Open Letter to Media 16-6-10 : BP, The Pope and patterns of behaviour

To whom in may concern,

It has been written that the human brain is exceedingly good at observing and discerning patterns. It’s long been 
assumed that this ability is an evolutionary trait, one that supports our ability to thrive, as part of the natural biota of Earth.

I have been observing a pattern throughout my life, and wonder, am I the only one to have observed this pattern? If so, that would make me quite unique, or possibly insane.

If not, then, given that the pattern exists, the question of the sanity of a great number of people arises. People who should know better. People in whom the public trust is placed. 

The pattern I observe concerns the following generic : an incident, or incidents occur in which serious actual harm is caused as a result of the decisions made and actions perpetrated by highly functioning organisations, such as Governments, Churches, Corporations and their leaderships, followed swiftly by denial, spin, obfuscation, and protracted obstruction of serious investigation and/or application of the Law, both National and International.

This pattern can be observed amongst the following : The Canadian Residential School System, The Irish Residential School System, The Aboriginal Australian Residential School System, The Afghan War, The Iraq Wars, The Cuban Sanctions, The Gaza Blockade, The Tobacco Companies denial of the Harm caused by Tobacco, The Bombing of Cambodia, The Oil Blow-out in The Gulf of Mexico. This list is by no means exclusive. I offer it up to give a flavour of the level of harm, the nature of the Organisations and the near ubiquity of this pattern.

Ever since the Blow-out on Deepwater Horizon this April, Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP has been less than candid with regard to this very serious incident. 

It is clear that from the outset, Tony Hayward, and those who advise him and work with him, were more concerned with protecting some inane concept linked to the image and status of BP, (much in the same manner that the current Pope and his colleagues were and remain primarily concerned with protecting the image and status of The Vatican) than in either resolving the situation and/or limiting the harm, never mind being openly truthful as the issues arose.

A pattern observed can lead to a number of conclusions. Depending upon the observers perspective and honesty. So here goes.

If these patterns are to do with healthy thrivival, or even mere survival, as the evolutionary psychologists would have us believe, then it is clear from the above examples that the survival of the Organisation takes priority over all other considerations, including the costs in lives lost and trauma caused to living organisms, be they human or non-human, and with that priority over the damage to the habitat from which we human beings have emerged. 

This is the hidden demon lurking within Richard Dawkins ‘selfish gene’ concept. 

At some point pattern this will inevitably become a liability for the human species, if not for ALL species for all time, because Organisations and Institutions ARE not biological, living entities nor are they adaptations of evolutionary processes. They are artificial structures, imposed by force, upon living processes. 

Given that this IS the case, the pattern of behaviour of Tony Hayward, The Pope and many, many others who occupy ‘leadership’ positions, and indeed populate Institutions at all levels, must be questioned, minutely observed, and ultimately understood to be a real and present danger. Anti-social is too weak a term. Socio-pathic just covers relations within the human dimension. These behaviours are anti-life. The pattern observed is an anti-life pattern. 

The Gulf of Mexico ‘OIL SPILL’ is NOT an ‘accident’. It is the tragic result of an economics based decision making process. It is part of a pattern of negative, environmentally and socially dysfunctional behaviours. 

It is incumbent on all those who have access to the public discourse to engage in the process of honestly appraising these behaviours and of sharing what is known by way of realisable resolution.

This letter is of course addressed to the worlds ‘respected’ media. You have a responsibility, as human beings, as brothers and sisters, as fathers and mothers, as relatives of all life, and you have the means to meet that responsibility. 


Kindest regards 

Corneilius 

 Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

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The biological processes involved in the Origins of Love & Violence are no longer a mystery

And if it's all new to you, I suggest this stunning piece of research as a starting point... unless one gets to the core root, then all attempts at making a healthy change WILL FAIL.

An Introduction by Michael Mendizza (from : http://www.ttfuture.org/authors/jwprescott )

A baby's developing body and brain mirror and reflect, lifelong, the emotional-sensory environment provided by its first primary relationship, that is with its mother.

The Origins of Love & Violence (please see below) take root in this first, primary sensory environment.

