TABLE 1:  List of Links to sections below

Links Paradox of Communication Nature of the Trap Nature of Language Origin of Language Referent and symbol Demonstration that words have no meaning The Blind Men and the Elephant

The Function of Metaphor as a Factor in C/consciousness Pitfalls created by Language Symbols First Example: Ignorance and Deception by Design  Second Example: Language and the Battle of the Sexes Third Example: Language Implications of Religious Wars Words Have Power Summary

P: Now my dear Pilgrim, to begin our dialogue on communication, please read these three quotes:

InQuiring Mind: OK. So what?

Mystical Protagonist:  What do you believe about words?  Words! Words!  What does our society uniformly believe about words?  Words are little messengers of love and hate, hope and fear, truth and lies, fact and fiction.  Words are the "transportation system" of human intellectual traffic.  Words are packaged thoughts.  Thoughts are packaged consciousness. Correct?

Q: I guess. It makes sense.

P: Unfortunately, none of these commonly held beliefs are valid. For that reason language communication is the second trap of the ego that masks the existence and relevance of vital Information in the Spiritual Consciousness.  For that reason, second only to the direct influences of the agendas themselves, the same communication induced dynamics of consciousness that can promote good are also the most significant contributors to human error and evil in the world.   Here is a dialogue that will turn on your radar to more effectively detect the differences between the truths and lies of contemporary politics. 

Language and thinking (consciousness) are major definitions of being human. Therefore, were not the pitfalls hidden in conceptual complexity and agendas bad enough in energizing the potential for conflict and distrust, the unique pitfalls of language and thinking defines this second trap as the major source of compromised trust, error, and even evil that the Spiritually unenlightened must suffer.  We think with words. Our thoughts are words.  They define the state of our intellectual consciousness.  This is why we are vulnerable if we do not detect, understand, and account for both the accuracy and emotional overlay on the words that become our thoughts.  Do we even know when the operational (or functional) meanings are nurtured in the illusions created by our ego's service to its agendas?  Our communication weaknesses are being exploited by evil leaders. 

Q: I can see that the collection of error from these three traps each have a kind of potential to thwart good and create misery for humanity.   But nothing really big time can be done about communication, I mean reasonably--right?

P: Not easily or without Spiritual empowerment.  We pursue them here because by understanding the mechanisms by which these traps function, the informed person need not become an automatic victim.  You can begin to consciously use Spiritual Principle to interpret and direct thought, language, and consciousness. Then you find empowerment to cope with evil and bring good into the world. Consider the following teaching:

This teaching especially applies to the use of language.    Do you pass on evil gossip, or do you cleanse or delete it?  Do you initiate false messages?  The good that is lost, and the evil that arises from undetected complexity and invisible uncontrolled agendas is further confounded when processed through the semantic filters of language. Consider the use of language by politicians today. Simply by understanding the process through which this distortion happens is itself empowering.  First, it helps in practical terms for detecting lies and deception, for protecting and improving your communication relationship with others. Second, insight into communication dynamics also helps you to develop your Spiritual Consciousness.

The Origin of Language:

 P: The following story suggests how language could have arisen as a key element in the steady transformation of our humanity from brute to angel.

Allegory of the Brute
[Always read the interpretation that follows each parable/allegory]

[Return from Allegory]

Q:  So then, the brute suggests that all that we are is as a matter of the experiences that shape and determined by our thoughts as the Buddha said.

P: Yes, and as expressed in the phrase, "As  a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." [Prov. 23:7]  But I would qualify that to say that "all that we are in the world" is defined and limited by our ego managed and intellect owned and operated thoughts.   However, because our C/consciousness has the power to transcend the limits of worldly thought, we can use words to transport us into the Spiritual Realms in order to benefit from the Information that is resident there. Notice in this figure [left] how our language subtlety has grown more and more complex as we move up the ladder of unfolding C/consciousness.  That is, the destination point of the quest that each of us is on is full Spiritual Illumination that transcends the need for language.  That is why we must remain limited when we insist on living only in the lower realms of the ego intellect.

Q:  Now I suddenly realize the role of language and communication as contributory to the problems you presented in our introductory dialogues.

P:  Say more.

Q:  As our language becomes more and more subtle and specialized, especially technically specialized, more and more of our intellectual energy must go to mastering our areas of specialization. In doing that we narrow our arena of consciousness.  We grow further and further away from our capacity to be Conscious of the Whole of social events, knowledge about what is really Real, as you say, and larger Realms of Information that affects us.  We must be aware of of the Whole dimensions of our society to make correct social and political decisions for ourselves and those who depend upon us.

Q: Suddenly I feel naked and vulnerable.

P: Very promising, as you must first detect the nature and scope of a problem before you can hope to cope with it effectively. Our high schools and community colleges do not systematically prepare their students in the P/principles of C/consciousness and Spiritually influenced Communication.  They certainly do not prepare them, for the Spiritual dimensions in any application area, e.g., for conflict resolving mediation, where a grasp Spiritual factors are crucial in empowering the healing resolution of conflict.  The public, in general,  mistaking identifies the word "Spiritual" as synonymous with religion.  You now understand from our prior dialogues just how far off the mark that assumption is.  To become informed in any area, a student must spend time by taking their problems and contemplatively posing them in The Silence.

Q: So that is the point of meditation in what you call "The Silence."  In the Silence we are opened to allow the higher Spiritual Realms of Information to inform us, correct?

P:  Yes, because the more we depend on the abstraction of worldly words and symbols to be our only frame of reference, the more vulnerable we are to become confused or misled.  The more likely we fall into semantic traps, whether deliberately, or accidentally set.  The result is disastrously the same. Consider this quote from Ken Wilber:

"Not only does language help establish a higher order membership reality and a higher order self, it also serves as a major vehicle through which actions acceptable to this membership may be communicated, generally by the parents.  Language and the emergent functions of abstract thinking immensely extend the child's affective [emotional] and cognitive [mental] world, for emotions are now freed to run though the world of time, and to be evoked by time specific temporal desires, as well as concrete temporal dislikes, can for the first time be entertained and articulated. ...for in a tensed world things no longer "just happen... but display multiple possibilities which can be selectively engaged." [Wilber, 1980, p 27]

(1) the nature of the event is forever fixed (even though modified by ongoing experience) in the person's mind, is bonded to an emotional (feeling) foundation from which all subsequent modifiers associated with the word are linked, and
(2) the symbol (word) of the labeled event forever stands as a partner with other subtle aspects of thought consciousness with which the experience (word) might be linked.

