Writings 2
This book is an inner and outer journey into one's self and into the wild. The journey through these pages brings us into intimate contact with the lives of wild animals and begs us to look more deeply in order to come into intimate contact with ourselves and the "wild within." The "wild within" is not a place in space and time; it is an awareness that is unconditioned, or is uncultivated, untouched by the human hand or mind.
These pages open the door to who we are by taking us first into the forest where, through tracking and sometimes direct contact with the animals, we are able to experience and appreciate the lives of wild beings. It gives us the opportunity to see that these lives are none other than our own lives, and that no being is separate from another; that mountain, river, forest, stone, coyote, and humans are the same movement.
I have taken and opened the doors and windows to my own life, so that the reader can look in and see his or her own life in mine. This story is not just about me and the wild animals that I have tracked. It is meant to be a mirror to your own life. For instance, when I share with you my persona as a gang leader, I am hoping that you look at your persona, whether it be an identification as lawyer, doctor, artist, or academic. Most of us have an idea about who we are ... it doesn't matter what that idea is. It has the same basic effect of dividing us within and out there in the forest, as well as socially. Being the president of a motorcycle gang may not be much different than being the president of a nation when it comes to feelings of pride, fear, and power.
This book opens the door to nature, where we come face to face with love, fear, life and death. It takes you into the woodlands, and as you wander through the trees, you may suddenly and unexpectedly find yourself looking inwardly at something you never expected to see - something fresh, alive, and new about yourself that you never knew was there. That is my hope in writing this book, that you wake up to a whole new world, one that is not fragmented, but whole, open, and without fear. Ultimately, that is what The Wild Within is about. It is about what some cultures call waking up, enlightenment, self-understanding, wholeness, or realization.
What I mean by realization is living, being energy that is aware or awake to what is, or to what is arriving in the moment. An awareness that is at rest and has no intention for anything to be other than what it is. Although it is at rest and has no intention, it can have a dramatic action on the movement of thought in a person's life. This action takes place out of time, and without a doer. It is an action that does not come from a center, nor is it linear. In other words, it is not a reaction. When a person is realized, this awareness is the unresisted perspective in a person's life, a perspective without a center, and without fear or pride.
Before realization, a person's perspective is coming from the center of where we believe our self to exist, or at least, that is where we "think" we exist, feel, and think from. This center, this self, this doer that we perceive ourselves to be, is what keeps us divided from nature out there in the world and our true nature within. This results in a sense of being at odds with nature, within ourselves and with others. The center, or the who we think we are, also creates divisions within our own species. I'm talking here about religious, political, sociological and ideological divisions. These divisions can easily develop into hate crimes, wars, etc. Living from this center causes conflict between what is, and what should be - who we think we are, and who we think we should be.
Self-understanding opens the door to the possibility of living without a center, fear, and the need to control nature and others. This book is about that door opening for one human being. It may be about that door opening for you as well.
Teachings of Franklin Merrell-Wolff
by Art Ticknor
Notes for TAT meeting presentation--July 3, 2004
I. Recognition can come through thought or feeling
• Shankara a notable example of the former
• Merrell-Wolff's path
• Shankara spoke to the Hindu, esp. the Brahmin community
• Jesus a notable example of the latter
• more common approach
• general advice = stop thought
• Jesus spoke to the more objective occidental spirit
• Buddha as the most completely balanced approach through thought + feeling
• also the only known world-teacher
• common ground for both the objective and subjective spirit
II. No technique was ever helpful to Wolff unless he modified it for his own conditions
• e.g., found that stopping thought was unproductive for him
III. The heart of Wolff's philosophy--per Tom McFarlane's talk--is the fundamental Realization/Recognition
• synonyms
• Knowledge through Identity
• The Great Space
• Consciousness without an object and without a subject
• Shunyata
• sahaja nirvikalpa samadhi
• Absoluteness
• Tao
• SAT
• Dharmakaya
• The Awakening, the end of all religions
• The High Indifference
• Web sites
• The Great Space Center www.integralscience.org/gsc (Tom's)
• American Sage of Advaita Vedanta www.om-guru.com/html/saints/wolff.html
• Bio sketch/memorial www.richardmoss.com/Franklin-Merrell.htm
IV. Conditions that Favor Recognition (Exp & Phil, Ch. 46)
• Western cases of Illumination show a preponderance of apparently spontaneous Awakening
• John Wren-Lewis (Interview by Dan Sutera / Symposium Vol. II, Issue 1): in the 16 years since his experience, JWL sought data on others who had had a "permanent enlightenment experience
• Found only 2 of 15 who were consciously seeking--i.e., had previous "spiritual" backgrounds
• but there are conditions, both essential and contributory, that prepare the way
1. a desire for Liberation
• may not be intelligently formulated or well-understood, and it may take any of a number of forms, but it must exist
• if the desires are centered on the external world and there is a strong resistance to inward development, a definite barrier exists
• the moment of Transition may come as a great shock, and the individual may even imagine that he's become mentally unbalanced
• St. Paul a classic example
• but if the outer personal desire cooperates with the deeper inner desire, the Illumination will tend to come with less of a shock and will be more quickly realized for what It is
• when the desire for Illumination becomes the dominant force in the man, and finally consumes his whole being, other factors being equal, the Illumination is not far away
• Before a thing or goal can be desired it must be known, felt or sensed as desirable, either clearly or dimly. The testimony of those who have attained the Recognition supplies this....
