CreativeCapital as eBook

“Invest in your creative capital” is a revised and edited eBook version of
SELF-Empowerment – How and why to invest in your creative capital by
Lawrence Poole.
ISBN – 9781620952122
1. Self-actualization (Psychology); 2. Creative thinking; 3. Leadership;
4. Mind expansion; 5. Motivation (Psychology).
Except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and/or reviews,
no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without
prior written permission of the author.
Contact Lawrence Poole at info@TheJungleTimes.com
www.TheJungleTimes.com

INVEST IN YOUR « CREATIVE CAPITAL »
Table of Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 - THE CHANGING MIND
When my mind changed…
Times of change
Where « mind » has been
A new paradigm: From self-sabotage to self-empowerment
How people accept change
Strategic adaptation
Chapter 2 – SELF-EMPOWERMENT IN A NEW PERSPECTIVE
The new perspective…
The mind as a limiting sphere of awareness
The reactive mind
The proactive mind
The creative mind
The empowered mind: an evolutionary jump

Chapter 3 - A WORLD OF NEURAL PARADIGMS
Personal Brain/Mind: Timelines and paradigms
Brain, consciousness, neurons and pathways
Neurons link into neural pathways
We are perceivers
A new social context
The personal content factor
Some paradigms are hardwired
Our physiological survival imprints
Our environmental and emotional imprints
Social and semantic imprints
Moral and spiritual imprints
Experiential imprints
The language of paradigms
Chapter 4 - ON CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE
Eight kinds of intelligence
The creative mind
An empowered mind
The attributes of a co-creator
Intelligence from beyond human limits
Chapter 5 - ON MOTIVATION AND WILL
Human motivation
The six principles of motivated creativity

The hierarchy of need in human nature
Physiological needs
Security needs
Social needs
Ego needs
Quality of life needs
Chapter 6 - ON META-MOTIVATION AND SOUL
Beyond our ego-centric limits
The need for a quality of life
The need for personal growth
The need for self-actualization
The need to paradigm-shift into a more creative worldview
The need for joy and passion for life
The need to reach a creative Super-consciousness
An 11 th dimension of need, where we pursue ideals
Understanding the 12 th level of need: Where all is 'One'
Altruistic self-interest: Filling organizational needs
Chapter 7 - WHEN POWER GETS PERSONAL
One Soul: An ultimate identity
Absolute, relatively speaking
It all depends how you see it
Creative order includes a soul
Frequencies of soul: How the brain becomes mind

Magnitudes of soul: Intensities of experiencing the Master Mind
Amplitudes of soul: Ascension through the dimensions
Of mind and mood
Your body's creative intelligence
Chapter 8 - INVEST IN YOUR CREATIVE CAPITAL
Personal power
The energy investment
Twelve ways to produce genius
Energy is transactional
Breakthrough thinking
Self-empowered thinking
Five Steps in the Art of Strategy
Task-oriented transformation
Thinking creatively until your dreams are actualized
Chapter 9 – RESISTANCE – KNOW THYSELF
Your two zones of influence
Brain and perceptual duality
Know yourself as consciousness
The transpersonal aspects of consciousness
Surfing your brainwaves
Gamma waves: Speed kills…
Beta: Use your conscious mind
Alpha: Probe your subconscious mind

Theta: Explore the collective unconscious mind
Delta waves: Access the Super-conscious mind
Ømega - Light - One with the sacred M.I.N.D.* (Move in new dimensions)
The key to developing a magical M.I.N.D.* (Move in new dimensions)
Chapter 10 - A PASSION FOR LIFE
Human evolution as a right, a duty and a personal power
Developing passion in strategic areas
A powerful mind comes in a passionate body
Willed fusion: The jump into the unknown
Ten great tips for acquiring SPIRITUAL power
We are co-creating a common future
The Tool Box
Bibliography
Author biography

Foreword
I became aware of the dark. It was a thick black, sort of like dense velvet. An
instant before, my entire life had flashed before me and now I was in an
absolute dark.
It was 11:00 A.M. on August 20 th , 1977, and that was the beginning of a
journey that will never end. At 03:20 that day, I had an automobile accident
that ended the life I knew. It was a spectacular car crash. I’ve always loved
drama but this time I was the anti-hero in a scenario that included my own
death. During the eternity I was in the abyss, I became aware of my life, one
precious moment after another.
My reverie was continuously interrupted by reality: I was torn between
a conscious will to survive and watching my life - and other images that had
nothing to do with me. After days fighting for life, having been thought dead
twice already, my heart stopped and I found myself outside my body and
without pain for the first time since the accident. From a point near the ceiling,
I was distinctly aware that I was more than a physical body.
I saw myself dead. I observed the scene carefully. I remember being
curious, calm and detached. I saw a friend escort my wife out of the room, after
instructions shouted by a nurse. Another nurse called for cardiac resuscitation.
A doctor who’d been resting in an armchair rushed over. He seemed fully aware
of my condition and was shouting instructions.
I had been crushed by the steering wheel of my car and among other
things it broke my ribs, my sternum, my collarbone, my spine, my left arm and
caused much more internal damage. Cut and bruised, I was a mess. He raised
his fist as if to strike down on my chest but I saw him suddenly hesitate. Then he
called out my name but I was oblivious to his words.
I was no longer in pain.
I saw my body attached to the monitors and machines. There were tubes
in my arm, my nose, my mouth and a large one taped directly over my throat. I
was a mess. I felt depressed and was about to give up the ghost when, from deep
inside of myself, I felt a voice clearly say: ‘Sadder words I've never seen than
the words «It could have been.»’
And almost simultaneously, from outside of me, another voice caught my
attention: ‘Come back… for Natalie's sake.’
Those words filled me with intense emotion, with feelings of love beyond
description. I felt myself expand as if a balloon and rise past the ceiling out of
the room. I continued to expand while rising out into the cosmos - then felt
myself explode into billion bits of Light. And I was instantly in my body, alive
and aware of pain.

Natalie is my daughter and she was then only six years old.
Later, in spite of my critical condition (I spent six weeks in the ICU and
almost a year in hospitals), I found myself trying to frustratingly remember
something important. I was drifting back and forth between reality and all its
pain, and dream where I examined my life experiences as if watching a film.
I felt frustration driven by a compelling idea that I had to remember that
something important.
Even if I’d enjoyed a relatively short life to that point (I was 29 years
old), I still had done quite a lot of living so there was much to sift through. I kept
going back until I remembered being 8 years old.
In an incredibly lucid vision, I recalled that my brother won a book at
school. A rather serious tome, he gave it to my father - who handed it to me,
promising me the princely sum of $20 if I could answer 50 questions after
reading it. To make sure I got it, I read the book three times, enjoying,
understanding and appreciating it more with each reading. To my father’s
surprise, I answered all his questions - and settled for the modest sum of $5 he
negotiated down.
The book, a novel called “A Place Of Coolness”, told the story of a man
who is searching for his brother, eventually finding him in a monastery. I
remembered the something particular I was searching for. Toward the book's
end, the author states that man’s goal is to find peace and then joy, that these
reside inside each of us, but that a place of coolness is needed to reach them.
After remembering that, I felt myself pulled from dream back to reality
where the intense pain from my wounds waited for me. Before allowing it to
once again take over my mind, I made an appointment with destiny. I
promised myself that I'd find an oasis, a place of coolness and I’d venture within
to reach its promise of joy.
Later, I recognized how the places that had offered me the greatest joy
before the accident were the forests and wilderness areas of Canada’s
Northeast. That’s where I started looking for my place of coolness. That’s
where I found joy and passion. And that’s how I became the only researcher on
Earth to trek rainforest jungles… in a wheelchair - but that’s another book.
From a monograph I wrote in 1980

Chapter 1
THE CHANGING MIND
When my mind changed…
Times of change
Where our mind has been
A new paradigm: From self-sabotage to self-empowerment
How people accept change
Strategic adaptability
"The big question is whether you are going to say a hearty yes to your
adventure."
Joseph Campbell

Chapter 1
WHEN MY MIND CHANGED…
My world changed in a single instant and it would never be the same. Since, I’ve
been intimately acquainted with my destiny and the kind of serendipitous events
that meeting “Death” might engender.
On August 20 th 1977 I was introduced to Death in an automobile accident.
I was thought dead 4 times, spent 6 weeks in the intensive care unit and 11
months in hospital. I’m paralyzed from my chest and have been confined to a
wheelchair for all these years.
The accident left me destitute in a largely inaccessible world but strangely
enough, during my long painful journey of recovery, people most often concluded
that I was lucky … that you survived… I was lucky because I was still alive!
“Chance favors the prepared mind.”
When I read the above words from French scientist Louis Pasteur, I felt as if
they'd been written for me. In fact I’ve been told: “You’re one of the luckiest
people I know.”
My daughter once told me her classmates at University often commented
on how lucky she was, and my life-partner Suzy told me the same thing is said
about her too, that she is “lucky”. To tell the truth, I’ve heard similar comments
from a several people and when I’ve asked them about it not a single one felt
particularly lucky. Rather, each attributed his or her achievements to hard work.
I understand why some of those people wear their lucky label with a bit of
resentment. Unless you've personally experienced it, it’s rather difficult for
someone who doesn’t consider him or herself to be particularly lucky to
appreciate the work behind the almost magical events that make up the lives of us
lucky people.
Well I can testify that it’s not only in the eyes of others that I’m thought
lucky. I truly believe that I am the luckiest on Earth. Who else gets a second
chance? I didn’t always think this way - but I changed my mind. Now I truly
think myself to be one of the luckiest people alive.
In fact, because I understand how luck works, I know I’ll continue to be
lucky for the rest of my life. Luck, an intangible force that seems to elude so
many people, only required a logical context for me to see it. Once I understood

what luck is, I was able to accept the fact that I am indeed very lucky, and to start
cashing in on the power of luck. Here's the definition I stumbled on:
Luck is what occurs when preparation meets opportunity.
I can assure you that, in spite of its simplicity, this formula can have wondrous
results!
Where you find change, you find opportunity. So opportunities are
adjuncts to change. In a world of constant change, opportunities are everywhere
then, just waiting to be uncovered. But not everyone sees it. Proper preparation
is what’s required to see opportunities and grab one.
In this way, a prepared person can participate more fully in life’s
transformational events and can consciously co-create circumstances that will
later be thought of as lucky. Proper preparation can take different forms. One
can be physically, emotionally, intellectually and even spiritually prepared to
capitalize on opportunities, or indeed to cause them!
Looking back on my adaptation after the accident, I can see that I was
prepared at several levels. I had already undergone several major changes and so
I came through the ordeal in good enough fashion. My spiritual values had given
me the strength of character needed to accept my fate and to transform the event
into an opportunity, a new beginning rather than the end.
Without proper preparation, even the most obvious opportunities will be
missed. Then, change is perceived as a threat or as rather bothersome, or even as
an obstacle. Strongly associated with the idea of randomness and chance, luck is
often described as a joyful event that occurs without our necessarily having had
anything to do with it. A lottery is a good example, since, according to many,
winning a million dollars would certainly seem lucky. Yet, even if it’s a million to
one shot, you still have to buy a ticket in order to win. There is no possibility of
luck unless you buy a ticket. And consider that not every winner, when revisited,
will agree that the lotto brought him or her good luck.
Science tells us that pure chance does not exist. This is because the laws of
Nature include a universal law of movement called action/reaction or cause and
effect. If we observe an effect, we can confidently believe it has somehow been
caused. Author K. C. Cole, a science reporter at Discover magazine writes, “Even
if the whims of the ancient gods seemed more understandable than the inner
workings of the atom…there is a magical order to the seeming randomness of
atomic events. And the very reality of the order in random events has totally
altered the meaning of our notion of causes.” 1
When we see an effect and don’t understand its cause, it’s easy to think it
occurred as a result of chance. In recent years, physicists determined that there

are different causes than those explained in linear relationships. In Nature,
causes are associated with forces, not necessarily with things or people. The
universe is composed of fields of energy that are contained by interdependent
and constantly changing forces.
In that constant movement and interaction, everything affects everything
else in some way, in a turbulent sea of change. There is no “chance”. There are
causes and effects, known and unknown.
Today’s researchers realize that existence itself is being created and
maintained in a complex web of cause and effect relationships, and that the whole
universe is responding to each event and to every individual simultaneously. But
even if we don’t give it much thought, whether we notice it or not, Nature’s law of
cause and effect is always in play and chance is not random. And it can be
influenced.
Throughout this book, I’ll explain how to use that cause and effect rule to
get “lucky”, to create opportunities that will allow you to benefit from that luck.
In addition, you’ll discover how getting lucky – as a cause – has a rather joyful
effect: a life of creative intelligence, passion and personal power.
The rule is a map and the map is a process. Self-empowerment is a result
of that process.
Times of change…
Even before fate meddled in my own life, I had noticed that the world was
changing at an incredible pace. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, suggested that
change is occurring “at the speed of thought.” In fact, we’ve seen more changes in
this past century as had occurred since the beginning of history, and as many
changes in the last ten years as in the last 50 – from recent recessions and
depressions to internet booms and busts, to wars and peace. And get ready - you
ain’t seen nothing yet.
Headlines about globalization reflect the amazing times we live in. In
some places, folks are experiencing constant technological innovation and
increasingly greater advances in their role in society or enterprise, while in
others, people are being left behind in hunger and despair and then react with a
spreading violence that threatens global order.
That reaction is an expression of the fear about changes that are being
imposed on all of us. The pace with which new ideas materialize and then begin
to dominate our lives cannot help but provoke fear in some people, and fatigue or
apathy in most.

No one could have predicted the direction the world has taken. In the
20th century every new decade surprised us. Now, looking back, we can see how
decisions made to favor a select few had a detrimental effect on the development
of our social institutions, on the rise of corporate power, on the exploitation of
the environment and on the quality of life itself. Since we began documenting
our handiwork, we've gathered irrefutable proof that those decisions were a
reaction to the beliefs of their time.
How we think has become a global force, a 5 th force in Nature. And so
today, like never before, we must question our decision-making and our
management processes. Over the last 100 years, the people and nations of Earth,
even with vastly different origins and backgrounds, have arrived at a single
crossroad. We are faced with the most serious decisions we’ve ever had to make,
and there is only one real question: Will we evolve or perish?
Just like dinosaurs that could not adapt quickly enough to the incoming
ice age, if we resist the extraordinary transformations of our times much longer,
we are condemned to extinction! There is no longer any doubt that resistance to
change provokes situations that are harmful to both our health and to the
decision-making process itself.
Resistance to change, aka reacting to stress, becomes burnout (or burn-in)
and a slew of other so-called social diseases; things like chronic fatigue, stroke,
cancer, cardiovascular and pulmonary problems, are at the same time symptoms
of the problem and indicators of why we must change.
Keeping up with the pace at which the world is being transformed already
requires all of our personal and professional management skills. Even if people
are saying they are tired, escalating problems, and factors like an aging
population and shifting demographic, indicate that we are entering a time of
severe social deficit that will contribute to major management problems.
To compensate, we have to reach beyond our limits and deal with the
consequences of events that have not yet happened. We must creatively empower
ourselves, and then share our power with others. We must fix the future now,
before it happens.
In the years since I've been demystifying the creative process, I’ve asked
thousands of people who’ve taken my workshops the following question: If you
suddenly had 2 days with absolutely nothing to do, with no one to consider but
yourself, what would you do with the freedom?
Imagine having 2 whole days all to yourself. Free days, answering to no one
and no routines to follow. What would you do with that time? Close your eyes
and think about it a few moments before answering.

If you are like most people, you might answer, “sleep” or “read a book” or
even “enjoy a quiet getaway in some secluded place in the countryside”. In some
sense you are indicating that you feel tired and stressed, that you need some
down time. I also ask a question that invites people to think in deeper ways: if
you had all the time, money and resources in the world, what would you do with
the rest of your life?
Again, take a few moments or even a few days to think about your answer.
If you answered, “buy a house on a lake”, “take a cruise”, or “travel around
the world”, you belong to the majority of people. Very few, however, know where
they want to go exactly. They only know they want to get away from their here
now reality, their daily life and the stress that goes with it.
In spite of recent medical discoveries and our quantum leaps in
knowledge, the general population is ailing as much as it ever has. Stress is now
the major contributor to 75% of deaths in North America, and it's largely
responsible for many of our physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual
ailments.
Burnout, or what was previously called a nervous breakdown, is now
recognized as an occupational hazard by workmen's comp, and has become a top
moneymaker for therapists of all kinds. Burn-in, on the other hand, is new and
largely hidden. The condition refers to victims who mask their symptoms and
slowly burn while remaining on the job. They will be locking their doors to
disturbances from out there or making the kinds of decision that are inefficient at
best and account for monumental scandals in the worst-case scenarios. We find
out later how every decision they made proved costly.
Having said all of this, it should be noted that there are a certain number
of people who do get excited and stimulated by the idea of change. They don’t get
stressed because they see change as a challenge or opportunity. Some folks
thrive, making lemonade out of life’s lemons. They'll seize the moment in a
sudden job downsizing, for example, to re-orient their whole career. They'll
accept and adapt to the inevitable sooner than others and so they get a head start
on them and will appropriate any opportunities and any resources that might
become available.
The difference between people who resist and those who adapt is so
significant that it’s been investigated with all the tools science can offer. We
found that 2 reactions, stress and creative self-empowerment, can be understood
in terms of personal paradigms. Paradigms describe the neurological ways we
see the world.
Paradigms explain how each of us has a unique way of perceiving change
and they tell us why news can negatively affect some people more than others.
Paradigms explain how we are guided to link information into patterns of

awareness. They also show how people from a certain culture, race, gender or
creed might react similarly to situations.
Some of the changes currently underway on Earth will adversely affect
every strata in society. So why are things changing? No one woke up one
morning and decided to change everything around just for the fun of it. Most
often, change isn't fun, nor is it necessarily easy. Change is a necessary
consequence in complex systems. So like it or not, though, here comes some
more change.
Social needs have made it imperative that we learn how to adapt to change
- whether we like it or not - and much quicker and more effectively than ever
before. The pace of change in the world is greater than any one person’s
opposition to it, so it will occur. It's part of an interdependent whole, and the
relationship between the diverse components in that whole are provoking all
these changes at an unparalleled rate.
After careful consideration though, we should realize that there is little
choice but to change. These are evolutionary forces at play, natural forces, and
they demand a creative adaptation to what has just occurred, in continuum.
Adapting to change means adopting new behavior but research has found there is
a barrier to be crossed. While most people don’t have too many problems with
the newness aspect of a change (tests will even show that we are stimulated by
words like new and improved), our failing is a less obvious inability to let go of
the old.
How we see things is determined by the way neurons connect inside our
brain. Even if your old way of seeing doesn't work anymore, well if it holds the
only ideas you have... well they've got to work. An idea might be passé after five
minutes, but, like a government program, its work can haunt you forever.
We want change - particularly if it’s in our best interest - but we want a
change that doesn’t upset habitual beliefs and comfort zones or habits. We'll
protect the past and even rant about going back to the good old days to avoid real
change.
Anyone who really believes there were old days were good should take a
closer look at facts: Just a few years ago, ordinary citizens in Rwanda slaughtered
a million of their countrymen and women. Sixty years ago in Germany, humans
killed 6 million men, women and children. Five hundred years ago in America,
50+ million people were exterminated. In Europe, religious inquisitions did
diabolical things to innocent people… in the name of God. Five thousand years
ago in Egypt, Pharaohs treated people worse than cattle. Then, killing a common
person raised no concern.

Paradise – that better world – is not an idea from some past time.
Paradise is the better world that is yet to be. Times are a-changing... intelligent
choices can make the future much better.
Where « mind » has been...
Today’s changes are largely driven by the shift to an information age paradigm.
Access to knowledge has exploded. Imagine that 2000 years ago people could
access the X amount of knowledge. X can represent knowledge accumulated in
the millennia since a beginning. 1400 years later, X had doubled. 275 years after
that, 2X doubled. Then 4X doubled in 100 years and 8X doubled in the next 50
years.
The information explosion sees knowledge double every 5 years or less,
and projections by a mathematician named Jacques Vallé calculate that sometime
soon global knowledge will double every day and then every minute until the
amount of accessible information is infinite. 2
All this new data requires new survival skills and new adaptive abilities.
We have to learn all about our neural paradigms. Dictionaries translate the word
to mean a model, but in this text, I specifically mean our models for how to think
and behave.
Society is presently undergoing an unparalleled shift in paradigms, one
whose scope is so large that it is extremely difficult to imagine. Recent events -
from the declaration of war on terror to corporate and banking scandals, are
obliging us to question much of what we believe.
In fact, this isn’t the first time society has experienced a rapid paradigmshift.
During the 18 th century, Europe experienced the collapse of an agricultural
era that had existed undisturbed for more than 700 generations.
A 1982 movie called Le Retour De Martin Guerre starred French actor
Gérard Dépardieu and showed how a slow and stable life dominated medieval
Europe. Back then, anything new or different was considered highly suspect.
People had very limited paradigms and they worked hard to keep them that way,
sometimes against all odds.
The film is based on a true story and recounts the historical trial of Martin,
a small man of low social status who left his natal village to go away to war. A few
years later, a big, tall, strong man - Dépardieu - returns to take his place. Because
the popular belief of the day was that leaving home caused great transformations
in a person, villagers, including his wife, accepted the new man and his
unbelievable changes.

