1955

The Hidden Unity is Obi-Wan Kenobi

In 1955, when our planet was bombarded by cycle 19 solar magnetic waves, young people in the West responded like needles in a groove with rock ’n’ roll’s tight jeans, short hair, biker JD aggression, short, fast songs, and widespread use of stimulant drugs like speed and coffee.

Silver Age comic-book punk was embodied by crew-cut Barry Allen in his speed suit. “Chemicals and Lighting” could have been a song or a band. 

The tight suits, establishment men, and emphasis on science and rationality are all typical, as are Stan Lee’s realistic superheroes such as the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man.

Textbook Joseph Campbell.

The way Campbell explained it, 

Young Men need a Secondary Father to finish raising them.

Beyond their Biological Father, they need a surrogate, traditionally a minister or a coach or a military officer.

The floatsam and jetsam of a generation washed up on the beach of last resort.

That's why street gangs are so appealing. 

They send you men out, like Knights on Quests to hone their skills and improve themselves.

And all the TRADITIONAL Mentors -- 

forget it.

Men are presumptive predators. They're leaving Teaching in droves.

Religious Leaders are pariahs.

Sports Coaches are stigmatized as odds-on pedophiles.

Even The Military is sketchy with sexual goings-on.

James Stark :

Suppose you had to do something.

You had to go someplace and do this thing that was...

You know, it was very dangerous.

But it was Matter of Honour.

And you had to prove it.

What would you do?

Well, is there some kind of trick answer?

James Stark :

No, what would you do?

Pinnie :

Well, I wouldn't make a hasty decision.

Tell you what, Jimbo.

Let's get a little light on the subject.

Blood.

Jim, what happened?

What kind of trouble are you in?

James Stark :

The kind I was telling you about.

Now can you answer me?

Pinnie :

Nobody can make a snap decision.

It's one of those things that you...

James Stark :

You can't.

That's all there is to it.

It's something that you... 

Pinnie :

You just don't.

We've got to consider all the pros and cons.

James Stark :

I don't have time.

Pinnie :

We'll make time.

I'll get paper and we'll make a list.

And then if we're still stuck... we'll get some advice.

James Stark :

What can you do when you have to be a Man?

Pinnie :

Well...

James Stark :

No, you give me a Direct Answer!

Are you going to keep me from going?

Pinnie :

Did I ever stop you from anything?

You're at a wonderful age.

In ten years, you'll look back on this and wish...

James Stark :

Ten years?

I want an answer now. I need one.

Pinnie :

Listen, Jimbo, I'm just trying to show you how foolish you are.

When you're older, you'll look back at this.... 

and you'll laugh at yourself for thinking that this is so important.

It's not as if you were alone.

This has happened to every boy.

It happened to me when I was your age, maybe a year older.

Ratbag :

What's all the excitement?

I've been working hard getting this house in order...

Pinnie : 

Jim had blood on him.

He just ran out.

Ratbag :

And you didn't stop him?

That's The Edge.

That's The End.

Jim Stark :

Certainly is.

You know something?

I like you.

You know that?

Why do we do this?

You got to do something...

...now, don't you?

JAMES STARK :

Listen... I know a Place. 

Plato told me before. 

It's an old, deserted mansion...up by the planetarium. 

Want to go up there with me? 

You can Trust me, Judy. 

NATALIE WOULD :

Okay. 

•Unbelievable• that Old Biff could've chosen that particular date!

It could mean that that point in time contains some cosmic significance... Almost as though it were the temporal junction point for the ENTIRE space-time continuum...!

....on The Other Hand it could just be an INCREDIBLE coincidence.”

IT’S NEITHER

Old Biff from The Future is from 2015 in a stolen Time Machine he cannot operate, without instructions, or a manual —  he just pressed CTRL + Z on the keypad 3 times until he found somewhere he wanted to go — November 12th 1955.

As a shorthand toward understanding the two maximum states we flip between, Spence suggests we can regard one pole as having a “punk” character, while its opposite may be thought of as “hippie.”

In Spence’s lexicon, at least as I understand it (his own website will set you straight if.   wrong), punk maxima can be identified in a fashion vogue for short hair, tight clothes, short, punchy popular music, aggression, speedy drugs, and materialism. 

