Category Archives: Mind Magic

How Can We Hold the Feeling of Unity?

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Created February 1st, 2021

I had cautioned that habits are going to be hard to break when I began to write about all of us getting a fresh start. We’ve all now seen a lot of backsliding to the partisan bickering here at home, and one evidently cannot lay aside cold war feelings overnight in making a new beginning with other nations we’ve chastised in the past.

We really do need the luxury of rethinking everything from a clean sheet of paper. Band-aids on the past ways of doing things are not going to save the human race from itself. Far better ways have always been available and the nature of them is no secret needing extensive research. “Live and Let Live” covers a lot of it.

My friend who is slightly to right of center and who sees me fairly accurately as slightly left of center, and I, quickly resolved our political differences by recognizing the validity of both viewpoints and helping each other to gather facts and create hypotheses about what might be tested going forward. But then after our shared optimism about unity after the Inauguration, the articles I find interesting now because of glimmers of promising new ideas, I hesitate to send to him because they often contain jabs at the past or even present actions of Republicans.

Sure, it’s easy to see why after four years of sucking it up, Democrats might naturally feel the need to vent now that they can. But it can undo all the good that was done by the noble unity intention set down by President Biden at the outset. We have to give unity a chance, which means laying off pot-shots. That goes both ways. Reopen our minds to kindness and respect. It’s possible we all have a lot of good to bring to the new unity party – meaning all of us. Let’s think of it as a meta-party. The United States of America.

George Washington was right to warn us not to allow political parties but they are part of us now and let’s simply try to improve the way we use them rather than try to disband them. We don’t have a lot of time to go off on long term high risk windmill tilting right now. Mutations in Covid could make our war against Covid a longer term affair than any of us are prepared to even think about right now. That plus the environment, international tensions, thermonuclear biological chemical and psychological warfare weapons “improvements”, racism and other ancient vendettas, world debt, robotics replacing jobs, are a nitroglycerine puzzle that needs kid gloves rather than mailed fists.

Our objective as human beings has to be to twist that Rubic’s Cube so that all those threat vectors fade away and what is left is an equilibrium in which everyone is having a good time, and feels okay about the rest of the people in the world. Where we can all be world travelers and bring out our own individuality via positive creative outlets that delight others as well as ourself.

The only radical thing we need right now is love thy neighbor and the Golden Rule. Otherwise, small dial setting changes would be far less risky than wild card moves from far left or far right fields.

One of the first things we need to establish is that Democrats do not want any more socialism than the way the government has been taking care of non-rich people during the economic contraction, except that job can be done better so all who need, receive, without making non-needy people into needy ones. Nobody really wants true communism any more, not even the communists. They have adopted capitalism bigtime and although we have not “converted them” to what we call “democracy” we have converted them to our real way of life which is capitalism. Now that they rival us in capitalist skills we’re not so sure we’re happy to have converted them. Be careful of what you wish for.

We do have the best democracy the world has ever seen. It’s got some loopholes that can be exploited by people who fundamentally misunderstand what democracy means, and we shall be making laws that close those and other loopholes in our Noble Experiment, the one nation whose very meaning is to risk everything to prove that utopia is achievable by human beings on Earth. That’s us. Naturally a nation that is an experiment, is a nation of change agents, and therefore is going to serve up some individuals who are lunatic fringe. We have to do a better job of helping those folks back on the path sooner in their divergence from reality.

Changing hats now to my persona as a marketing consultant. What would I advise the Republican party now if I ran its advertising agency? December Gallup data show 25% Republican, 31% Democrat, 44% Independent is the way Americans think of themselves lately – but the Republicans have been concerned about being the minority party for some time now. They calculate a bad future for the party unless they stand behind Trump no matter what – because of those 70 million voters who voted for him in November.

But that would be a defensive strategy. Defensive strategies have rarely worked in advertising. The Republican party stands to gain – and to give – the most by harking back to the achievements and ideals of past Republican presidents, and to uplift its party back to that level. To do its job to conserve the valid improvements of the past, to minimize waste, to minimize risk, to do the things a conservative party is expected to do – its objective function.

The Republican party should speak to its devoted followers of Trump and clarify for them what happened. The man made some good moves and some bad ones. “We Republicans all liked him because he seemed like an average Joe like us, not boring like so many other choices, and with balls to stand up for us. But he lied to us. He equated Democrats with Communists – an awful lie that infected millions of us and has nearly wrecked our country. He did not really stand up for us, he just made a convincing act of it. He incited us to dividing and thus weakening the nation and leaving ourselves prey to cyberspying and psychological warfare in the social media, which he himself got so caught up in he was an unintended puppet of other nations. This has to be taken as an important lesson not to get carried away like a cult into loyalty to one person, what we need is loyalty to the whole country, and to consider the rest of the world to be vital partners in conquering Covid and the rest of the problems we’ve created for ourselves by this incessant aggression toward one another.” Or words to that effect.

