Whole Thing

Between Western psychology, psychiatry and psychotherapy

and the so-called religions of Asia, there is common ground

because both are interested in changing states of human consciousness.

Whereas institutional Western religion, Christianity, Judaism and even Islam

are relatively less interested in this matter.

Western religions are more concerned with behavior, doctrine and belief

than with any transformation of the way in which we are aware of ourselves and of the world.

But this matter concerns psychiatry and psychology very much.

Only those states of consciousness which are not normal

are usually treated in Western psychology as being in some way sick.

There are of course exceptions to this and there have increasingly been exceptions

in the work of Jung and to some extent even of Groddeck,

of Princehawn,

of more modern people, Rogers

and Ronald Lang.

Changing consciousness is often looked upon as a form of therapy.

But in general,

different states of consciousness from the normal

are regarded as a form of sickness and therefore official and institutional psychiatry

constitutes itself the guardian of sanity

and of socially approved experience of reality.

And very often it seems to me that reality appears

rather much the way the world is seen on a bleak Monday morning.

In this official doctrine, I might even say dogma of what reality is.

Because after all we know that our science, such as it is of psychology,

is founded in the scientific naturalism of the 19th century.

And the metaphysical and mythological assumptions of that science

still underlie a great deal of psychological thinking

in behaviorism eminently, but also to a large extent in

official psychoanalysis.

Indeed one might say that psychoanalysis is based on Newtonian mechanics

and in fact could be called psycho-hydraulics.

Not that that analogy is altogether inappropriate

because there are certainly respects in which our psychic life

flows and exhibits the dynamics of water.

But of course we want to know what kind of water.

And for the scientific naturalism of the 19th century

the basic energies of nature were considered to be

very much inferior to human consciousness in quality.

Ernst Haeckel, a biologist of that time, would think of the energy of the

universe as blind energy. And correspondingly it seems to me that

Freud thought of the libido as essentially blind, unconscious energy,

embodying only a kind of formless, unstructured, and insatiable lust.

This is a generalization. Some modification in that thinking is of

course possible. But the tendency is to regard all that

which lies below the surface of human consciousness

as being less evolved, because you must remember that this was

also the time of Darwin's theories of evolution,

of seeing the human mind as a fortuitous

development from much more primitive forms of life,

coming forth by purely mechanical processes,

by natural selection and by the survival of the fittest.

And therefore man was in general seen

as a fluke of nature, an embodiment of reason,

emotion, and values for which the more basic processes of nature had

no sympathy and about which they did not care.

If therefore the human race is to flourish,

we must take charge of evolution, left to spontaneous process, but it must be

directed by human ingenuity, despite the fact

that although our brains are capable of dealing

with a colossal number of variables at once,

our conscious attention is not. Most people cannot consider more than

three variables at the same time without using a pencil.

And this shows that in many ways the scanning process of man's conscious

attention is very inadequate for dealing

with the infinitely many variables, the multi-dimensional processes

of the natural universe. However, a serious attempt has been made

and scientific naturalism issued in a fantastic fight with nature,

in this whole notion of the conquest and subordination of nature,

which has as a matter of fact very ancient non-scientific and biblical

origins, with the idea of man as the head and

chief and ruler of nature in the image of God.

And the time has now dawned upon us all when our attempts to beat nature into

submission are having alarming results, because we

see that it's very dangerous to mess around

with processes that we don't understand,

that have enormous numbers of variables,

and we begin to wonder whether we hadn't better let well enough

alone.

At the same time, although I said that Western psychology had more in common

or more common interest with Oriental religion

than it does with Western religion, there is a sense in which

psychiatry and psychotherapy are becoming

the religion of the West.

Psychoanalysis has much in common with the forms and procedures of

institutional religion. There is, for example, apostolic

succession,

the passing down of manna, of qualified power to practice therapy,

from the father founder, Sigmund Freud, through his immediate apostles, to an

enormous company of archbishops and bishops,

among whom there are, of course, as there were with Christianity,

heresiarchs such as Jung and Grodek and Rank

and Reich,

and the heresiarchs are duly excommunicated and anathematized.

There are rituals, as there are also rituals with religion.

There is the sacrament of the couch,

there is the spiritual discipline of free association,

there is the mystic knowledge of the interpretation of dreams,

and there are also the two great symbolic fetishes,

the long one and the round one.