He focused on youth culture trends on the basis that young nervous systems registered the magnetic reversals most profoundly and reflected them back in the lineaments of the art and music they made or consumed. So far, so good.

In 1955, when our planet was bombarded by cycle 19 solar magnetic waves, young people in the West responded like needles in a groove with rock ’n’ roll’s tight jeans, short hair, biker JD aggression, short, fast songs, and widespread use of stimulant drugs like speed and coffee.

Silver Age comic-book punk was embodied by crew-cut Barry Allen in his speed suit. “Chemicals and Lighting” could have been a song or a band. 

The tight suits, establishment men, and emphasis on science and rationality are all typical, as are Stan Lee’s realistic superheroes such as the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man.

Mysterio is Not The Truth

In this age of grand delusion, 
you walked into my life out of my dreams

I don't need another change, 
Still you forced your way into my scheme of things

You say we're growing, growing heart and soul

In this age of grand delusion, 
you walked into my life out of my dreams

The second thing for you to realize is that power is power over human beings. Over the body but, above all, over the mind. Power over matter -- external reality, as you would call it -- is not important. Already our control over matter is absolute.' 

For a moment Winston ignored the dial. He made a violent effort to raise himself into a sitting position, and merely succeeded in wrenching his body painfully. 

'But how can you control matter?' he burst out. 'You don't even control the climate or the law of gravity. And there are disease, pain, death --' 

O'Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. 'We control matter because we control The Mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation -- anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature.' 

'But you do not! You are not even masters of this planet. What about Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them yet.' 

'Unimportant. We shall conquer them when it suits us. And if we did not, what difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence. Oceania is the world.' 

'But The World itself is only a speck of dust. And Man is tiny helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the earth was uninhabited.' 

'Nonsense. The Earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.' 

'But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals -- mammoths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was ever heard of.' 

'Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth-century biologists invented them. Before man there was nothing. After man, if he could come to an end, there would be nothing. Outside man there is nothing.' 

'But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever.' 

'What are The Stars?' said O'Brien indifferently. 'They are bits of fire a few kilometres away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could blot them out. The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it.'

Winston made another convulsive movement. This time he did not say anything. O'Brien continued as though answering a spoken objection:

'For certain purposes, of course, that is not True. When we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenient to assume that the earth goes round the sun and that the stars are millions upon millions of kilometres away. But what of it? Do you suppose it is beyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?'

Winston shrank back upon the bed. Whatever he said, the swift answer crushed him like a bludgeon. And yet he knew, he knew, that he was in the right. The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind -- surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false? Had it not been exposed long ago as a fallacy? There was even a name for it, which he had forgotten. A faint smile twitched the corners of O'Brien's mouth as he looked down at him. 

'I told you, Winston,' he said, 'that metaphysics is not your strong point. The word you are trying to think of is solipsism. But you are mistaken. This is not solipsism. Collective solipsism, if you like. But that is a different thing: in fact, the opposite thing.”

The Matrix is a system, Neo.

That System is Our Enemy.

But when you're inside, what do you see?

Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters.

The very minds of the people we are trying to save.

But until we do, these people are a part of that system and that makes them Our Enemy.

You have to understand most of these people are not ready to be unplugged.

And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on The System that they will fight to protect it.

Were you listening to me or looking

at the woman in the red dress?

Look again.

Freeze it.

This isn't the Matrix?

It's another training program designed to teach you one thing:

If you are not one of us,

you are one of them.

What are they?

Sentient programs.

They can move in and out of any software still hardwired to their system.

That means that anyone we haven't unplugged is potentially an agent.

Inside the Matrix they are everyone,

and they are no one.

We have survived by hiding and running from them but they are the gatekeepers.

They're guarding all the doors and holding all the keys.

Sooner or later, someone will have to fight them.

Someone?

I won't lie to you, Neo.

Every single man or woman who has fought an agent has died.

But where they have failed, you will succeed.

Why?

I've seen an agent punch through a concrete wall.

Men have emptied entire clips at them and hit nothing but air.

Yet their strength and speed are still based in a world built on rules.

Because of that, they will never be as strong

or as fast as you can be.

What are you telling me?

That I can dodge bullets?

No, Neo.

I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready...

You won't have to.

