Workshop - AIDS v Super Immunity, 1987 -Sunnydale, CA - Part 2
Verbatim Transcript: 6 CDs
The following is as close a verbatim transcript as is possible.
Dr. Bob’s laid-back “Kentucky-ese” is retained –
we have neither corrected his grammar, dialect, pronunciation
nor taken it upon ourselves to change his words.
Audience (laughter) is noted; he was a master at keeping the mood up!
Audience participation is (parenthesized) and separated from his words.
Emphasized words by the speaker are in italics.
If the words were unintelligible, there’s a blank: “_________.”
[Anything that offers clarity to the reader is italicized inside brackets.]
Audio: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bjsnni9menko397/AAAXm9X-MKTl3XGsaXmrSq08a?dl=0
CD 4 of 6 “AIDS v. Super Immunity, 1987”
... and you couldn’t do it. You see, this up here will not turn on the energy to do it until the person feels it's right or proper or justifiable. Now we can justify all things that we don't think is right or proper, you know, huh? But you gotta feel it's right, proper, or justifiable before there's the energy comes through to the muscles to do anything in the world, okay? So we can have that feeling that what I'm doing is not necessarily right, proper, justifiable, but I'm gonna treat you – everybody I run into – I'm gonna treat with simple good manners. And considering they don't know about being a domesticated, instinctive creature; they're just doin' that mechanically and they’ll keep on doin’ it. So why should I get upset about it?
Instead of believin' and doin' what I'm told by authorities… you know, most of us accept that. You read somethin' in the paper that bacon is horrible stuff for you and it's liable to kill you or give you cancer, so a lot of people don't do it. Somebody reads in the paper that to smoke a cigarette will be sure to kill you with lung cancer and make your babies little and so on down the line, but we don't know that – we just got it from an authority, hmm? You don’t know if you got a diagnosis you must have it radiated for cancer. You gotta have radiation and chemotherapy, right? And surgery. If one of em don't get you, the other two will.
So we have all sorts of things that authority says you gotta do, right? Authority writes books on how disturbed people should be treated, hmm? I had a woman come in not long ago that had a very decided bunch of symptoms that you could see. And instead of talkin' to her about changin' her lifestyle or anything, she picked up a picture of my little girl layin' on my desk – and she is a beautiful child if I say so – and she talked about how pretty this little girl was and everthing. And I said, “What would you think about if I abused that child? What would you think of me if I abused that child? If I mistreated her every day. I refused to let her eat and poured a quart of big strong laxative down her or something. What would you think of me?”
"Well, you'd be a child abuser!"
And I said, "Why, don't you like child abuse?”
"Oh, no, I ____!"
I said well, look what you're doin' to that body. And that's your child. You know… you're responsible for lookin' after it, is that right? You're responsible for lookin’ after this pretty body, hmm? And if you mistreat it, are you a child abuser? So that got to her. She saw that, so she decided she didn’t want to be a child abuser. Now she gets ticked. But then she'll abuse the child after seein’ how that works. That gives her the justification to abuse the child; but she's gettin' out of it and growin' up in a way.
So instead of believin' and doin' as I'm told by authority, let's check it out. I may not be able to check it out today, but I don't have to have an answer today. I never did know it so I won't have to bother with it today, but I'll find out sooner or later if it's any of my concern, is that right? I'll check it out. That's the way all this material came into being – with checkin' out that what I was taught in school didn't work.
Now what we were taught in school was to do this and this and this and then if the patient went on and got sicker or died, you blamed him for it. Now then we're gettin' to he has the wrong genes and chromosomes. And if he’s got those wrong genes, he's gonna be a dead duck anyway so… “I’m not responsible!” See?
So I've started lookin’ out, checkin' it out, so it finally comes together how things work. If you wanna check it out, you can check anything. But you don't have to believe and do as you're told by an authority. Could you just drop that today? Drop all your authorities. I know. I spent a lot of money to accumulate an awful lot of misinformation because some authority told me it. Huh? So what? I'd rather trade that any day of the week and get rid of it, okay?
So now we can check it out. Instead of tryin' to improve myself, I'm going to develop being a conscious individual. How? By being aware of what I was doin' as a domesticated creature and seein' these and practicing this a little bit, okay? All I gotta do is practice it – keep practicing, you can get pretty good at it. Do you, Judy? You run a computer, you had to practice on that keyboard until your little fingers know where to go.
(It becomes second nature.)
Huh?
(Till it becomes second nature.)
Yeah, it just knows what to do it. So let's practice this a little bit. It's not hard. In fact, it's a lot more fun than what we were doin', that's for sure.
Now, instead of blamin', I will ask the question, “What can I do?” [writes on the board] Now most of the time, the answer is nothin' – just nothin'. [chuckles] I don't need to be involved in every little thing. Did you ever drive on a highway and there was an accident on the other side of the freeway and everybody slowed down and dragged traffic for ten miles, huh? Nobody can do anything about it. Now if I'm the first one there, I will get out and see if I can pull people out. I got a little portable CD under the seat in the car and I'll pull it out and see if I can call the emergency people, okay – paramedics and what-have-you – if anybody's hurt. Most of the time by the time I get there, the paramedics is there, the fire department's there, the police is there, the tow truck’s there. So what can I do? Nothing. Go on about my business and get the hell out of there.
So “What can I do?” is mind my own business most often [chuckles], huh? What can I do? I can practice being a conscious individual by knowing that I can make a little contribution. I said a little one now. But I can be thankful all the time because I have everything to be thankful for. I can see what privileges I have and know I'm responsible for maintainin' em, enhancin’ em, and get more. I can treat everybody with simple good manners and consideration. I can check things out. I can practice this and therefore develop into a conscious being and there's no conflict in there, right?
So now we can make the Living Cycle. [draws it on the board] I perceive what's goin' on out here because I got this to live by. I have “True Feelings” and if I should be in danger I'll have the emergency and there's somethin' to do – I can fight or run. Then I’ve mobilized and released the energy as it’s built up. I can stand up on this table and look down here at the floor and I don't know how many inches it is, but I can see the floor. And I can jump off there and it won't hurt me a particle, hmm? Because the body will prepare exactly the right amount of energy. But let's say Judy wants to play a good joke on me. So she knows I might say somethin' like that so she cuts out the carpet, takes out three inches of concrete and puts the carpet back over it and it looks just that way to me. I jump off there and go three inches further. What might happen to me? Bad. And I break bones in my legs, in my feet because I had the energy prepared to get there and I went three inches further, right? So we have to kinda see what's goin' on.
(Judy, would you do that?)
(No!)
Huh?
(I said, “Judy, would you do that?”)