Now, it's extraordinarily easy to make fun of all this,

and we must not forget that

we owe a tremendous debt to Freud, if for nothing else than pointing out

that that much of ourselves of which we are aware in terms of the conscious ego

is not really ourselves. It is something superficial.

However we find its nature, it is superficial,

and the realities of human life are not under the gaze of its scanning

process, at least not in the ordinary way. And that

was a tremendous revelation, there's no question

about that.

But one sees troublesome signs when the doctrines and processes

of psychiatry, psychoanalysis and so forth become

officialized. And I think Thomas Sass in his books "The Myth of Mental Illness"

and "The Manufacture of Madness" is pointing out something extremely

important to us, which is that in effect

the psychological official of today is the priest.

And that he is beginning to exercise the same sort of controls

over human life as were exercised by the church

in the Middle Ages. So that a professor of psychiatry

at Columbia or Harvard or Yale medical schools

has today the same sort of intellectual respectability

and authority as the professor of theology

at the University of Toledo or Padua would have had in the year 1400.

Now you must realize that the theologians of those days

not simply believed in their cosmology and the

theology, they almost knew it was true in the same way that our scientists

know certain things to be true.

Despite the fact that they change their opinions

very often, while they hold them they have in effect the force of dogma

as witness the anathematization of Velikovsky

for his uncomfortable ideas.

And therefore there are heresies existing today

which are persecuted in the same way as heresies were persecuted

by the Holy Inquisition.

And they are persecuted out of kindness in exactly the same way that the Holy

Inquisition persecuted heresy out of kindness and

deep concern for human beings. That is unimaginable

to us but it was so. For after all if you seriously

believed that someone who did not hold the

catholic faith and who voluntarily rejected it

would be tortured physically and spiritually

forever and ever and ever in hell

you would resort to almost any means to preserve a fellow human being from such

a fate. Especially if the complaint or disease of

heresy from which he suffered was infectious.

You would first of all reason with him and if he was not responsive to reason

you would resort to abuse and to forceful argument

and if he was not responsive to that you would give him shock treatment and bang

him about. If that didn't work the thumbscrew and

the rack and the iron maiden and if that didn't work as a last

desperate resort you would burn him at the stake in the

pious hope that in the midst of those searing fires

he would think better and make a last act of perfect contrition and so be

rescued from everlasting damnation. And you did all this

within the spirit of this is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you.

In the spirit of a surgeon who is very very sorry indeed that he has to

make you undergo this extremely painful operation

but it is in your best interests and there really is at least a 50/50 chance

that you may survive.

And so therefore in perfectly scientific medical spirit

people may be very arbitrarily and without due process

deprived of their civil rights incarcerated

in prisons that are in many cases much worse than prisons for criminals

and generally left to rot be neglected and ignored and when bumptious

given shock treatment or put in solitary confinement.

For what? Because they have unorthodox and heretical states of consciousness.

A lot of these people are not dangerous

until provoked into being dangerous by being ignored by being treated as

machines and in generally defined as non-human.

And if you are defined as non-human there's precious little you can do about

it because everything you say that sounds

human will be taken as a kind of utterance of a mechanical man

as imitating humanness out of lunatic cunning.

You will be suspicious everything you say will be listened to

in a different way and with different ears

and you will have one hell of a time talking yourself out of it

because there really are no rules as to what one must do when

incarcerated for having unorthodox consciousness.

There is no clear road to repentance and this is found likewise in jails

where people are incarcerated on one to ten year sentences as in places like

Vacaville California where when I visited such prisons young

men have come to me in perfect desperation

saying I don't know what's happened to me because I

want to live like a decent citizen I know I've done things that are wrong

but I simply don't know what is expected of me here.

If I try to do what's expected they say I'm compliant

and that seems to be some sort of a sickness.

Thomas Sass drew attention to this when he quoted

a discussion of the types of school children who

may very well need therapy. There were overachieving children

there were underachieving children there were children

who exhibited erratic patterns there were children who were

sort of a dully mediocre in fact every sort of child

can be given a diagnostic name for his behavior which sounds sick

as Jung once suggested life itself is a disease with a very poor prognosis

it lingers on for years and invariably ends with death.