2. a spiritual guru
• appears when the pupil is ready
• can and does appear in an inward sense, often without personal awareness by the pupil
• sometimes He appears outwardly--may or may not be recognized
• "Effort put forth in the right direction will draw the attention of Those who watch, and, when the time is ripe, They will do Their part."
• Recognition is not the effect of causes set up in space-time or the subject-object manifold.... THAT which transcends causality cannot be Itself an effect of something else. Recognition actually is a spontaneous induction out of Spirit Itself. Man's personal effort merely removes barriers in his nature that inhibit this spontaneous induction.
• So long as the pupil has not yet established a personal relationship with his guru such that direct outer instruction is possible, then the guru-current can be entered by attending to the words/works of god-Realized Men--but not all Aspects of the Divine Manifestation are equally accessible to all men.
• When the student has found One with Whose Words and Consciousness he stands in particularly close rapport, he should then delve deeply into the One's writings and sayings--a magnetic harmony that is most favorable to success.
• "... Realization manifests in a vast range of forms, some seemingly the opposite of others, so for all men there is somewhere the easiest and most direct Way."
• The message of the guru has transforming power--and should be accepted without resistance. But the concepts which clothe the Message may be incorrect--thus the requisite attitude is a combination of discrimination along with a profound pliability in an inward sense.
• advice to Doreen: Wait until you're in a male form to pursue that line of study....
2. a helpful factor = "leavening" (Jesus), "contagion," "induction"
• To be in the presence of a Man who has become identified with the Light is to be in a field of Consciousness which tends to arouse in the individual some degree of the corresponding kind of Consciousness
• From a certain standpoint Consciousness may be regarded as Energy--and in this domain events/tendencies are like electrical properties
• repeated inductions tend, finally, to produce a condition such that thelatent and indigenous Inner Light of the student is aroused sympathetically into pulsation and thus ultimately "catches on" for Itself.
• the principle of induction is an enormous instrument for effecting the Awakening, in some degree at least, in individuals who fail to put forth the required degree of self-directed effort to be effective in their own strength
• the presence of these Centers if induction spells opportunity for all men who are near them--but to realize the best results there should be thought, study and active aspiration in the direction of the Light
V. "It is the contrast of pain and joy, united with their appropriate causes, that tends to shock the dreaming [somnambulistic] consciousness into wakefulness." (from Ch. 49, Sleep and Death)
VI. Barriers to Recognition (Exp & Phil, Ch. 79)
a. Egoism
• "I am I and none other" ~> pride, conceit, jealousy, inferiority and superiority complexes; sense of separateness, strife of individuals, groups and nations; destructive competitiveness; all unbrotherliness; tends to hold closed the microcosm of the individual--thus a barrier to Cosmic Consciousness, which contains all microcosms
• The shell of the microcosm must be cracked or melted so that individual consciousness may become one with the Universal Consciousness
• So long as the individual seeks for the solution of his needs within the limits of egoism, he is doomed to failure--will not be united consciously with the infinite supply that satisfies every need
• strong intelletuality and powerful personal will or desire both tend to build a dominant egoism
+ these people bring greater power to the task of solving the problem
- but they have unusual difficulty in rendering the microcosm fluidic
b. Somnambulism
• barrier through weakness rather than strength in the subject-object field
• more accessible to induction
• likely to flow into Universal Consciousness without retaining self-consciousness (less than the highest destiny of man)
• a course of training requires strengthening of their capacity for self-determination and self-directed thought (strengthen their individuality)
c. Sensual desire
• "Sensuality is the opposite of spirituality."
