heterosexuals fear that if they let
themselves enjoy homosexuality, they will turn 100 percent gay—or worse, into a
queen or dike. People are afraid to let themselves go. Most of us are
subconsciously terrified that we may actually like interracial sex more than
intraracial sex—and bi sex more than straight sex. The changing psychic field of
the planet is directing more of us toward these things, but the social
programming in each of us is resisting them. Either we get past our sexual
482
Lev Grossman, “Apocalypse New: From The Road to I Am Legend to Cloverfield: Why We Can’t Wait
for the End of the World,” Arts, Time, January 28, 2008, Vol. 171, No. 4, p.113.
taboos, or our sexual taboos will do us in. We must go beyond the either/or
thinking of the human brain and beyond separation if we are to become trans-
sensory and trans-instinctual.
Jesse Reeder, an author, provides yet another perspective—although she is
not addressing the race question per se. Reeder writes about “…the game of
Chinese checkers in which same-colored marbles are neatly aligned in triangles
on a star-shaped game board [emphasis mine].”483 In Black Holes and Energy
Pirates, Reeder continues:
The object of the game is to move all our marbles across the game board to
a new triangle. Players move their marbles across the middle of the game
board to get to the other side (if the game goes well). As players move
their marbles into the center of the game board, the central meeting space
becomes a confusing mixture of colors and directions [emphasis mine].
Chaos is required before order is returned. Unless you move through the
disorder (chaos) in the middle you cannot get to new ground.484
As a notice said on a treadmill at the gym, “Temporarily Out of Order [emphasis

mine].”
Multi-racialism is a form of entropy. Entropy is the tendency of matter
and energy to move toward disorganization. This disorder is not limited to
everyone having interracial offspring in the future—entropy here taking the form
of the disorganization of the human races. Instead, entropy as is occurring now
also includes:
483
Jesse Reeder, Black Holes and Energy Pirates: How to Recognize and Release Them, (Freedom, CA:
The Crossing Press, 2001), p. 252.
484
Ibid.
1) The collapse of manufacturing in the West

2) Urban decay
3) The evaporation of the middle class
4) Sexual identity becoming blurred
5) Masculinity—including the male Y chromosome—weakening as more
males embrace the female in them
6) Late childhood fizzling out as puberty hits at earlier ages
7) Indigenous cultures—including native languages—eroding to a
globalized pop culture
8) International borders vanishing
9) Religions blending into a global spirituality
10) Ants going haywire in the Amazon
11) Topsoils eroding
12) Forests going up in smoke
13) The seasons disappearing
14) Glaciers retreating
15) Whales no longer being able to communicate because of engine noise
from ships
16) The fishing industry dying
17) Hollywood movies deteriorating in quality
18) Pop music becoming fluff
19) Leaders “of the people” being a thing of the past
20) The nuclear family falling apart
21) The watering down of journalism
22) The sharp drop in the number of farms
23) The end of transcontinental passenger service on the Canadian Pacific
Railway (CPR).
24) The fall of Communism, first in the former Soviet Union and now, in
China
25) The end of clear human identities
26) The rise of “zombie banks” (insolvent banks that the federal
government keeps funding)
27) The global economy being on the verge of collapse
As Cairon (Moses Gunn) tells a crowd in The Neverending Story (West German-
British; 1984), “The Nothing is destroying our world.” The “Nothing” means
that nothing of the old is being left behind. The movie The Matrix (1999) repeats
this motif. As Cypher (Joe Pantoliano) tells Neo (Keanu Reeves), “It means
buckle your seatbelt, Dorothy, cause Kansas is going bye-bye.” We are not
entering The Age of Energy, as Caroline Myss asserts. Rather, we are entering
The Age of the Collapse of Energy. Why? Because every time something
crumbles, it leaves a vacuum of energy. The given system—a form of energy, as
everything is energy—is gone.
If you hear of yet another thing eroding or going topsy-turvy, then know
that it is part of the same trend toward global nothingness (nothing of the old
remaining). The focus in academia on the construction of gender, race, class,
sexuality, and the nation—so that each can be deconstructed—is part of the same
process of destruction. The trend toward post this and post that—post-feminist,
post-racial, post-market, post-gay, postindustrial, postmodern, and post-
Christian—is yet another manifestation of the same thing. When post-
agriculture and post-livestock arrives, then we will know that the proverbial
manure has hit the fan. Reverse is another term that is increasing in frequency.
Three examples are reverse racism, reverse discrimination, and reverse redlining.
The world is truly upside down.
In these end times, nihilism (belief in nothing) is rampant. What a

surprise. Therefore, there is moral nihilism (lack of belief in morality), racial
nihilism (the belief that race “is a fiction”),485 and metaphysical nihilism (the
belief that this world “is an illusion”).486 Nihilism promotes apathy toward
preserving the things of this world. The result can be seen in Star Trek: The Next
Generation. In several episodes, the holodeck (room-sized hologram) loses its
coherence, and a black grid appears in the background. This is a perfect analogy
of what will happen to our perceptions of reality as it becomes more unreal.
Given the accelerating changes of the postmodern world, more and more people
don’t know what to believe anymore. Nihilism is the result. Belief in nothing
will speed the collapse of this world—and the West in particular. If enough
people lose faith in a reality, then that reality disintegrates. As Eckhart Tolle, an
author in the field of human consciousness, writes in A New Earth, “We are
coming to the end not only of mythologies but also of ideologies and belief
systems.”487
On the issue of race, many liberals are unconsciously conservative. Many
liberals, for example, are accused of having “unconscious racism.” But Western
society also needs to look at why many Westerners have unconscious racism
(hatred toward other races) and unconscious racialism (preservationist love for
one’s race) in them. The reason for the unconsciousness of both isms in most
Westerners is political correctness. This is a type of fascism that has “come in the
name of anti-fascism.”488 As such, political correctness has put a muzzle on
anything that smacks of “racism.” So long as this repression, a product of the
civil rights movement, forbids Westerners to admit their true feelings about
485
Hua Hsu, “The End of White America?” The Atlantic, January/February 2009. Article at
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200901/end-of-whiteness.
486
See McCulloch, “Racial Nihilism.” The URL is http://www.racialcompact.com/racialnihilism.html.
487
Tolle, A New Earth, p. 21.
488
See Buchanan, The Death of the West, p. 90.
racial matters, we will make no real progress in race relations. When Eric
Holder, the U.S. Attorney General, said in February 2009 that average Americans
have shied away from frank discussions about race, he hit the nail on the head.
The criticism that Holder got from the press for stating the obvious explains why
most Americans refuse to talk to one another about race. The penalty is being
censured like he was. And Holder is a liberal. Conservatives are censured
another way: being given the scarlet letter r. On January 16, 2007, for example,
Jared Taylor, editor of American Renaissance magazine, was hauled out of a
hotel auditorium in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Anti-racists, several with
handkerchiefs covering their faces, refused to let Taylor back in.489 The wearing
of hoods is becoming common not in meetings of the Ku Klux Klan but rather, in
anti-racist rallies. This is another example of reverse this and reverse that. Even
before the Taylor incident, David Divine, professor of Black Canadian Studies at
Dalhousie University, backed out of the debate on race and immigration. For the
most part, there is a gag order on nonconforming views about race and
immigration. This is why neither America nor the rest of the Western world is
ready for an honest appraisal of race relations. Debating the opposition is not so
that we may “legitimize their arguments,” but instead, to challenge them.
Censorship gives power to uncritiqued ideas because anything kept secret
becomes seductive.
Like detox, racism (interracial hate) and racialism (intraracial love that
propels de facto racial segregation) must be allowed to come up—not be
suppressed—for it to be expunged from one’s system. The self-segregation of
the human races is not “a great moral evil,” as civil rights activists have
preached. Rather, self-segregation is very human. It is a way of being that arose
489
See YouTube video titled, “Jared Taylor in Canada.” This was taped on January 16, 2007.
Video567master added it to YouTube on March 8, 2007. Video at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz3BuqTQdMc.
millions of years ago to preserve one’s tribal group. Of course, we have to go

beyond self-segregation because of global warming. The point is that Caucasians
in particular have been forced to censor not just their words but also their
thoughts about issues of race and immigration. The reason for the self-
censorship is that the penalty for political incorrectness has been accusations of
racism and the guilt that this produces in most Caucasian people. But if we dare
not admit our true feelings about issues like immigration and miscegenation lest
we discover ourselves to be against them, then we cannot release those feelings
so as to embrace the mixing of gene pools. Global warming will soon demand
the releasing of all feelings of racial separation.
Another reason why America is not ready for an honest discussion about
race is that most people don’t know how to listen. Most of us are thinking about
a response before we have fully listened to an argument. Listening—truly
listening—is a skill that most of us have yet to master. People who say, “You’re
not listening” are the ones who need to learn to listen the most. Mastery of the
art of listening must come first. Then, we can talk turkey about race. In the
meantime, reading about the views of other races on racial matters—and
responding via writing—seems like the smarter solution. Why? Because when
one reads, one knows that nobody is around to hear one’s response. Hence, one
is more apt to “listen.”
Let me recap. The old paradigm was of men not allowing other men to
copulate with their wives. Under the new paradigm, increasing numbers of men
are actually paying other men—mostly black men—to sleep with their wives.
This is the Mandingo phenomenon. There also exists the same-sex version of
this, sex parties where Caucasian men are paired with non-Caucasian men. The
old paradigm was of Caucasians mating with Caucasians, Africans mating with
Africans, Asians mating with Asians, and American Indians mating with
American Indians. The new paradigm is of Caucasians mating with Africans,

