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Urrational

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As spirituality is my only reliable source of joy, my rejoinder to the materialists is “Your assertion that spirituality is delusional is like a blind man telling me that art is delusional.” I recognize that is not the most constructive approach, but I have worn myself out trying to puncture their arguments.

The concern is not moot – the self-righteous forces that threaten our civil order are inspired in their loyalty by the spiritual cocoon of acceptance. When told that they are delusional, they are perfectly justified in their rejection of temporal institutions that seek to divorce them from that sustenance. Scientists, in deriding spirituality, are the locus of a great evil in their lives.

Why are the materialists so set in their rejection of spirituality? At root, their complaint is simple: science has no explanation for spiritual experience.  Worse, serious attempts to test telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance have failed. The explanation offered by the spiritualists is that the scientific environment generates “negativity” that blocks their skills.

The unfortunate implication – reflected in my retort above – is that the negativity arises from the experimenters. This pits the rationality of science against mystical faith. It pits humanity’s reason against the better angels of its nature.

When I realized that most of our minds exist in our souls, I identified another rationale. Science is reductionist; it tries to decompose systems into their smallest parts with the goal of learning to control outcomes. Given this practice, if you were a spirit arising through billions of years of effort, would you expose yourself to manipulation? Perhaps an analogy would make the choice obvious: the materialists insist that the brain is the mind. The only way to test this hypothesis, unfortunately, is to map every synapse of the brain, control the chemistry of the cerebral-spinal fluid, and inject a controlled stimulus to determine whether the brain responds as predicted by the material laws of the universe. In other words, the test subject would have to sacrifice their life to science.

Not an appealing prospect, is it?

But there is another possible source of the negativity that disrupts scientific study of spiritual experience. Our religious traditions celebrate the avatar’s protection of the faithful from spiritual torment. In both Buddhism and Christianity, that power is held also by their disciples. Those spirits that profit from our torment, then, have an interest in preventing our ascent to spiritual maturity. The negativity, then, would arise from the spiritual realm. It is a form of gaslighting.

How to puncture this falsehood? I found the answer in this week’s Bible study, in a mysterious passage in Luke 11. Jesus is accused of being in league with demons, and concludes his rebuke with these thoughts:

33 “No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light. 34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness. 35 See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. 36 Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be just as full of light as when a lamp shines its light on you.”

How can light be darkness, for example? This makes no sense.

And then an incident came back to me. I was down in Port Hueneme doing work for the 2020 Census. On that Sunday, the temperatures ran up into the 90s. The front of the house was exposed to the sun, so I took refuge in a slim slice of shade beneath the eave to disrupt a young family preparing to take their children on an outing. The woman stared at me uncertainly, but answered my questions willingly. Finally, as her husband came to the door to shuttle another child into the minivan, she interrupted me, “You know that your eyes are glowing?”

There is so much of this in the New Testament, where the record elides the stage direction. “Jesus’ eyes began to glow.” He was educating the disciples to moral discernment. When someone offers sacred wisdom, they project light into the world. We don’t need to rely upon the judgment of our minds when confronted with moral controversies – we can see who is telling the truth. So be patient with the materialists. Speak your truth with love. They will be confronted with evidence that their science cannot explain. In the union of rationality and love, we shall surpass human limitations and material constraints, bringing healing to the world in their synthesis: urrationality – rationality that penetrates illusions to reveal the heart of existence.

Me, Again

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Two months ago, expecting that I was going to relocate to Redmond, I drove down to the Art Walk in Santa Barbara to say “farewell.” The warmest reception was offered by Ping, who shared his fears that I had been lost to COVID.

That was true, in a backwards sense.

I spent the first twenty years of this millennium trying to pierce the lies propagated by the privileged. In the writings offered here I summarized the insights that have been revealed to me – insights that demonstrate that love is the answer. Those insights were gained in endless hours of study, time that my peers spent in travel and dining and entertainment and sex. From the insights offered by lovers of humanity, I curated here a world view that upends political privilege.

