In a note to Humancafe: "The title "conscious vs unconscious-ness" is very appropriate. I'm testing mental conditions in our world and literally the unconscious is unifying to force the unconscious to deny the unconscious exists. This is contrary to the purposes of the conscious with regard to reason and certain disaster if its success continues."

-Chris

This thread of the "conscious vs unconscious-ness" was inspired by correspondence between Chris Brown and myself, some of which I pasted below. We invite all who wish to participate in this discussion to please do so. "All ideas are welcome!"

"Ivan,
THX for the response and invite. I have posted after reading parts of HABEAS
MENTEM. I searched a number of the pages for the word "unconscious" copied
the text and have written detailed comment upon parts. You have created an
exceptional dissertation on a subject few know much about, even less care to
acknowledge as controling our behaviors and even fewer recognize as being in
control of our world. I look forward to sharing my comments upon HABEAS MENTEM
with you and others of your group. Thank you for your efforts in organizing
Humancafe.
Chris"

Humancafe
I guess this means there is interest. Here is all that need be done. A few people with backgrounds in; history, law and psychology, must get together and create a foundation of agreement recognizing a few fundamentals as absolutes of human existence that control behavior from the individual then group level.
THX
Chris"

I just wrote this to Stephen Garvey at the Inexpressible.com "Challenge the Philosophy" (in resonse to his query to me):
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<< Also, I don't know what are the reasons for your optiminism that humanity will eventually evolve minds that can truly know ourselves as part of the interrelated infinity of existence. >>

Hi Stephen,

I had to think of this one some more. Really, I don't know that we will, except that we seem to have a capacity to either grasp onto a concept and work with, it or destroy it. If we destroy ourselves, then that's that, end of the story. But if we manage to control our little gray brain cells into understanding something that will take us towards a new evolution, then I think it will be an evolution of consciousness. Again, this is due to our choice, whether this choice is rational or not. The universe then works with us to either provide us with a nice destruction, if that is how we end up choosing, or lifting us up into some new evolution, if it is within our evolutionary capacity of what can be. If so, then I think we will evolve to better know ourselves.

Also, from observation of the evolution of life on Earth, there seems to be a steady progression of evolution favoring consciousness. By extrapolation it would seem the universe in its interrelated infinity favors consciousness. This consciousness then becomes a self aware identity, the who we are, as we become defined within the universe's infinite Totality of interrelationships. Who we are becomes more than merely what is in our minds, for it then is also who we are as an identity from that Totality.

Which will it be? I choose the latter, that we will consciously reach for a new capacity, and thus evolve in our consciousness. I would even venture to gamble that this will happen when we gain enough awareness that we choose to do things through agreement rather than coercion. --Ivan
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The process of optimization was first conceived as it relates to our unity in this democracy and assuring peace. The reason for this being that the democracy to seems to have been usurped and with that a dictatorial thrust into using the nations resource to wage war has emerged. All this for reasons ultimately not acceptable to the interests of the majority whether they are capable of admitting the fact or not. In order to reestablish that this is a democratic nation, unity of opinion must exist.

Herein is where the unconscious responses were prompted, with apparent conscious expression, that failed to recognize obvious, consciously derived, historically established behavioral origins of unconscious performance. The first strong indications of an unconscious rejection of the entire unconscious control which is natural to human existence, began in August, 2002 after emailing non profit organizations claiming on their web sites to be dedicated to peace.

I propositioned through email that war was aggression, aggression behavior and very much an element of unconscious performance. This had the effect of stopping the communications.

At this point in the process of continuing with optimization I was forced to recognize that my earlier research into an apparent accumulating failure of psychology in general to continue through the 1980’s with establishing the extent of behavior enabled by dissociation was quite likely deeply relevant to the failure experienced in my effort to optimize unity for peace. This is seen here;

http://algoxy.com/psych/dissociate.html

At this point the readers experience with phenomena of the mind and general knowledge of the history of mental research must be assessed.

What could be significant about the letters M and K as they are used on the cover of the book, “HUMAN MEMORY”?

Dear Chris,

You bring up interesting points about consciousness-optimization vs. war-aggression.

I often reflect on how can we consciously connect with our unconscious, especially with the world's greater unconsciouss-ness. I tried doing this (which may be why the writing is sometimes odd) when I wrote out Habeas Mentem. My prime question was always how to connect into the primordial brain, into the unconscious, and to find reason there. What came out, in effect, was an evolution of an idea that describes infinity as a working model for humanity. This was a surprise, I must admit, but I left it such as it was (without trying to edit out the form of how the unconscious expressed itself to me). Now we need to connect again into the world's unconscious, to see how to bring it out to consciousness. This may be a path to evolve ideas that can eventually connect with the aggression side of humanity.