Asians mating with Europeans, and American Indians mating with Anglos.
Notice how Caucasians are, almost always, involved in these pairings. This must
be because, according to Hopi Indian prophecy, the spiritual role of “white
people” is to connect the peoples of this world.490 Under the old paradigm, one
loved one’s children—not the children down the street. The new paradigm is for
people—especially Caucasians—to have interracial children and /or adopt
children of other races. The old paradigm was of a race or ethnicity guarding its
territory against outsiders to minimize competition for resources. The new
paradigm is for a race or ethnicity—such as Amerindians and now Caucasians—
to open its territory to outsiders without a fight. Natives are practicing altruism
toward foreigners, while foreigners take over native lands. In other words, the
rules of biological evolution—survival of the fittest—are changing at the edges.
The old paradigm was of one man marrying and having sex with one woman.
The new paradigm is for two or more men to share one or more women sexually
and romantically, marry the lady or ladies together, and copulate with and love
each other as well. Under the old paradigm of the 19th century, puberty started
around age 16. Under the new paradigm of the 21st century, puberty will be
starting around age 9. This could be due to growth hormones in milk and meat.
Just as likely, premature puberty is another aspect of sped-up biological
evolution. If human survival will become more challenging in the decades and
centuries ahead, then human logic says that children will be required to grow up
fast. Human biology is adapting in advance. Under the old paradigm, the high
latitudes were the least populated areas on earth, and the lower latitudes were
the most populated regions. Under the new paradigm, the tropics will become
empty of human and animal habitation, and the polar regions will fill with
490
See Mooncloud, “Native American Prophecies,” p. 2.
people, plants, and animals.

I will not pretend that I am 100 percent transsensory—without the hyphen
—and 100 percent transinstinctual. Even I am having trouble coping with some
of the changes happening on planet Earth. Still, the different races, ethnicities,
and religions will blend together in the name of love. All kinds of biological life
will converge, too—in fact, are converging. As for interracial love, it is beautiful
—and I mean beautiful—because such love is a transcendence of racial hatred.
For example, interracial romance between Caucasians and African Americans
help to heal master-slave relationships from past lives. Just the visual element of
chocolate skin and cream skin coming together in bed can be an erotic turn-on.
The melting of racial divisions behind closed doors is something of epic
proportions. This can be one of the most joyful experiences that any human
being can have. Furthermore, Americans who get involved in interracial
couplings are pioneers—in line with the pioneer archetype of America.491
The coming new paradigms are part of the brave new world that awaits
us in the 21st century. The mania with protecting children from “sexual
predators” exists because children are the last remnant of what is innocent and
pure. And even the older segment of this group—teenagers—is being
contaminated with the sexual toxicity of postmodern culture. Nothing is sacred
anymore.
There is some hope, however. As I write this, the sun is shining on the
wall behind my computer. The sun looks white there. But as the sun slithers
left, the circle is getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller. Then, I realize that
clouds are moving fast across the blue sky. The sun is not disappearing. Rather,
the clouds—equally white—are covering up the sun as they invade blue skies.
Behind the clouds, though, the sun keeps shining. A sensory person only sees
491
Refer to Myss, The Sacred Contract of America.
the disappearing sun on the wall. A trans-sensory person realizes that the sun is
not in danger. The wall is the world of form. The sky is the realm beyond form.
That night was long, and the darkness on the wall was overwhelming. We could
call those hours The Dark Ages. The following day, however, the sun returned
to the wall. This earth and alternate earths run in cycles like these.
On this planet, entropy could have been delayed another 5,000 or 10,000
years—maybe more—had humans made evolved choices during the past 500
years. The last 150 years have been the most crucial because technology has
skyrocketed but not human consciousness. In any event, breathing out is the
process of specialization—as in the human races evolving separately—and the
process of earth establishing a natural order. Entropy, by contrast, is the
breathing in—unification—of everything. It is apocalypse, which means
destruction of the existing order. Such earthly chaos is divine order, just as
earthly order is, more often than not, divine disorder. This is because of the law
of paradox. Much of what is natural has become unnatural, and much of what is
unnatural has become natural. This is because planet Earth is out of balance.
Exhaling and inhaling—order/disorder, separation/unity—happen at
their appropriate times. As the Bible says, “To everything there is a season.”492
And as a fortune cookie spelled out, “Time is God’s way of keeping everything
from happening at once.” The order of human civilization has brought a
disorder of nature. The regeneration of nature will require the degeneration of
civilization—and the degeneration of nature itself. That is entropy. Multi-
racialism, bisexuality, and polyamory fit into this emerging paradigm. Why?
Because each of them disorganizes the neat categories and arrangements of the
old order. Right now, interracial love, bisexuality, and polyamory exist as
separate social phenomena. The challenge in the next few years will be for a
492
This comes from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, King James Bible.
critical mass of us to link them in thought, emotion, and behavior. Global

warming and race relations will also have to be linked because they are
intricately connected.
We are on the precipice of the sixth global extinction in the past 439
million years. The last such event happened 65 million years ago. Around that
time, the dinosaurs and some 95 percent of all species on earth went extinct. The
multi-racialization of the world is nature’s way of ensuring that some trace of
humanity survives the coming mass extinction. The more the genetic
recombinations, the greater the chances of human survival.
An analogy could be made to color. Only seven colors exist: red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. When these limited seven get mixed in
different ways, however, all sorts of new colors become possible. The genetic
mixing of the “four” races is much the same.
When the post-carbon era arrives, technology will no longer be able to
shield the mass of humans from nature. With no more air conditioners running
around the clock, for example, we will be at the mercy of the elements.
Biological adaptations—or the lack of them—will become as important as they
were tens of thousands of years ago.
None of what I have said in this section is absolute Truth—just relative
truth. As transpires in the Star Trek episode, “A Matter of Perspective,” Manua
Apgar (Gina Hecht) tells a board of inquiry that Commander William T. Riker
(Jonathan Frakes) tried to rape her in a science station in space. Riker testifies
that Manua tried to seduce him and that he rejected her advances. Tayna (Juli
Donald) says that Manua and Riker were passionately making love.493 In another
Trek episode, Romulan Admiral Jarok (James Sloyan) tells Captain Picard, “One
493
Star Trek: The Next Generation, “A Matter of Perspective.” This episode originally aired in syndication
on February 10, 1990 (Season 3, episode 14).
world’s butcher is another world’s hero.”494 Everything depends on point of

view. Therefore, I have included as many perspectives as possible in this section.
Let the reader be the final judge.
Coping with Armageddon
The apocalypse will require not just radical changes in human beingness
but quick changes as well. Human identities of all sorts will shatter—straight
identity, gay identity, racial identity, religious identity, class identity, national
identity, and gender identity. The self with a small s (the human self) will die so
that the spiritual Self may emerge. Either we voluntarily let go of our human
identities, or the Apocalypse will siphon them from us. We must get in harmony
with the convergence of planet Earth, or we are out of harmony with the
universe—or at least, this pocket of it. As the title of this book reads, we have to
go Beyond Our Six Senses and rise Above Our Lower Instincts. The bio-logical
senses (logical in a biological way) bequeath to us a sense of physical separation
from other groups of people, while our lower human instincts no longer sustain
life on earth. Such human tendencies include the instinct to protect one’s race
from miscegenation, the instinct to exclude all sexual rivals from the bedroom,
and the instinct to be straight or gay. These instincts are no longer adaptive in a
biological sense. The most vital change will be for us to enjoy all sorts of loss and
deprivation. We must train ourselves for this now. The alternative will be for us
to go berserk in the coming two decades. Thus, this section presents some
examples of how to enjoy loss and deprivation. This enjoyment will help us to
become flexible in our beingness and behavior—including sexual behavior.
494
Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Defector.”
Many unnatural activities will have to become natural if we are to survive as a

