From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 17 - June 1994
See Home Page at http://www.ivymag.org

A Sort of Book Review, or, We Alone Understand The Mind

By Ray Harman, Australia

Back in 1961 I was invited to attend a Free Course in Personal
Efficiency,
and thereby hangs a long tale. Embarking on the course, I was soon
told how a Mr Hubbard had discovered the precise nature of the
subconscious
mind, and how any other schools of thought or healing or religion
were spectacularly unsuccessful because they didn't have this new
information. Any practitioner who acquired it would presumably ditch
their practice in favor of the new truth. I accepted this new truth
at that time, although in retrospect I can see that I didn't have
much of a yardstick to measure whether it was true or false. Yes,
the people at the HASI had a remarkable new technology. No, I didn't
find Christianity very workable. No, I've never yet investigated the
workability of Zen Buddhism...

Be that as it may, We Alone Understood the Mind, and it sure created
a `them and us' mentality. And it was hard to educate other
practitioners
with the Truth!

Throwing off the Yoke

A new freedom appeared in the 1980's. It was rather like the Church
of England throwing off the yoke of Rome. But the reactive mind didn't
change. Other practitioners still didn't understand the reactive mind.
But just as the various Christian denominations all ackowledge the
one God (and they think they are right and the other denominations
misguided!) so we soon had various techs, but all attacking the same
reactive mind, from various angles admittedly, but we all sure
had the same basic understanding of the nature of the beast.

I was introduced to Belief Changing. Well, this undercuts anything
else, and goes straight for the bum postulate, and also then replaces
it on a knowing basis with a better one. Okay, well, this is
demonstrably
workable. The `them and us' situation still remained, for me.

Mind Power

Recently I was lent a book, Mind Power by John Kehoe (ISBN
0-9694059-0-1). It had been bought from an `opposition' bookstore.
So it must have been written by a `them' person. So it couldn't
possibly
be workable. So I was astounded to read in it things, written with
remarkable directness and clarity, like:

* Your mind creates your reality

* Decide what you want

* Visualise it as if it's happening in present time

* Add the feelings that go with the pictures

* Affirm it to yourself, summarised as a short sentence

* Affirm in the positive - the mind doesn't pick up the `not'
in a negative affirmation

* What you believe is what you get

* Search for limiting beliefs and list them and write positive ones
alongside them

* You have unlimited power

* You will become whatever you consistently think about yourself

* The universe is abundant

* As you change your thoughts towards people, so people change towards
you

Re-evaluation

The similarity to Belief Changing tech is amazing. Reading Kehoe made
me re-evaluate my `them and us' datum. Musing upon this, I mocked
up a graphic comparison:



Mr Kehoe claims his tech to be very effective. Maybe he's prejudiced
in favor of his own system, but notwithstanding, he may well be
correct. So I ask myself the question, if I mock up a new positive
thought and unconditionally believe it and expect it to be, To
what extent is it necessary to spend time locating and vanquishing
previous negative thoughts?

The power of positive thinking?

An Isness cannot be entirely vanquished by Not-Isness. But almost!
So it is important to accentuate the positive!

We can re-phrase this. How far can we or should we diverge from pure
Sci tech without committing heresy in the sight of God, that is,
embracing
a tech which does not free the being? This is not a rhetorical
question.
What's your answer?





Fri Sep 15 18:58:45 EDT 2006