At two years old, our infants suddenly start yelling and, as suddenly discover about lying, fantasy; we know these behaviours are the breakthrough of the repressed memories of events which happened to our ancient ancestors in the cultural infancy of our species; we know that there was an early maturation delay at that equivalent stage of development; we have rationally speculated why our ancient ancestors invented lying, fantasy in response to that maturation delay. We know that they yelled.
But why did they yell? It is important that we investigate. It is clear that our species has been yelling ever since our cultural infancy, and that fantasy/lying and yelling are closely connected in our human psyche, so it is important that we try to find out what we can about this continuing disturbance.
Were our early ancestors protesting against the imposition of maturation delay? Or against the invention of lying, fantasy? Arguing against nature, or against each other? We may understand that at the least they had serious doubts about the invention of lying, fantasy; and that it was an extremely important problem to them.
Sudden maturation delay would be an important and very serious problem.
We recognise that all species evolve natural laws, and that they must live within the laws of their evolution. Obedience to the laws of evolution is a natural law.
Another very strong natural law is the law of survival. A species or an individual within any species will fight to survive.
These ancestors were confronted with what they saw as the existential threat of maturation delay; they couldn't have babies, therefore they couldn't survive, as a species or individually.
Their evolutionary law insisted that they must survive.
Their evolutionary law also insisted that they must obey and therefore must not survive.
They had a profoundly difficult moral conflict.
They invented fantasy babies, superstitiously, magical thinking, a wish fulfilment, that is to say, that by apparently having babies the supposed 'authority' which they must obey, might relent and allow them to have babies; but this 'authority' must see that they didn't actually have babies, so they weren't breaking the law of obedience.
The maturation delay was, naturally, lifted, and our ancestors celebrated ecstatically, as we know from the Dionysian phase our 3 year olds experience now; and for our ancestors it seemed that their clever plan of fantasy babies had worked! At the trauma of the Great Catastrophe some time later (our 3 1/2 year old infants now) our ancestors used their invention of fantasy, lying, to try and make sense of this event.
And so we have gone on ever since. Our mindset now is just the same as theirs' was: we are naturally impulsive; we get brilliant ideas; we think (or feel) that we investigate all the possibilities thoroughly and completely, ask all possible questions and are perfectly sure that our ideas are sound then we implement our ideas and are plunged into disaster.
Our infants of two years old are vulnerable to constipation. We may rationally speculate that with the invention of fantasy, our ancestors felt anxious to hide their 'disobedience'.
There is another consideration: the energy of procreation was blocked by maturation delay, but that energy must naturally be released. The invention of lying, fantasy provided release, the mental activity, the cleverness and the comfort brought satisfaction and diversion, and something to do. It is very likely that our early ancestors felt that the 'authority', wanted them not to survive; and we may understand that the 'authority' was associated with the mother: they were infants and knew that only the mother has such power.
They were mistaken, of course. The maturation delay was a natural event, and nature doesn't think of the creatures who might suffer from it's actions.
And the mother also suffers the effects of trauma, and is concerned with her own survival. The infant's feelings are naturally centred on itself and blames the mother for its suffering.
Our ancestors played 'let's pretend', and this became fixed, a pillar of our psychological being.We still play let's pretend, still feel guilt and shame without knowing why, still launch into plans and schemes without any understanding of the consequences, still think we're very clever, mothers and daughters still fight.
And this is the beginning of becoming human.
And so
Recap: We have a conflict in the mind of our ancestors. They felt they had the choice between survival and obedience. They chose survival, and invented lying, to fool the supposed 'authority'. This strategy seemed to be successful. We have been lying ever since; we know it, it makes us uncomfortable but we still do it, because it seemed to be successful and seemed to be necessary for survival; and we like it. We like lying; we like being clever; we like inventing; we enjoy deceit.
It has got us into a terrible mess. And it's very difficult to know what to do about it.
Our early ancestors invented lying in the cultural infancy of our species, when they were mentally and psychologically the equivalent of 2 year old infants now. We've grown up as a species as liars, deceit is part of what we are, part of our mental equipment, part of our psychological selves.
We can't uninvent lying, it's too much part of us, too firmly fixed in us.