If not for a question of inheritance law, a trial and the subsequent return of
the real Martin, the imposter could have continued pretending to be the longawaited
villager and he would have successfully confounded local paradigms to
take over both the real man’s life – and his wife.
How could people be so naïve and not see the ruse? Their minds expected
change – a great transformation – and the new man knew it. I'll tell you more
about the brain's paradigms in Chapter 3, where you'll learn amazing facts. Did
you know that 300 years ago an average person never wandered more than a few
miles from home during his entire life.
Beliefs handed down by 700 generations of people living an isolated rural
existence did little to prepare people for the shift in paradigm that was about to
occur. At first, the signs of the change were difficult to detect. Who would have
guessed that conquistadors finding the humble potato in South America could
cause a major upheaval in Europe?
Resigned to cycles of feast and famine the European community of the
time relied mostly on cereal products and other foods subject to the fickleness of
weather. As potatoes are grown underground and because the Inca cultivated
many species from warm lowlands to the coldest climates at high altitudes, spuds
proved to be a boon to Europe, offering a food source protected from Nature's
capriciousness.
The introduction of the potato transformed the agricultural age into a new
industrial society in a scant few seasons. Many of the water and windmills used
to grind grains and press oil were soon idle. And an innovative idea enabled all
that unused power to be converted into mechanical weaving and sewing factories.
Mechanization and the birth of urban life expanded very rapidly as the
potential for making goods for larger markets promised industrial-size wealth.
The change in paradigm was quickly apparent when young people left country
farms and villages to find work in towns, which then grew into our major cities.
Harnessing electricity drove the conversion of the new industrial society
(which lasted less than 300 years) by letting us work 24-7, making us much more
productive but much less alive. The shift into industry and productivity boosted
creativity. In fact, almost everything we take as evidence of our modern world
had origins in the twenty-year period surrounding the turn of the last century.
Between 1890 and 1910, humans invented, among other things, the telephone,
the radio, the automobile, the airplane and the phonograph. We discovered X-
rays, atomic energy and fundamental new ways of seeing the fundamentals.
World War II marked the apex of that industrial era, as women entered
the workforce like never before and performed what had traditionally been men’s
jobs. When the soldiers came home from overseas, they realized that the social
paradigm had shifted yet again. The domestic scene was no longer a woman’s

unique source of expression. Earning power had tapped into her independent
spirit and transformed her perceptions of herself.
Freeing women had an overall liberating effect on all of society and, the
world over, other limits and ancient ways continue to fall even as I write these
words.
The commercial introduction of television probably best symbolizes the
birth of the information age. Suddenly it was possible to transmit live images and
sounds to millions of people at once around the globe! We could use our ideas to
sell products and services, shape ways of behaving and set fashion ideals.
Individuals could influence the social mind and contribute to global decisionmaking.
Since then, we've been exploring our whole-Earth needs. The 1940s
awakened the global family to our need for physical survival with the World War
and atomic bombs. The 1950s were about our security needs, and we were
spoon-fed cold-war paranoia while we played the MAD – Mutually Assured
Destruction - bomb-shelter game.
In the '60s our social needs suggested we give peace a chance, and then in
the ‘70s, the Me Generation fueled their egos for a long voyage into greed. The
‘80s were meant to explore our quality of life, but that time was mainly about
acquiring personal wealth; we were already divided into have and have-nots and,
unfortunately, the gap widened significantly.
The 1990’s society was aware that we, the collection of individuals alive on
Earth, are having as great an impact on the Biosphere as natural disasters.
Global warming and ozone depletion stopped being abstract concepts and
became satellite pictures of our handiwork. Images compared to those taken ten
years earlier offered conclusive proof that we are negatively altering the
conditions for life on Earth.
Decade 2000-09 wanted us to take responsibility for our power. Today,
the Internet gives access to anyone to sophisticated information that would have
been regarded as science fiction only a couple of decade ago. In seconds, we can
access millions of Web pages, and thousands of new sites are added every day.
Anyone can communicate with people all over the world - both live and in
color - for a very modest investment. Graduation into the information age has
both survival and commercial value. With my PC I have a window into a wide
world web of information. It lets me send and receive creative and inspiring
multimedia messages to or from most anyone. I can upload or download
instructions for almost anything, to or from anywhere. I can manage and operate
what I want, at any distance, in real time, with anyone else.
I'm impressed with technology because I still remember carbon paper and
the first data processors. In spite of this incredible jump in our capacity to

transform data, many thinkers noticed that information in itself – facts – has no
real survival value when predicting human behavior. Don’t college graduates
design the weapons that exterminate millions of people? Don’t doctors of physics
calculate the facts that create all those tons of deadly radioactive waste? Don’t
chemists mix their biological facts into weapons of mass destruction?
The continued degeneration of industrialized society shows that just
having access to facts doesn't assure a creative use of intelligence. There is a lag
between our shift to the new information age and our ability to profit from its
intelligence and transform the passage into creative capital. You'll remember
that at the beginning of any age, it takes a while to get into the new beat.
The new age corresponds to our more global awareness. “We are killing
the Planet and ourselves with it,” screamed the headline in The Gazette, the
Montreal English daily newspaper. 3 The article listed dire facts from a United
Nations’ Report on environmental disasters caused by human endeavor. But are
such reports enough to stem the tide? Not so far. By and large we ignore them
and continue to shamelessly pollute the air we breathe, poison the water we
drink, mow down the trees, dump toxins in the soil, etc., with greater intensity
than before. The sabotage of the Kyoto Accord is an example.
Largely oblivious to the global horrors we are creating, we've mandated
self-serving politicians who are often in bed with greedy capitalists. Looking back
at the last few years, we find disinformation and lies designed to make us miss
opportunities to do the right thing. Mismanagement is endangering the quality
of our own life and is severely threatening the planet we will leave our children.
The eco-balance needed for a sustained healthy human life on Earth is
reaching critical mass, the point of no return. To understand critical mass in this
context, imagine that your body is producing cancer cells that your immune
system is immediately destroying. If your body produces more cancer cells, or if
your immune system destroys fewer cancer cells, you soon reach critical mass
and find yourself in mortal combat with the disease.
Now imagine the pollutants we expel into the biosphere as planetary
cancers, and the environmental damage as weakening Nature’s capacity to
restore itself. The mix gets deadlier as it reaches critical mass. As we continue to
allow the rape of the Earth while arguing about costs and debating effects,
Nature's balance continues to deteriorate.
Think of what people say when they hear of a sudden and unexpected
death. "Wow! I would have never guessed. I'm shocked. He looked fine
yesterday!" It’s too bad and too late. When the conditions for human life
deteriorate to the point where they are out of balance, life will just end. The end
of life won't be a catastrophic Big Bang though. It will be a last, mournful
whimper.

A new paradigm: From self-sabotage to self-empowerment
Sociologists are still debating whether we should call our response to the
demands of change evolution or adaptability. In a brilliant insight, Alvin Toffler
described the limits of adaptability in his book Future Shock. 4 He defined future
shock as “the distress, both physical and psychological that arises from an
overload of the human organism's physiological adaptive system and its decision
making processes.”
Simply put, Toffler said we tend to respond to the constant demands
imposed by new information by going into a state of shock, experiencing a sort of
stress that breaks down our decision-making processes.
Writing in Ideas On The Edge Of Natural History, biologist Lyall Watson
gave us some glimmer of hope. 5 “In the course of human evolution, a change of
mind, a new idea can have as much survival value and adaptive significant as a
complete mutation of a gene."
This change in thinking awakens individuals to a sense of personal
responsibility for our global needs. Transformed by three paradigm-shifts in the
last 300 years, we were pulled from a slow-to-change agricultural age into an
agitated, industrial era and then into the dizzying speed of this new information
age. Society is undergoing its next paradigm-shift. Information access introduces
a new age of evolution, creative potential and self-empowerment.
Organizing principles in biology explain how life responds with certain
predetermined instincts. First and foremost, we are programmed to survive, and
so I suppose we will eventually wake up and start meeting our global needs. We
have to adjust our thinking to new data first: Earth is an indivisible whole, and
yet a diverse, interdependent and co-creative life system – a biosphere. Earth
itself is alive.
On his return with a rather detached view of things, astronaut James Irwin
wrote, "The Earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the
blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away, it diminished in size.
Finally, it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can
imagine. That beautiful, warm, living object looked so fragile, so delicate, that if
you touched it with a finger, it would crumble and fall apart. Seeing this has to
change a man, has to make a man appreciate the creation of God and the love of
God." 6
Our continued survival as a species requires another kind of social
transformation: a change of attitude…of mind. And we humans are the only ones
who can do it. Life is a far more complex concept than we generally perceive.
Described as an interactive web, life itself is maintained in a very delicate
balance, as a creative whole, even as separate parts that constitute that whole.
The conditions for human life are predetermined. By degrading our

environment, we are not only lowering the quality of available life to us, we are
also reducing our own life expectancy. We're sabotaging ourselves by breaking
down the planetary womb. Damage the womb and any life inside it must die.
Many people are already changing attitudes and empowering themselves
to repair the harm we've done. They’re getting to know themselves better, and
are beginning to change the way they act and think about their role in the overall
scheme of things. I know of dozens of projects where people are planting trees,
cleaning up lakes or otherwise protecting wilderness areas.
Being more aware, people are experiencing a transition in their life and are
starting to rethink the direction they want for the future. Some are beginning new
careers, others have discovered a cause they can be passionate about, many work
towards a particular dream. Some volunteer to help those less fortunate, while
others go back to school and learn how they can make a real difference. A good
number of people are excited about changing the global agenda. They are the
harbingers of the better world.
Most folks, however, are victims of the speed at which change is occurring.
Many have to work very hard just to keep up with the status quo, while dinosaurs,
those who defend and maintain the old paradigms, get more entrenched in their
attitudes. For them, the needed transition will probably be painful.
Global changes are being provoked by chain reactions at every level of
human activity. Just think of the new communications technologies for a
moment. They’ve given birth to a veritable revolution, the effects of which are not
yet understood and not yet measurable. We can trade data at the speed of light.
To make things fair, we should all be playing by the same rules, on a level playing
field, but of course that is not the case.
Emerging economies and developing nations are overwhelmed by a mass
of data that continues to increase at unprecedented speeds; they are unable to
translate that potential wealth into pragmatic solutions and increase their quality
of life. Many people remain technological Luddites, fearful and distrustful of
technological changes, when, ironically, more, better and faster information has
never been more critical to our survival.
In order to solve all the problems we created – climate changes, melting
polar ice, dangerous urban pollution, ozone depletion, deforestation, at risk water
tables, devastated fish stocks, the extinction of countless species, accelerating
natural disasters, etc. – we need the latest information and better management
systems. The paradox is that in order to manage the stress provoked by so much
information, we have to be more flexible, open minded, better informed, more
creative and more empowered.
Knowledge has never been more available. But not all knowledge has
equal value. In order of importance where the last item is most critical, the

following four categories of information are defining what’s essential to human
survival into the twenty-first century.
Synthesis #1 - The 4 essential categories of information
Information we need...
1. Cognitive knowledge (know-what): The body of information linked to
completing a task, job or professional function; this knowledge can be taught
and accredited.
2. Higher skills knowledge (know-how): The body of information that allows
you to use know-what in day-to-day situations and find opportunities to
transform life’s often complex scenarios and events in a value-adding way.
3. Systems knowledge (know-why): The body of information that helps you
identify the cause and effect relationships in a specific situation, event or
process; this data allows you to create circumstances, anticipate subtle
interactions and manage consequences of a desired outcome.
4. Self-knowledge (care-why): The body of information that demystifies
persona, self-motivation, creative intelligence, vision, strategy and personal
power; in other words, the esteem needed to acquire the know-what, knowhow
and know-why to actualize your needs.
While the first three manage the information that we can learn from out there,
the fourth has to do with a sense of personal identity and power that comes from
learning about in-here.
Creative intelligence has to do with how we use information and how we
can transform it into meaningful acts. Without acts, nothing gets done. So
acquiring power (and luck) is the result of an evolutionary self-empowerment
process.
How people accept change
Studies show that integrating change into our behavior will take from six months
to fifteen years. For a change that only requires your personal decision, it will
take about six months for the intent to reach the action stage. Anyone who wants
to quit smoking, for example, might need six months to think about it and
convince him or herself before going cold turkey. Without that proper

preparation, many quitters will take up the habit again in short order, and fail
again.
Body/mind has to be convinced a proposed change is a good thing. A
cultural change, where many people reach a consensus, might require up to
fifteen years to be integrated. I knew this when I began advocating on behalf of
disabled persons and accessibility issues in Quebec some thirty years ago. At that
time I might have been considered a militant radical to be shunned and avoided.
Well today I still actively promote the cause but my message has become selfevident
as more and more people are aging and breaking down.
I understand the resistance factor, and am never discouraged by how
slowly things move because I've had more than three decades of watching how
minds are made up. We'll have to change that too - we have no more time to
waste.
In recent years, business has adopted new concepts like “ISO” and “Lean
Innovation.” Some avant-garde companies even champion ideas like selfmanaged
teams and empowered work units, but few have succeeded in fully
implementing these concepts because most get caught by the time lag that
separates a new idea from its adoption by the majority of people. Anxious for
quick results and quicker bucks, some CEOs have introduced three or four
programs in the last decade.
With so little knowledge and respect for how the humans function best, we
shouldn't wonder why so many corporate strategies have failed or why stress
levels cost North American industry $330 billion U.S. dollars in lost productivity
in the year 2000 alone.
Studies that explain how people accept new ideas tell us a lot about how
leaders or creative thinkers are distributed in society.
Synthesis # 2 - How people accept new ideas
Visionary leaders 3 – 5%
New paradigm pioneers 5 – 10%
The motivated mass 20 – 30%
The indifferent majority 40 – 60%
The non-adopters 5 – 10%
People adopt ideas in periods that vary from six months to 15 years.

These studies also reveal that people don’t adapt to change at the same rate. Only
3% to 5% of people are the visionaries who accept change easily by perceiving
incoming needs, provoking solutions and introducing new ideas. To understand
the visionary-thinker, consider Robert Kennedy’s famous words. “Some men see
things as they are and ask ‘why', while others see things that could be and ask
‘why not'?” Visionaries are people who see possibilities and potential where the
great majority of people do not.
Somewhere between 5% and 10% of people are new paradigm pioneers.
They see what the visionary is proposing and, without any resistance, will
endorse that change. 20% to 30% of individuals are the change-oriented and
motivated mass of people who want it, anticipate it as a positive thing, work for it
and are ready to adopt any good idea. 40% to 60% of the people are the
indifferent majority. They view change with some apathy. “Tell me exactly what
you want and I’ll see later, if I have time!” Even if they do end up adopting a new
idea, it is most often after a significant number of others already have. US expresident
Richard Nixon called them the silent majority and, when they didn't
care about his demise, he found out just how silent they really are.
5% to 10% of individuals, then, remain non-adopters. They'll have nothing
to do with change. There's an organization named The Flat Earth Society that
refuses to accept evidence that the planet is round, not a flat disk as previously
believed. Another organization with members all over the globe is convinced
man never really walked on the Moon; it suggests the footage we saw is from
Hollywood. There are cults who believe human life began in alien test tubes,
people who still deny the Holocaust and the AIDS epidemic, folks who still think
Rock and Roll is “the devil's music” and conspiracy theorists for every historical
event.
We tend to try and convince people who aren’t interested in changing that
they should. We invest few resources encouraging and supporting visionaries
and new paradigm ideas. Instead, an innovation committee will clash with the
status quo supporters who stand against any change. Isolated by the indifferent
masses, pioneers and visionaries burn out trying to implement new methods and
improve processes. With no support, creative people are like the voices that cry
out in the wilderness.
Imagine how quickly problems could be solved, how great and meaningful
projects could be completed and global needs fulfilled, if everyone simply jumped
up one category, exceeding their normal limits, and transcended their outdated
mindsets. Imagine if the indifferent majority gave new paradigm advocates
needed resources, or if the motivated majority took greater visionary risks. If
that happened a genuine revolution would take place.
What group do you belong to? How quickly would the needed changes in
your life occur if you decided to jump up one or two categories in your way of
thinking? How would your world be transformed if you were more open-minded

and at least tried out some new ideas? What if you ignored the naysayers and
became a visionary yourself?
Strategic adaptability
If you belong to the indifferent majority, you change only after the novelty of an
idea has worn off and is already become a good habit for many. If you are more
motivated, you might advance the moment you realized that an idea could offer
you some benefit. Remember that the next time you find you think, "If I only
knew then what I know now."
In my conferences on change management, I’ll mention how organizations
have to look for new ideas, and I give a series of reasons why prosperity is driven
by innovative thinking. I explain, for example, why some companies have to
innovate and improve their customer buying experience: if they don’t, the
competition will, and then they’ll be left behind. I give examples of good and bad
service providers and the audience agrees, remembering their own list.
Companies will fail and people will lose jobs. And mortgages.
People charged with improving products, services, processes and
procedures have to be visionary thinkers. Visionaries bring new ideas to life.
They know there’s no real choice except to embrace change. It is one of life’s
constants, and so we should learn all we can about how to adapt. Leaders need to
have adapt-ability. There should be less resistance at the point of the spear. By
being first to adapt, leaders will find that change offers an opportunity to
improve, and it can then best the competition.
Strategic adaptation is a 4-step process:
From unawareness to awareness
From awareness to acceptance
From acceptance to action strategies
From a strategy to its actualization
Reflect through the following process with the ideas I'm proposing on selfempowerment.
From unawareness to awareness: Do you know about personal
power? We live in changing times. We have little choice but to adapt to them.
How we do it will make the differences between us. Self-empowerment, in this
context, means to better understand and manage the change process itself.

Think about it for a second. We have to change our travel habits because
some people see terror as their only weapon. We have to rethink our careers
because economies have all turned around. We have to learn new rules of
commerce because the Internet is now a fact of life. We have to change our ways
because we are devastating our habitat.
We have to seek out personal power and learn to embrace change because
life is a sea of change and no one is an island, immune from the world. We must
change if only because we are getting old, and we'll be breaking down soon
enough.
From awareness to acceptance: Do you know that there's a selfempowerment
process that been handed down over millennia? Do you realize
that learning to manage change can benefit you? Consider how defending old
habits and the status quo will require you to maintain your self-sabotaging
paradigms.
The changes required by a self-empowerment program require that you
add to your awareness of the personal growth process itself. You need to know
about the principles of human motivation, creativity and self-management, and a
few basics on strategy and personal power. By accepting to change, you can
control the way change will affect your life. You can then decide where to start,
the kind of changes to embrace, the scope or amount of change, its frequency and
pace, its effect on you and your moods, and more.
From acceptance to action strategies: Do you have a plan? Do you
know what you need to help yourself or others change, i.e., training, stimulation,
support, coaching, etc.? All the information is available in this book if you look
for it.
There are resources to help you achieve anything. Some are right at your
fingertips. To start off on the right track, give a search engine a ride. I'll discuss
various strategies throughout this book. But if improving your health is the first
step for your needed change, start with a general check-up from a professional
who can recommend the improvements you require and go from there. Without
a plan you cannot effectively manage or maintain any change program.
Remember, the road to hell is paved with good intentions!
From a strategy to its actualization: Are you ready to act? Do you
have the power? Procrastination, or putting things off until later, is a major
obstacle to making a meaningful change. A lot of people believe that change will
just automatically happen when they suddenly see a need for it. Selfempowerment
is real work. It happens as resistance gives way to unbending
intent.
Change means hard work and we only work if the results are worth it. Selfempowered
people start with a worthy goal and then give themselves joyfully to

the work. Acquiring will power to change is a result of the process of investing in
your creative capital.
Work at being happy, because anything less is self-sabotage. When you
have no more resistance to doing all of the work, all of the time, you will have
arrived at the gates of Paradise.
Act before you have time to talk yourself out of it. Enter the pearly gates of
self-actualization. The only way a change for a better life can occur is through
bold action! Why resist? Why prefer an old pair of worn-in shoes instead of a
nice new pair?
I’ll tell you about it. It’s a question of neural paradigms.
Every day, surrounded by opportunities to change, to transform our world and
our self, some people self-sabotage and some self-empower. What about you?
Are you ready to grab the opportunities? Is there anything you need to change
so that you can? How would you like to start getting lucky?

Chapter 2
SELF-EMPOWERMENT IN A NEW PERSPECTIVE
The mind as a limiting sphere of awareness
The reactive mind
The proactive mind
The creative mind
The empowered mind: an evolutionary jump
A brief look at how the universe changed
"I believe that my creative mind is my greatest weapon."
Tiger Woods

CHAPTER 2
THE NEW PERSPECTIVE…
I’ve had the privilege of meeting a great variety of people over the last few years -
many thousands of them. My partner Suzy and I have trained more than 30,000
leaders of corporations, associations and government institutions. We've worked
with groups in Canada, Central America, and in more than a dozen European
cities.
We’ve communicated in three languages with people from every
circumstance - young folks and seniors, male and female, CEOs and workers –
representing just about every race, culture, creed, and socio-economic division. I
say this to explain that we've become fairly good interpreters of human behavior.
And we reached the conclusion that people are both very different and pretty
much the same everywhere.
We are similar in the way we are subject to paradigmatic behaviors, and
we are different in the way we react to our paradigms. People are unique.
One of my most amazing seminar experiences is seeing how a small group
of 10 or 12 people from different backgrounds, with different agendas and life
experiences, arrives at a consensus or decision. It can be chaos. People bring
such an awesome variety of flavors to their perception that I’m always surprised
that we can get together and share one mind. And yet we do it all the time. We
change our minds to agree. It has to happen, or else we’d still be back in the
stone ages.
Changing our mind is not an easy job. In spite of anything else we might
believe about ourselves, and even if we insist that we have free will or power,
evidence suggests that is not quite true. We react to our brain's neural paradigms
with reflexes and habits. I'll explain this as we go along but for now, consider: if
our will were truly free, would we automatically react with anger or fear or
indecision? The reaction will depend on who's reacting, but my point is that they
are reflexes. People react habitually.
If we had any real power, would we so often behave in ways that are not in
our best interest? So, why do we forget a good resolution so soon, or set aside our
dreams? Why do we shy away from a new potential or offer that might profit us?
I’ve discussed this with many participants in training sessions where we
have time to explore the idea. I've heard a lot on the difficulty of changing habits.
Late in the day of our multi-day sessions, I’ll ask people to dress the next morning
by putting their underwear on with the other leg first, the one not habitually
used.