P: Yes, but most of the damage is not as traumatic as in overt physical abuse.   More often it occurs corrosively, as a steady subtle pattern of negation, discounting, shaming, or neglect.

Q: So how did all this talking come to pass--language is so different from the sound of other animals, even the primates?  Yat and Yang certainly had no opportunity to sit down and negotiate anything.

            Permission to use Gary Larson's cartoon applied for
P: It also stands to reason, that original communication was limited to onomatopoeia type words.  These are words that sound like the natural sound in the world, e.g. to "roar" from the R-o-r-a-a-a- r-r-r-r of a beast.)  The sciences of linguistics, semantics and semiotics attempts to track and comprehend the several dimensions of language and its structure as related to the nature of our human biological system in the context of human cultural experiences.  Words resonate in the deep neural structures of our being going back toward their common origins. All languages are derived from common human experiences long lost in antiquity.  Modern theories try to relate to the structure and form of language to the nature of the human being, such as asserting that the characteristics of one's nervous system is the actual determiner of the nature of language. [Chomsky, 1965]   This valid claim has Mystical implications.

Q: How so, "Mystical?"

P: The primal sounds of language in the course of human evolution are inseparable from the transmutation of Spirit into the earthly vehicle or sheath of flesh.  Because of the concept of UNITY or the wholeness of creation in which no thing is really separate, primal sounds, chants and the sounding of words, as focused by Spiritual energy in the Consciousness of the speaker, have attributions of releasing Spiritual Consciousness beyond information intelligence.

Q: So how does the infant learn?  I remember studying behaviorist theory about the complex chaining of stimulus response hierarchies [Skinner, 1957]--but I remember wondering how my sisters came to express words in unique combinations, using sentences they could have never have heard before.  I remember being amazed, but no one could explain it.

P:  This kind of behaviorist extremism lead to a series of caustic criticisms from holistic thinkers like Chomsky and Authur Koestler [1958] who referred to Skinner and the other behaviorists as "ratomorphs" because they built their theories running rats under various kinds of experimental controls.

All language is learned in some kind of feeling context associated with the person's primal root needs--their agendas, and the feelings that are associated with how these needs are being served.  These feelings are inextricably connected as ONE with the individuals intrinsic Spiritual TRUTH.  The "meaning" of language is constructed at the biological level because the "meaning" of language is inextricably entrained with the ego owned emotional context of the intellect in which it is learned.

And there is a deep neural determined syntax that the linguist named Chomsky has written about.  As you learn each word, it is forever associated with the feelings that were experienced in your body during the events occurring as you learned the word. But the natural assembly of the nervous system is a creation of a higher organized intelligence (Spirit) which originally permits all possible combinations of all possible worlds and words.  But only those which are reinforced by consistent linking with experience become words of the common vernacular, whether English or any other language.  The optimum time for these desirable relationships to be knit together must occur prior to adolescence before the entire brain and neural structure becomes relatively stable and less responsive to change. [Pearce, 1989, 1988]

Q: What!  You mean my language competence is not in my brain, but comes to me from outside?

P: But there is no actual "outside."  Remember our mind game during our dialogue on C/consciousness? There is only what we call outside, namely that experience which is perceived to be outside the illusory boundary crated by our integument, or skin that covers our bodies.  This will be a controversial concept for those caught in orthodox behaviorism and related theory. But your entire brain and nervous system with its electro-bio-chemestry acts like a cosmic tuning fork that vibrates sympathetically with the Energy Intelligence Fields in the Cosmic Supra System.

Or you can think of yourself as a Cosmic receiver in which your nervous system is like a local antenna and decoder. But can you also accept that it is quite impoverished of the ability to detect and process the enormous complexity of the entirety of the Cosmic Intelligence?

By the way, this Energy-Information is not the same entity as electromagnetic energy by which broadcast transmitters and receivers operate.

Q: Why not?

P: Because electro-magnetic energy such as light, radio TV transmissions, and even sound fall off exponentially in proportion to the distance between transmitter and receiver.  This is not true of of "mind over matter" energy which operates equally even at great distances.  This phenomenon has consistently been measured by two decades of controlled experiments at Princeton University. [Jahn et al 1987, Dobyns 1992a] All intellectual models are quite impoverished to fully describe what is Really going on, and that confusion is a factor of our current ignorance.  The answer is not, cannot, be found by the intellect rummaging through its science files.  Therefore I must insist on a Holistic Metaphysical explanation as the core explanation.

Q: Well, all that's far too mind blowing for me right now. Let's not argue that now.  But what happens as a child has different experiences.

P: As every child matures, the consistent emotional nature of the environment in which feelings are associated with word's usage becomes habit.  Then arise attitudes and ultimately values.   The quality and characteristics of this language structure act to define the child for herself/himself.  Ken Wilber continues from the citation I just quoted you, and offers an example of the difficulty in labeling abstract concepts:

"By means of word-and-thought, the child internalize the early parental prohibitions and demands, and thus creates what has variously been called the 'pre conscience" (Fenichel), 'sphincter morality' (Ferenczi), the 'early moral-super-ego (Rank), 'pre-super-superego', 'forerunners of superego,'  'visceral ethics,' or the 'inner-mother."" [op cit.]

P:  The "understanding" you seek is not in his words, or even in his meaning.  The "understanding" you seek is in you.  You need to go within to the practice of Meditation in the Silence to find the only answer that counts for you, the one that you can grow in your C/consciousness.

Q: Wow! is that a cop-out or what?   If everything is in me, why have I bought and read all those books, attended all those lectures, spoke millions of words?  Why do I talk with you?

