Illness and the new age movement

This text is about esotericism from the perspective of the revolutionary patient and also a compendium about theory and practice of the patients' front.

The elaboration started as an internet chat (Part 2) - thanks again to my conversational partner - with a person from the U.S.  It is unedited, so occasionally the dialogue is kind of difficult to understand. Please just keep reading, the overall message you will get in any case.

The first part is an abstract about the topic in relation to the internet chat. Some sections are repetitions from the following dialogue, but in a bit different context. You don't need to read the interview in order to grasp part one.This chapter was used for two workshops about “illness and revolution” at the European rainbow gathering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Family 2013 in Greece, on July 21 (an extract) and on July 25 (whole text).

Part 1

In short, the following disquisition is about the question, if change should start within society or if it should rather take place outside society in a supposed absolute dimension.

I believe in responsibility, but I'm not of the opinion that we should blame people. Further on it's foolish to believe that misery is just a private problem. Those who are starving in the third world (and nowadays increasingly in richer parts of the world, too); those getting ill from pollution; radiation, those killed in car accidents; those getting ill from working in a mine or garment factory for 50$ a month or less to feed their family; those who suffer from labor conditions everywhere; those civilians, who are bombed out in wars; mentally disabled or mentally ill who are cast away in closed institutions; those ordinary patients, who believe the propaganda of the doctors and suffer from so called therapies that just slowly or quickly kill the illness and the body; they all are victims of a planned system of terror, which is not natural in any way, but it is man made. Ignorance causes pain and fear; instead, personally and together we should analyze the way we live and care for better living conditions.

You're not really answering my arguments, how agony and illness develop , how money gets into our minds, how we need each other, as you also need support from others. You say or one easily comes to the conclusion following your way of thinking, that all these problems come from the inside and can be solved by getting detached from this world and by getting in touch with oneself. You give quite unspecific, general advices, for example you suggest one should follow the eightfolds path, meditate and overcome the insecurity of death and life. I doubt, that this helps people who are in trouble (see above). I agree that one can assist people with attention, kindness and so on, though additionally we all together should work on realizing in what kind alienated society we all live in and what we can do about it, so we can deal with our situation from a perspecitve, where we understand and experience, what is going on and where we have knowledge and strength to interfere with conditions, that make our lives painful and mundane. I don't see, why there should be the risk, that we repeat or project, what has been before, while doing this? The other way around, when we start something new, those in power and control or sometimes just regular people, who cling to the status quo might project into us, their fears of losing their status and their false security. They prosecute us and call as criminals, lunatics or even worse. That’s why Krankheit im Recht was founded, and it successfully defends patients rights – we are all patients within this sick system – for more than 30 years.

I believe there is no final solution for anything, but related to situations in our lives, we are able to learn and to get into states of mind, where we are more aware, feel more alive, feel the warmth and are in touch with each other. I mean, our lives and how they take place now, how we perceive the world and how we are distracted from the moment, all of this has its foundation in history. Thus in historical materialism lies the key to change.

I know the rather esoteric idea, that we can overcome these programmed patterns by certain practices for the mind and body and by certain attitudes. But don't we then just want to get away from this hell called earth, instead of starting to communicate with each other about what bothers us? We don't need these exercises, if we experience fulfillment in social life. By reflection of our living conditions and by taking action, we not only change our personal situation. Don't forget that without class and workers struggle, and without revolutions we'd still live in a society of christian fundamentalism and feudalistic injustice. If there hadn't taken place any class war, most employees still would have no rights, no social security and famine wages, even in the first world. Wherever those in power can, they try to get back to the old times.

These posts are just a rough outline of my view of the world. I like to study and practice the SPK/ patients front, which consists of more than 40 years of collective experience and many books .I'm still rather at the beginning of exploring it, yet I see and feel it at the same time. Similar may be to your model of conduct of life and practice there is much to learn and the learning is the process; and the main point is not so much, what results I may get, but that I know, that I do the right thing. More than to connect myself with some supposed higher or natural forces, I prefer to engage in my and others people’s lives and the problems and chances, see what we can do, talk about the earthly aspects of life that affect us here and now. I don't want to stand in any way above society and human culture, and I strongly doubt, that it's possible. My path has the opposite meaning, than to be in some other world, which has little to do with this world. It means to become aware, what role we play here and why we think and behave in odd ways that are contrary to what is good for us. I won't go back to dealing with my problems in a purely individual struggle. I can't emphasize enough, that these problems are the content of an interrelationship between myself and the outside world (without the outside world, I wouldn't exist). Partially, one could say, I caused these problems; but at the same time, others and society as a whole - and they were the reason in first place - caused these difficulties . These two determinants are connected with each other. Yes, I'm part of everything, part of the wholeness.

The question is, what potential is there and what are the things, I'm not even able to imagine or to dream about? If I lived in a different society, like if I would be a native of the last Amazonian Jungle tribe, who doesn't have contact to western civilization, I might live a much happier, more vivid and imaginative life. I might not have the background to even think of problems such as jealousy, envy of other people’s money or possessions, and most illnesses we are familiar with wouldn't even be known. Though don't be mistaken, these tribes were and are still not perfect, there are power structures, suppression, taboos and superstition, too; and usually the life of a human being was worth nothing. However in the capitalist world, the oppression is more elaborated. So what is wrong with concerning oneself with illnesses as manifestations of an ill society, going to the root? What we have in common seems to be, that we both refuse or criticize an economic (+medical) system as harmful. Yet you renounce this world completely, you call it an illusion. I feel it and I'm involved in it every day, and if this is not real, what is real, then? I use the dialectic method, which proposes, that we have to include the negative (the unwanted, the problems, the question itself, illness), when we are looking for an answer (yet wrong and right, truth and lie are different things). There is truth only, when it is referred to the misery causing relation of production, in other words, to the culture we live in, to the every day life we have to face, to existence as such.