The Matrix is a system, Neo.
That system is our enemy.
But when you're inside,
what do you see?
Businessmen, teachers,
lawyers, carpenters.
The very minds of the people
we are trying to save.
But until we do, these people are
a part of that system...
...and that makes them our enemy.
You have to understand...
... most of these people are not
ready to be unplugged.
And many of them are so inert...
...so hopelessly dependent
on the system...
...that they will fight to protect it.
Were you listening to me or looking
at the woman in the red dress?
Look again.
Freeze it.
This isn't the Matrix?
It's another training program
designed to teach you one thing:
If you are not one of us,
you are one of them.
-What are they?
-Sentient programs.
They can move in and out of any software
still hardwired to their system.
That means that anyone
we haven't unplugged...
...is potentially an agent.
Inside the Matrix...
...they are everyone...
...and they are no one.
We have survived by hiding
and running from them...
...but they are the gatekeepers.
They're guarding all the doors
and holding all the keys.
Sooner or later, someone will
have to fight them.
Someone?
I won't lie to you, Neo.
Every single man or woman who
has fought an agent has died.
But where they have failed,
you will succeed.
Why?
I've seen an agent punch
through a concrete wall.
Men have emptied entire clips at them
and hit nothing but air.
Yet their strength and speed are still
based in a world built on rules.
Because of that...
...they will never be as strong
or as fast as you can be.
What are you telling me?
That I can dodge bullets?
No, Neo.
I'm trying to tell you
that when you're ready...
...you won't have to.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=matrix-the

The Matrix is a system, Neo.
That system is our enemy.
But when you're inside,
what do you see?
Businessmen, teachers,
lawyers, carpenters.
The very minds of the people
we are trying to save.
But until we do, these people are
a part of that system...
...and that makes them our enemy.
You have to understand...
... most of these people are not
ready to be unplugged.
And many of them are so inert...
...so hopelessly dependent
on the system...
...that they will fight to protect it.
Were you listening to me or looking
at the woman in the red dress?
Look again.
Freeze it.
This isn't the Matrix?
It's another training program
designed to teach you one thing:
If you are not one of us,
you are one of them.
-What are they?
-Sentient programs.
They can move in and out of any software
still hardwired to their system.
That means that anyone
we haven't unplugged...
...is potentially an agent.
Inside the Matrix...
...they are everyone...
...and they are no one.
We have survived by hiding
and running from them...
...but they are the gatekeepers.
They're guarding all the doors
and holding all the keys.
Sooner or later, someone will
have to fight them.
Someone?
I won't lie to you, Neo.
Every single man or woman who
has fought an agent has died.
But where they have failed,
you will succeed.
Why?
I've seen an agent punch
through a concrete wall.
Men have emptied entire clips at them
and hit nothing but air.
Yet their strength and speed are still
based in a world built on rules.
Because of that...
...they will never be as strong
or as fast as you can be.
What are you telling me?
That I can dodge bullets?
No, Neo.
I'm trying to tell you
that when you're ready...
...you won't have to.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=matrix-the

STAGING

They weren’t My Parents.

They’d Served Their Purpose in History.

I was compelled to resolve them.

HAN'S POV: 

Kylo Ren appears and stops at the railing, looking down into the filter.          

Han looks at his son with a tortured storm of feelings.

WE'RE WITH KYLO REN as he resumes his hunt. 

He heads directly toward WHERE HAN IS HIDING! 

Kylo Ren has an INCREASING SENSE OF HAN'S PRESENCE as he moves closer. 

He comes to where Han  was hiding -- but HAN IS NOWHERE TO BE SEEN.      

    

From his hiding place in a narrow, POWER CHAMBER in the wall,  

HAN WATCHES HIS SON PASS ONLY A FEW FEET IN FRONT OF HIM.       

   

Han SHIFTS HIS POSITION in the tight compartment, so he can watch Ren's progress. 

Kylo Ren turns onto a FLAT BRIDGE THAT BISECTS the open space.          

Unaware of his father, Kylo Ren walks purposefully across to the opposite side. 

Han watches his son walk off -- the CLANK-CLANK of Kylo Ren's boots receding.

This is Han's opportunity to escape but Leia's words echo through his mind. He makes a decision and moves out, to the edge of the catwalk. He calls out, strongly: 

                         

HAN

Ben!

The name ECHOES as Kylo Ren STOPS, far across the vast catwalk. 

He turns. 

 

KYLO REN

Han Solo. 