It occurred to me that we don't examine lying. We condemn it and we do it, but we don't examine it; so I tried to examine lying, but there is so much of it, and I quailed at the enormous task, a great solid wall of fantasy and deceit, and began to think that everything we do is made up, that we have even fabricated ourselves. And for a while I was frightened and depressed.
Until I thought of the one constant in my life: God; the idea of the magnificent creator God, that was explained to me when I was three years old; everything that was known about God was carefully and kindly explained to me; and it was wonderful, so lively and exciting. Marvellous. And that idea of God has always been with me.
And so I commend you to God.
And as for the human sphere, we mustn't let it overwhelm us, and we must keep our sense of humour.
The Human Experience of Old Age
George Frankl wanted to free the libido, he wanted humanity to be free of the effects our ancestral traumas. Naturally I want the same as he did: to free human beings of the effects of our ancestral traumas.
But the effects of those traumas are terribly strong and we cling to the taboos as if our lives depended on it. Whereas, of course, it's the opposite, and the life of the entire planet depends on us letting go of the taboos.
It's not that we're addicted to suffering. We don't let go of the taboos because our ancestors were traumatised in what Frankl called the cultural infancy of our species: they were infants, traumatised during infancy, and, as we know, a traumatised infant builds his or her life and life-view around the experience of that trauma. We have inherited the effects of the Great Catastrophe, and we're not free because we don't allow ourselves to be free. It is very frustrating.
Towards the end of his life, Frankl became increasingly frail physically. He said it was a kind of torture. It was so sad to watch, but I didn't feel it. I'm feeling it that now I'm old. And I wonder whether 'it' is trying to tell me - something - so that I can understand, or try to, and write it down. (note to geriatricians: You can't understand 'old' until you are old; until then, you are young.)
'It' is the traumatised infant of our ancestors. So, it is an infant; it is the infant within each of us. Of course. It feels vulnerable, helpless (just as George did increasingly in the last year or two of his life; just as I do now - I've been wondering about that: I dismiss the idea that I'm copying him, but there does seem to be something performative in my behaviour i.e. my caution and fear as I climb up or down the staircase. Many people do experience the same or similar.) Second childhood increasingly looks to me like a phylogenic stage of human life, an effect of the Great Trauma.
George Frankl once mentioned that the living human skeleton might naturally endure for 140 years. He was very pleased, and I think had read it in a learned paper.
So we may deduce that if the soft tissue, organs, etc don't fail, the natural life span of a human being could be as much as 140 years; let's say 120 years, as we know of human beings living healthily for that long.
But it is very rare, and most people die much earlier, and very many are in very poor health, physically, or mentally, or both. Old age, as it is commonly experienced in our species, is not natural, is not a given in nature; it is an effect of the great trauma experienced in the cultural infancy of our species by our ancient ancestors.
Old Age 2
It seems that all our ills are from the unresolved traumas in the cultural infancy of our species, and their effects are more clearly visible in old age.
From the age of two years, we live increasingly in fantasy, until we get old when the traumas rise up and press in on us; they threaten to break through into consciousness; the taboos then rush in to 'defend' us from remembering.
Not everyone is badly affected: some individuals seem almost immune, so that it seems almost that the phylogeny chooses who to affect with what throughout life. For instance, some women suffer great discomfort during their periods, while other women sail along barely noticing they are menstruating; or at menopause, some have no trouble and others have a terrible time; and similarly in old age: a neighbour at 97 years old, happily walked a mile or so every day in the park, while George Frankl, intellectually always so brilliant and who had been physically very strong, couldn't swallow food for the last year or two of his life, and could barely walk, died at the age of 83. Why? Why some and not others?
I don't know why, all else being equal, some women should have easier births than others, but I know what so badly affected George: he was being lied to and manipulated by people he trusted, women, one of whom he depended upon, morally; and he didn't know what was wrong , though he knew something was badly wrong. For someone so honest and trusting, and trustworthy as he was, it was a monstrous betrayal. I thank God he worked it out just in time; it gives me a chance to try and understand.
Recap
A At 2 years old our infants suddenly start yelling and develop the capacity to recognise, and tell, lies; B At 3 years old our infants suddenly become ecstatic, are unable to sit still etc - the Dionysian phase; C At 3 1/2 years old our infants suddenly start screaming in rage and terror.