species.
Given the need for biological life to get reconfigured genetically, we will
have to get comfortable mating with people of other races. More Europeans are
dating only non-Europeans; more Africans are dating only Caucasians; and more
Asians are dating only Westerners. The more people mate outside of their race,
the more people will be joining the bandwagon. We can either resist this, or we
can get sexually excited by it. Youth in particular should be encouraged to
embrace racial differences in their sexual lives. Youngsters, of course, should be
taught to stick around after sex to help raise any resulting offspring. Parents will
also need to help their children raise their children. Hybrid human races may
require special skills in parenting, skills that a 20-year-old mother and father may
be unable to use alone. Regarding interracial love, sex, and babies, Westerners
will have to go beyond being nice about it to actually doing it. Rising carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere will wipe out the pure races of the world, for they are
not adapted to the climate that is on its way. A revolution in human sexuality
and in child rearing practices is urgently needed at this time. A baby boom of
interracial children also needs to occur as soon as possible.
For centuries, humans have been feeding off planet Earth. Because the
universe goes in cycles, we will soon have to experience the opposite. This
opposite is loss and hunger—both material and nonphysical. To alleviate human
suffering, we will have to get excited—including sexually excited—about as
many types of losses as possible. For example, many Anglo parents feel
emotional pain if their sons or daughters marry African Americans. The
emotional pain of these parents is the pain of having their bloodlines
discontinued. But erotic and romantic relationships that cross the color line are
becoming the norm—and quicker than most of us can even begin to imagine. At
this time in the history of life on earth, it is adaptive to get turned on erotically to
interracial love and sex (without contraception). The human ego will resent
mongrelization. But the human spirit will revel in it, for interracial relationships
are a major aspect of the coming together of humanity. If you are “white,” get
sexually excited about dissolving your recessive genes into a brown or black
person. Like it or not, the future of earth belongs to colored people. Caucasians
are adapted to cold and temperate climates—not to the tropical climate that
global warming is generating.
For thousands of years, spiritual masters have spoken about loss in terms
of “detachment.” I speak about loss in terms of excitement—including sexual
excitement. If you are a straight man and single, for example, you may want to
not have sex with any woman for, say, a week. Don’t masturbate either. Refuse
to even think about women in sexual terms. When you feel bubbles sizzling
inside your testicles, think sexually about a man. Feel the loss of not copulating
with a woman. Get sexually excited by that deprivation! Say, “Yes!” Feel your
erotic excitement as consciously as you can. Imagine you will never again get the
chance to have sex with women—or even think about them. Imagine that you
are only allowed to have sex with men. Say an orgasmic “Yes!” to the erosion of
your straight identity. Then, ejaculate into a man, either in a fantasy or watching
gay porn. But rent—don’t buy—porn, for it is extremely addictive. If you have
sex with an actual man, make sure you are open with him about this exercise,
and make sure he agrees. If a man who acts “gay” comes into your life as you
decide to do this exercise, that is a clue from the heavens that this experience will
benefit both you and him. If a man who acts “straight” comes into your life as
you decide to do this exercise, that is another divine clue. Don’t miss these clues.
Be aware of who crosses paths with yours. If you feel conflicting feelings, you
must decide which feeling to indulge—your resistance or your courage. If you
don’t get turned on erotically by heterosexual deprivation, stop, for you are not
ready for this experience. If you feel the sexual high, though, you may want to
repeat this practice until the homosexual side of your innate bisexuality is fully
activated. Then, you can enjoy women again—both with men and without them.
Your testes will produce more sperm than normal for sperm competition because
the erotic presence of other men encourages this. If you copulate with one or
more women, your sperm will be at a reproductive advantage over men who
only have straight sex. Straight men will need to enjoy—or at least, get
comfortable—mixing their semen with the semen of other men. If this happens
in vaginas, even better. And if the women are off birth control, bingo.
Similarly, if you are a gay man and single, you may want to not have sex
with any man for, say, a week. Don’t masturbate either. Refuse to even think
about men in sexual terms. When, at last, your testicles feel as though they’re
about to explode, think erotically about a woman. Feel the loss of not copulating
with a man. Get sexually excited by that deprivation! Say, “Yes!” Feel your
erotic excitement as consciously as you can. Imagine you will never again get the
chance to have sex with men—or even think about them. Imagine that you are
only allowed to have sex with women. Say an orgasmic “Yes!” to the erosion of
your gay identity. Then, ejaculate into a woman, either in a fantasy or watching
straight porn. But rent—don’t buy—porn, for it is extremely addictive. If you
have sex with an actual woman, make sure you are open with her about this
exercise, and make sure she agrees. If a lady comes into your life as you decide
to do this exercise, that is a clue from the heavens that this experience will benefit
both you and her. Don’t miss this clue. Be aware of who crosses paths with
yours. If you feel conflicting feelings, you must decide which feeling to indulge
—your resistance or your courage. If you don’t get turned on erotically by
homosexual deprivation, stop, for you are not ready for this experience. If you
feel the sexual high, though, you may want to repeat this practice until the
heterosexual side of your innate bisexuality is fully activated. Then, you can
enjoy men again—both with women and without them. You may want to give
something back to life on earth by impregnating a woman.
When a man injects his recessive genes into a woman with dominant
genes, the recessive genes dissolve. That man’s bloodline, a product of 40,000
years of biological evolution, comes to an end. A racial type is discontinued
whenever that type mates with a different racial type. Racism is fueled by the
dread of this happening across a population. Caucasians have the most to fear
from miscegenation because many of their genes—such as for blond hair and
blue irises—are recessive. But as mentioned, the future of planet Earth will be
tropical. Caucasians will be ill-adapted for average global temperatures of 120
degrees Fahrenheit—give or take a few degrees. If you are Caucasian, single,
and fear sex with members of other races—say, African Americans—you may
want to acknowledge that it is now adaptive to go beyond this fear. You may
want to not have sex with a Caucasian person for, say, a week. Don’t masturbate
either. Refuse to even think about Caucasians in erotic terms. As your sex drive
begs for relief, think about having sex with an African American. Or an African.
Pick the “blackest of the black.” Feel the loss of not copulating with a “white”
person. Get sexually excited by that deprivation! Say, “Yes!” Feel your erotic
excitement as consciously as you can. Imagine you will never again get the
chance to have sex with Caucasian people—or even think about them. Imagine
that you are only allowed to have sex with colored people. Say an orgasmic
“Yes!” to the dissolving of your European genes. Then, climax into a black
partner, either in a fantasy or watching black-white porn. But rent—don’t buy—
porn, for it is extremely addictive. If you have sex with an actual person, make
sure you are open with him or her about this exercise, and make sure he or she
agrees. If a black person comes into your life as you decide to do this exercise,
that is a clue from the heavens that this experience will benefit both you and the
other individual. Don’t miss this clue. Be aware of who crosses paths with
yours. If you feel conflicting feelings, you must decide which emotion to indulge
—your resistance or your courage. If you don’t get turned on erotically by
interracial sex, stop, for you are not ready for this experience. If you feel the
sexual high, though, you may want to repeat this practice until your interracial
side is fully activated. Then, get erotically excited at the thought of having
children that look nothing like you. You may be shocked at your transformation.
If you are a single woman who believes in monogamy, you may want to
visualize being with two men. You could see them walking down the street with
you, or you could be with them in the bedroom. If you three are in bed, feel the
joy of having not one but two members in your treasure trove. Visualize the
contrasts of cream, chocolate, and peach skin. Draw the strings of coconut cream
out from their members. Get sexually excited at the loss of your monogamy.
Say, “Yes!”
If you are an energy vampire, stop feeding. Feel your hunger for human
energies. Get off erotically on that deprivation! Say, “Yes!” If you feel fear of
any sort, get sexually excited by that fear. Fear and sexual excitement are close
cousins. If necessary, of course, heed the warning, for fear can get you out of
danger. If a chaste woman becomes promiscuous, celebrate the loss of her
chastity. Say, “Yes!” If a beautiful daughter of yours marries an ugly man, get
excited about the loss of her beauty in her offspring. Say an orgasmic “Yes!”
Why all these paradoxes? Because what we perceive as “positive” and
“negative” are about to converge on this planet. Big time converge. We might as
well enjoy the process. A little masochism is now required, given the massive
deprivations that the West is about to experience. Getting sexually excited by
loss will make you flexible not just sexually but emotionally and behaviorally.
Even the death of a loved one we can both mourn from a human level and enjoy
from a cosmic level, for physical death is spiritual birth. Every time there is pain
somewhere in the world, God gets cosmic orgasms. From a human perspective,
a psychopath is running this universe. From a divine perspective, we could join
Brahma in enjoying loss—certainly not every type of loss but as many kinds as
we can muster. Encourage your spirit to orgasm at loss and deprivation, for each
orgasm originates in each Spirit/soul. Getting turned on in this way is not just
humanly irrational. It is humanly insane! But it is divinely rational. At this
juncture of the human experiment, we either evolve or die. The choice is ours.
Let us make “Yes!” the catchword of the Western world.
You may want to start getting used to loss now, rather than be forced into
it later. If you have children, you may want to not buy them too many material
things. This way, you both prepare in advance to privations—just like the
biological world is preparing in advance for global warming. Don’t wait till the
last minute. I will give you an example. After finishing this book, I either
donated or threw out all the movies and TV episodes—including all Star Trek
episodes—in my bedroom. This was some 150 videocassettes and about 30
DVDs. After 15 years of having those goodies, I felt that it was time to part with
them. So I placed them in black bags of thick plastic. The loss was incalculable.
Yet that was precisely what made it so exciting for me. I can’t explain the human
rationality of this, for there is none. All I can say is that it felt orgasmic. That
was my Spirit speaking. I felt so good that I started to look for more things to
lose. It was like losing weight. The more psychic weight I lost, the lighter and
more beautiful my aura felt. I began to donate my most cherished CDs to the
local library. Again, I felt erotic excitement. On St. Valentine’s Day 2009, I
deleted some 65 porn files that I had stored in my hard drive. About 130 hunks
were in them, an entire village that I had given my personal power to. How? By
allowing their physical beauty to mesmerize me, spellbind me, hypnotize me. I
awoke from being a zombie to their charms. A phrase rolled into my mind the
morning of that day: St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. This was a mob that opened
machine gun fire on another mob during Prohibition. By deleting 130 energy
pirates, I reclaimed my inner power from those surrogate friends of mine. My
erotic excitement was like having sex for the last time. Something about this
intensifies the experience. This is the theme of The Last Supper. The Crucifixion
follows, then the Resurrection.
You may want to donate some CDs of yours to the local library—and not
just any CD but your most cherished CDs. And most cherished DVDs. And
videos. Don’t go overboard, of course. Remember Buddha’s Middle Way—
although even this rule will disappear to the coming chaos. If you feel sorrow,
stop, for you are not ready to lose things. And I mean stop. If you start, begin
slowly. Pick one thing. Give it away and spend a week or two evaluating your
feelings. If you feel negative feelings, don’t continue. If you feel positive
feelings, you may want to lose another object. Go incrementally. Each time, feel
the sexual excitement of knowing that you will never again have access to that
CD, DVD, or video. Go through your closet. Give away some—not all—of your
favorite attire. Proceed with one at a time. Each time, feel your erotic excitement
as consciously as you can. This practice is a form of sexual channeling. If one
can channel one’s material losses into one’s erotic energy, then the bitter pill of
each deprivation gets sweetened. Of course, throwing everything away is
unhealthy and unnecessary. But lightening up materially is adaptive at this time.
If someone presses your buttons, get sexually excited by that! Say, “Yes!” To the
sensory and instinctual person, this is crazy. But every rule is about to be turned
upside down.
Enjoying loss doesn’t mean that we cannot enjoy what we do have. Enjoy
your possessions and the presence of loved ones. But be prepared to enjoy their
loss too should that come. We have got to be prepared to lose everything. As a
white truck had written on the side, “Everything Must Go. Floor Clearance
Sale.” This nothingness happened during the Great (Grave) Depression. I know.
It was great from a cosmic perspective and grave from a human perspective.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected in November 1932, for example, 25
percent of the American workforce was unemployed. There was no
unemployment insurance. There was no health insurance. There was no social
security. Bank savings were not insured because there was no Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Homes foreclosed. Many Americans starved. As
James Shenton lectured at Columbia University, “There was nothing.”495 What is
coming will be, at least, as bad as the Great (Grave) Depression. Either we go
into a mental asylum, or we enjoy the ride. From a human level, enjoying loss is
the most difficult choice that we will ever have to make. From a spiritual level,
enjoying loss is a piece of cake. If we are to stay sane, we will have to rise from
our human selves to our spiritual Selves. Otherwise, there will be hundreds of
millions of unhappy campers around.
Obviously, you do not want to embrace the lowest of the low—such as
killing people—for that is maladaptive. What we want to embrace are things
that, though uncomfortable to us, are adaptive for human survival. Interracial
sex, bisexuality, and polyamory are adaptive in this epoch. To embrace the
convergence of all life on earth, one must embrace loss—massive loss—for
convergence means the destruction of the old. For example, when and if the
North American Union becomes reality, 107 million Mexicans will be potentially
entering the United States and Canada. Anglos, African Americans, and Asians
495
Refer to the cassette titled, The History of the United States, Part VI: Liberalism and the Cold War, “The
Great Depression,” Lecture 51.
will be mixing with the Mejicanos—socially, professionally, and yes, sexually.

