Negative Psychology
Episodes
104 episodes
Misunderstanding psychosis
There are lots of theories that try to explain what is happening in psychosis. Theories are 'empty' however - theories are about about reality without partaking in it. Theories can't contain reality and they can't expla...
Systems [2]
“Dangers lurk in all systems. Systems incorporate the unexamined beliefs of their creators. Adopt a system, accept its beliefs, and you help strengthen the resistance to change” - Frank Herbert
Going along to get along
We don't agree with people because we think what they are saying is TRUE (says Kurt Vonnegut), but because we want to be 'friends'. Short-term convenience is more important than acknowledging the truth. This is practical up to a...
Systems [1]
We creates systems and then we place them 'above' us so that we have to conform to them, so that they get to dictate terms to us. The assumption we make is that the systems in ques...
Mechanical Therapy
Mechanical therapy isn't therapy, it's psychological abuse - anything involving control or forcing is abuse when it's human beings we're talking about - Mechanical therapy' - which is therapy done by rules, therapy according to ...
The Glorification Of Abuse (1)
Our civilization - although we'd never admit - is based upon the glorification of abuse, the glorification of control. Actual freedom is like Kryptonite to us - it would ruin everything, it would ruin the power hierarchy that is...
Interested in the truth
The socially-adapted person has no 'interest in the truth' - if a socially-adapted person had an interest in the truth then they would no longer be 'socially-adapted'. They couldn't be - to function in society it is necessary th...
Power Hierarchies (1)
Everything that happens in society happens as a result of the exercise of power, and - psychologically speaking - anything that happens as a result of the exercise of power is entirely meaningless, entirely hollow. If I am compelled...
Attention and freedom
Through paying attention comes freedom. Through NOT paying attention comes the opposite of freedom, through NOT paying attention comes slavery...
Anger
Anger isn't an emotion (as we might sometimes imagine) - it's more of an opposite to an emotion since the whole point of anger is to NOT feel the emotion (whatever that might be). Anger is when we don't take emotional pain on board but - on the...
Self-talk
We regard 'self-talk' as being potentially useful, as being a way by which we may bring about helpful change. It isn't though - the mind's chatter is always entirely inconsequential....
Western Mindfulness [2]
'Western mindfulness' is a project designed to optimise the performance and general reliability of that particular highly-valued construct known as 'the identity'. This is 'our interpretation of the Eastern meditation traditions - we thin...
Bloodless literalism
Living 'carelessly', without paying 'proper attention', without 'checking anything out ourselves', without 'asking any questions', inevitably results in us living in 'Literal Mode', which is where we run on extrinsic meaning, 'm...
The lesson we never learn (1)
The identity has no intrinsic strength, no strength of its own. It has to rely on extrinsic strength therefore - extrinsic strength being 'the ability to control or manipulate so as to get the outcome we want'. O...
The Rational Context [1]
Either we live our lives within a rational context, or a mythological one. When we are in 'Rational Mode' then the rational world is the only one that we ever perceive - anything out gets screened out before we even get t...
We aren't the boss of our own thinking
Thinking runs us rather than vice versa. Adyashanti compares the state of being in which we are 'identified with our own thinking' with being in a make-believe car on a fairground ride - "This situation is like being on a fairgr...
Not stirring the pot [2]
Trying to 'fix our own thinking' is an infinite regress - there's no end to it and the spiral of control just keeps getting tighter and tighter...
Not stirring the pot [1]
The 'cybernetic disaster' is where our coping strategy exacerbates the problem that we were trying to cope with, which necessitates doubling down on the strategy (because we can't see that what we're doing is making everything worse no...
Getting out of your own way
The 'Negative Path' - simply put - comes down to 'the art of getting out of your own way'...
Thinking is Always Gray
In Goethe's Faust, Mephistopheles (aka 'the Devil') famously says - "All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green."
Being 'stuck'...
No strategy can ever help us become free from anxiety (or any other neurotic condition). We can't fight our way to freedom, we can never get so good at manipulation as to no longer NEED to manipulate (or control). The ego-concept is big on stri...
Shaitan The Whisperer
The age-old 'war' between the Principle of Light and the Principle of Darkness (between Ahura Mazda on the one side and Ahriman on the other) may be seen as a metaphor for the war between consciousness and rational thought (which seeks to 'pull...
Pretending Mode [2]
Instead of talking about 'pretending' [see Pretending Mode 1] we could talk in terms of bluffing - we bluff our way through life and we do so without facing the fact that this is what we're doing. If we 'faced the fact' then tha...