Can you be outside your species, which you are composed of? I don't think so. Mankind is not ready and still has to evolve to a community of living beings that know how to survive, contrary to animals. For animals,there is a strong correlation between single specimen and the whole species. Mankind mainly goes astray and falls to pieces; what happens is something that one could call complete defect mutation: With the invention of trade and then money in particular, every major aspect of our lives became an expression of the separation and disintegration of the human race. No change is possible, if we don't discuss our substitute for species, which is value and the money that derives from it (we will in the last part). Look at the world, don’t you see this, too? So we got to do something about it.

When an animal gets sick, either it dies or it deals with the illness in a way, that it can go on living, because these forms of behavior are programmed. Man can have different views about illness and act according to that. A good view for everyone is, that someone else illness is my illness, too. This is true because I'm altered by the people who surround me and by the environment, too. When someone is neglected or additionally treated in a hospital because of his illness, everyone is at risk to be the next. Only when we act collectively we can raise the quality of our existence, and diminish the fear of failing and falling.

For me problem (like illness as inhibition) and purpose is very close together, again, one couldn't exist without the other. Many wish, they would be in a constant state of equilibrium or a perfectly balanced flux of bliss, some call this condition health, which most of us long for so much. Yet states of being aren't constant or perfectly balanced but vary, there is neither a complete tranquility respectively a determined stability, nor an absolute conformity; either of them would mean absolute cessation. Completely undivided existence where everything is one could only be possible in death or in health like in Auschwitz; in life there are differences: we have different personalities, we look differently, we have different sexes and a thousand more differences (If shape and material wouldn't be apart and in conflict, there wouldn't be any matter). These differences can lead to problems, yet by consciously addressing them, we can understand where our perception of them comes from, and we can overcome these obstacles in realizing the all pervading and all uniting presence of illness. It is the expression of what society lacks and thus signifies what kind of change is needed, and that we need interaction from subject to subject, from face to face, from eye to eye. Illness can be the ultimate revolutionary force, which shows us, why diversity doesn't have to be a scale for competition and why a multitude is good. It won't happen that just automatically things get better; however, in deep involvement and coping with the world and human society, we can repeatedly have intense experiences and improve our attitude towards live, our awareness of life. Therefor we got to consider the dialectic nature of life.

In suppressive societies like capitalism, illness consists of life, which is separated and in opposition against itself & against each other, as you can see it in the social - economic competition. But then the other side of illness is life in its indivisibility and in its vivid individuality. In-dividuality means, that one can't divide it. Especially the antagonism in the capitalist world can be a common ground: when we are aware of the fact, that we all are confronted in one way or the other with the same miserable general living conditions, we understand the double meaning of illness, and we can use it for us and against the patterns of power. Then passively experienced symptoms disappear and strength through collective activity arises instead. In our approach we use the method of dialectical materialism which fundamentally differs from the predominant exclusively mathematical materialism: “That's what we call Diapathics, because it is a materialistic dialectics, indeed, for the first time a materialistic dialectics: materialistic, because it is pre – set in the substance of the dynamics of illness (illness substance, matter), and the human species that is to be brought about is the energetic field of tension belonging to it the strength of illness being the driving force (catalyzing agens) that is going to happen with it, recognizable from its influences and effects that are bringing about a new reality, blasting off the existing reality” (taken from http://www.spkpfh.de/Pro_illness.htm ). We should continue analyzing and communicating about our situation, as we all were raised to live up to the standard of the completely irrational health madness; e.g. we're supposed to be young, good looking and to make a good impression on everyone and an occupational career. We're trying to succeed, but even if we do, the “victories” don't last very long, because new complications soon arise. From the perspective of health, we must be perfect and we can never be good enough. Contrary to that, revolution through illness includes everyone besides doctors, is a good way itself and what one might call result isn't something abstract and unreachable, but it is the same as our actions. When we communicate through illness in a progressive way, we get a feedback immediately, as I notice every time I raise the topic. Life gets enhanced. Only the ones who are against it - often those who work for the health business - get blocked and armor themselves.

The doctors class is the director of the bourgeois straightjacket , which prevents illness from occurring as protest by the people. They keep the machinery of overproduction and capital accumulation running, which leads to problems from distress to starvation for the wage depended folks. Doctors select the citizens in a racist way into those who are able to do wage work, which is what they refer to as health, and into those, who are ill and who can't work. Sick persons they suppress and exploit by their inadequate treatments, which for their purses and for the economy of the capitalists stand for further surplus value. Patients respectively citizens spread the doctoral agenda, as they try to outdo each other for various reasons. Everyone wants to belong, to be someone, to be special, to have psychic balance in this totally unbalanced world, to have security and a good reputation, to be enlightened, to be healthy. The result of these egocentric efforts and actions is hell on earth. The average people rather unconsciously represent the mindset of the doctors class, which sees every symptom as an individual problem only with no reference to the overall context and which strives for health. This changes, when they get alternative information. A growing part of the people becomes increasingly critical about the doctors class and more conscious about illness.