These three phases in infancy seem to be universal. We know that infants are re-experiencing events in what Frankl called the cultural infancy of our species. Those ancient events had and continue to have a profound effect on humanity. A, B, C these three phases are crucial to understanding what is wrong with humanity. Remember them, please.
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A Lies, fanasy were invented by our ancient ancestors in response to a naturally occurring event most likely an early maturation delay. They invented fantasy babies, and. When the maturation delay ended naturally, our ancestors believed they had magicked real babies out of their fantasy. (Last December a CofE vicar had to apologise for making 10 year old children cry by telling them Santa doesn't exist. Elon Musk would laugh in your face if you told him money doesn't exist; money is a fact. But, as you said, money is a human construct; money is not a given in nature, it is a fact, it isn't real. War, cities and so on, our lives are dominated by invented facts, lying, and reality has got lost.)
B The Dionysian phase of celebration. Naturally, the early maturation delay was lifted, but those ancestors assumed it was lifted due to their own cleverness in the invention of lying, and felt they were hugely clever.
C Screaming in rage and terror. Something terrible happened. I speculate, and believe, it was a meteorite or meteor strike. Our ancestors, who had recently felt so confident in their own capacity, were terrified to see the earth fall out of the sky. There was much devastation and destruction, of course, but the psychological impact was huge; and lasting.
Our traumatised ancestors blamed themselves; promised to be good; then they remeberered lying and fantasy, so they made up stories as to what had happened; and blamed each other. And then remeberered how clever they had been to invent lying and to overccome the maturation delay, and now determined to overcome this new disaster with more clever inventions. Infants, you see. We still behave exactly the same now.
Because the trauma was unresolved, our species has never recovered.
Can we recover?
Old Age 3
Does anyone know what it's like being old? That's a pretty silly question, mate. I mean, has anyone written about it? No, no. Start again.
In my experience:
Until you're old, you're young; e.g. My new neighbour is 69 years old and she's young; I was young until I was 72 years old*, now I'm 75 and I'm really getting old (I'd probably still be young if the bastards hadn't put a hole in my roof).
It is interesting to speculate on the impact of their behaviour on my personal perception of my age, though I must acknowledge that for several years I've been disappointed by being human, especially since doing this work, and that I have been looking for the way out.
The young do not, cannot know about being old, it is simply not in them to know, as a child cannot know what it is like to be an adult.
There is very obviously a powerful phylogenic component in the human experience of age; the other animals naturally do not suffer as we commonly do. Something happened in our later, psychological and cultural evolution, but what and when, seems beyond my grasp.
(The years of a man's age are threescore and ten. It's not true, though I always believed it, the solemnity, and it is reassuring to think that God knows.) Anyway.
Dementia gives us a clue: in this country, older patients diagnosed with dementia are 65% women and 35% men. We can say that whatever happened did not affect only females, although predominantly females.
But when did this thing happen? When, in our troubled cultural and psychological development, did this event occur to cause old age in humans to be so commonly so nasty? Why is it so difficult to be old?
I think I'm looking at this the wrong way. Okay. We all must, as we say, die; even golden lads and lasses must (though they really don't know it). And, frankly, after what I've found out and written here, it's a very good thing that we humans all must die, eventually, and every living thing too.
Mrs C has been diagnosed with dementia, following a suspected mild stroke two or three years ago. She's 80 or 81 years old, she's in a nursing home now, incontinent, and almost without speech, though Mr C has taught her a few words. He has been assiduous in caring for her, as if he refuses to accept her condition, and thinks, or did think, that by will-power and determination he could bring her back to him. He slowly realises he can't, poor fellow, and she is slipping away from him. As she must.
That's another thing: Mrs C has a diagnosis of dementia; Mr C is old, and beginning only now to realise that he isn't young any more. He's 80, so you see, the condition of being old is flexible.
And perhaps 'being old' has far more to do with the realisation that there's nothing you can do; the realisation of your own powerlessness against - whatever it is - in my case the cowboys who put a hole in my roof, in Mr C's case his powerlessness to bring his wife back to him, seems a lot more significant than the years of one's age. (And, I'll tell you what, this realisation of powerlessness is very upsetting.) But I am not powerless; I have what George Frankl said is 'a good analytical brain', he educated me and gave me this commission. So, not powerless. But I don't care as much as I did. However.