Ivan

Yes Ivan, evolve, change, adapt.........

Optimization requires the observation of natural events and so the process of dissociation as it relates to empowering the structures of;

trespass and coercion

as are so often addressed in HABEAS MENTUM. That connection between our two brains you reflect upon as it relates to aggression is the curative element to the aggression. In using it properly very deep understanding of others is possible. Bridging immense cultural gaps in a meaningful fashion is possible. However our societal fear of working with the unconscious has hobbled psychologies developments of methods of doing so.

Primarily a conscious assimilation in somewhat of a group fashion is needed and a discussion that demonstrates our acute sense of knowing the differences between wants and needs. The showing of a willingness to discuss the differences or at least the perceptions is vital. Perhaps a vital aspect of online BBs to counter the confusion created therein by exploitations of media.

If so you’ve seen the structure of valuation that our unconscious sets out for us according to; for instance; Abraham Maslow’s work, then you have the elements that must relate within the mental relationships of the left and right hemispheres and their integration as conscious unconscious operation.

When we begin to develop ways to address the unconscious exclusively we can teach and unteach ourselves from/to agresson/peace funtion/happiness and deeply rewarding thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

I have a great article I found on the web that brings a very scientific or medical perspective to our right and left brains. Should I post that or put it with the "Human Memory" page?

Chris

Dear Chris,

I think that we are now entering a socially "postmodern" era as it applies to ethics, where the old root values are challenged, and instead we are celebrating diversity and human freedoms unrestrained by old conventions based on religion or social acceptability. This era was ushered first by the modernist era at the beginning of the last century, where a consciousness of our unconsciousness first emerged, either in modern art or literature, or in social developments, such as a greater demand for social freedoms, national independence, and equality of economic and human rights.

Though HABEAS MENTEM was written 20 years ago, it had in some ways already anticipated the postmodern era, by breaking away from the world left behind by our predecessors, a world rooted in values of Platonism with its neo-Egyptian-biblical ethics and morality based on the dominant male figure, Medievalism and its feudal social orders of hierarchy based on a neo-Platonic republic of feudal aristocracy, and the power based commercial militarism of the last two centuries. These had been supported by philosophical thinking raising our awareness to the need for intellectual order based on a Totality of human understanding, of human awareness, or of socially scientific consciousness. This totality understanding culminated in Marxism, where all of society was to be dominated by the best thinking along social awareness lines, and which was countered by regressivism in the form of Nazism. Unfortunately, neither idea worked in real life, since it neglected to accept the validity of the individual as a real conscious being connected to a greater reality than the social one, and a major war resulted. Today, progressive postmodernism is moving towards multiculturalism and interdisciplinary thinking, which is also liberating, but is now being countered by a revival in religious fundamentalism, which itself then gets countered by military conservatism. The product, alas once again, is war.

What HABEAS MENTEM does, as I understand it, and assuredly I am only a student of this though I wrote it; what it does is take the Totality of knowledge and human understanding to transcending our social and religion based reality, and take it into the greatest possible reality, that of an infinite universe, and to become conscious there. What this means is that the greatest authority is not manmade, but divine and operating independently of human understanding, so that our intelligence is not the final arbitor of consciousness, but the infinite reality itself, from which we sprang. This is made possible by the mechanism of "interrelationship", which describes how a totality redefines its component parts in terms of the interrelated whole. The end result, by this reasoning, is that the ultimate intelligence is not human, but a greater universal intelligence, which we humans share in and are becoming gradually conscious. By extension, the final analysis of whether or not we are conscious is whether or not we do things through agreement or through coercion. You might look at the paper I wrote for the Examined Life Philosophy Journal titled: LOGIC OF AGREEMENT VS COERCION.

Now as we are entering this postmodern era, we will need to reach for new social and spiritual, or religious, paradigms to make real this new understanding, that we can do things through agreement, and have the universe interact positively with us, to become more conscious; or we continue to do things through coercion, and have our consciousness delayed. There is always risk in every choice, and the choice is ours.

Ivan

Ps: it's okay to link references on the Forum, or to copy in quotes from original sources with references, if accepted by copyright convention.

