Sometimes I write to George. I don’t speak to him, as he is dead and it would be weird - what if he replied? But it helps to write to him to him. So I do. And this is what I wrote to him on 27 May.
Dear George
Some say there is no free will. Benjamin Libet did experiments and said he had proved there is no such thing as free will. Many accept his findings, though others do not.
But the experiments were brain only, not mind, as the experimenters reject the existence of mind, because they cannot quantify it or measure it in any way.
We know that the brain works very quickly. I suggest that the mind works much more quickly; even perhaps infinitely more quickly.
Einstein said that time is an illusion. While we know time, day and night, seasons of the year and so on, I suggest that the mind is in that state of timelessness.
Therefore the angel (with whom I had a long conversation, but measured by the clock was with me no time at all) was of my own mind? But are we not all of one mind in timelessness?
——--
Then suddenly I realised, with great delight, that it’s all so simple. Our difficulties are all in and of ourselves. And I understood. I knew. And the answers to our difficulties are all within ourselves. That is the first fruit.
Then I started painting, practically dancing with delight. I was in tune with myself.
Then my heart sank as I realised that I would have to convey this to you. George told me, ‘If you know something, even if you’re the only person on earth who believes it, you must say it, you must write it down.’
———-
Dear George,
It’s to do with we lost ourselves, our early ancestors lost their sense of self at the time of the great catastrophe, in the cultural infancy of our species, as you said.
———-
Then I thought I’d write Book II, but decided you’d baulk, and so do I. I can’t go through all that again. I began to look for evidence that though we have lost our sense of self, that The Myself is still here, and accessible to us.
In 2014, I had a feeling, almost a voice telling me that I should stop writing Mothers and Daughters. And I should have listened.
Those intuitions, that small internal voice, we all experience something like it, and don’t question it, we take it for granted as part of the human experience. But it’s important. It is very important, very relevant to our work here.
There is not necessarily anything wrong with the work done here over the last seven years. But it clear now even to me that there is a tsunami of perversity in human behaviour, too much to effectively psychoanalyse. I need help.
And I had help, seven years ago, when that feeling, almost a voice told me to stop. That feeling, that voice was me, The Myself of me.
———-
But it seems thin. Then I thought of perimenopause, which people are writing about at the moment. I went through it, but had no idea what it was. Except that it was a very odd time. Very very very strange.
Looking back, it seems that while being a middle aged woman, I was also a young child; that is, I was re-living the experience of being a young child. It was odd! I didn’t tell anyone, didn’t think of mentioning it even to George.
I was re-experiencing my own infancy, therefore it was an ontogenic experience, a breakthrough of the memory of my life as - I think - a three year old child, in the Dionysian phase. So it was, of itself, exciting; though, of course, a muddle because I was also at the same time a middle aged woman. Weird. During that time of perimenopause, I painted a series of canvasses showing events of my infancy: the memories of that time had become very accessible.
On a point of phylogenic interest: if my experience is a guide, then perimenopause is the breakthrough of a time of evolution when our ancestors were exultant - the breakthrough of a memory of a memory (the 3 years old Dionysian phase breaks through into the lives of 45 years old), but the exultation is cut short in the first instance by the great catastrophe, and in the second instance by menopause, from which many individual women suffer very badly.
———-
But though this is interesting, and perhaps useful, it does not provide the evidence we need. Though it is a start.
You see, we need help, and that help is available to us within each of us, that internal voice. It cannot be dictated to: human nature is fundamentally good, all babies are born good and loving; that internal voice is fundamentally good.
The murderous unfortunate who says ‘the voice’ told him to kill his wife, or to blow up innocents? Yes, I know, but I can’t go there at the moment. I am referring to and talking to people like you whose brains have not been scrambled.
Fruits 2
George Frankl was in tune with himself. He was well acquainted with the inner consciousness.
———-
We keep trying to tell ourselves; that inner consciousness keeps trying to break through into ego consciousness: the magnificent creator God; the loving compassionate God; Allah the merciful, but we’re not listening. Somehow humanity always manages to undermine the good ideas. Ego does not want to listen to ideas which would help us.
