When looking at something, see only what is there.

Leave a reply

Welcome to this week’s Pebbles in the Pond Blog, written by Bill Harvey
November 13, 2026

MIND MAGIC / MIND EXPERIMENTS: The 50th Anniversary Edition Excerpt Series: Part 15

See what is really out there. It was all put there by the same Artist

If it is an object someone has created, we do not say to ourselves, “It is not well done.” This merely means, “It is not done in the way usually considered well done.”

Our expectations create a perceptual screen. We can remove the screen by having no expectations of what we are looking at, allowing ourselves to see what the object’s creator saw rather than comparing it to any other.

As we grow older, we are told that object after object is not beautiful; we see fewer and fewer objects as beautiful; fewer and fewer percepts enthrall us. We are looking at things through the eyes of others, accepting what they have told us about what is and is not beautiful. We are comparing each created object with other previously created objects that others told us were or were not well done.

Every object is art, and every object can be appreciated, but only if it is looked at without expectations. Seeing it this way, we can accept art criticism as art-in-itself and ignore it as art-criticism-per-se.

Ignore usual concepts of
what is beautiful or ugly.
See what is really out there.
It was all put there by the same Artist.

Implications: Instead of looking at a situation and saying it is dull, we ask ourselves who do we know who would consider it dull. These are the people who have programmed us to see this situation as dull. Then, we ask ourselves what we can learn from the situation. When we find the answer, dullness will turn to luster.

Rather than looking away from an object, saying we have seen such things before, we close our eyes and attempt to recreate it in full detail. Could we draw a detailed sketch of the object? If not, we likely retain only a hazy image of it, less precise than we suppose; we have not yet gleaned all the information.

By looking at objects as if to reproduce them, not merely recognize them again, our senses can bring us information if we let them. For example, we might ask ourselves why they are shaped precisely the way they are. There are reasons.

Before looking at a situation and saying it is bad, we ask ourselves instead how good might come out of it. By finding and grasping that angle, we can actualize the latent good as much as possible. In retrospect, we may laugh at the memory of thinking the situation was bad. Bad things have such potential for good that it becomes difficult to maintain the position that anything is bad.

Enjoy simple things rather than always demanding more complex ones. Concentrating on an apparently simple thing will reveal it to have more complexity than was at first apparent.

Concentration reveals that the simple-complex variable is an illusion. For example, instead of saying a substance is tasteless, we strive to experience its subtler taste.

This rule can be applied to all our senses.

Visualize feelings as chords played on a multiplex organ.

This musical instrument offers more chords to be enjoyed than merely one (happiness). Therefore, we learn to enjoy all its chords, even those the unenlightened might deem dissonant and agonizing.

We keep asking the questions we have yet to find satisfactory answers to. We and the universe are always changing, which will gradually make some of these questions answerable. We may find that if we ask ourselves a question we long ago gave up asking, we may now have some data in the files that will cast some light on possible answers.

Mind Experiments

This week we have many Experiments. You can choose to do all of them or those that resonate with you. It may only be one. You may also want to review the last two weeks’ blog posts – Parts 13 and 14 – and then you may find some of these experiments work more closely with what was presented there.
Download questionnaire

1. “Without comparing” experiment
When you have nothing in particular to do, pick an object in your environment and look at it closely.

Imagine a vacuum behind your eyes: any memory or association triggered by what you see gets sucked into this vacuum as quickly as it arises.

You see only what is in front of you, as if for the first time. This experiment is excellent for art galleries and museums as well.

2. Surprise mirror experiment
Every now and then, you see a person and then realize it is you in a mirror you weren’t expecting to see.

Whenever that happens, get a good look at yourself before you realize it’s you and stop really seeing. (From Rhythms of Vision, Croom Helm Ltd., London, with thanks to Lawrence Blair.)

3. Dullness experiment
The next time you’re feeling bored, stay with it to understand the state as fully as possible.

Don’t ask questions so much, simply “look at what is there”.

4. I Spy
Keep a writing implement and paper with you so that when you are “on hold” or waiting for something, you can practice sketching faces and objects “as if for a military report”.