And I submit that in our present knowledge of the human mind

such power in the hands of psychiatrists is amazingly dangerous

for I would suggest that today we know about as much

concerning the human mind as we knew about the galaxy in 1300

and that while there are indeed individuals

who are certainly able to perform psychotherapy

it is the sheerest arrogance for anybody to say

that he is officially qualified to do so.

We do not know how it is done just as we do not know really how musical

artistic and literary genius is done. You cannot really teach it you can

put the tools for doing these things into people's hands

and you can show them how to use the tools but whether they will use those

tools with genius is quite unpredictable.

And this is above all true of the art of psychotherapy.

We don't know how it's done we've got some vague ideas

there probably are some people who by reason of their mental derangement

are probably not qualified to perform it because they are maybe

out just to make other people into messes

but to say that there are certain standards and certain examinations that

can be passed and certificates that could be issued

which do indeed qualify people for this work

is I think pernicious nonsense

and is used of course out of economic self-interest

when those who consider themselves official therapists run into

competition. The same was done by religion.

I was talking imagine it to a buddhist priest

in Thailand some years ago I was looking at some books in a

bookshop in the precincts of a buddhist temple

and I was wandering over and I noticed a book on a certain form of buddhist

meditation and I murmured hmm Satipatthana which is

the name of a certain kind of buddhist meditation

and a voice suddenly said to me you practice Satipatthana?

I looked up and there was a skinny buddhist monk in a yellow robe with

rather red eyes looking at me. I said not exactly Satipatthana

I use a different method it's called Zen. Oh Satipatthana not Zen.

I said oh well it's something like it isn't it? No. Well it's rather like yoga

I said isn't it? Not yoga no Satipatthana different only right

way. Well look I said to him I have a lot of

Roman Catholic friends who tell me that their way is the only

right way. Who am I to believe? You know I said you

you're like someone who's got a a ferry boat for crossing the river

I use the buddhist simile and another fellow down the stream has opened up

ferry business and you go to the government and say

he's not authorized to operate a ferry boat because he's competition to you.

Let all operate ferry boats who will.

And if you haven't got the sense to get off to stay off one that sinks

it's your fault.

And after all I could say to him you believe that everything that happens to

you is your own karma.

So why worry?

But now it's so interesting that since

official psychiatry and I underline that word official because I hope those of

you in this audience who are therapists will regard yourselves as

unofficial.

At least that'll give you an out.

But nevertheless official psychiatry has curious things in common

with western religion as well as with eastern.

With eastern I said only in so far as it has an interest in states of

consciousness and inclines to regard other states of

consciousness than the ordinary as sick. But it has one very important

feature in common with western religion.

And to that we have to go a little bit into western religious history.

And ask ourselves what in western religion and especially in christianity

and this goes also for judaism islam what is the great heresy?

Curiously enough the great heresy was first in the west committed

by no lesser person than Jesus Christ

who believed himself to be God.

This of course will be unquestionably true if you think that the gospel of

Saint John has historical value. It's a little

vaguer in the synoptic gospels but if you read the gospel of Saint John

there is absolutely no doubt about it for he said

I and the father are one he who has seen me has seen the father

before Abraham was I am I am the way the truth and the life I am the

resurrection and the life he said all that according

to this gospel.

And that is something that in the western world

you are not supposed to say especially you are not supposed to believe it.

And naturally it was very difficult for Jesus

because he was saying all this in the context

of the Hebrew culture.

And he tried to find language in the Hebrew scriptures

with which to express his state of consciousness

because he had an unusual state of consciousness.

As I read it he had cosmic consciousness

otherwise known as mystical experience otherwise known as moksha

nirvana bodhi satori fana elfana or what you will.

And that happens to people. It has happened as far back as we know

it happens all over the world and in all cultures.

We don't know very much about it. We don't really know ways in which to

make it happen because it seems to be of the nature of

it that it is a spontaneous surprise but it unquestionably happens.

And most people keep their mouths shut about it when it does.

I had a friend who in the middle of having a stroke

had this illumination and he said to me I fear to speak to my friends of this

but it was the most beautiful experience I shall never be afraid of death.

In fact I recommend everyone to have a stroke.

This was my friend Jean Varda, lately deceased

Greek painter.

But Jesus certainly had this transformation of consciousness

and he was crucified for it. Why? Because he had committed an act of

insubordination and treason against the cosmic government.

