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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.
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Pardon me for stepping on your "Duck-billed Afflatus"
by Phil Spickler
13 Mar 2001

 Bon Jour Mes Amis,
       Well, as a "native" English speaker I certainly had no trouble with
the commonly used word "afflatus."  The duck-billed variety are oft seen
flying overhead as I gaze out the window of my mausoleum.  In truth, I have
Sehlene to thank for the lesson in new words, having never consciously (or
unconsciously) known of the word "afflatus," what it means, or how to use it.
 Whereas, like many folks, I am very well acquainted, mostly thanks to
television and its nature shows, with that most interesting creature that has
truly been named the duck-billed platypus.

        Now, the platypus can't really help what it is, since many centuries
ago it was designed (postulated) by a consortium of French and English
designers -- thus we have this creature that looks like it was put together
or posited with differing notions that yield the final result.

       The afflatus, of course, is not an animal, it's a word.  Now that I've
gotten ahold of it, I plan to use it quite a bit.  In fact, I have been
provided with the afflatus (inspiration) for using such a word.  Some of its
other meanings come from back around the time that the Latins created its
origin, which was a verb "afflare," meaning to blow on.  "Flare"  just alone
means "to blow," and through the many permutations of language it's come to
mean "inspiration," or "powerful impulse, as of an artist or poet, divine or
otherwise."

         Having said all this, I now find myself possessed of a powerful
impulse or afflatus to continue in my grand or flatulent style.  An old
aphorism concerning postulates goes something like this: "Please don't get
any of your postulates on mine."  Someone has already mentioned that there
are postulates about postulates, or about postulating, and whoever came up
with that one is far too smart to be trifled with, so I'll leave Ray Krenik
alone for the moment.

        I guess it can't be said too often, though I'd like to give it a try
by saying that discovering postulates and then getting the correct source,
creator, or owner of said postulate may be the fastest and the most effective
auditing that anybody every dreamed up.  And it can explain more per minute
about a pc and his or her dynamics than anything else I've ever heard of.

        So, knowledge of and about postulates probably explains more if you
take it quite a ways than most folks would really like to know.  The
viewpoint that I suggested in my earlier post is really the one that looks
upon everything that exists anywhere, at any time in any place, well, that
would have to be the, yes, you guessed it, the 8th Dynamic, the point of
origin of everything.  Yippee!!  And the nice part about it is that we folks
seem to have the ability, and sometimes even the willingness, to assume that
viewpoint; and it's a super-nice viewpoint.  It's sort of the way a great
artist might feel after having generated a masterpiece: step back a few paces
and look at it and it's good.  There's nothing wrong with it -- I made it,
and I think the world of it.

        Well, just imagine if said artist was able to completely forget
having made it, the great masterpiece, that is, and a long time later started
worshipping something else that our artist became convinced did make it.
Well, that's the trail of not-knowing, which can go a long way away from the
knowledge of  things like prime postulates, and that's good, because as
someone once said, too much knowing is no darn game at all.

         I don't know anybody currently who is so possessed of full
perception that every person they run into they immediately know how this
person is going to die and when they're going to die, and all kinds of other
not-necessarily-fun things.  But enough said about full perception -- how
about partial, half-full or one-third full?  That's enough for getting around
in a non-freaklike state in most universes.

         Those that have taken the time to become auditors have almost all
had the joy of watching the magic that occurs right before your eyes when
some postulate that has been making a hash out of somebody's life blows to
view, and with it all the answers to what's been going on so long, and to
witness the joy, the beauty, and the understanding that envelopes another
person when this happens.  Wow!  One thing Ron wasn't wrong about was his
idea that there was more case gain to be found in becoming an auditor than a
pc, and at least one of the big answers as to why that is true is that you
become cause over the creation and destruction of postulates.  And that
certainly is a fit activity for whatever you really are.


        Goodbye and good luck, and here's postulating more to follow --
        Filippo