She might do something like that to have fun one day. We had some guys one time… When I was a young kid I worked in a motor freight terminal and we hauled stuff for the linotype machines. It was called Federated Metals. It was like Babbitt metal, I guess. It come in bars about so long and was notched off in, like, pound segments; five-pound bars. And they stacked it in the truck and the guys would carry it out in a bucket – several buckets, you know, three or four of em had buckets and one guy was loadin' the buckets and carryin’ em out. And so, you know guys at work like to have fun once in a while, so they loaded one bucket with egg cartons painted silver. And so here the kid’s been carryin' out these things – was like about 60 - 80 pounds in each one of these buckets – and he came in with his empty one and went down to get the other one. He was prepared to pick up 60-80 pounds and he got six ounces. And it damn near killed him. He was in a hospital for about 6 weeks with all kinds of back troubles and the last time I knew of him, he still had back troubles because he was prepared to lift one thing and he didn't get it. So he had mobilized and unreleased energy in no uncertain terms and it liked to kill him. He fell on the floor with agonizing pain immediately. So those guys didn't play that good stunt anymore.
So there's no conflict in here, none, there’s no conflict between any one of these. Every one of em you can do as a conscious person without strugglin' or fightin' with yourself in any iota, is that right? And I don't care what the rest of the people in the world's doin'. They can be instinctive creatures.
So here's the “Mobilized and Unreleased Energy” and here is “Adaptation,” [writes them on the board] which is in the form of “Creative Action” – not adapting to some kind of stress. Because there's no stress there to adapt to, so your energy then can be expressed as creative action, no matter what you're doin', huh? It can be workin’ there every day of the world. So now that's the Living Cycle. We can be on the Living Cycle – and consciously; or we can be on the Vicious Cycle, unconsciously. I don't prefer to be that domesticated, instinctive creature.
Now we will… I don't know how to draw a three-legged stool, but I'm gonna make a stab at it, okay? So that's a stool with three legs. And the teachers of old that taught all this stuff said that you could “sit in peace on the Three-Legged Stool”, okay? So you can sit there. You don't have to struggle and strain in any direction.
So the first one [first leg of the stool] on here is Patience. Who are you patient with? Yourself mostly because you're liable to react ever now and then as an instinctive, domesticated creature; but you don't have to pick on yourself and get guilty. You can say, “Oh, phooey, I'll go back and sit on the stool now. I jumped up, I got off of it.”
We can give Service [second leg], which is the contribution, okay? I can be of service of some sort to somebody whether they know about it or not. I don't care whether they know about it or not. If I create a good mood around me and people run into it, they'll have a little service given to em, is that right? And I can always do somethin', I can draw em a picture or I can chit-chat for a while or I can catch em at a weak moment and so on.
Now the other one, it's been called by a word, which I don't like to use anymore because it's usually misunderstood; it was called “Repentance.” Repentance means in its simplest term today is to sit down and feel guilty. We probably all saw dear Jimmy Swaggart on TV being repentant – according to him – sittin', snufflin', and cryin' and all this kinda stuff. Huh?
(Wiping his nose and not his eyelids.)
Yeah, doin' all that stuff – probably just had the sniffles. But I will use what this really means – long ago. And so I'm gonna erase the word “Repentance” and put the real word on there. It means “Turn About.” [the third leg] So, like if you hollered at a drill team, “About face!” Many long years ago the word would have been “repent;” so they turned about face, that’s all. So you’re going in a different direction. So now I have decided that I'll be damned if I'm gonna live the rest of my life as an instinctive, domesticated creature. That's turnin' about – very emphatically; I mean it, okay? So then we got turned around and now we can give a little service and we can be patient with ourselves. And obviously I can be patient with all the people that never heard of it, is that right? I can certainly be patient with em. I can be patient with children and mental cases and unconscious people – they're all doin' fine. They're mechanical, but I can be patient with em. I don't expect them to do different than whatever I come up with.
Okay? Now is there any questions on this one? Let's sit here and see if we can agitate and make words out of it. Can we come up and find something wrong with it? Is it too difficult or is it really a very simple thing to do once we know what's going on? Huh? Come on give me questions.
(Actually it's fairly simple, Bob. Can't you make it more complicated?)
Well, yes I could do that, but I've been spendin' four years tryin' to get it simple.
(You know, it’s interesting. I just sort of… wanted to make only a comment – talking about the poor man __ not getting… what he didn’t… have. I find myself sometimes in that mental energy.)
Yeah.
(Expecting it to work and nothing happens. I know it’s going to happen. And when it doesn't, instead of being delighted about it – I mean in some cases...)
You’re kinda disappointed.
(It's so depressing. I feel depressed you know. And then I think....)
Yeah. I was expectin' somebody to break into my apartment and steal my clothes and they didn't do it and I go home and they're all still there and the TV's sittin' there – [both talk] Some woman told me about a dream she had not long ago. And she was very disappointed when it didn't happen.
Now is this hard to live? It wouldn’t be. All you gotta do is remember, is that right? Remember what my purpose is. And my purpose is to make a little contribution. So I can remember that all right, can't you? Okay? Any questions? Any comments?
(This reminds me of the lower and the upper self – that we all have this...)
Right, I've heard that word but I don't like it.
(I know, well, I'll ___)
But it's somewheres maybe. But we won't call this the higher self and the other one the lower – it's a totally different one and not related. The other one is a domesticated, instinctive creature just like a horse or a cow or a dog or anything else. Even chickens you can domesticate, you know; they get dependent then. And of course all society, institutions of society, attempts to domesticate everybody. That's their whole purpose, right? And then they become dependent.
You know we need a government like we need a hole in our head, but we're all dependent on it, so we gotta hang in there, huh? Give em your life substance. So now we can live with a Living Cycle or we can live with the Vicious Cycle, okay?
If there is no more questions, we will take a little break and go see if you can find inner nourishment for the body now. We’ve had a little nourishment for the mental function and the wellbeing. Now we'll try a little nutrition for the bod. Now this is Nutrition [pointing to the board] and just as necessary as that kind for the body is. And you know we sometimes could be given some food that was tainted or spoiled or toxic – make you very sick. Most of the mental food we have received during our lifetime is prone to make you a little ill. Okay, got that cut off there? [referring to tape recorder] That's the end of that.
[End of CD 4]
CD 5 of 6 “AIDS v. Super Immunity, 1987”
... and here, what authority has told us is the way to be non-disturbed was that we built an expectation, so we all got expectations. We expect that everybody I meet will be a grown-up reasonable individual. I think I have a right to that, okay? But that's not the way the world works. As we’ve looked at here this mornin' people are domesticated, instinctive creatures. I used to say, to be more polite, that the world was populated with infants, plenty of which have grown bodies and technical educations. So whatever the case, we expect that everbody will be reasonable and see things my way. But when we have expectations, which is really based on a misconception that they'll be reasonable, sooner or later I'm going to be disappointed – usually sooner. And has everybody got that fairly well? Huh?
(I think we've been there, yeah.)
Yeah, they've all been there – when I have an expectation that everybody comes along is gonna be reasonable, logical, and wantin' to get along. And I'm gonna be disappointed because that's not the way it is. The world is populated with either infants with grown bodies and technical educations – one way of sayin' it – or we could say instinctive creatures that's been domesticated a bit. Now as long as the domestication’s out in front maybe they'll behave fairly well. But that's always gonna slip pretty soon and we're gonna see the instinctive round out of it. So sooner or later we'll be disappointed.