In the morning, soon after beginning the second day agenda, I’ll ask folks
if they completed the task. It won’t surprise you to learn that the majority of
people forget, even if the usual suspects protest as to how they weren’t aware it
was a real assignment. We then re-discuss change from the perspective of habits
and memory, our neural reflex circuits. I'll conclude by asking any parents in the
group to think about the last time they scolded their kids. “I thought I told you to.
. .” and yada, yada, yada.
Apparently just being told to do it isn’t enough.
We are, in fact, creatures of habit and not at all free nor without
restriction. Dr. Charles Tart, a psychologist at the University of California
(UCLA), uses a simple exercise to demonstrate the degree to which our free will is
really quite trapped and restricted. To make his point, he asks students to use a
watch with a sweep second-hand and to exercise every bit of their will power to
focus on seeing the second-hand go around while they concentrate on breathing
deeply.
They are asked to do nothing else but that task – watch the seconds go
round and breathe, not even thinking - for 5 minutes. Try it. Concentrate on
seconds ticking by as you breathe quietly. Don’t think; just watch time slip away.
You'll probably find it difficult, as do most people. Your mind is
bombarded by competing thoughts all the time. We have an inner dialogue
preventing us from exercising our free will. Our will is reactive to our mind,
which won't even allow us to complete a simple task in concentrated quietude.
Every one of us, to some degree, is the prisoner of a mind that's reacting to
the stimulus it's bombarded with by simply being alive in the world and aware.
Dr. Tart explores this idea in Waking Up. He tells of experiments to enable
students to realize that free will can only result from a fundamental
transformation – a paradigm-shift – in which we are liberated from our own
reactions. When freed from its shackles, the mind can be developed and then
become a valuable generator of creative capital.
He explains how the mind itself, the physical and metaphysical context,
regardless of a personal content, can grow. More than merely educating a limited
mind, the mind itself can expand beyond its limits and then entertain its
intelligence in a deliberate, direct and self-empowering way. To see the potential,
imagine your mind as an eight-ounce jar. It doesn’t matter what’s in the jar
(content), what matters is that the jar can only hold eight ounces (context). If we
try to add more of anything, it will either overflow or the jar will break.
One manifestation of the mind's limits is a natural resistance to change.
In reaction to being nearly full, an eight-ounce mind will resist new input,
including any information that might suggest that it can actually grow beyond its
limits. As the reactive mind is uncertain about what or how to change so it can
grow and yet somehow stay the same, unsure what has real value, the limited

mind protects the limited way it sees the world. “I'm entitled to my opinions,
after all.”
People have difficulty changing because they tend to suppose that their
mind – its content – somehow defines them. "I think therefore I am!"
Largely, we believe what we think is important and we are attached to it.
Holy wars have been launched because initiated minds couldn't agree. Most
people don’t realize that what’s on their mind, its content, is a lot less important
than the mind's context, or how the mind is thinking.
Our mind has far greater value than just being limited to regurgitating
opinion. How a mind organizes its information makes all the difference. How we
think separates us, allowing some individuals to merit wonderful lives with great
wealth and happiness, and other people to abut their life in dismay and despair.
How we think is who we become; it individualizes us.
We can be victims of our own mind’s limits and reactions, or we can
expand – actually grow it - and be more empowered, more magical. The
development of our creative capital has less to do with modifying our mind’s
content, what we believe, and everything to do with enhancing its potential, how
to believe it.
By transforming your eight-ounce jar into a forty-five gallon drum, that
limited yet very protected information occupied by your reactive inventory will
become rather insignificant when compared to the potential your mind's
expansion can make available to you.
Life is a creative process. You can add power and intelligence to yourself.
To become an empowered thinker you need just shift perspective, from a human
being to a human becoming.
This is more than just playing with words; the realization puts personal
growth in perspective and shows life’s journey with an evolutionary purpose. The
following story explains what I mean by a human becoming:
A man was chatting with an old girlfriend who was down in the dumps. It
seems life had passed her by and she now felt frustratingly unaccomplished.
The man asked her, “But if you could have done whatever you wished with
your life, what would that have been?”
Unreservedly, she said, “I stopped my studies with a B.Sc. and accepted
a job offer, but if I had to do it all over again, I’d be a medical doctor in
a family practice.”
“Why don’t you do it?" the man asked. “Why not go back to school? You
have the resources you need. Get your degree, intern and then you'll be
a doctor!”

“Are you kidding me?” she answered him. “That will take me ten years.
Do you realize I’ll be 50 years old by the time I'm ready?”
“Well,” her friend replied, “you’re going to be 50 anyway. Do you want
to get there feeling frustrated and unaccomplished, or as a medical
doctor?”
That woman can see herself as a sad human being, done in by bad luck, with
nothing ahead except her requiem, or she can take the challenge and see herself
become a doctor. By changing her mind and deciding to make her dream come
true, that down-in-the-dumps girl will instantly add a dynamic potential to her
creative capital, and she might get to live happily ever after, too. (She actually did
become a doctor, and she got a bonus: she discovered evolution's purpose is to
live with passion.)
Easy enough to understand how we can develop our mind with this next
idea. We can assume that someone who practices sloppy work habits every day
for the next ten years will become a habitually sloppy worker, if not fired along
the way. Similarly, by developing your mind and creatively empowering yourself
every day for a decade or so we'll see the pay-off, both now and then.
You’ll soon enough notice an increase in your creative capital that you can
draw on and reinvest to prosper in other, personal ways. As you reap what you
sow, start planning the luck you'll inherit further along in life, like next week and
next year.
Developing creative capital means increasing our self-knowledge, or
enhancing our self-awareness and social awareness, while embracing both our
own creative empowerment and the self-actualization processes itself. This book
can supply the can do, but you have to bring your own want to.
Synthesis #4 - The concept of creative capital
Self-awareness means understanding your:
• Vitality quotient: The ability to assess and fill your physical and security
needs;
• Emotional quotient: The ability to recognize how emotions impact your
state of mind, your moods, your attitudes, your relationships and your work
life;
• Intellectual quotient: The cognitive abilities, including an ability to link
ideas, assess strengths and determine values;

• Spiritual quotient: The ability to create a strong and positive sense of
worth, identity and self-esteem; the ability to recognize limits and defects;
• Self-management: The ability to keep disruptive impulses, desires and
reactions under control, to decide, plan and carry out intent;
• Ethics: The consistent display of honesty, integrity and fair play;
• Authority: The ability to manage yourself in relationship to your
responsibilities;
• Adaptability: The ability to adjust to situations, to overcome obstacles and
challenges;
• Initiative: The readiness to seize opportunities and transform them;
• Motivated creativity: A self-propelled movement towards the idea of good,
an inner moral standard that prompts action.
Social awareness means developing:
• Empathy: The ability to sense others' emotions and moods, to understand
other perspectives and to take an active interest in other people’s concerns;
• Organizational awareness: The ability to understand organizational
structure, to determine its decisional networks and to navigate its politics;
• A helpful attitude: The ability to recognize and meet another's needs;
• Political savvy: The ability to see how global politics affects your quality of
life.
Self-empowerment means you can:
• Communicate: The ability to listen well and to articulate pondered
messages;
• Manage conflicts: The ability to de-escalate tensions and orchestrate
solutions;
• Network: The ability to negotiate and maintain relationships;
• Generate team spirit: The ability to promote cooperation to build dreams;
• Take the lead: The ability to influence people with a compelling vision;

• Show inner strength: An inner direction and the desire to self-improve;
• Manifest personal power: The ability to think in many strategic ways;
• Use charisma: The ability to persuade by using a range of tactics and skills;
• Nurture: The ability to coach others through guidance and feedback.
Self-actualization means you can:
• Be a catalyst for change: The will to explore a quality of life and unifying
behavior;
• Play a variety of roles: Be a generalist; the ability to do what needs to be
done;
• Stalk information: The ability to seek out appropriate data and resources;
• Dream possibilities: Possess intuitive vision, an ability to transform data
into innovative concepts, services, products and projects, to project a creative
worldview onto the future;
• See opportunities: The ability to analyze, assess and judge ideas; to
evaluate people and concepts, to assess means and opportunities;
• Act and adjust: The ability to transcend personal limits and defects; to get
things done and to add value to existence;
• Communicate persuasively: The ability to receive accurate perceptions
from both the outside environment, to inspire people and influence events and
circumstances.
Although change is inevitable, the decision to embrace it for self-development
and as a signal to creatively expand one’s mind to manage future change is
specific and personal. Visionaries who take the leap can testify that a more
creative mind is an incredible asset in a world that is changing faster than ever
before.
When the Harvard Business Review designed a CEO Report Card to rate
top managers and areas where they should be held responsible, they listed six
subjects with which to grade top managers: vision, commitment, leadership,
focus, flexibility and good judgment. How many of those depend on a creatively
empowered mind?

A demographic look at the last ten to twenty years suggests that as we
baby-boomers begin to retire, industry and services will face a severe shortage of
competent managers and skilled knowledge workers. This suggests that the
survivor-workers will be swamped with challenges and opportunities, and work
as never before.
Reacting to that information doesn't really help anything. Get proactive
and embrace the self-empowerment process so as to profit from your own
creative capital. We can work harder, or work smarter.
The mind as a limiting sphere of awareness
During the ordeal that followed my accident, I experienced changes in
perspective that sent me chasing after answers. My mind was irredeemably
altered when I first saw my own physical body from a position outside of it. That
blew me away. Later, I suffered unimaginable intensities of pain, from which I
tried to escape. I learned to dream myself away. Once I dreamed myself out of
my body, but that sent the attending nurse into a frenzy when she responded to
the alarm now insisting I was dead. She tried to wake me and didn’t get an
answer right away.
Instantly back in my body, I held firm to the idea that as long as I am
aware, I am in fact alive. And I asked her to please not give up, to not believe that
I am my body, and not believe me to be dead. I told her I was O.K. even if far
away in a dream state. She agreed and watched over me for hours while my body
struggled with the sorting out of infection and antibiotics. Later, the aspect of
identifying with that more mystical aspect of myself (I am the spirit inside this
broken body) was confirmed by quantum science.
Then I began to notice the energy aura that surrounds people, and started
asking questions. Seeing others as energy connected to a whole field of energy
confirmed the magical nature of the world that I saw when I was out of my body.
Before my accident I participated, as people do, in two separate worlds: the
consensus reality we’ll share and experience out there, and the reality we’ll
personally dream in here.
I didn't give it much thought in those days but if I had, I would have
believed those two worlds were as different as day and night. When I was out of
my body, however, I saw the physical world overlapped by that dream-state
world, like a smoky-haze in a small room. Plus I saw fantastical people, shapes
and images everywhere. After my accident I "saw" the energy field that
surrounds people, their aura. I saw that it acts like a metaphysical container for
the Morphic or dream-like energy.
I was driven by curiosity to explore my own change of perception and why
I saw the aura that envelops us. I decided to take notes because I realized I am

not the first person, nor will I be the last, to survive a heavy trauma. I hoped my
syntheses might help others.
In my case, it was easy enough to reconcile my “out of body experiences”.
I decided I am a metaphysical Spirit that is occupying a physical body. I can see
how Spirit extends from within my body, a component of it, to a circumference
that is an extension of it, at a discrete distance. Within the aura limits, dreamlike
imagery appears in a constant state of flux; auras change as we change our minds
and moods.
I believe that my shift in focus kept me alive very early in the trauma by
allowing me to connect with awareness much greater than my own problems. I
was aware of a reality that is larger than normal perception. I had a view from
beyond my own physical senses, and that perception allowed me to be more
detached from my body's pain and the indignities it suffered.
Out of body, I became aware of Light; back in my body the Light is God,
joy, energy, consciousness, and all I imagined. That soothed my mind. In the
months that followed my release from rehab, I became aware that the Light is
everything. I became aware that we have incredible capacities that have little to
do with our previous inventory of memories.
I was lucky to be hospitalized at the Montreal Neurological Institute,
the world-famous teaching hospital founded by Wilder Penfield, the
neurosurgeon who pioneered mapping the brain. There, my concerns about my
damaged spinal cord and paralysis, but also other changes, were satisfactorily
answered. The other changes provoked questions like how come I can't read
anymore, or why do my perceptions of the dream world seem more vivid and
more real than my perception of this world. Those answers would have to wait.
Over time, I had discussions with neurologists and other experts. I
discovered I have a sympathetic and a parasympathetic nervous system. Because
my spine is crushed, my mind had to adapt to all kinds of information crossovers.
I didn't have the energy needed to focus my mind on detailed tasks like reading,
but my perceptual field now included fields of consciousness as my brain very
easily resonated to dream states. I could now see worlds my mind had never seen
before. Did I want a Valium?
The months after ICU were spent in bed in a private room overlooking
Mount Royal, the downtown mountain-park in Montreal. I watched the seasons
change. Late at night, unable to sleep, I chatted with a young neurosurgeon and a
couple of nurses who’d pulled the graveyard shift. Those conversations triggered
an unabated curiosity about the brain/mind and its states of consciousness, a
subject that has fueled more than thirty years of research.
I was not amazed to find that brain is hardwired with information that
is genetically there from the first moment, and that it houses many billions of
neurons with trillions upon trillions of possible interconnections, making the

CNS (central nervous system) the most incredible information system ever
studied. I was awed to learn we can release powers in our mind just by
stimulating our brain to make specific connections linked to those powers. We
can be neural programmers.
Later, a small group of psychologists discussed what I saw when I was
dreaming awake and then told me what they thought it all meant. Intuitively, I
added to their theories and saw them get very excited. Dawn came too early and
broke up our chat. Even later still, I began to synthesize what I discovered and
sought validation from other branches of science. I came to understand the
differences between the organic memory that is my brain and my inner spirit,
consciousness. Brain is limited and consciousness is not.
In death, I experienced that I am in fact consciousness (Spirit/energy)
and that I'm part of a much larger consciousness (more Spirit/energy). Then,
after leaving the hospital, I had the same out of body experience, and I perceived
pure Light without dying. That experience and subsequent others realigned a lot
of my thinking by forcing me to reevaluate certain questions, and it opened me
up to the direction their answers might take.
At the first opportunity, I added to my personal synthesis. In my
diary, an early note reads, “My mind is – all minds are – part of a larger ‘Whole
mind’. This ‘whole mind’ is the creative process at work in Nature, and ‘life’ is the
fruit of its labor.”
Psychiatrist Charles M. Johnson agrees. “The very fact we are alive
confirms that we are part of a larger evolutionary process that fulfills all the
criteria for being considered 'creative'.” 7
In his book The Creative Imperative, he says that he arrived at his
conclusion by answering some basic questions on personal growth in human
beings. His research showed that even if religion and science are the only models
we’ve used to explore the world and to describe it, they are wholly inadequate to
explain it in any substantial way.
Dr. Johnson studied how both approaches view life to conclude that
they are totally reactive because they analyze living processes as if they were
static objects, as if life is a finite thing. The static object approach looks at
something created sometime ago and that is entirely material in nature. Neither
religion nor science investigates life as a dynamic, living and infinite process that
is being created now, and in continuum.
Johnson found that causality in living systems is neither mystical nor
mechanical, but is rather natural and creative, so that that life is part of a larger
dynamic system that’s ongoing and transformational. He suggests that the
concept of life in fact really describes a series of relationships that have nothing
to do with chance or random mechanical events. To illustrate what he means, he
describes how a friendship develops. “We meet someone and if the meeting is

convenient and timely, the momentum for a potential friendship is created. If we
honor this potential, it develops and allows our uniqueness to emerge.” 8
Dr. Johnson says the evolution of friendship is a creative process, because
changes in the relationship are produced as each person participates in its
development. The unique and special contribution of each participant is what
allows the friendship to evolve. Noting the steps that characterize that
development, Johnson’s work shows that creation is the result of a conscious
force. So, aware of it or not, everyone participates in the creation of the world by
relating to their own daily world.
Explaining how we’re all part of the larger creative system, Jesuit priestpaleontologist
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) described us as if we are
living inside of a bubble of information, a personal sphere of consciousness, a
“noosphere.”
The word he coined is from the Greek noos, or mind. He suggested that
we have a personal “sphere of mind” that's formed and filled by the awareness we
collect during our passage through life. An older person probably has acquired
and stored more awareness in his or her noosphere than a much younger person.
If you want to imagine yourself inside of a noosphere, consider the
following drawing, used by the Greek logic schools to explain the idea:
Man and. his "noos sphere" - our sphere of mind
It also shows you how long this idea has been around. From experience I can tell
you that your noosphere doesn't quite look like this because of the interplay of
universal forces. Your sphere is more like an amorphous, luminous and clingy
blob of amber-colored energy that's most dense in close to your body and then
quickly it fades to nothing as it radiates outwards. That's an educated guess,
having never met you.

Different from how we usually think about ourselves, the concept of a
luminous noosphere places our physical body inside a metaphysical mind, not the
other way around. In this view, our mind is acting as a filter on the real world.
Like every one of us, the reality you perceive is the world of your own creation, a
reflection of how you are thinking about it.
We are noospheres inside a biosphere, spheres of mind inside a highly
intelligent sphere of life. Your own sphere of mind radiates from center of your
body to a Morphic density of energy at its circumference. Morphic energy is
secondary effect energy, like the ripples from a stone dropped into a pond. A
physical body can be seen to include a subtle energy that is often called an aura.
Like energy envelopes, auras encase our memories, or the knowledge and
experience we acquire during our lives.
We don't have an aura; at relative frequencies of the electromagnetic scale
of energy, we are an aura. The noosphere is an energy extension of our physical
self. We are more properly “body/mind”, as Einstein's e = mc 2 affirms.
In fact in these modern times, science says life is electromagnetic in nature
and that our energy form is much greater than our physical senses will allow us to
perceive. We are beings of energy, or Light, both individually and collectively,
but don't tend to see ourselves that way.
I will let the physicists tell you how your noosphere is fashioned from
electromagnetic energy, but I'll relate aspects of that concept in chapter 10. I'll
also relate some these news in a language that reflects the wisdom handed down
from long ago.
For now, you should know that mathematicians discovered how spheres
are indeed part of the overall universal scheme of things way back in 1912.
Alexander McFarlane wrote the rules to explain “quaternion vectors” in
trigonometry and to show how the inevitable product of time and space is to
contain its consciousness in “spheres”.
From the point of intersection of time, space and consciousness (I am), a
sphere’s surface emerges as [4 π r 2] and its interior then occupies a universal
volume calculated as [4 π r 3 /3]. There are spheres radiating outwards from
everywhere, from electrons to molecules, from personal auras to planets, stars,
super-clusters of galaxies and the Big Bang. Nature seems to favor the sphere
shape.
Our noosphere, your personal sphere of awareness or mine, contains all
the consciousness that is available to us. Below you'll see how consciousness is
assembled into a sphere of mind that is divided into four distinct areas. The
conscious mind is responsible for our day-to-day perceptions, while a much
larger subconscious mind manages our hereditary memories, our physical and
emotional reflexes and our unrealized and unused personal potential, among

other things. There's also an infinite unconscious mind and an ordered super
consciousness.
The mind is a sphere of consciousness
To get a glimpse at the potential, try sailing out onto the ocean on a cloudy night
and testing your perception of size, scale, and scope. Once engulfed by darkness,
strike a match and note how your conscious mind perceives everything
illuminated by the flame.
Consider how your subconscious mind is connected to the rest of your
awareness. You can access much more than even your personal conscious and
subconscious realms of awareness. There’s a universal mind - an infinite field of
consciousness – that most people are unaware of. That collective unconscious
mind includes what is called the zeitgeist, or the credence of our times, which
reflects society’s intellectual, moral and popular beliefs. Montreal's zeitgeist is not
the same as Milan's or Montevideo’s. Nowadays, everywhere, the zeitgeist is
flagrantly being fueled by a media mind.
Consider how your own personal mind is inside of a larger transpersonal
mind. I've traveled a great deal and can really appreciate that idea. I work in
Quebec, so many of my friends and I speak both French and English, and we will
sometimes choose one language or the other depending on the subject. I change
my mind from English to French back to English all the time, and can tell those
two ways of seeing the world are not the same. The emotions that belong to each
culture are so different that they change as I'm switching languages.
I've always been impressed by those controlled mood swings. Convictions
and beliefs that make perfect sense in one mind-set don't have much appeal in
another. I'm a lot more passionate about the similarities in people than the
differences nowadays, but I know that an attachment to place influences a mind.
For example, I’ve been visiting Costa Rica for years and am no longer surprised to
see how quickly my Spanish will rush back after an absence. But I was truly
amazed to see how my thinking was influenced when I spent six weeks in France

on a recent lecture tour: it adopted the “Frenchness” of that country's collective
mind.
Even though my mind can think in Quebecois French, I was particularly
affected because my mother is from France and, although I had never visited the
country before, the trip awakened that part of my genetic memory. I could feel it.
Soon I was tuned into the collective psyche, and you would have been impressed
with the rrrr's rolling out of the back of my throat and with my adapted behavior.
If I'd owned a beret or a bicycle, I might still be there.
The collective unconscious mind is more than our genetic memory. It
includes realms beyond even our human awareness, even the ghostly images I
saw when I was dead. At the edge of our personal spheres of mind, the collective
unconscious contains every thought ever thought – past, present and in other
worlds. With all the imaginings in the universe and the collected images from
every source, the unconscious is an infinite mind. And then there’s a super
intelligence, the super-conscious mind, a creating order.
The forces containing the world and its spheres of consciousness are
greater than what we can even dream. There is an evolutionary force, a creating
intent, that extends from matter into the depths of consciousness and unifies
everything into one whole. And the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
A creating intelligence is connecting the universe and all things in it in a
perfect order. Human perception supplies the disorder. This super intelligence is
described by perceivers as the source of the world’s ideas on divinity and is
apparent at a higher state of mind. Superconsciousness is the realm of mystics
and magi, but it's available as a personal power to any mind open to it right now.
In The Varieties Of Religious Experience, William James said that the
great thinkers were all tuned into this higher state of mind. “I speak not merely
of savage priests and prophets whose followers regard automatic utterances and
actions by themselves tantamount to inspiration. I speak of leaders of thought
...the whole array of Christian saints and heresiarchs, including the greatest: the
Bernards, the Loyolas, the Luthers, the Foxes, the Wesleys… each had their
visions, voices, rapt conditions, guiding impressions and 'openings.’" 9
Any mind, at any time, can access the depths of consciousness. Anyone
can establish a link with the creative order in universe. Every one of us can have
any relationship we want with the creative power that exists beyond our normal
limits of awareness. We can evolve a cosmic consciousness that's totally magical.
The reactive mind
My mind is a reflection of everything I know about the world, a sphere of
awareness. It dictates how I participate in life by containing my knowledge, my

experience and my desires. My sphere of awareness holds the complete
inventory of my interests, ambitions and possibilities.
Consider the following way our mind’s content is organized:
Your habits are a nucleus around which your mind assembles your perceptions:
I am - Knowledge + Experience + Desire - Habit
We most often think and see the world in our personal and habitual ways.
Sometimes we'll be jarred away from our familiar mind in mystic encounters and
we'll see more. Only then can we imagine that our habitual mind is a filter
limiting a larger potential.
I’ll get into the details as we go along but for now let me testify that a
limited, reactive mind is no great advantage in a competitive and changing world.
My mind didn't help me avoid a very painful encounter with my destiny. In my
case, I'm lucky enough to know that a reactive mind will experience life in a
limited way more often than it will be joyful, and it will settle for comfortable and
mundane rather than consider an empowered change. I'm lucky because I tend
to ignore my mind's reactive musings.
Many people have surrendered blindly to the demands of a consumer
society in their reactive mind's quest for happiness. Some folks have real issues
of various kinds to deal with before they can consider their magical heritage, and
many of the rest probably have more doubts about their own potential in life than
any real power over it. Not surprisingly, recent findings show that consumerism
doesn’t make people happier and the very rich are only moderately happier than
the poorest folks. They also show that overall, Mr. and Ms. Average aren’t that
happy with their daily lifestyle.
As a saving grace, while research has found that our habitual ways of
seeing do indeed occupy most of our time, it also discovered how our habits
gravely misrepresent who we really are.