What we call "affectional bonding" or nurturing, or its absence-- very early in life--structures the developing brain to interpret the world and its relationships as peaceful, pleasurable and loving or hostile, painful and violent depending on trust or anxiety experienced in this first relationship.

The biological processes involved in the Origins of Love & Violence are no longer a mystery.

During pregnancy a mother's body provides the sensory stimulation; the taste, touch, smell, sight, sound, and the pleasure or pain associated with these sensations that shape her baby's brain.

The state of the mother's own body, in relationship to her environment, safe and nurturing, or unsafe and anxious, is mirrored in the baby's developing brain and nervous system.

If mother feels safe and is herself nurtured, her baby's brain, with its creative capacities, will reap the benefit. If mother feels unloved or unsupported, is threatened, anxious, and fearful, nature will give greater emphasis to her baby's ancient core brain, with its defensive and survival systems, at the expense of evolution's newer creative capacities.





http://www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/article.html

Read it, share it..............



also this essay which draws together the most advanced research into this most crucial issue....






http://dwylcorneilius.blogspot.com/2010/04/empathy-biological-imperative.html


What you DON'T hear from the various voices such as Alex Jones, Noam Chomksy, David Ike, The Pope, Obama, Dalai Lama, etc etc are the VOICES OF THE CHILDREN... why is this?

What is likely is that YOU don't recall the detail of your childhood.

This is the missing data that is being ignored.

Kindest regards

 Corneilius

 Do what you love, it's your gift to universe



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Some thoughts on Sensationalist 'teachers' ..... and the truth that evil is banal, everyday, and not at all exciting.

I know the History of The Vatican, going back to when the first 'Official Christian' Church were 'allowed' in Rome - it was immediately co-opted by the system, and every church since then has also been co-opted, often willingly - the truth about Official Christianity, and Judaism from which it sprang, (along with Bhuddism, Taoism, HInduism etc etc) is that they have ever been about control, profit, power - and the only assured way of keeping all these three is to abuse people into compliance; those that refuse are murdered.

It constantly surprises me when people 'discover' what is well known by those who survive ....

It's not as though any of this info is hidden, or even obscure.

Jordan Maxwell and others like him are effectively jumping on the bandwagon, as are many 'teachers'... who promote fear rather than courage and clarity.... whose books do well, whose shows do well etc etc... all the while the survivors work pretty much on their own.....

None of them ever talk about their own experiences as children, the primary dataset of any survivor.

Lots of people, an I used to be one of them, are fascinated by this kind of info, the boogie man.... Evil is banal, normal, basic and not at all exciting... and I wanted to avoid that experience of evil in my own life....

But hey, most people think children are not naturally intelligent, (that they need to be taught) not naturally creative (they can be trained or some few are 'talented') and need to be told what to do, (or they'll go wild! ) and most parents see their children as extensions of themselves, and most people think slapping a child is ok.

Mist people in this society think human beings are the most intelligent form of life on Earth. 

Pure Bigotry.

Most people have NEVER done an honest appraisal of their childhood experiences. Not their fault, it's just that in an abuse dynamic it pays to avoid certain truths...

Most people have no understanding that the worst of the abuse is but part of a spectrum of abuse behaviours, and that without the gentle abuse that is all but invisible, that is 'accepted' behaviour, the worst cannot sustain.

I suggest reading some Alice Miller and some decent anthropology, especially first contact stuff to get a better picture...

Start here : 

Prescott, Violence and the Mother Child Bond


Hunter Gatherer Parenting, Children, trust and learning... 2 parts 



Alice Miller : 


You might feel I am taking a stern tone here, .... but if you really want to help Hollie Grieg, and other survivors of child abuse like her, (and there are far more than you would like to believe) you HAVE to understand the depth of this issue, you must do the work required, (some of it quite personal) and not fall for the sensationalisation that is currently a massive part of those campaigns... that sensationalisation is part of the protective shield that people are using to avoid looking into their own dynamics as part of this abusive society, and is why so many are trying to 'fix' things....

And the secrets hidden in each of our own personal dynamics are absolutely key to breaking the cycles - only the FULL truth can set each of us free enough to NEVER be co-opted by abusers in any form, be it gentle or severe.

