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The Man Who Freed His Brain
This link will always take you the beginning of the parable/allegory/metaphor analyzed below.

The story is an example of an inability to apply "systems thinking." It illustrates the negative effect of Spiritual emptiness which permits a human ego to arrange competition in an interdependent system that should instead be collaborative. A healthy living system will manage the constant regulation of its interdependent parts. Effective regulation of all of a system's subsystems is essential for its health and survival. This applies to every living system, from the individual to national and international societies.  However,

This story represents the cost of deregulation at the system level of the person. The costs are immediate and visible. This is an analogy to the current unwitting acceptance by the public of this same unregulated condition applied at the level of our society.  Non-regulation is a condition is being relentlessly striven for by corporations.  At the more complex system level of the American society the causal implications and interactive effects are less visible in the short term.  The capitalist myth of "free" competition promotes the unquestioned belief that unlimited competition, free of restraints within and among capitalist societies and exploited third world cultures, is an unqualified absolute good.  This myth is energized by those few persons and organizations who dominate that control, the power mongers. They function within the top 10 percent of the power pyramid of corporate rule. This myth must soon be recognized for the lie that it is.

The public's lack of awareness of the cost of this myth to them must soon change.  The change must also occur both in corporations and especially in government. The government is the only system sufficiently complex, strong, and broad based enough to impose meaningful regulation on a nation of international mega corporations. But this capacity is only available provided the elected members of Congress so vote and direct the government departments to regulate corporations in a meaningful and effective way.  But this happy premise assumes that the voting public is in charge of their government through the electoral process.  We are no longer in charge.

The myths and the beliefs, and principles of capitalism are no longer valid if ever the were.  We do not live in the democracy that civics teachers praise.  We have surrendered our democracy to a corporocracy [kor poor ok' ra see] in which corporate controllers have bought the Congress of the United States.   These controllers direct our governments crucial actions without meaningful influence from the greater electorate. Even coalitions of concerned individuals are ineffectual in actually imposing meaningful control of corporations though Congress, and even their elected representatives at the local level,  e.g., strong majority demands for border controls (Ballot issues  200, and the like) to stop illegals from crossing into the US, Public Citizen, Common Cause, Reform Party, etc.  Corporations are now exercising ultimate control over the agencies of government with increasing disregard for the rights and needs of American citizens, especially those of the economically disenfranchised middle and lower classes.

Corporations have successfully lobbied (read "paid for") the congressional influence they need to have federal law support their expansionist agendas. True regulation by the market's "invisible hand" requires numerous independent providers of food, clothing and shelter to compete fairly within a common market. However, the individual small and mid size business entrepreneur in our current world of business are being consumed by larger, wealthier, more ruthless, predatory corporations.  

When a business cannot compete and win fairly by the rules,
it will compete outside the rules,
and the more ruthless and predatory its leaders,
the more ruthless and predatory its strategy and tactics.

Family farms and businesses all across the land are systematically consumed, lost, and overrun in the vast complexity of contrived market conditions that are biased to serve and empower only the largest companies and conglomerates who can exploit the efficiencies of size.  This process can be studied by examining the community destruction related to the practices of the Wal-Mart store chain in communities after they have driven out family business competition across America [evidence].

Incredibly, corporations have been granted the same legal status as individuals under our Constitution due to a gross misinterpretation of a Supreme Court ruling in the 19th Century. [evidence]

A brilliant and authoritive book has recently been released that illustrates in detail how deregulation and privatization has spread across the latter half of the 20th Century with the disastrous international results we find today:

Main Ideas:

a living system at the level of a human individual is a Spiritually grounded system comprised of a set of interconnected and mutually interdependent set of subsystems (e.g., heart, nervous system, lungs, liver, skeleton, muscles, pancreas, etc.)  These subsystems are coordinated by the brain and the autonomic nervous system that are designed to regulate all the subsystems of the body of a healthy person to keep them in balance.
a living system at the level of a business or organization is likewise made of a set of interconnected and mutually interdependent sets of subsystems (e.g., marketing, purchasing, maintenance, manufacturing, administration, etc.)  These subsystems are coordinated by the Senior Executives and mid level managers (organization's brain and autonomic nervous system) that are designed to keep all the subsystems of a healthy organization in balance [See Beer, 1982]
a living system at the level of a human society is made up of sets of interconnected and mutually interdependent subsystems (e.g., agribusiness, family farms and businesses, transportation, banking, commerce, communication, retailing, manufacturing, etc.)  The legal (regulating) relationship among these subsystems (and the subsystems within them) are coordinated by the legislative bodies of Congress and  government administrative departments such as Commerce, Treasury, Justice, Defense, Transportation, Education and so on.  Congress is our society's "brain" and and its administrative agencies serve as our autonomic nervous system. Optimally, these agencies are designed to keep all the subsystems of a healthy society in balance.  Now the reality of this hopeful status is far from Reality.
        Corporate power brokers/mongers despise the existence of these regulatory bodies. Like the man who freed his brain, they demand to remain autonomous to function independently in an unregulated "free" market.  The international level of human organization, i.e., a world Suprasystem, should also be a regulated set of coherent subsystems (nations) but is only in its formative stages (e.g., the United Nations.)  The "nations" are rapidly being overrun by predatory corporations.  Persuasive arguments have been made that the US and other western governments have already been co-opted by secret corporate networks coordinated by means of various secret societies, the nature and presence of which,  the public is oblivious,  [Marrs, 2001]
        This vulnerable formation of interdependent nations is being corrupted by the heavy handed presence of US corporate interests. Instead of nations negotiating for the best interest of their citizens, they are replaced by international mega conglomerates who have no concern whatsoever for the citizens of any nation, except to use them as economic pawns and a source for the cheapest labor they can manage.  While many world societies feel the weight of these 800,000 pound gorillas, the US public does not detect nor understand the significance for them of any of these developments.  [See a discussion of the ruthless outplacement of US livelihoods offshore with merciless disregard for the wreckage being imposed on their workers and communities thus betrayed.}
attempts to force competition among mutually interdependent subsystems (organs of the body) is unwise. Their optimal coordination is required for the healthy operation of the comprehensive whole, the suprasystem (the body.)  Otherwise, competition will cause their host to become progressively dysfunctional and destructive with adverse effects on participating systems dependent on them:

e.g., when one member of a team becomes ego centered and glory oriented, the overall team performance will suffer; when the electricity industry was deregulated in California in 2000, prices skyrocketed and power failures and brownouts were frequent, and the states economy was bankrupted;  when airlines fail to profit under the current rules permitted by the deregulation they have arranged through our elected representatives,  then airline bankruptcies loom (paid for by taxpayers,) and their employees dependent on them suffer unemployment and loss of benefits, retirements, and job security, travel inconvenience abounds, threats to safety are risked, loss of access to air travel from smaller markets are found, and erratic fares with inflated costs to smaller markets. create the current melange of airline abuses.

[NOTE: in the face of the above summarized Realty of air travel today, the majority of corporate controlled articles and reports on deregulation remain uniformly biased to insist that deregulation is good, and the more right wing the commentator, the more their support for deregulation is unqualified. e.g., the right wing owned and operated, Heritage Foundation.  [evidence]

the unregulated presence of lower order ego and dominance agendas (or equivalent) among the subsystems of any system at any level of complexity will progressively produce distress, pathology, destruction, and ultimate death.
the natural performance of any living system's organization (i.e., the integration of its coordinated subsystems) is Spiritually directed and hence intrinsically harmonious. The introduction of free will (ego) at the level of the individual, and in systems of greater complexity (groups, organizations, nations) is harmful. 

An absence of regulation allows those who are determined to inflict their ruthless, ego serving and ego driven primal agendas to override the balance inherent in Holistic decision making.  This balance is required to manage and insure a healthy system. This deregulation may sometimes produce a temporary short term benefit, but as was the case of "The Man Who Freed His Brain," and "The Parable of The Entrepreneurial Liver," deregulation must eventually lead to disharmonious and dysfunctional behavior, viz. a viz. the symptoms which ought to be obvious from the current trends in the United States and other capitalist democracies.

Applications in "The World"

individuals can compete with each other effectively with beneficial results only in limited structured events (regulated athletic competition.) Except for those whose physical characteristics and mental limits shut them out of competition and the resulting benefits, the majority rule is resolved by competition on the playing field. But ask how many average Americans can excel as stars in sports, music, arts, etc.?   Few.  At the end of the football season, sports fans only identify with the winning team.  What about the losing teams, i.e., the rest of the league.  What about the life of individuals in those losing teams who may have caused the key event that precipitated the loss.  What aspiring athletes identify with the shameful quality of life endured by that 99 percent group of various kinds of losers?
individuals compete with each other in unstructured environments (business, agency, institution) with uneven benefits or destructive effects. They frequently put their interests ahead of the organization (play personal politics.) They frequently act to "beat out," an inherently more qualified persons through nepotism or the hiring of lackeys. The compromised decision making that results because of shut out skills of those defined as "not acceptable" or "losers" is harmful to system health and stability. Recall the events subsequent to hurricane Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans that was then compounded by the incompetence of President Bush's political appointee as head of FEMA,  Mike Brown [evidence]  Regulation is essential in any organization, even those with advanced technical potential. The absence of required Real talent and experience  in its leadership then compromises the optimum performance of the organization.
an examination of the long terms effects of corporate deregulation will show that the man who freed his brain achieved the same effects on himself as those conditions now developing in the United States and world as a result of deregulating those foundation industries (petroleum,  energy, airlines, communication, banks, and most recently electricity producers.)  These industries require regulation for optimum integrated performance.
Unregulated competition in a free capitalist society may produce many short term materialistic benefits for the owners and consumers, but at the expense of the long term economic, emotional and Spiritual needs of many of its subsystems (small business, workers, clients.)  These types of ego serving competitive values co-opt the Spiritual integrity of those who would otherwise refuse to ruthlessly harm others. But ruthlessness of character must be acceptable for managers to advance themselves to positions in the controlling hierarchy. Benevolent leaders are filtered out.  Only those who rise to the top can be proclaimed "winners."  Some like to proclaim that only cream rises to the top in such competition.  But they neglect to notice that the same is true for scum. Once the "winners" of this internal competition for control have filtered out those Spiritually advanced individuals who are unwilling to compromise their Spiritual integrity manifest as Ethics, these "winners" ruthlessly define and enforce their values on those they have defined as unfit to compete (i.e., all those decent persons hey have labeled as losers.)
the societal effects of unregulated capitalism (a totally "free" market) purges the affected subsystems and their participants of the motivation to develop their Spiritual Consciousness (because it acts to cost them profit.)  Then the adverse fallout from such capitalist practices become highly unstable and difficult to influence and alter.
WHAT IS CURRENTLY HAPPENING IN THE UNITED STATES AND WESTERN DEMOCRACIES, IS THAT REGULATION BY THE PEOPLE THROUGH DEMOCRATIC PROCESSES IS BEING RUTHLESSLY AND RAPIDLY REPLACED BY A DESPOTIC AND RUTHLESS REGULATION BY MEANS OF A FASCISTIC CORPORATE OLIGARCHY.
no system at any level of complexity can remain optimized and fully functional without systematically nurturing its Spiritual dimensions as a priority. WHAT IS NOT REGULATED BY HUMAN DISCIPLINE
WILL BE REGULATED BY NATURAL SELECTION.