Mind is assembled while managing three kinds of awareness
simultaneously.
Knowledge is the awareness we gather from and about out there.
Knowledge links us to our world via a personal past. Experience describes the
awareness we are using to actually perceive. It's what our cognitive processes, our
in here, tell us about our world. That part of our awareness always relates to how
we are experiencing the present, the now. Desire contains that portion of our
awareness that manages movement through life to fill needs. It's triggered by our
instinct to survive. At all times, desire is concerned with our future.
My illustration divides the mind into these three types of awareness as if
they are equal and symmetric parts, but that isn’t accurate. Minds are made up
in many configurations, all of them unequal and asymmetric. Each has its own
distortions; some folks are more out there, some are very, very in here, some are
so driven by desire they burn out and don’t notice.
The mind is a mix of these kinds of consciousness by whatever name you'd
care to call them, each vying for our attention. The divisions relate to how the
central nervous system manages the brain's hemispheres, but I'll expand on that
a little later.
You’ve probably met people who have a lot of acquired book knowledge
but a limited way of seeing life, others who have little desire and few ambitions,
or on the contrary some with big dreams. Maybe you know someone who has no
formal knowledge but a real wealth of experience. I know people who fold under
stress and others who have the heart of a lion.
I discovered that brain-mind is a self-organizing system that adjusts itself
according to how awareness is assembled. Over the next few chapters, I'll explain
how you can greatly increase your mind's potential by relating what I learned
about my own noosphere. I don't mean its personal content, or the knowledge
and experience I've collected in my life. I mean what I learned about the context
– on how to increase my body/mind's creative capital to assemble a better future.
The brain is a self-organizing and closed loop system. Our mind
experiences a constant, infinite and eternal now, but, as it happens, it doesn't
really profit from that experience. Limited by our perception, we translate
experience into knowledge; as soon as we experience an event, we relegate its
knowledge to our past. Knowledge that's assembled in the present comes from
the past but it shapes how the mind is likely to experience the now. Knowledge
from our past taints the present by suggesting how we should experience it. How
we feel now influences any decisions we might make for our future.
With mind as the mediator, our past is constantly projecting itself onto the
present and our limited and reactive memories are influencing the future. You
can decide if that's a good or a bad thing, but I'll give you some creative strategies
to profit from it.

Mind organizes our habits as a closed sphere: experience gathers
knowledge now, but from its past. Experience will store knowledge as (+) (-)
values and the stored information will either trigger desire or not. Desire leads
experience, and most of us tend to repeat positive experiences and avoid nasty
ones. In the closed loop, change is perceived as a nuisance because it risks
providing a negative experience. If a mind only has negative knowledge to draw
on, it is tainted by predetermination.
I was presented with many examples of this realization when I was in
rehab. Because I had so enjoyed my life experience in the years before the
accident, my expectation was that I could create a joyful future in spite of the
limits of paralysis. I met so many disabled persons who could not conjure or
assemble an image of a happy future for their self. And each reason became
apparent when I heard about their past.
The mind reacts to stimuli in the only way its memory will allow: through
its own knowledge derived from past experience. Each perceiver measures and
validates his and her current experience in his or her mind/memory before
making decisions.
Our memories suggest how we can see the present, even if we like to
believe we make decisions of our own free will when we create our future. The
news from those who have been there is that there is more to existence than all
that's contained by our mind. Consider how your own limited sphere and closed
loop retrieval system could be blinding you from a new and very profitable way of
thinking. Consider what's outside your own loop.
Note how you react in habitual ways to certain situations and
circumstances over the next few days. Get a handle on how your brain/mind is a
self-organized system inside a limiting sphere of habit. If you're attentive, you'll
see your mind mimic patterns you can recognize – some inherited from your
mom, dad or significant others. We react according to behavioral paradigms that
are habit.
As such, people-pleasers will react to others by trying to win approval, an
angry person will tend to react with anger and aggression, scared people will get
defensive, and so forth. The employee who is used to saying, “Yes, sir!” will
habitually react with that affirmative when asked to work a little more, even
before checking to see if he or she is really available.
People who lack self-confidence avoid opportunities to take responsibility
or are reluctant to commit acts that can lead to a promotion or more, while a
person with high self-esteem gladly jumps into the thick of things, takes on
additional challenges or backs away from them when it is time to energize.
The reactive mind tends to prejudge and resist anything new or strange
(that means from outside its own memory sphere) and it avoids people and
situations that question its assumptions or might demand a change in its

inventory. We actually develop strategies to stop data from intruding into our
limited sphere of awareness. Ever hear reactions like “We can’t do that!” or “It
can’t be done!”
There's a story about how Henry Ford wanted a new kind of tool and asked
his engineers to look into it. When they studied all there was to know on the
subject, they told him it was impossible to do what he wanted. Ford replied by
increasing their budget and manpower and telling them to do it anyway. After a
year and considerable effort, they again told him –without any reservation – that
it could not be done. He again told them to do what he wanted and after another
long time the engineers got a breakthrough in thinking and Ford's will was done.
We are limited by habitual reactions in the sphere of our mind. When
people say, "It can't be done!" try to hear what they are really mean. “I don’t know
how to do it!” (The knowledge is not in my sphere of awareness!), “I’ve never
done it!” (The experience is not in my sphere!), or, “I don’t want to do it!” (My
sphere has no desire to do it!).
Unconsciously, the mind reacts predictably. “If it doesn’t exist in my
paradigm, then it doesn’t exist at all.” Futurologist Joel Barker addresses that
kind of attitude by suggesting that: “Anyone who thinks something can’t be done
should give way to those who are already doing it.”
Confucius taught that self-knowledge begins when we recognize what we
don’t know. We are limited, but we don't have to be. By recognizing how
information that can profit you might not yet be available in your mind-memory,
you can take responsibility for the limiting aspect of your own perceptions. You
can plan what you'll put into your noosphere.
You don't have to remain limited. You can grow. Don’t take it personally,
that’s just the way it is. Everything inside your sphere of awareness is only a
miniscule part of what can be found outside of it. Your mind or my mind or the
+6 billion others on the biosphere share a time-space continuum recently
discovered to have mystical proportions – we are surrounded by infinity. The
universe continues to expand and the newest math shows that there's no limit to
it. Oh, it also shows that we can access any or all of it by expanding our own
mind, too.
Are you the same person you were five years ago? Is your sphere of awareness
the same? Who will you be in five or ten years? As change is unavoidable, why
not take full responsibility and manage that change? Add to the awareness of
your creative self.
The proactive mind

Rollo May defines self-awareness as a distinct component of existence. In The
Courage to Create, he says that without the restrictions imposed on our mind, we
would never develop it. He compares our limits to a riverbed. Without a deeply
etched pathway in the ground, water would spill out all over the land and not be a
river. In fact, the river only exists in the interaction between the fixed bed and
the water flowing in it.
Similarly, our mind comes into being as consciousness flows through our
brain along neural pathways. The interesting thing is that mind is not in the
neurons. It is created as consciousness moves between neurons assembling its
perception. Most minds are linked in habitual ways. Consciousness can,
however, be directed in new ways. These new neural pathways can connect with
old ones and form a greater whole.
Self-awareness comes from understanding why and how our mind reacts
the way it does. Then you can learn to willfully direct and redirect the flow of
your consciousness.
Adding to your creative capital means you can use your mind to creatively
change your mind. You can grow your aura past its limits and occupy a more
prominent space. Proactive thinking means consciously choosing what and how
to think, as opposed to reacting with habitual reflexes. Acquiring and learning to
use various thinking tools, we can strategically alter our perceptions and expand
our mind.
There are many motivations for doing this, but the basic idea is that great
opportunities result from creative thinking. I can explain how and why to expand
your consciousness and how this will benefit you as well as the world
immediately around you in a general sense, but that won't absolve you from
having to add value to your own mind, your own way.
Consider the wisdom of changing your noosphere by creatively adding to
it. This paradigm-shift can be represented by the following illustration:
A proactive shift in attitude expands your mind by adding self to awareness.

Empowerment means adding to your sphere of awareness and managing three
ideas: creative process, applied strategy and self-motivation. If you understand
the creative process, you can transform your knowledge accordingly. By
understanding applied strategy, you can choose your experience of life. And by
understanding self-motivation, you can actualize any desire.
The expansion of your mind might require a complete change of attitude.
Proactive individuals must be oriented by self-empowerment so they experience
life to glean wisdom from the process. Seeing life as a learning institute should
put an end the view that we are somehow life's victims.
As a constant reminder of how our reactive mind severely limits us, I've
got a cartoon on my office bulletin board. In it, an ant in an anthill asks his
father, “Dad, what’s the strongest force in the universe?” To which the father
replies, “The force of habit.”
Be proactive and include these three ideas in your life.
Increase your awareness of the creative process, which can let you
transform your mind’s content in countless new ways. As such, any limiting
interpretation you acquired in the past can be reorganized so it is both profitable
and liberating.
What do you know about motivation? Why are we pumped with positive
energy one day and dragging ourselves around the next? The mechanics of selfmotivation
reveal all we need to know about causes and anticipated effects.
Consider how motivated creativity will lets us shape the conditions that will most
effectively fill our needs.
Proactive people increase their awareness of the creative process. They
participate in that larger world that is infinity. If whatever you require is not
inside your sphere of awareness, then it is outside of it, just beyond your limits.
Open your sphere and strategically align yourself with any outside awareness that
can fill your desire.
Have you got a plan to increase your creative capital? Are personal
development or self-improvement strategies a part of your regular diet? Are you
self-motivated?
The creative mind
Rollo May said being creative is rather like an attitude, a characteristic of being
more self-aware. He said it resulted from a particularly acute state of awakening
that frees us from the duality that exists between our subjective perception “I”
and the object we perceive “not-I”. He believed a more creative mind was
available as a result of our committing to certain proactive strategies.

Abraham Maslow, who contributed enormously to descriptions of the
fulfilled and actualized person, suggested the same thing. For him, selfactualized
persons are those who have freed themselves from the limits that keep
average people anchored in mediocrity.
Examining the driving force in their life, Maslow described these
personalities as being more well-rounded, tolerant and creative than the average
person. He said they have “a superior perception of reality; an increased
acceptance of themselves, of others, of nature’s grand design; they have increased
spontaneity, increased detachment and independence; they share a greater
richness of emotional responses, improved relationships wherever they choose to
invest themselves, and a much more democratic character and structure. 10
Here below you’ll find an illustration showing the mind expanded, or the
noosphere that results from the process of behaving proactively:
A creative mind is a result of the process: Reactive mind + Proactive = Creative
The noosphere (knowledge + experience + desire) expands as we become more
self-aware. Then, we consciously add to our perception of our potential (creative
process + strategy + motivation). The result is an empowered mind with a more
creative and passionate view of life.
Your mind can enhance its own ability to perceive, and that means
adopting a self-empowering attitude: knowledge + creative thinking = creative
intelligence. Attributed to the Roman writer Cicero, the concept of intelligence
can be understood in two Latin words: inter and legencia, which mean links
between.
Intelligence therefore describes our ability to link our knowledge, our
experience and our desires into concepts and ideas. In this definition, we are all
intelligent, but how we link awareness (whether we make reactive, proactive or
creative links) is the determining factor for both how we enjoy life and the
influence we have in it.

Experience + strategy = wisdom. As you probably know, intelligence can
be creative or destructive. A negative mind reacting to fear, for example, won’t
necessarily have our best interest - our most considered option - as its number
one priority. Becoming creative, we can make better links, and we can even help
change the world for the better.
Wisdom comes from choosing among many options that can liberate us to
best answer our needs: Desire + Motivation = Will. How we get involved in a
situation, reactively or creatively, sheds light on what kind of intelligence we are
accessing in that moment. With your will focused on your own composure, you
can choose any links you want, and, by adding strategy to how you experience
life, you can plan to develop wisdom. Wisdom lets you choose the options that
will serve you best.
Two-time Nobel Prize winner Dr. Linus Pauling used Nature’s own
technique to expand his mind. When asked what one must do to get a good idea,
he answered, “Get a lot of ideas and throw out the bad ones.” The more options
and possibilities you have, the easier it is to make wise choices.
Understanding the principle of human motivation lets proactive people
more easily fill their needs and surpass their own expectations for their potential.
Self-empowered persons have learned an important evolutionary principle from
their investment in their subjective mind expansion: developed over time, their
creative capital becomes an ever more precious commodity.
Proactive individuals learn that being empowered means honing their will
to acquire greater vision and more passion to effectively manage their quality of
life.
According to Dr. Joseph Campbell, every belief, philosophy and religion
suggests that we are and as such we can be much more than what we believe. The
meaning of one's existence can be much more profound, our acts can have
importance and we can contribute to life with a power than we only imagine! He
tells journalist Bill Moyers - “There are dimensions of your being and a potential
for realization and consciousness that are not included in your concept of
yourself.” 11
Prophets and mystics have only hinted at the potential. Myth, fable and
fiction reflect a fraction of our true essence. We are linked to the universal
creating energy both within and without our sphere of consciousness.

Reactive noosphere + Proactive attitude = Creative mind
Creative intelligence consciously used to cause change to occur is called “magic”.
Oneness with that creating energy is the result of a self-directed mind-expansion.
With a paradigm-shift into a more creative use of your potential, you can better
manage your participation in the rest of your life. Imagine all your liberated
intelligence - your wisdom and your will - applied to doing whatever is needed for
you to be happy. Then you'll be passionate about your life's possibilities, won't
you?
A self-empowered paradigm-shift begins with "Why not?" and then looks
into the potential. What could you accomplish with the rest of your life if you
were free to do whatever you wished? What would you change? How would your
life unfold if you expanded your mind? What if you could be a lot more
motivated, a lot more intelligent and a lot more empowered just by wanting to?
Do you know the magic word?
The empowered mind: an evolutionary jump
It can be shown that the energy generated by a passionate mind has an attracting
effect on the outside environment. The energy of passionate people, the
dynamism they give off with their willful acts in here, has repercussions in a
tangible magnetic sense out there in the real world.
I can offer a personal anecdote on that fact: I believe that my curiosity
about my own central nervous system after my accident was accompanied by a
greatly increased ability to magically find the resources I needed in my research.
Prior to my passion being turned on, for example, I don't know that I ever crossed
data on brain/mind and consciousness like I did after my fire was lit. Afterwards,
I met people and circumstances and found papers and positions in ways that
were first weird, then eerie, and then great fun and a normal part of the process.
Passion links to power and so I luck into whatever I need.

Deciding to learn about the workings of my own mind was a source of selfknowledge
and thus a great power. I learned how to change my thinking, and
that meant I could then determine how to change it further. I could shape my
destiny. Called the alchemical gold that's transformed from lead, the selfempowered
mind has a great survival advantage: it can cause change to occur in
conjunction with its creating intent.
Far from being reactive to either its thinking or that of others, the
empowered mind influences the world in a tangible, material sense. From
antiquity, the willed transformation of an event or a circumstance has been called
magic and so, unabashedly, the empowered mind is the mind of magician, a
magus.
The mystic language comes from those first explorers of human potential,
and therefore need to be dusted off in these modern times. Ernesto De Martino,
professor of History and Religion at Rome’s Cagliari University and author of
several books on myth and magic, found that people resist the notion that we can
exercise a magical power over the circumstances in life. He confirmed that, “The
idea of magic challenges our basic concepts of reality and the natural order of
things.” 12
De Martino researched the documents and said they suggest that the
power of magi, shamans and sorcerers is a very real. There is a psychic power, a
power of the mind, that's available to all of us. Quantum physics further reveals
that the universe indeed does respond to our thinking. Through the ages some
people have taken that fact very seriously.
Biologist Lyall Watson tells how cosmic law-and-order supports the notion
of human psychic powers. In Supernature, he explains various phenomena from
ESP (extra sensory perception) to telepathy and precognition, and tells how they
obey Nature’s rules. He writes, “Few aspects of human behavior are as persistent
as our need to believe in things unseen – and as a biologist, I find it hard to
believe that this is purely fortuitous. The belief – or the strange things to which
this belief is so stubbornly attached – must have some survival value.” 13
I decided to develop my mind's potential when I realized that applied
creativity is magic. By consciously applying creative thought to problems and
challenges, we can cause something better to come into being. As you read the
pages of this book, I'll reveal the secrets of motivation, strategy and selfempowerment
I learned from Nature so you can decide for yourself if a
paradigm-shift to a more creative mindset will profit you.
Instead of reacting to a situation, we can adopt a proactive attitude, be
more creative and transform the situation magically. From the investment in our
creative capital, we develop the skill to transform the events in our life magically.
Then the will to become a more creative person will pay off in unbelievable ways,
the least of which are realizing great expectations and evolving psychic powers.

The bottom line is that by becoming a more creative thinker, we can profit from
more creative thoughts.
A self-empowered mind will participate in a magical worldview
Self-empowered and free of limits, people who claim their creative mind will
celebrate the conscious decision to expand their own potential in a magical way.
Less reactive to desire, they can consciously climb the hierarchy of
motivated need and hone their will in the actualization of a better destiny.
Experiencing life as a series of choices, they decide what to actualize next, what to
experience next, and how to be happier, healthier, wealthier, and wiser.
Consider your magical mind, experienced as the wisdom you can glean
from your own strategies and acts, and then realize how enormous your potential
is while life is precious and much too short. Self-empowering leaders adapt to
that realization by creatively working to prolong their own health, wealth and
wellbeing, and by wisely managing their relationships and their environment.
Magi do what they have to do and let Infinity take care of the details.
Nothing worthwhile is ever really free or easy, but the magical worldview
has only two requirements: can do and want to.
Imagine the benefits of a magically empowered mind. Aligned with a
universal creating intent, passionate because your evolutionary drive is being
fueled by a heightened awareness of your potential, every decision you make,
every communication you initiate and every move you take is a magical
operation.
In the empowered world of shamans, sorcerers and spiritual mystics,
creative energy works through you and universal forces are aligned to help you
succeed. Your every thought then becomes a creative and magical act, bringing
you ever closer to the actualization of your creative will.

Self-empowerment is a fascinating concept: while power is transpersonal
(you either have it or you don’t), it can become personal (you can get it). The
empowered mind must expand beyond a subjective perception of duality (I, not-
I) to participate indivisibly in the infinite universe.
A brief look at how the universe changed
Physicists have explored the world as a macrocosmic out there and a microcosmic
in here to conclude that an observer (I) is indivisibly bound to his observation
(not-I). We cannot observe without altering what we are observing. In fact how
we observe in large measure will determine what we are observing.
Science has reported back to any interested party that any difference we
perceive between I and not-I is an illusion; in here and out there are
interconnected. In this universe, everything is part of a unified whole, a magical
field of intelligent and creative energy. Physicists are saying that you and I are
more than mud. We are beings of Light, fashioned by four universal forces.
Self-empowered people understand how their relationship to the physical
universe is a subjective choice. Knowing that «I am» is the only common
denominator linking all my knowledge, all my experiences and all my desires into
a personal sphere of awareness, I accept, without condition, the full responsibility
for my development.
What about you? Are you creative? In spite of our limits, science supposes we
can reach a higher intelligence. Are you participating in that? Are you growing,
expanding? Do you suspect you might have spiritual or magic power? Do you
know how to develop them?