Now, when I'm disappointed I always feel hurt, that about right? When you're real disappointed, you’re disappointed in anybody and the way they're doin', you had an expectation, “Here I'm doin' all these nice things, takin' care of everything just right.” And somebody is not gonna work that way so we feel hurt. So we feel hurt. And when I feel hurt I'm like the lion out in the veldt that stepped on the thorn; I'm gonna look, see somethin' to blame it on. So I'm gonna see what's the cause of it. “Cause” and “blame” is the same word but one sounds better than the other. Feel hurt, I'm gonna look for blame. And of course I always find somethin' to blame it on. I can blame it on myself and I will feel guilty. If I blame somebody else, I will be angry. And when I have been hurt an awful lot of times and felt angry or guilt I begin to feel very insecure cause I just don't know what to expect anymore. So I feel insecure. Another word for insecure is anxiety, so I'm a bundle of anxiety.
When I get this bundle of anxiety I get this mobilized and unreleased energy cause I don't know what to do with it. So we get to mobilized and unreleased energy. And then I'm going to get adaptation. And the adaptation will be either of those two kinds we looked at – either unusual cellular activity, unusual sensation and tissue cell alteration or breakdown; or unusual behavior. Now if you go through the entire library, which is big thick books of symptomology with all the nice diseases listed in it, would you find anything besides these symptoms? Did you ever run through em in your work? Ever one of em is one of these, is that right?
(Yes, it is.)
Ever one of em. So we can give it a name according to whether it's here or here or here or some other place. If it's in my ear I need an ear specialist and he'll give me the same thing. I got unusual cellular activity, unusual sensation and tissue cell alteration or breakdown or you got unusual behavior. And you get unusual behavior, you call the law or the shrink. Most of the time you call the fuzz, you know; they lock somebody up. That's supposed to cure em over here; that's goin' down the line.
Now then, when I get these we expect again a cure with no effort on my part. I didn't know that it was because I had an expectation based on an illusion up here or a total misconception. I have down here, I forgot all about this. This happened weeks ago and it’s just down here days later. So now we expect a cure. And we're back up here again and the more you expect a cure from help swallowing a pill or taking a shot or some such a thing, the more you're gonna be disappointed, the more you're gonna feel hurt and here you go around this whole wheel again and again and again. It's very interesting to watch. Any of us that has our field of endeavor workin' with other people and that's about all I know to do – you gotta work with em. You gotta work with em. Ron's gotta work with em. All the rest of us do. If we can just watch this, you can see it at work over and over and over and over. Now there's a big time delay between here and here. Maybe if we had a temper fit this minute, we’d take the next minute, we'd catch on. But it takes a little while for the adaptation to get you in that total state of being torn apart. So now here goes the whole workable arrangement. Now Patti, do you think you could watch this at work now where you work?
(Yes.)
I think you'll find it most interesting. And you know you can lay it out there to people. They won't like it, but who cares. I'm not tryin' to please em. I'm tryin' to get em to feel a little better. Most of the things you have to deal with comes here, right?
(Yes.)
Unusual behavior. Now of course this unusual behavior is blamed on an unhappy childhood, it's blamed on growin' up in a poor area, it's blamed on your parents and all these things. And a lot of em their parents are dead 20 years now. So they say, well now is not then; but they say it all it does. Now sure, we had some affect on it, but I don't have to live everyday as though now were then. A woman called me from Maryland yesterday mornin' and told me how miserable she was. She's only about 65, somethin' like that. And her father molested her when she was nine years old, she said, and she didn't remember it until a few years ago. But since then she's been a very miserable soul. I said, “Well is the old man still alive?” “No, he's not alive.” “Are you an eleven year-old [corrects himself] or a nine year-old girl now? If we sent the FBI out to look for a nine year-old by your name when you were a child, do you think they could find her?” “No, they couldn't find her.” “So you have a record of it and you're decidin' to make yourself miserable.” Now is not then, hmm?
(I disagree with you.)
I know you do. Everybody else does.
(No, I wanna make this point and give you feedback. I was molested as a child. At the time that happened I learned to numb my feelings off because it was a very painful experience…)
Right, I understand that.
(Then as an adult, I got into a recovery process where I was given the freedom to feel those feelings and then let go of them.)
Right.
(And getting stuck in those feelings I don't think is real healthy.)
No, it's not.
(So I'm blaming stuff, but what I needed was a safe....)
...place where you could express it and she's had that for quite a while now that she could fully express it and has done it several times over.
(And it's not about them anymore really. It’s about my –)
No, it's about yourself.
(It's about this whole feeling issue.)
Right. So that you can have your own feeling. Now she's had all that, you see, but she likes to be a victim. Now, if you want to be a victim, nobody can stop you from it, is that right?
(That's true.)
Now we know that the person has got to get the stuff up. First you got to remember it. Second you got to be around somebody that cares for you whether you was this person or that person, whether you fall on the floor and cry or whether you have a fit or whether you get drunk or whatever it is, you're perfectly free and at ease with that person cause that person is totally non-threatening, right?
(Mm-hmm.)
And that has to be supplied. I've had many women that have been raped in adult and they still got to have somewheres where there's a non-threatening situation around, okay? And somebody to kindly work with em so that they can recall every iota of it and all the feelings and everything else, true? But once that's done, now you can either play a victim the rest of your world or say, “Now is not then; this is not happening,” is that right? Now, this lady has had all of that.
(Okay, well that wasn’t clear.)
Yeah, she's had it all, but now we keep goin' back and sayin' is now then? Is then now? Are you nine years old or what-have-you? Yes, she's had all the opportunity and everthing and with total non-threatening people around her to do all of it, to work with it. But you see, certain people feel that it's to their advantage to be a victim cause that makes you non-responsible, is that right?
(Yes, that’s true.)
Huh? Now like we have down here that when you are… must be responsible, that's where it comes in that you have privileges instead of rights. Rights you're not responsible for. The government or somebody else is responsible to give you your rights, is that correct? But on a privilege, you're on your own, that's right. So here is one of the big things that many people don't want to ever look at or accept is to be responsible for themselves, is that right? I'm not talkin' about they don't earn their own livin' or what-have-you. We're not talking about the financial stuff of responsibility, but responsible for themselves and their attitudes and their environment. As we say, you live in that which you radiate. And they dearly love to be a victim.
(Do you think they really love it or do you think they grew up in an environment where what was radiated around them was also non-responsibility and they.....)
Well, that's what they got there, but once it's pointed out it works they still don't want to be responsible.
(Okay. And then they have to change.)
That's when you got to change somethin' if you're gonna be, cause the only freedom in this world, the other side of the coin is responsible. I have a silver coin that somebody had made up for me and it's carved on one side, a neat carving and it says “Freedom.” On the other side it says “Responsibility.” And so many people do not want to accept responsibility. So now as long as I'm a victim I'm not responsible, is that correct?
(I guess.)
Now we want to watch that one very carefully when you're workin' with people and they like to turn this out here. So they talk about wanting to be free, right?
(Mm-hmm.)