This also is true to diverging extent for different movements of counterculture, but many lack further reflection. They can easily be influenced and swallowed by advertising strategies, campaigns of the political mainstream and so on, who just turn the original intention upside down. Terms like madness and freak or protest lifestyles and outfits like hippie, the new age movement that arose as a part of the 60s revolution, punk or the anarchist black block become part of a fashion and it becomes hip to live in alternative or rebellious neighborhoods. The same happens with art and music. What used to be special and different becomes a trend, driven by the number one mean of mind control which is money and which turns every thing that is outstanding into the all pervading trend of value, be it in the form of cash or in the form of arrogance and blatancy (see my chapter about the reification of value in the last third of this text). This is possible because the activists neglect the role of illness: The motivation for these cultures of protest is not only to escape a boring and competitive society, but there is also the unperceived motivation to avoid illness, instead of using illness as a weapon. In other words, even though illness as social pressure was the reason for the uprisings, they don't proceed in their engagements and once they achieve a half way alternative, they rest in a seemingly parallel existence and are content with the illusion to be healthy. As a distraction from themselves the main focus often is on power struggles with the establishment. Internal relationships and power struggles are dealt with as side contradictions and illness is suppressed. For every revolutionary movement it should be a matter of priority to find ways to deal with symptoms of illness among each other without doctors. Unfortunately all the difficulties that arise from labor conditions, the lack of any kind of intimate and fulfilling contact and the particular conflicts that arise around sex and romantic relationships, all the drug and mental problems as well as physical problems, that are a direct consequence of neglected illness, usually are seen as individual and isolated cases for the doctors class, like elsewhere. It is absolutely essential to create a patients' class throughout the different social movements for survival and for a better way of living.

The idea of health is static, like the determination of numbers and statistics, like a paradise we seek in death; like the false security we have, because the prices are fixed and after a bargain the value is balanced. According to the logic of capitalism and health, everything that is constricting it, including life and illness, has no right to exist and has to be fought. Of course, people don't like this war on life and resist. Different trends develop in order to deal with it. Why should we engage in spiritual or political practices, or any other efforts, if not, because we at least have a glimpse of this declaration of war on us, and because we want to defend ourselves and to exert ourselves for change, as I've said before? The tusk of humanity is and always will be to organize its economic - social survival in relation to illness and how we do this determines each persons well being. While doing this, it is very important that we brake down hierarchies by agitating each other in a personal context in relation to society on the whole. It must become clear that our personal quarrels and the barriers between us can only be solved, when additionally they are seen as expressions of an ill world. The external and the internal are strongly interwoven, when they are combined in a collective struggle, we achieve oneness, as it becomes obvious how we are all linked to each other. While doing this, the concepts of good and bad as a labeling and as a result of the conditions of society are of no importance. What matters, is what is useful for the revolution and what is reactionary?

It is useful to realize the totality of the control we are exposed to. As a start, we have to consider that we're all imprisoned in the setting that society gives us. As in the prison with visible walls, in capitalist society there is competition. In the logic of the market economy, those who are stronger, more clever, more beautiful, who fulfill an idealized status succeed and the weaker ones, the unalluring persons, the less manipulative are the ones who lose. The framework for this pecking order are oppressive rules and the law. Violations are either punished by social exclusion, contempt, violence etc. or by the written law. The realm of accepted behavior is narrow and leads to frustration, and it is dictated by the ultimate ideal, which is health. Those who fiercely try to break out of the rat race for health are at higher risk to serve jail time in a real prison. All prisoners are criminalized because of their illness, all prisoners are patients, and as well as the hospital patients they are the direct result of the way this system works. Through illness people violate the rules in many ways, roughly it ranges from conscious protest as the patients's front is doing to inhibited protest, that is destructive. The latter in the form of somatic illnesses and distressful mental illness always shows, that moments have been passed, where the causes could have been dealt with otherwise in more intentional ways. Yet it's never too late. All the time - and the best time is now - sickness can be understood as an invitation to the start of a revolutionary process. Even if we talk about inherited multi – generational, so called genetic diseases, we can track them back to our poisoning and deceiving economic system as the ultimate catalyst. Thus we have to challenge the foundations of society, a unjust system of ownership that is guarded and administrated by the doctors class. The question is not, why people steal but why not all people steal? Every minute they steal from our lives, our time and our strength, and by buying labor ( even for dumping prices), a small elite exploits the surplus value from the rest of the population. The Punk Band Crass had a song “Do they owe us a living?”. The answer in the song is “of course they do, of course they do, of course they fucking do”. The original Socialist Patients' collective in the beginning of the seventies represented real change and broke down barriers between each other.Therefor they were criminalized and punished by the doctors class, by police, by the administration of the university, by the government, by delegates of the institutions, that are afraid of illness, vitality, revolutionary group consciousness and real collective solidarity; the barriers the SPK had removed between themselves were replaced by prison bars. Though the prisoners knew how to respond to the repression, and the  experiences became part of the collective process http://www.spkpfh.de/Timeline.htm

Contrary to that, we could come to terms with suppression, keep on living like before, try to forget about the zoo we live in and instead on a superficial level raise our individual and group awareness, vibration and energy value and get in touch with the source of universal love by exercises that have a long tradition, some call it pray and work: ora et labora.

Work for wages couldn't be done without illness, and illness means that we have to work as puppets to get along and to survive in capitalism. Additional to paid manpower, all the time we have to deal and work with the sick reality that surrounds us. We have to do this in our minds and also practically . We live in a society, which demands certain kinds of conformed behavior, character and appearance (looks), form not content, evaluated single bodies not the whole body of society. Otherwise we have to work, to struggle with the consequences, for example of having lost a job, of being an outcast or of being a target for the oppression of the authorities.

Though it might seem more convenient to get around the discussion about the basic design of our relationships. By deep meditation or similar practices, you also work with illness to get away from the flaws, the boredom, the stress, the meaninglessness of trade society. By willingly producing states of illness you change your consciousness: pain in zen meditation/ pain from an inflammation of the middle ear - deep relaxation from yoga/ deep relaxation after a shock - not moving for a long time in meditation/ not being able to move after an injury – sweat lodge/ dehydration, feverish delirium, sunstroke. Also dull, monotonous or exhausting labor can lead to effects that are known as transcendental. For example it was reported from the cotton pickers in the south of the U.S., that they engaged in astral traveling as a reaction to the boredom of their jobs. The same a friend of mine did, when he worked for a fast food chain.