Chapter 3
A WORLD OF NEURAL PARADIGMS
Personal paradigms
Brain, consciousness, neurons and pathways
Neurons link into neural pathways
We are perceivers
The new social context
A personal content factor
Some paradigms are hardwired
The language of paradigms
"The voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having
new eyes."
Marcel Proust

CHAPTER 3
A WORLD OF NEURAL PARADIGMS
If adopting an empowered attitude were easy, everybody would do it. The
problem is that the mind is already trained to react the way it does. In a recent
work, Merlin Donald, a Queen's University psychology professor who studied
mind and consciousness, concludes that, despite the fact that personal
consciousness is an aspect of the brain the mind does not exist in isolation and is
not free.
Donald's research suggests that we are who we are as individuals because
our consciousness participates in the larger collective consciousness. He claims
that only part of our mind is inside our head; there's another, larger part outside
of it called culture. Without a direct cultural transmission of information, we'd
grunt instead of speak, spend most of our time struggling for food and shelter,
and we'd relate to one another in the most basic ways.
Sometimes a mind will contribute to the collective consciousness. But
according to Donald, culture most often leads, and individual minds follow.
Culture imposes views, symbols and language. Without the individual mind, the
collective might be diminished, but without culture, a mind turns inward and
remains undefined and thus reactive to its environment. Individuals connect to
the larger mind as if to an abstract world that is not largely of their own creation.
The idea that individual minds are shaped by a larger cultural mind is not
new. A 1962 study called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas
Kuhn, a science historian, described the same process at work in scientific
research. He defined his concept as the "paradigm effect", describing paradigms
as "accepted examples of actual scientific practice - examples which include law,
theory, application, and instrumentation together, [that] provide models from
which spring particular coherent traditions of scientific research." 14
He realized how researchers who learned from the same books tended to
share the same mindsets and thus respected the same rules and limits in their
work. Kuhn saw the difficulties that scientists experienced in recognizing
unexpected data that came from outside their expectations. He found the
limiting nature of neural paradigms often impaired a researcher's ability to
recognize certain information, to a point where this data remained invisible to
him or her.
A few years later, Willis Harmon, of the Stanford Research Institute,
expanded on this discovery by defining our neural paradigms as "the basic way of
perceiving, thinking, valuing and doing, associated with a particular vision of
reality." 15

Adam Smith (the pen name of a Wall Street economist) describes
paradigms as "a shared set of assumptions. The paradigm is the way we perceive
the world. The paradigm explains the world to us and helps us to predict its
behavior." 16
In her 1980 best-selling book The Aquarian Conspiracy, journalist
Marilyn Ferguson was the first to popularize the idea that people share larger
social paradigms. She explored shifts in American society's thinking in terms of
education, health, politics and human potential, explaining how "a paradigm is a
framework of thought...a scheme for understanding and explaining certain
aspects of reality." 17
And in his corporate training video, author Joel Barker speaks of business
paradigms as "a set of rules and regulations that defines boundaries and tells you
what to do to be successful within those boundaries." 18
He notes that we have habitual ways of seeing every aspect of our daily
lives, both in professional areas like management, marketing and economics, and
in our personal choices like the food we eat, musical preference or the way we
perform on the job.
Personal paradigms
Your brain is filled with your personal paradigms. Taken from the Greek word
paradeigma, which simply means a model or an example, the idea behind the
word describes the lens through which we see the world. There are a lot of
synonyms to express the idea; I mentioned that psychologists speak of one's
culture but we are also shaped by our beliefs, by the inner values, morals or ethics
we've accepted as truth, and by our own desires and their momentum.
Our paradigms are co-created by our unraveling DNA, our gender, our
family, language and immediate environment, our nationality and its culture, our
education, religion, philosophy and vocational experience, etc. They shape the
view we have of existence, or of life and its rules.
My own definition is:
A paradigm is a template on reality.
Consciousness etches neural paradigms in the brain that define how it should
think. Think of the root system for a plant. In the same way, consciousness
burrows through the brain linking neurons into patterns. The same is true of
everyone. There are no exceptions. We think within the limits provided by our
brain's neural paradigms. We are subjected to perceptual limits that not only

filter the data we receive from the outside world, but define the way we should
react to that data. Like the root system in a closed flowerpot, our neural patterns
can turn over and around the same ideas forever, without ever reaching outside
of the pot.
Content is important but context rules
Paradigms have both an objective context and subjective content. The context
describes the process by which humans perceive, remember and think, how the
neurons link together, and content describes the result of that process by every
individual - that is the ideas assembled.
Neuroscience suggests that how we experience an encounter an event is
largely determined by the brain's limbic system, whose glands regulate emotions.
When faced with an unknown situation or a threat, these glands react by either
triggering the flight or fight reaction or tend and befriend, depending on what
hormones are released into the bloodstream. Even if the response is mild, the
hormonal reaction instantly affects the brain to shape the manner in which the
event is viewed and will be remembered as good or bad.
In that moment, when the limbic system is influencing our body/mind's
reality, two other interesting ideas get involved to help us make up our mind.
The first is called a morpheme - defined by physicists as a primary sensation
event. A morpheme is the impression that is made on the mind by the first
experience of an event. It's the mood that labels and classifies the encounter for
future reference.
The second idea can be called an emgram - which more or less means a
unit of memory. Research into the subject of memory revealed that the
information we recall is virtual, not real. It isn't real in the sense that we do not
remember solid and specific whole events that come from a location where they
are kept in storage. Memory is summoned from all over by the central nervous
system with an emotional attraction system. Mood. Mind is assembled like a
hologram but the shape that contains it is more properly an emgram or a neural
mood that is shaped by emotion. The emgram only exists when something is
remembered with an emotional charge. Think of an emgram as if an emotional
container.
We’ll label events good (to be repeated) or bad (to be avoided) as they are
experienced and stored for recall, but we extract bits and pieces from the whole
mood and may classify them differently. Positive morphemes are shaped when
an event is experienced with a positive charge; the primary sensation event can
set the tone for a whole experience. Negative emotions (not positive is perceived
as negative rather than neutral charge) imprint negative morphemes and those
memories are stored as negative emgrams to be avoided.

Both phenomena can come into play when, for example, we are hungry
and ready to order pizza. While discussing paradigms with Suzy one day, I noted
that my own pizza paradigm was affected.
I've been in this neighborhood for years and know a half-dozen pizza
places that deliver. I've been ordering from the same place for a few years now
because they used to have a great pie. My first experience created a positive
morpheme. A second trial - after the first was recalled in a positive emgram -
confirmed my first impression. Subsequent emgrams tended to set my choice:
whenever I craved pizza I dialed that one phone number.
Then they had a few bad nights, which were forgiven (they must have a
new cook, I thought), and I settled for less than great for a while. Talking it over,
Suzy and I realized that some places in the neighborhood got a negative emgram
years ago, under other administrations, but still suffered from my first label.
The context of human perception is all about the brain's neurological
paradigms and how they fill our noosphere and block our view of reality.
Brain, neurons, consciousness and pathways
In order to understand paradigms as limits on our perception, we first need to
know the various elements that are in play when use them: the brain,
consciousness and neurological pathways.
My dictionary defines the brain as "that portion of the body's central
nervous system that constitutes the organ of thought" and it explains that the
brain is responsible for all the body's "higher cognitive functions".
Interestingly, the brain only weighs about 2% to 3% of the body's total
mass, but thinking consumes more than 20% of the body's energy. The
dictionary says consciousness is "the state of being aware". Research into
consciousness offers that it's a mysterious sentient intelligence, a product of the
brain, and that it's a constituent of the mind. Other dictionaries might agree with
mine that the mind is "a complex process by which an individual senses,
perceives, thinks, wills and reasons," and that intelligence is “ an individual's
capacity to learn and to understand."
So, in summary, as we become conscious of things both inside and outside
of our brain, we create our mind and our capacity to be intelligent.
At the moment of birth, science is happy to relate, a human brain is made
up of about 100 billion neurons (fundamental junctions in the brain that link the
brain into an organizing system) that can be connected in trillions of ways.

Thinking causes electro-chemical reactions in the brain as some of those
neurons are assembled to register and/or reveal their content as consciousness.
In the same way that the photographic image is not contained in paper but
is rather a chemical impression in an emulsion on the paper, mind and memory
are created in a chemical mix of neurotransmitters that fill select brain synapses.
I'll discuss it again later, but what ends up on our mind is more a result of how
our neurons are linked up than what neurons are.
Dissecting a brain into its tiniest pieces won't explain the mind or what its
consciousness is made of. It certainly won't explain how the mind can grasp
infinity, or how the universe we perceive today with our most sophisticated
macro- and microscopic technological advances has been described throughout
the ages by people with insight into its real nature.
Science can attest that mind is comprised of energy - consciousness - as it
interacts in a brain. Consciousness flows between neurons in the brain creating
perception like a complex laser will create a hologram. The movement of energy
allows the perceiver to become aware of information from both out there and in
here and to assemble that input into a synthesis that is seen in mind. The energyin-motion
also establishes a mood that selects what kind of information will
become available.
Neurons link into neural pathways
Neurons link via neural pathways into neural nets
While the brain is limited, its consciousness gives us amazing power.
Consciousness describes the state of being aware. It is highly mysterious because
it is both transpersonal and personal. Here's what I mean. If we imagine a blue
car racing around a track, consciousness occurs as we connect the neural
pathways that correspond to the data – a car, blue, track, race, etc. – and

assemble it. Consequently, as the car is racing around the track, it's also racing
around our brain/mind.
The part that's transpersonal is that every reader aligns his or her neurons
to imagine the scene. But the process is also personal because each one of us may
have seen a different model car, in a particular shade of blue, going around a
specific kind of track, drawn from experiences that can evoke a diversity of
memories.
The mind takes tens of thousand of snapshots of reality with its
consciousness during a simple experience, but only a select few of those will be
considered worth remembering. Even if we believe that we remember whole
scenes like a movie or video, our memory is in fact limited to a few scanty
snapshots that are recalled emotionally in our emgrams.
Those snapshots of memory quickly reconstruct a whole experience with
accompanying moods and flavors, and the momentum of consciousness as it
assembles images into mind, even invent facts to fill-in our memory's gaps. We
have an extraordinary ability to kid ourselves, or to outright lie to ourselves,
whenever necessary. Those emotional-grams, like a telephone answering
machine, keep forcing us to react to the snapshots taken in a long-forgotten
morpheme-moment. We can suffer an event – or savor one – long after its facts
have been exhausted.
Note that how we experience an event is more important than the actual
event. So, what memories are you creating?
Easy enough to see that a pleasant encounter seems shorter than it
actually was, and an unpleasant one always seems longer. But the overall
implications of this are much broader. A positive emgram allows us to anticipate
further positive experiences, and it is therefore a subconscious driver. Because
responding to instinct strongly suggests that we seek out pleasurable experiences,
a positive emgram provides motivational pull, and we tend to either avoid
recalling negative ones or reinvent them.
We are hardwired, or programmed like a machine, with neural paradigms.
Even if the 100 billion neurons we inherit at birth can be linked in countless
ways, our neural paradigms severely limit that potential. We have an incredible
array of possibilities at our disposal, but we tend to follow our brain's paths of
least resistance to habitually access the same old neural-nets. We let our habits
impose their limits on our options and choices.
In fact, even if we can link every neuron in a zillion new ways and can even
create new ones, we'll borrow the same patterns over and over again, and make
the same kinds of choice everyday ad nauseum. I don't want to make it seem that
having paradigms is a bad thing. On the one hand they help us avoid reinventing
the wheel at every turn. But we have to awaken to the fact that they also bind us
to our bad habits. Our neurological patterns are closed loop systems. An

experience is recorded as a positive or negative memory in the spur of the
moment, and then that memory largely decides how a similar event will be
experienced a next time. Consider how the reactive loop that is spelling out
"Fries 'R Us!" doesn’t suggest, "Eat fat and get fat!”
Our positive or negative emotional-grams influence us by creating
expectations that color our perception. The result of all this is that we don't
perceive an objective world out there, we assemble a subjective one in here.
We are perceivers
Take a quick look at the following illustration.
My wife and mother-in-law
The illustration is called “My wife and my mother-in-law” but what’s the first
thing you saw, a young woman or an old one? You might need a few seconds to
see both women. Psychologist Edwin Bring made the sketch to show us how we
tend to group our perceptions. The black line near the bottom center can be a
ribbon on the neck of a young lady wearing a cowl, or the closed mouth of a much
older one in a scarf. Take time to really look at the details and reconstruct the
images until you can feel your mind change in an effort to see both perceptions at
the same time.
During our workshops, groups are usually divided between participants
who see the young woman and those who see the older one first. I use this and
several other illusions to demonstrate how, in large measure, our visual
perception is predetermined by our thinking patterns. Before even looking, our
mind's paradigms are poised to influence what we are going to see.

Look at the next image. Called Island of St-Helena, this is where
Napoleon died and was buried. His ghost has risen from the grave and is clearly
depicted in the drawing below. Take your time and find Napoleon's spirit.
Napoleon buried on St-Helena Island
Did it take you a few minutes to find the ghost? Well, that's not the important
part. What's really interesting is that, in spite of its very obvious presence at the
left of the picture as a silhouette of white space formed by the two vertical tree
limbs, Napoleon's ghost is initially invisible to most people. Once they've located
it though, it is inconceivable to them that they missed it the first time!
Now that your neurons are linked into that pattern, if you ever run into
this picture again, even many years from now, the ghost will jump off the page at
you before anything else!
We are perceivers. This is probably the most significant discovery of
modern times. From birth, we learn to see things in certain ways by tracing
neural patterns in our brain. Our family and immediate environment taught us
what was fundamental to them, what they considered good, bad or convenient.
Then a social system intervened to educate us, tell us how and what to learn, how
to relate to others, and what things to give importance to. Later, many of us
trained in a profession or a trade and we arrived at a certain cognitive maturity.
We developed a mind that is conditioned by how it thinks about things.
Our mind generally resists ideas that threaten to alter it. Because we are
comfortable with our old neural connections, we have difficulty letting go of
outdated concepts, even if they no longer serve a purpose. They're part of our
mindset, our comfort zones, and represent the path of least resistance.
The structure of an emgram

In order to recognize the limits imposed by our memories, let's conjure one up.
Let's imagine the world's best strawberry cheesecake, for example. I remember
one from Dunn's Delicatessen in downtown Montreal. I don't know what one
you're thinking about, but I'm ready to argue about which one is best! My Dunn's
memory is emotionally charged. I haven't really tasted your cheesecake, so I
can't make an objective judgment, but I believe Dunn's is best.
Substitute cheesecake for anything else and you can see that emgrams are
both powerful and limiting. A fleeting image, a smell or a taste can instantly
recall a unique time/space/perception and change our mind. I remember
wheeling through the lobby of my office building one fine morning and having my
mind suddenly flooded with memories of my grandmother. I saw her place - the
furniture, the lighting – and suddenly had a craving for the Sultana raisin cookies
and Ginger Ale she gave me as a special treat when I was 4 or 5. Surprised,
curious, I followed my nose and found the smell of the detergent they used to
keep her apartment building spotless.
In a similar vein, the question “Where were you when you found out about
JFK?” always triggers thoughts of confusion and urgency in me. I remember
being in a mass of kids leaving high school early, moving down halls, outdoors
and onto to jammed city buses going home. There I watched TV, numb and
worried.
Today, New York City's World Trade Center on the skyline figures in so
many old movies that it will trigger haunting realizations for millions of us for a
very long time. Our mind is shaped by our morphemes. My Dunn's Deli
morpheme includes a date with a beautiful girl in late October on a Saturday
night, when love was in the air and so their cheesecake was the world's best.
Want to argue?
How our reactive emgrams impose perceptual limits is easy to see in
everyday encounters. Suppose you are half of an arguing couple. As the
argument unfolds and gets more aggressive, you may recall images and emotions
from the other's transgressions and then assault him or her with them.
Aggressed, the other answers tit for tat, and you soon find the argument
escalating, feeding on itself. Like a roadmap, an aggressive mood will recall
images that aggress, and the aggressed images recall . . . etc., in a closed-loop and
self-organizing system.
Cartographer and author Dennis Wood states that "Maps link the territory
with what comes with it." As such they help form our views and inventories by
supplying the boundaries with which we define ourselves. We form our social
paradigms with our national borders, treaty plans, state and provincial electoral
zones, urban and rural land divisions, conservation districts and land use
subdivisions; we have restriction and permission areas and jurisdiction courts
and each has its set of rules.

A new social context
Humans are tribal. Since the beginning of time, our social paradigms have
influenced our minds and our ongoing evolution. Traits that served us well in the
past must now be questioned because the world has changed. We live in a global
village that, even while it is struggles with its own identity and code of ethics, is
putting an enormous amount of pressure on our paradigm's limits.
Relative time has changed
Time seems to have speeded up. Now, as never before, we can
communicate around the world instantaneously. But even if there's a new
paradigm dictated by the telephone, fax machine, Internet and email, we still
must find a way relate to one another. Pressed for time, great numbers of people
are always in a hurry to get nowhere fast! Hurry to work, hurry to play, hurry to
rest; hurry, hurry, we're late!
Time management implies self-management. Successful people must link
their personal and professional needs to available resources and find solutions to
their time-management problems, regardless of the ticking clock and the frenzied
pace dictated by the agitation around them. Life is not a race, and so your
perception of time must shift if you want to slow down your inner clock and stop
any destructive momentum.
Is your time invested in mastering the art of living, or are you caught up in the
rat race? Do your paradigms drive you toward success or excess?
Relative space has changed
The world shrank. The lines on a map no longer protect us from anything,
in spite of the political territories they divide. Terrorists, smog, acid rain and
tropical storms don't stop at borders. The ecological disaster at Chernobyl
affected the caribou in Canada, and El Niño from the Pacific coast of South
America gets blamed for weather patterns in the Northeastern USA.
We can no longer get away with disregarding the consequences of actions,
how we affect our neighbors and how we affect our world. The push for Free
Trade, for example, not only changes the participating economies, but
their cultural and social values, and their citizens’ daily lives, just as surely as
freezing temperatures in Florida affect the price of our morning orange juice.
In his TV series The Sacred Balance, environmentalist Dr. David Suzuki
showed how the home-planet – our biosphere – is an interdependent and very

fragile eco-system. As citizens of the Earth, everything that happens here –
anything that threatens that fragility – should concern us.
What about you? Are you working to make your place healthier and happier, or
are you leaving that to others who may not share your concerns?
Relative perception must also change
In the last few years, the way we see ourselves has also changed. It wasn't
so long ago that we were like monkeys just down from the trees, surviving in an
unknown jungle and doomed to a nasty end! Visionaries over time and space,
and now quantum physics, propose another vision of us humans as beings of
Light.
Describing the world as forces that are containing a universal Energy,
science suggests we start to see ourselves as drops of light in an infinite sea of
Light and that we consider a magical destiny. Even though we don't see it that
way, the perceiver and the perceived are indivisibly linked in the sharing of this
Energy. I share the same energy, the same creative forces, as the whole of
universe.
The new view should affect our perception of ourselves and provoke a
paradigm-shift wherein we immediately adopt those behaviors crucial to realizing
our universal identity and our creative potential. It should. But old habits may
be blocking the way.
Discovering that an observer cannot observe without affecting what he is
observing, science affirms that differences between I and infinite not-I are, in
fact, an illusion. Everything that we see out there is decided in here. That is an
amazing power.
Can you see how your world is an extension of your mind and mood? As
personal perception is a component of the Time-Space continuum, are you
learning to change your mind?
The personal content factor
Despite their universal context, our personal paradigms are unique because they
exist as subjective memory. To understand how paradigms have both an
objective context and subjective content, consider the following scene in which
three men dressed in white smocks sit at a counter, sipping wine.
That's the context: three men, three glasses, wine. You are at liberty to
express an opinion, or draw conclusions on what you see, and whether you

approve or disapprove, agree or disagree. But in fact, you can analyze that
context and study it until the end of time without getting any closer to uncovering
any personal content associated with the scenario.
The first man is an alcoholic – that's his content. He agreed to participate
in a wine tasting session because he is pathologically attracted to alcohol. When
he learned that there'd be a wine tasting session, he immediately volunteered.
The second man was installing a wooden shelf when sawdust suddenly got lodged
in his windpipe. Since he didn't have access to water, he got in line for the wine
tasting event in the hopes rinsing his throat. The third man is a wine expert and
was personally invited to attend. He doesn't even swallow his wine, he just swirls
it about his finely tuned palate to then spit it into a bucket, before describing the
joys of the grape, its bouquet, color, clarity and subtle flavors.
Personal content can over impose on the objective context. I saw a vivid
demonstration of that on a television show where the host plays videos that
people send in. In this particular clip, a father is showing his son how to hit a
baseball off a tee. We see the tiny tot miss the ball a few times while his father
urges him to focus, aim, swing, etc. The kid keeps trying and missing, and finally,
an exasperated dad is heard saying, "Keep your eye on the ball!"
And the little lad walks over to the tee, picks up the ball and carefully puts
his eye to it. Neurologically speaking, that was the only content the little fellow
had to relate to that instruction.
We can examine the state of the Planet at length. Each of us will see,
contemplate and draw our own conclusions when faced with the same objective
data. The differences will reflect our previous perceptions, how we learned to see
things and what we've got invested in the exercise.
Some paradigms are hardwired
We each have a head full of neural imprints acquired during our life. These
imprints form the pathways that link our neural-circuits into reflex responses.
They are grouped into neural-networks all over our brains, and can be
classified in five major categories that form our hardwiring: brain/mind is
arranged in what are called our physical/survival circuits, our emotional/
environmental circuits, our social/semantic circuits, our moral/philosophical or
spiritual circuits and our experiential/learning circuits.
The following chart takes a brief look at the quadrant brain and the
emergence of consciousness. Are you aware of your awareness?

Synthesis # 5 - How the brain is hardwired with neural circuits
Neural circuits into paradigms...
Our neural circuitry: Its imprints: Some of the triggers:
Physiological circuits Physical/survival reactions Unraveling DNA genetic code
Environmental circuits Emotional reactions Our good/bad apprenticeship
Social/semantic circuits Intellectual reactions Language, concepts and tools
Moral/philosophical circuits Spiritual reactions Ideal behavior
Experiential awareness Situational reactions Being self-aware.
The following story illustrates how neural imprints are created. A while back,
Suzy and I were out visiting friends. We were sitting around a table on a patio
discussing human potential when Suzy, who was in mid-sentence, got up and
began to walk away. Looking where she was headed, I saw an 18 month-old boy
trying to climb a gas grill that was turned off but had started to wobble.
Without fanfare, Suzy gently scooped him up and carried him towards his
play area, all the while whispering in his ear. She then gently put him down and
sent him off to the sandbox, laughing all the way. Having already forgotten the
object of his first attention, the toddler was off on another adventure. By simply
redirecting his interest, he was led out of danger with no distressing effects.
I used the event to relate how another imprint could have been created if
Suzy had started screaming frantically, "Watch out! You're going to hurt
yourself!"
That morpheme – the tone, the voice, its volume, how urgently it carried
fear, anger or impatience – might have shocked the little boy into recording a
negative emgram. And for the rest of his life, without quite knowing why, his
reaction (conscious fear for an instant, then quickly buried in his subconscious
mind) could have adversely influenced him. Traumatized whenever he'd see a
BBQ pit, his hands might sweat or his heart might start beating with a mild
anxiety!
My example may seem a little extreme, but I'm sure that many parents are
squirming a bit, realizing that they might have over-reacted to their kids in many
instances.
Our physiological and survival imprints

Our genetic code hardwires physical or survival circuits in our brain. Imagine
that the genes you inherited from your father and mother are like two decks of
playing cards that are marked with your parents' whole history. At the moment
of your conception, those two decks were shuffled into a single new one: you.
Your DNA code is a brand new deck made from old cards that will largely
determine your physical characteristics, intellectual attributes, health and
organic strengths and weaknesses.
Our genetic baggage is also composed of metaphysical traits. Studies
suggest that we inherit nearly 70% of ancestral qualities, like an aptitude for
leadership or a particular talent. Maternal and paternal characteristics or even
more distant ancestors can be manifested in traits that mold our character. That
doesn't stop anyone from indeed becoming a leader, but for certain individuals
the leadership pathways that have to be traced will seem less than natural.
By studying a person's family tree, science can determine the prevalence of
a particular trait and predict its dominance in that person's children. We all
come into this world weighed down with our ancestral baggage. I'm 6'4" tall, my
younger brother is the same height and we had a great-grandfather even taller
than that. So I prepared my daughter by telling her that she was growing up to
become a beautiful, tall girl and steering her towards that positive image. She
stopped growing at 5'9" but likes to stretch it when asked how tall she is by
replying, "Almost 6' in my heels!"
Are you aware of your genetic history? Do diseases like cancers or
cardiovascular illnesses run in your family? What is your state of health?
What character traits have you inherited, and which ones do you find difficult to
develop? What gifts did life give you?
Our environmental and emotional imprints
Our environment helps fashion our emotional circuits and responses. We
learned about good and bad, what to think, say and do. Most of us were probably
subjected to a multitude of taboos and bans that reflected the beliefs of the time,
our ancestral paradigms. Some kids are told they are handsome or pretty, that
they are skilled or talented or that they have worth and great expectations.
Others are abused or learn they have little to offer, that they are stupid or bad.
Most of us were shaped by a rather significant degree of negative
conditioning, and told, "Don't do that! Don't touch that!" as if we secretly knew
how to act and react properly but were purposely refusing to do be good. How
many of us actually had someone to guide us for an extended time so that we
could develop our highest potential – our creative intelligence, our capacity to
love and our personal power?