This has been called “deep integration.”496 If all boundaries are collapsing on
earth, then we might as well feel the erotic excitement of that. Say, “Yes!” to the
coming chaos. Remember, human disorder is cosmic order.
According to Richard McCulloch, a writer, multi-racial societies don’t last
forever. Such milieus, he contends, are a transition from one monoracial milieu
to multi-racialism to a post-racial (racially mixed) population.497 This is what the
Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 intended for the United States.
Whenever there are two or more races or species in one geographical area, one of
them will eventually displace the others. This is a biological law, called survival
of the fittest. Star Trek: The Next Generation is inaccurate in its portrayal of
distinct human races existing in the 24th century. Why? Because by then, all
human races will have amalgamated into one. Contraception, of course, allows
people of different races to have sex without diluting their genes. Or a society
can follow the 2:1 rule (see Part I, Chapter 9, section titled, “The Gamble of
Choice”). But increasingly, this world is choosing the path of racial extinction.
There are parallels between urban renewal and multi-racialism. Urban
renewal destroys original buildings in the name of progress, while multi-
racialism changes the ethnicity of a host nation. Recessive genes will be the most
swamped genes on the planet. This will prompt white separatists and white
supremacists to “separate or die.” An analogy can be made to the destruction of
the original Penn Station in Manhattan. Despite mass protests, that monument
from the Age of Rail came down between 1963 and 1966. This desecration of a
kind of Sistine Chapel happened because of the juggernaut of urban renewal.
496
See Vive le Canada, “ ‘Deep Integration’: Timeline of the Progress Toward a North American Union,”
Global Research. The timeline is at
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=VIV20061220&articleId=4216. The
timeline was posted on December 20, 2006.
497
See McCulloch, “Racial Nihilism.” The URL is http://www.racialcompact.com/racialnihilism.html.
But as Ada Louise Huxtable, a critic of architecture, says in New York: A

Documentary Film in reference to the destruction of Penn Station:
I think what was gained was even more important than what was lost,
and what was lost was, of course, one of the last really magnificent bozark
constructions in terms of design and space and material and architectural
quality. That was lost. What was gained was an enormous groundswell,
popular groundswell, for preservation, that not everything was
expendable and that some things were worth the struggle, that you had to
find uses, you had to find ways to keep the character and the quality and
the continuity of a city.498
The different racial types of humanity are different types of biological