When I was first told of Mrs C's condition, my instinctive reaction was to feel that she'd had her fill of unreality; that she had realised, unconsciously, that she'd had enough of the lies and fantasies we humans live in, are choked by. She wanted reality. She couldn't explain, probably even to herself, so of course she was diagnosed as suffering from dementia.
So, what happened is, it seems clear to me, the three phases in the cultural infancy of our species: natural maturation delay and the consequent human invention of lying; the natural lifting of maturation delay, and our ancestors' belief that they had caused the end of maturation delay by their own cleverness; the trauma of the Great Catastrophe, their belief that they had caused the catastrophe, their lies and fantasies as to what the catastrophe was, and so on. And when did it happen? A very long time ago.
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It is very significant that it was in the cultural infancy of humanity: whatever is taught or learnt in infancy is true, and becomes a moral pillar of one's being, individually or in the species. We believe our lies; we believe we are very clever, we categorise ourselves 'wise man'; we seems to believe being clever is more important than using our intelligence. We've given up a very great deal and seem proud to have lost most of our animal instincts. Ah, it is painful to think of. We believe that reality is going to the supermarket - no, that's what I was told. People believe war is real and natural, 'it's human nature'. But it isn't human nature.
Frankl's Proof : Human nature is fundamentally good; all babies are born good and loving.
Old Age 4
Why do people get constipated? It's a common condition in dementia, and two year old infants commonly suffer constipation.
This is intensely personal and difficult to write about. One is from infancy supposed to be able to manage one's own bowels perfectly well without any help or interference from anyone else, thank you.
But we will recognise that constipation is hiding, isn't it? A constipated infant is hiding it's faeces, it's product from the mother. Why? Well, we have looked at this: during the early maturation delay, when babies were forbidden, we have speculated that our early ancestors invented lying by making fantasy babies; but babies were forbidden, so they hid the fantasy babies.
Our ancestors made the fantasy babies from their own faeces, the product of their body. Babies, real babies, are the product of the body, too, of the female body. So we see the potential for confusion between products, which, coupled with the need to hide the products, have given human beings yet another difficulty to overcome.
Old Age 5
Old age is commonly known as Second Childhood. I am aware in myself of a performative aspect of my behaviour. I don't seem to be able to change it, but I have noticed - it's as if I must now demonstrate my assigned role of old person: I must walk slowly and hesitantly like an infant learning to walk, prove that I am powerless as the cowboy builders have shown that I am powerless; creep down the stairs clinging to the bannisters afraid I'll fall, though there's no one to witness, I must learn to be old. Be blind and helpless and old. It is ridiculous, and infantile, an infantile response, but it is a very ancient pattern of behaviour. And I am very angry to be forced to be like this, and the fact I am angry shows that I am afraid.
Of course, you might say that I have not been forced to be old, but I have been, you know. It is a matter of obedience: as a child must obey the mother, so, it seems, I must obey these cowboys; it seems that I must obey their power. I cannot persuade them to do what they agreed, i.e. to mend the roof they damaged, and therefore I must acquiesce. Bend with the wind. It is wrong.
However, this one small case does give us an insight into the rise of all types of fascism, nu?
Well, isn't it interesting?
Old Age 6
We're all human. With minor variations, we've all inherited the same phylogeny.
We may recognise that there was some fear among our ancient ancestors over their invention of lying during the early maturation delay. We have speculated that they feared their invention of fantasy 'babies' risked the severe displeasure of the 'authorities', whom they supposed had forbidden them to have babies.
We know that constipation is common among our infants now of 2 years. We may understand that constipation is hiding; and, in context, it is likely to be hiding out of fear.
With our ancestors, any fear was dispelled at the lifting of the maturation delay, due to their own cleverness - as they supposed. But then the trauma of Great Catastrophe terrified them. As a trauma, they believed they had caused the catastrophe themselves. They used their invention of lying to 'explain' the catastrophe. They made very faulty decisions based on their 'explanations', most awful was the females decision to begin the process of denying sexual pleasure.
And we have all inherited all of this fear. Furthermore, we are oppressed by time. Remember what Einstein said about time? - time is an illusion, though a persistent one.
Time, our perception of time, is another legacy dating from the cultural history of our species. We are trapped by the extremely faulty, infantile decisions made by our ancient ancestors in response to events they encountered.
