Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Neville Goddard (1905-1972) offered a compelling explanation of the human condition and an intriguing and empowering path of self-discovery. Join your host Ed to explore from the ground up this most essential mystery: the human imagination.
This is episode 26, The Poet's Protégé
1. Inspiration from E025: Ezra Pound.
In the last episode, in an attempt to look at how an intelligent, sensitive and successful person, someone especially with an incredible psychological resilience, would answer the riddle of the proper conduct of life, the proper approach to life, we examined the poet Ezra Pound, and his life story and his message. So, following the example that the poet set in his life journey, the answer was that you have to have a persistent and overriding sense of your own identity, in response to all the harmful effects of institutions that we encounter in life, and in response to all forms of adversity.
2. Follow up with his biographer: Eustace Mullins, Conversations with John F Kennedy.
Today, I want to look at his biographer, Eustace Mullins, and try to answer the same question from his point of view, using principally a book that he wrote called Conversations with John F. Kennedy. This book is not a record of a set of conversations that he had with the President in a literal sense. Rather, it's an account of a mystical experience where he encountered the presence of Kennedy (already deceased), and held a series of dialogues with him. The author himself makes clear that he has grave doubts about what really happened, and yet he presents the record because that's what he was admonished to do. And so, because it all comes from one mind that is ostensibly sincere and again, well read, well prepared, well researched, I regard the whole thing as legitimate and worthy of consideration.
3. Two themes: metaphysics and personal instruction.
So let's take a look at what Mullins reports in this mystical experience. I will do that following two basic themes. One is metaphysics -- what the picture of the world looks like. And the second one is personal instructions.
4. Primacy of consciousness: humanity is asleep.
So let's start out with this first theme of metaphysics -- what the world looks like, and the nature of the human condition.
Early on in the book, I'll start with this quote: “Those who are alive are largely insensible to the values of life... No doubt that you are familiar with the tests which prove that the average person uses only about 10% of his brain power. This refers to the energizing aspects of thought rather than to the phenomenon of consciousness itself.”
Well right there, I found an extraordinary distinction that you just don't come across in the conventional literature. In psychology, as we've discussed before, consciousness, the awareness of being, is not the same thing as your habitual daily waking state or thinking.
And then he continues: “You may remember that the function of the prophets has always been to awaken the people either to danger or to the values of life. In every case, they began with the premise that the people were asleep.”
5. Life is a sort of Purgatory (not an absolute notion).
In discussing the position of man in the universe, the personage of JFK continues: “Men must also accept the fact that life on earth is not a particularly desirable stage of existence. The brutal truth is that life on earth is a sort of Purgatory, a stage of suspension or punishment in the universal sweep of life.” But then he qualifies it by saying “it is not a permanent truth or an established truth.”
He explains a bit later the nuanced character of life on earth saying: ”...for some it's an opportunity of redemption... or it's a chance to improve, or a chance to save themselves from a blind and silent eternity. Consequently, lives on earth are lived for varying reasons and with varying intensity. The value of earth in the scheme of things is that it can be so many things to so many different modes of being.”
Well, so far we can see that there are striking parallels between what Mullins is saying and what we've already heard from, let's say, Alan Watts; from Neville himself; from the Fourth Way that, first of all, mankind is asleep. There's a psychological sleep that has descended upon mankind. Secondly, that life itself is a kind of training ground, a purgatory and exercise -- some sort of a struggle with, evidently, an aim in view.
6. Collectivist groups.
Later on, they start to talk about groups and refer to them as pluralistic. In other words, collectivist institutions. And it leads to this following exchange; “Does that mean that groups are evil?...” The answer is: “Groups of men are not necessarily evil, said JFK but they multiply man's capacity for evil by a fantastic ratio.” And then later on, explaining the nature of these groups he says: “The group complacently accepts itself as the ultimate good, ignoring the fact that the group is a violation of mathematical law. The group is less than the sum of its parts, said JFK. That is to say, the group is a lesser value than any one of the individual values which compose it.”