But they don't talk about this side. Now you can't have the heads of the coin without the tails, is that right? So it's there. Now they love to play victim because that relieves them of responsibility. And you will find that that's a very common situation. Now, soon as a person gets a di-ag-nosis they have in their mind now they're a victim, is that right? That's the one thing I object to in AA that they call alcoholism a disease. Now you're a victim of this and so you have to be excused, you're not responsible. I wouldn't call it a disease nor not a dis-ease, it just is. And as AA says, that you want to want to quit, but they didn’t want to quit yet. So if they want to want to – that's fine, but then they're still a victim. So in any recovery of anything, the first thing the person has to do is throw this victim route out and therefore be responsible. And we can still say they're sittin' on the three-legged stool and fall off. You can be patient with yourself, but you don't have to be forever goin' on with this victim bit.
Now see, the victim route's played very high; you read in the paper so-and-so's a victim of cancer. So-and-so's a victim of AIDS. Another one is a victim of Lupus, another one's a victim of brain injury and so on and on and on because the victim's route is, for authorities, is the best thing in the world for everybody to think they're a victim. Hmm? All the politicians are runnin' on the grounds that you're a victim and they're gonna straighten it up, is that right?
(They’re gonna fix you if you don't...)
Yeah, they're gonna fix everything so you won't be a victim any longer. But you're a victim now. Now this last bunch that's been in here… is that right? So all welfare ideas and everything is everybody's a victim. The homeless are victims and so on down the line, huh? So if we're gonna get any recovery off of people we have to start quick that there is no such thing as a victim. That all right? And that if you want to be free you’ve got to be responsible for what's goin' on.
Now we have some people who's kinda confused freedom with that they are non-dependent. You have people that tell you they want to be independent, is that right – of everybody and everything. You heard that ever once in a while. I hear it every day. But I tell everbody – look, we're 100% dependent. I couldn't get along in this world. I can't go drill a hole in the ground and get fuel out or get crude oil out and refine it and boil it on my little cook stove and pick it up and have enough fuel to run that truck around, is that right? Hmm? I am dependent on somebody makin' the clothes; I’m dependent on havin' the cleaner down there to clean em. I can't make my own shoes; I can't kill the cow, skin it and make __ and so forth.
So we're 100% dependent. I go to the grocery store and I get all the stuff, so I'm 100% dependent on them gatherin' all of it up and gettin' it there and here, and dependent on farmers to get it and so on. Everybody's involved. So we're all 100% dependent. But I can make a contribution. I can make a little contribution. Now, when I say I want to be independent, I'm totally workin' on a misconception – and a total frustrating attempt, is that right? Hmm?
(Yeah.)
You're 100% dependent. You're dependent for every piece of clothes you got on from the ground up, is that right? You're dependent on somebody to fix your hair once in a while, right? Somebody to fix your teeth?
(Well, I don't worry about that one.)
Well, I know but you got a little string of it around there you still have to play with and I notice it's not hangin' down your back. So everybody's 100% dependent. But we can all make a contribution. Is that right? Now then we're gettin' to see things like it really is, it's workin' then. So we can be down here and we can be free – not independent – but we can be free because I'm responsible for my own inner state of being. I can choose to have any one I want. If I don't take that responsibility, I'll wind up lettin' everybody else have charge of my inner state and you know somethin'? [chuckling] They're not very careful with it. They’re just not careful with my inner feelings worth a durn. So they don't care whether I'm angry or upset or worried to death or frightened or in panicsville or what. But I'm free to choose whatever kind of inner feeling I will have, okay? I am responsible and I can make a contribution. So I'm not independent because that's totally impossible. I'm not independent and wouldn't even think about tryin' to be because I can't be. You be independent, Ron? You're dependent on all sorts of things, right? So am I, so is everybody else. I couldn't make one of those things either.
(What do you do with people who become victims as children? Now, I don't think that's a choice.)
No, it's really not. But they're not victims, they're just unfortunate, honey.
(Okay.)
Let’s don't call em victims. They're unfortunate. And now then when they're a child, as soon as possible we work with em, okay? Now we said that everybody grows up as bein' an instinctive, domesticated creature. Some of em were unfortunate more than others.
(Right.)
Okay? We were all kids once and that's a miserable state to be in. I know a girl said to me the other day – her mother was goin' to school for a couple weeks studying some little course – she said, “I don't know why she's goin' to school. Goin' to school's boring! It's very boring…but I guess I might as well enjoy it for the next 12 years.” [chuckling] So, you know, she's got it figured out that she's gonna do it anyway, so go ahead. Now, she's not a victim, doesn't claim to be. Now, if you say you have to do somethin' you become a victim, is that right?
(Mm-hmm.)
Huh? And most people if you listen to them talk, say everything they do is "have to.” “I have to go to lunch. I have to go back to work. I have to go home. I have to cook dinner. I have to clean up the house. I have to set the alarm,” and on and on. In other words, as long as a person convinces themselves by constant suggestion that they are totally a slave. Now I'd like for you to take as a little project for the next week that you listen to see how many times you hear all the clients and everything you work with – [someone enters] Hello, Karen!
(Hello, there.)
How many times you hear everbody sayin’, “I have to.”
(Oh, I do. My job is to see how many times I say that.)
Okay, I want you to hear that one, too, and also others. So as long as there is this constant repetition of suggestion to yourself and others that I have to do this and I have to do that… kids are taught you have to clean up your room, you have to go to school huh? And on and on. I never tell little one she has to go to school. I let her stay home until she wants to. And once in a while she does, but then the next day she wants to go to school. But she don't have to anything. I don't allow that to go on that she has to anything because that puts you as a victim, doesn't it? Right now. So the minute you say I have to get up or I have to go to bed you're already saying you're victimized, so we'd like that to kind of end now. So this is one of the big items that everybody plays on is that they're a victim. Now it's suggested to us – its not because necessarily they want to – but when you do start talkin' about being responsible, you do see the neck bow up. They don't like to be responsible for themselves totally. That's what you got all this other stuff out here for. That's what all institutions are for, isn't it?
(But I think it's not, or it's been my experience that it's not that they don't want to be responsible. It’s maybe that they haven’t had the tools to do that.)
Well, that's what I said. But we'll give em the tools. And once they’ve had the tools then you can see whether they want to be responsible.
(Right. And then I think the dynamics then that I deal with is that because they don't have the tools or those haven't been put in place then what they do is they stay stuck in the victim with their anger.)
Oh yeah, stay there the rest of their life. So we're talking about how to get people out, is that right?
(Mm-hmm.)
Now you can give em and some of em you will find don't want out. You will find that; and some will say thank God, I can get out of this now, okay? But you will see that there is a great attraction to bein’ a victim because this relieves em of all responsibility. And the major thing most people are trying to avoid in this world is responsibility anyway. They're tryin’ to work on it. They're doin’ everything they possibly can to keep from bein’ totally responsible, okay? Yes, love?
(One thing in your own life, though, as a victim, say that you have dominant forces around you, whether it's it in your family or outside the family –)
Doesn’t matter where. All of em’s victims.
(– or you're dealing with somebody as a social worker and they are a victim and they feel trapped in this. How would that person get through to the people they're dealing with that they have their own concern and their own control?)
Well, we've been drawin' pictures. You weren't here this mornin' and I've been puttin' up pictures. So we got it on tape for you, okay?
(Oh, great – I love it.)