Keep in touch.... make it less exciting and more banal, and then face the truth with courage and determination .. this is a long, long walk we are taking. 

Best be fully prepared.


Kindest regards 

 Corneilius 

 Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

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Empathy and the failure of Ethics and Morality

A recent discussion held into the wee hours with a good friend brought out a few insights for both of us. We were chatting about parenting. And society.

We spoke of empathy and of ethics. We looked at why ethical committees of every kind routinely fail to stem the tide of abuse, corruption and other blatantly destructive behaviours.

The failure of ethics in western civilisation is perhaps definitive of western civilisation.

What are ethics?

Wikipedia describes Ethics as follows…

"Ethics (also known as moral philosophy) is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and bad, noble and ignoble, right and wrong, justice, and virtue.

Major branches of ethics include:
          meta-ethics, about the theoretical meaning and reference of moral propositions and how theirtruth-values (if any) may be determined;
          normative ethics, about the practical means of determining a moral course of action;
          applied ethics, about how moral outcomes can be achieved in specific situations;
          moral psychology, about how moral capacity or moral agency develops and what its nature is; and
          descriptive ethics, about what moral values people actually abide by.
Within each of these branches are many different schools of thought and still further sub-fields of study."

The key in this description is the issue of MORALS.

Wikipedia describes MORALS as follows …

"Morality (from the Latin moralities "manner, character, proper behavior") is a system of conduct and ethics that is virtuous. Morality has three principal meanings.
In its "descriptive" sense, morality refers to personal or cultural values, codes of conduct or social mores that distinguish between right and wrong in the human society. Describing morality in this way is not making a claim about what is objectively right or wrong, but only referring to what is considered right or wrong by people. For the most part right and wrong acts are classified as such because they are thought to cause benefit or harm, but it is possible that many moral beliefs are based on prejudice, ignorance or even hatred. This sense of term is also addressed by descriptive ethics."

That last line is crucial. Moral beliefs are based on prejudice, ignorance or even hatred … they leave out fear (which drives all three of those definitions) and of course what they are really talking about are BELIEF systems.

I have long made a profound distinction between 'beliefs' and 'knowledge'; the former is mental, the latter experiential; an easy analogy is thus : living in the wild, a belief about where or what is food can get you killed, knowledge will ALWAYS feed you.

Likewise we all KNOW when a 'wrong' has been committed, as any infant will quickly inform you. The truth of it is felt first, then thought about. Or not.

Natural Creatures live in knowledge and they thrive. It is obvious that the natural world KNOWS what it is doing, though that knowing is perhaps quite different from the current definition of knowledge made by ‘civilisation’. The Acorn KNOWS how to become the Oak Tree. The rain forest knows many things, from how to create rain, to how to build topsoil, filter water and share ‘resources’ so that all benefit. And it’s obvious that none of this could possibly be the outcome of a series of mechanistic ‘programmes’. The levels of precision that pertain to natural living process are far too intense for mere mechanics.

What is absolutely certain is that vast parts of the human species, mostly those who live in or around what is known as ‘civilisation’ currently live in belief, and that civilisation accepts only one form of knowledge as being valid – the reduced knowledge of science, and that part of the human species, while many, (24% of all adults uses anti-depressants at one time or another) do not thrive, but merely survive in an atmosphere of fear, be they wealthy or impoverished. Faith is common place. Empathy is rare.

Experiential knowledge is routinely ignored. Tony Blair and George Bush, and many, many hundreds of thousands of people worked together to launch the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, in full knowledge of the possible consequences for the people who live in those countries. The imposition of IMF policies around the world is another example. The BP Oil spill currently destroying the Gulf of Mexico is another… Empathy has no place in these activities.

That civilisations and hierarchies tend towards morality as a system, an externally imposed set of rules is the norm, the base. Indeed all civilised religious belief systems outline in some detail a range of restrictions that are supposed to be guides in moral behaviour, and while certain commonalities exist, such as ‘thou shalt not kill’ and ‘honour thy mother and thy father’, there are massive variations, which fall under the cloak of ‘cultural differences’ and which while they are protected by the concept of ‘multi-culturalism’ or ‘free speech’ or ‘religious freedom’ actually work to divide people along cultural lines – what is accepted in one culture is maligned in another.