Time is another cause of fear, as we tremble over the passing years, fear we haven't done enough, fear getting old, fear the grim reaper. Oh, for goodness sake.
We haven't progressed, we are trapped in an apparently endless pattern of fearful and fearsome behaviour, established by infants millions of years ago.
The terrorist is terrified, the tyrant cringes with fear, time and again they seek to overcome their dread by destroying the 'enemy'. Enough!
Please celebrate the decline in the human population. Please don't drag any more babies onto this ghastly treadmill. Give the earth and all life here the chance to recover from us. Give us a chance.
Coda
When I started this work, I assumed there would some resolution; you know, follow George's method and - well, I can't find the answer. The best I can come up with is fewer babies, far, far fewer. We humans have become a poisonous infestation on this planet, and we must reduce our numbers to have any chance of recovery.
The reduction must be a decision made by women with the co-operation of men. War does not reduce the human population, research shows that war results in an increase in population.
If we really were nasty bastards, no one would complain about war and disease and the moral squalor we live in. We'd relish all the filth and corruption, but human beings are not naturally nasty. The way we live, the ways we are forced to live are against all our instincts.
Frankl's Proof : Human nature is fundamentally good; all babies are born good and loving.
To know that is the best support for recovery.
Why is giving birth so difficult?
Our ancestors in the cultural infancy of our species experienced many mental conflicts the effects of which we have inherited.
Conflict: ancient determination to live one's natural span as a human being, the instinct for survival versus (what exactly?) determination to live one's natural life, less ancient but very powerful. In my case, it is a determination to live more naturally, but it does seem to take different people in different ways. Broadly speaking, there are the people who say, 'You must do what I tell you to do,' and the people who say, 'No.' That is this conflict in a nutshell.
The first signs of this conflict are visible when our two year olds yell, from which we may recognise that the conflict arises during the cultural infancy of our species, at the time of the early maturation delay when they invented lying.
Lying (fantasy) and yelling. We don't know now whether some of our early ancestors wanted to invent lying, and others were saying urgently 'No! Don't!' or whether the debate was within each of them: that each individual both wanted to invent lying and was afraid to invent lying. I suspect it was even then an internal debate, conflict. Our infants now do both yell and develop the capacity to recognise and tell lies.
However, we may recognise the fear and the consequent tightening of the bowels. When we are afraid, we have options: we can give in; there is fight; flight; or we can hide. We may recognise that to be constipated is to hide the poop. We may well speculate that these ancestors, very frightened and feeling guilty, hid their faeces, were constipated.
We know that faeces is a product of the body; we know that the baby is a product of the female body; we may now begin to understand why giving birth can often be so difficult.
It is necessary to recognise that the mind is very powerful; that the baby must be protected from danger; and to acknowledge the power of fear.
A modern woman experiencing difficulty giving birth is suffering an inherited condition. She is not necessarily constipated. She, the modern woman, is afraid as our ancient ancestors were afraid. The fear is from her mind; she may not be aware of the fear, or she may suppose that she is afraid of childbirth, as probably she has been taught to be afraid. But the fear is phylogenic: the terror our ancestors felt when they invented lying and made fantasy babies, are haunting her. Her body responds to the fear, and tries to keep her baby safe within her, as she hides her most precious product.
The confusion in the mind of our ancestors between real baby and fantasy baby; their confusion of products and functions; their guilty fear; their terror, which caused them to hide, all this plays out now in the modern woman who experiences such difficulty giving birth.
'It's Happening Again'
We're real; we are a real species, real creatures, but so much of what we do is fantasy that sometimes it almost seems as if we're made up, too.
War is a fact, not a given in nature: war is a product of fantasy; similarly money, motor cars, cities; and, if you think about it, terrible difficulties of childbirth, are fact but clearly the product of fantasy, ancient fantasy, as is space travel and all the rest, products of the ancient fantasy which is that we can live and thrive outside nature.
The fantasy, whichever fact it produces, is born out of fear. Our toddlers re-play the three original events. And in our adult societies we re-enact events which first occurred in ancient times. Or it may be better to say that societies re-enact what our ancestors did following those original events.
It is crucial to recognise that our ancestors did, behaved, acted in response to those events. What they did, I believe, we see all around us now.