So you can have tape. No, we can't just walk up and tell somebody to drop it. No, you got to show them what they are – how they're put together – and we've tried to think that pictures works an awful lot better than words. Pictures, diagrams works an awful lot better than words cause words by itself you get lost in before you can ever get through it. But everybody in the world has some dominant person who's tryin' to put them down. That's the nature of what we call society.
Now I had it up here a little while ago, Karen, that mostly of us are instinctive, domesticated creatures. Those dominant ones domesticated us and made us afraid to be in… free out unless the other. Well, basically if we went purely instinctive we're in a bad way, too, okay? Cause you get put in jail for that. So we have to give the person some tools to work with. And we maintain that the best tools are good pictures with all the material that's involved on it. Takes a lot less time than it does to try to talk it one by one by one out, okay? So the person then has somethin' to work with and we do not expect that one presentation of it is gonna do the job. The fact of business, I think that most people have to hear somethin' three times before they even hear it. They have to be repeated to – three times before they hear it. You ever find that in sales work that you got to repeat it at least three times before they hear you?
(Yes, good enough.)
The rest of the time, they’re just [makes sounds like something blowing away]. And as far as really learning it, you got to get a lot more than three times. So I think maybe we could do this for 20 years and do real fine the whole time; but you got to get it over there. Now, I will not tolerate somebody I’m workin’ with maintainin’ they're a victim. You see, I'm very adamant about that. I get real [he growls]. You can't have that. In other words we make it so extreme that they have to look at it. Now there's nothin' wrong in being a little bit exaggerated about everything you do because the person doesn't hear you at all. You go out and tell somebody somethin' and you tell em again – pshtt!, and it pshtt! The third time maybe they heard it. And maybe they didn't; they can still repeat it some more times. It really doesn't make any difference.
Okay, how's this one goin'? Got questions, Karen? Okay. You got a question, Ron? How about you, Robert?
(Yeah, how do you change… some of those are set in childhood –)
Concrete!
(– back where you’d mentioned at two and three years old....)
Right.
(Even if they understand it how can you change a pattern...)
Yeah, they can change the pattern if they see a necessity for it. That's why we draw a picture, Robert. If you just talk to em or write it down and put it in plain prose somewheres and they read it, they'll never see it. They have to see “That is me.” And that's where the picture comes in. This is a form of a mirror. When once they see it, they can change anything. In other words, let's say that a child burned its finger when it was a year and a half old, okay? Severely burned it. So it's afraid of fire, okay? But if it finds out that fire's very useful and they can put their finger on it and so forth without touchin' and grabbin' ahold of somethin' real hot, they get so they can use heat and fire, is that right? They can cook and be blacksmiths and all sorts of things. Cause it doesn't say that it's cast in concrete and can't be undone. It does have to be recognized. That is the whole bit. They do have to recognize and that's why we use the picture drawing all the time.
Now, I wouldn't stand up in front of a group of people and try to teach this material without a chalkboard. I’d just flat say no, I'm goin' home. I've got to have a chalkboard or a white board with colored pencils or a big piece of paper with pencil cause it has to be drawn. You can't just talk it out. When I run a practice and talked to people all the time, I said the most valuable piece of equipment I had in my office was a blackboard. I wouldn't attempt to practice without one. Sure I had all the other little tools you're supposed to have – all the pieces of equipment, but I wouldn't try to practice without a chalkboard because until people can understand what's goin' on… it’s like I told these little kids about the men within, a bunch of little people is in there cleanin' their stomach out or bringin' up bugs when they had a little fever and so forth. They could understand when I draw em a picture; but if you just sit there and yack-yack-yack they never heard a thing.
This is where I find most of the people that work in the field of psychotherapy don't draw pictures; and consequently, they miss the boat very decidedly because they can't get across to the person in simple words over and over and over near as well as you can with a picture. And I find the picture lets you kind of see what's goin' on.
And if I tried to explain to somebody about a gallstone and how the gallstone goes away, I draw a picture of it. If I describe to em how their liver works, I would draw pictures of it and show what it does and make a simple one. If I'm gonna talk to a person about a heart condition and the circulation system, I draw it so they can see all parts of it cause the person has no conception of it basically. Maybe they saw a simple little picture in physiology class when they was in fourth grade, but that's long gone and those were very poor pictures.
(And so what you're doing with the pictures that you're drawing is basically bringing us to a common place of looking at our similarities.)
Well, sure. Then you can see where everbody has got these. We’re not talkin’ about all the –
(And if you find yourself in conflict in any of these, it can bring you to the point where you can look at it and say, hey, this is where I'm at.)
This is what I'm doing, so here you can look at it. It's a mirror...
(Without the picture it's kind of like...)
Well, it's just a lot of good words goin' over their head. You can read books that thick that and they might be talkin' about it, but you'll never hear it. You'll never see it because it's not there. You don't have a graphic picture. We learn a whole lot better by a picture. So now is there any more questions on this one here, anywheres on it? Here's where your expectation gets up here; goes on all the time. Now if I expect everything to be about like it is, I don't get upset with em, hmm?
(No! Uh-uh.)
I don’t get upset. I know what they're gonna do. You got all your notes off of here? You want some more of em? I'll leave it up here.
(No, I'm fine. I’m good.)
You got it all, okay, I'll scratch it off.
(When you have 75 or 80 on a staff and about 25 are victims, how do you delete the victims?)
How do I do the victims?
(He has this ___! [laughing] That’s what he told me.)
Well, I start off either they’re doin' one of two things. As we said when we run big restaurants, we told people that everone of em had the job of keepin' the mood up.
[End of CD 5]
CD 6 of 6 “AIDS v. Super Immunity, 1987”
[referring to Cattleman’s Restaurant] ....we said, “Hey, run out back and put this in the dumpster and then come back in and go to work.” If they came back in and still grumpy they go home, sleep it off, and come back tomorrow with a good mood. And if you can't ever come back with a good mood, stay gone. Now, that's the way it works. And we insist that people have a good mood if they're gonna be around, gonna work, gonna do anything. You have a pretty, several sales people, Robert?
(Yeah.)
Okay, now if you go in the office some mornin' and there's three of those down in the dumpies, you won't get phone calls and nobody won't come in. If everybody's up, I'll guarantee you they'll come in people and wantin' what you have to offer today, okay? They'll be there. They may not finish buyin' today, but they'll be there and interested in you have somethin' workin’. Yeah?
(Isn't that kinda though what you… is… you told me actually yesterday? It's true that, you know, we have available to us in society the right to make a small contribution – any kind of a contribution.)
Not a right, a privilege.
(Privilege, that's right – a privilege to make that contribution; and one of those contributions should always be to radiate a sense of–)
Wellbeing, good mood, right. That's right. So.... [talk at the same time]
(I notice that people around you tend to radiate the same...)
Yeah and they begin to mimic you, right quick.
(That’s right.)
So, but you can see in the business world there's two or three people or even one with a crappy mood today – down in the dumpies, you know – it cuts the business down. If everybody's got an up mood, it increases.
(Aren't you doing what you said at the first part? Of conditioning them to be, uh… what’s the… what’s the term of art there… a “conditioned, responsive animal”?)