We’ve fallen into the trap of threatening the stick all the time with very little show of the carrot, in our dealings internally and internationally. We tell other nations what we want them to stop doing. It would be more likely to succeed if we painted attractive pictures of what we DO want them to do – which is to succeed like us, and play nice like we used to and must go back to immediately, or none of this will work. Then we can go back to traveling to see the world and be in it and enjoy the growing we experience by inputs from people very different from ourselves but on the inside identical.

This tilt toward rage was fanned by the partisan news channels and by Trump and his devoted followers. And it found fertile ground in an American minority happy to go brawling into the streets causing harm to others and undermining America at its roots and around the world. The Republican party should most definitely address this part of its base, explaining that such behavior will no longer be tolerated, there will be new laws continuing to allow free speech, but with swift justice against threatening or hurting other people or property based on ideologies fundamentally at conflict with America’s ideals for itself. New ethics laws that apply also to civil servants at all levels which prohibit seditious and/or hate speech. And which regulate social media such that free speech which is oriented to hate is removed as quickly as possible.

If there are some who would rather leave the country than stay in the USA when these laws are instituted, that is their right. The majority will determine where the lines are drawn to preserve free speech but end bullying, intimidation, and domestic terrorism. Most Americans wish to not have to live in fear. For a small minority who embrace fear and get off on it, if they choose to leave, most Americans will not mind them being further away.

The Republican party in the last Century and a half has never had to resort to such demeaning ways to gather its members as we saw in the past four years. It has always had its share of geniuses and visionaries able to see and embrace better ways for the future. That is what it should focus on. Making the country better and stronger, making life here safer and more pleasant than ever before.

That’s what we should all focus on, almost half of us are not even in a party. Let’s dial down the importance of which party we are in and dial up the importance of making all of our working and non-working lives more like a party.

You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum

Bring gloom down to the minimum

Have faith or pandemonium

Liable to walk upon the scene

—Johnny Mercer,

Accentuate the Positive

 

We can do it.

One takeaway for recommended explicit action/non-action based on MIND MAGIC:

Don’t speak unnecessary negative thoughts. “Don’t Bring Them Down”.

Best to all,

Bill

Follow my regular media blog, In Terms of ROI at Media Village. Here is the link to my latest post.

We Can and Must Legislate Ethics

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Created January 28th, 2021

The U.S. Congress acts as if ethics issues ought to be dealt with only by means of establishing norms via “ethics pledges”. These are promises, not legally binding. Why would we want issues of ethics to be based on promises? Obviously, anyone whose ethics is awry is going to make false promises.

Ethics is not just underperforming its role in government, it’s everywhere.

The 600+ U.S. billionaires gaining $1.1 trillion during Covid is emblematic. In an ethical society, a day or two would go by and the parties involved would do the right thing.

That seems like a joke today. But that’s just because of how jaded and accepting we have all become as we slid down from civility to emotional anarchy.

United. The United States of America.

We ain’t gonna get back there without reset of ethics for all of us.

It’s so simple, we were told about being Good all the years of growing up, all we have to do now, is to be it.

In ancient Greece, there was a saying: “All the Hellenes (Greeks) know what is right, but only the Spartans do it.”

They knew 2000 years ago the right way to be, and they knew it could be achieved by a nation. The Spartans were living sinless lives to a degree which seemed impossible to the rest of the country.

If the Spartans could do it 2000 years ago without all the advances since then, we can do it now, and prove it in the next four years.

Ethics is the center of this storm.

Ethics is a branch of Philosophy.

It’s unfortunate that we’re not a philosophical society today here in the U.S. or in most other places, such as, for example, the ancient Jewish, Indian, Chinese, Greek, Iranian, Arab and Roman societies, or the society of the West as it was during the early Christian Era and during the Renaissance and its later scientific Enlightenment phase.

Philosophy dropped off the map in the 20th Century as the materialist wing of science essentially took over science. The great master physicists were all old school and open to the idea of God or the equivalent, but the mass of scientists, employed mostly by military and industry (not that there’s anything wrong with that), leaned all the way over to asserting the non-existence of God, and that made quite an impression in that Century, given as that science was the miracle-doer now. The mob always follows the miracles, as Jesus taught.

We need to bring philosophy back.

This is a piece of what is really needed which is to actually have a retraining of all of us.

We need videos and articles online and in all media which train us in philosophy, values, ethics. We must have foundations. Trying to teach ethics before teaching self-knowledge is trying to build a house starting from the second floor. We need more philosophical programming and content on television and online. Some can be funny, some can be fiction or docudrama, interview, interactive, reality news, let a thousand flowers bloom.