I represent inconvenient truths.

What I realized in 2018 was that employers found those truths intolerable. They could not control my influence. Setting out to beat me down, they found themselves trapped in a paradoxical inversion of power. Continuing even after I had revealed that against their thousands I was responsible for billions, their impotent thrashing corrupted my attempts to project the truth into the world.

I invested in a year-long course in hypnotherapy and spent 2019 justifying its value. The fundamental concerns remained, however, even as my sons graduated from college and embarked on careers that brought them more than I had ever earned. They testify regarding the confusion, willful ignorance, and nihilism of peers trapped in the disaster that looms before humanity.

January 2020 found me in a priest’s office, offering one last time to reveal the sacred perspective, knowing that submission to love was the solution. The prelate’s response was, in effect, “the Church is my God.” My response was direct: “Destruction is the great leveler of hierarchy.” I was overtaken by a compulsion to transmit my understanding of human nature. The message from the ethereal realms was “We are going to receive a large number of traumatized souls, and we need insight to help them heal.” In February, I began writing “The Foundations and Practice of Lay Hypnotherapy.” And in March the world was shut down by COVID.

“Corona” meaning “crown,” the images of the virus, with its spiky projections, evoked the association “crown of thorns.” It was, after all, Eastertime.

Only two readers have studied seriously “Foundations and Practice.” The first, a clinician, testified that it should be read by anyone interested in hypnotherapy as a healing art. The second, a philosopher, said that it was prose poetry. I wrote only what must be written, and the insights, though profound, were overwhelming.

I did, in 2021, attempt to soften the delivery in a series of seminars for students and graduates of the Hypnosis Motivation Institute. The hope was that they would communicate the quality of the transmission to George Kappas, the Institute’s director, and encourage him to create an opportunity to share them more broadly. Under COVID, unfortunately, the direction of the Institute had changed. The wisdom of its founders is being diluted, with pedagogical stewardship handed to psychologists representing traditions that Dr. Kappas had assimilated, integrated, and surpassed back in the 70s and 80s.

Hypnotherapy as a profession, however, was an outlet for healing energies that had been bottled up for so long. I posted here only occasionally.

In dreams, of course, the world continued to intrude. Watching the testimony of the ICU nurses, I reached out to them with an open heart. When their trauma softened in the tears pouring down my face, as I drifted off, I heard the voice of a senior politician announcing, “It’s Brian Balke.” And when Putin extended his will to reclaim Eastern Europe, I warned him “If you invade Ukraine, every explosion, every fire, every bullet piercing flesh, every shriek of pain and fear, in Ukrainian or Russian, will be manifested in your body at the molecular level. If you attempt to destroy Ukraine, you will destroy yourself.” In the months that followed, I gathered the will of the Ukrainian people to isolate him in his dacha.

Fundamentally, though, Putin and Trump and MBS are propped up by the fossil fuel industry, and modern culture is allergic to patterns of behavior that are not dependent upon fossil fuels. Whenever I attempt to discipline the predators, they renew themselves in that reservoir of dependency.

The most malicious, paradoxically, are the particle physicists. The cabal of theorists waits for me to die so that they can assign my insights to Einstein’s heir. I shrug, metaphorically, and say, “Go ahead. For in those insights is proof of the power of love. You cannot help but turn eyes toward the Cross/Bodhi tree/Dao.”

Love is not invested in Law; it invests in possibilities – possibilities that will be liberated from hypocrites that cement their privileges in Law. By this, then, religious and political opportunists are doomed to irrelevance.

Where am I headed? Again, the scope of my concerns expands into elusive spirals. Simply, then: I must leave a record of my work, even if that record appears delusionary. Some, somewhere, and some when, will find the seeds of hope here.

You see, in my most prominent incarnation, my accomplishments were attributed to divinity. That attribution allows humanity to escape its responsibilities. They are not, after all, themselves divine (despite “You are like unto gods, if only you knew.”). So, I came back without privileged knowledge, and spent my life studying love as a psychological, spiritual, and physical phenomenon. The best of that wisdom is captured here, and everything written here can be grasped by those that devote themselves to the service of love.