Ivan,
Although it is true HABEAS MENTEM was written 20 years ago, we have not changed so its multiple recognitions of the human unconscious still make it a work with great veracity in this world where consciousness is revered blindly. I have come to appreciate an ancient Greek perspective on our psyches. The Id and the Ego.
Introducing this makes necessary acknowledgement of the other dualisms in use.The left and right brain and the conscious and unconscious. The Id relates to right brain, the Ego to left, Conscious to Ego and Unconscious to Id. The relationships are not absolutes and in that we find the needed flexibility to deal with many issues of the human psyche.

Here is a link to the aforementioned text about our “Two Minds”

http://algoxy.com/psych/twominds.html

It is true that the world of the future will be “celebrating diversity and human freedoms unrestrained by old conventions based on religion or social acceptability.” Our fundamental needs will be recognized and with that our tendency to ignore the differences between wants and needs will be subjugated to the interests of agreement.

Agreement is dependent upon understanding and understanding upon communication. Communication is largely dependent upon intent. Why are the parties communicating? If they are communicating for the same reasons this tends to dissolve differences regarding the definitions of wants and needs. One any inequity is addressed there agreement is much closer.

An element of difficulty of agreement is dissociation. One party of a discussion can simply dissociate the veracity of the others need and abrogate it to a want to serve their argument. Here I found a very technical piece on dissociation and the limbic system. In simple terms the Limbic system is that unconscious system that can create feelings in response to conscious thoughts. It is very much an active element in our unconscious responses during conscious states.

Here is a snippet from the link below:
Sierra and Berrios recently proposed a corticolimbic model of depersonalization (20). They postulated that depersonalization involves corticolimbic disconnection, such that left medial prefrontal activation, with reciprocal amygdala inhibition, results in hypoemotionality and decreased arousal, and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation, with reciprocal anterior cingulate inhibition, leads to hypervigilance, attentional difficulties and emptiness of mental contents.

http://www.cpa-apc.org/Publications/Archives/Bulletin/2002/august/laniusEn.asp

In all what has been described is a major barrier to agreement and a paramount reason to seek ways to construct a basis of agreement separate from conscious communications. The unconscious factors actually dominate communications most of the time and are consciously unrecognized. Direct work with the unconscious was a sophisticated aspect of the past in areas of diplomacy that have been obliterated from our history since Medieval times.

In those times the opposite tendency resulted from a lack of consciously appreciated factors in an environment where compulsions of the unconscious had near total veracity. Today our language of behavioral psychology actually has many tools that create acceptance of unconscious control. So working from the precept of reason may provide more options. Unfortunately psychologists are terrified of certain unconscious potentials and so therefore will rarely work directly with the unconscious making a large field of unknowns for those who might wish to utilize direct contact with the unconscious for negotiations and the creation of agreement.

The establishment of “social freedoms, national independence, and equality of economic and human rights” will be dependent, largely related to diplomatic agreement, upon a structure of understanding that has begun but not yet confirmed. Abraham Maslow and the hierarchy of values that place love at the pinnacle of values needs confirmation by research into the unconscious structures of human psychology.


So this “need for intellectual order based on a Totality of human understanding, of human awareness, or of socially scientific consciousness” is something which must be demanded by reasonable people fro the field of psychology or any other that is dependent on behavior. Many will be quite surprised to learn how far this usefulness extends and ultimately it will be determined that all area of human activity will change with regard to the new understandings of the human unconscious mind.

And of course today “revival in religious fundamentalism, which itself then gets countered by military conservatism” is a dominant social feature. And “The product, alas once again, is war.” So if these words are understood by those reading, demand a finite recognition of how our unconscious controls us, not just by psychology but also law enforcement and the justice systems.


When Ivan says, “but divine and operating independently of human understanding, so that our intelligence is not the final arbiter of consciousness, but the infinite reality itself, from which we sprang. I believe he is asserting a recognition of our unconscious as it is an infinite source of knowledge when it is given time. I just hope we have the time.