Natural selection is a far more inflexible, ruthless, destructive, and painful process than managing one's self by one's own self imposed discipline.  This assertion is true for individuals (e.g., The Man Who Freed His Brain) re their undisciplined contribution to uncontrolled population growth.  The threat of natural selection applies because it will correct the adverse impact of our currently unregulated ruthless competition that now serves greed, power, and control agendas among and within organizations and societies.

Implications for Subsequent Material
You will be able to estimate the Spiritual health of US subsystems of interest to you by detecting and tracking the evidence of dominant lower order agendas (priority service to security and ego affirmation and defensive agendas)  You can also expect to find lower (concrete) HIP as a key factor helping to create our current national and international distress. This is because those who suffer from low HIP cannot imagine the possibility of the costs to them of current trends, or the possibility and benefits of healing and correcting alternatives.

The dysfunctional roots of unregulated capitalism can be widely observed as an uneven distribution of basic necessitates, unemployment, poverty, crime, and its absent or deplorable health care quality for all but the most wealthy. Also present are its norms of impoverished programs for children and the aged that remain outside of the national consciousness.  The public is watching corporate sponsored football, basketball, baseball, wrestling, extreme sports, or other ethically and Spiritually impoverished forms of "entertainment."

This creates a chronic incapacity within large (voting) elements of society to detect and evaluate the Real quality of their own and their society's Spiritual health.  

Such desired capability is outside most individual's consciousness.  Many more are co-opted into serving a system even when they know or strongly suspect is directly harming them and their loved ones. Never mind that its pathology adversely affects larger social needs.  In their own Spiritual impoverishment, they see no alternative.

Americans have no paradigm for comprehending what is actually happening to them because the operating factors are hidden in the complexity of social forces today. Hence they have no effective strategy for coping with these problems. They are drawn to the simples, e.g., right wing politics with its simplistic and unworkable illusions.  Increasingly, they are becoming vulnerable to primal emotional promises to "solve" symptomatic problems. Simplistic, knee jerk, reactive practices and programs, are the stock in trade typically offered by right wing power mongering politicians and their radical activists.

No intellectual rationale for addressing our national problems can be designed or made to work without first creating a social context of widespread Spiritual awakening (the capacity for courageous, benevolent and compassionate leadership.)  This awakening must first reach a majority (a critical mass) of those already being affected by power mongering decision makers and those systems they already control, as well as those they are now co-opting as required to support and advance themselves.   The alternative then, is for the public to remain powerless to adequately cope and then helplessly watch their precious freedoms and materialistic benefits relentlessly dissolve away.

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The Four Outlaws and the Champion

The story introduces the primal ingredients for a competitive society: force, cunning, greed, and the entrepreneur.   The latter is the most subtle.  We are socialized to be wary of force, greed and cunning, but when these are packaged in the form of a lawyer or a  predatory capitalist entrepreneur, then our guard is down.  We have been taught that it is an unqualified good to be a lawyer or entrepreneur. Further, in simpler times, the entrepreneur has been an important contributor to the material benefits of our capitalist system that we have gratefully accepted.  But, when faced with ruthless and unprincipled competition, what must the entrepreneur do in order to compete and survive in the legitimized capitalist game of ruthless competitive commerce?  They and their company must play the game as it is played today, or perish.

Main Ideas:

the "outlaws" are metaphors for the primal forces that dominate our ego consciousness and energize our base agendas when we are not informed by Spiritual intelligence.
the order of introduction suggests the order of emergence of these agendas through evolving social complexity.  The capacity for expressing unconditional Love (developed in dialogue seven) is the only major context that can permit effective intellectual coping with the "outlaws."  But Love is repressed and compromised where primal capitalist values are in control. Real Love in action is a luxury that cannot be afforded under the rules of predatory capitalism.
these four primal agendas can be brought under reliable control only by an adequately developed Spiritual Consciousness whose "champion" is Love.
the capacity for demonstrating altruistic Love, (i.e., Agapic Love, not romantic or erotic love,) is a major indicator revealing the status of a person's (or institution's, or any social system's, or society's) Spiritual Consciousness. This will be the focus in dialogue seven.