• Desire directed largely toward objects of sensation carries consciousness outward and away from inwardness where alone the universal key is to be found
• Going toward ponderable objects is going toward essential nothingness or illusion
• Although when objects of sensation are viewed as symbols, it is possible to use the direct object of sensation as an instrument to awaken consciousness of that Matrix which is the Fullness that comprehends the relative emptiness of ponderable objects
d. False predication
• predicating properties of the subject that are true of the object and vice versa
• A man relatively free from egoism (as is true of many scientists and philosophers) may have a strong intellectual development andbe little involved in somnambulism; in addition, he may have a strong control of sensual desire, and yet still fall into the error of false predication
• with this class, the problem of Recognition falls into the field of philosophy
• We predicate self-existence to the objects of consciousness
• things/objects come to be taken as primary
• question then arises as to how a self-conscious Self ever arose
• in truth, the most primary fact of all is the Self that thinks and senses
• its presence is the one completely immediate reality than can neither be proved by logic nor found by experience--for it is the absolutely necessary basis for both these forms of consciousness
• So the real problem is how does the external universe come into existence
• final consequence of false predication is production of the state of Nescience or Avidya--superimposing a 2nd or false universe on the originally given universe = Illusion/Maya
VII. Conclusion / Two Years Later (Ch. 91)
• "It is not comfortable to have to stand by waiting for pain to perform its purifying office."
• "It is not comfortable watching men sow the seeds of pain, when another and joyful life is near at hand, just waiting to be accepted."
• "It is not comfortable to resist the desire to leave forever this dreary and empty world. And yet what else can one do when he knows that he has the means of release which can change the state of the few or the many who will accept?"
• The ultimate Consciousness is beyond the reach of thinking, feeling, sensation and intution--depends on another Way of Consciousness--Buddhist name for it is dhyana--a latent function of Consciousness rarely active among men. In It alone lies the door to Enlightenment. The function of dhyana is a mystery. Instructions for arousing it to action exist, but they can only be collateral objective aids to certain psychological temperaments.
• The culture of the Higher Love is difficult. For it is much harder for feeling to win detachment from the object than it is for thought. It is a lofty achievement to be able to radiate Compassion without thought of return and with full willingness to grant complete freedom to the object. Yet until Love has reached this height, it remains sentimental.
• The Race-Horse and the Donkey Team
• Because thought is the highest cultured occidental function, intellect [logos] must lead in western dhyana. But it must be trained not to abandon the weaker Eros. A race-horse and a donkey don't make a good team--there's much conflict, with the race-horse trying to get away and the donkey becoming stubborn. <Note: Benoit goes into this in great detail.>
• Anything that can be experienced or thought exists through contrast with its contrary--otherwise can't be isolated from the totality of all consciousness. Let A stand for any such object/state/etc. Then the universe of ppossible experience or thought is either A or not-A. But the ultimate Reality lies in neither of these compartments--and thus we say It is neither A nor not-A. To the pure thinker THAT which is neither A nor not-A is Voidness. But through the Door of Dhyana IT is found to be substantial Fullness.
• When two subatomic particles where one is the negation of the other, such as positron and electron, are brought into conjuction, the result is mutual destruction--in their place a flash of radiation that spreads indefinitely throughout space. So also is the effect of the mutual cancellation of all dichotomies of experience and thought. The flash of radiation that spreads indefinitely through space is the symbol of the Enlightened Consciousness. To achieve the mutual cancellation is to effect the Mystic Death, and this requires faith and courage.
by Art Ticknor
Conservation Therapy
by Mark Jaqua
Reprinted with permission from TAT Journal #14
CONSERVATION THERAPY IS BASED on the premise that man can best cause psychological cure or development in himself by a conservation of his sexual energies and the living of a moderate lifestyle in every aspect. It has been the traditional viewpoint throughout history that personal energy is lost in sex expression, but until recently this premise has not been supported by biochemical evidence. Until present times hard physical work was continually necessary just for basic survival. A man soon learned he had to conserve his energies for survival over pleasure. It may be that we have only so much personal resource or "energy" at our command. Possibly it is not mere coincidence that a traditional puritanism in this country coincided with the development of the wealthiest and most creative society the world has known.
For the male, the highest concentrations of valuable chemicals in the body are contained in the semen. Just why this is so is a bit of a mystery when looked at superficially, since the primary purpose of seminal fluid is only to provide a vehicle for sperm. While it has been proven that women absorb some of these valuable chemicals from the male in coitus, it may also be reasonable to assume that if not frequently spent in sex they become available for mental and bodily development. It is curious that in several aspects the chemistry of the semen and the brain are more similar to each other than to any other bodily tissues.
Modern psychology is more in the class of voodoo or shamanism than of a true science. Actually shamanism may show better results than psychotherapy. The true status of psychology is demonstrated in legal battles where the prosecution's psychologist declares the defendant sane and the defense's psychologist declares him insane. The judge or jury then decides which psychologist is correct. If a true psychological system existed, then the man could scientifically be declared sane or insane and both psychologists would agree. That present psychology is impotent to bring about improvement or cure in the mentally afflicted is demonstrated by dozens of its own studies. Basically psychotherapy has been found no more effective than a placebo. Many studies have shown that psychotherapy is even harmful and prevents a person from curing himself as quickly as he may if left entirely alone.