P: Because for now, they are the only means you have, the only tools to motive you, to capture your curiosity, to prepare the intellectual platform of your mind, to inspire your energy and discipline to finally come to the awareness that you must ultimately focus your attention on the Super consciousness. The route to the Super Consciousness, the Realm of Truth, is only through meditation or deep prayer in the Silence.  All that you have learned, thought, and believed must be left on the alter of your mind as you enter that "Secret Place of the Most High" [Psalm 91:1; Mat 6:6]."

That achievement can only occur in and through yourself.  The intellect can point the way, but you must choose and persist on the Path to achieve you own illumination. Of course we are forced to depend on ordinary language to carry out the intellectual and other daily intellectual commerce within our world. As I have said elsewhere, those who know how can always do the job, but those who know why will be in charge. Meditate on it.  Next we will address the dynamics of complexity and how we think as the third trap of the ego's intellectual consciousness.

Q: I know we are dealing with communication dimension of the traps of the mind in this Dialogue, but how can you end this on an upbeat future for me. How do we defeat the traps, at least the Paradox of Communication, when we must use language even to speak of these evils?

Q: Tell me about the Scriptures you asked me to read at the beginning of this dialogue. How are they relevant to this topic?

P: The second of the [above top] quotes is from the very first lines of The Dhammapada, the most sacred text of Buddhism. They are among the more insightful and empowering language ever spoken by humanity. This is one example of how thoughts that can be taken into extended meditation and contemplated, first in the mind, and then in "The Silence" as was mentioned in our first dialogue on C/consciousness.  The implications of those words in the first quote from Isaiah suggest that thoughts have power, and they do, and that is the point of the quote from Isaiah.  The concept of all that we are follows from our thoughts begins with the most ancient Hermetic Mysteries of Egypt, through Buddha and Biblical scripture which says,

The quote from Fillmore reflects a modern Gnostic insight.  Such concepts relate to the power of words, not the meaning of words. In contemporary times, this concept serves as the foundation for three of the major New Thought writers in the 20th Century, Charles Fillmore who with his wife Myrtle are co-founders the Unity School of Christianity, and Earnest Holmes [Holmes, 1938/1966] who founded the Religious Science movement (including its complimentary group, Science of Mind,) and Emma Curtis Hopkins [1920a,b] who with the Brooks sisters founded Divine Science.  Those who have received the blessings of Mystical insight agree that we do far more with our internal processing of words (focused thought consciousness, as in prayer,) than even the most intense public discourse with our friends and associates of every day life.  But the goal of meditative prayer in "The Silence" first arises from the guidance found in Psalm 40, verse 10, "Be still and know that I am God."   Then in the new testament scriptures Matt 6:6 and 6:18 [NKJV].  The goal of entering into The Silence is to transcend those ego limits imposed by mental consciousness and its accompanying emotions.

Q: Really?  So how do we get power from words?

Study Point 3-4

 Read this little Parable:

The Blind Man's Idea of the Sun, Always include the Interpretation for Parables and Allegories

[Return from Allegory]

P: Word heard by a receiver of communication may not recall what the sender has in mind. This is because words hove no meaning in and of themselves.  This story clearly illustrates that.  So you must first understand that words have two major dimensions in human C/consciousness: Power and meaning.  They are not necessarily related. Here is the major point in this dialogue on communication:

Words (and symbols) have Power solely based on the nature of, and energy in, the individual's  C/consciousness that is impressed on them!  Nevertheless, words do not have any objective meaning!  "Meaning" is of the intellect. Power is of the Spirit.

Q: I take it that words have power in proportion to the Spiritual energy in the C/consciousness the sender impresses on them.  But what do you mean, "Words have no meaning?  Now that's a truly outrageous claim.  Here we are talking!"

P:  I will easily develop and prove to your satisfaction the idea that words have no meaning. First, in spite of my claim, we begin with the definitions of two simple terms in order for you to understand the paradox of communication,  Here are the terms:
...
Referent and Symbol:
Referent: is the condition, event, structure or process that is the actual thing-in-the-world of experience. The referent is any condition, event, structure or process for or about which a symbol can be created to represent. The "referent" in this example is the actual experience of  an airplane.  I note that a purist will immediately complain that this picture [in the left had figure] is not the actual airplane, just as "the map is not the territory".  [also see glossary definition]

Q: You must go to an airport to get up close to the actual referent for the symbol "airplane," or best of all, fly in one.

P: Of course.  But I'm working within practical limits here, so I am limited to using the picture of the referent. But I think the point is now clear.

Then the nature of our consistent pattern of referent experiences, including all of their qualities, including emotional qualities, become encodified as the critical components of any language symbol, word, picture, or as a representative icon. These ongoing referent experiences become mapped into our dynamic intellectual process along with any associated emotional overlays.  As the child steadily internalizes the language of his/her culture, these two fundamental linkages constantly occur.  In the figure you find at the top a picture of a familiar" airplane"  referent in our world which is then labeled by two different kinds of symbols, first in the form of an icon, and then by a word.

Symbol: a symbol is a language or visual representation of some consistent referent condition, i.e., an event, structure, or process that is alleged to persistently exist in the world of experience.  Symbols can be either an "icon" which is a pictograph representing the experience that is in the world, or the sound and written abstraction we label "word," a member of a language such as the English words we are using here.  In some cases, a referent can be assigned a number to produce quantitative implications along with the symbolic ones.  What we call "data" are symbols (labels of events or processes) sometimes with attached quantification (numbering,) we then can call facts.  Facts are compiled and assessed to become information. [definitions ands rules for the use of the terms, data,  facts, and information]

P:  Now let me have you read the following story after which I will develop an explanation for the communication dynamic it illustrates.

Study Point 3-5
Allegory of The Fatal Attraction

[Return from Parable]

Q:  So the word "mother" had different internal meanings for the boy and girl because their separate referent experiences.  These differing experiences created two different meanings for the symbol "mother."

P: And further, the differences were like the Necker cube experience, that is, these crucial differences were unknown to each other as their respective realities as they remained oblivious to the alternative realities within their shared Reality.

