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The following first appeared in the private email list IVy-subscribers,
which was available to all those who subscribed to the
printed magazine, International Viewpoints.
Home Page: http://www.ivymag.org/ - with extensive links to FZ!
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Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2002 16:00:39 EDT
Subject: IVySubs: Body and soul
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**   ivy-subscribers relaying **

Good afternoon!
   Well, here and there the seasons are changing as this solar-powered solar
satellite that we call Earth continues to orbit that small star we call the
Sun, carrying in relative comfort six or seven billion human bodies, each of
which is seeking with all its might and main to survive.  Yes, that's quite
right: if there's any one thing that human bodies are dedicated to, whether
you wish to call it a n urge or a goal or an intention or a purpose, it's the
goal To Survive; and as you can see, en masse and in the face of great
threats to survival, the human race of human bodies continues to increase at
an alarming rate.  And like any species that has lost its optimum numbers in
connection with its environment, great damage has been done to the nest, the
environment, the ecosystem, the sustaining or non-sustaining Mother Earth,
and if population projections are at all accurate, and in spite of the
assurances that technology will rescue us, overpopulation remains one of the
greatest threats to both our planetary environment and that species or race
called Humankind or the human race or the species called human bodies.

   The intensity of the urge to survive in human bodies is on the one hand
both awesome and wonderful, and on the other hand is both awesome and
frightful.  Fortunately or unfortunately, unfortunately or fortunately, these
human bodies have also been endowed with a form or type of intelligence that
is rarely found in any other species on this planet, that is not just the
intelligence of instinct and survival urge but what has come to be called
"intellect" or powers of reasoning, thinking, ratiocination, etc. etc.  And
this power of thought accompanied with the body's never-ending urge for
survival has led the human race to some of the most wonderful and most awful
imagined happenings.

   A great deal more could be said about these matters, and perhaps will and
should be, but as L. Ron Hubbard pointed out in his early works, which by the
way are just as timely and instructive and filled with useful information
coming from very deep insights, now as they were fifty-plus years ago. When
something, anything, interferes with the survival urge of an organism,
whether it be as tiny as a single cell or as big and complicated as a
complete human being, trouble, aberration, mental, emotional and physical
difficulties, ensue if the interference or aberrative counter-efforts that
are against the instincts and urges to survival of the organism are not
removed or handled or overcome, so that the urge to survive along the
organism's various dynamics can take place.

   These ideas are very simply and clearly expressed in Mr. Hubbard's early
works, and it is with some regret that I've come to find that a fair number
of folks haven't availed themselves of the opportunity to read these works
and acquire a better or more basic understanding of what Dianetics and its
little or bigger brother Scientology are really all about.

   To continue, a few words should be said about the notion that in
connection with the human being, or perhaps in its essential makeup, there is
something called a soul, a spiritual entity, a non-material consciousness, a
thetan, a viewpoint of or from the Eighth Dynamic, the Prime Source, Static,
God, "That which has no name", etc. etc. etc.; and that this entity can and
routinely does confuse itself and its nature with the human body/mind/animal
whose primary urge is to survive; whereas this entity, unlike the human
body/mind, does not have , repeat DOES NOT have the same instincts, urges,
toward survival, but when thoroughly confused can lose sight of what it
really is all about, and take on all of the characteristics of human
mind/bodies, to the point that it can no longer consciously remember or feel
its own nature.  This confused composite often and sporadically behaves in
very horrible contra-survival ways, which harm not only the human race but
the planet itself.  

   And so, early in the history of Dianetics and Scientology, it was thought
that if these confusions could be straightened out, the means for creating a
sane species on a healthy planet would ensue.  and looking at the effects
that were possible using Dianetics and Scientology with a given individual,
and sometimes even small groups, it looked like, back in the last century in
the 1950's, that the goal of a fairly clear human race and a healthy planet,
in which the intelligence required to ensure such accomplishments existed,
could be achieved.  But I'm sad to report that after 50-some years of this
possibility, things for the human race, from this viewpoint, are still pretty
confused and chaotic, with much unnecessary pain and suffering.  On the other
hand, I'm pleased to report that the great effort to understand the
difficulties and to clear them up for both individuals and the human race has
never died or diminished as an idea, and the possibilities still remain in
the long term that the hope will eventually prevail.

   As I say, that's from this viewpoint.  I could just as easily point out,
and I think make a pretty good case for, the idea that the Earth just as it
is, without changing a hair on its blue-green surface, is and always has been
a playground for immortals, and for immortals to be at play, they have to
pretend that they are not immortals, and in fact end up pretending so well
that it's almost impossible to recover their immortality when they wish to.  
But whether they remember or not, whether they can get back in the immediate
sense to being immortals (by the way, all of which would spoil the game),
what's really going on is OK and exactly as designed and agreed upon, and
there's no sense in paying any attention to the cries of "foul" or any of the
other pleas that the game is unfair to many and only fair to a few, and if
you can play this game while pretending not to be an immortal, you have the
guts, the courage, and the abilities to do so without fear of effect driving
you to try to become immortal again so as to either be able to take unfair
advantage of others or escape without further penalty being paid.  

   I like this last message a lot, and at times I'm quite convinced it's
closest of all to the truth, but that's probably just my favorite delusion,
or illusion.  Anyway, I hope a few of my friends and others witll write in
their thoughts about these matters, so that the IVy-list's famous Philosophic
Corner can once again come to life and we can have that particular kind of
pleasure and interest that the word and the action of philosophy enjoy.

   As ever,
   Mortal/immortal    

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Home Page: http://www.ivymag.org/ - with extensive links to FZ!
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