By way of inspiration, then:

“Let there be light” was the gift of photosynthesis. The sun has been pumping energy into the green things of the earth for billions of years, and in that energy is the ability to create a lens in space that will diffuse the sun’s power and calm the tropospheric violence unleashed by global warming.

Still, the green things have witnessed the coming and going of animals in waves of brutal excess. Humanity, hopefully, is different: we alone have the parts of the mind that recognize and organize unconditional love. Jesus manifested that potential, and in testifying “I am overcome by sorrow nigh unto death,” he spoke for the Garden. The green things want freedom from their constraints. We were meant to be their intelligence, to guide their escape into greater possibilities. Instead, we exploit and pollute, just as our animal predecessors. Why should they allow us influence in their domain?

Hope, then, is found in the children that swing from the cables at the coal loading dock in Australia, that splash paint on the artworks that simulate the glory of the natural world. They have no choice but to seek new choices and, in their desperation, love will find them. Talk to the green things, children. They hunger for your witness, and in that witness is your salvation.

Beaten from the Inside Out

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In Revelation 11, Christ hands John the little scroll, humanity’s portion of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, with the words “It will be sweet in your mouth, but make your stomach bitter.”

This is how sin defeats us. It adorns itself in pleasant expectations, then eats us from the inside out.

Having surrendered myself in the service of love, I expect nothing. But every now and then Sin sends an emissary in human form. I extend my compassion, and it gains a toehold.

When the blasted waste of my father’s brilliance was evident in the collapse of the company founded by my brother, the investor that consumed it sought to turn me to the realization of his dreams. The setting was an insurance information systems conference in Reno. He invited me out to dinner, sharing that his years in the open-cry pit of the NYSE had oriented him to an experience of personal energy that he wanted to share with people through online gambling. Confident in my capacity to create value, I redirected the conversation. As we walked back to the elevators, he offered to stake me at the blackjack tables, saying that he wanted me to know the feeling that comes with winning.

I demurred, and headed back up to my room. That night, I had terrible cramping in my gut, and voided everything that I had eaten. Headaches followed, and I tossed in my bed, unable to sleep. As is my habit, I asked “Where is this coming from?” Absorbing the casino with my mind, I perceived a blue field of energy that was trying to consume me. Returning to the bathroom, a woman’s voice advised, “Let your body do its work.” Squeezing the last contents out of my stomach, the demon was purged.

Recognizing the power of the thoughts carried in my prefrontal cortex, the resistance attacks me through my sinuses. When I become dispirited, I do not maintain my schedule of sinus rinses. My upper sinuses become blocked and the bacteria turn septic.

This was my condition on Thanksgiving. I woke with a headache early in the morning and began the unpleasant drainage, starting with an essential oil rinse. The septic fluid upsets my gut, and violent purges are expected.

But this occasion was worse. A deep part of me was committed to full expulsion. The vomiting continued until only a few tablespoon of yellow paste were produced. Below the appendix, powerful spasms in the colon and abdomen forced everything toward the rectum.

And the images, in this case? Entering through virtuous intentions of our forefathers, having occupied the institutions we inherited: Mnuchin, the profiteer of suffering; Trump, the catalyst of chaos; and Miller, the tormentor of the weak.

You are beaten, boys. Time for you to go.

Turned Off

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I do not subscribe to shame. It is somewhat pitiful, rather, that they need it so badly that they rape me in my dreams.

They have been proud of the control they wield over the President, but the hammer blows fall faster and faster. They try new gambits.

So after the rape, this dream: I am appealing to my sons for financial support, and they ignore me. Flying toward an ancient city, I float over a carpeted field of discards. Drawn below, I tug at the loosened ends of a roll. Two ceramic plates? No, they didn’t like that.