Chris

Dear Chris, Dave, and All,

I suspect the unconscious factor tends to influence us more than we may care to admit. You write:

"In all that has been described is a major barrier to agreement and a paramount reason to seek ways to construct a basis of agreement separate from conscious communications. The unconscious factors actually dominate communications most of the time and are consciously unrecognized. Direct work with the unconscious was a sophisticated aspect of the past in areas of diplomacy that have been obliterated from our history since Medieval times." (italics mine)

We tend to think of conscious as being superior to unconscious, but often neglect as a consequence that much of what we do is in fact at the unconscious level. Our egos (left brained?) selves would like to think of us as conscious beings, but our ids (right brained?) would tend to set the "default" for our behavior on the unconscious level. We are deeply rooted in the conditioning of what our friend Dave describes elsewhere (see today's post on "Truth") as the result of our evolution to be alert to danger, which is an alert to fear, including fear of each other. To bring this over into communications, we tend to say things on many unconscious levels, even those of which we are not aware we are saying them, so that our communications are more than the logical reason with which we express ideas, but also involve other unconscious parts of ourselves, i.e. "body language", on both the physical and mental levels. Perhaps this is what you allude to in Medieval diplomacy, that we were then more free to skirt the main issues, and discuss the matter in such oblique ways as to not offend, appear almost pointless, and yet mysteriously achieve in some Byzantine way our ultimate goal: a deal is made, or an agreement is sealed.

Perhaps this is what takes place today, at all levels of diplomacy, though we are not overtly conscious of it: Presidential saber rattling (and moving battleships in the Persian Gulf), 12,000 page documentation in answer to a simple question (do you have weapons of mass destruction?), reinsertion of atomic rods into a hopelessly non-productive nuclear reactor (except to make plutonium), etc. I read somewhere, Charles Doughty's "Arabia Deserta" I believe, that the desert nomads would not talk to each other upon chance meeting at an Arabian water hole, but sit far from the fire and watch each other for a very long time until words were exchanged. This was a form of "body language", or lack thereof, communications which probably meant a great deal to the Arabs, and not as much to the Englishman observing them. Should we revitalize that kind of diplomacy, where more is said in what is unsaid than what is said? Perhaps.

Or perhaps we need to take baby steps first, for find associations with others who are of like mind. This would be the first steps towards raising a consciousness of the unconscious on both the levels of interhuman contacts, individually, and at the level of planetary consciousness, through teaching others with all media. To raise a planet's consciousness... what an idea... and yet how distant and illusive. How do we teach that in each choice we make, there is already prefigured a decision which had come to fruition from both the conscious and unconscious levels of our minds? How we choose all the things we say or do, in each human choice, is already the end product of a whole chain of personal events (and our ideas), of cultural evolution (and socially accepted ways of behavior), of biological evolution (to fight or flee), of our spiritual development (moral awareness and belief systems), and perhaps even our innermost dreams and fears (both conscious and unconscious); all these are rolled instantly into a response from us in relation to any given situation, ad infinitum. Will that response be conscious? Very likely not very conscious, but at least there will be some awareness that a reasonable choice needs to be made. I think this is where we are in our evolution, with more awarness to come. But now it will not be as much a biological evolution as a social and personal one. We will know this by what choices we make.

I think that truly aware beings, those who are more conscious and aware of their unconscious, are those who had already forethought the situation well enough to have chosen such as to avert conflict in advance; and if by happenschance had failed and found instead themselves in that uncomfortable position where one needs to either fight or flee, will stop long enough to ponder the imponderables and communicate with diplomatic aplomb... if there is time. Otherwise, we let go the conscious to act rather quickly with the unconscious. But if there is time, then there is hope that we can avert a global catastrophe, and lead the world with our consciousness towards more like minds working for making real a lasting world Peace.

Ivan

Ivan writes;
“I suspect the unconscious factor tends to influence us more than we may care to admit.”

In listing two of the more profound; one third of our lives we do not know what we are doing with out mind, sleep, or, even if we are doing it. The synaptic signal required to type this message are probably several million, and I cannot be aware of a single one no matter how hard I try. This is but the beginning.

Ivan writes;
“much of what we do is in fact at the unconscious level.

In fact nearly all that we “do” except for very carefully consciously reasoned changes, or optimizations of our unconscious control manifesting as “learning” bettering our performance through observation directed consciously then used in layers of repetitive reasoning, bring us willfully applying a different synaptic action to modify an existing pattern of action.

Ivan writes;
“Our egos (left brained?) selves would like to think of us as conscious beings, but our ids (right brained?) would tend to set the "default" for our behavior on the unconscious level.”

