Friday, March 20, 2015

It's Never Too Late to Change Your Mind

Beginning Tuesday, April 7th and continuing on Tuesdays in April, May and June (21, 5th and 19th, 2nd) I will be facilitating a teleconference sponsored by the Institute of Metaphysical Science, La Jolla, CA (formerly the Margaret Laird Foundation).  The title for this discussion is Mind is the Bodybuilder.  Anyone interested is invited to participate.  Information on registering is available online: www.scientificmetaphysics.org.

The discussion will center on the insights of Dr. John M. Dorsey, M.D. who met Mrs. Laird in 1966 following an exchange of letters and books.  One of the products of their meeting is a CD recording of an seminar featuring Dr. Dorsey speaking the the Laird students meeting in Evanston, Illinois, as a part of their opening session of a 3 day seminar.  (also available from the IMS)

I plan to use this space to present materials to the teleconference participants, as well as using email to send homework, or exercises for self-observation.  If you don't want to participate in the teleconference but would like the materials I generate for it, send me a note with your email address and I'll add you to the group-mail list.  My email address is rob_craig@hotmail.com.

Below is a sample.

In 1966 Mrs. Laird, a Christian Science teacher, presented "her" Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science insights to Dr. Dorsey, the head of Psychiatry at Wayne State University, Detroit, who presented Mrs. Laird and her students with "his" Freud and Psychoanalysis insights.  Mrs. Laird had evolved quite beyond the sunday school version of Christian Science, after forcing herself to resign her official status therein, and pursuing independent research into scientific metaphysics.

Dr. Dorsey, in 1966 was looking at retirement, and emeritus status after leading the tremendously successful MacGregor Center, a small 33 bed hospital for training medical professionals in humane "psychological medicine."  Dr. Dorsey was in analysis with Sigmund Freud in Vienna for one year of his sabbatical (1935-1937) and for one year with other key psychoanalytic leaders.  His two sons were in school during that time with Anna Freud, daughter of Sigmund Freud, who developed the early theories of childhood development for Psychoanalysis.  Dorsey is one of only five writers who authored a book length account of his time with Freud, which recently has come into the spotlight in a book called Unorthodox Freud.  This book challenges the American psychoanalytic "orthodoxy" and shows how far off from Freud's original insights this movement went.

I have been researching into these two sets of insights for many years now and have found that just looking at the ideas presented creates a dynamic within me that generates new insights into my life and its events.  Not all of these ideas, which I try to consider with open mind, are easy and pleasant.  One of Mrs. Laird's insights which she shares comes from the chapter Crime and Punishment, The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran.

Even like the sun is your god-self;
      It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent.
      But your god-self does not dwell alone in your being.
      Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man,
      But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening.
And of the man in you would I now speak.
      For it is he and not your god-self nor the pigmy in the mist, that knows crime and the punishment of crime.
      Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.
...
the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.
      Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.
      You are the way and the wayfarers.
      And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.
      Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.
      And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts:
      The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder, 
      And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed.

The word, indeed, "lies heavy upon our hearts."  It is the grief of the whole world over against the "pygmy in the mist, searching for its own awakening" -- searching for bigness of Self to see justice where we now see injury.

And so -- a question:  What kind of strength of Self must we cultivate or grow or evolve from within ourselves in order to lift the whole weight of humanity UP and not be those who "though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone."  What "bodybuilding" does Mind make us do, consciously or unconsciously?  What are the signs that we are growing stronger in Self?  Peace, peace, when there is no peace?  Or a fire in the belly?  What is the "Wisdom of Passion"?

A question: what is the difference in your spiritual experience and discipline between depression and tranquility?  Does genuine peace of Mind produce lethargy of living?  Dr. Dorsey titles one of his essays: "Self-consciousness or self-hypnosis."  What are the vital signs of my truly growing and extending and expanding my self-conscious allness, my wide awake living to include my whole world in and as my whole self instead of contracting, narrowing and withdrawing my wonderful self into an ever smaller and smaller interior space which I create for my retreat from my increasingly hostile and unfriendly world?  Dr. Dorsey's opus Illness or Allness puts the demand on every individual to see clearly the true meaning of individuality and in that light to be able to "call my soul my own and my all my soul." Only self-love can save our own lost soul.

Question: What Mind muscles do I need to exercise, use 'em or lose 'em, and what are these Mind muscles?  Insight, inspiration, intuition and instinct all expressions of the awesomeness of being ONE including all - the one divine human being, which both Mrs. Laird and Dr. Dorsey discovered was the deep self living in the depths of their own powerful individuality and hidden by their own inconsistent personality.  How we engage the deep self is unimportant.  That we do and keep doing that with increasing self-conscious honesty and clear-eyed inner vision is the task of the scientific spiritual psychologist (metaphysician).

In 1996, Bill Phillips, president of EAS nutritional supplement company, and a former bodybuilder launched the first "Body for Life" competition to the general public.  It challenged overweight, out of shape men and women to transform their physiques following a strict exercise and nutrition regimen.  It has been popularized by a book by the same name.  Phillip's slogan?  "Change your mind, change your body."

In 2009, Dr. Pamela Peake, M.D. published the book Body for Life for Women, using the successful approach of Bill Phillips' original program.

The only reason I present these two authors and their books here, both of which I've used successfully for my own reference and with my personal training clients, is to tell you that in the Pamela Peake book, is the story and the before and after pictures, of a 76-year old woman.  She started the new exercise program in her wheelchair.  She finished it 12 weeks later running!

It's never too late to change your mind.