Likewise Secular Law is divided into what is called ‘common law’ and ‘statuary law’, or ‘civil law’ and ‘criminal law’ and there’s a further division under the guise of ‘contract law’. And there are hundreds of thousands of pages of detailed definitive law concerning how citizens in any state are to be controlled, managed and the affairs of local and national governance conducted.

Nowhere in any of these is the word empathy used. Thus ethics in business, law and religion are most often devoid a discussion of the fundamental quality of empathy, a quality that emerges from within the very biology of life. I have written of this before, so there is little to add other than empathy is a bio-logical imperative. Well actually, there is. It can’t be stated often enough that empathy is, amongst many things, not least the ability to feel ‘into’ the world in ways that enable a thorough comprehension of what it is that is being felt into – a form of observation of reality that pertains to every cell, a reading of the habitat and all that is in it.

To fully sense the ‘other’ in human terms, to feel what the other might be feeling, not merely to ‘understand’ it as an intellectual exercise and to be able to respond appropriately is the core of mother-child bond.

The baby in the womb lives in an empathetically direct connection with his or her mother, and this is a two way communication that operates at the biological level as much as the conscious level. For that link to be conscious, the mother herself has to be aware of that link and attuned to it. For that link to survive birth, the child-mother bond must absolutely not be broken, and must be retained throughout infancy… mere ‘care’ does not suffice, for the infant feels the fact of the missing empathy, and the developing neural pathways of empathy do not grow.

Another way to look at this is to understand that an empathetic parent cannot strike a child not because she or he knows it is worn, but because he or she ‘feels’ the impact of the blow upon the child even as the thought arises, as though they themselves were being hit. And chooses then to engage with the child, as one would with another person of equal standing…

When an a baby or infant is left to cry, he or she is learning that their gurgling communications will not be understood or empathetically felt and therefore not responded to, and so learns to cry to alert the parent to his or her need as the only means left. The same applies to all dysfunctional childhood behaviours – they are the learning’s that arise from un-empathetic parenting.

Parents whose own childhood experience they have forgotten, who have themselves been left to cry (as has been, and remains, common in many civilised and religious communities) find this crying distressing, not because of what their children are experiencing, but because the wounding’s they have forgotten are being stimulated again. And so they seek to control the child to protect themselves. This is a dynamic that pertains to society, to governance and to all controlling behaviours. This dynamic is of course rationalised as being ‘for your own good’.

Many people will attest that the beatings they received as children did them no real lasting harm.

The truth is that within civilisation and most of not all organised religions that link is broken, damaged, avoided and lost. Someone somewhere intended that break, that loss. Someone somewhere sees some personal benefit in ensuring that that loss is near permanent.

And that is the loss of empathy, a lost that ethics alone cannot counter. This is why ethics fails to deliver.

This is all carefully masked by the way people, as infants and children, and then as adults are forced to ‘adapt’ to this dysfunctional state, by the rationalisations of Organised Religions, Civilisations Institutions, Economics and Science and by the need to ‘survive’ in a coercive world, where food, shelter and the basics of life are denied all those who for whatever reason do not work for the ‘economy’.

Adapt or die out is the message to all the indigenous peoples who live on, within the land. The history is clear on this, and the practice exists today, and is in full flow.  Adapt or die is the message to the natural child. That is what Ritalin says to children who resist the imposed hypocrisy of their parents and the State Schooling system. Ritalin and SATS replace violence as a means of behaviour modification.

The result is the same either way. Damaged children. Some, who show the symptoms, and are ‘diagnosed’, and the others who mask the symptoms and successfully conform. And work for the ‘economy’.

That lack of empathy inhere’s in much of what even avowedly ‘good’ people are led believe – for many religions, those outside of their particular belief system are condemned, and thus even good honest people will routinely act in destructive ways. Even good people support the troops. Some of the troops are good people too. But that should in no way be used to excuse them from the consequences, the truth of what they are engaged in.

We must begin to return to empathy as a primary source of information about HOW to live together, with each other as people and with all of nature as equally living beings if we are to thread a path towards a sustainable human existence on Earth.