So important what Ivan says about "default"!
Mixing these terms is what they are for, but through an appreciation of the breadth of variety that the ancient Greeks applied to their many "Gods", I feel it must be done carefully to release an appreciation for the beauties the ancients knew, so they might to become more knowable to us.
The negotiational aspects of the compulsive Id, ruled by the Gods, are limited along with the ability to reason. The Ego has nothing but a remote controlled purpose to serve the Id in surviving and finding more satisfaction in living. The Id, from memory, knows the truth absolutely (the Ego depends on this) but is not given access to it all of it. The Id controls the incoming data from the senses. With what truth the Ego does have access to, it must use to structure projections of satisfaction from consciously anticipated behaviors, according to producing the maximum satisfaction. The Ego exerts control over the Id by creating understandings that are based on the information the Id shares.
The Ego and Id provide a model of interactional dynamic on a primordial level that are philosophic in describing what has a physiologically based psychology of left (actually just a part) where cognitions occur and right where the memory and related autonomic patterns are maintained. The interconnecting Limbic relationships create great complexity as to emotions relating to thoughts based of the information released on the unconscious level. That level, the mental domain of the body of the Id, is actually thickly cross wired with the limbic system into part of the left as well making us feeling, thinking, willfully acting beings at best.


Ivan writes;
“our communications are more than the logical reason with which we express ideas, but also involve other unconscious parts of ourselves, i.e. "body language", on both the physical and mental levels. Perhaps this is what you allude to in Medieval diplomacy, that we were then more free to skirt the main issues, and discuss the matter in such oblique ways as to not offend, appear almost pointless, and yet mysteriously achieve in some Byzantine way our ultimate goal: a deal is made, or an agreement is sealed.”

Perhaps that was the reason I think a deeper communication in certain cultures may have existed that was very formal called “Sojourn” and actually encouraged a third mental modality called somnambulism, wherein leaders accompanied by consul, and witnesses, shared their concerns as related to the peoples concerns and the structures of political power yielded. In that mental state, when attained, only the truth as the Ids know it would be directly considered after emerging from the “Sojourn” as witnessed would pass later in conscious discussion between the leaders and consul as witnessed.


And the below certainly happened. However if the nomads leaders were nearby and they had “Sojourned” well, relations would be very easily positive without a second glance.

Ivan writes;
desert nomads would not talk to each other upon chance meeting at an Arabian water hole, but sit far from the fire and watch each other for a very long time until words were exchanged.

Ivan writes;
Or perhaps we need to take baby steps first, for find associations with others who are of like mind. This would be the first steps towards raising a consciousness of the unconscious on both the levels of interhuman contacts, individually, and at the level of planetary consciousness, through teaching others with all media.

Perhaps two people of opposing people who were informed, and properly intentioned could find a metod to conduct a “Sojourn”.

Ivan writes;
How do we teach that in each choice we make, there is already prefigured a decision which had come to fruition from both the conscious and unconscious levels of our minds? How we choose all the things we say or do, in each human choice, is already the end product of a whole chain of personal events

Above Ivan details the Limbic system as the roles of the Ego and Id combine.

Happy New Year

Chris

Meta-conscious Vision Quest.

Dear Chris, and all and everyone,

There are times when the unconscious rises to the surface of our consciousness so that it becomes known for a brief moment, and then retreats back into its shadowy world of which we are scarcely aware. This may happen in a moment of lucidity, inspiration, or initiation of the kind practiced by so-called primitive societies. Joseph Campbell believed that the shaman experience, the calling by a young adult to become a shaman, originated with a peak experience of this kind, a mystical revelation that made that individual mystically more in touch with the spiritual. This may be understood as a kind of meta-consciousness of the unconscious, where suddenly one connects with something bigger than one's real waking thoughts, something that is deeper into our minds though no less real. This often is the first step in a greater vision quest.

I had such an experience, when about sixteen years old, where I suddenly had a kind of vision that everything was connected to everything else into a complete totality. This was not such an Earth shaking idea, given that Spinoza or Bruno before me already had expressed this with greater lucidity that I. Later I learned that even Bergsen spoke of an organic totality so that all living species were interrelated into it. But my vision did not stop there. Everyone can readily see how all things are interrelated into a whole, per force to totality, to infinity without giving it further thought, and leaving it as fact of how things are always interconnected. What made my vision unique, at least to me, was that this interconnectedness forced each thing within the totality, within the infinite whole of the universe, to be exactly as it was, and was meant to be: In effect, each thing was defined by its interrelated interconnectedness to the totality, because that was how the totality, the infinite, has allowed it to become, what it is now. It was this sense of infinite identity that was my peak quasi-shamanistic experience, the metaconscious experience that literally launched me into an interest and exploration of philosophy. Once I could see, which is something not easy to see, that each thing could only be as everything else had made it, that became the defining moment in my life where suddenly a mystery of the universe was opened to me, to see things in ways I had never seen before, nor read about anywhere else: Each thing in reality is defined by some infinite image of itself as its identity. Something in my unconscious came to the fore, and there asserted itself as a conscious thought, a confusing thought at first, but one that became more and more clear to me with time: The universe is its own self defining structure, to infinity and back, for each thing within it, because it is defined by its position and interrelationship within the Totality; and each living thing, each mind within that Totality, has an identity in terms of the infinite. It was into this vision that we sometimes are privileged to glimpse in a meta-conscious moment of conscious thought. To me, that was a peak experience of metaconsciousness which left me both elated and infinitely humbled before its immensity: Each thing in existence has an infinite identity. The result became, in time, Habeas Mentem.