I've been waiting for this day for a long time.

Finn and Rey make their way into the space, opening a HATCH that allows 

A BEAM OF PRECIOUS SUNLIGHT to stream down like a spotlight on Han and his son. 

Finn and Rey get to a railing  and look down. 

They can SEE and HEAR Han and Kylo Ren on the catwalk below. 

                        

 

HAN

Take off that mask. 

You don't need it. 

                         

KYLO REN

What do you think you'll see if I do?

Han moves toward Kylo Ren. 

                         

HAN

The Face of My Son.

Kylo TAKES OFF HIS MASK. 

Han is JOLTED -- 

seeing the face of his son for the first time as a Man. 

  

KYLO REN

Your Son is gone. 

He was weak and foolish, like his father. 

So I destroyed him. 

                         

HAN

That's what Snoke wants you to believe but it's not true.

My son is alive.

SEVERAL LEVELS BELOW them, CHEWIE comes to the rail to watch. 

INT. OSCILLATOR STRUCTURE - LOWER LEVEL - NEAR DARKNESS 

Kylo flares. 

KYLO REN

No. The Supreme Leader is wise.

UP ABOVE, Finn, Chewie and Rey watch, rapt. 

Stormtroopers dot the perimeter of the structure, watching the scene.

ON THE BRIDGE, Han moves closer, stern: 

HAN

Snoke is using you for Your Power.

When he gets what he wants, he'll crush you -- you know it's True.

Kylo hesitates. Somehow, he does know it. 

                         

KYLO REN

It's too late. 

                         

HAN

No it's not. Leave here with me.

Come home. 

We miss you.

For the first time, Kylo Ren seems truly conflicted. 

Tears flood his stoic eyes... 

                         

KYLO REN

I'm being torn apart. 

I want to be free of this pain. 

         

INT. OSCILLATOR STRUCTURE - DARKNESS FALLS 

 Han takes one step toward his son, but stops himself. 

                         

KYLO REN

I know what I have to do, 

but I don't know if I have the strength to do it. 

Will you help me?

Han hears his son's voice again, pained and vulnerable. 

                         

HAN

Yes. Anything.          

Kylo Ren unholsters his lightsaber and SLOWLY EXTENDS IT to Han, 

within a foot of Han's chest. Han almost can't believe it. 

The moment seems to last forever. 

And just then, the LAST BEAM OF SUNLIGHT 

streaming through the open hatch VANISHES. 

Han actually smiles -- and reaches out for the dark weapon -- but with the light now gone, KYLO REN'S EYES FILL WITH DARKNESS, HE IGNITES THE LIGHTSABER -- 

THE FIERY BLADE SHOOTS  OUT, RIGHT THROUGH HAN'S CHEST AND BACK! 

                         

KYLO REN

Thank You.

ABOVE, Finn and Rey GASP -- SCREAM -- 

                         

FINN (PANTING)

Solo. 

REY (ALSO PANTING)

No, no.

Han's last moment is looking into his son's face. 

HAN'S KNEES BUCKLE. 

The blade tilts down with him... until KYLO REN EXTINGUISHES IT AND HAN HOLDS onto the catwalk -- his life slipping away.

Finally Han FALLS BACK, OFF THE CATWALK, INTO THE DEPTHS OF  THE STRUCTURE! 

         

INT. RESISTANCE BASE - DAY 

Leia, feeling it instantly -- knowing -- drops into a seat,  DEVASTATED. 

         

INT. OSCILLATOR STRUCTURE - NIGHT 

 Kylo Ren is somehow WEAKENED by this wicked act. Himself horrified. His SHOCK is broken only when --CHEWIE CRIES OUT IN AGONY! Chewie furiously FIRES AT KYLO REN, HITTING HIM IN THE SIDE! Kylo Ren falls back, stunned. 

                             

Our MUSIC TAKES OVER, EPIC AND HEARTBREAKING as Stormtroopers FIRE AT CHEWIE, who is forced to retreat down a corridor, where he holds the EXPLOSIVE REMOTE -- he PUSHES THE BUTTON!

Hearing ONLY OUR SCORE, FIRST ONE, then TWO, then FOUR, then SIX EXPLOSIONS rock the structure -- CATWALKS FALL as the walls CAVE IN!