Applications in "The World"
Subsequent sections OT/MP will show how aspects of these outlaws appear in various social contexts to affect both the perpetrator of abusive power and the victim. While abuse received by a victim is usually obvious, the consequences of that abuse falling back on the perpetrator is often subtle, extended in time, and therefore not recognized for what it is.  The predator does not know why he suffers a chronic and incipient fear of losing control.   Both predator and victim are oblivious to the underlying dynamics and root causes that affect the quality of their lives.  Hence, they are impoverished of detecting, let alone resolving, the problem at their source.  No intellectual effort that is not informed by Spiritual Consciousness can be made to fully succeed, and not eventually regress to its original pathological state.

Implications for Subsequent Material
The corruptive forces of ego serving power and control agendas are fully explored in the fifth dialogue.  Then the inexorable laws of Perfect Cosmic Justice that respond to abusive uses of power and force will be presented in the sixth dialogue.  These principles are a prerequisite for understanding how the Champion of Love can be caused to prevail over time.

This intervention of Love is required to save humanity from death due to our current abysmal ignorance of the destructive role of ego. We must compare the evil fruits of the ego with the healing potential of Spiritual Consciousness.  In our universities, when the ego is discussed, it is typically done from the perceptive of a detached (and therefore irrelevant) academic and theoretical purity. Subsequent information will discuss how these primal forces and their correcting champion of Love are can be recognized as they expresses through all levels of complex human systems as defined and limited by our sensate perceptions of the world.

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The Entrepreneurial Liver

This story illustrates the sequence by which a predatory and aggressive subsystem in any system (e.g., body's "liver" subsystem) expresses as cancer.

Main Ideas

the label for this predatory and destructive process when it appears in the system called the living body is cancer.
there is no comparable label for this process when it appears in the structure and processes of an organization or society because such activity at those systems levels is not recognized as a cancer.
the cause and effect between the dominant agendas that drive the processes of a subsystem (e.g., a corporation) in a social suprasystem (e.g. the United States) are not linked in the intellectual consciousness of either the decision makers or the affected public.
in a society, (compared to a "person" system) the lengthy time span between the introduction of a cancer and the death of the host society may take many decades. This time scale further confounds the ability of a Spiritually uninformed intellect to detect the developing interactive pathological  relationship. We may see and feel the effects, but we do not relate to the true cause.

Applications in "The World"

the effects of unregulated predatory capitalism is analogous to cancer in the body.  The benefits are temporary to the "winning" subsystem.  The destructive byproducts are enormous, but swept out of sight, like the eventual crash of any pyramid scheme. That is, the myths of capitalism deny the significance of emerging problems being connected to the behaviors of predatory capitalists. Therefore, they are dismissed for what they actually represent. This capitalist cancer is responsible for many of the personal and social dysfunction now afflicting our society and the world.  This is a root cause for energizing and legitimizing the Islamic al Qaeda terrorists and Hamas (regardless of their religious justification,) and for inspiring the passion behind the Palestinian intifada.  The sources of their third world killer ambitions are energized by their enforced chronic primal living conditions for which they blame western capitalism.

The dominant capitalist controllers whether in Israel or the United States enforce third world economic helplessness in the context of growing overpopulation in their own territories. Then the incursion into those Palestinian territories by an expanding Israeli population (e.g., building housing in the west bank,) and their own Spiritual impoverishment, lead them to experience the horrors of suicide bombers and the evil of "9-11."  However, while the causes of rage evident in the so called "under classes," or "out classes" of humanity may be Real, these causes cannot Spiritually justify their primal means of resolving their rage.  But the controlling class, in order to stop these horrors, must at the least accommodate the primal needs of all peoples equally, at least beginning at the subsistence level.
an analysis of the fallout from predatory capitalism using the cancer paradigm will show how healthy social subsystems of our society (e.g. family farms, small businesses, fee for service health care practitioners) have been steadily compromised and consumed by the capitalist cancer symbolized by Wal-Mart, the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, and the health care corporations.  The fallout adversely affects the employment, wealth, and quality of life for all non predatory subsystems. Non predatory subsystems affected include workers, schools, social welfare institutions, cultural institutions, and information resources (e.g., libraries and the Internet)

In anticipation of the inevitable social disaster created by portions of our collapsing economy not amenable to recovery, large corporations are already quietly acting to move their headquarters, major facilities, and work forces offshore in order to exploit cheap labor and absent taxes.

Then as public outrage increases, they must pass laws (The 2002 Help America Vote Act) to require electronic touch screen voting devices which can then be manipulated by corporate controlled agents as is documented to have happened in the election of 2004.