Kindest regards Corneilius 

 Do what you love, it's your gift to universe



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Empathy, Truth and Power - Nature, Church and State

Empathy and Power are two mutually exclusive realities. The exercise of power over others destroys innate empathy, transforming it at best to sympathy (charidee) and at worst it becomes  a form of 'intelligence' gathering, the kind sociopaths engage in order to exert greater control over those they seek to control. They call it knowing your adversaries 'weaknesses'. 


The recent elections in the UK are an example of that lack of empathy, in that the Illegal war in Iraq and Afghanistan is not an election issue, nor is the bail-out of the irresponsibly greedy investment bankers.

The 'deficit is however a very important issue because all parties are agreed on one thing: the debt or deficit MUST be paid, and it will be paid by the ordinary citizen!

Another example is the Roman Catholic Church's response to the witnessing of so many traumatised people, survivors of a world wide Institutional system of Residential Schools, a system that was and remains Policy; as was the landing of three Black Hawk helicopters of the US 7th Calvary on the sacred burial grounds of Wounded Knee last week. The same 7th Calvary that slaughtered 350 unarmed men, women and children and had the temerity to call that bloody event a 'battle' worthy of a battle pennant. The landing was touted as a 'peace offering'. 

Think on the reaction were some Germans to do something similar, and drive a few tanks into Treblinka by way of an apology!

If anything defines this 'civilisation' it is the almost complete lack of empathy more than any other single factor.

Canadian Oil Company, Talisman Energy, is currently attempting to invade the lands of the Achuar people, to exploit the 'resources' that lie under their land, land they have lived on, and eaten of, for tens of thousands of years. They are wedded to the land in ways few 'civilised' people understand. Talisman will utterly destroy that  relationship, and is supported by the Columbian State, a state that is also 'advised' by Tony Blair, who also 'advises' JP Morgan, UBS and Israel and the Palestinian People. Tony Blair is a Roman Catholic convert, a man who placed his hand on his heart at the Chilcott Iraq Inquiry earlier this year, and told the world that he sincerely 'believed' that the Invasion of Iraq, which was proven to be illegal, was the 'right thing to do.'

His lack of empathy for the 1.3 million Iraqis who have died violently, the millions of Iraqi orphans, the hundreds of thousands of seriously maimed children apparently makes him a good candidate to advise states and huge multinational banking corporations.

As regards the sociopathic gathering of intelligence, marketing targeting infants and young children is but one example. 

Another is the vast dataset of first contact writings that described the indigenous peoples who lived in and on the lands taken for the Church and various States over the past 600 years or so. The data shows that the vast majority were egalitarian, peaceful, stable societies. Those who recorded their observations, for the most part honestly, were not fully aware of the use to which those works would be put.

The history reveals the intent. That intent is proven by the ways in which the Australian, Canadian, Thai, North American, Columbian and many other Governments are treating the first peoples of those lands those States lay claim to, even today,even as I write people are being killed for 'progress' and 'souls are being saved'. Indeed.

The rationalisation that converts 'virgin' territories  into 'leases' for exploration, mining and development is one of many rationalisations of absolutely irrational behaviour - the destruction of life for profit. 

Residential Schools, Magdalene Launderies, Uranium Mining, People Trafficking, Cocaine, Heroin, Tea, Coffee, Sugar, Ritalin, Lockheed, Mossad are all part of the same pattern of destroying life for profit.

Here's a very fine article on the History of Debt.



"Debt: The first five thousand years by David Graeber
Throughout its 5000 year history, debt has always involved institutions – whether Mesopotamian sacred kingship, Mosaic jubilees, Sharia or Canon Law – that place controls on debt’s potentially catastrophic social consequences. It is only in the current era, writes anthropologist David Graeber, that we have begun to see the creation of the first effective planetary administrative system largely in order to protect the interests of creditors.
What follows is a fragment of a much larger project of research on debt and debt money in human history. The first and overwhelming conclusion of this project is that in studying economic history, we tend to systematically ignore the role of violence, the absolutely central role of war and slavery in creating and shaping the basic institutions of what we now call “the economy”. What’s more, origins matter. The violence may be invisible, but it remains inscribed in the very logic of our economic common sense, in the apparently self-evident nature of institutions that simply would never and could never exist outside of the monopoly of violence – but also, the systematic threat of violence – maintained by the contemporary state.