Kylo Ren SEES REY AND FINN, WATCHING THE EXPLOSIONS IN SHOCK -- then they SEE KYLO REN, WHO RECOGNIZES THEM BOTH, WITH ASTONISHMENT.

 He rises to his full height and heads for them with long strides.

Stormtroopers begin to BLAST AWAY AT REY AND FINN! 

Hey, You — Dumbass

NEGAN :

[Sighs] 

So we are going to war! 

All: 

Yes, sir! 

[Somber music plays] 

Rick: 

Do you think Sasha did that herself? 

Maggie: 

I don't know how, but I know she did.

She gave us a chance.

Rick: 

You did.

You made the right decision to come.

Maggie: 

The Decision was made a long time ago, 

Before any of us knew each other,

When we were all strangers who would have just passed each other on the street 

Before The World Ended.

And now we mean everything to each other.

[Knife unsheathes] 

You were in Trouble.

You were Trapped.

Glenn didn't know you, but he helped you.

He put himself in danger for you.

And that started it all -- 

From Atlanta, to my Daddy's farm, to the prison, to here to this moment now –

Not as strangers -- as Family 

Because Glenn chose to be there for you that day a long time ago.

That was The Decision that changed everything.

It started with both of you, 

and it just grew to all of us :

 

To Sacrifice for each other, 

To Suffer and Stand, 

To Grieve, To Give

 

To Love, To Live to Fight for Each Other.

Glenn made The Decision, Rick.

I was just following his lead.

I was Wrong.

I thought after living behind These Walls for so long that maybe they couldn't learn.

But today I saw what they could do, 

what we could do, if we work together.

We'll rebuild The Walls.

We'll expand The Walls.

There will be more.

There's gotta be more.

Everything Deanna was talking about is possible.

It's all possible.

I see that now.

When I was Out There with Them — 

When it was over when I knew we had This Place again I had this feeling.

It took me a while to remember what it was 

because I haven't felt it since before I woke up in that hospital bed.

I want to show you The Next World, Carl.

I want to make it a Reality for you.

Please, Carl let me show you.

Plea-- please, Son, don't die.

The Majors Tom : Ad Astra

We're a Generation of Men Raised by Women –

Roy McBride

"King Son-of-The-Bride"

"I knew what I was doing would Widow Your Mother and make an Orphan out of You."



Hiram Abiff was busy working his Craft, when he suddenly found himself transported into the center of the Earth by Tubal-Cain, there to taste of the Tree of Knowledge. . .

Who was the original 'Widow's Son'? 
That all depends on who you ask. 

This documentary explores a particular thread of Masonic history, namely the origin of the third degree, and the 'lineage' of the Craft. Sourced from some of the earliest manuscripts, and exploring certain facts not often brought to light, we shall see why the Mark of Tubal-Cain is an indelible stamp of heritage to the thoughtful Mason.

You do not yet realise your importance.

You have only begun to discover your power.

Join me... and I will complete your training.

With our combined strength, We can end this destructive conflict —

and Bring Order to The Galaxy.

You can destroy The Emperor.

He has Foreseen This.

It is Your Destiny.

Join me ... and Together 

We can Rule The Galaxy as Father and Son.

Come with Me.

It is The Only Way.

I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;

I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;

I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,

Deceive more slily than Ulysses could,

And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.

I can add colours to the chameleon,

Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,

And set the murderous Machiavel to school.

Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?

Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell

Burthen Ding-dong

Hark! now I hear them,--Ding-dong, bell.

FERDINAND

The ditty does remember my drown'd father.

This is no mortal business, nor no sound

That the earth owes. I hear it now above me.

Like a SpaceMonkey Ready to be Shot into Space — 
Ready to be Sacrificed for The Greater Good.

Us and Them

“Homo sapiens spent most of their short time on Earth waging war against each other.

For their first few thousand years on the planet they did little else, and they discovered two things that were rather curious: the first was that when they were at war, they agreed more. Whole nations agreed that other nations were insane, and they agreed that the mutually beneficial solution was to band together to eliminate the loonies. 

For many people, it was the most agreeable period of their lives, because, apart from a brief period on New Year's Eve (which, incidentally, no one could agree the date of), the only time human beings lived happily side by side was when they were trying to kill each other.

Then, in the middle of the twentieth century, the human race hit a major problem.

It got so GOOD at War, it couldn't have one anymore.