Q: Then they lived in an "A" versus "B" reality regarding their separate meanings for the term "mother." So what they didn't know hurt them.  Interesting.

A Mental Exercise:
P: Indeed.  Now I will show you how that trap comes to pass through what I have introduced here as the Paradox of Communication.   I will give you a little test. This test is to discover whether or not words have meaning as we so often assume.  In this context then, I will provide you this convincing proof that words have no absolute meaning.
...
Study Point 3-6:

P: I first must emphasize that the concept of "meaning" with respect to words is not the same as the assertion that words have POWER. For example, the Christian exhortation: "In Jesus' name...," or the sound of the word "OM..." have power to those persons who understand the Metaphysics behind these special words (sounds.) Why the power of words and sounds have Metaphysical significance I will address later.

Therefore, the above assertion is not addressing the power of words and sounds, but only the semantic meaning of words as sounds.  This part of our dialogues is only focused on meaning, or the intellectual understanding that a word is intended to create.

Now, if words (symbols) have some kind of explicit or even implicit intrinsic meaning, then the word or symbol I am about to offer you should clearly bring into your consciousness the referent, or thing-in-the-world, that I have in my mind.  I want to communicate this meaning to you.

If words have meaning, by my stating the word, you should understand what I understand, as I understand it.  If words have an absolute meaning, then we can use them to create a reliable intellectual "map" in the receiver of the communication. That map will be identical with the "territory" being described (as having been experienced by the sender) for both the sender and receiver of the communication.  Study the word which follows and fix in your mind that part of your reality (referent-in-the-world) that this word (symbol) calls up in your intellectual consciousness.  The word symbol is:

Now if words have some kind of exact meaning, the above symbol should create in you the exact "understanding" that I have,.  That is, the very same referent in the world that I have in my mind should now exist in your mind.  However, as we often do, but sometimes fail to do, I will offer you a few more descriptive words that are intended to verify that the word "flag" has communicated my meaning to you. Here are the additional words. Consider them one at a time and see if they have any influence on what you now believe is my meaning for the common word symbol "flag."

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      white

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      blue

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      green

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                   grows!
 

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Q:  OK!  What's up?  What happened?  I was fine until you got to "green." But I even adjusted to that.  But "grows???"

P:  The meaning I intended to convey is that of a "flag  Iris" [Iridaceae versicolor] a common plant with sword shaped leaves that grows in the north east and middle Atlantic states in the early spring, although there is a red variety typically grows in Louisiana.  But  in response to these sequence of words, most people at first have in mind (from their dominant experience) some kind of cloth banner commonly seen flying from a pole in their part of the world, i.e., the American flag.  Other nationalities may call up in their consciousness their own national flag if it has those colors.

However, nurses will often first think of "flag" as a warning or other special symbol on a patient record. But, when the word "green" is introduced, for those who have a United States cloth banner in mind, there is usually the initial feeling of dissonance. Then they usually switch countries to find a banner containing green, like the Iraqi flag with its green Arabic symbols.

But when the word "grows" is introduced, there is usually a total break down of the receiver's confident understanding of what they automatically and unquestionably initially accepted  as my meaning for the word "flag."  When this condition occurs during interactive communication, this crucial "necker cube" [revisit Necker Cube demo] discrepancy may not come to either the communicator's or receiver's consciousness.  Thus the foundation has been labeled for various degrees of confusion, conflict and distrust.

Study this figure [left] to better understand the interactive dynamic that is actually at work in sharing symbols that have both connotative and denotative dimensions in language communication. [definitions]  It is through consistent exposure to the same kinds kinds of experiential contexts that intellectual and emotional meanings are shaped.  Recall our discussion in our dialogue on C/consciousness where I applied the concept of expanding cones of C/consciousness. Consider how a child's C/consciousness of its reality  expands over their lifetime.  Each evolving person is exposed to predictable patterns of the spoken words of parents, teachers, media indoctrination, peers, and strangers in some kind of consistent intellectual frame of reference and emotional context.

Every symbol, apart from being defined by the consistent pattern of paired events or experience-in-the-world, also becomes associated with the consistent feeling context being experienced by the maturing infant, becoming child, then becoming adult. The third level of influence comes through the Spiritual gate, provided the Consciousness capacity of the person is opened to it.  Only by this gate can the Knowing dimension be added to interpret the meaning behind the language.

This process continues throughout life. Recall the venn diagrams from our initial dialogue on C/Consciousness that illustrate the expanding consciousness of a child, and those born in different cultures. This figure shows how experiences in the world that are absorbed by the senses become encodified as language.  Notice the divergent denotative and connotative meanings for the word "flag" in this figure. They are worlds apart, and this example is trivial compared to the subtly of most language meanings across languages, individuals, groups and cultures.

The above figure illustrates only a bifold nature of that linkage. It defines the semantic complications of the simple noun word, "flag."
For reliable language communication to successfully occur:

both the human transmitter and receiver must have a common bond of experience to permit a predictable denotative (shared experience in-the-world) meaning of a term to exist in their language (i.e., how symbols consistently relate to the same referent events in the world.)
they must, through some kind of shared experience, also have a common connotative meaning for the referent terms they share (i.e., how the same type and level of feelings are consistently attached to their symbolic recollection of the referent experience in the world.)
both receiver and communicator must be able to evoke the same referent image (denotative meaning) and feelings (connotative meaning) by the use of the common symbols they share.

By empowering the language meaning from the Spiritual dimension, the accuracy of Knowing the Real meaning can be enhanced.  Without that dimension, the recipient of any communication is vulnerable to the paradox of communication.

This premise of a higher level of consciousness that informs us at least at the feeling level suggests that each of has within us the capacity to relate to an innate larger reality to which we must relate to survive. Whether you call it, as I do, a Spiritual Intelligence, or God, or the cosmic field or any one of a number of names that humanity has used, the principle remains the same. The objective in mediation is to use this principle and open the hearts of the disputants to the validity of a conflict solution based on a reasonable expectation of trust in the others involved in the dispute. Only then can their minds be expected to follow.