We say, folks only trade the problems for shortsighted solutions by engaging in personal or esoteric efforts without a collective blueprint. They don't deal with social causes and treat each other in superficial ways; they exchange their dissatisfaction for something similar, using the same logic that stands for the root of all problems. They, with their frequencies, vibrations, evaluated chakras, pulse rates, numbers, do it just like in the equations of natural science and just like the way energy is transferred in a calculable way; equations also apply to our money based economic activities and these activities were originally the cause for our way of thinking and suffering. We're talking about a circle of frustration, that is inevitable, when a price or an advantage in terms of exchangeable variables is the goal. We compulsively and repeatedly try to get into a better position, but we're never really satisfied, marginally content at the most, as it is an egocentric effort driven by a egocentric motivation and the results concern isolated objects, including the person itself. On the other hand, when the social interaction is based on a communication with and about illness, we don't need to "escape" from everyday mundane life. Then we can generate warmth among us by disclosing the unbearable normality. This warmth doesn't follow the mathematical laws of science; medical science fails completely here. We talk about warmth in illness, that either shows as individualized symptoms of illness like flue, fever or any other symptom or as warmth in a collective body. Illness can not only mean severe pain, but also ecstasy.

When we suffer from illness, of course above all it is not nice and painful. We're isolated and desperate but at the same time driven by the agony to the core, we're very aware of what is going on, and we have acute sensations. We're divided and connected with life at the same time. It is a chance for revolutionary activity on formerly unrecognized general and specific scarcity, on unperceived habits, on conflicts with other people, labor, lifestyle, contamination of food and the environment etc., it is a challenge. We got at this very unpleasant situation, because we didn't think of all those hazards before. It becomes clear that we should all the time refer to life and community as illness – not only when it is obvious - and together activate this warmth and liveliness that keeps us in motion. Either illness expresses itself as suffering or as pleasure and these two sides can be very close to each other. When we keep this in mind and make or own reality, we consider the activity of doctors as harmful to our well-being. They deny the true role of illness and want to crush it altogether. We won't need them and their “scientific” abstraction of man any more, when we develop strength through illness.

Not only doctors can use illness for selfish reasons. There are certain people who were outcasts, because they were ill. They learned from their experiences and they became saints, shamans or god-priests, because they didn't share their experiences, but made a secret out of them and treated them as a fetish. Often these privileges were inherited and the ideas were further distorted. This way finally the modern doctors class began to arise.

Let us talk some more about the relationship between the economy and what we nowadays call soul and body. In most parts of history of mankind, the psyche and the body weren't mentioned as two separate things; not until the ancient Greece culture rose, we can see how the concept of a separate soul developed. With the invention of money respectively the reification of value-forms into numbers, which took place during that period, things were definitely divided into owner of goods and into goods. Slaves were goods, they weren't considered as human but rather as animals who didn't have a soul. The same was true for savages. The terms soul or mind are just expressions of the establishment of money, of the act of trade, of the value that is created by this act and of the antagonism and discrimination that is necessary for a money based economy to function; in other words, insouled human beings are made by equating man with value and by translating this value into certain traits. The upper class, the slaveholders own themselves the same way they own their possessions. The terms soul or mind ain't more than buzz phrases or generalizations of man as participants in business, that are filled with further contents respectively traits. Hence only those who had money, who belonged to the ruling class had a soul and could be part of culture and civilization. Only they could be ill as only they could pay for a priest doctor. Only they had a soul that was capable of being contaminated with an effect on the body. Only they then could be healed (or not) in exchange for a valuable sacrifice, for example money.

Later on, civic rights applied to everyone and all became owners of things to some degree, but most have to sell their manpower in order to survive until today. This ongoing fragmentation and concealment of the class antagonism lead to an increasing fragmentation of the way man sees himself: In the period of enlightenment and with the beginning of modern science man respectively body and soul were further compartmentalized into a will, a subconscious, a personality, an ego, intellectual property, and so on. All these terms beside the last one at first glance stand for originality and individuality. In reality, they represent an impersonality and a power, that not at all by accident we can also find in the universal act of trade. It destroys all originality and makes different things and people not the same but equivalent to certain values (and prices). We are just forms for value that are capable of being differentiated, in order to be traded. The categories or forms of value, that only exist in our thoughts, don't have their origin in brain activity. They are implanted into our way of thinking through the act of trade-money-exchange. It doesn't really make a difference if we deal with the so called subconscious or the conscious mind (or soul), as both are pre-formed by commercial events, that elude our reflection.

There is a similarity to the kind of process that was investigated in China and Korea in the early fifties by western scientists and which was called brainwashing. Prisoners of war were persuaded and compelled step by step to perform various acts to implement a new ideology into their minds (for example they were rewarded for writing a short pamphlet in favor of their adversaries). Because they repeatedly did something according to the philosophy of their enemy, to some degree they couldn't dissociate themselves from it. If this is done without obvious coercion but subtly, it is rather called mind control and it is even more effective.

It takes place everywhere, starts very early in lifetime and usually it is unquestioned: Small children don't need money and they don't have a desire to introduce it to their lives. Yet their parents, kindergarten, school and mass media as agents of the capitalists accustom them gradually to the use of money and to a world, where live without money is impossible. E.g. children are taught what and who belongs to them and what doesn't, they are introduced to toy money and hand in hand with the the rules of business they are told to build up a narcistic and selfish self image in order to distinguish themselves from others in a discriminative way. In school they are trained on efficiency, discipline and competition in order to be further exploited later on in wage work. The western doctors, sociologists and psychologists overlooked due to their hate of communism this worst kind of mind control, which is most established in the capitalist states. It leads to a dissociation from realness and to strongly impaired social behavior. The most totalitarian cult is capitalist society. Spirituality, esoteric exercises, art, music and literature are flight strategies in a world where everything is fake, as we speculate on our social status and other issues instead of uniting. They can lift the curtain that blurs our vision for some moments, but they only deal with the surface of a deep conditioning. A patients' movement is necessary, that recognizes the severity of the problems that we all face.