Let me start with the institution of slavery, whose role, I think, is key. In most times and places..........."

Read it, it's easy enough to understand. Debt and Violence are lovers, entwined and inextricably linked. He ends with a positive note. I agree. It's not all bad, though it is pretty ugly in most places...

The truth is out - when people who have been isolated can come together, and share their stories, they begin to form a dataset that cannot be denied. This is what the Catholic Church Residential School revelations are showing. Witness reports are reliable, when they can be verified, as they are. Mainstream Society cannot ignore these data, without becoming complicit.


The isolation of the individual is Societies condom, protecting Society from it's most feared STD : solid truth disclosure.

I have a song about this : here

Tell the truth, YOUR truth; that's how you start to bring the system of power down.



Kindest regards 

Corneilius 

 Do what you love, it's your gift to universe







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Empathy : a biological imperative.


Borage Flower, my garden, a haven of careless nurture

Empathy : Standard Definitions


The English word is derived from the Greek word ἐμπάθεια (empatheia), "physical affection, passion, partiality" which comes from ἐν (en), "in, at" + πάθος (pathos), "passion" or "suffering".

The term was adapted by Rudolf Lotz to create the German word Einfühlung ("feeling into") from which the English term is then more directly derived

Wynn Schwartz defines it thus: We recognize others as empathic when we feel that they have accurately acted on or somehow acknowledged in stated or unstated fashion our values or motivations, our knowledge, and our skills or competence, but especially as they appear to recognize the significance of our actions in a manner that we can tolerate their being recognized.

Most definitions express empathy in Anthropomorphic terms, limiting the word to a given cultural assumption.

I intend to extend those definitions to define empathy as a core biological function that enables a level of precision that for most of us is almost unimaginable.
 



Biological Communication and Precision

Firstly we must to look at how cells communicate. The biology of intra-cellular and inter cellular communication operates from the atomic and ionic level upwards; that is to say at the frequency wavelength of any given atom with a variation of one electron, plus or minus.

It is clear from current scientific observation that all cells communicate; that all cells examine their immediate and distal habitats, gathering information and then acting on that information.

It is also clear that all cellular movement creates an electromagnetic pulse that is strongest closest to the cell, yet extends indefinitely as does a radio signal, getting weaker as it travels. The particular signal appears weaker as other signals, including any background ‘noise’ crowd it out.

Arrays of cells can detect what appear to us to be extremely tiny variations within the electromagnetic spectrum, by a process of averaging the combined signals from each cell, and by stochastic resonance, can use the background ‘noise’ to amplify the minute signal they are looking for.

And example is the sensitivity of the arrays of cells that run the length of a sharks side, that detect electrical energy.

If one took a 1.5 volt battery and place one terminal at the East coast of the Atlantic, and another at the West coast of the Atlantic, the shark would be capable of detecting that signal!

Bacteria exhibit a similar capability, which is extended as they gather in larger and larger self organising groups.

There are many, many examples of this level of precision in nature. In fact, given that natural living processes are built from the ‘grass-roots’, that is to say that minute bacteria are the fundamental building and metabolising agents of all living processes, we can begin to comprehend somewhat the amazing hidden universe of the communications and responses of the myriad of living organisms in any one habitat such as a forest or river or ocean; and even within one larger physical body, such as a grass plant, a tree, an animal of any kind which is a essentially collection of self organised organs all of which work together.
 



The Human Being : a self organised bag of bacteria

For the human being, we understand now that our bodies are composed of approximately 1 trillion human cells. There are a further 90 trillion bacterial cells that co-habit within and around the human being. These cells are absolutely vital to the functionality and health of the human being. They are of course invisible to the eye. It is possible to state with some certainty that while the framework might appear human, the organism is bacterial.

Thus Empathy as a biological imperative means for me that I can to certain degree comprehend the fundamental dynamics of natural living processes that increase fecundity and generate abundance for all life – it is the innate and intrinsic ability to ‘feel into’ the habitat and all that dwell there to elicit information that is pertinent to the living processes themselves in terms of how they thrive, how they maintain a dynamic equilibrium within a constantly changing environment.