The Blind Men and the Elephant

P: In this famous story, each of the "wise" men, who were all blind, approached the elephant and described it in the only way they could. That was in terms of the meaning that their individual and independent consciousness gave to each of their unique experiences. Then when they are forced to discuss "The Elephant" with each other under these conditions, "the" REFERENT experience gives each of them dramatically different meaning to the symbol for the "Elephant." Thus there is conflict because in each of their honest well meaning and trustful advocacy, in terms of their individual experiences, there is not one referent named by the symbol "elephant" but there are six, one for each of the blind man's reality.

Q: So this is an early demonstration of the Paradox of Communication.

P: Thus, as one applications example,  when you are mediating, you must be able to have the perceptive skill to define the larger reality (elephant) to which each of the disputants individually relate. You must help them discover how the larger reality can accommodate the individual threatened needs that are energizing their dispute.  The Paradox of Communication is energized and conflict is amplified when the respective agendas and their values as driven by their underlying needs. When needs are met--issues vanish! The symbol system (language and cultural icons) is given meaning by the relationship of symbols to the feelings (energized by the links among experience with needs) in association with how their respective agendas have been validated, supported, threatened or denied.
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Q: OK!  I'm now convinced that there are considerable pitfalls when a person hears or reads the words of another, and presumes to know what they mean to the sender of the communication.

P: Definitely.  It is like living on and being limited to a view from only one side of a mountain.  Then when north dwellers (with the industrial urban view) meet south dwellers (with the rural agrarian view) on the east or west slope of their mountain, they have no language to relate to their divergent reality  And we see in this dynamic the roots of religious and political conflict in which the disputants who are limited to one side of the "religion/political mountain" base their claims on the words of their favorite scripture or political party. But the referents for these terms are unique to each dweller. The religious (and some academic) fundamentalists are especially rigid when it comes to claiming the literal interpretations of the Bible to mean only what they define the words to mean in support of their claims.  Like the Necker Cube experience, fundamentalists are oblivious to the possibility that, whether originating as the WORD of GOD or not, all the meanings they unquestionable accept have been ego filtered, [through a DSE process developed in dialogue 4]  and been given to them by another person, one who owns an ego.  [Note]

This vulnerable person may suffer from an anemic Spiritual Consciousness, and accordingly his/her ego may have corrupted what they unquestionable accept as "the pure and inviolate word of God."  Terrorists can recruit baby terrorists by invoking the word of God.  In our introductory dialogue I described this dynamic over the first 500 years of the Christian church, and showed how communication ignorance can corrupt other religious and secular movements today.  [revisit dialogue discussion] The risks of such slavish devotion to language is significant, as argued by the following theology scholar:

"...a general consensus is that the final form of the Fourth Gospel [Book of John] appeared around the turn of the [first] century.  This means that we have to reckon with thirty-five to seventy years between the life and spoken words of Jesus and the written versions of that life that recorded firmly those words. A thirty-five to seventy year gap, when added to the fact of translation from Aramaic to Greek, presents a literal view of the Bible with insurmountable problems." [Spong, 1991,  p 83]

"A second problem for this literal view arises in the realization that the Gospels also reflect different perspectives and abilities on the part of the authors and reveal quite distinct audiences to which each is addressed.  The gospel message of each is shaped dramatically by these two considerations." [ibid.]

Q: Can you offer some practical examples of how this paradox may act to create and hide the source of some of the causal problems we discussed in our introductory dialogues?

How Metaphor Influences the Semantic (Symbolic) Significance of Language
P: A metaphor as used in the MP is a succinct story that illustrates a principle that normal consciousness may not recognize for its Spiritual Truth.  If the principle is threatening to the ego agendas of the receiver, barriers will be thrown up by the ego owned and operated intellect to deny admission of any such principle even when stated directly, or if incorporated into a persuasive communication.

Q:  Then the recipient is likely to resort to flight or fight, depending upon the scale of the threat experienced by the receiver. Correct?

P: Yes.  In such cases, a metaphor allows the principle at issue to be presented in an emotionally sanitized or non threatening context.  The receiver can then safely ponder on the principle as relevant to the story and not feel any threat to his/her agenda.   When used in conjunction with other techniques, e.g., reframing [see NLP page on this site], or arranging for a direct experience to demonstrate being affected by the principle at work in the situation, or in another real life context.

Q; So if I am addressing a person whose consciousness is hostile to my message, the smart thing to do is not to take the person on directly.  Instead, I present him with come kind of metaphoric message that his or her consciousness will interpret as safe or at least acceptable.  That is certainly relevant to the political climate in the world today.

P:  In considering the utility of this concept to cope with and affect political influences, I will focus on the use of metaphor to understand the radical differences that appear to exit between right wing "conservative" and left wing "liberal" proponents.  The warped meanings for these terms, "liberal" and "conservative," or political or religious "right" versus "left" will be discussed next in this Dialogue.  This is because the "meaning" for each of these terms is constructed in the context of the metaphor owned by the sender and receiver of the message.  This influence occurs outside the ego owned intellectual consciousness, of the senders and receivers.  Thus the directing influences of unrecognized metaphor affects the symbolic meaning held by such communicators without their awareness.

Q:  You want me to understand that as any party to any communication exchanges language, the foundation for the communication is anchored in some kind of metaphor to which they might not relate, and might not even be aware of.

P: Yes.    I am indebted to the work of George Lakoff who has articulated this application of metaphor in the context of current politics.  It appears in a journal article in 1995 [reference.]  [visit article now] and expanded in a book the following year [Lakoff, 1996, 2nd edition 2002]  In the table below, I have adapted his thesis in order to sweep  it into the MP's C/consciousness Paradigm.

The conservative (right wing) mantra constantly emphasizes more values in which moral strength is an ultimate value.  Lakoff states as one example:

"To summarize, the metaphor of Moral Strength  is a set of correspondences between the moral and physical domains:

    * Being Good is Being Upright
    * Being Bad is Being Low
    * Doing Evil is Falling
    * Evil is a Force (either Internal or External)
    * Morality is Strength

One consequence of this metaphor is that punishment can be good for you, since going through hardships builds moral strength. Hence, the homily "Spare the rod and spoil the child." By the logic of this metaphor, moral weakness is in itself a form of immorality."