The home environment can break your spirit. This is not a moral
judgment but a simple observation. Children don't come into the world with an
instruction manual, and parents learn parenting through trial and error. Children
who constantly hear that they are no good, that they can't succeed, or other such
negative comments, will incorporate them into their self-talk. Self-talk is how we
re-view our perceptions to create our self-image and to assess our potential, our
options and our direction. Studies repeatedly show how negative expectations
contribute to negative results.
On the other hand, when children are encouraged to try, persevere and put
their best effort into every task, you can rest assured they'll successfully complete
any project they undertake when they become adults. This is neither prophecy
nor miracle. It is neuro-logical!
What were you told by your loved ones? What emotional mirror did you see as
a child? What emgrams created in your past dictate your reactions today? Are
they still appropriate? Did your emotional apprenticeship nourish you and
boost your self-esteem?
Social and semantic imprints
We also form social and semantic imprints that become our intellectual
pathways. We humans are largely tribal; we are very dependent on others for a
long time, learn through mimicry by copying others, and are cued and corrected
by our significant relationships. Since time immemorial, we've been brought into
line by the threat of social rejection. "Conform or be ostracized from the tribe"
triggers our deepest fears and influences the way we participate in the social
paradigm.
Our semantic neural circuits register and recall the value we give to words,
ideas and concepts. Conscious of an alphabet effect on the brain, linguists have
long known that reading and writing are not the only consequences of learning a
language. By mastering syntax, our relationship to words changes by allowing us
to code and decode thoughts, to transform auditory stimuli into visual concepts,
to reason in a deductive way, to sort and classify information, and to give a
semblance of order and priority to our ideas.
Have you ever conversed with someone only to find that the meaning and
emotional charge they gave your words differed from what you intended?
Because I'm fluently bilingual – I was raised in both the French and English
languages – I'll sometimes challenge someone with this idea by stating, "I love
fish. Do you love fish?" If the person answers yes, I push the idea until they
reveal why they love fish. Some will answer, "It's delicious with garlic butter," or
some such, and then I'll spin my pun. I'll act horrified and explain that I have an
aquarium at home worth a small fortune and that I love fish so much I'd never eat

them. My point is that even though we trade words that have a meaning we know,
agree to and understand, it doesn't mean we are trading ideas.
Large numbers of people have inherited a vision of the world that is
reactive and that suggests life just happens to them. They are victims, whether
they like it or not, or they have little or no control over the events in their life.
Other people are fortunate enough to have learned that they are completely
responsible for their life – and their after-life.
You can use language, but are you trading ideas? Does your conditioning
encourage you to fully participate in the creation of your life? Is your destiny
your own, or have you surrendered to a life that's dictated by external
circumstances? Are you a leader or a follower? Is that your own mind you are
making up?
Moral and spiritual imprints
Formed by what we believe is the ideal, our moral imprints form our spiritual
circuits. To some, the spiritual circuits link beliefs, others have business ethics
and others still live with God or with Nature. Some people experience life as if it
they get a practice period, and this existence is not so very important. Some
believe they'll reincarnate later and experience an ultimate life in another cycle.
Some folks believe we die and then experience heaven; their religions
promise people a sort of pie-in-the-sky-after-you-die reward for suffering now.
Still other people think we're entering a New Age and that angels, spirits or aliens
will soon come to save us from ourselves. Some think life a long, thankless
struggle and then we die. The End.
Beliefs, from the traditional and fundamental to the latest trends, suggest
that a kingdom of good is at hand. But first we need a behavioral change. In fact,
few of us experience our religious truths or our moral ideals, and few of us realize
our spiritual or magical potential.
A significantly more empowering view can explain how human life is part
of universal order. We participate in life and evolve over time, creatively or not.
As we keep doing the same old thing, the same old way, we'll keep getting the
same old results. If we have a new experience, we trace new neural pathways and
gain choice - between the old and the new - for a first time. Experiencing choice
is the beginning of the creative process.
Morality doesn't have universal agreement. A primitive shaman from deep
in the Amazon jungle might consider our modern funeral rites to be rather
immoral. He believes that putting a body in a hole in the ground and visiting it
once in awhile shows absolutely no respect for the individual soul we profess to
love and cherish. His custom is completely different: he'll burn the body, blend

its ashes with plantain banana and eat the mixture. This, according to his
spiritual imprints, allows him to keep his friends and family members with him
forever.
What protocol is most acceptable to the universe of energy and molecule?
Who decides the morals or other matters of spirit for whom? Who is the arbiter
of what's right and wrong?
The only real answers are the ones that satisfy the subjective paradigm.
Many people are discovering that love really does have all the answers but,
without judging their belief, one thing that's certain is that anyone not actively
loving can't possibly assemble their reality.
What do you believe? Do you have spiritual circuits that ease your passage
through life and help you overcome its obstacles and meet its challenges? Is your
personal worldview expansive or is it restrictive? Does the creating Spirit bring
you joy or confusion? Do you walk the talk with regards to your own belief
structures and their ethical requirements?
Experimental imprints
How do you experience life? Do you react to the rules imposed by out there, or
do you react to your own in here? Do you know that you can transform your life
by becoming more self-aware, by being conscious of your limits and then
challenging those limits? A person who is afraid should first develop courage, for
example, and then experience the profoundly different paradigm that exists
beyond that limit. The future of someone who is stopped by fear isn't the same
future as the one of a liberated person.
There's an ordered universe and a whole other view just beyond limits like
anger, hatred or doubt too. We don't have to keep using the same neural
pathways. We can and do affect them throughout our life with positive and
negative experiences anyway. Now we can do it consciously.
Certain people inherited heart problems, for example, others have a body
that's more susceptible to cancer or to getting fat. They can avoid the many
health problems that are waiting for them by adopting preventative measures
now.
By examining our genetic baggage to establish a profile of our physical
strengths and weaknesses, we can, to a large extent, prevent potential harm
and/or otherwise strongly influence our life in very positive ways. We can trace
new emotional and intellectual pathways and change moral and spiritual values.
Prisoners of our intellectual limits, most of us aren't very aware of the real
power embracing change can bring. Every day, without even thinking about it,

we create new neural-pathways; we'll complete a new chore or try a unique
culinary experience or visit a far-off country, even if it's only on TV! Each of the
new neural pathways contributes to our transformation.
We choose what to be when we grow up, and then we invest time to etch
the neural links that can make our wish come true. Similarly, we can add any
kind of neural links we want - physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual - by
structuring an experience that will supply them.
As long as you are changing, why not do it consciously, by choosing what you
want to change into? Do you have physical changes to consider? Do you have
moods that need adjusting? What about any old ideas? How will you choose to
experience tomorrow?
The language of paradigms
Molded by our neural imprints, our minds form visions of the world. We then act
on those visions. This amazing discovery has caused researchers and therapists
of every stripe to meet and discuss its consequences. A language is evolving to
help us understand the paradigmatic principles and behaviors related to, and
associated with, those imprints.
Synthesis # 6 - Rules of paradigm
How our personal paradigms limit perception
• Our personal paradigms describe how our brain's neurons are assembled in
patterns.
• Neural paradigms behave like self-organizing and closed loop systems.
• Paradigms are templates for manifestations of our subconscious mind.
• Neural paradigms use language, syntax and imagery to describe a personal
reality.
• Our neural paradigms determine our mind's authorities and beliefs.
• Our neural paradigms are reflected in our behavior.
• Differences in paradigms make communication between persons difficult.
• Our paradigms influence our reaction to outside stimulus.

• Creative thinkers set aside personal paradigms, to assemble new neural links.
We have a tendency to think that nothing exists outside of what we perceive.
Nothing could be more wrong; what we perceive is a function of how we are doing
it. In one mindset, it's difficult to imagine that other ways of perceiving might
exist. When we are totally focused on using a red crayon, for example, that doing
will prevent us from considering a blue, a green or a yellow one.
Married couples are sometimes shocked to realize that a mood can totally
affect the mind. Feelings like jealousy, anger or hurt will cause the mind to
entertain the most negatively biased view of their mate – and in another mood,
their lover.
The effect of paradigm
One day Suzy and I were asked by officials at a Provincial Park to help them solve
a problem. Listening to them discuss it, we were struck by two opposing points of
view. The managers were at loggerheads over their dilemma. Divided, one side
perceived a need to purchase new canoes in order to meet increases in visitor
demand. The other side maintained a notion that their budget could not afford
the expenditure. One side focused on the unbudgeted costs while the other saw
an investment that would earn increased revenue. The two perceptions came
from two logical but paradigmatically opposite sources.
Sometimes our way of seeing is so powerful that it pushes us to reject new
data, or label it impossible or inadequate. Since our pathways are neurological,
any mind that refuses to adjust has logical reasons for doing so.
The effect of paradigm explains that it's impossible for us to consider
something that's not part of our conscious mind.
Curiously, when we experience new information, the mind becomes much
more alert to anything associated with that information. Consider purchasing a
new car. Settle on a model that you consider unique, and you'll find yourself
surrounded by the identical model as soon as you drive yours off the lot.
Similarly, I never noticed so many disabled people around until I was
disabled myself, and my daughter, who just made me a proud grandfather, told
me she never noticed that so many women in her small town were pregnant until
she was.
An experiment in Germany at the end of the nineteenth century gives us a
glimpse of the power of the effect of paradigm to delude us. Sometimes our
paradigms filter information so well that, instead of opening and adjusting to

include it, we manipulate it so it conforms to expectations. Paradigms can
provoke mind tricks.
In the experiment, several subjects were asked to wear special glasses
designed to invert their perception, causing them to see the world upside down.
None were given any warning, nor were allowed to adjust their vision. Strangely
though, everyone reported that they could see the world normally, or right side
up! The brain unconsciously modifies data it receives so it conforms to expected
patterns.
Are you open to new ideas? Do you realize how your old ideas are influencing
you? When was the last time an event met your expectation? How do your
assumptions affect data that's coming from others?
The paradigmatic complex
Language and syntax are related to how they connect in our brain. A
paradigmatic complex, for examples, describes the way we often generalize and
project our feelings on a situation. When we are frustrated, we punctuate a
conversation with absolutes, as in "You're always too busy when I ask", or "You'll
never change", or "Everybody says so", and manifest a paradigmatic complex.
This tendency allows us to avoid taking personal responsibility for the
moment. If it's always or never, then that's where any discussion ends. If it's
everybody or nobody, your majority position is justified. You are right. You win.
The problem with that kind of thinking is that, in order for the mind to
maintain an absolute position, it must cut off its own access to any part of the
brain that might point to another realization. While we are busy reacting to a
situation, there's no energy to expand beyond our limits to be creative.
Do you tend to paint everything with the same brush? Do you have to be right?
Do you feel a need to share popular opinions? Do you keep having the same
kinds of arguments with others?
Paradigmatic authority
The Pope's supposed infallibility is a classic example of this. A billion Catholics
purport to believe that he is God's sole authority on Earth, that he is God’s
temporal head of state.
In order to hold fast to that belief, they are expected to obey papal
proclamations on a lot of significant ideas. They are to surrender their reason to
his. A billion people would rather surrender theirs to Buddhism. A billion more

will do it for Islam. The terrorists from 9-11 believed a radical thought that
assured them paradise was just beyond their deadly mission. And what about:
“Thou shall NOT kill.”
Everywhere, in daily life, great numbers of people are weighed down by
the absolute and ultimate rules or laws they believe should never be questioned.
Consider how often their creative spirit is stifled because, "The boss said you
can't", or "The marketing department indicates that . . ." or "The way we always
do things around here is . . ."
History is filled with tales of new thinkers who bucked against the local
authority and were crucified for their effort. As long as a great majority of folks
think death and high taxes are unavoidable, we'll never question them, we won't
rebel against them and we quietly accept their authority, paying through the nose
and dying at the end of the script.
An American yogi named Da Free John believes that we can become
enlightened and shake off the shackles of our karma in short order, by constantly
asking ourselves the following question: "Who is the master (authority, belief or
habit, etc.) I am serving now?"
On whose authority do you endorse the paradigms you apply to your life?
What absolute truths dictate your choices, and to whom are you surrendering
your spirit? Is your moral sense dictated by what they say out there or by what
you feel in here?
Paradigm paralysis
This phenomenon describes the bottleneck caused by too narrow a vision of the
world. Author Joel Barker adds that it's the mortal disease caused by certainty.
Paradigm paralysis pushes an individual or a group to believe that their way is
the only way - the one correct and true way - to see an event, a situation, a
problem or a circumstance.
Cults and sects of every description have a field day with this phenomenon
but they don't have exclusivity on it. The certainty of having the ultimate answers
has provoked holy wars, destroyed corporations and halted personal evolution.
The aforementioned madmen were flagrant examples.
Having the answer is convenient because it requires no further thinking,
but it causes an incredible variety of neuroses, psychoses and unhappiness. You
might know some people who can't get over their version of a past event and
insist on their way of remembering it, even if evidence suggests otherwise. Their
paradigm paralysis causes delusions.

One form to that kind of mental paralysis is people who have what I call a
victim's paradigm. Sympathize for them when they say “You make me mad!”
because if we see ourselves as victims condemned to feel bad by others, rather
than as the authors of our emotions, then there's no possibility of self-adjustment
and correction. Others will control theirs moods – and mind.
Is your mind the only one to see correctly? Is there is only one real direction,
one true answer, only one way of expressing truth? When was the last time you
were sure about something?
Paradigmatic behavior
A person who adopts a look – be it macho, preppy, hip-hop, princess, rocker or
other – is using paradigmatic behavior. We learn through mimicry, or copying
what seems to work, and we act out according to a given paradigm's rules of
engagement. Teens, for example, might rebel to assert their own style and values.
Remember beatniks and hippies? How about grunge, or Goth?
I remember being clued-in by an executive at a company where I worked,
when I was just starting out. Newly promoted, I attended a social function and
when I ordered a beer, was told that I should drink something more adult now
that I was management.
Business types learn to behave like business types, doctors learn to act like
doctors and police officers become police officers by mimicking significant other
police officers. Watch politicians for examples of paradigmatic behavior. You can
see them think, say, promise and do pretty much whatever it takes to get
reelected. I know a couple of them who have proudly worn just about every
political stripe. So many sell out the constituency’s trust along with their quest
for individuality, and surrender to the party line.
A paradigm's rules demands behavior. So, what look are you going for?
Do you ever feel obliged to act or to react in a certain way? Do you enjoy being
unique or do you tend to adopt trendy attitudes? What rules of behavior do you
impose on others? What kind of examples are you getting your behavior from?
Can you distinguish you from your beliefs?
Paradigmatic exchanges
You'll notice that a group of computer geeks can trade great amounts of data in a
short amount of time by using the code particular to their field of interest, while
the rest of us neophytes won't have a clue as to what they are talking about. Jocks
do they same thing with their sport gab, and gardeners talk about flowers and

shrubs with words we know little about. If we share a paradigm, we exchange
values, depositing and drawing worth where others will not.
Observe how people with opposing points of view trade information, and
you'll note that some try to impose their perceptual limits on others. Notice how
communication tends to break down when people hold fast to their ideas, not
opening their mind to others. Also note how debate loses all coherence when
sides have a hidden agenda. Even if we know the words and procedures, it's
difficult to have meaningful exchanges with someone whose mind is closed.
On the other hand, the skillful use of communication tools lets people
from a wide variety of backgrounds trade information and prosper from their
exchanges.
There's a funny scene in a Simpson episode that illustrates a paradigmatic
exchange. Marge is visiting a tavern in Australia and she wants something to
drink.
The bartender asks what she'll have, and she answers, "A coffee please."
To which he replies, "Right-o . . . a beer."
Marge replies - no, no, she wants a coffee.
He says, "O.K. then, a beer."
She stands up to him and repeats, "I want cof-fee."
And he says, "You want a bee-er."
Nose to nose with him, she says, "Coff . . . Fee."
And he answers, "Right beee . . . Urr."
Their paradigms were trading words but not a shred of understanding.
Do you have tools to help you see inside worldviews other than your habitual
ones? Do you use jargon from a particular paradigm? Can you exchange with
other ways of seeing?
Paradigm flexibility
Paradigm flexibility refers to an ability to examine new and different ways of
thinking, to examine a whole thought as well as its component parts, to evaluate
both sides of an argument, and to draw creative or expansive syntheses from
scant information. Imagine the CEO of a major corporation who changes his
mind as the result of a comment made by a janitor. Such paradigm flexibility is

indispensable in order to develop more creative intelligence. It requires high
self-esteem and the ability to grow and to transform oneself.
Do you change your mind easily? Do you find it a challenge to adapt to new
situations? Do you think your paradigm is rigid or flexible? What do others
think of it?
Paradigm pioneers
Pioneers are those persons who, against all odds, explore and define the rules of a
new paradigm. Steven Jobs, founder of Apple, reduced the corporate computer
to personal size and invented the new paradigm of personal computers. Bill
Gates thinks everyone should have an operating system to run a business from a
PC, and is revolutionizing ways of conducting commercial exchanges.
Pioneers extend the boundaries of the known. They ask, "Why not?" and
are not satisfied with the status quo. They create new paradigms by disrupting
comfort zones and old thinking habits, and in some cases they may even
revolutionize the world. Paradigm pioneers believe in the power of one, the
power of the individual. Mickael Gorbachev initiated the collapse of communism
with his book Perestroika, for example, and Nelson Mandela became South
Africa's first black President in spite of having been imprisoned for 27 years.
Limits are waiting to be broken. A few years ago I had a jungle wheelchair
made with an innovative design. It was completely anti-rust, built of stainless
steel with mountain bike wheels and many other rainforest features. Soon after it
was ready, the builder was swamped with orders. I may have been the first
paralyzed jungle trekker, but I'm no longer the only one!
Are you a prisoner of your habits? Are beliefs limiting your development? Are
you a pioneer, accepting new ideas? Or are you a protector of the past, one of
the old guard?
The paradigm paradox
A paradox resolves a seeming contradiction by obliging the perceiver to shift
paradigms. Because an unknown is, of course, unknown, anyone choosing
change must paradigm-shift with no guarantee that the new paradigm will be any
better than the old one.
Change that is provoked by an unexpected situation, like my car accident,
or that is demanded by a sudden input of new data, should fundamentally alter
your way of seeing. The only requirement to a paradigm-shift is the realization

that your old way of being/seeing/doing just isn't good enough. If your mindset
isn't serving you anymore, change it.
Suzy came home from a panel discussion on the escalation in high school
drop out rates one night and told me about a student who spoke about his own
experience. At the age of 16, under the impression he was going nowhere, he quit
high school and spent the next two years doing whatever he wanted, namely
nothing much. His worldview was limited by his lack of experience and his life
offered nothing to inspire him so he just quit on it.
One day a friend invited him to a conference on anthropology. The
profession and its aims were a revelation to him. Fascinated by what he learned,
he decided to do everything in his power to get a high school diploma and to work
towards a Master's degree in anthropology.
A single thing had changed in his paradigm: he now knew what he wanted
to do. But that realization propelled him into an evolutionary shift, from being a
reactive thinker to a proactive one. His options now included, "I want to and I
will," and that triggered in him the desire to change and the motivation to acquire
the discipline to accomplish his goals.
Can you list the neural paradigms that are affecting you? Are you satisfied with
all your paradigms? Are you realizing your dreams? Paradigm shifting is an
answer to Nature's call. The wisdom book might suggest- " Many are called and
a few are chosen." - but paradigmatic thinking asks - “Who chooses whom?”

Chapter 4
ON CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE
Eight kinds of intelligence
The creative mind
An empowered and magical mind
The attributes of a creator
Intelligence from beyond human limits
"If a man's eye is on the Eternal, his intellect will grow."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Chapter 4
CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE
For years now most people believed that creativity belonged to children, artists
and eccentrics. We assumed the DaVincis, Einsteins and Picassos of the world
were blessed with exceptional and privileged gifts of intelligence compared to the
rest of us. Times change and so must beliefs.
There are new paradigms. It is now generally recognized that creative
intelligence, as a potential, is an integral part of our heritage. Psychiatrist
Thomas Armstrong describes creativity as the capacity to materialize something
new. He sees intelligence as “the ability to respond successfully to new situations
and the capacity to learn from past experiences.” 19
We've found that there is something unique about each human being, and
so it’s not difficult to imagine that everyone has the potential to be creative in that
objective way. Armstrong's definition makes good sense when we consider what
other experts say about the creative process.
For Rollo May, being creative is more of an attitude, a higher, spiritual
state of consciousness. He suggests that this higher state of mind can motivate us
to make all the efforts needed to fashion our life in a way that will allow us to
fulfill our deepest aspirations.
Zen master Shunryu Suzuki believes that this particular state of mind
springs from the void, an inner state of emptiness that allows the materialization
of ideas to happen. He writes, “When your mind is empty, it is always ready for
something; it is open to everything. In the mind of a beginner there are a lot of
possibilities; in the mind of an expert, there are very few." 20
Roger Von Oech says that when we are creative we are powerful enough to
transform one thing into another. He suggests that by "changing perspective and
playing with our knowledge and experience, we can make the ordinary
extraordinary and the unusual commonplace." 21 He, too, sees creativity as part of
a process.
Creativity can be seen in many ways, but science generally agrees that it’s
much less a mystical gift than a series of operations that disarrange or upset the
habitual workings of our mind. Science also describes a process.