5. How to turn for good
Whenever you find yourself thinking of something as bad, visualize a scenario in which you turn that item into something good. The initial scenario might be pure science fiction; i.e., it need not be realistic.

This first scenario will provide the foundation for a realistic subsequent scenario. Consider materializing it when you reach a fully believable and attractive scenario.

6. Subtlety experiment
Learn to detect the information in blandness:

  • Be conscious of the taste of water.
  • Let yourself see the grain in objects.
  • Don’t ignore shadows and reflections.

Always go one step deeper than anyone expects.

7. Agony enjoyment
The next time you hurt, set aside all other distractions and concentrate on “observing” the hurt itself as scientifically and objectively as possible. Just feel it so you can report “what is actually there.”

What does it feel like? What is the feeling in and of itself?

When you get inside the hurt, and it no longer matters quite so much, imagine your future self reflecting on that hurt once it becomes just a memory. Pre-experience the relief you will feel whenever you recall the hurt and no longer feel it.

When you no longer care about the hurt at all, go back and deliberately feel it as a pleasure-pain experience for a little while (going too far in this stage may lead to wasting considerable time with consequences).

When you become bored with this stage, let the pain go and return to your life.

8. What did I ever want to know?
What questions have you asked over the course of your life?
Can you answer them now?

Our best wishes to all,
THEI Team

Avoid Limiting Yourself and Seek Truth and Value

Leave a reply

Welcome to this week’s Pebbles in the Pond Blog, written by Bill Harvey
November 6, 2026

MIND MAGIC / MIND EXPERIMENTS: The 50th Anniversary Edition Excerpt Series: Part 14

Avoid describing ourselves in unqualified terms.
Telling ourselves or someone else that we are a particular way tends to make us more that way, limiting our freedom to create who we are at any given moment.

If we believe we are a certain way because of our past experiences, we give those experiences power to dictate who we are. If we see how our past experiences have influenced us, this recognition is enough to free us from those effects; we can start anew at that moment.

Treating each second as the first second of our lives, and potentially as the last, when we hear ourselves describing ourselves, we then say, “That’s how I was. How do I wish to be from now on?”

Predict and eschew the predictable, culture-conditioned response. We don’t always have to get angry in situations where anger is expected of us; nor always contradict when contradiction is expected of us; nor always agree when agreement is expected of us. Instead, we avoid predictability except where it is necessary for the good of the Universe.

Avoid mimicry
We don’t have to be like our friend to be their friend.

Nor must we submit to the prevailing worldview. We may often be in the company of a group with a shared worldview; this creates a powerful impetus for us to fall prey to their worldview without even realizing it. They may value material success, wit in a specific vernacular, particular types of appearance and customs, and so on, and we may find ourselves accepting their negative judgment of us against their standards. This will first manifest in a tightening of free self-expression, formless negative emotion, and perhaps even mild mimicry on our part.

The option is to remind ourselves that our worldview differs from theirs and that ours is the only one we submit to. We can prepare ourselves to accept rejection from them with equanimity. And be honest with them, for they have no power over us; no one has any power over us because we are independent of even what is done to our body; it is not who we are; we are inaccessible to any but ourselves.

While seeking to determine whether anything useful can be derived from this confrontation between worldviews, we do not seek to establish ours as superior. It can be helpful to gently ask relevant questions and answer theirs; otherwise, we do not expostulate. Too much cannot be communicated in a single meeting. We accept the contact assignment the Universe has given us as having good potential purpose; then we see what happens.

We do not internalize their statements or identify with their worldview. Likewise, we do not accept judgment or care about irrelevancies. We consider no viewpoint sacred, not even our own.

Objectively seek truth and value.
Others who are anxious to have things be a certain way carry psychic momentum, which can be imparted to us without our even realizing it. Mindful of this, we don’t let ourselves be carried off by the momentum of others.

Instead of stampeding with our predisposition to help, we give ourselves time to think things through. What others think they want from us may not give them what they really want. We don’t allow ourselves to be influenced by the expectation that our hesitation will be misread as not caring, knowing that doing so would enslave us.