Right! Well, if that's what they are, I'm gonna let em do it. I don’t take any harm in
usin' suggestive therapeutics to a suggestible person, do you?
(________.)
Don't you use some suggestion to sell about everything you sell? Thank goodness there's an awful lot of unconscious people in the world – you and I'd have a hell of a time makin' a livin'.
(That's right.)
Okay, good.
(Also, I know when to use subliminal tapes, to believe in subliminal tapes.)
So I know good and well, yes, I wanna use it. If I was workin' in a practice to take care of sick people, I'm gonna use ever suggestive technique in the world to get em to feel good, you know. I don't care. There's a lady over in Albuquerque that calls me frequently about some of her patients; and I always give a good thing that she can use as suggestive therapeutics – and nothin' wrong with that.
Now if a person comes to me and says, “I wanna know what's goin' on here,” I'm gonna do this [refers to the board]. If they come and says, “I want over my bellyache,” I'm gonna do suggestive therapeutics and all of the rest of it. If I'm runnin' a restaurant I’m not gonna try to have all the patients… er, clients come in that come to have dinner, I'm not gonna talk to em about this. I'm just gonna see that they have a good time because everybody in the place has an uppy mood, okay? No, I'm not out to try to save, change the world. I'm just tryin' to see that the ones of us who are interested can take advantage of all this stuff, okay? That all right, brother?
(I…)
Hang in there. Yeah, I'm gonna to do this all I can. I tell somebody if I'm walkin' down the street and see a hundred dollar bill layin' on the street, I'm gonna reach down and pick it up and put it in my pocket, is that right? Would you do that?
(I think I would.) (Chuckling)
Yeah, and if I see a perfectly good human brain layin' around, nobody usin' it, I'm gonna use it, okay? And I see an awful lot of em laying around that nobody's usin', so I'm gonna use it. Okay? Nothin' wrong with that. I'm not exploitin' em. I will use em, but I will not abuse em. But I will use em, Robert. Okay? But I’m not gonna abuse em. Okay, we've got along here till time for rest for just a minute and then we'll do one more. Take the chalk off my chalk-grabbin’ suit. It always grabs ahold of chalk. (someone leaves the room]
(You need to go out the first door here and down the hall, Leanne, in the first corridor.)
(Okay, I’ll give it a shot.)
Give it a shot. We'll wait for you till you get back.
(Don’t hold things up, go ahead.)
No, we won't bother with holdin' it up. Go on.
[a bit later]
(Somebody said you can tell when alcoholics don’t want very much. And what I have tried to do is to ask. And I find a lot of what I do is dealing with this – with the acting out behavior – that any suggestion is they’re almost clearly to go into the complete opposite. So when you come and go, you know, “Gee, it's a really great day,” and then...)
[man interrupts in a pretend grumpy voice] (”What's so good about it?!”)
(...and that one gets real depressing...)
Okay, so, no – they're not gonna buy it. You remember we talked about outlaw ponies? About my dad raisin' that one every year, and there’s ones that refused to be domesticated. So you heard about a nursery rhyme when you was a kid – “Mary, Mary quite contrary?”
(Mm-hmm)
Okay, they were describin' as soon as she grew up, she'd be an alcoholic, okay? They are totally contrary. Now…
(Then you get a bunch of these totally contrary people together…)
They really _______. So it takes a bit of doin’ to be able to work with alcoholics – I'll have to agree to that. I started out workin' with a lot of people. I said there was two kinds I'd rather not work with – alcoholics and gays. And I was swarmed with both – for years. So I know about it, okay? So you start out with talkin' about other people. And you draw pictures of other people.
(Of course.)
Okay? Now if I'm not talkin' about you, you can't defend yourself, is that right? Huh? So now let's talk about other people and draw pictures of other people – like these. [refers to the board] And I would frequently say, “Well, now, of course I know this doesn't apply to anybody here...”
(Okay.)
Well, they're gonna contradict you, okay? They’ll say, “Like hell it don’t – I been like that all my life!” Now then you've gained the ground and they did it themselves. You didn't do it. You didn't tell em, you didn't put it out. All you ever talk about is drawin' pictures of other people and how they behave and say, “Of course, that doesn't apply to anybody here, but this is the way it works on a lot of people in the world.” And they will contradict you – right quick! Cause that's their nature is to contradict. Now, you let them contradict themselves into doing it.
We had a mule on the farm where I grew up named Old Beck, and Beck was one of those. If you wanted her up against the tongue of the wagon, you stood on the tongue and pushed her that way and she'd come right up against the tongue so you could hook all the harness on. If you wanted her to get away from the tongue and turn out so you could get the harness off of her, you'd push her towards the tongue and get out of the way – she's comin' to run all over you. So she was contrary. But I knew how to handle Beck. I got along with her fine. I could put her to hook up. Somebody that didn't know her was gonna get in all sorts of trouble.
So now this is the way you handle the people who want to play alcoholic like that. Describe somebody else and how it works and everything, but you're not talkin' about them – and you even make remarks now and then that it don't apply to anybody here, but this is the way it works so you can see em. And all of a sudden you're told in no uncertain terms that they've been doin’ that all their life and so they're quite proud of it. And that doesn't mean they're gonna get over all the stuff, but let's say that you may never get this alcoholic sane; but you can get em sober; and that's a big one, okay? That's the big one, okay?
(How do you keep your own energy when you're dealin' with people that are totally… I mean, how does a person keep their energy?)
By not makin' it important and not workin' for a cure or a remedy. You're just havin' fun workin' with people. So I have fun doin' it and yeah, you get tired once in a while, but so what. You can take off a day or two to recuperate or take off an afternoon. But it doesn't bother me cause I don't make it important. Now if you make it important to get this kind of results that you think you ought to get, it'll kill you, okay?
(That’s how I get in trouble. When I go home and start thinkin' about it till nine, ten o'clock at night, trying to figure out why I didn't make it happen, I’m in trouble.)
So I'm gonna work with people and give em all I got – I’m gonna make my contribution, but I'm not gonna make it important as to how it turns out. And I like to play games and so forth, but I'm not gonna make it important. That's number one – you can't make it important. It's an interesting thing to do – it's not important. But if you're workin' for “sure recovery” on everyone, yeah, you’ll kill yourself, Robert.
(That applies to everything.)
Huh? Just like if you made a deal that you had to sell ever customer that ever come in and walked through the door, you'll drive yourself up a wall, won’t you? Okay. And if you had to say, “I'm gonna sell ever piece of property that’s listed with me,” you'd probably tear yourself up again.
(I think a lot of what I'm learning I think… I feel like we all teach what we need to learn and I think a lot of what I needed to learn where I am is how much I strove to be a perfectionist.)
Yes, dear.
(Now that was a real, real… that was real high on my list.)