As we have just elaborated, our gambling, fantasizing and bargaining with value has an effect on the reality we live in, and it includes material changes, too. That happens, when nature gets involved. The violence or force of nature is induced by our suppressive, hostile, fake and deceptive value based thought patterns and living conditions. But once they (violence and value)are about to get in touch with each other, they immediately transform into illness(e.g.: forced poverty by exploitation of labor causes hunger and stress diseases, which derive from nature). This is the way it goes, because violence and value, even though they are closely related to each other, can't coexist. Value, which only exists in the minds of mankind, masks the reality of nature's force (violence) and they would neutralize each other, when they could merge. Violence would tear down the blinding artificial communication costume of value and the power structures that stand behind it. Thus value wouldn't have an effect any more. Instead, the (concept of) value and the violence it triggers remain, nevertheless the correlation doesn't get revealed but it appears as illness; only this way the two antagonizing factors can unite. The unity is an alienated one - alienated from our species, not from nature - , because the process that bred it, is hidden. Therefor, while being ill, we feel separated from our surroundings and from society. We can also put it this way: Illness and isolation have much to do with Selbstbegattung and how it takes place in our culture: Selbstbegattung means the relation of the species to itself (see http://www.spkpfh.de/The_Concept_of_Illness.htm line 13/14 and 19) We are segregated from our species as we can't distinguish between cause and the result or subject and object; it's a self betrayal through the illusional mental products and the material consequences of a bargain society, that might be seen as god given or natural. Thus it is perceived as a transcendental reality. Illness is the appearance and value & violence are the essences of illness. They constantly affect and change each other. With the method I just explained, we can debunk the fraud and consciously develop a different way of living.

Practically it can take place like that: someone gets cancer, because after a long time of suppressed emotions due to expectations of his social environment the body reacts and makes a tumor. In a more direct way, the power of the capitalist system appears, when striking workers, who protect their closed factory, are hit by police clubs. In the patients' front we reveal the injustice that is done by institutions as well as problems that exist in our civil relationships by expressing the medical and political agenda behind these issues. Thus agony and diseases are transformed into revolutionary action (progressive illness), or they are even prevented, before they show up.

We should hold on to that track and be aware of pitfalls, that seem to be different than the mainstream, yet they work within the system. We dealt with reformist social movements, esotericism at large, another one would be religion as a promise of salvation standing for health, yet another is magic: What people call magic or sorcery is nothing more than an utilization of those man made value inspired fabrications, that constrict the connection to realness and to liberating human interaction. As if we were involved in bargains all the time, we equate different things and different situations and our personalities with each other. Magicians, just like doctors, advertising agencies, scientists, teachers, politicians or good friends sometimes, dictate, what we choose, what we identify with. We repeatedly and without questioning mistake ourselves for something else. That's how those who are in power, or more precise, who believe they are in power, fool us. They only can do this, because the same betrayal takes place between the people, when they don't see, that they are all manipulated due to their forced living conditions, that keep every person as an isolated personality mask.

The thoughts that we perceive as our ego, we take very seriously, as they account for the way we feel. In effect they are just assumptions about the way other people see us. Often people are afraid of each other, and we deal dishonestly with others, as we very much fear a negative feedback, that would decrease our self esteem (Imagine the difference it makes, if someone tells you, that you are nice and beautiful or ugly and stupid). This is all about mind games, that have no prove beside the dull and coercive social reality they manifest. We really provoke effects, because the believe (the superstition) in abstract correlations is so strong among most of us. The doctors class is the master of this method, as long as we believe them. When a doctor of the profit driven medical system tells someone, that he will very likely die of a disease in the near future - if the person believes him - the fear will weaken him and he might really die soon. The doctor equates him with his fake system of science, that is based on quantities, on numbers and not on life, and that knows nothing about illness; doctors have no definition, no concept of illness. If the doctor would give the same person some placebo pills instead and say “you will be alright soon”, in many cases, the patient might really get well soon. We also have to take into account, that most diseases vanish, when we don't treat them at all. But the profit margin is bigger, when a doctor frightens a patient and subscribes some strong dulling pain relievers and some very expensive chemicals, that accelerate the decline.

Lets ponder this key issue some more and delve into the social aspect of contact friends and acquaintances. We can translate The doctor – patient paternalism into every life, it happens everywhere, in the families, at work and with friends; here is an example, a typical situation: Look at a party where everyone dresses up, and there are lots of singles who long for some caress and physical contact, but hardly anyone dares to make the first move. People are afraid that they might get disappointed by a negative reaction of a person that is admirable in their opinion. In other words they are scared of a damage to their self perception of being healthy and attractive. Again, the other person stands for the doctor, who decides, if someone is worthless or if there is hope. When we start to communicate about these aspects, instead of pretending to be invulnerable like goods and products, soon it becomes clear, that we have to blemish ourselves as patients. We better should see the necessity and benefits of solidarity, e.g. in terms of body contact and other kinds of communication in relation to illness. All that is done in this context, enhances vitality. Everything else results in regressive Selbstbegattung with reference to mental activities and all aspects of existence. As it was mentioned before, we try to improve our self image, and at the same time we insulate ourselves from the environment. We just communicate with our selves and see the outside world merely as a screen for comparison. Methods based on animal magnetism that nowadays spread, often because as there is money to make, such as Matrix Energetics, Reiki, faith healing, distance healing and so on, for the established science show astonishing results. For the revolutionary science of illness it's no wonder why, as I have demonstrated in my explanations about the abstraction through trade. It's a relocation of symptoms; a superficial, deceptive change. In methods such as spiritual healing or faith healing (as well as in meditation or yoga exercises), the philosophy behind it is just phrases and the essence is no content, no substantial interaction, but an abstract quantity.It makes no difference that practitioners call this quantity energy, the feeling of self worth, or a higher level of attention or illumination. Rather these terms emphasize the abstract, arbitrary and distant nature of what it is all about. It's the system of so called reason and logic in relation to mathematical laws of nature, quantity, symbolic power & values, that can help on a superficial level.