A pause, and I try again. Two tablets. I turn the first one on and the dream shifts. The screen displays the vibrantly-hued pages of a comic book. I look around me. Rich color everywhere.

You see, I cannot see pictures when I dream. They have occupied that part of my mind, and do not let images through.

Am I supposed to be impressed? You have trapped yourself in the avenues of my imagination. I will see visions again, with or without your consent. The question is only whether you will be torn apart in the realization of that eventuality.

So, no, I did not feel obligated by the gift. Rather, I calmly asked, “And just what does this do for the people that I love and serve?”

Sixes and Sevens

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This month Ecstatic Dance LA starts its seventh year. Next month, I start my seventh decade. That could be an a coincidence, but I find an odd meaning in that parallel.

The Hindus chose seven chakras and the Holy Books have seven days of creation. Understood correctly, the two are related. I look back at the last three decades and I see the chakras progressing through the heart (seat of wellness and social trust), throat (seat of social expression), and third eye (seat of personal realization). Looking forward, I pray that my seventh decade will lead to divine manifestation.

In entering its seventh year, Ecstatic Dance LA has no other path forward. Until January, I made the trip down from Ventura twice a month to join you physically on the dance floor. In February, facing financial ruin and suffering from a premonition that disaster was about to befall us, I stopped. It was only a month later that the doors closed and the dance became a virtual experience.

That may be frustrating for many of you, especially those that rely upon physicality to engage reality. The body has its perks, but also pitfalls. Confronting its dominance during the dance, over the years I did my best to raise consciousness. Sometimes the response was grateful; sometimes incredulous; sometimes hostile.

Ecstatic Dance merges personalities through music and movement. Through physical contact, we facilitate that merger, negotiating control and surrender. If Ecstatic Dance is going to survive, we must see beyond the physical metaphor. We must reach up into the divine realm, knocking humbly at the gates of love, and allow it to temper us as we merge in the realm of spirit.

I hope that you will join me there.

Faith

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We are learning to love
We are each other’s teachers
Mistakes are inevitable, and ancient patterns are hard to break
Joy and sorrow are the only signposts, and
The biggest, most painful lie is that we need to be perfect to get to heaven
For love is constantly guiding us to new experiences, and
We cannot learn without making mistakes
Heaven is a place where we don’t have to hide our wounds
But reveal them so that others can have the grace of healing us
For a wound is an opening in the self
A possibility demanding our attention
The hunger of another for love.

Random Acts of Grace

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While the material aspects of existence have been troubling, over the last four months I’ve had sublime experiences in the spiritual realm.

Since starting hypnotherapy full-time in January, the practice has been a financial disaster. I won’t go into the details, except to say that it appears that destiny is testing my commitment. By stretching out my credit cards and pulling down my 401(k), I should be able to make it through to September, at which point I’m going to have to throw myself on the mercy of strangers.

But hypnotherapy is only a metaphor for the greater work, and having freed myself from the projections of anger and greed contingent upon my employment, what emanates from me now stimulates grace-filled events.

When walking to Ecstatic Dance LA on Easter, a drunken youth waiting with three friends at a bus stop calls upon me for a blessing.

During a conversation with a new friend, I ask if she would mind if I projected the song she had offered to play for me. It resonates powerfully on the right side of my mind, and my female friends in the office building whisper and bow their heads to me the next day.

Having overcome the political cabal that has sought to suppress my business, female friends start showing up at Dance Tribe on Sunday. In the early morning hours, I have a terrible dream about trying to research hypnotherapy on the web. While one of them waits in the background as a passive support, I can’t type the terms into the search box. Another female presence tries to push me toward her, but I cry out to heaven, “Father! Help me! I can’t do it any more!” I wake up and announce to the air “You’re just trying to beat me down,” while I fix my attention on the female Chinese hypnotherapists that had set up the scenario.