There is no "quick fix" for psychological ills. While insight may occasionally result in rapid change, in most cases bringing inner changes about is a time-consuming process which requires effort as any other accomplishment. Many modern psychological systems recommend ways to "hold the head." They recommend the adopting of a particular attitude or perception that will automatically put things in a new light and make previous problems disappear. These systems are all variations of the "positive thinking" philosophy. They result in the inhibition of serious problems and the narrowing of perspective to a shallow and overly simplistic outlook. The real problems "go underground," so to speak, and the person is impoverished from lack of depth.
A true psychological system is holistic in nature. Every aspect of a person's life affects his mentality and emotions. Sexual lifestyle is a primary aspect of this holism since it is such a central facet in everyone's life. Even psychological systems that label themselves "holistic" ignore this fact. Increasing sexual intensity, frequency or variety is lauded but the concept of what actually constitutes a healthy sexual lifestyle is completely ignored. A hundred diets are prescribed for maximum health but there is no sexual diet recommended. Certain foods are found best for the human organism and we may also suppose that a certain sexual lifestyle is also conducive to greatest psychological and physical health. This proper sexual lifestyle is not subject to fickle human whim or philosophy but has been designed into our organism by the past million-odd years of evolution.
If on a basic level the human organism has been designed according to certain psychological principles developed through eons of evolution, it is reasonable to assume a person must live in accordance with these principles to achieve maximum mental health. If a sex role is designed into the body on a basic biochemi- cal and genetic level, can we ignore this foundation and still be a whole and healthy person? A person who is not intellectually or philosophically in tune with this biological determinism may be tortured on an inner level and never learn the source of his torment. It would be irrelevant if he agreed with this programming; the effects would continue nonetheless. An option may be to consider that our intellectual preconceptions may be shallow in comparison to the complexity and wisdom in the design of Nature.
Conservation Therapy contends that psychological cure and any further development will result from the conservation of personal sexual energy coupled with progressive introspection or self-analysis. Nature has placed in our make-up a proper sex life and sex role and we must live in accordance with this inner design to become fully functioning humans, as well as to provide a basis for any possible further development mentally or spiritually. In essence it is a system originating from intuition and practical observation. While it is supported by recent scientific findings in biochemistry and brain functioning, its validity can only be established through application and an attempt at objective evaluation of the effects of sexual lifestyle on mentality. I have seen the system validated in myself and in scores of others.
This paper attempts basically to deal with research findings and introspection is not dealt with. Elaborate theorizing should be avoided in self-analysis and a common sense attitude toward evaluating one's own attitudes and reaction patterns should be attempted. Self-critical meditational systems such as contained in Richard Rose's Albigen Papers and Meditation and Visualization can be especially valuable.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
Men have several times the testosterone levels of women. Testosterone is the primary sex hormone in males, as progesterone is in females, and is responsible for all his secondary sex characteristics. Besides physical characteristics, testosterone is responsible for a host of psychological and motivational characteristics in the male. Testosterone has an invigorating effect on the brain, and neurophysiologist Sachar has likened its effects to that of a psychoactive drug. 1
High blood testosterone levels have been found to correlate with heightened intelligence in males (as well as females) 2 and have also been found to correlate with greater aggression, motivation, energy level and positive mood. 3 Testosterone is produced in the testes and general energy level, mood and motivation have been found to decrease in castrates shortly after castration (due to accident or disease). Energy, mood and motivation increase immediately after testosterone is administered. In natural castrates with inactive testes, energy level has been found to be directly related to amount of administered testosterone. Energy level is high after administration and declines steadily until the next administration when it elevates again. Complete lack of testosterone in the post-pubescent male results in "eunuchoidism," the victim of which is characterized as apathetic, withdrawn, depressed, lacking initiative and hypoactive. The effect of testosterone on the brain may be the primary chemical reason why men have historically outdistanced women in every avenue of mental achievement. Even today with the many opportunities available to women, men are still responsible for 98% of all patents issued. 4 While women's primary sexual hormone, progesterone, has been found related to mood, no relationship between progesterone levels and intelligence has been established. Recently the superior spatial ability of men has been linked to testosterone. 5 Apparently it must be present in adequate amounts during a critical developmental stage to augment the ability.