architecture. But unlike human architecture, biological architecture took 40,000
years to yield the human races of today. Whether right or wrong, many
Caucasians, African Americans, Asians, and Native Americans will fight to
preserve their race and culture in the coming decades. It is only a matter of time
till enough people realize that their race, ethnicity, and culture are on the verge
of extinction. If we have national parks, wildlife refuges, and laws to protect
endangered species, then perhaps we could have racial preserves and protected
ethnic enclaves. Racialists—not to be confused with racists—and ethnic
preservationists are the equivalent of environmentalists. While
environmentalists want to protect the biological environment, racialists want to
preserve human forms, and ethnic preservationists want to preserve human
cultures.
498
New York: A Documentary Film, “The City and the World: 1945-Present.”
At the same time, we have to go beyond our sensory and instinctual sense
of separation and welcome unity of all sorts. We have to learn not to react to loss
from a human position but to embrace loss from a spiritual position. Whether
money, sex, or a racial type, form is merely a medium of experience. Essence is
the experiencer—what experiences the experience. That essence is the spirit and
soul beyond the form. The alternative to this perspective is sure to be mass
despair of the most unspeakable nature. Let us not go down that path.
Responsibility is the ability to respond to what needs to be done,
especially in a crisis. The faster a person responds, the more responsible he or
she is. The slower a person responds, the less responsible he or she is. Let each
of us be the more responsible type and act now. Time is running out.
Our Human Tendencies
Someone once told me that humans aren’t very good at getting along.
People are nice and helpful, he said, if you catch them at the right time and in the
right mood. He uttered, “Woe to you if you don’t.” More often than not, we are
ruffled by the demands of postmodern life. Time is in short supply. Chores are
many. Communities are out. Individualism is in. Even children are being
forced to raise themselves—something that may explain why their cellular
intelligence is triggering puberty in them at younger ages.
After World War II, Albert Einstein commented, “I know not with what
weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with
sticks and stones.”499
499
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins122873.html.
For decades, it has been evident that humanity must solve an age-old
problem. After the Second World War, Albert Einstein called it a problem “more
urgent” than ever. This “something seriously wrong with the human psyche”
(the words of Stanley Kubrick, the deceased director) is the human e.g.o. This is
the part of us that, in the words of Wayne Dyer, “Edges God Out.”500 Once this
inner tyrant is restrained, maladaptive human impulses can be minimized. But
as Thomas Jefferson said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”501 That last
word is the one area where we cannot afford to lower our guard.
Enlightened masters have reiterated that people are basically good.
Religions, on the other hand, have said that “man” is, by nature, evil. Which is
it? In a nutshell, both! Our essence—that is, our spiritual core—is noble.
Conversely, our human nature has “evil” tendencies. Many of us see our human
—as opposed to our spiritual—selves as noble. This is playing Russian roulette
because it leads us to relax our guards relative to our lower selves. Even saints
have an ego, including that alter ego that tempts us to do unevolved things.
Think of a puppet telling a ventriloquist what to do. The puppet is one’s alter
ego, and the ventriloquist is one’s ego. Thinking of ourselves—that is, our
human selves—as good is therefore dangerous, for it means that our lower selves
can catch us unguarded. Again, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.502
If we used more than 5 percent of our brains, then we would realize that
our best interest is to overcome our lower human impulses. Such proclivities
include judgement, hierarchy, possessiveness, territoriality, and aggression. We
would embrace instead our better human—and ultimately, spiritual—tendencies.
Such tendencies include our inborn hedonism, our longing for fulfilling human
500
See PBS’s The Power of Intention. This special originally aired on PBS on June 12, 2004.
501
See “Quote DB.” The URL of this quote is http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/2283.
502
Ibid.
relationships, care for the young, peace with the biological environment, and our
search for freedom without harming others.
We differ from lower animals in three areas:
1) Thought—specifically, our ability to generate and explore ideas

and put them to action. Examples of this are the discovery of fire, the
invention of agriculture, the invention of writing, and the scientific and
technological revolutions of our time.
2) Culture and civilization, which are “products of the cerebral cortex.”503
3) Religion, which is spirituality tainted by the human ego.
I re-quote the words of Carl Sagan at the beginning of Part II of this book. In the
Cosmos episode “The Persistence of Memory,” Sagan narrates:
Emotions and ritual behavior patterns are built very deeply into us.
They’re part of our humanity. But they’re not characteristically human
[emphasis mine]. Many other animals have feelings. What distinguishes
our species is thought [emphasis mine]. The cerebral cortex is, in a way, a
liberation. We need no longer be trapped in the genetically inherited
behavior patterns of lizards and baboons, territoriality, and aggression,
and dominance hierarchies. We are, each of us, largely responsible for
what gets put into our brain, for what, as adults, we wind up caring for
503
and knowing about. No longer at the mercy of the reptile brain, we can
change ourselves [emphasis mine]. Think of the possibility.504
Most of us allow ourselves to be swayed by emotions. But being human is

not just about being in touch with one’s feelings. Certainly, this is important.
More heroic, though, is learning not to let emotions boss us around. Lower
animals live by their instincts and feelings. We, by comparison, have choice
about things like which emotions to indulge and which ones to drop.
If we used more of our cerebral cortexes, then postmodern society would
be reconstructed in accordance with humane principles. There would be less
polluting technologies, less cutting of trees, more time for human interaction,
more fun with life, fewer of us around so that we can enjoy more space, and less
invasion of animal habitats so that life on earth may remain diverse. On such an
earth, what is known as Evil would decrease.
Sapiens may be Latin for “wise.” But as a species, we Homo sapiens have
yet to live wisely en masse. As several people have typed on the web, we are
Homo stupidus. We are also heralded as “rational” creatures. Most of us are
humanly irrational, however, in that we have constructed a global village that is
unsustainable. That which works is not implemented. That which doesn’t work
is enacted and reenacted. This is human madness, not human rationality. The
shocker is that modern science, a supposedly logical enterprise, has largely led to
an illogical technological society. Our better instincts frighten us, by contrast,
but only because we are not used to them.
Using one’s intellect through self-discipline requires willingness—or
enough desperation—to change. It requires consciously choosing differently.
Nobody can read themselves to the Omega Point. Only experience will lead us
504
Ibid.
there. Feeling an impulse is also not enough. One, for instance, may want to
compose music, sing, relocate to another part of the country, start a new career,
or help someone. But emotion is not enough. One must act on the feeling—so
long as one isn’t acting recklessly—without letting thoughts (e.g., “should I?”)
get in the way. This is how one experiences what is driving the impulse. I, for
example, felt the instinct to write this book. Had I remained at the level of
emotion, you would not be reading this. Concealed in a wicker basket, light
doesn’t shine into a room. Adaptive human and spiritual tendencies—those that
lead to human survival and progress—are best followed through. Maladaptive
human instincts are best dropped like hot stones.
Utilizing one’s brain also requires unitasking, especially when it comes to
exploring ideas. Unfortunately, postmodern civilization overloads us with
information. There may be books, newspapers, magazines, radio, television,
email, cell phones, and the Internet. But ideas are seldom linked, let alone,
explored thoroughly. Instead, one gets flitting images on TV, scenes that last less
than three minutes, and repetition of slogans and station names. It is, in the
words of the video Manufacturing Consent (1992), “Emotionally Potent
Oversimplification.” If humankind is to survive the 21st century, however, it will
have to focus on solutions. What, for example, could be done to avoid World
War III in light of international competition for resources in a post-carbon world?
Many of us assume that we cannot rise above the ugly aspects of human
nature. But in the heyday of the Cold War, some people were a little hopeful. In
1951’s The Day the Earth Stood Still, for instance, Klaatu (Michael Renie) tells
Bobby Benson (Billy Gray), “They [Klaatu’s people] have cemeteries. But not like
this one [Arlington National Cemetery]. You see, they don’t have any wars.”
The 12-year-old replies, “Gee, that’s a good idea.”
Adaptive ideas won’t become outer reality, however, if we don’t teach or

discuss them. Moreover, discussion requires focus. When, for instance, was the
last time you saw a televised debate about the need for a United States of Planet
Earth? What if nations don’t unite after the global peak of oil production? Won’t
this lead to World War III as the world’s nations get desperate over the
remaining oil? A humanly rational society uses the audiovisual—not just print—
media to explore solutions to its problems. It homes in on single images, changes
camera shots less frequently, and allows for fewer interruptions of programming
on the air. A humanly irrational society flicks from image to image on-screen,
splits its TV monitors into two, three, and four, zips distracting information
across the bottom of the screen, chops up debate between commercials that are
10-seconds each, and calls this “monetary necessities.” Is this the only possibility
for the human future?
Quoting writer Nikos Kazantzakis, Wayne Dyer said on PBS’s Inspiration,
“By believing passionately in that which does not exist, we create it. That which
is nonexistent has not been sufficiently desired [emphasis mine].”505 According
to Dyer, “… there’s nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come
[emphasis mine].”506 Even the walls of Jericho fell.
Becoming trans-sensory will permit us to see beyond the veneer of the
worldly. Becoming trans-instinctual, in turn, will allow us to maximize our
adaptability and minimize our maladaptability. Already, societies are being
founded on these and other spiritual principles. Some of these milieus are called
eco-villages; others alternative communities. Whatever the name, many
settlements are being built far from the maladaptive core of our global
civilization and in livable ecosystems. Some of these communities are trying to
build a secure storehouse of knowledge—and not just information about material
505
See PBS’s Inspiration.
506
Ibid.
survival but also spiritual, cultural, economic, political, and historical

knowledge. Such settlements will, in my view, stand the best chance of survival
in the coming decades.
In Soul Retrieval, however, shaman Sandra Ingerman warns us, “But new
belief systems are sometimes hard to deal with.”507 This is most so when old
beliefs are firmly in place. Blank minds, by contrast, are always open to new
ideas. Worded differently, once a thought system is set, people tend to close
their minds to alternate paradigms. This is why conversion is so hard—whether
from scientist to mystic, from skeptic to believer, from Christian to Muslim, from
Muslim to Jew, from capitalist to socialist, from straight to queer, from English
speaker to Chinese speaker, or from negative thinker to positive thinker. Only
when we are little are our minds, largely unwired, open to whatever we are
taught. As adults, we resist any counterprogramming and have to sweat bullets
to change ourselves. Caroline Myss goes so far as to say, “Your biography
becomes your biology [emphasis mine].”508 Sandra Ingerman writes:
Using the intuitive part of ourselves is just not accepted in our society.
We’ve developed such a structured system that to leave it is seen as
dangerous. We’ve lost our imagination [emphasis mine]. How can we
envision a healthy planet, or a healthy body, or success, if we can’t
imagine or envision what we want?509
In an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Dr. Beverly Crusher