In the immediate short term, the congress should set a good example by first setting laws governing its own ethics, and then a law on citizen ethics. It cannot imperil the Constitution nor individual freedom, except insofar as psychological or physical harm must not be allowed one person to another. The laws as they stand allow bullying and worse. A lot of the insurrectionists are not being charged because “they weren’t bad enough”. Under a new Citizen Ethics Act they would all be charged.

America must decide where the lines ought righteously to be drawn.

The tide of new legislation needed should make congress happy and excited.

The best course to American success is to forget about party.

Let it exist in the background. Start each meeting with a fresh slate, no going in agenda. Learn, think, discuss, and reach consensus, then move on.

Congress is going to have to step up production. We are re-starting everything, without changing the Constitution. Without selling out the Founders, and Lincoln. But otherwise it’s a fresh start. That last movie was no good, don’t want any more of that, change the channel for good.

Filibusters are a great drag on production. Moving more slowly back to being a peaceful, cooperative, polite, friendly society is going to require a number of important new laws. The world is at stake. The world has never been so imperiled before. It would be mass insanity to tolerate delays in setting things straight because of last-movie’s party game.

Congress please produce the best laws possible but do not make unnecessary delays. Everyone is listening in and watching so we can all yell hurry up if we have to. When we hear the same thing said and no more new things being said, we are going to call an audible.

Thank you Congress!

Best to us all,

Bill

 

Follow my regular media blog, In Terms of ROI at Media Village. Here is the link to my latest post.

Sense the Meaning of the Moment: Right Now, it is “Fresh Start”

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Created January 26th, 2021

Take Advantage of your Permission for Creativity

Everyone had been waiting to see what President Biden was going to say to Russia and to China. I wrote this piece below a few days before President Biden had his first call with President Putin. I wrote:

I hope he and his Team are savoring the moment: they have a chance to make a fresh start.

“In Action, Watch the Timing”

—Lao Tzu

Also, there is no rush in certain things. Better to have more time to deeply think and discuss.

There would be no harm in considering a Socratic approach:

  1. Being friendly
  2. Respectful and with dignity and humility
  3. Asking questions relevant to the future direction of the world
  4. As a collaborator
  5. In the same lifeboat Earth together
  6. And with a degree of power
  7. What to do with each other that both will like

This is a more balanced approach than “Love your enemy” but they are both brilliant (being Socrates and Jesus) and can be embraced together.

When one feels that an attempt is being made to manipulate you, dial back on the Jesus and up on the Socrates; at all other times, let your own intuition guide where to set the dial in collaborating with someone who might more accurately be described as a rival.

Now that we know all about the call, my prayer above was answered. The two have made a business-like fresh start, just as I had hoped.

This is The Moment of Reset.

We are not likely to live through another time like this one, the spacetime continuum itself is up for a bit of innovation. You are invited to be creative now. Savor the opportunity and follow your dreams.

It is possible now to change the way the world thinks so that the word “enemy” becomes passé.

Nations and corporations are two versions of the same thing: autonomous groupings of people seeking specific real-world outcomes.

Sane CEOs do not think of competitors as enemies, they think of them as competitors, i.e., rivals.

The same should be true of sane Presidents.

And rivals can enjoy coopetition and being frenemies, and all of the other variations of gradually migrating to partners.

Competition Has the Best Effects When It’s Friendly

Adam Smith made a profound impression upon the world and shaped modern Capitalism. Our American Founders took very seriously the importance Smith placed upon competition in a free market.

In high school at times it seemed the boys were all competing to see who could feel best about himself.

We all love sports and every other form of competition you can imagine – including for some of us, war.

Cancer is a natural form of competition among cells in the same body/mind/spirit.

So, competition can be very, very good, or it can be very, very bad, or in the middle somewhere.

We can choose our kind of competition to be one that’s compatible with partnership. And along the way let’s take our time (Sinatra singing “Nice and Easy”) by going through all the steps of frenemies, coopetitionists, and finally partners.

This is the Meaning of the Moment now.

But let’s zoom back – the moment is always changing. What I’d like to share with you is not just about this moment, but about how you can yourself read the meaning of every moment in which you are involved.

It’s all about Observation. The Observer state.

I can be more specific by using a few quotes from MIND MAGIC:

 

“Opening the senses. Seeing more of what is.”

 

“Imagine what you look like;

imagine that a mirror which only you can see exists on the far wall.

Do not get so involved in your task or role that you cannot see yourself in this mirror.

Catch your facial expressions and hand gestures,

body movements and so forth in this mirror,

and ask yourself

why you have created these manifestations.”

 

“Count the feel of a situation more important than the look.

Remember that the pervasive becomes invisible.

What is motivating each entity in this situation?

How might this have gotten started?

How might I turn this to everyone’s advantage?

Pose the right questions.

Do not screen out or rephrase statements to yourself which utilize models other than the scientific/materialistic.

