humanity study: law of attraction meetup

I attended a Law of Attraction meetup. The theory is positive energy creates positive results. If you imagine yourself having something, you’re more likely to get it. For the sake of clarity, I’ll capitalize Law of Attraction terms when I use them.

I entered the room, and the host greeted me. She was dressed fashionably and was wearing an excessive amount of makeup. She looked like she was being dragged towards 50 kicking and screaming. She informed me I could write my name and email address in the guest list.

I did so using a fraudulent name and address, but I remember what I chose. I felt compelled to remember so I could win the following scenario: I go to another event in which I write my address, but later, get accused of being there for bad reasons, gushing poisonous Negativity, gumming up their Vibrations and preventing them from having things Manifested in their lives. But one member thinks to check my previously written email address, claiming I would have used a whimsically selected fake one, and therefore would have a different one tonight. When they are found to be the same, I am exonerated.

I took a seat in a semicircle and waited for people to trickle in. The host had received a phone call: it was a new member who was in a taxi and was having trouble getting there. She had to repeat herself many times in giving the taxi driver directions. She hung up and addressed the group about how a taxi driver should speak better English and know where he’s going. She was smiling during the venting, but it was grotesque, because there was clearly significant anger within her.

People present: A couple consisting of a ~45 woman and a ~70 man, 4 interchangeable middle aged women, and host.

Host announced the plan: we’d watch a video clip and then discuss it. As she was doing so, a fat, ~30 woman entered, apologizing, saying she must have Manifested some tardiness. This immediately gave me a high opinion of her.

The clip was of Esther Hicks Channeling a being she was choosing to call Abraham. She was talking to a woman who wanted to know how to get over life tragedies. Esther said it was the woman’s “old story” to couch everything in negative terms. She needed to convert it into the “new story”, where positive aspects would be mentioned, and the negative kept hidden. The woman accepted the translation task. She took a while before slowly saying “I admire my brother’s strength of will, and I hope he gets what he wants.”

Throughout the video, the old man sitting next to me was breathing loudly through his nose. It sounded so laborious. I imagined him exercising.

The discussion began with people agreeing on how bad it feels when people aren’t positive. Host: “I won’t let depressing, Energy sucking people be around me.” She went on to say how it’s been hard getting her family to come around to the Law, but they’re gradually seeing things her way. One of the interchangeables reported a similar status.

The man who had been in the taxi arrived. He apologized for being late. The host asked him to introduce himself, which he did with relish. He consumed much more time than was reasonable, talking about himself, how he’s from England and is on a several month long vacation. His seemed eager to talk endlessly about banal aspects of himself, but I also detected unease. He smacked his lips in a particular way. I felt visceral dislike, and it’s coming back into me as I’m writing this.

We began practicing our new stories. From his tone, I think the old man missed the point, but it worked out anyway: he talked about how he had planned on doing a lot of fishing after retirement, but has been dealing with health issues. He’s conquered them now and will be able to go fishing when it warms up. He had a genuine happiness to him as he talked about it. I’m glad he’s feeling better.

The interchangeables told fairly bland stories. I did my best to try to read between the lines and extract the old story from the new. Nothing particularly noteworthy: One woman had recently divorced and was lonely, another has been intensely fighting with her son, etc.

British guy missed the point. He began talking about things he wasn’t happy about right now, and how it hasn’t been a good period for him financially lately, and how it will delay his retirement by a few years. There were a few murmers of surprise. Of course, he acted like it was no big deal. At this point I noticed he was wearing a watch that was probably very expensive, and his clothing was fancy.

“You’re telling us what you DON’T like, what DO you like?”
“Oh. Well, I suppose visiting this country.”
He didn’t seem to know what to say.

The cool fat woman did some talking, and British asked her a question that was about ten times longer than it was substantial. At one point, he readjusted his chair to be pointing more towards hers, and playfully interluded “now it looks like I’m flirting with you.” She and the interchangeables giggled. I found the surge of vicariousness quite interesting.