As the capitalist cancer grows undetected, or not recognized for what it is, it creates an exponentially cumulative effect with adverse impact on all affected subsystems (e.g., predictability of the stock market, vulnerability of social security.)  The viability of their suprasystem, the United States (or other similar society) is steadily compromised. Then the society "crashes."  The "crash" is manifest in its early stages by widespread social unrest, and various expressions of personal and social pathology (e.g., crime, habitations, refusal to work, and child and spousal abuse, rampaging gangs, and compensating vigilantes. All this is a prelude to anarchy.  [reference to anarchism] [also esoteric view] Concurrent with this decline, the corporate controllers can then act to increase the presence and power of "enforcer" systems, validated and directed by the Justice Department, which already is the extension, through the government, of the controlling capitalist power structure.

The increasing economic upheaval culminates in our society's death by insurrection, anarchy and/or our vulnerability to invasion by predatory third world and terrorist hoards.  These are already prepared to exploit the weakened condition of our society.  Perhaps you can make the link of this story with that of "The House of Three Rooms." When the first floor dwellers rush into the upper floors, that rush symbolizes the ultimate actions of the growing presence and determination of migrants and terrorists who gather to cross our borders in increasing numbers to compromise or consume material and intellectual resources of our culture, and thus destroy the United States as we have known it.

What is thus destroyed includes more than the evil we may reject, but all the good as well. These goods that will be destroyed include our highest technological capability and achievements, and our highest expressions of the intellect embodied in our universities, library and cultural arts, and the highest expressions of Spiritual awakening in our population. Unless there is a rapid, widespread, awakening of Spiritual Consciousness, those younger than age 50 will live to experience this ultimate scenario.
The antidote or "vaccination" against this destiny can only be achieved through a wide spread Spiritual awakening among the decision making and power structures as well as in a supporting critical mass of our population.  That is, this awakening must not be limited only to an opposing political and social force, it must concurrently occur deep within every participating capitalist corporation and conglomerate, their boards, their stock holders, and in our government's regulatory and other enforcing bodies of government.

This process of Spiritual awakening among key actors in our corporations and government, will first become evident as "ultimate whistle blowing!"

Ultimate whistle blowing can only come to pass when those in a position to do so become motivated by a Spiritually awakened Consciousness, not a self serving goal or any reactive fear motivation.  These groups need to become informed that the cost to them and their loved ones for not acting is far more dire than the rational fears and costs of taking overt action to publicly oppose corporate and government excesses and abuse.  Such whistle blowing opposition must be done as soon as the opportunity presents itself.  [Nader et al, 1972]

The most recent examples of such enlightened courage are found in persons of contemporary whistle blowers (re Enron and the FBI.) [details]  Only through such Spiritually enlightened actions can a critical mass of our society adequately evaluate the current destructive course of our society and its fearsome destiny. Only then can we identify alternative possibilities that create long term stability, social harmony and survival. Regardless of the nature of any intellectual proposal for a solution, no person, group, or organization can energize wide spread public support without all concerned working from the common page of Spiritually directed insight.

Implications for Subsequent Material
Subsequent material will demonstrate that the rise of Spiritual forces are incompatible with the existence of dominant lower order agendas.  Therefore predatory agendas and Spiritual Love cannot coexist as controlling factors in the operation of an individual, an organization, or a society.  One must yield to the other.  At the present time Love yields to ego owned power and control.  We daily experience the growing consequences of this ethical lapse.

Currently, Love as a healing Power must compete with lower order primal agendas defined and controlled by the ego's dominance and power agendas.  Such negative agendas are ruthlessly applied by the controlling elite to the pursuit of their personal and institutional power. But Love does not, cannot, attempt to compete. Love IS.  Love cannot appear on the same platform with kind of tactics willingly exploited by our ego's primal needs and emotions.

Love must be admitted and permitted to function.  Hence the path to Spiritual recovery can never occur without first their arising the focused combined will of a majority coalition (a critical mass) of Spiritually awakened individuals, groups, and organizations in our larger society.  OT/MP hopes to be a factor for you to use to help awaken and establish this prerequisite condition among the majority of our sleeping population.  In achieving this goal, you are the indispensable key agent.

The Evil Puppet Master

The story illustrates the seductive power of primal greed, and the vulnerability of those without an active, protective (Spiritual) Consciousness to counter it.

Main Ideas

the "townspeople" are the benign and reliable resources (the  allegedly controlling population in our democracy) among whom we live and move and have our being. The "parents" are the established values and beliefs of the community.
the "children" are the emergent thoughts and values that are anchored in the values of their parents. They may begin with the establishment's array of operating values, ( i.e., the "parents.") but they have their own destiny. As children, they have freedom to alter and transcend the foundation thoughts, values, and beliefs of their parents.  These emergent thoughts and ideas will influence, define and create the future of their society. Based on the Holistic context of community values and influence, the children can either improve or worsen their lot as they become the adults of their generation.
the "puppet master" is the powerful intellectual resource to whom we give our trust for worldly guidance, protection, and pleasures.  We permit them to "work our strings."
the "ushers" are the puppet master's extensions [re DSE, Dialogue 4] They create the social forces that the puppet master employs to implement his strategy as defined by the rules of the "game" that we think is being played.  This is the game whose rules the society (via its puppet masters) have given us to play.  The green clothed ushers represent the excitement and lure of easy profit, worldly power, and material promise.  The blue ushers (townspeople, some of whom are the children's parents) are the mundane subtle equivalent of innate Spiritual forces that have the capacity to provide significant abundance, but only if and when properly nourished and motivated.
the puppet master offers the children the opportunity to voluntarily give in proportion to what they value in their experience.  Such a practice is the secular replacement for the Spiritual practice of Tithing to that source that Spiritually nurtures the giver. But Tithes must be given unconditionally in Love, and without any presumed quid pro quo.  The townspeople represent the equivalent of a Spiritually nurturing force for the love and benefits they extend to their children.  But instead of Tithing to their Spiritual townspeople, the children give their money (some of which was actually stolen from their parent's Tithe) to the puppet master who symbolizes the powerful force of material illusion.

