Subject:  A Different View of the World
Date:      Wed, 27 Jan 1999 01:15:26 -0800

To the thinkers.........................

> >
> > If we could shrink the Earth's population to a village of precisely 100
> > people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look
> > like this:
> >
> > There would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the
> >  Western Hemisphere (both North and South America) and 8 Africans.
> >
> > 51 would be female; 49 would be male.
> > 70 would be non-white; 30 white.
> > 70 would be non-Christian; 30 Christian.
> >
> > 50% of the entire world's wealth would be in the hands
> > of only 6 people and all 6 would be citizens of the United States.
> >
> > 80 would live in substandard housing.
> > 70 would be unable to read.
> > 50 would suffer from malnutrition.
> > 1 would be near death, 1 would be near birth.
> >
> > Only 1 would have a college education; and no one would
> > own a computer.
> >
> > When one considers our world from such an incredibly
> > compressed perspective, the need for both tolerance and
> > understanding becomes glaringly apparent...
> >

This is the objective, measurable world on planet Earth today.  Does it match the subjective picture you have in your mind? Here's one more....

> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Start with a cage containing five apes. In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. Before long, an ape will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the Banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the apes with cold water.

After a while, another ape makes an attempt with the same result-all the apes are sprayed with cold water.

Turn off the cold water.

If, later, another ape tries to climb the stairs, the other apes will try to prevent it even though no water sprays them.

Now, remove one ape from the cage and replace it with a new one.

The New ape sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other apes attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be
assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five apes and replace it with a New one.  The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked.

The previous Newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.  Again, replace a third original ape with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well.

Two of the four apes that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest ape.

After replacing the fourth and fifth original apes, all the apes which have been sprayed with cold water have been replaced.

Nevertheless, no ape ever again approaches the stairs. Why not?

"Because that's the way it's always been around here."

Sound familiar?

Hi there,

     I caught this very thought-provoking talk about a week ago at the Whole Life Expo on navigating ecstasy and the ethno-pharmacology of spiritual transformation.  The speaker was Terence McKenna, author of _Food of the Gods_ and _The Evolutionary Mind_.  He also recommended _The Art of Seeing_ by Huxley and _Permutation City_, by Greg Eagan.  Here's a quote, by someone who you know, which goes along with this sort of thing and the two items above:

Breaking through this increasingly complicated "optical delusion of consciousness" fostered by the programming of our increasingly complicated society, is what shamans and Terence McKenna refer to as "rupturing the mundane plane of reality."  He used the analogy of society as the programming/software which runs on the hardware of a human being...and, as most of you know, software always limits/restricts the potential of the raw hardware.  (Don't even get me started on Microsoft!)  So, most of the time what we accept and cling to so tenaciously as being real, is not...and we limit our human potential in the process.  McKenna gives very specific instructions on how anyone can break through these illusions, if only they have the courage and open-mindedness.  I'll attach a couple of things which he said which stuck with me enough jot down at the end of this message.

My aunt introduced me to this guy, Ralph Strauch, several years ago when she was living down in LA.  We had dinner together and he gave me his book, _The Reality Illusion_.  It's out of print now, but you can borrow my (signed!) copy if you're interested.  Also, he put a couple of the basic concepts on his web page.  Check out:

http://www.somatic.com/real_illus.html#book (and click on Summary), or go to:

http://www.somatic.com/create.exp.html (for some rhetoric on how you create your own experience)

Anyone remember the Styx song, "The Grand Illusion" (especially the lyrics)?

There's this other book I read a long time ago, _The Crack in the Cosmic Egg_, by Joseph Chilton Pearce, which was pretty mind-blowing when I read it.  I still have it and would be happy to loan that one out as well.  If you're skeptical about this stuff and think that you understand reality, call me up:  I have a couple of direct experiences which I'd like explained.  ;-)  Or, if you've experienced a crack or two in your own cosmic egg and have figured out something, please share it with me.  I've really just scratched the surface in my attempts to reach some sort of non-subjective understanding of reality.  Obviously, one's understanding of reality will dictate how he lives his life.

Wishing you well in whatever world you create,
Rich

P.S.  Here are some thought-provoking notes which I jotted down from Terence McKenna's talk:
 

• it's not good for healthy humans to practice cultural values in any form
• the first discovery of a civilized person is that he wants nothing to do with society
• cultures enforcing uniformity, cleanliness, politeness/niceness force the human beast out in dangerous and dysfunctional ways (Germany was the epitome of this)
• all information is hearsay
• the task of every human is to understand what's really going on behind his/her own brainwashing
• a deliberate disordering of the senses is required for divine experience
• plants invented animals to move them around
• once you rupture the mundane plane, the normal rules no longer apply
• shamans penetrate multidimensional space
• in explaining the new discoveries of Quantum Physics(*), that calls all of previously accepted physics into question: all particles once associated with each other remain in association; all particles were once closely associated before the "Big Bang" which created the universe; every particle which makes up every bit of matter in the universe, including each of us, is intimately and invisibly connected by this newly-discovered and little-understood force

(*) My limited understanding of this research: Every sub-atomic particle has a "spin" associated with it.  (Remember the spin component of electrons from chemistry/physics classes?)  When two particles are in associated in close proximity (required to form sub-atomic particles, which form atoms, which form molecules, which form everything else, etc.), they spin in opposite "directions".  When particle physicists reverse the spin on one particle, the other particle reverses its spin instantaneously to stay in sync.  Nobody and nothing in physics can explain just how or why this happens.  They invented this new term to define this force, the "omega force".  Even more alarming: When they blast these particles apart in linear accelerators and the particles are "infinitely" far apart (ie, no known force in the universe should be able to cause an interaction between them), they reverse the spin on one particle and its previous partner, which is now very far away, reverses its spin *instantaneously*.  Whatever this connection or communication between these two particles, its existence seems to wreck all of physics and relativity theory...not to mention breaking the speed of light barrier!

So, now, the greatest scientific minds in the world are realizing that they have only a tiny clue of what's really going on in "reality"....  One thing is clear, however:  None of our 5 senses, which form the basis for human perception, which form our experience of reality, get us *anywhere*near* reality.  There's just a lot of convenient coincidences upon which all of science and our experience are based, and the more closely we examine them, the less well they seem to fit.  So, why do we cling so tenaciously to these illusions of reality created by our limited powers of sensory human perception--not the least of which is our insistence on competition and working against each other as if the illusion of our individuality/separateness were reality?

It seems clear to me what the next stage in human evolution should be.  But, what an intriguing "As the World Turns" soap opera for any superior being who might be watching: Will they figure out my cute little puzzle in time?  Will they find a way to overcome their egos and deep beliefs, judgments and programming about themselves, each other, the world, reality and the illusion of their differences/separateness/individuality?...will they find a way to trust each other and work with, rather than against, the omega force that connects them all to each other as well as to every other particle in all of creation?...or will they destroy themselves, the planet, and all the beings which live on it first?!?  High drama!!

Well, I can tell you which side is winning.  Just turn on the news.  Who or what will save us?  Perhaps, the reason you're here on the planet, and reading this at this moment, is that the person in your chair is the leader the world has been waiting for....