I was eventually asked what my new story is. I had been spacing out some and hadn’t planned ahead well, failing to pre-construct a response to this eventuality. “Um, well, I have a lot of options right now. I’m not sure what to do, it’s a lot to think about, but I have a lot of freedom.”

I imagined them applying the same deconstruction I had been doing to them to figure out what my real deal is. I think I’d have concluded I’m a fugitive.

suicide hotline

“Suicide hotline.”

“I need to talk to someone.”

“I’d be happy to listen. Start wherever you’d like.”

“I just don’t see a point to it all. There’s so much that I want, and that I will want, that I’ll never have. It’s all I can think about. What I do have gives me no joy when compared to the mountain of things I’ll never have.”

“Just so I understand, can you give some examples of things you want that you’ll never have?”

“A beautiful, loving woman, a fulfilling job, enough money to not have to worry about it, a bunch of friends who respect me and truly care about me, be physically attractive.”

“So you’ve never had any of that, and you don’t expect to ever have any of that.”

“That’s right.”

“Ok. What are your reasons to live?”

“That’s why I’m calling, I don’t feel I have any good ones.”

“Let’s see if we can dig some up. Are you close to anyone in life? Family, friends?”

“I’m not close to any of my family, but I think my mom would be pretty crushed if I killed myself in spite of that. As for friends, I have a few, but they’re not really close. I get the feeling it wouldn’t be a big deal to them if I vanished.”

“Ok. Remember that how your mom feels isn’t relevant. That would be selfish of her. It’s your decision. What about your past, were you ever close to anyone?”

“Wait, what do you mean about my mom?”

“If suicide is right for you, she shouldn’t selfishly hold you back from that, she should encourage you to overcome your survival instinct to achieve it. So if she does hold you back, it follows you don’t need to give her feelings consideration; she’s wronging you.”

“…”

“I see you misunderstand the purpose of the suicide hotline. We’re not here to convince everyone to live. Some people aren’t suited to life. We believe this is clearly true, and claiming otherwise is selfish and lacking insight. My job is to help you think clearly about the matter and come to the decision that will be best for you.”

“I didn’t know that. But it does make some sense.”

“We believe so. Now, back to the question: were you ever close to anyone in your past?”

“Hang on, I’m curious now. Don’t you worry about the times your analysis is incorrect, and you advise someone kill themselves when they shouldn’t?”

“I’m sure that has happened, but I believe I do more good than harm, so it doesn’t bother me.”

“But how do you define ‘good’ in this case? What if being irrationally positive is the best solution, since the people who should kill themselves tend to figure that out anyway, and there’s a lot to lose by convincing someone who should live to die?”

“I think there’s also a lot to lose when someone who should kill themselves lingers in misery for an extra decade.”

“I don’t know. Something feels wrong about this idea. What if you talk to someone who should die, but can tell they’re going to be too cowardly to follow through, then talk to someone who should die and you can tell they’re going to do it. Shouldn’t you also try convincing them to murder the first guy as a final mission?”

“Yes, this is standard policy. It’s called the Helping Hand Program. The badge is of a skeletal arm having a handshake with a fleshy arm, and there’s tremor lines around the fleshy arm, indicating he wants something but is scared.”

“But what if the tremors are because he doesn’t want to die after all?”

“Well, we’re discussing a badge character here, so he feels what we declare he feels.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.”

“That’s true.”

“Then why did you say it?”

“Because I’m capricious and no longer feel like debating the morality of this.”

“Well, all right. Maybe we should get back to the matter of if you think I should live or die.”

“I’ve already made up my mind: the fact you created a conversation tangent out of curiousity tells me you should live. You’ll probably come to appreciate yourself more, and what you can’t get from the world will matter less.”

humanity study: channeling ascended master

Ascended Masters are people such as Jesus and Mohammad who have risen above the cycle of birth and death. As luck would have it, the organizer of the meetup I attended was capable of channeling their spirits.