"This metaphor has an important set of entailments:

    * The world is divided into good and evil.
    * To remain good in the face of evil (to "stand up to" evil), one must be morally strong.
    * One becomes morally strong through self-discipline and self-denial.
    * Someone who is morally weak cannot stand up to evil and so will eventually commit evil.
    * Therefore, moral weakness is a form of immorality.
    * Lack of self-control (the lack of self-discipline) and self-indulgence (the refusal to engage in self-denial) are therefore forms of immorality.

Moral Strength thus has two very different aspects. First, it is required if one is to stand up to some externally defined evil. Second, it itself defines a form of evil, namely, the lack of self-discipline and the refusal to engage in self-denial. That is, it defines forms of internal evil."

The mantra of the liberal is defined by the following qualities of C/consciousness:
    * morality as empathy
    * morality as nurturance
    * morality as moral nurturance
    * moral self nurturance
    * morality as social nurturance
    * morality as happiness
    * morality as fairness
    * moral growth

The foundation metaphor is defined as the:
* parent which is either masculine or feminine; the parent metaphor defines the
* family which is either paternalistic or maternalistic, and the family metaphor in turn defines the
* the nation, as a family, which then creates a national value system in which the
* ideal nature and role of government, depends upon which metaphor you have been brought up in.

P:  Let me emphasize that these two columns represent the extreme ends of the continuum.  Most members of the electorate are clustered around the middle of this continuum.   However, it is their leadership that gravitates toward and operates from the more extreme ends.  Unfortunately, because the public is caught up in their own version of a metaphor depending upon how they are raised, they have no standard frame of reference to comprehend what is actually going on in the political contest.  Then the more they fall toward the extreme right, the more they become vulnerable to being influenced by groinick [definition] tactics and strategies, outright lies, clichés, oversimplified claims, distortions, and misrepresentations of political Truth.

Q: Wait!  In that bottom row, why did you not include the Democrats in the liberal column?

P: Because the liberals have not defined themselves, even to themselves.  They cannot do this because they too are owned by the corporations.  But they are unlike the Republicans whose values promote serving the corporate agenda of dominance and control demanded by their puppet masters [recall the Allegory of the Evil Puppet Master.] As such that the right wing is free to manipulate the public along the lines of the paternalistic metaphor that is natural to them.   But the liberals, because they have made a Faustian bargain with these puppet masters, they would rather kiss the ass of the corporations that feed them rather than bite the hands that feeds them as any adherence to the liberal metaphor and C/Consciousness demands of them. .

Q: But why don't the liberals use the positive elements of the liberal metaphor to understand to help the electorate understand what they are doing?

P: Because that metaphor is not in their C/consciousness.  Therefore it cannot be reached to be exploited by by their intellectual paradigms. Remember and apply the Spiritual dimensions of the communication principles that you have encountered in this Dialogue.  Then you will understand that they are condemned to use terms that exist only in the abstractions of language that are meaningful only to them, but without useful connections to the Real world of metaphor in which the majority electorate lives and moves and has their being.  For example, Lakoff offers a concise explanation as to how the conservative versus the liberal intellect defines differentially the terms accountability and responsibility.  [Visit on-line explanatory article.]  

This negative ephemeral quality in which manipulative distortions of the vernacular float is defined as "bullshit."  Thus until the perpetrators of language experience an altered state of Spiritual Consciousness and make visible their maternalistic metaphor, they are ineffectual, will remain so.  Unless and until then, they will not, cannot, prevail by influencing public decision making so as to win an election.

Q:  So you could say that while they may make a loud sound, they are without a meaningful voice.

P: Yes. Their frustration produces pleas that are, as Shakespeare wrote, "...a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."  [Macbeth: Act V, scene v]   Let me conclude this section of our dialogue with the following summary by Lakoff:

"To sum up, the conservative world-view and the constellation of conservative positions is best explained by the strict father model of the family, the moral system it induces, and the common Nation-as-Family metaphor that imposes a family-based morality on politics...

Finally, strict father morality has an empirical [testable] pathology. At its core is a model of the family that makes empirical claims about the raising of children. It says that the way to raise a child to be self-reliant and responsible to others is through discipline and denial. If your child cries at night or shows a neediness, you don't pick him up and pay attention to him and play with him. If you do, you will be spoiling him, making him dependent, not imposing discipline, and therefore not allowing him to grow up to be self-reliant, self-controlled, and responsible. In fact, the major empirical studies in child development over the past quarter century show just the reverse. Children who are nurtured and taken care of and played with when they are needy are more likely to grow up self-reliant and socially responsible than those who are ignored or punished for showing neediness. Such children are called “securely attached.” Insecurely attached children, who are ignored or punished for showing neediness are more likely to engage in anti-social behavior and to show inner rage.

In short, the strict father model of the family is just plain wrong—indeed, it is harmful to children—on its most central points. In fact, if proponents of conservatism have grown up in strict father families with insecure attachment, then we may have an explanation of conservative rage at the government: It is the rage of the insecurely attached child toward its parents, especially its father."

Now let us take a look at the nature of the patterns of pitfalls created by the abusive use of these communication factors.

An almost incessant campaign of right wing rhetoric, especially the Christian inflamed political right, has been undertaken to destroy the original meanings of these terms for political gain.  This distortion serve for them to exploit fear, greed and confusion where it exists among the public. The term "conservative" has been redefined to imply integrity, fidelity to abstract and undefined emotional values associated with the American motif.  What is "American" (God's chosen people,) motherhood as perfection, apple pie,  etc. has made sacrosanct with the implication that is all things "American" are unconditionally positive, uplifting and good.

But in the sense defined by Orwell in his use of the term "doublethink," the above definitions have become redefined by use and intent so as to be almost entirely false to their original and correct meanings. Their current use of the words, "liberal" and "conservative" are lost from their historical roots or their technically correct meaning, and in fact have essentially been reversed.

Q: What?  How can that be.  So what do we have dictionaries for.  Lets just look it up.