The ancient Greeks recognised the inner consciousness as divine, the nine Muses; the Greeks externalised that which is inside, and that is alienating.
We’ve had the Age of Reason, and the Russian revolution was the ‘rational’ revolution, communism was the ‘rational’ ideology.
In our own time we have scientific and philosophical scepticism to the point where the idea of mind is dismissed; anything which cannot be measured, quantified, anything which is non material is held to be irrelevant, non existent. But such a way to thinking closes off areas of research and investigation, forming instead a kind of intellectual black hole.
Why do we reject the inner consciousness? In the odd flashes of inspiration, the sudden solving of a puzzle, or remembering where we put that book, in small ways we allow the inner consciousness to break through in ego consciousness; everyone I’ve asked has had the experience, especially after sleeping, which is when the ego is weak. But as a species we consistently subvert the major inspirations.
One cause, possibly the only cause, is that the inner consciousness is surrounded by fierce taboos. The taboos are very strong, very rigid and the Dominant Ego very firmly defends the taboos. We may say that as a species we are afraid of the inner consciousness.
The inner consciousness is a secret and the Dominant Ego insists that we must keep that secret, we must keep that secret safe. The Dominant Ego feels that its job is to keep the inner consciousness firmly in the unconscious. We may recognise that the Dominant Ego believes it is keeping the inner consciousness safe from harm by this repression.
Frankl was in tune with himself. He was aware within himself, I believe, of the strength and beauty of the inner consciousness. And because he was aware of it within himself, as an important part of himself, he did not recognise that very few others are aware of the inner consciousness, apart from people like Einstein.
The rest of us obey the Dominant Ego, and at the same time protect the inner consciousness from the Dominant Ego. We gratefully accept those sudden flashes of inspiration and answers to puzzles, but we do not question it. We keep it safe.
But we need it. As a species, we very much need to be able to recognise the source of our inspirations, and to free it from the tyranny of the taboos.
Fruits 3
Social media is crowded with people saying, shouting, ‘Look at me! Look at me! Here I am. I am here. Look at me.’ Influencers, and trolls, especially the trolls, desperate for recognition of their humanity, for validation in likes or in returns of anger. For something, anything that proves their existence.
Being in tune with yourself you have validation, and recognition from outside yourself becomes irrelevant. Isaiah describes heaven on earth; all the creatures living in harmony; he says, ‘And a little child shall lead them.’ That little child is an infant before our ancestors learnt to say the thing that is not; an infant fully in tune with the world and all that is in it; an image of the inner consciousness.
We cannot unlearn the capacity to tell lies, but we are still fundamentally good. And - how to describe this? - we learn skills and abilities and the inner consciousness will help us to develop and exercise our talents, will help us to be in tune with ourselves.
The Myself, the inner consciousness, these give us confidence to thrive individually and as a species. And it is all within us, individually and as a species.
Fruits 4
This is not a religious work. It is an attempt to get us back on the right track. We human beings have got lost, lost ourselves in phylogenic psychological traumas and the aftermath.
The difficulties are within us and the answers are within us.
But I believe there is a further dimension. It may be that God exists and it may be that God does not exist. No one can prove it either way, and it is a matter of belief as much for the atheists as for the true believers.
Nature exists, the energy exists, human nature is fundamentally good, all babies are born good and loving; all existing here.
And then there’s that conversation with the angel. I am completely willing to accept that I gave him his gender, his physical appearance, even his beautiful shining blue face. Even the timelessness of that long conversation may perhaps be explained. But I am not willing to accept that I am so clever. Sure, I’m intelligent, intelligent enough to ask the questions, but I am simply not intelligent enough to answer those question.
But don’t let it worry you! It’s all perfectly natural. And my guess is that the energy took the form to answer those questions, that the energy of that encounter was an extension of the inner consciousness. Or, perhaps more likely, that the inner consciousness is an extension of the energy.
Fruits 5
The weight of the lies brought me down, almost overwhelmed me with horror and dread.