The meetup was held in a small back room of a store that sold energy crystals and the like. The store owner was the first person to greet me. It dripped with false enthusiasm, like I was someone she went to high school with ten years ago, and we talked a lot, but she never really liked me.

I was introduced and passed off to the organizer, a ~60 year old woman who had no problem seizing the reins of a conversation and cracking the whip. She introduced me to the rest of the crowd and asked me the sort of questions I’ve become quite adept at answering. “I stumbled upon this group and I’m just beginning my journey searching for answers.”

I took a seat. Organizer started a conversation with a younger woman who she evidently knew from previous meetups. The younger woman mentioned reading a book Organizer had written, and being confused by a part. Organizer immediately let out a knowing “Ah. It must be the part about (something esoteric sounding, I forget)”. The woman delayed for a split second before unconvincingly saying yes. It felt clear to me Organizer was wrong, and the woman didn’t want to shame her. I thought about how psychics must take heavy advantage of this.

People had stopped trickling in, so Organizer got started. She entered a trance, began channeling a spirit, and started talking about death and suffering. The basic message was: It all serves a purpose. For example, it will teach you lessons to improve your future lives.

Her voice was now ostensibly the voice of the spirit, so when “she” referred to Organizer at several times, she used the term “this one”. “This one was once scared of death”.

During the spirit’s speech, it used size repetition twice. Both times the sizes were not sequential. One was “days, years, months” and the other was “person to person, country to country, town to town”. I wondered what this said about Organizer’s mind, if anything. Less mathematical? Less logical? Less organized?

It then opened things up to a Q&A session. I asked the first question (something to the effect of): “What about masochists?”

My intent: Here we have a group of people where the normal pleasure/pain divide gets blurred somewhat, what interesting things can be said of this in the context of your speech?

Her interpretation: Some people are bad people, why are they bad people?

Her answer (something to the effect of): “Everyone is allowed to make their own individual choices for how to live their life. And maybe it’s for a reason they are this way, maybe it’s what they needed to learn.”

A flurry of worldly questions followed this: What’s the weather going to be like next year, what’s going to happen with US-Pakistan relations, is Obama going to get reelected. The spirit made some predictions.

One of these questions sent the spirit into a discussion of how crystal children are being born now, and how they’ll be capable of such amazing things. The example the spirit gave was “and just see how this one’s granddaughter knows much more about the computer than this one”. The old woman next to me grunted.

The grunter followed an interesting progression over the course of the event. She started off grunting an occasional “mm-hmm”. These became more frequent, and eventually evolved into “yep”, “That’s right”, which evolved into full fledged agreeing sentences, and finally an agreeing paragraph.

The questions drifted to past life regressions. Several people wanted to know more about their past lives, and why should it be that the knowledge was blocked in the first place. The spirit answered: “Because if you knew everything, how would you learn from your current life? Past life regressions should only be done in times of need.” But Organizer, who performs past life regressions for money, caught herself. The spirit continued: “Well this one has done it for fun sometimes, but it is not my place to judge, we are all individuals.”

I noticed Organizer’s husband performing some action I had seen many times already, but hadn’t thought to focus on it. He was pounding nicotine gum: I saw him remove a new piece from its package, put it in his hand, spit out the old piece, put it in the package where the new piece had been, and insert the new piece.

The channeling ended. Some lighter discussion began. Organizer and her husband talked about how they could tell their 8 year old granddaughter was a reincarnation of her sister. The two data points: 1) Organizer and granddaughter fought with each other in a manner similar to how Organizer fought with her sister. 2) Granddaughter was born 50 years and 3 days after sister died.

They planned on subjecting the granddaughter to the Dalai Lama style test of past life object identification when she got a bit older. This made me wonder if they had already performed the test, but the girl failed, and they rationalized it: “She’s too young for the necessary connections to have been made.”