Why did that happen?

What is it trying to tell me?”

 

These are words out of my book MIND MAGIC. The chapter quoted above is Chapter 6, “Opening the Senses”. These links are free during the pandemic, one to the book itself, and the other to Chapter 6. I hope you enjoy, and can sense the change in yourself, and begin to observe more closely the meaning of each moment in your life.

All my best,

Bill

 

Follow my regular media blog, In Terms of ROI at Media Village. Here is the link to my latest post.

What Does the Real You Want?

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Created January 21, 2021

As I started to write this, Sammy Davis Junior simultaneously began singing “I Gotta Be Me” on the Sinatra Channel. This is the kind of synchronicity that occurs in peak experience.

This series of posts entitled “On the Road to Flow” started out aimed at helping you stay in the peak experience states (Flow and Observer) for more of your life. That’s still our aim. But the world events stirring during the past 5 weeks has reminded me that the aim of all of my writings since I was 30 has been to help people free themselves of their conditioning, so that they become clear in their own decision making for themselves.

The conditioning has come down on all of us from well-intentioned parents, others who care about us, teachers, media, politicians, celebrities of all kinds, and from thinkers and writers who influenced us. And more.

In the Normal Waking State of consciousness which I also call “The Robot”, all of these memories and predispositions vie and the result is the action we take. Some of it comes from the You That Was Born – the real you – and some of it comes from the conditioning.

In this post we focus on one of the most important decisions any of us faces in life: deciding what we really want. Not what we have come to assume we want, but stripping away conditioning, what does the original me want.

This does not invalidate valuable learning you gained between birth and now, things you discovered for yourself to be true, based upon evidence that could be called scientific or at least empirical, and could stand up in court. That’s part of the real you. Each of us is constantly changing, hopefully growing emotionally, ethically and intellectually. I’m not intentionally glorifying the condition of your mind at birth. My repeated reference to the original you, is a reference to you when you are in the peak experience states. This reflects my hypothesis that peak experience states are our natural states, we are born into those states. Life’s events are what bring us down, by getting us to become dependent on bringing about conditions over which we have only partial control. What I’ve called an AI – the Ego circuit in our minds – is the accumulation of those addictions.

So, separating out the wants your true self wants, from your addiction wants, is not an easy thing to do. Chapter 5 of MIND MAGIC at this free link contains a procedure that makes it much easier. It’s like a Wizard that takes you through the process step by simple step:

  1. Listing things you think you want
  2. Remembering when you started to care about each want, and who/what else had been involved
  3. How much happiness and how much unhappiness this want has caused you?
  4. Do you want to be the sort of person who wants this thing?
  5. How to deal with bodily wants
  6. How to deal with the wanting the approval of others
  7. How to deal with wanting self-approval
  8. Considering certain higher wants you might not have listed
  9. Prioritizing the wants of your deepest, truest self
  10. Setting goals and making plans based upon the new set of wants and goals.

Quotes from MIND MAGIC Chapter 5:

“Listen respectfully therefore to every communication,

Whether from inside or outside of you,

And evaluate its cause;

Strive to understand its cause; respond accordingly.”

“Be gentle with all who communicate with you,

Including your own mind.”

“Give each part of the universe

The respect you give the whole.”

“Listen with respect, then make your own decisions.”

What the Real Bill Harvey Wants

I want to do everything in my power to share whatever is right about my methodology, and to accomplish this more by staying in Flow and Observer states more.

Although I’m not attached to achieving my wished-for outcome, it’s to see all of us thinking clearly and for ourselves, reaching empathy with each other, so as to bring about a Flow state culture where we are all empowering each other constantly.

In that Empathutopia the designations “far right” and “far left” will cease to be badges of honor, as they work against consensual freedom for all. Instead, conservatives and progressives will value each other’s inputs as complementary and incrementally additive, inputs for even more perfect holistic solutions. When the Ego circuit is not suffering and the rugged individualist is in peak experience states, it’s easy to give credit and respect to people who have different views than one’s own.

It’s virtually impossible when locked in identification with one’s own Ego AI to not see vast numbers of other people as enemies. The Ego phenomenon has classically been linked to neurosis, but this is just a word. The word psychosis might also be applied. Sanity and insanity are not perfectly defined words. But the current state of the world has veered much more into the red zone than its average state across recorded history. Many people nowadays use the word “crazy” to describe what is going on. It may be technically a correct term.

All I can say is that the techniques of careful self-discussion do work for me, and thousands of readers have told me they work for them too. Over 35,000 copies of MIND MAGIC have been sold, mostly for $20, and today until we lick this pandemic you can still get the same book free. I hope you take it and use it and that the world moves inward toward its holy spiritual universally empathetic center.

Best to all,

Bill

Follow my regular media blog, In Terms of ROI at Media Village. Here is the link to my latest post.