Because if you believe that God is a monarch

an absolute omniscient and omnipotent authority

shall we say a sort of cosmic ego then to claim to be that is to introduce

democracy into the kingdom of heaven to usurp divine authority and to speak

in its name without proper authorization.

And they asked Jesus by what authority do you speak of heaven

or of men and he was tricky about answering that one.

He said by what authority did John the Baptist speak

and they were nervous about answering that one. He could have asked by what

authority did Isaiah speak etc or Moses.

But Moses became official authority and if you could wangle it that what you

said was simply an extension of what Moses

said because rabbi so-and-so said it who got it from rabbi so-and-so who got

it from rabbi so-and-so who got it from rabbi so-and-so who got it from Moses

then it's okay. Notice this that to be an authority today in the

academic world depends on documentation.

It's not enough to say for I say unto you

you must put in your footnotes and the more the footnotes the more the

authority obviously.

So our dissertations tend to be books about books about books about books

and our libraries multiply by mitosis.

So when somebody speaks as an authority that means speaks as the

author that's all it means.

It's a statement for which you of which you are the author and therefore

for which you assume responsibility that is to speak with authority

and to be original is likewise not to be freaky

but to speak from the origin.

That is what Christians mean when they say to speak in the spirit

to have your mouth possessed by the Holy Spirit

as they believe the mouth of Jesus was possessed by the Holy Spirit.

So the gospel of Jesus which of course was hushed up from its inception

was that wake up everybody and find out who you are.