An immensely fat woman who had asked more than her fair share of questions complained about her arm hurting, and wondering if anyone could perform some reiki healing on it before they left. What a taker.

villains and tease-lying

Villains used to be presented as inexplicably and completely evil. He wants to blow up the world because he hates it, he wants to tie the woman to the railroad track because he’s a homicidal psychopath.

There’s a little more depth today, but not much; there are still plenty of rules.

For example, in movies, a villain being tender or sad is only acceptable if it is immediately followed by him being violent. The tender-sad-violent combo shows instability and suggests a damaged past, but since the violence is the lasting mode, the viewer can feel safe viewing the villain as irredeemable.

The technique of sudden reversal is used in other areas for other goals. For example, the humor technique of tease-lying. “I didn’t get the raise today… just kidding, I did!”

The basic rule of tease-lying is present a bad, but not terrible, scenario, then quickly change it to an agreeable reality. This rule is very sensitive. Consider:

Scenario is not bad enough relative to reality.
Scenario: 4.2% raise. Reality: 4.3% raise.

Reality is not good enough.
Scenario: inoperable brain tumor. Reality: syphilis.

Unclear preference.
Scenario: no raise. Reality: life re-evaluation.

masked selfishness

If you are a mad scientist, and want to kill a little boy, give him rocket shoes. He will probably use them without the necessary caution.

There’s plenty of alternatives available. You could just strangle him. But if you’re the sort of scientist who’s decided to kill a boy, allowing his own curiousity to do him in might feel more satisfying, since it brings the double-edged nature of that sword into focus.

Speaking of rocket shoes, the toy class of “This will be fun, but there’s a good chance you’re going to get injured” has become significantly smaller over the past several decades.

What does this mean? Is it entirely due to fear of the lawsuit?

I don’t think so; I think another significant factor is increased opportunity for masked selfishness. (note: increase in opportunity, not increase in psychological propensity)

When a child wants to do something dangerous and the parent prevents them, is the decision based on a dispassionate analysis of benefit vs. cost for the child, or is there an added bias of “I would feel bad if my child gets hurt, therefore I will not afford him the opportunity to get hurt.”?

A relevant data point for considering this question is attitudes towards suicide. How often is it that a man’s friends and family will listen to his reasons for deciding to kill himself, acknowledge the sense of them, and calmly bid him farewell?

lazy split

“Lazy” is one word used to describe two different concepts. In fact, using “lazy” in that manner is lazy1, but it might not be lazy2.

Lazy1 is a quality of a person: Not investing the necessary time and energy to achieve desired results.

Lazy2 exists as a relationship between an observer and an observed: Observed assigns markedly less importance to something than observer. Observed does not do this thing, and observer projects. “If I were to behave in that manner, I would be lazy1.”

The lesson here is that a lack of self awareness leads to imprecise thoughts, which leads to imprecise langauge, which leads to imprecise thoughts, which can lead to unnecessary suffering. What if observed cannot correctly analyze the situation, and feels the guilt burden of lazy1 instead of acknowledging the existence of lazy2?

bad food

In any scenario where you have to eat bad food to not offend, the meal transforms into a grim endurance competition. Not only do you have to choke it down while acting like nothing is wrong, you have to make pleasant conversation with your tormentor.

The main principle at work: because mentioning the unintentional damage would only cause shame, it is not to be done.

If you want to make the host feel bad, the best strategy is to let them know that you do not like their food while making it seem they acquire that knowledge unintentionally, since in that case, the unspoken message is, “I’m trying to make you feel good by pretending to like this, but it’s just so awful; I’m only human.” For example, you could say the food is great, but slightly exaggerate the negative body language. You could also retch.

The main principle at work: a friend can hurt you more than an enemy.

But say the host was a man of insight, and knew what the guest was up to. “I can tell you’re attempting to make me feel bad. You are not as disgusted by my food as you are nonverbally claiming.” The guest can deny this, and no degree of host-certainty can overcome that. It’s like two children pretending to shoot at each other. If there is a dispute as to if someone got shot, the game breaks down unless someone gives up. It is also like someone being insulting, and claiming it is “just a joke” if they meet resistance.