Fundamentally and on holistic terms it opposes vitality.

You said, that we get ill, because we oppose nature. As I just explained,partially I agree. Further on you mentioned, what happens in society is natural, because it happens. You are wrong, because we have to distinguish what is "natural" as seizable reality from what is "natural" (it's artificial, really) for the human mind only. Next, when we bring those two factors together like in our definition of illness, we achieve a lot and we see that everything that supposedly is natural is influenced by the human species. We apply a theory of knowledge, that matches our thought process with the objects of observation. Here we find the connection between what usually is called soul or consciousness and what is usually called nature or outside world. We are a part of nature, but not merely passively. We are products of history, but at the same time, we actively make history every second, no matter, if we are aware of it, no matter, if we just repeat, what has been there before, no matter, if we define thought as materialistic and refuse to use our minds. The ignorant people should realize, that it is illness, that in one way or the other indicates, that something went wrong. Even serious symptoms of illnesses are ways for man to adopt to a destructive world.

We are free in mind to some degree, but we gotta consider illness, as otherwise illness shows us, that we are not in accord with a movement towards the way life should be, for our selves and for our species. We should make history knowingly and create an alternative to commercial applicability and death in life. When we are engaged in illness in a revolutionary way as patients, we change all aspects of our lives.

I dealt with some major aspects of our philosophy of life related to your posts. It is an abridgment of these theories, that all have proven true in practice. For a deeper understanding, further studying and practical experiences are helpful. Revolution through illness is an ongoing process, and it never stops.

Here is a video from Eckhart Tolle about the purpose of mental illness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lagC4l7SO0

Most of what he says is true, but it is only half of the truth and so it lacks any thorough connection to the life process. He ignores the role of human culture and doesn't mention the necessity of a social revolution. Instead he postulates the absolute functioning of a divine plan or some natural law.

He and other teachers, who suggest, that one simply should watch what is going on in the mind, mislead people. They simply change the point of view from someone who is mistaken about  the idea that  everything is just happening to him, to someone, who observes, how he creates all this by himself. What's the point about this? It never changes very much, unless one gets illuminated or something like that, one could also call it health, the carrot the bunny runs after but never gets it.

I don't want to tell anyone what is right or what one has to do, that's what the doctors class does. But you might consider, that there is something wrong, when you get healed time and time again. Healed from what, from the world, from existence? You can't be healed.

Part 2

A. D.

good day sir

Frontpatient

hello

A. D.

oh this is funny. I thought you were thee U.M. for a moment

Frontpatient

I might be him, once in a while

A.D.

 ah yes

But I look different, there is dualism here, that's alright. Say hello to the U.M., if you talk to him

 A. D.

what is the purpose of dualism?

 Frontpatient

To exist as an individual. Without dualism, there wouldn't be any experience or any process

 A. D.

do we need the concept of dualism for that, or is it naturally occurring. meaning is this a concept that needs to be thought of to experience reality asan individual?

Frontpatient

a problem is, that mainstream society and science thinks, that everything and everyone is as a matter of principle just about the same, as they apply concepts that prevent the individual, as well as groups of people to use their own minds and to see, that they can generate changes for the benefit of mankind.

Frontpatient

I tried you approach for quite a long time, but I got nowhere. I believe we have to communicate our materialsitc thought patterns and talk about alternatives. It won't go away, just because we wish it will.

A.D.

well I agree with you, but my approach isn't about wishing. its about consciously bringing about a state of equanimity of "sight" or experience. making the mind objective so that my actions are not selfish and allowing the self, the watcher, the pleasure to simply be with no necessities or need of goal or definition.

A.D.

but communicating the idea is proving difficult without using our thought patterns as references

Frontpatient

Ok, I'm doing prana meditation these days, quite successfully, I feel how I nourish form it. But that won't change the way I think and how I act socially, or at least, I still have to deal with that.

A.D.

correct... it will inevitably change how you act and think but you are right in that you still have to be apart of it.

Frontpatient

Yes, we inevitably use our minds and we have thoughts and it matters, what we think and what we communicate. Probably we can't completly change our thought patterns, but we can find out who we are, especially in society and in this culture and we can talk about it and also find out, how we can live differently. I believe, if we want to fully get out of all these compulsion, we can only achieve it with the evolution of mankind as a whole. But at the same time and now, we can anticipate the future.

A.D.

what do you do prana meditations for? do you have a purpose?

Frontpatient

And live it now.

 A.D.

hmm

Frontpatient

to renew my cells and every atom, to get to a higher frequency of body vibration and not to depend on food

A.D.

so that you can be beter at aiding in the evolution of all mankind, in turn aiding the moving beyond compulsion... heres a question. what is the purpose of these compulsions?

Frontpatient

It is very nice and interesting to exchange ideas with. Though I have to go now. If you write me, I'll check it out later. "we will always be as strong as our weakest link", that's kind of, what I was saying.

A.D.

compulsion is the result of the past

Frontpatient

I'm studying h

A.D.

sory brother. carry on. it was great chatting

Frontpatient

yes

A.D.

ive taken pride in not studying anyone other than silence and nature. I study my observation of reality or experience... I didn't mean for that to sound conceided, I just think its interesting that we don't need to read others work, its all within us... and that makes a case for us all being predominantly the same. I think where we differ is in preference. we all have desire, awareness, thought, action, emotion, cause etc the difference is the content

A.D.

ive taken the extreme experiment of abandoning knowledge and information for evolutionary growth. my thought is to be an infant and grow in this world with none but my own faculty

Frontpatient

What makes me move is the truth that everything, even delusion and fault, are part of existence and if we exclude anything, nothing is complete and progress is constricted. There is no right without wrong and the other way around. We can only be the same, when we realize that we're different and we can only be differnt, when we realize that we are the same...I'm just not so sure, if we could safe mankind, if every would just observe and be, may be. Yet the reality consists of certain hierarchies and structures, that make humanity and nature suffer on all level (f.e.some people with much power and influence don't care if people starve to death or die in wars, as long as their wallets benefit from it... or schools are in first place there to teach children disciplin and to suppress their expression as living beings in order to make them obey their employer or become one).