(Gates McFadden) tells Captain Picard, “We have to dream in order to
507
Ingerman, Soul Retrieval, p. 2.
508
This website quote comes from Caroline Myss, “Chakras,” Library. It is at
http://www.myss.com/library/chakras/.
509
Ingerman, Soul Retrieval, p. 2.
survive.”510 Crusher was referring to rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. But the
same applies to daydreaming. Our parents, teachers, and age-mates may have
ridiculed many of us for being on Cloud 99. Without vision, however, humanity
is doomed.
Humanity’s Biggest Challenge … Ever!
In the final episode of Cosmos, Carl Sagan takes the viewer to the ancient
Library of Alexandria. Scrolls were collected and studied there over the
centuries. By 415 A.D., Sagan contends, the library had almost one million
scrolls. This made that library the largest in the ancient world. But Sagan alerts
the viewer:
Science and learning in general were the preserve of the privileged few.
The vast population of the city had not the vaguest notion of the great
discoveries being made within these walls. How could they? The new
findings were not explained or popularized. The progress made here
benefited them little. Science was not part of their lives. The discoveries
in mechanics, say, or steam technology mainly were applied to the
perfection of weapons, to the encouragement of superstition, to the
amusement of kings. Scientists never seemed to grasp the enormous
potential of machines to free people from arduous and repetitive labor.
The great intellectual achievements of antiquity had few practical
510
Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Night Terrors.” This episode originally aired in syndication on March
applications. Science never captured the imagination of the multitude

[emphasis mine]. There was no counterbalance to stagnation, to
pessimism, to the most abject surrender to mysticism. So when, at long
last, the mob came to burn the place down, there was nobody to stop
them.511
The Dark Ages followed soon after, and they lasted for 1,000 years.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with mysticism. In fact, mysticism
activates the intuitive part of ourselves and, in so doing, is as important as
science for human survival and progress. Imagination itself—needed for
spiritual, social, and material progress—is often humanly illogical. Yet,
throughout human history, lack of imagination has been the common
denominator during periods of social, cultural, economic, and political decline.
People who think that humanity has ascended mass stupidity need only turn on
the television. Even professionals often act out of ignorance and popular
prejudices.
The burning of the Library of Alexandria is seen as ancient history. But
books, magazines, inventories, sales data, pictures, graphs, and all sorts of
information are increasingly being stored in computers. In a world transitioning
to a post-carbon era, fossil fuels may not be able to keep the electric grid going
everywhere. Imagine what could be lost. This, of course, won’t happen
tomorrow. But even now, computer parts last for a few short years. Updated
computers with no viruses can crash. Computers don’t even have to be old for
irreparable damage to occur to their oversensitive circuitry. One bolt of
lightning is enough. The sad reality is that the more high-tech something
becomes, the more maintenance it requires and the easier it breaks down. For
511
Cosmos, “Who Speaks for Earth?” (Episode 13).
example, videos, a 1970s invention, play flawlessly for decades. DVDs, a 1990s
invention, get scratches easily. Cassette players can last for years. But CD and
DVD players go laserless sooner, rather than later. Automobiles live shorter than
bicycles. For these reasons, better is to settle in a community that has paper
backups to electronic information, cassettes and videos, and simpler
technologies. Even magnetic tape is vulnerable, for the audiovisual material
must be retaped after 20 years or the visuals disappear from the tape.
Preservation of practical information like how to grow crops is not enough. As
Richard Heinberg, an educator of post-carbon issues, writes in Powerdown, if
human life is to have meaning in a post-carbon planet, then cultural and
historical information will have to be preserved as well.512 I add that print
degenerates quickly, and books fall apart easily. Therefore, printing presses will
need to stay running in different parts of the globe.
The empire that is about to collapse is not just the American Empire but
also, the empire of Homo Sapiens over all other species on planet Earth. If
human history has taught us anything, it is that humans don’t do well in
crowded areas during and after social collapse. Thus, I recommend Canada and
southern Alaska to North Americans. From spring to fall, these regions are
bound to warm up as the Lower 48 turns into an oven. Many readers will
dismiss this as “alarmist.” But consider this. Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans
in the summer of 2005. Back in 1993, a TV movie predicted that this would
happen in the Louisiana Delta. That film is The Fire Next Time. How
reminiscent its post-hurricane scenes are to the scenes that the world saw 12
years later. As I write this, the eastern half of the United States is already
roasting. In New York City alone, temperatures have climbed into the 100s. The
biggest priorities in a post-oil world will be food production—without the
512
See Heinberg, Powerdown.
availability of oil-based pesticides or machinery—access to fresh water, and

staying cool. Already, 389 people die a year from heat exhaustion in the U.S.
According to the Weather Channel’s “Evening Edition,” this is more deaths than
lightning, tornadoes, and hurricanes combined.513 And this is with the power
grid operational. Children and senior citizens are, and will be, most vulnerable
to heat exhaustion in the lower latitudes. I define lower as anything below the
40th parallel in the northern hemisphere and above it in the southern hemisphere.
Dark-skinned people have a good chance of surviving in the continental U.S.
This is because colored people are adapted to a tropical climate, and that is what
mainland America will become—tropical like Central America. People of
European stock are advised to move north of the 60th parallel in North America.
This is because Caucasians will be ill-adapted to a tropical U.S. mainland. Even
southern Canada could become too hot and humid for most Caucasians to
tolerate. If enough Caucasians settle in Alaska, northern Canada, and northern
Europe, this will maximize the chances that some remnant of the European race
will survive the coming of a tropical earth. Light-skinned Asians like the
Japanese are advised to resettle in northern Asia as the global climate gets hot
and sticky. I wouldn’t wait till the last minute for this—although no one knows
when “the last minute” will be.
In light of global warming, peak oil may actually be a good thing—that is,
if the people who run the globe don’t start a nuclear war trying to get hold of the
remaining oil. Civilization is bound to collapse, to be sure, because oil, the
lifeblood of the postmodern world, will decline year by year. But half of the
earth’s carbon will stay underground, as it would become increasingly
uneconomical to extract it. The good news is that, in time, the earth will cool.
Think about it. The alternate scenario is burning oil “till the last drop.” If such a
513
This statistic comes from Evening Edition. The segment aired on The Weather Channel on July 31,
2006.
thing occurs, then earth is likely to undergo a runaway greenhouse effect. This
means that earth could end up like Venus, a planet whose surface temperature is
over 800 degrees Fahrenheit. No form of life can survive such an environment.
Peak oil will, in my view, prevent this.
In the movie The Neverending Story, Fantasia dies because its denizens
lose their dreams. As G’mork (Alan Oppenheimer) tells Atreyu (Noah
Hathaway) in the primordial cave, “… people who have no hopes are easy to
control, and whoever has the control has the power [emphases mine].”
For better or worse, elitism and control of the masses are still alive. The
average adult thinks and acts according to the group consciousness around him
or her. Children internalize the values around them even faster. Humans
wishing to leave descendants will need, however, to seriously examine the
consciousness of the group around them. This consciousness includes the
values, assumptions, attitudes, and approaches of the group in question.
Scapegoatism will run riot in many quarters, just as it has in the past.
Boogeymen will be created. Moral panics will ensue. Radical regressives could
get elected in the United States. This prediction is based on the increasingly
rightward tilt of American politics since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980—
and one could argue, since Anita Bryant’s Save Our Children campaign of 1977.
If social regressives—the Far Right—are not elected in the U.S., they may simply
seize power. At the same time, social liberals could do the same, for American
fascism is coming from the Left. Political correctness is how dissent is being
suppressed in Western countries, and the Left demonizes its enemies as much as
Hitler demonized Jews. Economic neoliberals have as much power to promote
their one world agenda as social conservatives have had in American politics
over the past 30 years.
Generations X and Y are conservative on issues like male bisexuality,