Asking that again in the gospel of Saint John

they pointing to his disciples may be one

even as you father and I are one and when he was accused of blasphemy

the Jews took up stones to stone him you know and he said

many good works have I shown you from the father and from which of these do

you stone me and they said for a good work we don't

stone you but for blasphemy because you being a man make yourself

God. Now listen to the reply he said is it not

written in your law I have said ye are gods

and if that is what the scripture says it can't be denied

so why do you tell me I blaspheme because I say I am a son of God

no answer

because I said I am a son of God it doesn't say that in your King James

translation it says I am the son of God and you'll see the the italicized and

you will think that that is for emphasis if you don't realize that passages in

italics in the King James Bible are interpolations by the translators

in Greek leaving out the definite article is equivalent of having the

indefinite article

we are to you is a son of God not oh yes to you

so son of in Hebrew and in Arabic means of the nature of

when we call someone a son of a bitch we mean

bitchy and so if you call someone a son of God you mean divine

of the nature of God as the Nicene Creed subsequently defined it

he is of one substance with the father

but what happened was that this being blasphemy for the Jews

it became blasphemy for the Christians for anyone else than Jesus to say it

they said okay baby it was so with you but there it stops

no more of this business

and as a result of that Jesus was made irrelevant by pedestal ization

by being kicked upstairs

in spite of the fact that he said greater works

than these that I do shall you do oh no upstairs with you baby because

uh we just can't have that sort of thing going on in a monarchical universe we

are not going to have democracy in the kingdom of heaven

so this is why the gospel is impossible because we are supposed to follow the

example of Christ

where he says for example be not anxious for the morrow

do not worry about what you shall eat what you shall drink and what you shall

wear God will take care of you doesn't he take

care of the birds don't the flowers grow and they're wonderful they're crazy

they're great what are you worrying about I've never

heard a sermon preached on that never because it's totally subversive the

economy would crash

so they say oh yes that's all very well but he was the boss's son

see he had that colossal advantage take up your cross and follow him hey but

wait a minute I don't know I'm going to be resurrected

three days later

I can't do all those miracles he had an unfair advantage

so how could you ask us to follow the example of Christ

but supposing he didn't have an unfair advantage

supposing that what was true about Jesus as a son of God is true of us

only only a few of us know it and we are pretty careful to be

quiet about it lest the same thing happen to us has

happened to Jesus

and indeed it often does and you know you get these people from

Arkansas or Texas or anywhere in the Bible Belt who never heard

of the Upanishads and they have this cosmic consciousness

experience and they realize that that's what happened to Jesus they say I'm

Jesus come back well everybody says to them you aren't

Jesus it's pretty obvious you're not Jesus you're just

you're just Joe Doakes well they say he says that's what they said about Jesus

he has a perfect argument except they say you're not much of a Jesus

they say uh all right if you're Jesus command

that these stones be made bread and he says a wicked and deceitful

generation seeketh for a sign and there shall no sign be given

now why talk about this is it interesting is it important

for the human being to realize that in some sense of the word

whatever it means he is God or one with God as is plainly

taught by the Hindus hinted at by the Buddhists

only they don't like to put it out as a concept

in case people will use the concept as an idol to hang on to

they want you to find out for yourself and not believe in it

and certainly the Taoists understand it the Sufis understand it

a lot of people understand it but so what

well the importance of it is this that to know that you are God

is another way of saying that you feel

completely with this universe you feel profoundly rooted in it and

connected with it you feel in other words that the whole

energy which expresses itself in the galaxies

is intimate it is not something to which you are a stranger

but it is that with which you whatever that is are

intimately bound up that in your seeing your hearing your talking your thinking

your moving you express that which it is which moves

the sun and other stars and if you don't know that if you don't

feel that well naturally you feel alien

you feel a stranger in the world and if you feel a stranger you feel hostile

and therefore you start to bulldoze things about to beat it up

and to try and make the world submit to your will

and you become a real troublemaker

so i feel also one reason why you become hostile

is that feeling that you were just brought into this place that your father

and mother went up to some monkey business that they

probably shouldn't have done or it was bad rubber goods and as a result of this

here you are and you didn't ask to be here well you always feel you can turn

around and blame them you can blame somebody you can blame

the government you can blame the rascals you can play the

blame the cheaters always supposing you yourself aren't a rascal which is a

long odds you always can blame someone and say

i didn't ask for it take it away and yet and yet and yet very few people

are all too ready to take it away camus said that the only serious

philosophical problem is whether or not to commit suicide

and if you don't if you don't say take it away

what are you going to do you've really got to assume responsibility for it

you've got to say yes to what happens it's my karma and that doesn't mean

merely there are many misinterpretations of the doctrine of karma

it's usually unpopularly understood is that what happens to you

either fortunate or unfortunate is the result of good or bad deeds

in a previous life well that's popular superstition

the real meaning of karma the word in sanskrit means simply

doing and if i say of an event it is your karma

it is saying it is your doing

so the exposition a book which would expound karma

would be not so much a whodunit as a you done it

but that seems fantastic

now therefore what i propose we do is that we

instead of just ideologizing

we have a clinical experience

you know in psychiatric school in medical school

it's very usual for a doctor to bring a patient out in front of the

students and talk with the patient as a kind of

demonstration he says i want you to recognize the difference between a

psychopath and a manic depressive or a schizophrenic or something they don't

know what all these things mean and uh especially the schizophrenia

and uh so he he has a dialogue with the patient

right there

so let us suppose that i'm the patient

and you are the students and the doctors

and i suffer from what you would call the delusion that i'm god

and therefore you might want to do something about me or with me

or humor me or ask me questions and so i'm perfectly willing to

submit to your examination and your treatment and uh

invite you to help yourselves