I like the following definition: Being creative means having the ability to
alter your perception in order to materialize an idea.
The creative process shakes up our sphere of consciousness, our personal
collection knowledge, experience and desire. As our brain's neurons align with
new patterns of information, new syntheses of ideas form and become available
to us. The subjective ego will then “aha!” new ideas, classify and store them in
the noosphere where they are available for recall.
Because we often learn that entertaining different ideas puts us at risk with
others, anything that is not already part of familiar territory may be perceived as
a threat. Some people are so threatened by new ideas that they successfully block
themselves from their own creative potential. That probably also explains why a
great many creative breakthroughs emerge after the conscious mind is either
asleep, put on hold or somehow tricked into losing its resistance. An empowered
user can provoke the mind into breaking through its limits.
Many people might have a creative burst every once in awhile, but unless
you know how to consciously provoke a breakthrough, you'll remain reactive to
the muses that mystically bring ideas. Without understanding the process, you
can’t command it, control it or even rely on its output. But be warned:
philosopher Aldous Huxley cautioned that when we open the doors of our
perception they’ll never be closed again.
Empowered thinking means taking a journey into the unknown and
causing your mind to expand. In order to have power, you must free your mind
of its restrictions and embrace Infinity.
Convinced that we can’t be creative in an abstract sense, psychologist
Howard Gardner says we humans need a “domain” in which to express our
intelligence. He explains how we must see any creative contribution in terms of
specific expertise and the various skills required to produce it.
He also states that we must understand these skills in relation to the levels
of knowledge available at the time, and of the accepted practices. For example,
he says it’s important that Einstein's work be viewed in terms of what was known
in mathematics and physics at the end of the nineteenth century, or that Gandhi’s
negotiation skills be compared to the colonial attitudes of the day.
One thing that’s certain is that by venturing into the unknown, the creative
person pushes the limits of the known into new territory. Regardless of its
expression, the creative mind is visionary within the limits imposed by time,
space and condition. Where many see limits, creative people succeed in
actualizing their will.

The 8 kinds of intelligence
Studying children and people who had suffered brain damage, Dr. Gardner
discovered that the mind uses a whole series of independent abilities to make up
what we call human intelligence. He found that the creative individuals he
studied in history demonstrated their intelligence in eight different areas of
expertise, and used a wide range of skills to actualize their will.
Synthesis # 7 - Kinds of intelligence
Linguistic (verbal) intelligence – Someone who can effectively use words -
oral, prose, poetry or marketing copy - is said to have verbal skills. People with
linguistic intelligence appreciate the value of language and its power. They are
authors, lawyers, journalists, storytellers, etc., and they use words to amuse,
persuade, teach, lead, etc.
Logical-mathematical intelligence – People with this kind of smarts see life
as it unfolds, step after step. They have a need to understand things rationally,
logically and therefore sequentially. They enjoy making hypotheses on universal
principles, seeking causal relationships and looking for order in how things work.
They are often drawn to problem solving, science, accounting, engineering,
finance, etc. They are computer geeks.
Musical intelligence – People who develop a musical ability perceive
differences in tone, rhythm, harmony, sonic vibration, beat, etc., that others
might not. Anybody with a good ear or who can keep a tune has the potential
talent of a Beethoven, Bach or the Beatles. Musical people are composers, singers
or fans, producers and sound engineers.
Visual (spatial) intelligence – People who appreciate style, form, design,
color and graphic detail possess this kind of intelligence. They might consider
becoming artists, decorators or architects. They also make good photographers,
fashion or display designers, marketers and even pilots!
Kinesthetic intelligence – If you like physical movement, you’ll have an
affinity with this kind of intelligence. This is the domain of the body, of athletes,
dancers, surgeons and mechanics, and it is concerned with sensation, with how
things feel. How about the intelligence of a massage therapist or a pastry chef?
Naturalist intelligence – People who have developed their naturalist
intelligence can recognize, understand and organize the patterns in Nature into
wholeness. They see the creative order in the chaos that's produced by the tens of
thousands of co-existing species. These folks study flora or fauna, protect the
ecology, design eco-adventures, explore environmental cause and effect
relationships, or discover the secrets of life.

Intrapersonal intelligence – Individuals who have a sense of their inner self
and who can examine the human condition to find objective lessons have this
skill. Empathetic, they can sense how others feel. They make good leaders,
counselors, theologians, actors and entrepreneurs. Social workers or teachers
might also have this kind of intelligence.
Interpersonal intelligence – People who develop this kind of smarts are
excellent team players and understand how to relate to others. Psychologists
certainly need this ability to recognize and respond to various human emotions.
So do negotiators, politicians, salespeople and TV talks show hosts.
Take a few moments to study the different kinds of intelligence, and identify
those you’ve developed and those you are familiar with. Which do you use
most? Which would like to develop?
Thomas Armstrong, an expert on Multiple Intelligence Theory at UCLA,
emphasizes that creative intelligence is not a measure of intellectual quotient
(IQ), but rather depends on a context defined by the tasks and needs that we
encounter in daily life. He suggests that real intelligence consists of a wide range
of skills, and that there are many ways of making the neural links that will
develop creative capital.
Armstrong says that we generally have an affinity with a few kinds of
intelligence, but also have the potential to develop them all. He says some people
develop as many as five or six of these capacities to a high degree. The German
philosopher-scientist Rudolph Steiner is a good example. Raymond, the
character in the hit movie Rain Man who could calculate things at great speed
but couldn’t take care of his daily needs, is an example of someone with one
highly refined skill who's dysfunctional in all the others. Most of us fall
somewhere between a jack-of-all-trades and a master of one.
Using one kind of intelligence doesn’t mean that our thinking will
automatically be creative or innovative in that domain. As you know, it’s possible
to copy a painting or transcribe a text, perform a dance by imitating the correct
steps, or mimic the notes composed by another. But creativity at any level
requires something else, something special: a unique personal touch.
The creative mind
Every mind reacts to stimuli in its own unique ways. Self-aware, we learn to react
in ways that are more favored. The reactive mind has a basic functioning called
the stimulus/reaction mode that is defined by personal habits, which means we
react to specific stimulus in habitual ways. An image, a comment, an opinion, a
scene, a scenario or a person will all trigger a usual reaction wherein I will

instantly verify its perceptual input against a personal inventory of reactions and
determines an adequate response. In that same instant I discards all of them
except that reaction which is most deeply etched into the brain. Habits are
assembled from neural pathways of least resistance.
Any new response requires conscious effort. We do this with such
astonishing speeds that neuroscientists have found that we in fact prejudge most
of our input, and habitually react before we are fully aware of what we are
reacting to. We recoil or are receptive to stimulus based on expectations built
from previous perceptions.
I verify input against its existing neural pathways for emotional clues.
Appropriate feelings are triggered, instantly opening and closing ion gates linking
neurons in the brain. The gates are opened and closed by near-chemicals
selected by our hormones, our moods. Some of our reactions are so emotional, so
predictable, we can even classify them as Pavlovian.
Recent research has determined that many people are largely hardwired
with all kinds of emotional responses that, in fact, are self-sabotaging. We are
creatures of habit, and when a challenging situation arises, you can count on
angry people to react with anger, on courageous individuals to reach courage, and
on kind folks to be kind.
You might feel that you are free to respond any way you want. Why would
you consciously self-sabotage? The most recent research confirms that reacting
with fear harms the physical body by releasing toxic chemicals (aggressors like
steroids and corticoids, etc.) into the bloodstream. Some scientists have labeled
corticoids "the death hormones" so you can imagine the harm we do ourselves
whenever we feel anger and release it into our system. Unless these stress
chemicals are quickly spent, they harm the body, and have serious effects on the
body-mind connection.
Science has also found that when a mind reacts with love and joy, the body
is inundated with all kinds of beneficial chemicals that actually soothe it while
expanding the mind.
Still, a mind that reacts to fear or to danger with joyous abandon is still
being reactive, not empowered. People who aren't aware of their reactive habits
aren't able to help themselves in any way. Prisoners of real metaphysical
boundaries in time/space and perception, they are condemned to react, and
continue to self-sabotage.
Self-empowerment, as an alternative, implies making a choice. I can react
in my habitual way or choose a more appropriate and creative response. Like
magic, as soon as I choose, I stop being reactive and enter a new paradigm, a selfaware
proactive one. The creative process therefore requires that a reactive mind
expand by adding self-awareness into its perceptual mix.

The proactive mind: Stimulus/Choice -> Self-awareness
“I think, therefore I have potential!" Self-awareness is your first step to
empowering your mind and generating creative perceptions. To become more
self-aware, observe the effect stimulus has on your thinking. Whatever your
normal reactions, you can adjust your perception by using appropriate creative
thinking tools.
I'll introduce several excellent ones that I've used with success over the
years to alter my own perception later, but the principle I'd like you to
understand here is that attitude affects mood, which then affects mind and its
output.
If you recognize that you experience fear whenever you anticipate change,
for example, you'd benefit from adjusting your attitude to experience courage or
abandon in those circumstances where fear might tend to overwhelm you. People
who have trouble making decisions or folks who don't know how visualize a
project or have difficulty adapting would similarly benefit from creative thinking
tools to help them change their mind.
Consciously taking corrective measures to break through your own limits
will have another positive effect. Not only will you experience the fruit of the
creative breakthrough you chose in that instant, but every time you experience a
consciously self-empowered attitude, you trace neural pathways that make being
creative even easier to express next time around.
As your mind participates in a proactive paradigm, it evolves selfconsciousness
and choice. Then it expands to take advantage of the creative
process and become self-empowered.
Synthesis # 8 - Self-empowered thinking
The conscious thinking process
Stimulus -> Choice
Perception
Imagination
Intent
Action

The empowered mind works in this way: Stimulus/Choice –> Perception-
Imagination-Intent > Action. Contrary to popular expectation, creative thinking
is real work. Self-aware, you can benefit from creative thinking by engaging in a
simple five-step process. The light-bulb moment is the result of the process. I'll
explain what I mean.
Step 1 - Stimulus/Choice
Self-empowerment begins with making conscious choices. Our perceptions are
stimulated from outside and inside our mind, and we make choices. I has to
decide what to eat, drink, wear, say and do, where to go, with whom, how and
why, and all the rest. We are constantly invited to make choices that can
empower us. Self-conscious, you can be more creative by choosing the
perceptual filter that will affect your worldview. In fact, you can select from a
whole assortment of possible filters.
One of the most rewarding aspects of teaching creative thinking
techniques is seeing people discover how quickly their mind will generate a wide
range of viable options. Well stimulated, the creative mind can entertain many
possibilities before selecting the best answers and solutions for a situation. Suzy
and I have facilitated brainstorming sessions for many groups that generated
great concepts in a couple of hours’ work. There's real pleasure in hearing
someone say, "I didn't realize I was so smart."
We have to learn to think creatively. We like to believe that we have free
will and always have real choices when we make decisions. I often challenge that
notion with an audience and can raise real doubts in their mind. It's not a real
debate. We are, in fact, prisoners of our neural mindsets. I win every argument
because my trap is to use the word always. Do we always have free will and real
choice? Sometimes we have no real choice because there are no feasible options,
or because options that do exist have unpleasant consequences, as in out of the
frying pan and into the fire.
Having said that, even if we might not always have viable choices in terms
of the events or circumstances in our life, we can nonetheless choose how to
perceive those events or circumstances. I didn’t consciously choose to hit a pole
with my car, for example, and I haven't had much choice about being paralyzed
over the last quarter century, but I do choose how to view that nasty event and
the circumstances that surrounded it.
Making that choice had an added benefit. It made a huge difference in my
quality of life. I could choose to see the event as a tragedy and a burden, or as a
lesson and a real challenge. I chose to focus on the latter perception, and to
accept the challenge. My decision might not have made a difference to the world
outside of me, but it changed everything in my inside world.

I remember the exact minute I chose to see the cards life dealt me like a
challenge I was equal to. Soon after being released from the hospital, I was
feeling rather depressed and was lying in bed, thinking, moping. My thought
process was negatively hashing out every reason why life as a disabled man was a
dismal fate.
At one point, strangely, I felt as if I was collapsing into myself, like water
being flushed down a drain. I felt like I wasn't my body, and then remembered
feeling that way when I'd been out of my body before. As I-the-spirit collapsed
inwards, I felt an increasing and then near-overwhelming depression. I
remember realizing that I had to move my spirit, that I couldn't let myself fall any
farther.
And then I sat up, instantly deciding to act, and jumped into my
wheelchair. I made a phone call and arranged to have dinner with a highly
amusing friend who I knew would help shift my mood.
I remember the surge of energy that followed that simple act of will and
how my thinking changed as I focused on actualizing that intent. I felt as if all the
creative intelligence in the universe supported my decision to save myself from
that depressive collapse.
I chose to take up life's challenge. That night, while listening to a hilarious
account of the advantages of being crippled in modern times, I realized that both
my list of negatives and this list of positive ideas were just lists, but that thinking
about the positive, funny and even quite silly things made my body feel better. I
chose to feel positive about my future. I have great expectations.
I've made that choice thousands of times since, and have gotten rather
good at it. To focus on the disadvantages of my situation was sabotage, and it
tilted my mind's balance into depression. On the other hand, pretending that all
is well and seeing things as all good and positive when they aren't is being rather
delusional. In my case, I realized neither view will heal paralysis but with more
power I'm better able to compensate for the load.
Our perceptions – how we think – can be self-sabotaging or selfempowering.
Seeing my situation as it was, difficult, and then focusing on what I
could do to make it better allowed me to develop personal power.
Step 2 - Stimulus/Choice/Perception
Even if our mind generally reacts within the brain's neural paradigms, being
proactive and self-conscious nevertheless means we can choose which of our
perceptions we want to rely on. For instance, I do wheelchair jogging in the
streets around my home to keep in shape when there's no snow on the ground.

When I start up again after a prolonged snow period, I know my body will
ache until it’s fit enough. I can listen to those messages my body is giving off as if
they are telling me to quit, or, with a little more effort, telling me that I'll soon be
as fit as a fiddle.
A creative mind can even choose to add new perceptions to its arsenal to
rely on later. As mind is a result of the neurological pathway we've etched so far,
many people have made fundamental life changes as a result of perceiving in new
ways.
People who don't feel love, passion or courage, for example, don't have
those feelings to factor into their decision-making. But once they learn to
generate those emotions, they can resource them in future situations. As with the
often-repeated expression, is the glass half full or is it half empty, how you see it
won’t change the glass, but perception does shape the perceiver. One might share
a half-full glass, while a half-empty one might need protecting.
Choosing how to perceive is a creative act because making a conscious
choice allows you to control the impact it will have on your body/mind, and its
consequent thinking. In my case, once I decided to see the rest of my life as a
challenge, I now could choose how and when, and where and why, to interact
with it. Largely, I could deal with it on my terms.
The capacity to choose how to perceive will give you great flexibility of
mind that can be translated into creative power. Prepare for success by learning
a few thinking techniques. As you become more easily able to change your way of
perceiving, you'll quickly begin reaping the results.
A more flexible way of seeing can improve your judgment as well as your
communications skills. A flexible mind will enhance your ability to solve
problems and to find innovative approaches to actualizing your will. It can boost
your confidence and increase your self-esteem and passion for life. A flexible
mind is an empowered mind.
Step 3 - Stimulus/Choice/Perception/Imagination
Imagination is a critically important part of the creative process. Einstein
asserted that it is even more important than facts. Imagination is the ability to
call forth images from both your known and from the unknown, and to assemble
and reassemble them in your mind's eye to get different results.
Using the mind to consciously view images is a skill that should be
developed, but let's see how our mood figures into it.
Our reaction to the world out there is profoundly influenced by our
perceptual mood. I can list countless more from my experience where I could see

the downside, the upturns and the overlap in a situation. Left to its own devices,
my imagination is like a plane without a pilot or a flight plan. Added to a
consciously creative process, it can be a sophisticated tool that will lead me to my
goals.
We can stimulate the imagination with all kinds tools and techniques.
Brainstorming is a well-known way a group can quickly generate variations on a
theme. How do we get a good idea? Get a lot of them and throw out the bad ones!
Imaginative thinking lets us play with concepts, ideas and projects, to
make new links between problems and solutions, between needs and resources.
Imagination lets us explore uncharted territory, seek out new data and interpret
old results in innovative and empowering ways.
Step 4 - Stimulus/Choice/Perception/Imagination/Intent
Creative intent has to do with eliminating the bad ideas. Your intent flavors your
perceptions of your options and the synthesis of your thinking. The way to
convince others is to first be convinced yourself. An idea honed in creative fire
has a power of its own. Your intent will lead you to appropriate avenues for
exploration. It will point out allies and foes or roadblocks and alternatives.
Maintaining a creative intent lets you channel your and others' imaginative
energy into specific goals. Creative intent sees how things can be done rather
than how they cannot.
Having a creative purpose will make your life easier. If your intent is clear,
it’s easy to adjust your behavior to attain desired goals. You can more easily pass
on what seems like a good opportunity if it risks making it harder to achieve your
primary goal, your creative intent.
A technique in the Toolbox called Critical Thinking can guide you to
consider the consequences of an idea or the impact a decision will have on others
before you even commit to it. By examining your creative intent, or what you
want to accomplish, through “eight rays of awareness”, you can identify needed
adjustments and improve the idea to assure its success.
Step 5 - Stimulus/Choice/Perception/Imagination/Intent/Action
An old proverb reminds us that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. A
creative intent is a potential, but action unleashes its energy. I define being
creative as having the capacity to alter our perceptions so we can actualize our
ideas. Action is the transformational force that makes things happen. Like
magic, action can make your metaphysical intent physically real. Without a

creating intent, action wastes energy. Without action, an intent is just wishful
thinking and not at all creative.
Action triggers behind-the-scenes work in cosmos that result in one being
lucky in life. Benjamin Franklin wrote to remind us, "It's easy to make a good
and hardy resolution, but much harder to execute it."
Action demands a certain strategy to guide the creative process towards a
successful outcome. Practice Strategic Thinking described in the Toolbox and
learn to play the five roles of a strategic thinker. You can trace neural pathways
and then assemble their intelligence so that it contributes to a successful life.
At first thought, the creative process - Stimulus -> Choice-Perception-
Imagination-Intent -> Action – might seem like it requires more time and effort
than reacting with your gut instinct. It can appear more complicated than
habitual Stimulus/Reaction programming, but you’ll find that using powerful
thinking tools and techniques will liberate your mind from paradigm paralysis
and other reactive and self-sabotaging habits. Using creative thinking templates
assembles intelligence in ways that allow a more empowered way of thinking to
emerge.
An empowered and magical mind
Dr. Morton Smith, a scholar with doctorates in Philosophy and Theology and a
professor at Harvard University, Hebrew University and Colombia University,
writes about a cosmogony that is suppressed by history but which gives evidence
to suggest mind expansion is part of our spiritual heritage. Challenging the
generally accepted interpretations of the New Testament, he offers a much
different view of the biblical times when many of our current beliefs were
structured. .
In Jesus The Magician, he describes ancient schools of mystic thought
who taught the spiritual secrets that Moses learned from the Pharaohs. Ancient
texts such as the Sefer Ha-Razim (The Book Of Secrets) explain how we can
communicate with the Infinite, that place where discarnate intelligences reside.
Morton writes, “Such private dealings with supernatural beings make up most of
what we call ‘magic’ as well as what we call ‘private religion’ ”. 22
Back then people were aware of the Morphic energy that is also part of the
space/time continuum. I'll let quantum physics explain how subtle energy like
thought being been released by a thinker continues to exist as a ghostly form. At
the time of Christ, adepts using ritual practices were able to open their spheres of
consciousness and communicate with these forms of spiritual energy. Their
conscious mind could slip past subconscious limits into a universal stream of
consciousness. Housing all thoughts, that collective consciousness is the energy

band that holds memories from primordial times, from angels and demons and
much, much more.
Our ancestors communicated with their ancestors, it seems, with greater
ease and regularity than we do now. These subtle energies continue to exist, of
course, even if ignored. Some are so foreign to human perception that we can't
even conceive of their existence. The collected unconscious must also contain
dinosaur and carnivore thinking, and the fruit of every other predatory mind and
scary idea. If we consider Infinity, it may also contain the thinking of alienminds
from elsewhere in Cosmos. A lot of people seem to think so.
Beyond that collection, there is also a Super-conscious mind that is within
people’s reach. There is a creating consciousness, a Pure Light, which has been
called God by perceivers across the ages. Be it from death experiences such as
mine, from ritual practices, from hallucinogens or from outside intervention,
some people have seen the Light, related to it as a sacred energy and described its
creation as a unified whole, a oneness.
Imagine reaching that Super-conscious state of mind. Then imagine what
Jesus might have meant when he said, "My Father and I are One." Is that what
the Buddha referred to as reaching nirvana? Was expanding his mind to reach
Morphic energy and the Archangel Gabriel why Mohamed said he is God's
prophet?
The events of 9-11 in New York show how people can profess noble beliefs
and still be motivated by folly to commit awful deeds. Can inorganic and
predatory intelligence take possession of a weak mind? Imagine the
action/reaction law at work when a mind entertains negative thoughts. Does
conscious negative action cause a corresponding reaction that transcends the
personal noosphere to interact with consciousness-at-large?
Barbaric behavior for any cause can imply that a mind was given in service
to the demonic aspects of the collective consciousness, that place is where spent
energies like anger, hatred and revenge collect themselves. Do thoughts of
revenge, for instance, give off impulses sufficiently strong to attract
corresponding intelligence from the collective mind? By letting that
action/process degenerate into awful thoughts, won't deeds follow? It will be in
the interest of those negative forces to stimulate the craving so it becomes
conscious, stronger and completely takes over the personality.
Many scholarly texts explain how early Christian converts practiced magic
by evolving psychic power and attracting a holy guardian angel who would
manipulate those unconscious forces on their behalf, keeping them at bay so they
could perform miracles and magic. Early Christians were known as great healers
and mystics, but authorities of the day often suppressed that information and
anything else that was related to the empowerment of people, and the religious
leaders and politicians of the day fashioned the fire and brimstone
interpretations that many still adhere to in the third millennium since those days.