"For to those who have [Spiritual Illumination], more [material good] will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing [empty of Spiritual Illumination] , even what they have [materially] will be taken away." [Mat 13:12 (NRSV),  brackets added]

Applications in "The World"

the Spiritual practice of Tithing, returns a portion of one's abundance received to the Spiritual Source. Tithing places the giver in the flow of universal abundance with all of its special benefits. But this possibility is thwarted by the evil puppet master and his usher extensions.  These materialist influences act to divert the town's resources to worldly applications limited to serving their own selfish ends.
an examination of social values will demonstrate that the majority of us behave from the same limited level of ego consciousness as do the children. We invest our resources in material goals in hope of greater worldly gains, e.g., when corporations fire their employees (destroy their livelihoods) to improve their profit margin, their stock values rise.  We thus not only ignore and fail to nourish the Spiritual forces that actually create our abundance, we destroy it . For this reason, neither the townspeople nor their children are able to respond from Spiritual guidance in order to save themselves from loss.  By placing themselves outside Spiritual Law, they made themselves vulnerable to worldly betrayal by the puppet master and his lackey extensions.  Notice OT/MP's constant theme that all good and evil reside within each of us. There is where our evil must be recognized and healed. There, within us, is where our Spiritual strength must be nourished and claimed.
capitalist cultures can be found to exalt and nourish the existence of a variety of "puppet masters."  These are the politicians, stock brokers, and purveyors of products and services that compete to seduce away the wealth of American society.  These campaigns create a vast abundance of highly sophisticated worldly scams. A scam is any appeal to invest in any illusion promising material benefits beyond what those investments can actually provide.

Implications for Subsequent Material
Look for the dynamics of the puppet masters behind the headlines of today's media and news reports. Ask where do you permit our national values to be placed. Do you serve them?  We express our values through how we invest in the entertainment and distractions of society, and through the behavior of the market place and its extensions (e.g., the stock market.)  In our Spiritual sleep, we fail to track the flow of our material wealth into the coffers and political war chests of the greed and power mongers.

Does this wealth flow to nourish our Spiritual sources and their worldly extensions the form of social, cultural, and environmental support?  Or does it flow mostly to the "puppet masters" of our day?  As you come to understand the dynamics of true Spiritual Consciousness, if you look for it in the behaviors of most of our social systems and their controllers, you will not likely find It there. But what you will likely find are the evil puppet masters and their lackeys. What role do you currently play in this ongoing drama?

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The Tree Who Would Be Human

The story illustrates the cost to a living system with an insufficient consciousness. This limit denies the tree any awareness of the Real cause and effect results of its decisions, practices, and priorities. Those goals and decisions with their destructive implications cannot be directly detected and dealt with, but can only be informed and coped with through an active Spiritual Consciousness.  Because this capacity for Spiritual guidance is absent, the tree is vulnerable without knowing it.

Main Ideas

the tree's human value system causes it to focus on the pleasures and benefits of technology without concern for the hidden costs
the hidden costs to the tree of its decisions and actions often exist in an invisible domain (the roots,) one that is outside the mental consciousness of the affected system (tree.)
there is an analogy to the human use of illegal drugs as a means of obtaining a pleasurable state, but without being aware and not caring about what is being poisoned along with their physical body. These are their Spiritual roots, the literal Source and determiner of the very nature of their Being.

Applications in "The World"

the "world" has no provision for systematically informing high level decision makers how their purchases and investments in material largess are impacting the larger social, biological and Spiritual ecology in which they exist. They do not perceived the links upon which they must depend in order to survive.  They even resist coping with the clearly visible adverse effects (symptoms) in our biological ecology. They focus only on immediate supply and demand implications of their agendas with reference to material profit, power, and control.
the complexity of both the technology and the ecologies in which a corporation exists are defined by a complexity that far exceeds the HIP competence [Dialogue 4] of their controllers. It exceeds as well, most of our society's individual's, group's, and organization's capacities to grasp the Whole. Especially vulnerable are the organization's self serving management who ignorantly direct their organizational system to its fatal end.
no systematic national programs exist to objectively inform individuals as to the short and long term impact of our society's collective investments in technological and commercial exploitation and growth.  This condition is due mostly to two factors:
(1) the awareness of the need to take actions are not in the consciousness of the decisions makers, and
(2) such a program would go against the materialist interests of the controlling predatory capitalist power brokers and power mongers.