The main principle at work: if your evidence is not incontrovertible, do not use it as a weapon.

hallmark cards

Hallmark cards feature bland humor and one dimensional treatments of subjects. The only time the optimistic mask is removed is when it is unavoidable: the “sorry someone died” category.

Cards having to do with illness express certainty that the recipient will recover. What if they know better? How can receiving a notice of denial feel good?

Here are some possible messages for the terminally ill:
- Philosophical approach: “Misery: when it gets bad enough, you stop caring as much about life, which makes it not as bad.”
- Humor: “Don’t worry. You will be given… The Fastest Funeral.”
- Humor (to a pregnant woman dying of stomach cancer): “Congratulations on the rapidly growing mass of cells in your abdomen.”
- Philosophical: “Everyone’s life looks pathetic from the right angle.”
- Humor: obituary like birth notice: “(name) died today. He was 144 pounds, and 68 inches long.”
- Philosophical: “Once you come to terms with it, “nothing is going to be ok” is as comforting as “everything is going to be ok” because they both imply powerlessness.”

Also, what about more complicated scenarios and emotions? There’s no section for bittersweet cards. If the bitter part was death, a card from the death category would be deployed and the sweet part would be ignored. If the bitter part was less than death, a card from the applicable happy category would be deployed and the bitter part ignored. For example, a card for recent empty nesters might playfully discuss how a burden has been lifted, and it is now time to relax, or have more frequent sex.
Other card categories that do not exist:
- Something bad happened, and it’s not clear if it was card recipient’s fault or not.
- Guilt over cheating on spouse, but spouse is abusive.
- Congratulating pedophile for relegating his desires to the realm of fantasy.

This brings up another point: congratulatory cards exist, but no boasting cards exist.

purpose shifting

Imagine the intended purpose of something changing depending on your needs.

photo booth -> ass and crotch scratch booth

homeless man -> public violence sink

broccoli with cheese dip -> nasty brush

medical malpractice, lose a leg, sue for a million -> involuntary hypothetical scenario acceptance mechanism

humanity study: starseed meditation

Before I get going, due to the nature of what I am going to write, I want to state that I strongly dislike exaggeration and fabrication in stories that are presented as factual. I believe it is best to let reality speak for itself.

I attended a Starseed meditation and attunement. A Starseed is someone who believes to have originated in some magical/unknown way on another planet.

The event was to be held in the back yard of the organizer’s house. It was a pleasant, secluded area. I arrived on time, but most people weren’t there yet. A bunch of chairs were arranged in a circle with some sort of bowl in the middle. Candles had been placed between each pair of chairs. I was welcomed by the host (white female, ~35, bubbly, chatty), asked the usual sort of questions (Is this your first time for an attunement? What sort of modalities are you familiar with?), and mumbled the sort of answers I’ve learned will suffice. (This is my first time, I don’t know much, I just felt drawn to this group. I want to learn about how the universe really works.)

I took a seat and listened to what I could as people trickled in. There were two conversations in my vicinity. It was hard to hear, so I shifted focus between the two depending on who was talking louder at the time.

To my left, two black female 30 somethings talked. Eyes opened up wide, tone of awe, Black1: “He’s an Earth angel. I saw his wings. They were like…”, arms outstretched, “like 7 foot wingspan on each side.” Black2: “Wowwww.”

To my right, a white man with a scraggly beard and a white woman with dreadlocks, both ~30, talked to a fairly attractive but otherwise inconspicuous white woman, ~25. Scraggly: “Yeah, I’ve been studying with some Tibet Buddhists in Baltimore”. The tone dripped with pretention and made me dislike him immediately.

Black1 talked about “stealing the show” at some church event with her singing. Evidently, she looked at the face of a blind man in the congregation as she sang, and she could tell he was beginning to see her.