now when did you become god now will you marry me

no

yes sleeping is like politics

one sleeps on the right side and then when you're tired of that you sleep on

the left when you're tired of that you sleep on

your back and when you're tired of that you sleep

on your stomach and it is thus that the world goes round

if you were god now what were you yesterday now

you don't become god am i also god yes

remember same person no remember three persons but one god

could i tell you a little bit about satan yes

uh although the matter is a little esoteric but uh i

told you all about it in the book of job where you will see

that in the court of heaven satan is the district attorney

he is not as christians imagine the enemy of heaven

and the enemy of mankind he's merely the person who sees the bad side of things

and carries out the dirty work and therefore he saw job

and wondered whether job really was as great a guy as he seemed to be

and suggested that god should appoint a committee of investigation to find out

and the committee did its work very thoroughly but

the case went against satan because it was proved in the end that job was an

honorable man

now you notice that although we pay the salary of the district attorney

whenever there's a great criminal case before the public eye

people begin to take the side of the underdog

and the prosecutor always has less public sympathy

than the defense except in political trials

on the right hand of god and you know the defense is always on the right hand

of the judge in court is our only mediator and advocate

which is the phrase referring to jesus christ our lord

so there is the defense and there is the prosecution

and it is the function of satan to be the prosecutor there is a good deal more

to it than that because before all this started

as in a stage play there was an arrangement in the green room

before coming on stage

in which uh certain things were understood

but that are only to be revealed uh when the curtain goes down at the end of the

play

yes but he doesn't know it why do you hide from the saints so many

why do you hide it's for the same reason you're hiding

yes

who else

what

man has free will to the extent that he knows who he is

not otherwise

where i got it from

yes to the extent that she knows who she is yes

to know just what he is and man is god then

you're saying then you'd say that you are no more than any god in this room

or any man that is correct i'm no more god than any of you

then you only have the power to know who you are

well that is saying quite a bit yes

what is not god what is not god there is nothing that is not god

it's like waking up from a dream

after a while one's experience begins to have what i would call a haven't we been

here before feeling

going round and round and round and then you begin wondering

where am i going and to answer that question

you have to try and find out what you want

and so i went into that very thoroughly what do i want to happen

and of course as soon as you ask yourself that you begin to fantasize

and our amazing technology is of course an expression of human desire

desire for power for what we want to achieve

so i simply set myself to thinking through how far we could go

and so i soon found myself at a great push button place

where i had a fantastic mechanism with buttons available for every

conceivable thing i could wish

so i spent quite a bit of time playing with those

and science fiction wasn't in it

you know you go going like that and here is cleopatra

and so on you know and then press this button

a symphonic music in uh four channel sound

16 channel sound anything you know all possible pleasures are available

and when you know you're like everybody's dream of the sultan in the

palace you suddenly notice there's a button

labeled surprise you push that and here we are

yes boredom is of course the problem

boredom is is the other side of creativity

and the energy of creation has as its that is the yang

the yin side of that energy is called boredom

everything of course is fundamentally yang and yin if you understand that you

really don't need to understand anything else

what responsibility do you feel to ameliorate evil in the world

as god what responsibility do i feel to ameliorate evil in the world

i begin with the point that i am responsible for the way

the world is

if i couldn't feel that i'd have to blame somebody else

i'm not willing to do that because i know that under various

changing circumstances it might be appropriate for me to be as big a

rascal as rascals have been

now as to improving the world

the world is always improving

it may look to some people slow

but it's improving even when it is declining

because the world works in an undulatory process

like a wave it goes up and it goes down it goes up and it goes down

and it couldn't go up all the time because if it did we wouldn't know that

that was up

so it goes down some of the time so that we can know when it goes up because if

we didn't know when it went up it would like

it would be like being in a space where everything was light

there'd be nothing to write home about there would be no black marks on the

space and so it would be like a piece of perfectly empty paper

similarly to be in a completely black space

would also be a kind of unconsciousness with nothing to write home about

because there'd be nothing nothing would make any difference

so therefore if you're going to have black you won't know that it's black

unless you have some white and if you're going to have white you

won't know that it's white unless you have some black

why do you teach us all to love one another because if we get to that point

there won't be any of these ups and downs what happened

correct but that's not a teaching it's a koan

a koan a koan is a japanese word for a spiritual problem used in zen

buddhism such as what is the sound of one hand

and these problems are given to those who ask questions concerning their

spiritual development

and sometimes as saint paul pointed out commandments are given not in the

expectation that they will be obeyed but in the expectation that they will

reveal something to those who hear them

that was saint paul's comment on the whole mosaic law

yes sir

the hereafter is of course now because if you will examine it closely

there is no when else than now

and if you want to make hell of it you can make hell of it if you want to make

heaven of it you can make heaven of it purgatory purgatory

it's all here always was always will be what is death death is an undulation in

consciousness how would you know you were alive unless

you'd once been dead

yes

it wasn't unnecessary for him to have material possessions

they said of saint john the baptist that he was an ascetic but of jesus

this man consorts with gluttonous and wine bibbers and comes eating and

drinking and when uh the lady mary

poured precious ointment on his feet and anointed him they said the same

thing that the members of the vestry say to the minister

today why this great expense couldn't it all

have been sold for much money and given to the poor

it is a problem sure but you see uh in many ways when you get down to these

very deep ethical problems where there sure is no easy decision one

way or or the other

you you must look in the at the problem from the point of view of an artist

which way of doing this is in some sense greater

it may be better to go off with a bang than with a whimper