Low testosterone levels have been found in all severe forms of mental problems in males, including schizophrenia, psychosis, and anorexia nervosa. 6 Heightened sexual activity is present in most severe mental problems in males (as well as females) 7 . Kraemer (1967) 8 established that lower than normal sexual frequency in males elevates testosterone levels, and we may suppose that it has a positive effect on IQ, mood and motivation because of the effects of the elevated testosterone. In periodic schizophrenics, episodes have been found to always be presaged by increased sexual activity. 9 A reasonable supposition from this evidence is that increased sexual activity may aggravate severe mental problems.
Levels of prostaglandins in the body have been found to be controlled by testosterone levels. 10 It appears that elevated testosterone levels also cause an elevation in prostaglandin levels. Prostaglandins are found throughout the body, having been found in at least 23 different areas. They are produced locally throughout the body but by far the highest concentrations are produced and stored in the male seminal vesicles. The seminal vesicles produce 400 times more than any other area of the body. 11 Because of the seminal vesicles, males produce many times the prostaglandins that females do. Prostaglandins produce very strong reactions in living tissue and are perhaps the most powerful biologically-active, naturally occurring substance known. Prostaglandins are involved in many body processes including blood pressure levels, pain and inflammation, and neuro-transmission. It is thought that they may control the turn-over rate of serotonin in the brain since both serotonin and prostaglandins produce similar effects.
It is curious that almost no animals produce prostaglandins, while in nearly every other way human and animal biochemistry is identical. Only the rabbit, sheep and a few monkeys produce prostaglandins, and humans many hundreds of times more than these animals. As the prostaglandins are produced in the male's seminal vesicles, very large amounts are in male semen. Men "waste" more prostaglandins in a single emission than women produce in a day in their entire body. 12, 13 It is a question just why prostaglandins are present in male semen since they have no reaction with sperm and have been proven to do nothing to insure impregnation in the female. 14 It has been found that females absorb male prostaglandins after coitus in the vagina and uterus 15 and actually have special receptor cells in the uterine wall to receive male prostaglandins. 16 An old wives' tale holds that women gain strength from men during coitus, and on this very basic chemical level this observation seems to be validated. Prostaglandins are one of the most refined of the body's products and women absorb these "super-chemicals" from males.
Since seminal fluid has no apparent purpose than as a vehicle for sperm, why does it have such a concentration of valuable body chemicals? An ounce of semen has been found to be basically the concentration of the most valuable chemicals from 60 ounces of blood. No two tissues in the body show greater similarity in their lecithin, colesterin and phosphorous contents than the brain and semen. 17 Semen has proportionally more fructose, citric acid, spermine and prostaglandins than any other tissue in the body. It is also richer than most any other tissue in zinc, ascorbic acid, inositol, glyceryl, phosphory-choline and free amino acids. It has 33 times the neutral amino acids, 28 times the acidic amino acids and 57 times the basic amino acids as the blood. 18 Women may absorb body chemicals from male semen other than prostaglandins to enrich their body chemistry and health. Another possibility for the chemical richness of semen is that, through a conservative sexual lifestyle, a man may reabsorb and utilize these valuable body chemicals. Instead of continually producing semen, he may use these same chemicals to invigorate the brain/body. While modern psychology believes sexual inhibition unhealthy mentally and physically, it fails to account for the fact that such giants as Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, da Vinci, Spinoza, Bacon, Newton, Kant, Beethoven, Spencer, and Tesla were celibates. 19 The purpose here is not to universally recommend celibacy but to point out the absurdity of the modern position.
Several studies have indicated that the human brain is programmed either male or female in the fetal stage. The brain has two "programs" for sex role during life and the level of the hormone testosterone in the womb determines which of these programs is "kicked in." Once the program is established, the person has a male or female-programmed brain for life. The critical time is the fourth to seventh month during the development of the hypothalamus. If high levels of testosterone are present in the fetus, then the brain is programmed with a male sex-role. If low levels are present, the brain is programmed female. 20, 21 This is true regardless of the genetic sex of the child.
If testosterone levels are high enough in the womb, a female fetus will even develop male sexual organs, a male penis with an empty scrotum. Very low levels of testosterone in the genetically male fetus may result in intraabdominal testes and lack of a male sex organ. If pregnant women carrying a female fetus are submitted to high testosterone levels, it has been found the girl will develop into what is traditionally called a "tomboy." This has been characterized by Money & Erhardt (1971, 1972) as "vigorous energy expenditure in athletics, indifference to the rehearsal of 'dollplay' and greater than average selection of male playmates and non-feminine utilitarian clothing." It must be pointed out that for a female fetus to be exposed to a high level of testosterone (or a male fetus to low levels) is a rare event. The above studies were run on women who were being administered testosterone for medical reasons. That a homosexual's brain would be fetally-programmed in an opposite sex-role would not hold water in almost all cases.