How can we use this idea in the real world? This has been the goal of my search, a vison quest both intuitively and philosophically, and observationally and empirically, from that moment on: How do we as human beings fit into such an image of a self defining universe, and how do we respond to that image? I dare say, the search goes on, for I do not have all the answers, and may even go so far as to say that I have precious few. It was also my prime motivation to launch the Humancafe People's Forums.

I thank you, and all who had and will participate, for being a part of this meta-conscious quest of our infinite, human identity.

All the best, truly yours,

Ivan

Dear Ivan, and others reading,
We venture into an area rarely if ever trodden by modern minds. It is not that they would not go there if they could, they cannot because the knowledge to do so has been destroyed. There was a time when these concepts were not so fringe and had much more mainstream recognition for function in our individual lives.

Ivan Writes:
“There are times when the unconscious rises to the surface of our consciousness so that it becomes known for a brief moment, and then retreats back into its shadowy world of which we are scarcely aware.”

Yes Joseph Campbell suspected that the ancient people knew things about the mind that we have relinquished or forgotten.

Ivan Writes:
“This may happen in a moment of lucidity, inspiration, or initiation of the kind practiced by so-called primitive societies. Joseph Campbell believed that the shaman experience, the calling by a young adult to become a shaman, originated with a peak experience of this kind, a mystical revelation that made that individual mystically more in touch with the spiritual.

The Shamanistic role originated as did all the other tribal roles with realtion to of practicality. Again practically the oral histories carried the knowledge of each role. The Shaman found that they had many important services to the tribe. Since the unconscious is the primary recipient of sensory information the Shamans first role was to help with pain. Through a teaching of a chills mind at age 3 or 4, to transition mental states to a third mental modality called somnambulism, lifelong treatment for pain was possible. As humans moved from animal to a more reasoning structure Shamanism divided into two basic groups, healing and history. It was found that the third mental mode was optimum for teaching the memory directly and ideal for remembering history. The healing aspect divided into separate areas for childbirth and care of the elderly.”

Ivan Writes:
“This may be understood as a kind of meta-consciousness of the unconscious, where suddenly one connects with something bigger than one's real waking thoughts, something that is deeper into our minds though no less real.”
The ancients had a societal role called “Seer”. We know the indigenous people of Australia have a mental state they refer to as Dreamtime. That state is where the Seer went to work. It is not somnambulism per se. It is an understanding of the structure of unconscious existence wherein all life shares knowledge.

Ivan writes:
“How can we use this idea in the real world?”

Somnambulism has been used by many societies to enable the vision quest in order to source knowledge. The word “Sorcerer” came from the ability to create vision quest that sourced knowledge of the collective unconscious in small pieces that were usable. Nikola Tesla was an example of the vision quest providing scientific inspiration with great tangible function.

Unfortunately this knowledge of the unconscious was, and still is rejected by our society. Psychology today actually knows of the potentials but is fearful and disabled from using what has been learned in any functional way. Since the crusades all societies that utilize this knowledge have been severely persecuted. Sadly this continues as our nation is being prepared for war with Iraq. The persecution unfortunately did not eradicate the knowledge it only made it exclusively unconscious which explains why we don’t know the reason we prepare for war. In other words no rational thought is applied to its usage, reasons are expressed but they are not sound. Its use is now completely in a realm of unconscious compulsion. This discussion here is very likely the most comprehensive discussion on planet earth that reasonably manipulates all aspect of the ancient knowledge as they one were applied to our lives.

Ivans exstensive descriptions of the philosophical aspects of vision quest actually are the ground work for practical applications of guidence direct to the unconscious that expands our appreciation of our spirituality. With prayers for peace in our world, enjoy.

Chris