We may understand that the Great Catastrophe, which seemed to turn the world upside down, was too much for our ancestors: the event was very sudden and all at once terrifying exciting impossible horrifying wonderful, and - as a trauma - they believed they had done it themselves, so they seemed to themselves to be immensely powerful. We may clearly understand that they were driven out of their minds; we recognise, therefore, that our ancestors were not responsible for what they did, but we also recognise that they did it: actions by our ancestors in response to the Great Catastrophe were not an outside event; these actions were perhaps almost a celebration, and certainly these actions were a behaviour which became established, which we repeat to this day. When we tumble into chaos and say, 'It's happening again!' we are doing it again, we are re-enacting our ancient ancestors' response to trauma.
George Frankl wanted to free the libido. He also wanted men and women to think for themselves. In his work The End of War or The End of Mankind (published in full on this website) he makes it clear that men and women can stop war, and expects that we will do so. To stop war we must, as a species, decide to do it.
We can make decisions for ourselves as a species, without any fuss. We have seen a natural decline in the human birthrate. We can begin to free ourselves from the effects of those ancient traumas, liberate ourselves from behaviour patterns established by our ancient ancestors, behaviour patterns which are so entirely against our nature.
Frankl's Proof : Human nature is fundamentally good; all babies are born good and loving.
A Moral Mess
The haves don't understand the have nots, and won't understand without an effort. Or perhaps the haves need to understand.
It isn't about money. Fundamentally, money has nothing to do with it, though there will be have nots who believe it is about money, just as the haves always seem to believe.
It's much simpler than money, more basic: the haves are wanted; the have nots are not wanted. Wanted by the mother, not wanted by the mother. That's my experience, and I must draw on that experience to try to tell you what it's like to be a have not.
It's very frightening to be alone as a young child; and to be frightened of your mother is frightening; it's confusing, too, when the one person who should naturally love and protect you, shows that she doesn't love you and is a danger to you; Confusion - moral, psychological, intellectual, emotional - a turmoil; you feel gutted, literally, and have a strong sense of injustice; confidence is gone; Humiliation (I must be truly bad that she has cast me out, and no one must know how horrible I am); And the anger in response to the fear …
It seems to me that I have described the common experience of humanity, but that experience is harder for those of us who are without the mother's love, than for those who do have the mother's love.
My mother was ill; (I didn't know, of course) but I had a kind father, and I had been introduced to the idea of the Magnificent Creator God; I survived an averagely wretched childhood, and when I grew up I was introduced to George Frankl. I really can't complain and do not complain. Others are not so lucky as I was.
Boymom by Ruth Whippingham tells us that some feminist mothers were deliberately unloving towards their sons. It isn't surprising that there is so much anger among young men when their mothers were swept up in the politics of the 'sex war', and punished their sons for what might be the supposed sins of the fathers.
In the USA the gun laws make it possible for an angry man to shoot children in schools. Charlie Kirk had popularity, a voice, a good job; he was married with children; he was loved and admired. He seemed to have everything.
It is sickening that he was murdered. But is it surprising that it might be a have not who killed him?
('Jon' has told me that the man suspected of murdering Charlie Kirk comes from a fairly well off family. I remind 'Jon': this matter is about maternal love and not about money.)
We humans have given up far too much for fantasy. We have given up so many instincts that would make life easier and pleasurable, including empathy; to the extent that some mothers have no empathy for their own children.
Maternal love is natural, a given in nature. A child deprived of maternal love is poor, however much money its family has. And a child without the mother's love struggles to understand why it is deprived of what is natural.
It may be that this killing is part of a fashion of solidarity with and among the disaffected, perhaps an attempt to show empathy, but it is not empathy to kill.
Oh Lord, what a mess.
Trends
Fashion, a fashion of anger: 50 years of angry women, now their angry sons. If not fashion, say a trend in behaviour and people get drawn into it. We've seen it before often. In the old days the anger would be formed into a war; war would be expected, planned for every twenty years or so, every generation; now everything is more fragmented and …
I am so grateful that globally the human population is falling; it may be that humanity is at last waking up from the darkness. And it's the women who are leading the way, naturally.
Our species may at last relearn instincts; empathy, very important, and generally the pleasure in living, simply being. How wonderful to live within the natural instinct of pleasure in life.