It had spent so much time practising and perfecting the art of genocide, developing more and more lethal devices for mass destruction, that conducting a war without totally obliterating the planet and everything on it becamean impossibility .

This didn't make human beings happy at all. They talked about how maybe it was still possible to have a small, contained war. A little war. If you like, a warette.

They spoke of conventional wars, limited wars, and this insane option might even have worked, if only people could have agreed on a new set of rules. But, people being people, they couldn't.

War was out. War was a no-no.

And like a small child suddenly deprived of its very favourite toy, the human race mourned and sulked and twiddled its collective thumbs, wondering what to do next.

Towards the conclusion of the twenty-first century, a solution was found. 

The solution was Sport.”

PARIS: 

Captain, this race is more than just a sporting event. 

Until recently this region was a war zone. 

Four different species fought for nearly a century to control it. 

KIM: 

Now, for the first time, they're competing peacefully to commemorate the new treaty that ended the war. 

PARIS: 

This race embodies everything the Federation values. 

Peaceful coexistence, free exchange of ideas —

JANEWAY: 

I think it's a great idea. 

PARIS: 

You do? 

TUVOK: 

You do? 

JANEWAY: 

Absolutely. 

This competition is just the sort of break we need. It would give us the chance to make some friends, and allow the crew a little R and R. 

Request granted. 

PARIS: 

Thank you, Captain. 

JANEWAY: 

One thing, gentleman. 

Now that we're in this race, we're in it to win. 

After all, Starfleet's honour is at stake.

PARIS: 

Don't worry, it's in good hands.

Nietzsche understood—and this is something I’m going to try to make clear—that there’s a very large amount that we don’t know about the structure of experience—that we don’t know about reality—and we have our articulated representations of the world. Outside of that, there are things we know absolutely nothing about. There’s a buffer between them, and those are things we sort of know something about. But we don’t know them in an articulated way. 

Here's an example: You’re arguing with someone close to you, and they’re in a bad mood. They’re being touchy and unreasonable. You keep the conversation up, and maybe, all of a sudden, they get angry, or maybe they cry. When they cry, they figure out what they’re angry about. It has nothing to do with you, even though you might have been what precipitated the argument. That’s an interesting phenomena, as far as I’m concerned, because it means that people can know things at one level, without being able to speak what they know at another. In some sense, the thoughts rise up from the body. They do that in moods, images, and actions. We have all sorts of ways that we understand, before we understand in a fully articulated manner. 

We have this articulated space that we can all discuss. Outside of that, we have something that’s more akin to a dream, that we’re embedded in. It’s an emotional dream, that we’re embedded in, and that’s based, at least in part, on our actions. I’ll describe that later. What’s outside of that is what we don’t know anything about, at all. The dream is where the mystics and artists live. They’re the mediators between the absolutely unknown and the things we know for sure. What that means is that what we know is established on a form of knowledge that we don’t really understand. If those two things are out of sync—if our articulated knowledge is out of sync with our dream—then we become dissociated internally. We think things we don’t act out, and we act out things we don’t dream. That produces a kind of sickness of the spirit. Its cure is something like an integrated system of belief and representation. 

People turn to things like ideologies—which I regard as parasites on an underlying religious substructure—to try to organize their thinking. That’s a catastrophe, and what Nietzsche foresaw. He knew that, when we knocked the slats out of the base of Western civilization by destroying this representation—this God ideal—we would destabilize, and move back and forth violently between nihilism and the extremes of ideology. He was particularly concerned about radical left ideology, and believed—and predicted this in the late 1800s, which is really an absolute intellectual tour de force of staggering magnitude—that in the 20th century hundreds of millions of people would die because of the replacement of these underlying dream-like structures with this rational but deeply incorrect representation of the world. We’ve been oscillating back and forth between left and right ever since, with some good sprinkling of nihilism and despair. In some sense, that’s the situation of the modern Western person, and increasingly of people in general. 