But the lies, that capacity to tell lies is responsible for many, perhaps all of our difficulties. Malicious gossip in the street, school, workplace; world leaders dominated by paranoid fantasies; war; the nuclear bomb; even our vast numbers might come from our fearful fantasy that we are alone.
We must try to be honest.
George Frankl was very clear that his work should not inspire a religion. So beware priests and priestesses. The good idea becomes rigidly set and the priestly caste too often turns into a hard bullying class. How does the work of Rabbi Jesus become the Spanish Inquisition? Just one example.
And money? Another lie, an unreality, a fantasy dominating our lives. Oh, I don’t want to go on. But the weight of the lies is oppressive.
And drugs? If you value your brain, as I do, you will leave drugs alone - as I do.
We can’t unlearn the capacity to lie, but we must learn the difference between what is and what is not. And we must use our capacity to fantasise well, to create good. We must try to be honest.
And it is possible to be in tune with oneself in the inner consciousness; possible and highly desirable. And very pleasant.
Fruits 6
What I’ve called the inner consciousness is always there, but is hidden from the conscious mind behind the individual, ontogenic traumas as well as the phylogenic or species traumas. We have examined these traumas and our reward is a dawning recognition of the inner consciousness: we are bringing the inner consciousness into the light.
But there are still some blocks in our way. We’ve discussed the lies; now we must look at the hoarding of the hurts.
Why do we hoard the hurts? Individuals hang on to the insults. I am not talking about the traumatic experiences, the terrible abuses, which we try to forget, to block from conscious memory; and I’m not talking about the bullying throughout society. No, it’s the petty insults which might be seen as the psychological equivalent of a paper cut. 1st Twin: ‘You wore my best dress to that party last year,’ - 2nd Twin: ‘You said I could,’ - 1st Twin: ‘I did not!’ or Dad: ‘He definitely cheated in the exam,’ - Son: ‘But, dad, that was sixty years ago!’ That sort of thing. We hoard them. Why?
It must be an extension of the process by which we learn that fire burns; so, an extension of a protective process.
So, we hoard the petty insults for protection. What from? Why do we need to protect ourselves in this way?
It’s the nursery again. ‘You started it!’ - ‘I never!’ - ‘You said I done it’ - ‘After you said I done it’ - ‘I never’ - ‘You did, too’. Ah, I see. We must be in the right; or rather, we cannot be in the wrong: to be in the wrong is bad, and ‘I am good’, so we hoard the petty insults as insurance for future use.
Apes throw their faeces in anger. In traumatised infantile terms shit is bad; it comes out of you, making you fear that you are bad; throw the shit at others and they take the bad, and not you.
So we hoard the shit. And that brings us to money. Which is interesting. Remember what George Frankl said, quoting Freud - in every language money = shit. But it is still a puzzle; though with money fighters can buy shit - weapons - blast the enemy and feel good about themselves.
Individuals hoard the petty insults so as not to be in the wrong. And they use that hoard as weapons against anyone who threatens their sense of self worth, threatens their sense of being good. Nations hoard the insults, too. Lies are added to the hoard of insults. ‘As in all nationalist conflicts, history - or the competing versions of history that each nation claims as the truth - has been as vital a weapon as tanks, rockets and soldiers in trenches.’ Ghaith Abdul-Ahad in an article for the London Review of Books, 17 June 2021.
And we hoard the petty insults to remind ourselves of what we feel is a constant danger that threatens us; and we go to war for the same cause. Why? What danger? The danger that faces us is our terrible human behaviour. But it seems that rather than live peaceably we prefer to go to war. Why?
Because war, we feel, is better than the alternative of being vulnerable. Vulnerable to what? We hide behind the taboos because we are afraid of facing the traumas. Yes, but why?
Because the inner consciousness will be unprotected. We are afraid of leaving the inner consciousness unprotected. We feel, have felt for maybe as many as two million years since the great catastrophe, that we are in immediate danger of being annihilated and we feel that we must protect ourselves. And the inner consciousness is ourselves. The inner consciousness is perhaps the real consciousness of the human animal.