polyamory, and group sex and liberal on issues like co-habitation, birth control,
and interracial dating. Women of generations X and Y have freedoms denied to
their grandmothers: wider choices in gender roles, more career options, and the
freedom to express their sexuality in a fluid way. With the exception of gender
benders like men who wear earrings, however, young men have even more rigid
gender and sexual roles to conform to than they did a few generations ago.
These masculine roles are enforced viciously. Just think about the lynching of
Matthew Shepard. In fact, gay bashing has become a pastime of many straight-
identified young men. The “sexual revolution,” a product of the 1960
introduction of the birth control pill, turned out to be a purely female
phenomenon. Even here, it was stopped cold by the sexual counterrevolution of
the post-1980 era. As for men, they have yet to have a sexual—not to mention,
love—revolution of their own. Male and female bashing by the opposite sex is
also becoming more common. And all of these developments are happening in
times of plenty! Imagine what will occur in times of scarcity.
In Fire and Ice, Michael Adams, the pollster at Toronto’s Environics,
argues that New Aquarians are part of a larger progressive group in America.
These progressives, he writes, are open to nuance, shades of gray, pluralism, and
spirituality. But in America, Adams writes, progressives are a declining
demographic group. Much of the New Aquarians, he continues, are nothing
more than Baby Boomers whose idealism from the 1960s persists. Adams writes,
however, that “… our Canadian research reveals a healthy number of idealistic
‘New Aquarians’ among Canadian youth [emphases mine].”514 In the New Age
circles of America, by contrast, youth are conspicuous for their absence.
514
Of course, many Canadian youths are not progressive—and the increasing Americanization of Canada is
making many Canadians nervous. See Michael Adams with Amy Langstaff and David Jamieson, Fire and
Ice: The United States, Canada, and the Myth of Converging Values, (Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2003), p.
96.
Americans, Adams contends, began as revolutionaries. Since 1983, however, his

polls have shown that more Americans are becoming xenophobic, Darwinistic,
sexist, and/or deferential to authority.515 More Americans, Adams writes, are
thinking in terms of either/or, right/wrong, and black/white. Obversely, he
argues, Canada began as a hierarchical country and is now becoming less
deferential to authority. Also, Adams continues, America began with separation
of church and state and is slowly uniting the two. Canada, on the other hand,
began with the fusing of church and state, shed much of her organized religion
after 1960, and is now very secular, Adams writes. Not surprisingly, more
Canadians than Americans are, according to Adams, comfortable with nuance,
shades of gray, plurality, and egalitarianism. Consider the following poll
question:
Do you think the father should be master of the house?516
According to a 2004 poll of Adams’s, 21 percent of Canadians agreed with the

above statement. But 52 percent of Americans agreed that “the father should be
master.”517 According to another poll of Adams’s, 50 percent of Americans
attend church once a week, but only 20 percent of Canadians do.518 As Leslie
MacKinnon from CBC’s The National reported in November 2004:
515
In American Backlash, Adams argues that the real divide in the United States is not between liberals and
conservatives but rather, between Americans who vote and Americans who don’t vote. For all the flaunted
differences between Republicans and Democrats, Adams writes, his research shows that voters—liberal and
conservative—share far more in common than they do with nonvoters. Values that American nonvoters are
taking on (e.g., “Darwinism,” “Acceptance of Violence,” and “Civic Apathy”) are truly off the charts—and
very dangerous—compared with those values (e.g., faith in the system, the primacy of the community, and
the importance of ethical behavior) shared by Republicans and Democrats.
516
This is the question as reported by CBC News: The National, “CBC News Inquiry: Continental Divide?”
The segment aired on CBC on November 30, 2004. This poll was the most recent, having been done in
2004. In Adams’s Fire and Ice, however, the poll question is framed as the statement: “The father of the
family must be master in his own home,” p. 50 and “The father of the family must be master in his own
house,” p. 86. This poll, as reported on Adams’s book, starts in 1992 and stops in 2000.
517
These statistics are reported on “CBC News Inquiry: Continental Divide?”
518
Ibid.
50 to 70 million Americans share what might be called Canadian values.

Most were Kerry voters, and we know where they are—New England and
the west coast of the U.S. But it’s the Americans in the so-called red states,
the Bush voters, whose numbers are growing.519
One could argue that the election of Barack Obama to the presidency
shows that America is moving to the left. But according to Andrew Kohut, a
pollster, 33 percent of voters polled on November 4, 2008 identified themselves
as conservative, and 44 percent identified themselves as moderates.520 But a
moderate in America is a conservative in Canada, and a conservative in America
is, in Canada, a regressive (off the political scale). Why? Because the political
spectrum leans to the left in Canada and to the right in the United States.
Religious fundamentalism has declined in all postindustrial countries
except one—the United States. Like fundamentalism anywhere, Christian
fundamentalism in America tends to be intolerant of differences, tends to be
exclusivist, and tends to be xenophobic. What makes intolerance and
exclusivism worse is that in the U.S., most Americans now live outside of the
major cities. Living outside of a major city tends to make one less tolerant of
racial, ethnic, sexual, and religious differences. In Canada, by contrast, 60
percent of people live in six cities—Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary,
Edmonton, and Ottawa.521 Similar to European cities, Canadian cities are also
less suburbanized, more integrated, and have more community—in contrast to
American cities.522
519
Ibid.
520
Andrew Kohut mentioned these statistics on C-SPAN, “Mandate for Congress.” The forum aired on
November 6, 2008. It was moderated by Craig Crawford, a columnist at a journal called Congressional
Quarterly.
521
Michael Adams mentioned the 60 percent statistic on “CBC News Inquiry: Continental Divide?”
522
Ibid.
What has all of this got to do with “Humanity’s Biggest Challenge …

Ever!”—the title of this last section? As mentioned in the preface, it is imperative
for trans-sensory and trans-instinctual people to be aware not just of spiritual
phenomena but also, of their social, economic, and political environment. This is
because any sociopolitical environment reflects the consciousness of the
surrounding group. As Communion with God says:
Do not imagine that spirituality and politics do not mix. Politics is

spirituality, demonstrated.
Do not imagine that economics has nothing to do with spirituality.