I think part of the reason that Islam has its back up with regards to the West, to such a degree—there’s many reasons, and not all of them are valid—is that, being still grounded in a dream, they can see that the rootless, questioning mind of the West poses a tremendous danger to the integrity of their culture, and it does. Westerners, us—we undermine ourselves all the time with our searching intellect. I’m not complaining about that. There isn’t anything easy that can be done about it. But it’s still a sort of fruitful catastrophe, and it has real effects on people’s lives. It’s not some abstract thing. Lots of times when I’ve been treating people with depression, for example, or anxiety, they have existential issues. It’s not just some psychiatric condition. It’s not just that they’re tapped off of normal because their brain chemistry is faulty—although, sometimes that happens to be the case. It’s that they are overwhelmed by the suffering and complexity of their life, and they’re not sure why it’s reasonable to continue with it. They can feel the terrible, negative meanings of life, but they are sceptical beyond belief about any of the positive meanings of it. 

I had one client who’s a very brilliant artist. As long as he didn’t think, he was fine. He’d go and create, and he was really good at being an artist. He had that personality that was continually creating, and quite brilliant, although he was self-denigrating. But he sawed the branch off that he was sitting on, as soon as he started to think about what he was doing. He’d start to criticize what he was doing—the utility of it—even though it was self-evidently useful. Then it would be very, very hard for him to even motivate himself to create. He always struck me as a good example of the consequences of having your rational intellect divorced, in some way, from your Being—divorced enough so that it actually questions the utility of your Being. It’s not a good thing. 

It’s really not a good thing, because it manifests itself not only in individual psychopathologies, but also in social psychopathologies. That’s this proclivity of people to get tangled up in ideologies, and I really do think of them as crippled religions. That’s the right way to think about them. They’re like religion that’s missing an arm and a leg, but can still hobble along. It provides a certain amount of security and group identity, but it’s warped and twisted and demented and bent, and it’s a parasite on something underlying that’s rich and true. That’s how it looks to me, anyways. I think it’s very important that we sort out this problem. I think that there isn’t anything more important that needs to be done than that. I’ve thought that for a long, long time—probably since the early ‘80s, when I started looking at the role that belief systems played in regulating psychological and social health. You can tell that they do that because of how upset people get if you challenge their belief systems. Why the hell do they care, exactly? What difference does it make if all of your ideological axioms are 100 percent correct? 

People get unbelievable upset when you poke them in the axioms, so to speak, and it is not by any stretch of the imagination obvious why. There’s a fundamental truth that they’re standing on. It’s like they’re on a raft in the middle of the ocean. You’re starting to pull out the logs, and they’re afraid they’re going to fall in and drown. Drown in what? What are the logs protecting them from? Why are they so afraid to move beyond the confines of the ideological system? These are not obvious things. I’ve been trying to puzzle that out for a very long time. I’ve done some lectures about that that are on YouTube. Most of you know that. Some of what I’m going to talk about in this series you’ll have heard, if you’ve listened to the YouTube videos, but I’m trying to hit it from different angles. 

Marginalised and Disadvantaged

In rural Britain today, studies show that young people feel more marginalised than ever.

To explore this problem, the BBC spent six months filming with some young people in a typical Cotswald village.

Martin Mucklowe's a Bastard

He was a liar, he was a cheat, he was a thief, 

he was selfish, he was a backstabber –

He had no morals, he broke every code The Satans' Fingers swore by –

And you do know, he was responsible for Pull-My-Finger committing suicide, you do know that, don't you?

Derek Spralls was his birth-name – Poor Sod....

He was born with the worst case of cleft pallet I've ever seen.... 

A face even a Mother couldn't love.

A face so twisted, it looked like two hands wringing out a damp cloth.

So, they sold him.

To some Romany Gypsies.

For a rusty Ford Prefect, and as much lucky heather as they could fit in the boot.

He worked the carnivals.

Unloved.

Overworked.

Arms like tree-trunks from spinning the waltzer carts 15 hours a day.

That's where he met Sue – local farmer's girl....

Girl so big, she had to have a whole cart just to herself.

But Der didn't mind about that.

He loved her, y'see.

But Martin, being Martin, couldn't stand to see Derek happy.

So one Summer Solstice, we're down at Stonehenge, watching The Sun go down, we hear these grunts from behind The Stones –

And we all go over to investigate,

And there's Martin and Sue, and they....

Well, you can probably guess what they were up to  –

Martin was stuffing her.

He was stuffin' her so hard from behind, 

with no care, no love or nutthin' – 

It was just a Cold-Hearted Stuffin'.

And all the time, he's grinning at Derek –

as if to say :

' Whatever You Love, Derek –

I Will Take it From You –

and Shag it.'