Implications for Subsequent Material
The principles underlying this parable will be found to describe much of the controlling dynamics of today's organizational behavior and politics. Because of the Spiritual nature of the dynamic underlying this problem, no solely intellectual approach to such a problem will provide a viable and stable solution. Only Spiritually informed alternatives to approaching these kinds of problems have a chance to succeed as will be shown in the final section of OT/MP.

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The Master Power Broker and His Victims in Four Scenes

This is a story that illustrates how we choose to invest the Spiritual potential of our lives in the pursuit of worldly goals and values, and the ultimate Spiritual cost to us of such unfortunate investments.

the story illustrates how negotiations are managed within the Maslow hierarchy of needs.  These are needs arranged in a series from highest to least priority. This sequence first favors basic survival and security, then through ego related needs (affirmation, belonging,) to intellectual stimulation, entertainment and finally an ultimate Spiritual transcendence Maslow called "self actualization."  NOTE
the "bag of gold" is our life, with all its potential and possibilities for Spiritual unfoldment, provided we can recognize and avoid the worldly traps of the senses that otherwise divert this wealth.
The "oasis" is the optimal worldly (material) conditions in which one can hope to live.  It is the ideal platform from which to devote one's life solely to Spiritual goals, but there is a paradox.  The paradox is that the very conditions that are optimum for worldly survival and pleasure are the most potent barriers that distract and divert us from achieving our Spiritual awakening.
each person must begin life and apply his bag of gold (his life) to the conditions in which he finds himself
each scene represents a set of conditions that defines a progressively higher point on the hierarchy of needs.
the wizard recognizes that each individual "victim" must deal with the dominate circumstances in which he finds himself.   The subsistence bound victim wants only to live, a goal that he must quickly devote his entire life to fulfill.  At higher levels of worldly advantage, the victim must transcend his entrapment in these worldly benefits to recognize the ultimate and permanent power of Spiritual Illumination. When they do not, they are forced to accept the worldly punishment that follows from their decisions.

[NOTE: the premise here is another constant theme of OT/MP.  We are not punished for our bad choices and actions [sins] by some overriding Power.  Rather, we are punished by our bad choices and actions as a natural consequence of those choices in accordance with the LAW, i.e., Reality (Spiritual Truth.)  The power to succeed or fail only lies within ourselves, and the effectiveness of that power is dependent on being informed by a Spiritual Consciousness.]

the victim who has every material advantage is nevertheless unable to make the leap of C/consciousness required for him to achieve an ultimate state of good.  He fails to recognize that the wizard has presented him an opportunity to transcend the very realm of his worldly distress to a higher platform of Spiritually grounded Consciousness.  [Scripture]  The power of this paradox explains why the evolution of human Spiritual Consciousness has been so slow and painful.

Applications in "The World"

we are confronted on almost a daily basis, and especially at key points in our life, with numerous diversions that compete for our personal "bag of gold."  They are presented to us by our personal "wizard," our ego's yearnings for material and political largess.   Most of us have spent most of our lives expressing and pursing some form of the world's allure to gain our measure of  wealth, power and control.
an examination of the lives of exceptionally Spiritual people will show how they can both live in the world, yet transcend its allure, e.g., the former Beatle, George Harrison (who died November 30, 2001,) Mother Theresa, and other innumerable examples whose Spiritual gifts often remain invisible to society. [See especially, Sorokin, 1967]

Implications for Subsequent Material
The antidote to avoid remaining a victim to Spiritual impoverishment for our entire lives begins with the management of Spiritual influences in children.  The Spiritual dynamics of Karma will be found to relate to various influences on our DSE processes and how we spend our "bag of gold." [in dialogue 6]

For adults, the antidote requires an intentional regression to their childhood consciousness of innocent trust in order to permit their Spiritual Consciousness to be shocked into awareness because it was not nurtured in childhood. [ref Mat 18: 1-5]   Proposals for creating these influences in systematic ways will be offered in the applications section.  Conflict resolution and negotiation through mediation [can be found as a separate training component of OT/MP] is a Spiritually grounded healing (win-win) alternative to litigation (win-lose.)  Mediation is one such example of how Love can be made visible among conflicted individuals, groups, organizations, and even nations.  Success in the art of mediation is a Spiritual achievement that is independent of one's technical skill in managing the process.

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The PBPMSPS Specialty Pawn Shop

The story illustrates the evolution of society wide power and control as sought after and managed by the various expressions of the power broker/monger. Notice that the dominant forms of power brokering tend to coincide in Principle with the seven lives of Trapper-Guru Job. Each stage defines the means by which personal power is most defined ands expressed.  It changes with the nature of the available resources in each era across the progress of human evolution.

Beginning at the outset of the first "civilized" behavior, we track the evolution of the nature of power's through its various expression's into the current era.  In the manifestations of control over the resources of personal power illustrated below, the first shown begins with the second level of power and control.  The first level is Rambo's one-on-one dominance by direct physical force on the wilderness and any individual rival.