While the brain has been proven to be programmed male or female at birth, it has been discovered that there is even a more basic male-female difference. Women have extensive brain connections between the pre-frontal lobes and the cerebellum which men don't have at all. 22 The pre-frontal lobes are thought to be concerned with empathy and higher intellectual functions while the cerebellum is concerned with instinct, sex and movement. These connections may indicate that women's empathy and logic are tempered with sexual and instinctual aspects that men's are not.
Progesterone is the primary sexual hormone in women and is responsible for all the secondary sexual aspects. Levels of progesterone have been found to be cyclic and vary with the monthly menstrual cycle. Highest levels occur at ovulation and this has also been found to be the time of peak feeling of well-being during the monthly cycle. Another time of peak progesterone pro- duction is during pregnancy which many women have described as the best period of their lives. It has been found that testosterone inhibits progesterone's production of feminine bodily characteristics. 23 Lesbians have been found to often have heightened levels of testosterone and this may account for the masculine physical characteristics taken on by many lesbians.
In these times of day-care centers and bottle-feeding, it is significant that it has been found that infants breast-fed and raised by their mothers rather than a nanny or day-care center develop higher IQ's and better social adaptation than their peers. In the 40's and 50's in the Israeli kibbutz movement an extensive experiment was made to dissolve traditional family lifestyle and also establish a community with "sexual equality" in every aspect. Women were equally assigned jobs as men, from mechanics to business managers. Children were raised in day-care centers and boys and girls had communal dormitories. Every effort was made to isolate kibbutz members from outside influence. The system began breaking down on several fronts despite the idealism involved. Women began competing and fighting among themselves to secure jobs near the nursery and thus be near their children. Upon pubescence girls flatly refused to undress in front of the boys and thus segregated dormitories became necessary. Women began refusing to take higher level management jobs. Today traditional roles are followed in nearly every aspect in the kibbutzim. 25 Six studies have been carried out on the movement, and all have come to the same conclusion as to their failure idealistically despite every precaution. According to Margaret Mead, among the hundreds of known cultures, there have been none that have not discriminated different social tasks between men and women. 26
Women are not biochemically equipped as well as men to cope with the stressful lifestyles found in business management and other high-driving professions. On one level women do not chemically respond to stress in the same manner men do. 27 Under stressful situations men's adrenaline levels go up drastically while women's exhibit little change. Adrenaline is the body's chief fast-energy chemical that enables great energy and alertness over a short period of time. In studies of women in stressful occupations, disturbing effects on mental and physical health are revealed. In one study of 141 women M.D.'s by Paula Clayton of St. Louis University, it was found that 50% had a history of primary depression. Of 114 women Ph.D.'s, 32% suffered from a history of depression. A study at U.S.C. unfortunately discovered that an unbelievable 1 in 15 female M.D.'s commit suicide. 28 In the last twenty years suicide rates among women have dramatically increased, 29 and this may correlate with the changing lifestyles among women over this period.
During the premenstrual week women are especially susceptible to the effects of stress. It has been found that approximately 25% of women are severly incapacitated in mood, concentration and general performance during the premenstrual week while 90% are incapacitated to some degree. Numerous studies have found that between 50% to S0% of female crime, 30 mental incarcerations and suicides occur during the premenstrual week. 31 In England the Royal Society for the Preventions of Accidents has issued a pamphlet warning women about driving during this time since this is when 50% of accidents involving females occur. Progesterone seems to be primarily responsible for mood and performance levels in women and this significantly is at its lowest levels during the premenstrual week. While women are subject to monthly cycles in mood and performance due to progesterone fluctuation, men's performance and mood is relatively stable due to stable testosterone levels. The above evidence is an incontestable reason why women are not adequately equipped for some jobs - air traffic controllers for instance. This would apply to all occupations dealing with critical and highly stressful circumstances.
It is likely that man is genetically encoded with a particular lifestyle, including sexuality, which is conducive to his greatest mental and physical health. Nature cannot design an organism without including within that design a specific lifestyle that is appropriate to it. A genetic code of conduct or "morality" is inherent in our very structure. Some things are good for us and some things are bad. If they are bad for us then they are antagonistic to our genetically determined biological and psychological design. A study over a 10 year period at the Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Clinic found that 77% of young incest victims had abnormal EEG brain patterns and nearly 30% of these victims suffered epileptic fits. 32 The researcher went so far as to infer that possibly the children with abnormal EEG's may have seduced their parents because of their abnormal brains. He does not even mention the likely and obvious case that the traumatic incest altered their brain chemistry and even caused psychosis and epilepsy. Modern psychology does not consider that a physical act can have an inherent moral reaction that extends to the biological level.