With regard to the human being, research clearly shows that there are two main poles or modes of human society – the egalitarian and the hierarchical, and that the egalitarian has been the predominant mode for most of our existence on Earth.

This makes sense to me, in that there is no proven, discernible hierarchy in the natural world.

Self organisation is the primary mode, involving co-operation from minute to macro habitats. So it is with our bodies. The western concept of ‘mind’ does not operate the body. We call it ‘automatic’ a mechanistic attribution. From what I have written above, it is clear that it is far from being ‘automatic’, rather it is the result of trillions of cells engaged in exploration, communication, and responsive action.

Furthermore the collective conscious intelligence of the bag of bacteria can be sensed by an individual if she or he choses to ‘lose his or her mind’, to set aside that acculturated sense of identity and to experience that range of sensings that emerge into awareness as a result.

Now I would like to look at empathy as a human attribute within the human societal context.
 



The Empathetic Human Being : The Natural Child

A child gestates for 9 months, living inside his or her mother, as part of her, and is directly linked into her entire being – and lives in absolute empathy with the mother. Twins display an a profound level of empathy, and that emerges from their ‘living together’ in the womb. How could it be otherwise. Their cells are entraining, growing together at the same time.

We know from biochemistry that any chemicals the mother is exposed to are amplified by 100 times when they reach the developing child. This effect was discovered primarily through research into the effects of toxic chemicals such as DDT etc. which are now found in breast milk and in the foetus of most people on Earth, certainly ALL of those born to ‘civilisation’.

We know that the brain development of the baby within the womb is intense, that the growth and organisation of the brain is extraordinarily rapid and complex, and that learning occurs, that is to say that experience within the womb is written into the developing neural structures,

On birth, the baby moves from this deeply connected state, to one of disconnection, of separation.

It is crucial to understand that the new born baby has twice as many neurons in his or her brain as an adult, and that the learning process that writes neural pathways already underway in the womb, is geared for a rapid increase immediately on birth, and that this learning is experiential.

The first learning’s are to do with developing appropriate empathetic neural pathways for life outside the womb.
 



Egalitarian Biology

In egalitarian societies the mother-child bond is retained as a primary focus from birth onwards, and extends throughout childhood, albeit modulating as the child grows and becomes independent. Thus the child is not separated from the mother, breast feeding is extended, skin to skin contact is maintained. The smells, sounds, movements, sights, tastes and other sensing’s all contribute to the development of appropriate neural pathways. A secure and happy child-mother bond results in hormonal cascades originating from the heart that increase the ability to make connections, to write neural pathways, in effect to learn.

Any stress the child experiences releases cortisol, the fight or flight hormone, which damages the neurons and inhibits the development of the appropriate neural pathways the child requires to complete his or her empathetic learning. Damage or Trauma caused at this stage is relatively difficult to address later on. However there are plenty of examples of children with neural damage in one area of their brain transferring the functions normally assigned to that area, language for example, to another area. This demonstrates the plasticity of the brain and of the child’s learning process, given the appropriate nurturing and environment. Recovery is possible.
 



The Dominant Culture : a product of damaged empathetic neurology

In the current dominant culture, the child-mother bond is broken in many, many ways, and we see a profound lack of empathy distributed across all sectors of society, from the individual to the collective. Teachers who ‘need’ to ‘control’ a classroom; politicians who demonise an ‘enemy’ and orchestrate wars in which innocent people die and are maimed; religions that proscribe certain behaviours; marketing that resolves around stereotype; racism, sexism, ageism, scientific reductionism, vivisection all require a profound lack of empathy. The money system that coerces us all to work for money to buy food produced for profit so as to enrich a tiny percentage of the people above and beyond all others; the hubris of the elites, the discrimination learned in school and amongst the divided poor all depend upon a lack of empathy that is practically hard-wired.

Colonisation is the process of extirpating the natural societies from any given land base, and replacing that lived experience with ‘progress’ … and is an expression of lack of empathy at it’s core; a lack of empathy for the people and for the land itself, from which those people emerge.