Sometimes when you’re gonna be a perfectionist, why, you take it by the nap of the neck and go drop it in the first waste paper basket that you can find. [chuckling]
(And that created a tremendous amount of –)
That’ll make you... Bein’ a perfectionist is somethin' I can't afford. I'm a slob. And enjoy it; I enjoy bein’ a slob. I don't wanna be no perfectionist. Perfectionists – you gotta have a system, you gotta make the system work every time and if it didn't work, why, you pick on yourself all night and two or more weeks and so forth and feel guilty and everything. Naw, I just go, do, make a contribution and let it… let the chips fall where they will. I have some news for you. There was an awful lot of alcoholics before you were born and they'll be a hell of a lot more of em after you're dead.
(Now, the people that come into the center, the participants, are much, much easier to deal with than the people in the staff in the back.)
Oh, yeah.
(The people that are coming in that are… it’s like it revolves around… it’s almost like a family, with group work and –)
Yeah, they like talkin’.
(– that are a part of the detox are alcoholics. Yet there's one man back there that I get along with really, really well and he didn't get into recovery through AA.)
How?
(He's the one person who's taken responsibility –)
– for himself.
(For himself. And he's the fellow that continues to –)
Well, sure, you can work with him, can’t you? [both talk] You don't have to arrive according to a set little deal that “only an alcoholic can help an alcoholic and nobody understands me unless they've been through this” routine. I understand it better than they do after they've been through it. [chuckles]
I used to give talks to AA in Albuquerque. No, I wasn’t an alcoholic – don't even like alcohol, you know. I guess all I’ve ever drinked in my life, you could put in one bottle somewheres. But they used to invite me to come because a lot of em came to me on a one-to-one basis at the office. They went through the Desert Club [an AA meeting group] over there. So they'd ask me to come over and talk. Well, I always just knocked the fool out of this bit of bein' a disease and a victim [chuckles] and all that stuff, and they took it all right. I talked about other people first, but they knew. Okay, we will talk about one more subject and then we'll all take a day and go somewheres, okay?
I'm gonna give you four questions that you can keep usin' at all times. And they pretty well cover all the games you get involved in. The first question is “What am I?” [writes on the board] Now because I know how to cook, does that make me a cook? Because I know how to write, does that make me a writer? The fact that I know how to drive a nail into wood, does that make me a carpenter? No. I'm a human being that can do those things, is that right? So when we get into identifying ourselves as any one thing other than a human being, you already got yourself limited very decidedly, right? So I'm a human being that can drive a car, but that doesn't make me a driver. I'm a human being that can talk before four or five people at a time. I wish it was hundreds. Usually isn’t. That doesn't make me a public speaker; that makes me a person – a human being who can talk a little bit, okay? And we can go on with this forever we want to.
So “What am I?” [writes on board] I'm a living Life – that's about all you can come up with, so I'm a human being or whatever you wanna call it out there, but let's have only one thing for it and not all these occupations. I'm not an occupation.
(I am what I am, not what I do.)
Right, okay, and what you are – you’ll find out. So “What am I? “Where am I?” I'd like to answer this [referring to the first question] one other way that suits me real well. I'm a privileged, invited guest at a beautiful estate called Earth, okay? I'm a privileged, invited guest here – that's what – I'm a guest; so I can behave like a guest.
“Where am I?” I'm on planet Earth and I expect everything in there to be like planet Earth. It's not a place of non-disturbance, which is where people dream heavens and so forth, a place where they’ll never be disturbed, you know. Tell you in one breath that how terrible it is to have riches and all this stuff and then they tell you after you've served your time here, all you're gonna walk on is gold streets. I wouldn't wanna walk on em, they hurt your feet. Besides that they’re very slippery, so I don’t wanna bother with that.
“Where am I?” We'll answer it my other way: at a big party put on by Life and where I'm the privileged, invited guest. I'm at a very big party. If you go out and see a bunch of people playin' games and havin' a good time and havin' big meals and everything, you say it's a party, is that right? So we have all that. So I'm a privileged, invited guest at a beautiful estate called Earth where there's a big party goin' on, huh? That about right? I think I can live with that all right. “Where am I?” [writes on the board] Big estate called Earth.
Third question is “What's goin' on here?” [writes it on the board] Well, there's a big party, so I'm a privileged, invited guest at a big party on planet Earth – big estate, huh? Havin' a great time at it, too. And so, what's goin' on here's a big party and there's people playin' all kinds of games. They play the traffic game. They play the marriage game. They play the business game. They play the counseling game. They play the executive game and etcetera. Others – most of em don't know what they're doin', they just got cast in that role. So what's goin' on here is a big party.
“What can I do?” [writes on the board] That's the whole big thing. “What can I do?” I can be what to me is a good guest. I said what's to me is a good guest. Now I may not –
(Radiate it.)
Radiate a good – that's my idea of bein' a good guest, okay? Yeah, I can radiate a pleasant environment and I can do whatever I choose to do to make my contribution. I can make a contribution. For what? If I'm a guest at your party, I will try to make myself useful without interfering. I won't tell you what you should do and what you should serve, but I will tell you I can cook very well – what would you like me to make? I could pick up the dishes off the table – I'm a good bus boy, too. And I could do all those things. I could make myself useful. I can make a contribution to the party. I can contribute to a pleasant, harmonious mood. That I can always do, huh? Can you always do that, Karen?
(Oh, yes.)
You can always contribute to a pleasant, harmonious mood. That's contributin’ to a good mood. That's the least I could do as a guest here. That's the very least I could do as a guest. When once I recognize I'm a guest, I could contribute to a pleasant, harmonious mood, is that right? Now anybody can kinda see this one. Ones that's not very interested in much of anything, they can answer those four questions with a little assist from you. Now when they get down to see “What can they do,” now I can, of course, go out, raise hell, get drunk, and spit on everybody else and run into other people with my car and make all sorts of noise if I want to. But if I see I'm a guest at a big party I don't want to do that. Would you? Can't see any reason to want to go mess up the party.
Okay? Let's have all the questions you wanna talk about. I've talked about as many things as I wanna talk about today and now then I'll talk about what you want to talk about as long as you want to talk about it, and then I'm goin' home. Okay?
(We talked earlier about getting people out of, um… people who were victims, stuck in the anger. We talked about getting them out of that. Can you clarify that, what’s going on. See, what happens if we have, like, some groups that go on and some of the people within those groups – maybe on an average of four or five people – some of those people, I see them really enjoying being stuck in the victim, and the way they hold onto it is through their anger.)
That's correct....And –
(Could that might be because they don't know a way out. Is that correct?)
Well, some of em. And some of em just kinda like it because they don't wanna be responsible. I talk frequently to people who – I talk to people all over the country – and there's certain ones of em who just cannot conceive of being responsible themselves. Well, as we said a while ago, you're not trying to get em all well, you're tryin' to give em information, right? You give em a totally non-threatenin' environment, physical environment, right?
(Mm-hmm.)
And you give em non-threatening support, right? And if they don't want to do anything about it, well, what's it any of your concern?
(But isn't it true that…all right, I can, especially within social work, when you're dealing with people with a problem, is it… um, isn't it true that the person coming to you with that problem whether it be, you know, they can't deal socially, they feel lost into this, you know, this kind of state. They have to want something from themselves for themselves. They wanna be – they have to want to be able to take a step, or want to learn–)
That's very true. As the alcoholics say, you want to get sober instead of want to want to get sober. Now a lot of people come to counselors and social workers and etcetera as a place to get attention. Mm-hmm.