Once we let ourselves be affected by others’ momentum, we may not realize it is happening, because momentum interferes with observation. Thus, being transparent to momentum from the outset is advisable.

Mind Experiments

Since last week’s questionnaire asks you to describe yourself in unqualified terms, the next experiment corrects for this. Click here to download and print.

1. Give yourself the direction you need.

Now, add arrows to your responses on the questionnaire included in last week’s blog post, including any new adjectives you added, to indicate how you would prefer to answer. “No arrows” means you like your current responses and want them to stay the same.

Using arrows tells your robot which way to go at decision points. Check back months or years later to verify, to your delight, that the robot complied!

You might use the space below to note changes you’d like to make and how you plan to implement them over time.

Notes: You can keep those in your journal with the questionnaire

2. Unconstrained self-expression

When it does not risk a loss of value to the Universe, begin to relax the programs that “constrain the way you speak to ensure easy understandability”.

For example, when responding to your family about minor matters, see what happens if you simply open your mouth and speak, or mime an answer, gesture, or point rather than speaking at all.

Since the environment is low-risk, the play element may operate freely without concern for “meeting standards”.

3. De-narrowing unique/devalued child-things

To hold onto your parents, peers, and so on (something you felt you desperately needed at the time), you mimicked them and stopped doing what they and everyone else didn’t do. Thus, you were tricked into throwing away your unique experiment—temporarily.

Relive the moments when something YOU did or said was devalued. Did they lead you to give up the use or manifestation of a part of yourself?

Visualize bringing that part of you back into your life. Then energize it or not, as you like.

To be continued next week.

Our best wishes to all,
THEI Team

The Originality Moment

Leave a reply

Welcome to this week’s Pebbles in the Pond Blog, written by Bill Harvey
October 30, 2026

MIND MAGIC / MIND EXPERIMENTS: The 50th Anniversary Edition Excerpt Series: Part 13

Start life anew with a clear slate each moment.

De-mechanizing oneself by broadening the range of creative possibilities

The consistency program in our heads is concerned with maintaining the apparent internal consistency of all our thoughts and actions. In this endeavor, it will naturally come into conflict with our changing behavior patterns, i.e., with learning. It will seek to keep us making the same mistakes in the same ways so as not to reveal past mistakes for what they now seem to be. However, our past actions were justified by what we believed then; no one ever takes a wrong action on purpose.

Our inconsistency over time in no way reduces the net value of the universe; our consistency programs need to be reminded of this fact.

If we find ourselves “out on a limb” doing something we are no longer entirely comfortable with, it may be the result of our consistency program. This is the time to stop what we’re doing and reconsider all alternatives, not doing anything merely for the sake of consistency.

The tendency to be consistent stems from the implicit assumption that if we have no preference about how to act in a given circumstance, the most logical course is to act as we have before. While this assumption may appear logical, its effect is to give power to precedent.

This is undesirable because it limits experimentation and exploration. Much precedent has been established casually.

As we proceed largely by trial and error, much precedent represents error and, as such, should certainly not be institutionalized.

Action to be consistent with precedent reinforces the precedent, developing it into a habit or programmatic addiction.

Programmatic addiction “freezes” us into stasis, halting the evolutionary march of becoming. We should ideally retain all power over our current behavior, yielding none to the past or others.

Acting consistently with precedent is another form of hasty closure and, as such, minimizes fresh thought, reducing the potential for understanding. Learning to identify which of our thoughts and actions are inspired by our consistency programs, we subject them to objective critical review as if the past did not exist, and therefore as if no precedent existed.

Start life anew with a clear slate each moment.

We can do this by spontaneously thinking and acting to break established patterns of thought and behavior unless, in a given instance, there are valid reasons not to do so.

Awareness of our power to change ourselves.

It’s common to focus on our past performance as a predictor of how we will act in the future, despite our contrary resolutions. This is because there is no feeling of change inside when we make a resolution; thus, we feel instinctively that the resolution has not changed anything nor will it.

Since we have no confidence in our resolutions, they have no effect. Then we say to ourselves, “I told you so!” and continue to behave as before with less hope than ever of willing and effecting change.