While Nature provides that our brains be encoded male or female, she undoubtedly also extends her design into our sexual lifestyles. Within our biological design is a sexual lifestyle that is conducive to greatest physical and psychological health. Is it mere coincidence that the current outbreak of sexual diseases such as herpes and AIDS occurs in the midst of the sexual revolution'? Possibly 30% of people in this country age 20 to 40 have a sexual disease. Biologically we may not be designed for a "sexual revo- lution," high sexual frequency or promiscuity. It is a little known fact that refraining from sex will cause herpes symptoms to disappear, only for the symptoms to reappear when sexually excited. AIDS is only one of numerous diseases that occur principally among homosexuals. Diseases of the colon such as ambiasis, shigellosis and giardiasis are others. 33 Biologically we may not be designed to have semen in the colon or feces in the urethra.
Male homosexuals have generally been found to have slightly lower but near normal testosterone levels. What is amazing, however, is that it has been found that they convert testosterone to the feminine hormone estrogen. 34 This strange phenomenon could be the result of the mental attitude of the effeminate male homosexual. As is apparent in the placebo affect, mental attitude has the ability to alter body chemistry. The same may hold true for the findings that at least 30% of lesbians have high male hormone testosterone levels. 35, 36 Her aggressive masculine attitude may cause a higher adrenal output of testosterone. The woman with the passive role in the lesbian relationship could not be expected to have higher testosterone levels, since she still maintains a passive or feminine attitude. A detrimental effect is also realized in children raised by lesbian mothers. In a study by Beverly Hoeffer (U.C. of San Francisco) it was discovered that on personality tests 40% of such boys scored feminine as to sex-role while 50% of such girls scored masculine. 37
In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association's 55,000 members voted to no longer regard homosexuality as a disease but as a sane matter of preference. Homosexuality is either something appropriate or antagonistic to Nature's biochemical and psychological design of the human organism. It is not something that can possibly be voted on or subject to the whim of the populace. If homosexuality is appropriate to our organism, why are there so many diseases associated with it? Anything appropriate to our makeup should have no diseases associated with it. There are, for instance, no diseases associated with a moderate monogamous heterosexual lifestyle.
If we have a genetically encoded morality or code of conduct conducive to greatest physical and mental health - just what is it? We may suppose that animals have a similar instinctive code of conduct that they follow without a hitch since they have no active intelligence to interfere with it. Animals breed only on a seasonal basis while man breeds all year around. There are no oral or other exotic sex acts in the animal kingdom. Our intellect is so dominant that we may be forever out of touch on a purely instinctual level with proper human sexual conduct and sex role. Hans Eysenck, the prestigious English psychiatrist, holds that much of modern mental problems are the result of " the intellectual adoption of attitudes that negate biological determinism." What may be necessary is an intellectual and unbiased (by desire) investigation of a Naturally determined human morality, and then a living by our discoveries.
NOTES
1. Eberhard Nieschlag, "The Endocrine Function of the Human Testis in Regard to Sexuality," Sex, Hormones and Behavior, Excerpta Medica, 1979.
2. Brambilla and Penati, "Schizophrenia: Endocrinological Review," Perspectives in Endocrine Psychobiology, John Wiley & Sons, 1978. 3. Ibid.; Bancroft and Skakkebaek, "Androgens and Human Sexual Behavior," Sex, Hormones and Behavior. 4. Amaury De Riencourt, Sex and Power in History, David McKay Co., 1974.
5. "Spatial Hormones," Psychology Today, June, 1983, p. 80.
6. Brambilla and Penati, id.; van Praag, Lader, Rafaelsen and Sachar (ed.), Brain Mechanisms and Abnormal Behavior, Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York, 1981.
7. Ihsan al-Issa, Gender and Psychopathology, Academic Press, 1982.
8. van Praag,et al., ibid
9. Friedman and Faguet (ed.), Extraordinary Disorders of Human Behavior, studies by Tsuang (1975), Akhtar and Thompson (1980), Plenum Press, 1982.
10. Norman L. Poyser, Prostaglandins in Reproduction, Research Studies Press, New York, 1981. 11. Bergstrom and Samuelsson, Prostaglandins, Interscience Publishers, 1967.
11. Bergstrom and Samuelsson, Prostaglandins, Interscience Publishers, 1967
12. Poyser, ibid.
13. Carlson Wade, "Evening Primrose Oil - Magic Medical Breakthrough," Your Good Health, May, 1983.
14. Poyser, ibid.
15. Ibid. 16. Bergstrom and Samuelsson, ibid.
17. Bernard, Science Discovers the Physiological Value of Continence, Health Research, Mokelumne Hill, Cal., 1957.
18. Hafez, Human Semen and Fertility Regulation in Men, C.V. Mosby Co., 1976.
19. Bernard, ibid.
20./21. Money, "Phylogeny and Ontogeny in Gender Identity Differ- entiation," Perspectives in Endocrine Psychogiology, ibid. G. Dorner, "Hormones and Sexual Differentiation of the Brain," Sex, Hormones and Behavior, ibid. Dorner and Kawakami, Hormones and Brain Develop- ment, Elsevier/North-Holland Biomedical Press, Amsterdam, 1978.