P: But dictionaries use words to define words.  Since words have no meaning except as they are associated with the listener's experiences, a dictionary is useful only in that it defines a larger experience based verbal frame of reference agreed to by the language police for society to interpret the applicable words. They apply those descriptive words that are most common, most consistently used, and most socially accepted as context for a given word.  With that caveat, it is instructive to see the dictionary definitions for the terms "liberal" and "conservative."

Q: Tell me about conservative since they seem to be riding high today in political and media circles.  What does the dictionary say?

"...a philosophy of conservatism, of or constituting a political party of the United Kingdom advocating support of established institutions...tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions or institutions: traditional, moderate, cautious..."
[1977, page 241]

P: Further, it is this "conservative" political group who loudly and incessantly attacks, denigrates and profanes the true meaning of the term "liberal" in order to discredit any and all who can successfully be painted with that label.  One has to go to the root term, "conserve," to find a value laden dimension for "conservative."  You will find that today--the original values for the term "conservative" are in practice advocated and followed mostly by the liberal Democrats and Socialists: i.e., to

"Conserve: to keep a safe or sound state--to avoid wasteful or destructive use of natural resources..."

"giving freely and unstintingly; marked by generosity and openhandedness;  given or provided in a generous or openhanded way; not bounded by authoritarianism, orthodoxy or traditional forms; and referring to activities which promote economic freedom and greater participation in government and the constitutional, political and administrative reforms designed to achieve these objectives" (these latter being derived from its roots in the United Kingdom) [1977, page 662]  [NOTE: perverse aspect of definition exploited by the right wing]

P: This is because the public suffers from the root problem of inadequate consciousness. The accept without question the definitions that the spin masters of politics have invented and provided for them.

Q: Even if it's Orwell's doublethink? Wow!  That's what I now understand.  How subtle.

P:  Her is some text from the Huffington Post blog in which a contributor has a very meaninful definitions of the role of  liberals in contmporary politics re the Representative Foley (D-FL) House page scandle in the month preceding the 2006 midterm election:

Q:  So how does language play a part in that debate?

P: The ingredients for being vulnerable to language deception from others include:

(1) an anemic or undeveloped Spiritual Consciousness as the root condition making them vulnerable to the following additional conditions
(2) an inability to comprehend the critical parts of a Whole that are lost in language and social complexity,
(3) a ego managed,  fear driven focus on, and obedience to their dominant lower order primal carnal agendas rather than higher order Spiritual agendas, and
(4) the paradox of communication.  The  unique blend of these ingredients defines a reality that is a recipe for eventual social and political disaster, one now ripening in the orchards of political corruption.

P: You bet correctly.  But we can now begin to see the danger inherent in accepting rhetoric because is feels good, i.e., because it assuages our fears, supports our biases,  validates our prejudices and offers the illusory resolution to these negatives.  When a confused segment of the public obviously listens emotionally, they act without the Wisdom only found through Consciousness.  By one's deeds one declares one's real ethics, for example:

In today's world, looking past the polemic, you will find that the liberals are those who are really the ones who act to conserve our natural resources and express those noble conservative qualities that made this nation the greatest nation on earth.

On the contrary, by virtue of their politics, the conservatives support the exploitive and predatory practices by our nation's industrial elite, the predatory ones who most profane humanity's most sacred natural and political legacies, who most betray our stewardship of  the earth's ecology.  By their deeds, they condemn the poor to poverty, the aged to death without dignity, the educationally impoverished children to a Ph.D. in advanced frustration and suffering.  At the same time the power brokers celebrate the success of the greed mongers in the political victories they enjoy toady under the protective advocacy of the Bush administration.

Further, a reason why the Foley scandal had such impact was because it revealed the gross hypocrisy of real Republican values around morals and ethics.  Those right wing Christians proponents of so called "conservative" views actually do the following when they persecute the liberals and who are the active agents of Real social reform:

they promote nihilism, discriminate against certain groups and lifestyles, preach hate, condone or advocate harm to others, advocate censorship of contradictory views, act to deny the rights of others, and they obfuscate and lie in the presence of challenges to their destructive practices.  What is most incredible and intriguing to me, is that they undertake all this in the name of their founding Father, Leader and the One whom they call Master--their Jesus.   But they ought take note, because in terms of political activism,

Q: But why do the right wing conservatives do all their haranguing in the name of Jesus, their entire "right to life" argument is one based on the tenets of their religious faith.  But how would you possibly prove that to these right wingers, or at least argue that Jesus was liberal?  Surely here is a necker cube of intractable realities.

P: Let me return to this discussion when I present the third example of applied communication, religious politics.

Q: I know that sexual role definitions are hot button items for many folks today.

P: Letting go, a feminine trait, is defined by many men as indicative of personal failure because it is the reverse of their "dominance consciousness" which only permits them to apply an aggressive or attacking posture. The requirement to dominate a situation involving others is a masculine trait that has been incessantly promoted in western problem solving, e.g., "Winning is the only thing."  Like an observer who initially is only conscious of one perspective of the necker cube, our cultural concepts do not always permit us to have an interpretation of alternative styles of verbal engagement.

Q: To what extent do dominating male or female concepts define and limit their consciousness, say as might affect a dispute?

P: In the 1960's, "Assertiveness Training" became kind of almost religious commitment for many women who experienced themselves as victims of male oppression. For example, "surrender" is a negative concept that reeks of failure in the western male's mentality. To compete in the male culture, a woman must transcend a consciousness that denies them the power to compete on equal terms in the male's world.  Their female tactics, e.g., surrender, is defined by men as an undesirable trait. Even the common vernacular reflects a male dominated consciousness.  Many women made the mistake of trying to be more masculine than men in their approach, instead of exploiting the intrinsic strengths of their femininity.

Q: How so?

P:  Listen to the language of our western culture.  A man will say: "We will mount an aggressive approach to target and defeat this problem by finding a magic "bullet." We must never submit to but must conquer disease, or our opponent, or the environment. We have to always beat (masculine) the problem, never accommodate (feminine) to it. We need to resist, overcome, or win. We have to hammer the truth home. We must win, not "wimp out" (surrender.)  A man must never be defined as a "pussy" or "wuss."