The current ‘crisis’ of the Church, that paragon of Virtue, demonstrates such a profound loss of empathy, that even with the evidence in the clear daylight, those who identify with it, both lay and clerical even still seek to assign blame to anything other than the Church itself, and characterise those who are bringing the sordid evidence to light as their ‘enemies’. And so it goes.

As I pointed out above, empathy is the ability to sense or feel into the world within which one is embedded, and is a skill-set that is intrinsic to all cells and all groupings of cells. It is absolutely a bio-logical imperative of all living beings, and extends across species. It is the basis for appropriate behaviours which enable all life to thrive, to sustain life beyond mere ‘survival’.
 



The Natural Child : Natural Society

For a natural human being empathy is a core quality, one that enables an accurate ‘reading’ of the habitat, and indeed of other human beings within one’s community. This ‘reading’ is essential to egalitarian ways of living.

The ability to sense what any action one might think upon might have in terms of repercussions of those subject to that action, in terms of feeling that within oneself, is a far greater driver of healthy behaviour that any set of rules or morals. Indeed, rules and morals emerge from a community that lacks empathy. The anthropological research shows this time and time again.

The ability to include rather than exclude information, to gather the widest possible data-set for any experience though sharing perceptions, observations and other sensing’s as well as stored memories is a crucial to the well being of nature based community.

There are many examples of this behaviour that emerge from groups of living beings working together, from bacteria to ants, bees swarming, flocks of birds in flight, shoals of fish and more. It is likely that this level of empathy, of natural precision inheres in all living processes.

It goes a long way to explain the precision and diversity of nature, without recourse to mechanistic explanations which are both crude and inadequate to the task to describing what transpires in living processes, and are most often the result of projections of a certain mindset onto natural processes.



The Heart as a cognitive, sentient organ of perception


Empathy as described above involves the full range of somata-sensory abilities inherent to the human body, and the primary organ in this regards is the heart, amongst other centers such as the 'gut' and various parts of the body, including the standard sensory organs.

The heart is linked directly to the seat of the brain, the region called the amygdala, and the hippocampus and other areas... by 80,000 single neurons (that is there are no breaks or
synapses between the heart and the brain) and signals from the heart reach the brain for processing before even visual signals - thus much is 'felt' even before it is registered.... This has been 'measured' scientifically and is now proven beyond any doubt.

The heart is an electromagnetic transmitter and receiver, emitting an electromagnetic field that is 5000 times stronger than the brains magnetic field, and that encompasses the entire body and nearby surroundings, with an ever extending range, peaking from the skin to about 8 feet, then trailing off into infinity. The heart receives inputs from that immediate area, and can also focus onto and amplify weaker electromagnetic signals.

The heart regulates the brain and all other parts of the body by releasing hormones known as DHEAs and others. This regulation is crucial to the well being of the physical body, and is undermined by focussing on the brain/mind as the seat of consciousness, which forces the body to entrain to the brain and the concept of mind, which is usually the product of  acculturation, and overlays the natural stasis. The old usage of the heart as in 'heart-felt', 'hearty', 'heart broken'  etc etc suggests that in times past there was an awareness of the locus of consciousness in the heart.



While most of us born into the dominant culture would find it quite difficult be truly precise in noticing and determining incoming signals to the heart from the environment, and from other co-habitants, human and non-human, it is absolutely possible to retrain ourselves to do so, though this does indeed take some time, possibly decades. Nonetheless it is a worthwhile path of self exploration and learning. 


To start this process, one needs only to breath gently into one's heart,  and allow the 'mind' to silence, and to sense the entrainment of the body to the heart. If one is looking for information, one needs only to ask "what or how does this feel?" and to allow all the insights, images, senses that follow just to be, noticing them. The feel of being heart centered is deeply pleasant, and grows with practice. It is extremely beneficial for one's physical health.


For further exploration of heart awareness I suggest the Heart Math Institute and the book "The Secret Teaching of Plants : The intelligence of the Heart in the direct perception of nature" BY Steve Harrod Buhner and googling the term 'heart coherence' and 'HRV + Heart'.  A research paper on Intuition and the role of the heart in processing intuition.

And here's a song to go with this piece, it's called The Heart Song.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

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