(That's very true, too.)
They want to get their attention and they're not gettin' it somewheres else, they can come there and get it.
(They've worn everything else out.)
They've worn the rest of em out, they’ve had the doctors drop em off. [chuckles] They’ve had a lot of other things. So when the great Four Dual Basic Urges of that first decision that's down here – to regain the non-disturbed state is gain pleasure and comfort, escape pain; gain attention, escape being ignored; gain approval, escape being disapproved of; gain a sense of importance or control over other people, escape a sense of inferiority.
Now, sometimes the best one that I know of and have had it pulled on me for umpteen times over umpteen years is that they dare the therapist or the worker – I play the game of teacher, you know, it sounds better, I don't have to listen to so many regulations then – they dare you to get em all right. I have a PhD man that has a degree in very uppity-up science and he comes in and he starts tellin' all his problems and no matter what you say to him, he dares you to get him out of it. So now you know somethin'? I don't waste any time. I say, “Let’s go have a cup of coffee, I agree with you, you're a totally unusual individual – you're tied up with a problem that can’t be solvable and always will be, so go ahead and die like a dog with it.” And let it be at that, you know. So he don't bother me too much anymore. But there's people who will challenge you, dare you to do anything for em.
Now I don't get caught in that game. I just laugh and go on because I'm not gonna work it, I'm not makin' it important whether they get out of it or not. You're gonna have those people. And I just look at em and say, “Yeah, you're very different.” I was here one day, listenin' to three or four of the therapists talk out here when it was _________. You remember that? And they were havin' difficulty amongst themselves over there as usual – at that big old building looks like a silo, huh? And I suggested somethin' that how they can handle it and the guy said, “No, it can't be done that way!” And he… I suggested another idea – “It cannot be done, it's more serious than this,” and I said another word–
(And they don’t want to hear it.)
“You're tellin' me that unlike all the clients who can have their problems solved by you therapists, that when the therapists have a problem they're totally insolvable, is that right?” He got real pissed off. (laughter) I don't mind rubbin' people’s hair the wrong way. But you know he was darin' anybody to do anything about it. He wanted to be miserable. He wanted to have a serious problem and if people want to have problems, God forbid that I should deny them to have one. In fact, maybe I'll make em another one. I can make a problem out of anything if I want to. All I got to do is make it important. So let's don't worry about those kind. Let's spend our time on people who want out, not on those who’s tryin' to prove to me that nothin' can be done for em. I don't see any use in wastin' time. If they wanna waste a life, that's their business; but I don't see any use for to wastin' time now. The person convinces me they don't want out, I'm not gonna bother with em. Yes, Robert.
(You had mentioned one method of the victim is not allowing them to act as a victim.)
Yeah.
(Is there any other way to – is there a way to go to the top of the chart and change their expectation?)
Oh, yeah, we try that all the way. We try everything.
(How do you do that?)
Oh, well, you take em up and start talkin' to em about their expectations. So they're expecting that their wife will do so-and-so, you know, that she will be some kind of a paragon, expected her kids will be PhD material when they're six weeks old, six months old, and a year old and all sort. And they’re expectin' that their boss will be different than the boss is and expectin' that the customer will be different than the customer is. Do you ever have sales people say, “Oh, they're just looky-loos?” Hmm?
(Mm-hmm.)
I say, “Are they livin' in a house now?”
(So in other words…?)
I've had a few salesmen tell me, “Well, those people never buy shoes.” She's got on shoes.
(Getting that victim to notice the positive aspect –)
No, that’s pretty tough, cause they don't wanna know. So if they wanna be a victim, who am I to interfere with their fun? You know?
(But if you were in each – if they're a victim and want to get out of that…)
Oh, then there's a jillion ways to go at it then.
(Can you react in the response where every negative thing that they say you could come up with a quick positive to.....)
Oh, yeah, I could come up, but that wouldn't work. They'd just start challenging it. So I let em look at a picture. There it is and if they want to stay there, honey, they can sure stay there. If anybody wants to be a victim, who am I to interfere with their fun? I will tell em how it works and point out all the things about it, but I'm not tryin’ to force –
(You just tell them how to tolerate the cabbage but you can’t ...) [she laughs]
They told me when I was a kid back in the hills, “You can lead the horse to water, but you can't make it drink.” So that's where [chuckles] I'm gonna leave it, you know.
(This certainly would make them thirsty.)
Yeah, you try your best to make em thirsty. It gives em a lot of salt, at least to make em thirsty.
(You're broadening their mind.)
Well, you're givin' em some way of looking at things other than mechanically lookin' at what they have all their lives because most people are just mechanically respondin' like they've been conditioned to. And if you give em somethin different to look at and to work with, there's a big change, okay? And it happens for most fairly easy. I run into very few people over the umpteen years that I've been workin' at the field of endeavor that haven't at least responded some, okay? I have had a few that told me that there was no way I can make em feel better and I agreed with em 100 percent immediately and went on with my business, okay? But they are few and far between. Most people would like to get out of it. They don't believe there's a way.
(That's right.)
Because, as they say, they've tried everything. They've had all the pills and they've had religion and they've had therapy and all this jazz but they haven't had any common sense yet. And when we play with em on that, they usually get with it and start off in the next way.
(We're getting a really large input of people in their late 20's, early 30's where all of the stuff that they knew worked and now it's not working, so they're real ready.)
Right. Now they're looking for something that you might say–
(Instead of being changed by a diagram, it’s their own light that’s been –)
Right. They're now looking for – they've tried the money, they've tried the prestige, they've tried havin' a good job. They've tried being the yuppie and now then that hasn't made them happy. They're miserable. So now then they're lookin' now for somethin’ they usually call “spiritual.” I’m just as happy they call it that, only I wanted to know what's meant by the word “Spirit.” I don't want em to get thinkin' that that means “more holy than thou” or anything of the sort. I don't want them to think that is what Life is all about. And so we'll agree with their terminology – I don't care much about what the terminology is. I'm runnin' into a tremendous amount of that because all the Four Dual Basic Urges basically they have achieved. They've bought pleasure and comfort. They've bought attention. They've bought approval. They bought a sense of importance –
(Would it help if… )
...and they're just as miserable as ever. Huh?
(Would it help if you were to make in front of them a list of all those things that they have done that haven't worked for them, and then have em make a new list of things they would like to do for themselves regardless of what other people are gonna think?)
Well, the first one, they've already done. They've already made the list – it didn't work. Now they're challengin' me to show em something that will work. Now I'm not challengin' them to act on it, okay? “Here, I'll give you somethin' to act on.” The way you go out and make a contribution is just seein' what all you can get. You see their whole basic philosophy all these years has been “getting.” Now then we're talkin' about not getting, but contribution.
(Well, every morning since you taught me that, I have gotten up and I write down two contributions I'd like to make – that day.)
Today. Well, good!
(And like this morning, my contributions were one: is to show an air, to radiate an air of – you know, good well-being and happiness; and the other was to go to one job and –)
[End of CD 6 of 6; End of “AIDS v Super Immunity ’87- Sunnydale, CA” Workshop]