In those long years, we have developed skills and abilities, some of which are helpful and good, and we’ve developed a civilisation which is not all bad. Add the inner consciousness to the good that we have developed and humanity will soar.
George Frankl writes in The Three Faces of Monotheism that he felt great reluctance to analyse Islam, but he felt that he must. I’ve felt a great reluctance to write about the inner consciousness. But I have experienced the workings of the inner consciousness in my conscious mind and know the pleasure of it, so I naturally want you to know the pleasure of it, too. Obviously.
Try to be honest and try not to hoard the petty insults; it’s a good start.
Fruits 7
Then there are the major abuses, the extreme bullying. And we human beings must learn that such vile abuses as the Holocaust and slavery, and very many more, are done by human beings. As a species we must acknowledge that we are responsible. You and I did not commit mass murder in the camps; you and I did not brutally enslave Africans; but members of our species did these terrible things.
And in our gross abuses of the natural world, we adults are all personally responsible.
It is very important that we understand our human responsibility. It is very important that we learn to recognise the impact our individual actions have on each other and the other life forms here on earth.
The inner consciousness is here within each of us; the great pleasure of life is available to us all, when we learn to behave as we really are: fundamentally good.
These abuses will become impossible when we allow ourselves to behave in accordance with our true good human nature.
Fruits 8
I have awoken to a deep affection for humanity, and this for me is the second fruit. The children I have always loved; but we are all children, all of us are still affected by those early traumas in the infancy of our species, held back by the surrounding taboos, our species prevented from maturing into adulthood.
The vile behaviours, the tyrannies, the gross bullying, the Holocaust, the slavery past and present, and all the rest, these are facts. And the people who commit these crimes, believe that they are doing right; they want to show us what they believe is reality.
Storms, floods, earthquakes, naturally occurring weather events, these are part of reality. The perverse behaviours are facts. What nature does is reality; human nature is fundamentally good. That is reality.
And the deep affection I feel for humanity is for me a wonderful reality.
Fruits 9
We enchain ourselves. Each one of us, individually puts our own self into chains. It’s not clear when it starts in our phylogeny - and ontogeny - but probably at the time of the yelling/lying trauma, which breaksthrough in our infants at two years old.
About 15 years ago at a neighbourhood party, I observed two little girls, one of them under 2 years old, the other one more than two years old; something naughty had been done; a woman questioned the little girls; both children denied responsibility; the woman chose to disbelieve the younger child, and told her off. But being under two years old this little girl could not lie, didn’t know what a lie was, and therefore when she said she hadn’t been naughty she was telling the truth. Poor little thing, she was very fed up and her face expressed her emotions. The slightly older child, who had been naughty and had lied, because she could, was gleeful and gloated at her little friend’s discomfort and hugged herself at her own cleverness.
And we do this to ourselves. What that slightly older child did to her younger friend, we do to ourselves. Once we know how to lie, we exercise this new power and enjoy it. We become somewhat contemptuous of our earlier innocence, and mock our younger selves. And by doing this, we withdraw from the inner consciousness, and from our inborn goodness. And this is happening inside each of us. We do this to ourselves. It is the start of cynicism. And perhaps the roots of sadism. The later trauma, the great catastrophe, when it breaksthrough in our infants of 3 1\2 years old is very dramatic; but the earlier trauma when our ancient ancestors learnt to tell lies is perhaps more damaging to our species.
But the inborn goodness is still there in us, the inner consciousness is still with us. The difficulties and the resolution of those difficulties lie within each of us.
NB The behaviour of that slightly older child, reminds me very strongly of a current dictatorial world leader; it is said that he lies a lot knowing that it can’t be proved that he has lied; and his body language, and the covert gleefulness of his facial expression, they are very like that of the child of over two years old. He even looks like her, has similar features; a mischievous two year old in the mind and body of a grown man in power.
Fruits 10
But that’s enough! Enough of the bullies, and the cynicism, the malice, enough of old men behaving like naughty two year old infants. Enough!