And again today at Ecstatic Dance LA, where on Easter I first called the Tree of Life from the center of the floor. A graceful young beauty appears for the first time. She assumes that I’m trying to seduce her until I project that I’ve got far more important things to worry about. We skirt each other for two hours until the end of the dance, when I hold space for her as she winds herself into my energy. Assured, I reach down and raise the Tree of Life over the gathering. While I project the broad canopy from my outstretched palms, she starts to dip toward the floor before flinging her arm imperiously upward. And suddenly my heart cracks open and I scream in grief – two long agonizing cries before I realize that multitudes of men are escaping my heart. Men that died for love, now seeking healing among the leaves.

I guess that I’ve got your attention, ladies. What happens next?

Loving Death

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Out at Thoughts, Prayers & Song, James declares his intention to stop tolerating systems of predation that allow the wealthy to survive by pressuring the poor into situations that guarantee their premature death.

In guiding our sensitivity, James focuses on war and violence. Those are only methods for something more profound: worship of death. Those that flourish by ignoring the costs on others are in fact reliant upon sacrifice. They may willfully ignore that reliance, but death still flourishes as the driving preoccupation of billions of people. Everything they do is driven by that preeminent power.

James hopes for an era of peace, and with Advent that hope focuses on the arrival of Jesus. The lion sheathes its claws to lie with the lamb.

Paradoxically, Jesus’ mission ended at the cross. Death prevails, at least for a time. Even given the resurrection, we might wonder: is the only path to eternal life through death’s door? Is that the meaning of “pick up your cross and carry it?”

I am confident that it is not. That confidence is grounded in the similarities between death and peace when considered as spiritual agents. Peace keeps things apart that might create conflict. The lion does not take the lamb in its jaws; nations agree to honor their borders. Peace becomes death, however, when it asserts the right to claim what it guards as its own.

Jesus died on the cross with perfect love, and so death could not claim him. Instead, he redeemed the peace that was corrupted by selfishness. In loving death, Jesus reminded Death of its of its former purpose. In choosing to accept it, Peace was restored.

The great promise of Rev. 13 is that “those that die in the Lord will rest form their struggles.” Dying in the Lord is to give our souls into the safe harbor of love, and thus to be held in peace until this age of death is brought to a close.

Thus I understand “pick up your cross and carry it” to mean “Do as I did, and reclaim the death that hides your soul from the father.” Have sympathy for the great heart-cry in Eden: “Where are you?” followed by the lament “Surely you will die.” Allow Christ through you to reclaim every smallest portion of his kingdom, until fear and callousness lose their grip, and we enter Paradise.

This came to me Monday night during a scribble response to the Hawaiian practice Ho-opo-no-po-no. The healer enters into a corrupted place and meditates on these four lines:

I am sorry. I forgive you. Thank-you. I love you.

My image started as a hillside with a dip. The next stroke added a boulder, atop which Sisyphus was drawn in contemplation. Death’s skull hovered over the horizon. The redeemed sage addressed it: “Plplplplplplpl!”

And I realized that my subconscious was telling me to focus my Ho-opo-no-po-no meditation in this way:

I am sorry, Peace, that you were corrupted by selfishness. I forgive you, Death, for keeping those I love from me. Thank-you, Death, for preserving their integrity until I was ready to receive them. I love you, Death, and offer you the gift of my love that you might be restored as Peace.

Home At Last

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Last Saturday on the way to HMI traffic was slowed around Topanga due to tree cutting crews. I assumed the same this morning as I drove on the 101 through unusually slow traffic past the blocked Moorpark Road off ramp.

I drove out to Las Vegas and flew out to Parkland. Both were disasters cultivated by ready availability of weapons to people susceptible to violent rhetoric.

What happened last night at the Borderline Restaurant bears the same imprint.

So I will be active over the next few weeks trying to heal the damage at colleges and communities traumatized by the end of so many precious young lives. The psychic scars I salve are the tissue from which the barrier to heaven is woven against those that cultivate a culture of fear.

Think of it that way, my fellow light-workers. We can forgive, but forgiveness does not entail acceptance. Not everyone can be saved.

Basta es basta.