Mullins then sums up the nature of these collectivist or pluralist groups, saying: “Then you are really attacking the philosophy of pluralism. This is the ruling doctrine of modern man, in which everything is left to the decisions of groups and committees, and nothing can be done without the active approval of corporations, foundations, universities, government departments, religious factions and even alliances of gangsters.”
7. Paradoxical nature of groups, their activities and results. Institutional values of “the good”.
All right, well, still on the subject of metaphysics, he continues later on: “Life is a series of obligations which chain down the individuals... The groups introduced this concept of inner slavery in the individual by pretending to aid him or free him, and they promote immorality, discord and all forms of criminal behavior. The purpose of this campaign on the part of these groups is to prove to everyone that the individual is immoral and irresponsible, and only the group can act to save the morality of mankind.”
So we're starting to see that in their descriptions of institutions, or collectivist groups, pluralist groups, it's not a question of black and white, good against evil. It's a little more nuanced than that. It has to do with this strange paradox that characterizes human life, resulting from the nature of creation itself. So Mullins asks, for example, talking about nuclear war: “This atomic debacle is inevitable anyway, isn't it?” The answer is: “Everything is inevitable, but that doesn't mean it has to happen or should be allowed to happen now.”
So there we're getting a hint at this idea that everything exists in creation, but not everything is necessarily manifest.
Getting back to the paradoxical nature of creation, we find pretty soon an explanation that is very close to the one that is given in the Fourth Way. Let me read to you:
“One of the greatest errors of mankind is that they tend to accept goals as fait accompli. They seem incapable of realizing just what the pluralist groups are doing. But if the results are examined closely and impartially, it can be seen that everything they do has an evil consequence. For instance, nearly all of these groups promote universal education, which, on the surface is a praiseworthy aim. And yet, what do we find when we examine the results of this work? We see that the pluralists are merely conditioning the people to receive information, and that this information is, in nearly every instance, propaganda of the most blatant kind.”
Well, he goes on like that, and it's worth reading. But it calls to mind so vividly, the words of Gurdjieff when he says, and I'm paraphrasing... It seems so obvious that I wouldn't have to explain it, but every person is acting on the basis of what he conceives to be the good!
So, continuing on this idea of this gigantic paradox, Mullins says, “That certainly creates a confusing situation... I begin to think that everything on Earth is paradoxical.” And JFK responds, “From the universal point of view, everything on Earth can be seen to operate in two ways, both forwards and backwards, for itself and against itself. This is a necessary process, for those elements which have no external opposition to allow them to stand upright must manufacture their own internal opposition. Thus, good seems to be bad, bad seems to be good.”
8. Man requires for survival “the unremitting hostility of others”.
Towards the end of the book, he's continuing in the same theme, saying, “By the very nature of the human organism, as soon as conditions become just right for it, the most satisfactory amount of food, water, air, and so forth, it begins to decay. As a result, man can survive only when he is opposed by the unremitting hostility of others of his kind and by various natural enemies. This is the built-in paradox of life on Earth.”
Well, let's turn our attention now to the second theme running through Mullin's book, which is personal instruction.
9. Personal instructions: People seek unreality -- but escapism only creates more and greater problems.
Earlier on, they're talking about television. JFK says, “It seems to be a form of hypnotism. Of course, man has always prized unreality above all else... ‘Why is that?’ I asked... ‘He wants to escape from himself’, said JFK.
And Mullins answers, “Well, it's no surprise because the conditions of life for most humans are such that one can hardly blame them for seeking unreality in any guise.”
So it's all about running away. It reminds me of the quote from the Bible that Neville suggests to us where we are consigned or condemned to disobedience. In other words, we're destined, despite ourselves, to go down the wrong road. But it's exactly this that is the tragic thing that Mullins and his interlocutor put their finger on. Mullins has JFK say: “Nevertheless, the desire to escape himself has only created more and greater problems for men.”