We are all children damaged by our collective past. We collectively caused our difficulties and we individually as well as collectively have the ability and the means to resolve our difficulties. It is all in us.
We are human animals in a beautiful habitat, and we must let it be beautiful again. We are surrounded by other species which belong here as we belong here, and we must make room for them.
Allow the inner consciousness to guide us and we will free ourselves.
But the bullies, the tyrants distract us from reality. Their job is to stop us from being guided by the inner consciousness. We must accept, I suppose, that they are unaware of their function in the human psychological make up. And this tyrannical role must go back to Olorgesaillie and those dreadful old matriarchs; and in those times, the matriarchs kept this gross bullying in check - one hopes; but now, of course, the role of women has been so debased, and the tyrants simply wouldn’t listen to any mere woman who told them to behave themselves. And the tyrants enjoy their work; they are likely to surround themselves with torturers, who also enjoy their work; and the tyrants surround themselves with the weak willed.
I read somewhere this week that many Republicans in Congress or the Senate are so afraid of Mr Trump that they dare not cross him (I do not suggest that Mr Trump is a tyrant). Now, we’ve all seen how the mob can be roused and manipulated - The election was stolen from us. Go storm the Capitol - and the mob in its stupidity does what it’s told. But Republican Senators and Congressmen and women, that’s another case; these are the law makers, these are the leaders of their country, in important positions; and they are afraid of arousing Mr Trump’s displeasure? At first sight it looked to me like cowardice, but perhaps that fearful response goes back to Olorgesaillie, too, which puts a different slant on things.
The bullies and tyrants, their sadistic enforcers, and the yes-men and yes-women are all aware of what they are doing, but they don’t know why they behave as they do, they don’t know consciously what motivates their behaviour; it starts so long ago.
It is really quite easy to see the infantile behaviour in the tyrants. But I’m only a little woman, and what can a mere woman do?
Fruits 11
The mother has a deep affection for the child.
———-
The nazis imprisoned George Frankl in the Ravensbruck concentration camp for a time. He told us that the guards would burst into his cell in the middle of the night, throw a bucket of cold water over him and shout, ‘you’re a communist, aren’t you?’ and he shouted back, ‘I am not!’ because he knew that they would kill him if he said he was. He was very strong minded, even as a boy of 17 woken up by this shock tactic, and he had a commission from his father which he was determined to carry out.
Nothing like that has ever happened to me. When I worked in the hospital in a little department - there were only two of us - set up specifically to find ideas from NHS workers to help the NHS, I asked doctors, nurses and other hospital workers for their ideas to help the NHS; then I typed those ideas, printed them out and sent them as a short document around the hospital. Nothing underhand - though I was only a secretary, and I guess the senior bosses didn’t expect me to do anything like it. Anyway, this short document, only 4 sides of A4, caused a bit of a stir, and one of these senior bosses called me into his office to shout at me. He was very angry, and I was frightened. Gut scared; though I did manage to stand up for myself a little bit; when he demanded why I had dared to put my ideas into this document, I said, ‘They weren’t my ideas,’ and they weren’t; and when he demanded why I had photocopied a great heap and left it in the staff canteen, that cheered me up, and I said, ‘Whoever did that it wasn’t me,’ and he sort of smiled and sent me away. But he had scared me. Why? I wasn’t going to be killed or tortured, I knew that. But I was gut scared.
Then the little boy whom I watched stride confidently by himself out of the park and to the bus stop. I didn’t talk to him, certainly didn’t touch him, and sat two yards away from him, but I did prevent him from getting, alone, on the bus. I think I just looked at him; I didn’t say anything; I don’t think I shook my head or wagged a finger at him; I just looked at him, and thought, ‘you are not getting on that bus.’ And the poor little fellow couldn’t move. I don’t think he was frightened; he was quite cross, but he couldn’t move, he could not get on that bus; it was a battle of wills. When his mother eventually showed up, I didn’t make any comment, except to ask how old the boy was; and she said he was 20 or 22 months old, I can’t remember which. So, under two years old; he can’t lie and he must obey.