Level two is the first organization of individuals to form a coalition or group under a leader, a Rambo, who can inspire the trust and loyalty of a group. While level 1 relates to the nature of the baboon society [dialogue 2,] this second level includes the presence of the counterbalancing influence of the witch doctor and his/her presumed access to supernatural forces.

the ability to control others begins as direct control through force at its most primal expression, by the laying on of hands. The strongest and most ruthless dominate. You have seen the first expression of this level in humans in the Allegory of the Playpen, and followed its evolution into the board room.
the introduction of indirect control through the use of language abstractions and images to manage fear, (e.g., use of witchcraft) is next. This application of personal power first arises when it is discovered that even the strongest can be subdued by the right kind and amount of fear.  The witch doctor and the Rambo then learn to co-exist after establishing a balance of intimidation. [Re Ayn Rand, 1981]
humanity next learns to manage and project power over even the strongest individual by extending their personal power through their personal control of groups and organizations.  These are then comprised of coalitions of loyalists in the population who act as resident witch doctors, priests, and warriors.

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then come more abstract and sophisticated means of projecting personal power:
        *    there arise formal organizations of institutionalized fear and intimidation (religious inquisitions); then
        *    through appeal to greed (technological extensions and commerce); then
        *    application of  technology to mechanize and empower armies of control and oppression; then
        *    governments that integrate commerce and information resources; then
        *    control over the data and information resources that have become the "nervous system" of the society as
              these directs the "brains" of modern industry, commerce and government [Beer, 1982.] and finally
        *    use of government to integrate industrialized commerce with the state to empower military coercion and conquest; then
        *    control over the enforcers of society to impose an ultimate autocracy on the society itself.
Corporate domination of our information sources are already becoming a threat to the capacity of our citizenry to be informed by data and information beyond the media's exploitive sensationalism of secular events and tragedies.
toward the end of this progress of materialist exploitation, there finally arises the first vestiges of a functional Spirituality that are harbingers of a coming quantum leap beyond human material consciousness. From that vantage point, it becomes possible to recognize one's limits and the costs of error. Then humanity begins to acknowledge, value, and promote harmony as a standard to measure the quality of human life. But this status is only reached by means of commonly understood, accepted and shared Spiritual Principles. These Principles are common to all of Spiritually awakened humanity, regardless of sectarian religions, or regardless what other material divisions may exist.

Applications in "The World:"

the emergence of Love and its Spiritual Principles has been received by the same contempt expressed by the power mongers in the major allegory you will find as the concluding Epilogue to OT/MP. Of course this contempt appears much more subdued, subtle, and disguised in its manifestations.  This is because insufficient credibility currently exits to define the growing presence of Love and compassion as a real threat to the materialist controllers of society.

Most of us, as children, have already experienced this dynamic.  Recall the the treatment of a child by his/her peers when such a child insists on study, expressing music and art, and lives in compliance with the rules defined by higher Principles. Recall how they are mocked, threatened and humiliated by their peer group, sometimes even harmed. Those outside of Spiritual Consciousness will limit the definition of Love in terms of its erotic sexual and romantic history. Evidence of their fear is found today in such contemptible references to Loving and compassionate persons as "bleeding hearts," "losers," and "whiners."  Those who are strangers to Spiritual Truth revel in their emotional castigation of political and economic liberal agendas. They express themselves by the use clichés that are easily accepted by an equally unawakened public.

The most dangerous period for human survival is about to occur when the power monger networks and their controllers recognize any serious threat to their status. They are devoid of the capacity to understand these events in a Spiritual context, let alone see its benefits, or its essential positive relevance to their future.  Accordingly they act to ruthlessly repress or destroy every evidence of emergent Spiritual Truth.
Love does not conquer by force or intimidation.  Instead Love seeps into the C/consciousness of individuals who are born to serve the role of Builders, those who are destined to become implementers of Spiritual Truth.  Love can also reach into those who have suffered traumatic assaults on the bodies or psyches in ways that empower them to transcend their vulnerability to PTSD.  Instead they transform their destructive experiences to transcend their material bondage to such experiences [Sorokin, 1967; Frankel, 1963].  They too rise to serve effectively as Builders, as active agents to demonstrate the power of applied Love.

Implications for Subsequent Material:
A current opportunity exists for those who have grasped the significance of the MP, either from this forum or others, and who find themselves in a position to be implementers of aspects of "Love made visible" in their current social roles.  This will include teachers, business persons, politicians, bureaucrats, enforcers (police and military,) some populist social activists, some clergy, and even lawyers.

The Phase II section of OT/MP on "Implementation" will provide examples of how the new implementers, the Builders, can function within key social networks.  These networks include contemporary systems such as schools, electoral functions, government, and journalistic networks, criminal "rehabilitation", and the justice system among others. Emergent activists and their populist and progressive networks include use of the Internet, and special activist coalitions.  These reflect a diversity of backgrounds and goals. They include students and other social groups. But these will share in common that they are defined and empowered by an awakening Spiritual Consciousness.  From this platform of Spiritually directed insight and compassion, they remain committed to achieving that goals of widespread economic, political and other expressions of social reform.

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