In this limited and limiting consciousness, "surrender" equals defeat, failure and humiliation. A woman who knows that in a particular case, accommodation is a better tactical or strategic solution may have her suggestion dismissed by an authoritarian male as incompetence. Thus women may grow to resist following their intuitive hunches about the utility of accommodation in a particular case. For the male, a full consciousness of the utility of accommodation as a valuable tactic under some conditions is denied him. That possibility is not accessible in his consciousness.  Under such conditions, passive aggression has become a high art for women.

Do you notice the pattern?

Q: Yeah!  The "A" and and "B" dichotomy of the necker cube again.

P: Finally, in the primal consciousness of the male intellect especially, a man can only feel safe when he has identified his enemy. Then he must control it, either by driving it off, or by defeating, humiliating, imprisoning, or killing it.

Q: I heard somebody jokingly say the other day, that he was going out to, "kill" a suit. He meant that he was going to buy one.

P: In the same vein, a woman could say that she was going out to "gather a suit."  The strengths of the feminine approach to life is equivalent to accepting surrender in order to enable the revelation of an alternative view, as in the necker cube.  But when this is defined as weakness or incompetence by our male dominated culture, all parties are losers to many positive actions that might otherwise be taken.

Q: Don't men fear the competitive presence of an intelligent woman.  Perhaps that is why they try to keep them out of their board rooms?

P: Actually, there is no more fear from such intelligent women than competition from an intelligent man. The major reasons are more subtle and disguised.  In the mythology of the responsibilities of the stereotypic western male, women have been defined as pacifists, unwilling to kill or harm.  In that  context the King Arthur mystique holds that a man ought never harm a woman.  Never mind that some men are quickly able to resort to spousal abuse.  But the woman has been placed on a pedestal.  She is infused with the image of being a nurturing stereotype, weak, vulnerable and in need of protection by a knight in shining armor.

Thus, major reasons for the determined exclusion of women are: (1) its not nice to "kill" a woman in the war of business, and (2) a male fear that a woman may not have the will and capacity to ruthlessly "kill" the business "enemy" because she is a woman. Any accusation of femininity attributed to a male has traditionally been heard as a derogatory epithet (e.g., a sissy, pussy,) not an acknowledgment of an emotional or Spiritual strength.  Once language has labeled a person, they are then treated accordingly by members of their group (those playing the same game of life.)  Further, one must then be prepared to destroy competitive women as ruthlessly as men.  Many men doubt a female's capacity to play such terminal games, especially in high stakes corporate board rooms.  Of course, in Reality, many women far exceed men in their ruthless potential to quickly attack and kill as required to serve their agendas.

Q: So what can I do to transcend this intellectual bind or block?  I am especially interested to apply these ideas to the array of problems you summarized in our introductory dialogues.

P: First, do your homework. Use every mental device available.  Open yourself to the variety of subtle meanings words can convey  in your audience.  Push your mind to its limit. Then release it. Accept the Reality of being blocked for now and let it go. Americans are good at all but the last two. Success by surrender or accommodation is more likely to happen in meditation, given the facilitation of a skilled mediator.

First, take any one of the social problems you wish to approach. Pose the dilemma in its mental (verbal) form.
Second, surrender it.
Third, enter into meditation or prayer [guidance].

Remember, you cannot command the necker cube to flip and reveal its other perspective! But many males remain trapped by resisting their capacity (strength) to surrender into meditation because for some, it implies, in their consciousness, the humiliation of surrender.  I will devote some time to helping you develop this skill when you have a greater grasp of the MP.  We will revisit this topic in our next dialogue on HIP.

There are numerous forums where this technique can be used every day. Mediators can apply this technique at the outset of a mediation, and at crucial points within the mediation.  Managers can apply it at the outset of, or break points within, meetings and work sessions. Apply it during the several quiet moments before beginning a presentation or performance of any kind. Also, practice this technique at the beginning and end of every day. Simply focus on general well being for yourself and others.

I note that one of the little known secrets that allegedly contributed to the British Royal Navy's centuries of uniform successes in battle was a practice called "the still."  Just before a battle, while the crew was at their battle stations, the captain called for a moment of complete silence. This allowed each combatant to become centered  in the activities and comprehension of their duties, and to claim and project victory for their contribution to the battle.. Then the battle was joined.  Try it.  Give it patience and time.  You'll like the results.

Q: We'll see.  Let have your third example. You said Jesus was a political liberal.  I can hardly wait to have your defend that claim.

P: By almost every injunction in the New Testament that is derived from His teachings, Jesus is found to be 100 percent a liberal by the above definition.  Here are some highlights from the incontrovertible evidence found in the sacred texts of Christianity:

Q: I have to admit I'm somewhat incredulous.  I feel that I have been brainwashed by the media, especially right wing media, and I wonder what else has made me vulnerable.  You are certainly bringing down the temple of confidence I had when I came here.

P: Well you certainly have been successfully "spun." But now you understand that being vulnerable to spin can be one cost of inadequate Spiritual Consciousness.  You have learned how what you don't Know (Spiritually) can hurt you (intellectually.)  You cheat yourself of the capacity to assess all output from the spin masters of every stripe by comparing that with the information in the Super Consciousness from a Holistic perspective, .  As you nurture this Spiritual capacity, you become more "spin resistant."

Q  Now I can understand that what these religionists and their political tools want is power and control over as much as out society that they can get away with.  Truth be damned!  Yes?  As I recall the headlines, the right wing religionist is consistent in wanting control over our public schools.

P: They want control over every aspect  of our schools, what is taught, how it is taught, who teaches it, and how to punish their detractors in the community.

Q; Now that you have caused me to think about it, there is not a single argument or initiative coming from any of those groups that can be defended by any of the scriptures you just shared [in the digression]. Perhaps here is another incident of the paradox of communications.  Its the Necker Cube again, but with the different "meanings" of language.

P: The "meanings" of extremist  language are their own unique and final meanings.&nbs