Frontpatient

I think, it's kind of difficult if not impossible to discuss in verbal language a view of the world, that excludes any content. To disprove the negative without coming to some other result may mean to assume emptiness instead. By the way, this view certainly has its predecessor in human history, too, and is also adopted from someone else.

Homepage von SPK/PF (H)

www.spkpfh.de

Tun und Gluecken kraft Kranksein.Texte des Sozialistischen Patientenkollektiv, SPK/PF (H).

A.D.

My thought is that all explaination or definition. Or experience of ourselves view of reality is all conceptual. None of it is actually real or truthful. It is all subjective reality subject to our influence as a catalyst of experience.

A.D.

It is all part of the process so it is all the procccess, from experience of reality to reality to you, awareness. We could try to understand the universe or this grand proccess as it is seen but we can only understand in relation to us. And when we try to understand we miss the mark because we are that of which we are trying to understand. What iean to say is that by gaining an undeestanding of reality we only prolong our illusion of seperation. By attempting to understamd a proceess such as me and then a proccess of weather and then of mind and then of words is futile because all of these proccess are not actually individual proccesses. My idea is that i cannot gain an underatanding of reality because there is nothing to understand. I will never reach a satisfeid state of understanding. Knowledge is an unquenchable thirst. So be the.proccess i say. Be the watcher and obser e with bliss. There is One truth of mine, that there is a self but there is only one self and our lives and the universe is an expression or expansion of that self, That divine person. This is where my constent analyses of experience has taken me, oneness.

A.D.

Save man from what? From death? Extinction? Impossible! From sin or wrong doing? It cNt be done. Every action has effect but effect is criticized by the mind saying ots good or bad. These bodies will inevitably wither and the planet will get desroyed. Remove the right and wrong from thought all together and stop running with that paradigm is what ive done. Ive tKen your truth to another level. Im looking beyond my view by putting it aside. Viewin, seeing with a blankness. I really like it too. Looking at the world with no seperation between object and subject. People tell me that im limiting myself by thats only because they cant see what im saying. Let me know what you think zo i can clarify and describe more, if you want to continue the discussion that is. Good stuff man, thanks for obliging an old soul in discourse. I dont have the opportu ity to talk about this stuff much but i love too. I love to speak and i love to listen.

Frontpatient

The same with me about our talk. I guess I understand in what direction your argumentation goes, but where you are, I'm not so sure about. My experience
was, that I pondered some of these wise men like Krishnamurti, Eckerhard Tolle, Lobsang Rampa and others and I really tried to get in a state of mind, where thouhgts are of no or only little importance. What happened is, that by meditation and observation I could reduce my thoughts, get more relaxed and get into other, one may say more hollistic states of mind for some time. But what didn't stop where the problems of life in the capitalist world like emptiness, lack of sensation, meaninglessness, unsolved conflicts in social life in romantic relationships in particular, fear, frustration, pain, problems that showed up in my mind, one could also call it signs of illness. Physical illnesses are related to such problems of the mind. And I'm sure they surfaced, because I denied or suppressed what was going on. What made it more difficult and frustrating was, that I was dealing with these unwanted conditions mainly on a personal, individual level, more or less blaming myself for not being able to handle it. These days, similar to you, I see these manifestations as individual symptoms of problems of society, yes we are all connected, we are all one, what we have in common is the illness that society breeds by the futile way we organize our social lives and the deceptive ideals of our culture. When I see my troubles rather as collective issues, I'm in a much better position to cope with the people around me, to make them understand, that we are in similar positions and to find ways out of those hazards, get on a different level, where we have more freedom, and from that level, again, we can get even further, when we deal with the contradictions that we face there. Thus, we can get into states of being, where we are less objects of the coercion of modern life, where we aren't any more entraped in hopeless quarrels with ourselves and others and where we feel free to enjoy life, having a strong sense of being together with our pals and the universe. But don't be mistaken, if we just want to stay there and stop participating in the process of liberation, we will soon get lost in everyday life and the illusions, that make us bare the misery without protest, as we aren't fully conscious of it. What I'm saying is, that I'm not only talking about understanding the world, but also about changing it and both things go hand in hand. And of course, I'll never finally understand existence, as life is in constant flux and I can only grasp some of its meaning by seeing how phenomena relate to each other, and I'm a part of this. About the seperation between object and subject, I say again as I discussed below, that those things, that seperate us, are keys to our unity, they are things, that we have in common, as they are expressions of the condition of society and we are all objects to this condition. Only when we realize our roles as objects of control, we can overcome the split between subject and object and communicate with each other as subjects, who aren't driven by egocentric motives caused by the trade – exchange – value mentality of the abstract principle of our econonmic survival; the hidden language is money, which equalizes everything and then turns all and everything against each other. How can we free ourselves from this interdependency, when we are part of it and when we play the game, not only "as if it was real", but when this is even essential for our survival? Your in no position to be only the watcher or observer, you're involved in actions of trade. Money doesn't distinguish between subject and object, it turns us all into mathemathical equations and yet, then, it turns us into objects. Those who aren't useful to the system of money, profit and murder are labeled as ill; we have our own definition of illness and we use illness as a weapon against those who label us. Quite a few people who, by spiritual practices or other, got into states of bliss – in particular when they expressed and acted out their imressions - where objects to forced institutionalizations, as they disturbed the "freedom" of consume, production, exploitation, business and profit. This also is a reason, no matter what you do or think, that it matters how the health system affects all of us.