Resolutions, therefore, must not be made lightly, for their non-effect will weaken the effectiveness of future resolutions.

After considering all aspects of an issue, we resolve to do only what we are determined to do, and then let nothing stop us unless and until our mind is changed by new inputs and resolutions.

Aware that we will not feel anything inside when we make a resolution to change, we therefore do not expect to feel anything inside, and we do not take the absence of such a feeling as evidence that we are no different.

We are different: we have the invisible determination to act differently and the total invisible power to carry out this determination, aware that both the determination and power may be invisible yet real.

We can help prove this to ourselves by acting immediately on our resolutions, even if the situation only allows us to do so in small ways. This will prove that we are now different and will make our invisible will visible.

Mind Experiments

1. Springboarding from mistakes rather than patching them over

Real learning cannot occur while the ego is in command because the ego is attached to seeing itself as “right already” and thus cannot admit mistakes (and therefore cannot learn from them). The ego eschews the humiliation-evolution opportunity to preserve its illusions.

Pick a day and, for that day, focus on being honest and creative (not “consistent” and “resistant to change”). The more of your own mistakes you find that day and the more creatively you respond to them, the better.

2. Creative new approaches

One day, read this blog post upon waking and apply it to everything that happens that day. Try some creative new approaches in every area of your life that day. Enjoy.

When you are re-experiencing, check how you were feeling and what you did about it—then contemplate how this has affected the rest of your life by lulling you into fixed coping styles.

3. How do you see yourself now?

Fill out the questionnaire below. If you like, Click here to download and print.  Feel free to add your own adjectives and check them as appropriate.

To be continued next week.

Our best wishes to all,
THEI Team

Guiltless Housecleaning

Leave a reply

Welcome to this week’s Pebbles in the Pond Blog, written by Bill Harvey
October 23, 2026

MIND MAGIC / MIND EXPERIMENTS: The 50th Anniversary Edition Excerpt Series: Part 12

It's time for a guiltless housecleaning

In last week’s post, we explored how to dismantle counterproductive tendencies by tracing their origins, setting realistic, gradual goals for self-control, and shrinking the gap between action and self-awareness until we can catch ourselves before we act. We also examined how our old coping mechanisms—”senators” or past influences—fight to survive long after they have outlived their usefulness.

This week, it’s time for a “guiltless housecleaning” of our internal system.

To compensate for these tendencies, it’s wise to regularly review our favorite programs for signs of vestigiality. But in light of their past service, we do not blame any program for being counterproductive as we remove it. Housecleaning should be guiltless.

We will remove a program when it no longer fits our developing gestalt; until that point, the program fit, and neither we nor the program were to blame for our union.

Avoiding the temptation to be harsh with the programs we remove, we look upon them not as enemies but as “mischief programs”. They were necessary stepping stones to where we are now; we can love them for this while defusing their power over us for the upcoming phases.

As we remove our extraneous programming, we will be simplifying the number of variables impinging upon any set of circumstances. Thus, we will solve the circumstances for best action more quickly and accurately.

In attempting to identify our unconscious programming, we need to be prepared for the pervasive to be invisible: the things we do most continuously will be hardest for us to detect and analyze.

Mind Experiments

1. De-energizing parental-dynamic-compensating parasite circuits

You may not yet know this, but you can “return in time” and re-experience any memory quite vividly just by putting the time and energy into it.

2. Do this—return to the first time you saw your parents perform the first act on your list, from Mind Experiment 2 from last week: De-energizing parental-dynamic parasite circuits.

Then do it for each other act on the list—go back to the first time they played that one in front of you.

To the extent that your rational mind believes that this built-in memory ability is impossible for you, the process will be delayed, but the subconscious processes will still work on it, will flash you hints from time to time, and eventually, you’ll suddenly re-experience a key moment: from then on, it will be easy—you will systematically re-experience each unassimilated moment in your memory and clear it.

When you are re-experiencing, check how you were feeling and what you did about it—then contemplate how this has affected the rest of your life by lulling you into fixed coping styles.

Our best wishes to all,
THEI Team