22. Mary Long, "Visions of a New Faith," Science Digest, November, 1981.
23. Lipsett, "Steroid Regulation of Gonadotropin Secretion," The Endocrine Function of the Human Testis, James, Serio and Martini (ed.), Academic Press, 1974. 24. Dorner and Kawakami, Hormones and Brain Development, ibid. 25. Ihsan al-Issa, Gender and Psychopathology, ibid. 26. Amaury De Riencourt, Sex and Power in History, ibid.
27. Charles Panati, "Women are Losing Health Advantage," Science Digest, March, 1980.
28. "Woman M.D.'s: Depression and Suicide," Science News, June 9, 1979.
29. Ihsan al-Issa, ibid.
30. Warburton, Brain, Behavior and Drugs, John Wiley & Sons, 1975.
31. Robert Ornstein, The Psychology of Consciousness, Penguin Books, 1972.
32. "Incest and 'Vulnerable' Children," Science News, October 13, 1979.
33. Jeffrey Hart, "AIDS Panic is Spreading," Wheeling, W. Va. Intelligencer, June 11, 1983.
34. Dorner and Kawakami, Hormones and Brain Development, ibid.
35./36. Ehrardt and Meyer-Bahlburg, "Psychosexual Development: an Examination of the Role of Prenatal Hormones," and "Hormones and Sexual Differentiation of the Brain," Sex, Hormones and Behavior, ibid.
37. "Gay Motherhood: Rewards and Problems," Science News, September 22, 1979.
Silence is the sister of the divine. Meister Eckhart said that there is nothing in the world that resembles God so much as silence. Silence is a great friend of the soul; it unveils the riches of solitude. It is very difficult to reach that quality of inner silence. You must make a space for it so that it may begin to work for you. In a certain sense, you do not need the whole armoury and vocabulary of therapies, psychologies, or spiritual programmes. If you have a trust in and an expectation of your own solitude, everything that you need to know will be revealed to you. These are some wonderful lines from the French poet, Rene Char: 'Intensity is silent, its image is not. I love everything that dazzles me and then accentuates the darkness within me.' Here is an image of silence as the force that discloses hidden depth.
One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people. In modern life there is an immense rush to express. Sometimes the quality of what is expressed is superficial and immensely repetitive. A greater tolerance of silence is desirable, that fecund silence which is the source of our most resonant language. The depth and substance of a friendship mirrors itself in the quality and shelter of the silence between two people.
As you begin to befriend your inner silence, one of the first things you will notice is the superficial chatter on the surface level of your mind. Once you recognize this, the silence deepens. A distinction begins to emerge between the images that you have of your self and your own deeper nature. Sometimes much of the conflict in our spirituality has nothing to do with our deeper nature but rather with the false surface constructs we build. We then get caught in working out a grammar and geometry of how these surface images and positions relate to each other; meanwhile our deeper nature remains unattended.
by John O'Donohue
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From
On Silence - by Aldous Huxley
The twentieth century is, among other things, the Age of Noise. Physical noise, mental noise and noise of desire -- we hold history's record for all of them. And no wonder; for all the resources of our almost miraculous technology have been thrown into the current assault against silence. That most popular and influential of all recent inventions, the radio is nothing but a conduit through which pre-fabricated din can flow into our homes. And this din goes far deeper, of course, than the eardrums. It penetrates the mind, filling it with a babel of distractions, blasts of corybantic or sentimental music, continually repeated doses of drama that bring no catharsis, but usually create a craving for daily or even hourly emotional enemas. And where, as in most countries, the broadcasting stations support themselves by selling time to advertisers, the noise is carried from the ear, through the realms of phantasy, knowledge and feeling to the ego's core of wish and desire. Spoken or printed, broadcast over the ether or on wood-pulp, all advertising copy has but one purpose -- to prevent the will from ever achieving silence. Desirelessness is the condition of deliverance and illumination. The condition of an expanding and technologically progressive system of mass production is universal craving. Advertising is the organized effort to extend and intensify the workings of that force, which (as all the saints and teachers of all the higher religions have always taught) is the principal cause of suffering and wrong-doing and the greatest obstacle between the human soul and its Divine Ground.
- from Silence, Liberty, and Peace (1946)
Copyright 2003 - 2006 Robert Fergeson. All Rights Reserved.
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