it takes deep detatchment and acceptance. the idea is that all of these problems with society are all manifested by the society, they are natural occurences with a society as large as ours and with humans thinking that they are in control. that healthcare and money have relevance is a phenomena created by our insecurity of death and life. this state of bliss is also a natural occurance, its our truest state. its looking at the world not with problems but with purpose. if we are an illusion, as I say than that allows me to move my mind into a state of okness, not of thoughtlessness but of thought acceptance and same with action. the Buddha saw four sings on his way to decide to become liberated, a sick man, an old man, a dead man and a sage. he realized that there is suffering, dissatisfaction, dhukka, in the world, that suffering has origins in desire, craving bred from ignorance, and that cessation of suffering is possible. the cessastion of dissatisfaction is possible with the eightfold path of: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right Livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

A.D.

yes, objects of control. what is doing the controlling? what is the cause to our effect? as I said before it is the Self. God. but these words are to complicated during these times in society and peoples idea of god come from what they dislike externally instead of deep introspection and meditation. and during our life and times in this generation of society meditation is being skewd heavily. weve got wiley westerners claiming and explaining mediation and concentration as thought and visualization and half assed focus. so concepts like god and eternity and the Self are even given the time to be understaood or accepted. our times are so fast that people spend three months meditating without proper guidance and practice and the give up saying nothings changed. I have made it part of my study and being to stay away from the struggle of life, such as worrying about my death, my finances, my anything. I have a family that supports my choice to be a renunciant as I rely on the charity of others while giving my self and service to everyone and everywhere I am asked.
I take jobs when I need money and when my family needs money. I used to have a utopian dream of the world that may or may not come to pass en mass, but it has come to pass within me making the dream for mass awakening tangible, but it also makes it not nessecary. yet as you said earlier stopping the progression will only bring us into a darker state as a society and if I stop practice and austerity and go back to the game of life then it will only become more sick.

A.D.

i cant make society better. you cant fix a problem with the problem. what i can do is be a completely open and loving heart and look at everyone equally, murderer and saint, and i can be present and available for others who need a smile or kindness or personal understanding. and that to me is what will make the society better. if the people in the society can see that they are the eyes of the world, that they are thei own gods and create their own reality than they can create a better society for themselves. the issue with society is polar, its a two way street, we have "elites" that impose their ideas on others and their are others who allow the ideas of others to influence them. our society is ill because the people that make up the society are ill, the leaders and the followers.

A.D.

"what didn't stop where the problems of life in the capitalist world like emptiness, lack of sensation, meaninglessness, unsolved conflicts in social life in romantic relationships in particular, fear, frustration, pain, problems that showed up in my mind, one could also call it signs of illness. Physical illnesses are related to such problems of the mind".... these are not problems that exist in the capitalistic world, they are issues on the inside. we can blame the external for brining them out within us but it is still within us and changing externally will only subside the problems. are we afraid because someone else tells us we should be? if so then we should analyze why we are allowing ourselves to be influenced by another individual out of our own ignorance. and if we are afraid because of our own ignorance than we should strive to see beyond ourself to see the bigger picture and remove the ignorance that fear comes from. the worlds meaninglessness is not someone elses fault, its my fault for not creating meaning for myself, my lack of sensation doesn't come from someone else giving me sensation alone it comes from me accepting all of the extreme and myriad sensations that are possible leaving my senses dull. the problems is my relationships aren't because im poor or ill but because i and the other person have expectations that don't meet. these are all problems that stem from an uncontrolled and misunderstood self.

Frontpatient

I'll answer in the next days. Those are several topics you write about, which require to be discussed. Compared to the mainstream attitude, probably we both are quite close in our opinions, however, there are certain differences.

A.D.

agreed

A.D.

the point of it is this: if society is ill, the reason is because the inhabitants of society are ill. to heal ourselves take deep introspection and practice. it takes kindness patience and acceptance. and healing ourselves is the first step to creating a healthy society. the other thing is that if we are discontented and angry and negative our view of the world will inevitably be also. one man says all is well another say all is ill. they are both perceiving the same world, but through different minds. this world is a blank canvas for the individual to paint with its will and desire, its own creativity. the problem, as you said, with society is that we try to make it equal we try to make widespread definitions and group experience and tell eachother what everything means and what things are suppose to be like and that causes problems. others imposing their will on others. now when we have fear of death and lifes circumstances we can somehow find comfort in the knowledge that others feel this way as well so everyone has had the idea that if we work together to battle the hells of reality like illness and death and rape and need we can make it better. but these "hells" cannot be avoided. its just the way things work. and this is the reason why society is ill, because it is attempting to oppose nature. now I will say that everything that is occurring is inevitably natural for the obvious reason that IT IS HAPPENING. so this is why the search for god, or liberation, or nirvana, moksha, bliss, is so appealing, because the idea now, with these concepts, is that we can accept and we can be happy and ok and peaceful with things as they are. instead of desperately trying to fight and fight we can go with the flow and be better off.
society is not gonna get better and if it does it will only be a little and it will always go back and forth between golden age and dark age. and there is no way to avoid death and hardships in life. life is struggle and man is foolish to think that his body will be ok. he is also foolish to assume that he is the body.

Frontpatient

I toke quite a few notes, but I didn't make a text out of it yet as an answer. Frequently, I'm not of the same opinion as you, but I like the clear way you describe your view, it is good that you have an attitude, I think most people don't. Pondering your arguments makes me progress further on. What do you think you are, if you are not the body? Where is the difference between mind or spirit and body? How - if at all -, is the physical world related to the spirit?...we don't avoid anything, we are the only patients organization that is pro illness (I hinted at this in my last - long - post) and all we deny is the illusion of health.