Your economy reveals your spirituality.523
We can gauge the spiritual evolution, or absence of, of a surrounding society and
stay or leave accordingly.
Most Americans are at the core of the old paradigm—the Lower 48. As
humanity makes its transition to a post-carbon age, geographical areas with
traditions of xenophobia, lack of tolerance, and violence are apt to return to some
of those tendencies. Conversely, geographical regions with people who are
tolerant, open to nuance, and pluralistic are likely to continue with those values.
Therefore, prudent is to become aware of the groups one surrounds oneself with.
This is needed for self-preservation and to find kindred spirits. Living at the
periphery of civilization—such as Alaska—may not be such a bad idea.
The years between 2010 and 2020 will be one of the most critical time
periods in human history. At the dawn of the new millennium, however, fresh
523
Walsch, Communion with God, (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2000), p. 209.
ideas and social innovations are largely out in America—outside leftover Boomer
circles—and individualism, consumerism, and scapegoatism are in.
People who hope to survive and prosper in a post-carbon world will need
to develop an independent mind. One cannot fight the world alone. The
temptation of being sucked into the mentality of the larger group is too great.
Best is to seek others who are planning or building alternative communities.
These villages must be large enough to become and remain self-sufficient. In
other words, a group of 50 people won’t do. A few hundred people seems to be
the minimum requirement for a self-sustaining community. The more the people
who are skilled in or learning lost crafts—blacksmith, buggy maker, and horse
breeder—the better. Native peoples are a great asset, especially elders, for
natives have not totally forgotten traditional ways of doing things. Join groups
that share your consciousness—far from large population centers, in
geographical areas that are naturally sustainable and way above sea level, in
regions with nearby native populations, and in as healthy an ecosystem as
possible. Raise your children there. Relearn the practical skills that your
grandparents had. Smart is also to put one’s money in the strongest banks
because weaker ones may go under in a deflationary depression, making the
remaining banks stronger. In his book Conquer the Crash, economist Robert
Prechter, Jr. provides a list of the strongest two banks in each state.524
A post-oil world will turn everything on its head—at least, in the First
World.525 As Richard Heinberg writes in Powerdown, the United States may not
hold as a country.526 Politically, America may split along racial and ethnic lines,
with the Southwest becoming Aztlan, the American South “black,” and the
heartland of America Anglo. Secessionist movements, however, have little
524
See Robert R. Prechter, Jr., Conquer the Crash: You Can Survive and Prosper in a Deflationary
Depression, (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2002), pgs. 180-186.
525
See Kunstler, The Long Emergency.
526
See Heinberg, Powerdown.
chance of success in the long run because the heavens won’t tolerate any more
separations on this planet. Whether or not this is fair, we must go with the flow
of convergence—racial convergence, economic convergence, class convergence,
international convergence, and sexual convergence. All groups that have lived
separate from other groups throughout human history—men distrusting other
men, European Americans fearing African Americans, African Americans
distrusting Caucasians, wealthy people neglecting poor people—are called to
come together. Bedrooms will become orgies of oneness. Sexual disorder in the
bedroom will create a new order of nature—although from the perspective of
many people, the new order will look like disorder. Many people will panic at
the coming oneness because deep down, they know that their Higher Selves
want to experience this, too. We might as well say “Yes!’ to oneness, for each of
our spirits incarnated on earth to experience this unification. In this universe, the
coming together of all life on a single planet comes along once every few million
years. We do not want to miss the opportunity not just of a lifetime but of
hundreds of lifetimes. Let us welcome the coalescence of life on earth with open
arms. This is much as planetesimals coalesced to form the early earth. Climate-
wise, planet Earth is becoming a hell. Yet, earth is moving toward higher
consciousness. Paradox. Earth is going back to its early days of high heat and
high humidity. This will be followed by a cool down, and the cool down will be
followed by a dawn of new life.
At the end of 1951’s The Day the Earth Stood Still, Klaatu tells earthlings:
Join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face
obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests
with you.
By “join us,” Klaatu meant the planets of his star system. But Klaatu’s message
about peace also applies to our war against nature. It is, in a literal sense, a
nuclear war in slow motion. It has been raging for centuries. But the most
savage phase of this war has been the last 100 years. Even ocean life is being
affected. As we are beginning to realize, nature is most unforgiving. We can
abuse her to a point. When the bough breaks, though, corporations,
governments, and all of us will be thrown left and right. It will be like a spoon
whirling clockwise in a mug, mixing sugar in milk, then abruptly turning
counterclockwise and causing turbulence in the milk. Knee-jerk reactions will be
common. Human rationality may disappear in all but a few, isolated
populations.
A post-peak planet need not be taken literally, however, as humanly
illogical as this may sound. Like everything else in physical life, it will be a
metaphor, a symbol, a parable, and a matrix with lessons behind the veil of
images. Our emotional reactions will tempt us, of course, to take the story
literally. But we shall always have choice as to what we allow into our interiors.
The end of cheap oil will mean many things. But the primary meaning—
both literal and symbolic—will be that humanity will seek and use external
power less and internal power more. Consider, for example, how much external
power a single turbofan engine needs to get an airliner off the runway. One
turbofan engine alone can do it. In the coming years, the decline of the airline
industry will symbolize the decline of external power for humanity. On the
other hand, human enterprises that use less energy—such as the Internet—will
have a greater chance of having a future.
In the movie Time After Time (1979), H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell)
travels from 1893 London to 1979 San Francisco. Before Wells climbs back into
his time machine, he tells Amy Robbins (Mary Steenburgen), “Every age is the
same. It’s only love that makes any of them bearable.” This brings me back to
the beginning of this book, the quote by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Decades
ago, this French Jesuit said:
Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity,
we
shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time
in
the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.527
Just as important, Teilhard de Chardin said:
We have only to believe. And the more threatening and irreducible

reality
appears, the more firmly and desperately we must believe. Then, little
by
little, we shall see the universal horror unbend, and then smile upon us,
and then take us in its more than human arms.528
527
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/pierre_teilhard_de_chardi.html.
528
See “Quotation Library,” SuccessNet. The URL of the quote is http://successnet.org/library2.htm.
Exercises
1) In your view, is it wise to break the news of peak oil to your children? To
friends? To coworkers? Why or why not?
2) Physically, can you and your family prepare for peal oil? If yes, how?
Emotionally and psychologically, can you and your family prepare for peak
oil? If yes, how?
3) What, if any, are the pros of living in tight-knit communities? What, if

any, are the cons?
4) Are you prepared to live communally in a post-peak world? If no, how

could you become ready? If you have children, how could you prepare
them?
5) When you see interracial couples, how do you feel? What thoughts cross
your mind? If your thoughts are positive, do your feelings match the
thoughts? If not, might you have internalized political correctness on this
topic? If you have internalized political correctness, do you have the
courage to experience your true feelings—and thoughts—not just about
interracial relationships but about race in general?
6)If interracial sex and love generate negative feelings in you, why is this
so? Are you willing to exchange your negative emotions for positive
feelings regarding this topic? How could you generate positive feelings
toward interracial relationships of a sexual or romantic nature? Why is this
necessary in this day and age? Write this or speak it into a tape recorder.

Becoming Trans Instinctual

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Becoming Trans Instinctual

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1

Our Human Instincts, the Cerebral Cortex, and the Heart

stopping a hysterical reaction would have been more difficult—albeit not

The word civilized means that an individual and/or a society is civil,

Everything seemed to start off really well [Holland’s relationship with a

stayed on, suffering in silence.

Becoming trans-instinctual does not mean rejecting our animal tendencies.

1) The evolution of the human brain and the significance of this

The Evolution and Workings of the Brain

Mentioned in Part I of this book, the human brain is an outgrowth—or

We need no longer be trapped in the genetically inherited behavior

Similarly, there is sex, an inborn instinct, and there is sexuality, a way of

Becoming trans-instinctual means downplaying our reptilian side,

Different Types of Intelligence

… as a teacher, I recognized that it was excessive fear and self-doubt

Becoming trans-instinctual is about ignoring human instincts like fear—

Different Types of Instincts

The Brain vs. The Heart

If we have a cerebral cortex, then why do most of us use—at most—a

I am finding it difficult to concentrate. I believe I am overwhelmed

Picard: Are you having some kind of malfunction?

Data: Sir! I no longer want these emotions. Deactivating me is the only

Data: Sir, I cannot!

Picard: [grating voice] You will not be deactivated. You’re an officer on

Data: Yes, sir. I will try, sir.

Picard: Sometimes, it takes courage to try to [emphasis mine], and

As Generations progresses, Data integrates what could be called his android

At first, I was unprepared for the unpredictable nature of emotions.

Data’s case may seem irrelevant to us non-androids. But many areas of

1) Slaughtering people who are converts to another religion

2) Massacring other ethnic groups (ethnic cleansing)

3) Punching someone who does something offensive, even though

5) Drinking lots of alcohol for decades, even though this leads to

6) Eating fatty foods, even though this contributes to obesity

7) Pursuing one’s romantic rival from Texas to Florida, as former

emotions—whether in the stock market or in war—are infectious

Not even the maddest of the Wilsonians would have suggested

Thus, the heart reflects the spiritual evolution of an individual—and ultimately,

principles involve living by what works, as opposed to letting negative emotions

The overly specific sexual [meaning gender] orientation [male or female],

The goal for those of us who seek to become trans-instinctual is to

The Face of Postmodern Survival

One morning, a man came to my New Hampshire apartment to put

another pandemic in the postindustrial world, workaholism reflects the epidemic

1) Increase a bunch of numbers in one’s bank account

Even family comes second—and children suffer the most.

myself presenting to audiences. I also submitted an impeccable book proposal to

The Politics of Survival

More sympathetic portrayals of gay men with AIDS tended to be set

The Morphing of Survival

Picard: Do you see what is happening here, Mr. Worf?

Picard: This is not unlike a … a drumhead trial.

Worf: I do not understand.

Picard: That’s true, and he will stand for his crime.45

A minute or so later, the scene continues:

Worf: Sir. The Federation does have enemies. We must seek

… the United Federation of Planets is the most remarkable institution ever

Much as Nora Satie fought to protect the Federation, mothers will do

“hysteria” (the words of Camille Paglia, a libertarian feminist).49 This hysteria

1) To avoid looking at how postmodern society—not just “dirty old

2) To advance the careers of politicians, psychologists, psychiatrists,

In fact, a whole child abuse industry is firmly in place.

First, they came for the communists. I wasn’t a communist, so I didn’t

One afternoon, I telephoned a man for information about his experience