In reference to some metaphysical practice that Pretty had just described, Scraggly said: “Oh wow, that’s new. So cutting edge.” I wondered what it could have been. Clearly something involving a modern technology. I decided the most likely category of product to be involved is the laser.

Black1: “It’s NOT random.” Black2: “Oh, no, it’s definitely not.” Rarely can I feel sure someone is wrong without knowing what they are talking about.

At this point, around 15 people were present, and Host got things going. She introduced herself as practitioner of 65 modalities and Gatekeeper to the intergalactic hub in her back yard. Four years ago, due to a rift in time that she did not know how to repair, she had to seal it shut, freeing the two 4 million year old guardians. She explained she was in the process of reopening it now that the land has healed.

She motioned to her friend, who was an expert in the ways of Native American spirit work. Friend led us in a blessing, where we faced each cardinal direction as she anthropomorphized it, speaking of the blessings it bestowed on us. South was facing towards the house, and when she attempted to begin “To the south”, she fumbled it into “To the house”.

After this, we went inside Host’s house. Her basement was well furnished for this purpose. We sat in a rather square circle, and Host began leading us on our journey. I don’t remember most of what was said, but I remember the flavor of it. Imagine 10 minutes of this: “You see your star family. They guide you to where you need to be to awaken your star consciousness. You enter the tunnel of light. You are receiving downloads to your DNA. Your energy grid is being freed of negative energy cords.”

I did not have a full bladder during the journey, but I found myself thinking about it several times, feeling empathy for anyone who did. To be stuck in a situation of unknown length when you really have to piss is miserable.

There was a beeping that occurred every 30 seconds throughout. It didn’t sound like someone’s phone, but I don’t know if it was intentional because no one acknowledged it. I can imagine it being intended as some sort of “Don’t get lost out there; this will keep you grounded” thing. I can also imagine it being a fire alarm low on batteries.

(amusing related story: a long time ago, a friend of mine downloaded Schizopolis, an experimental movie. We watched it with no prior knowledge of it other than it was supposed to be surreal. At unpredictable times, there was a horrible screeching noise that was much louder than the rest of the sounds. We watched it in its entirety, but being fearful of the next screech ruined it; it was hard to focus on the movie knowing what was around the bend somewhere. As intensely offputting as it was, given the subject matter, it seemed plausible it was intended as some sort of statement. Afterward, we learned it was a glitch in the DVD rip.)

Our journey ended. In a hushed tone, Black1 said, “There are 100 angels all around us.”

Host excitedly asked what everyone felt, but no one was forthcoming. Host asked three more times before giving up. The informal part of the meeting began. People milled about, snacking and talking in small groups.

I wandered around, feeling my usual pleasure in this sort of environment: a decoupling of my two reasons for human interaction. Not caring about actually building any sort of connection with these people, knowing all I have to do is lurk, listen, and analyze. They are in their native habitat.

A woman was explaining to Scraggly a theory of hers, concluding with how it feels to have an epiphany: “And it’s like, oh, so THAT’S how it works.”

Scraggly said, “So you’re saying we interact on other dimensions on other planets simultaneously? Huh, interesting.”

I thought some about how resilient the basic human conversation dynamic is. The spirituality was just a backdrop.

I overheard Pretty introduce herself to someone: “What star system are you from?”

Another woman was talking to two people about Agnihotra, which is a process by which you can heal the planet. It involves cow dung and ghee. She spoke of how cow dung has some special connection to the Earth Mother, and mentioned that when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the only thing that survived intact was cow dung. She went on to discuss the therapeutic properties of cow’s breath. “And there’s reports that it can cure TB. Like if you’re just in the same room as a cow, so the cow is breathing around you.”

I went to the bathroom to write things down on my notepad, saw a shower, and chuckled at the impropriety of using it.

I wrote quickly and emerged, but the cow group had dissipated. People seemed to be getting settled in one-on-one conversations. It felt like a good time to leave, so I did.