And it seems that the people who are too afraid of the tyrant to risk displeasing him regress to the psychological state of an infant of under two years old; that is one who can’t lie and must obey. I can empathise with the fear that they feel. But I do not understand where that fear comes from. I do not remember feeling anything like that fear as an infant of under two years old; that little boy at the bus stop was not afraid, and certainly not gut scared.
The clue is the age, being under two years old, either actually that age or an adult regressed to that age, when the infant cannot lie, doesn’t know what a lie is, and must obey.
Oh, but isn’t it depressing? Look at that young couple - well, young middle aged couple - she is beautiful, he is good looking, they are privileged, they are wealthy, they have children, success, the ear of the world, they have everything our civilisation tells us is desirable, but apparently everything isn’t enough; they want more, sometimes it seems as if they want revenge - but for what? Claiming to have been bullied they become bullies. And here in the UK where free speech has been prized above everything, as the greatest benefit of all benefits, others who have been bullied or feel they have been bullied are become bullies and seek to strictly limit free speech; and all over the place universities, companies, institutions are crumbling, kowtowing to this new fashion for bullying - though I’m grateful that there is now some steadying of nerve. Free speech is the single most important benefit, the greatest benefit, struggled for over centuries in this country; free speech threatened by new tyranny, which sees those who felt bullied become bullies. That’s depressing.
Until this morning I had a terrible anger in me about Hitler and the nazis. That anger has gone, evaporated, and I’m grateful, but the anger has been replaced by a deep sadness. And the fear is diminishing, but the sadness is deep. We have gone so badly wrong.
We are intimidated by, frightened of the bullies and tyrants. And the bullies and tyrants are frightened, too; that big boss who made me gut scared was frightened of me. It’s depressing.
———-
But because of that deep affection, the mother does not give up on the child.
Fruits 12
Are the tyrants afraid of us? And who is ‘us’? But us, I mean anyone, everyone who doesn’t bully and doesn’t like being bullied, or know that other people are bullied.
It does seem unlikely that the tyrants are afraid of us, but let us look into it.
It may be that many of us has a guilty secret. Mine is the pink sweetie I ate - having been strictly forbidden to do so - on Christmas Day when I was two years and five months old; at the dinner table, seeing what my mother did to the roast chicken, I grew terrified that she find that sweetie in me, and had what they called a fit, but which was pure terror. As it happens, I didn’t tell a lie on that occasion - I couldn’t speak. But the point is, that secret, that guilt, and that terror has lodged in me ever since.
But without any personal guilty secret, we all inherit an ancient sense of guilt, which I strongly suggest goes back to the maturation delay when our ancestors yelled and learnt to tell lies; and when, due to lack of their normal and natural food, they began to eat meat, to kill other creatures and eat their flesh. This was for our early ancestors unnatural, against nature, and as such it was a betrayal of the inner consciousness. Killing other creatures and eating the flesh made our ancestors feel bad physically (many two year old infants now, when weaned onto a meat diet, experience constipation) and made our ancestors feel bad morally, made them feel guilty.
The ancestral yelling is the sound of the lie, the vocalisation of the lie. The lie is their denial of guilt, of being morally bad.
Our ancestors felt guilty and were afraid of being found out, of being punished. So they lied, denied their unnatural act, their secret guilt.
And, as human beings still do, they added to that first lie. They learnt to blame others, particularly juveniles, who didn’t yet know what a lie was; then the liars added anger, threats, learnt to bully, weaponised their lies. And then they learnt to fantasise, enjoyably or otherwise, adding more lies.
And having learnt to lie all that time ago human beings have gone on lying, building fantasy on fantasy, sometimes enjoyable, sometimes paranoid, believing we can smother that first sense of guilt, but still feeling obscurely guilty and really afraid of being found out. And tyrants are human.
And the mob? The mob latches onto the tyrant, with an hysterical relief, believing he can free them from this awful feeling of guilt.
We’re all human.
End Note
I can say no more, except to remind you that the mother has great affection for the child.