Well, one of the charms of this book, actually, is Mullins’ style. He doesn't take himself too seriously, despite his claims for having had this encounter with JFK. He says at one point, even after having gotten this mission, “One Sunday I was dawdling about, comfortably contemplating carrying out several small tasks which I really had no intention of doing. I stretched out on the couch and once again I entered into the radiance. JFK seemed rather annoyed. ‘You're not very anxious to help me out, are you?’ ”
10. Is killing off your goals equivalent to suicide?
Pretty soon, JFK turns the conversation to a rather cutting criticism of Mullen's own thinking. He says, “You sort of reached a dead end. That is, things look rather hopeless, don't they?” Mullins answers: “They are no more hopeless for me than they are for millions of others.”
“That's not quite true, said JFK, because you had always hoped to do a great deal more than those millions of others. And there isn't much chance that you will, as things look at the present time. So little, in fact, that you have contemplated ending it all.”
So there, the author, despite his casual and nonchalant attitude, has exposed the fact that he's been so despondent at times that he's actually contemplated suicide. But then he equivocates. He says, “I've thought about it, yes. There didn't seem to be any reason why I shouldn't. But at the same time, I couldn't see any reason why I should.” And JFK rejoins, “But there was every reason why you should, if you were determined to maintain your previous standards.”
“Well, that's about the size of it (Mullins says). It's an adjustment most people have to make at some point in their lives.”
And then here's the clincher!: JFK says, “Isn't that a kind of suicide? You didn't kill yourself, but you did begin to kill off your goals.”
11. “The individual” is a highly unique concept in itself.
Well, he follows that up with what I think is the essential personal instruction. He says, “You may also understand that the idea of the individual is the contribution of the Earth to the universe. Such a concept was unknown until it was developed there.”
So there we see in a metaphysical discussion the grounding for the whole idea of individuality, and it really reflects what Neville is talking about all the time. Here's a restatement by Mullins: “Then we must affirm the existence of God by affirming our own individual existence.”
“JFK” himself restates it by saying: “I am saying that man must reaffirm his individuality if he is to survive. He cannot affirm his individuality as a member of a group.” Again, in a question very reminiscent of Neville, Mullins asks: “And you hope to restore the individual by explaining to him what he is and where he comes from?”
Well, later on, in another display of sort of a lackadaisical and reluctant attitude, Mullins says, “I still had done nothing about transcribing his words. There seemed a possibility that the time was not yet ripe -- an excuse for postponement which I found most agreeable.”
Nevertheless the character of JFK persists. He explains that in a strange way even though these pluralist collectivist groups seem to hold sway in society, in fact they don't have as much power as they seem to have. He says, “This opens the way for individuals to move in and regain some of the power by offering solutions to these problems.”
12. Man must be reminded of his own nature.
He follows that up with an important clue in personal instruction. “Everything in the universe, said JFK waxes and wanes. It waxes when it is true to its own precepts, its original premises and it wanes when it is attracted away from them by other forces.” And quite near the end he sums up the mission saying: “Man must be reminded of his own nature if he is to survive. He must become aware of his quest for self-realization.”
So in this review of Mullen's book Conversations with John F. Kennedy I took two lines of thought, two themes. One was the general nature of life, metaphysics, and the second one was personal instruction.
13. The life work of the poet and his protégé has principles with strong parallels in Neville and others.
I think that we can see how closely it parallels Neville's own worldview, as well as the advice that we had gotten from the Buddhist perspective (Alan Watts) and the tradition of the Fourth Way.
Both in the case of Ezra Pound and Mullins, the poet's protégé (who was both an author and a serious and aspiring painter) we see the example of two men, primarily involved with art and literature, making major research efforts and excursions into the world of politics and finance. For what reason? To get at truth and to expose it.
In each case, this broad preparation and wide experience in life led to conclusions that reflect very closely the principles of Neville Goddard. All questions seem ultimately to resolve to the idea of our divine nature and our mission to realize that, in a world that is both lovely and horrible. We have to bring our own willpower individually to bear on a seemingly absurd situation. The purpose of today's talk was to point out that we can get help and inspiration in this, both from the poet and the poet's protégé. I'll put a link in the show notes to the publication that I referred to, and I hope to speak to you soon.