Other texts from all over the world – from Buddhist tracts to Islamic Sufi
writings to the Mesoamerican accounts of Quetzalcoalt, the man/god of sorcery –
all support the new physics view that we are more than we imagine. But the
paradigm is shifting as even the official Catholic New Testament is being
amended to reflect a more participatory view in our link to Divinity because of
the irrefutable proof being presented by translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls,
those ancient texts found some 50 years ago and describing many rites practiced
by the Essenes, said to be the sect that schooled Jesus, Joseph and many others.
Ancient wisdom and modern science have converged to agree that we have
an awesome potential. By intending it, we can be conduits for the creating spirit.
We can think creative thoughts and attract a higher intelligence.
Synthesis # 9 - How to be a creative thinker
HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE CREATIVE PROCESS
Increase your inventory of options and choices
Alter your perception with creative templates so as to explore many views
Stimulate your imagination with every view
Clarify your intent and eliminate ideas that are no longer valid
Actualize your best ideas and adjust
The attributes of a creator
Fascinated by self-actualized personalities, psychologist Abraham Maslow
outlined their common characteristics. In large measure, he found that people
who realize their potential tend to have a more realistic worldview than others.
They generally focus on solving problems rather than on seeing themselves as
victims. Resisting social conformity, they tend to accept themselves and others as
they are, not for who they should or could be.
In general, the appreciation of creative thinkers for other views is
spontaneous, fresh, liberal and personal, and not at all stereotypical. They share
a common interest in humanity and a democratic vision of how to manage it.
They prefer to lead a quiet and private lifestyle. They have a sense of humor that
is usually more philosophical than hostile. They are autonomous, independent
and self-sufficient. They tend to be unique in their approach and more

hardworking than many. Several have had spiritual or mystical experiences (but
not necessarily religious ones) and most demonstrate a strong sense of
detachment.
In an independent study, French author Luc Brabandère found that
creative people have several of the following personality traits: they are
independent; highly motivated; they have a tendency to be disorganized, and
share both an aversion to schedules and a good sense of humor; they hold very
few prejudices, take their emotions seriously and follow their intuitions; they
trade ideas freely, can be painfully honest critics and have high integrity.
They are curious, open and sensitive, amusing, warm, rather ambiguous
and flexible over philosophical issues; they have the ability to come up with great
ideas; they are ready to take on challenges; they are patient and steadfast and
maintain a global overall vision. Brabandère concludes that creative people are
devoted to something outside themselves, be it a Supreme Being, universal
values, a muse, the needs of others or just a better future.
Psychologists and researchers J.P. Guilford and E. Paul Torrance affirm
that creative thinking is an ability that can be learned and developed. Dr. Edward
de Bono believes that creative breakthroughs only require practice and patience,
and that then will come the lightbulb moment in our thinking that he refers to as
enlightenment or Satori, the Japanese word for Illumination.
The concept of creative intelligence seems paradoxical. Being creative
implies dealing with both complexity and simplicity, with analysis and intuition,
with order and chaos, and with judgment and the absence of judgment. In fact it
first means separating the known from the unknown.
Intelligence comes from generating thought and wild imaginings, and
these require both abandon and courage. Above all though, after resolving every
contradiction we begin to recognize that creativity is first and foremost
intellectual freedom, that higher intelligence is the result of a mind that's been
liberated by a force much more powerful than subjective negativity like doubt,
fear, fatalism or other bad habits. Creative intelligence is universally inspired.
Intelligence from beyond human limits
If we humans are potentially creative and even magical at birth, why aren’t we
more aware of it? According to Tibetan lama Tarthang Tulku, we learned to
resist creative thinking when we were children. He points out that children faced
with something they don't want to do will resort to all kinds of tactics to avoid
doing it, such as crying, hiding or fighting. If the tactic has a successful outcome
– if their negative reaction works – it is reinforced and soon becomes habitual. 23

And, of course, while we practice being reactive, we are not learning to be
creative. Unless we are taught to confront and resolve our problems head on, our
avoidance and evasion patterns are repeated as if they are successful coping
mechanism, and they become our natural way of seeing.
We have to be taught how our thinking has a direct effect on our lives. Our
limits prevent us from accepting challenges and using our talents, skills, ideas
and hopes in empowering ways. They encourage us to choose comfort over risk,
familiarity over change, and the known over the unknown. In our professional
and personal arenas, our limits can compel us to react in habitual ways if given an
opportunity. Some folks resist meeting new people, some shy away from taking a
stand on controversial issues, some fail to prepare for leadership responsibilities
or avoid taking full responsibility for their life, happiness and creative growth. Is
the way you think self-sabotage or self-empowering?
There are so many limits on developing a creative mind, it's a wonder we
ever have any breakthrough thoughts. Many things, like having a critical nature,
a poor diet or an unproductive conflict resolution style, are ways to self-sabotage.
But all our limits can be grouped into four categories that are interconnected and
yet quite separate.
Synthesis # 10 - The limits to creative self-empowerment
4 LIMITS TO SELF-EMPOWERMENT
A non-relaxed response negatively affects physical health;
Fear negatively affects emotional health;
Fatalistic thinking negatively affects intellectual health;
A lack of intent negatively affects spiritual health.
The non-relaxed response
I’ve purposefully avoided using the word stress here because that word is already
pregnant with meaning. Many people believe that they are stressed because of
their work, their personal responsibilities or because of a difficult situation they
are going through. The fact of the matter is that outer influences do not cause
stress. Our inner way of reacting to those outside influences can be stressful,
though.
I use the expression the non-relaxed response to put responsibility
squarely where it belongs - within individual perception. That offers power and

control to whomever wants it. Stress has little to do with what you perceive and
everything to do with how you perceive it.
Psychological research has determined that an apprenticeship to develops
strategies that deal with situations known to cause stress-reactions can have huge
benefits. Test pilots and astronauts, for example, undergo G-force testing to
learn how to withstand gravitational pressures that are much beyond the limits of
the rest of us normals. By learning to identify and understand the physiological
workings of stress on your body/mind, you can learn to control your own
perceptions and then be able to substantially reduce the devastating effects stress
can produce.
In the year 2000, workforce stress in the United States cost a staggering
$300+ billion. Consider how that amount can only increase unless we empower
ourselves and manage ourselves differently. Stressed thinkers have adopted a
management system that, habits and neurons being what they are, they now
think they must subscribe to. They can change, except that they may be too
stressed to see it.
Way back in the 1930's, Canadian researcher Hans Selye discovered that
the physical body reacts to fear and stress automatically, without seeking our
approval, by shutting down our thinking process. He named this reaction the
Fight or Flight defense and said it was one of the most severe and frequent
sources of disease in modern life.
In its perception of danger, the body instantly prepares for an assault by
secreting stress-inducing chemicals; when experienced for prolonged periods,
these chemicals markedly weaken the immune system and unleash a general
breakdown. The body's defenses fail and the body/mind equilibrium is disrupted.
Fight and flight are both considered naturally reactive and thereby harmful
states.
The emotional response to danger provokes a general lowering of
motivation, depression in the face of challenge and an inability to see beyond
obstacles. Some research has also identified a tend and befriend reaction as part
of our general coping mechanism. Nonetheless, fight, flight, tend or befriend as
reactive obligations are all a result of feeling powerless.
In The Joy of Stress, Dr. Peter G. Hanson maintains that we must learn to
manage and moderate our responses to life’s stressors. His says most of what
we’ve come to accept as the normal aging process is really a breakdown, the result
of an unhealthy lifestyle and the body’s lack of use. His research also shows that
poor self-management is the primary cause of poor health and the ultimate cause
of death. 24
But what is stress? Try the following experiment. Take one of those small
plastic sticks you get to stir your coffee with and hold its ends between your

thumb and your index finger. As you hold it there for a moment, recognize that it
is actualizing its intent, which is to be rigid and straight.
Now get it to change. Apply pressure with your fingers that cause the stick
to bend. Do you feel its increased resistance? Now gently bring your fingers even
closer and feel more force in the resistance. The stick doesn't want to lose its
original intent to be rigid and straight. If you apply a little more pressure, you’ll
notice that the stick will get whitish at the junctions where it bends. Engineers
will refer to that place as the stress point. If you bring your fingers any closer,
forcing it to change more, the stick will break.
Stress is a measure of the stick’s resistance to change. Stress to the human
body is caused by its non-relaxed response to the demands of change. Even if
danger does exist, a calm, more creative and empowered course of action profits
us more.
The stress reaction disrupts our cognitive processes and adversely affects
our intelligence. The origins of stress can be physical, emotional, intellectual or
spiritual. Consider an illness, accident, bad diet, or negative emotions like fear,
hate or aggression. Anything that forces the mind to react by secreting stress
always has a reason behind it, such as unresolved inadequacy, ignorance, or
neurosis. There can also be spiritual causes, like a difficulty expressing or
receiving love, exaggerated self-importance, indolence, and so on.
In all cases, if an individual feels threatened or powerless, the central
nervous system may activate a protective shield by gradually shutting down its
activity centers and diminishing its psychic power. Stressful events and conflicts
require us to adjust our perceptions and behavior.
We can better manage ourselves and successfully resolve any situation
from a more creative mindset. The person who gets angry and violent when a can
of soda doesn't drop out of the machine is sabotaging his own health. Because he
can't accept that the machine doesn't work, feeling powerless even while insisting
that he's been cheated, he responds with anger, releasing corticoids that
immediately cause him internal damage. If he does that often enough, he'll
develop health problems ranging from ulcers to stroke to cardiac arrest. I even
read about people who beat up an inanimate machine only to have it seek
revenge, topple over and crush them to death.
On the other hand, by remaining calm when faced with a nasty situation,
he'll soon realize that he does have options and choices. A creative mind sees a
lot of options. He can claim his money from the party who owns the machine,
purchase something else somewhere else, drink water, or simply walk away.
There are a thousand other options.
Looking for strategies with therapeutic application, science researched the
role of relaxation in reducing stress. Dr. Herbert Besson of Harvard Medical
School, a cardiologist and the director of the Hypertension Unit at Boston's

Israeli Hospital, discovered metabolic, respiratory and glandular processes that
not only counteract the negative effects of stress, but that favor an optimum state
of health even beyond what humans normally enjoy.
Benson found that even if certain perceptions triggered the flight or fright
syndrome and all its negative effects, appropriate relaxed responses could be
chosen that had very beneficial effects. This choice allows us to transform a
negative event into an opportunity, and is the first phase in the creative process.
Stress and self-empowerment are antipodes. Creative self-empowerment
gives us the ability to change perceptions, while stress is manifested as resistance
to change. In fact, the more empowered we are, the less stressed we’ll be.
Unfortunately, the opposite is also true; the more stressed you are, the less
creatively intelligent you've become. To overcome the devastating effects
of stress, learn relaxation techniques like biofeedback, visualization, guided
imagery, yoga, etc.
Are you aware of your stress levels? Can you relax and detach yourself from
situations you cannot change? Do you habitually resist innovation and change?
Have you mastered tools, techniques and exercises that enhance your coping
skills? Are you physically fit?
Fear as a limiting emotion
Throughout history, we’ve created elaborate systems of irrational belief and ritual
to help alleviate our apprehensions and anxieties. The 19th century Danish
philosopher Kierkegaard linked them to fear, explaining that, "Anxiety makes the
individual impotent. Anxiety is an alien power that lays hold of one so that one
does not have the willpower to tear oneself away, because one ultimately desires
to face what one fears." 25
Two human fears have been found to be the root cause of most of our
anxieties. Nicolas Wright reports the first to be the fear of change. He says this is
often felt at various stages or crises in life. The second is the fear of presuming
upon the future, of disturbing the unknown, of incurring the wrath of the gods. 26
Psychology has long studied the subject of human fear and phobia. J.A.C.
Brown thought that all fear does is lead to "a regression to a more primitive form
of behavior, to a form of neurotic submissiveness.” 27
Otto Frank and Erich Fromm suggest that we are all neurotic to some
lesser or greater extent and neuroses are, in fact, "a fear of freedom.” 28 Both
argue that we humans find it difficult to come to terms with our individuality and
identity, preferring to submerge our inner self in some sort of mass behavior and
ritual.

Fear is our emotional limit. It's a feeling of apprehension in the face of
presumed and real dangers, and is translated into a multitude of ways: shyness,
timidity, refusal, anxiety, anger, paranoia, and passive-aggression. Fear is at the
root of problems like a lack of confidence, worry about being judged by others,
pessimism, the anticipation of failure or the avoidance of success.
Fear also comes from threats that are imagined rather than real dangers.
A person who dreads something might happen often avoids life because of
confusion between fear, an in-here emotion, and the object of fear, an out-there
possibility. Believing ourselves to be too shy, we’ll refuse to try public speaking
and thus avoid situations that might call for it. Afraid of being judged by others,
we avoid expressing opinions that risk being criticized.
By addressing the object of our fears we avoid looking at the actual cause
of that fear: our reacting limbic system. According to research, fear is the label
most people give to their flight or flight response. Fear obliges us to believe the
object of our fear must be vanquished or changed in some sense, rather than the
fear feeling itself understood.
Fear is a necessary emotion, a completely wholesome and natural
phenomenon in a healthy person. Psychoanalyst Donald Lee Williams says that,
"Fear informs us of danger and possible consequences of action when we might
otherwise go blindly and foolishly forward. Without fear there is no humanity." 29
We can regard fear as an ally as well as an obstacle to be overcome.
Williams points out that we should resist the temptation to succumb to fear or to
identify with it. As fear involves a state of tension, managing to rise above it will
trigger a relaxation response and that will result in our being more open to the
possibilities of a creative perception.
Courage is not an absence of fear. Courage is the ability to act creatively in
spite of being afraid. According to psychologist Joan Borysenko of the Harvard
Medical School, "Fears that are faced, even if the act is difficult, lead to
transformation of attitudes, leaving you with an increased sense of self-worth,
control, and inner strength." 30
Courage training and practice in normally high-risk situations is an
important part of preparing people like firefighters and smoke jumpers to
perform their jobs. This kind of training is similar to clinical methods like
desensitization, which lets people reduce their fears and phobias of things like
flying in decreasing gradations. Remember though, jumping an inch twelve
times isn’t the same as jumping a foot.
To rise above our emotional limits, we must develop courage. Whether it’s
doing something physically risky or taking a public stance on an issue, any act
that requires courage is a step in the right direction towards freedom.

Have you identified fears that limit your life, your happiness and your creative
potential? Are you ready to become courageous? What can you do to rise
above your petty fears? Can you tell the difference between fear and danger?
A fatalistic perception
Fatalism is a way of seeing the world that suggests the future is already
determined, that the course of things cannot be altered. Because the noosphere is
a closed loop, we maintain the illusion of having control over life by being
fatalistic.
Intellectual expression is severely limited by a fatalistic mindset because it
supposes that nothing can alter the course of events that are pre-ordained.
Misinterpreted karma concepts become an excuse to do nothing. People would
rather resign themselves to the horrors of a holy war than risk trying to alter its
course and creating Paradise now.
Fatalism is expressed as feelings of powerlessness in the face of events or
circumstances in our life. It imposes thought patterns and behavior that, in fact,
become self-fulfilling prophecies.
For thousands of years, reacting with an-eye-for-an-eye revenge because of
a covenant interpreted as being from God, humankind sanctioned the
perpetuation of countless atrocities. Then, that God and fate showed us an
alternative, a new covenant of unconditional love and justice. Since then we've at
least had choice, as well as reactive limits.
When body/mind perceives a situation for the first time, many possible
interpretations present themselves. But as the situation is experienced, it is
registered as memory. If subjected to the same stimulus, most brains exercise the
tendency to use the same neural pathways again.
Amit Goswami, Professor of Physics at the Institute of Theoretical Science
in Oregon, says that, “if the same or similar stimulus is presented again, the
brain's classical record replays the old memory; this replay becomes a secondary
stimulus to the quantum system, which then responds. This repeated
measurement interaction leads to a fundamental change in the brain-mind's
quantum system; it is no longer regenerative." 31
Repeating its choice of perception a few times, the brain no longer
considers other possibilities. Unless an individual makes the conscious effort to
understand this, and then learns how to change perceptual behavior, he or she
has, in fact, no choice.

Inversely, when we develop new abilities, try new resources or adopt a
different attitude for the first time, we influence our brain, which in turn
produces neural links that support our resolve.
Fatalism keeps us prisoner of our limiting discomfort zones. We learn to
make do with very little and have an immense capacity for tolerating mediocrity.
When faced with the unknown, human beings tend to interpret it as a negative
value and project negativity onto their expectations.
In order to rise above our intellectual limits and prevent the weight of the
past from imposing itself on the future, we must develop a vision of an emerging
better world and then contribute to it by taking creative responsibility for our life.
Have you got a defeatist attitude that makes you powerless in the face of the
events in your life? Do you believe you can influence your future?
A lack of creative intent
Describing a specific outcome or an objective goal for yourself, a creative intent
gives life a sense of direction; it implies having willpower and the ability to
choose. In his book Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl writes that,
"Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a
secondary rationalization' of instinctual drives. This meaning is unique and
specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve
a significance which will satisfy his own will." 32
Dr. Frankl, psychiatrist, author, survivor of the Auschwitz concentration
camp, discovered that having a reason to live, a vision of the future, an
unshakable conviction of having a mission to accomplish or an important job to
do, helped people survive inhuman conditions. Not only did they have will, they
had a spiritual direction that reached beyond them and urged them to continue to
live.
In the direst of circumstances, in spite of the incredible indignities they
were subjected to, holocaust survivors assumed complete responsibility for their
existence and lived with purpose.
Nietzsche agreed that a person with a reason to live can endure almost
anything. He thought that lack of creative intent is, in fact, a limitation on
personal growth. It stems from a spiritual void, an existential emptiness that
limits us to egotistical considerations. People who suffer from this void tend to
be followers rather than leaders, and they more easily turn their will over to
others. Their apathy can be experienced as boredom, laziness, procrastination,
and a lack of motivation or drive.
Swami Prajnananda, a famed yoga teacher, tells us, "An action performed
with intention or emotion creates a Samskara (impressions stored in the subconscious
mind). These impressions impel a person to perform actions that bring

experiences of pain or pleasure. They are like grooves in a record, waiting to be
played back." 33
Indeed, having a creative intent frees us from obstacles by transforming
them into challenges, and helps drive us toward a future filled with joy, passion
and power by adjusting our mind to its participatory potential. Every empowered
life began with a dream. Martin Luther King changed the destiny of America with
his dream. Its spiritual power was enough to light the way for many thousands of
people who needed guidance.
Abraham Maslow divided people into groups he called Winners and
Losers. He said Losers are people with no dreams or dreams so small they are
easily attained, or people with such huge dreams they’re impossible to attain.
Winners have dreams large enough to empower them but that are fully realizable.
But it’s not enough to have a dream; we also need vision. Vision is seeing
yourself participate in making your dreams come true. It’s the ability to assemble
ideas, images and concepts into a cohesive plan and then figure out how to realize
that plan.
When you have a vision, goals will come to life. Goal setting is an
important aspect of empowered thinking because it lets us move beyond our
limits in manageable stages. Goals help us reach for new horizons to manifest
what doesn’t yet exist. They allow us to be what we’ve not yet become and to do
what has not yet been done.
Goals affect the way we choose our activities and prioritize them. If they
are realistic or doable, they’ll determine what we should do, how and when to do
it and with whom. Since goals represent consequences and results, they must be
defined in very specific terms, and strategically spread out over a period of time.
In order to realize goals, we need discipline. Rules of engagement and
disciplined execution ultimately are what actualize dream-sized ideas. These
allow us to channel our energies in the right direction. A dream will light up our
creative intent and give meaning to daily existence. Then a vision will help us
plan tasks and objectives.
Goal setting divides the vision into manageable pieces and adds timelines.
Spiritual discipline, far from being an imposition, is a magician's best tool. It can
be found wielding the artist's brush, honing the musician's ear and adding the
glissade to the dancer’s step.
To rise above our limits, we must appropriate the right to dream, adopt a
spiritual discipline and seek out joy.
Do you have a dream? Do you see yourself actively participating in this dream?
Does it have realistic and achievable goals? Are you self- disciplined? Do you

want to create links new to a better life? Are you willing to give yourself over to
new experiences?

Chapter 5
ON MOTIVATION AND WILL
Human motivation
The six principles of motivated creativity
The hierarchy of need in human nature
Our physiological needs
Security needs
Social needs
Ego needs
Quality of life needs
"Whether you 'have it' or not, you still have to work your butt off."
Tiger Woods

Chapter 5
MOTIVATION AND WILL
During the months that followed my accident, I re-experienced my death at every
level of understanding. I saw my body from a vantage point outside of it. I lost
its use from my armpits down. I lost my career and capacity to earn my living, I
lost my sexual identity, and much more.
I survived an incredible ordeal but still had lessons to learn about courage
and will power. As a result of my trials, my sphere of awareness opened and my
way of seeing life was profoundly altered. I was left with little choice but to
adapt, to think more creatively and come to know myself.
As you can imagine, I no longer sweated the small stuff. When I left rehab,
I began to examine both my past and my priorities. I was totally unprepared for
my life as a disabled Canadian man, except that I knew Abraham Maslow's
theories of motivation. I decided to start there. I would use his ladder to rebuild
myself on a solid basis. I'd climb back up to where I enjoyed my whole life.
My energy increased and I focused my priorities on a quest to understand
the big questions - like my out-of-body and Pure Light experiences, my accident,
and how to meet my needs as a handicapped person. I divided my daily activities
into participation in the world, and an inner journey. I wanted to find answers to
the thousands of questions my OOBE (out of body experience) had raised.
My religious and philosophical roots were shaken by a reality that is much
larger than anything I'd imagined. I saw an infinite dream world overlapping the
physical world. I saw the creating Intelligence - God -emerge from a pinpoint in
nothingness to manifest as everything. I saw God become this whole world, not
apart from it. I needed to define myself according to my new reality.
In my teen years, I attended a monastic school to see if I had the calling for
the cloistered life. I found that I did not, but the time allowed me to make my
peace with spiritual values that endured. Now I had to re-question most of them,
and this time my quest was based on what I'd gone through, not what I was
taught.
I had to find real answers to practical things like why I was thought dead
by learned people and sophisticated machinery and yet I continued to exist. I
saw my own physical body from a position outside of it when dials signaled a flatline,
and I felt the appalling realization that my life had just ended even if I was
clearly aware.
On day 3 of my ordeal, I saw the divine Light become everything. I
experienced its infinite love and felt myself explode into a billion discarnate

pieces. I was one with God. I was everywhere and everything. Then, in an
instant, I was back in my body, alive and aware. I made an appointment with
destiny by asking, praying, that I never forget the awe and joy I felt. If you’ll
imagine joy, I was then in a completely broken body and on a respirator where I
remained for weeks.
My mind raced for hours and wondered. I could not move. My wonder
was only interrupted by pain. Then, from within, I felt an urge, almost a
command to understand why I wasn’t dead. My mind suddenly stopped racing to
instead focus on getting well. Months later I left the rehab with so many
questions I had to answer. I had a lot of figuring out to do but I was motivated to
learn about myself like never before.
Thirty-five years have now followed those first days and I've spent most of
that time contemplating Nature's creative way. I arranged my conclusions in a
mathematical synthesis named the unified field formula. I used it to explore the
« Theophysics » of universe. The formula is an absolute that describes how Godconsciousness
is the world and how we can benefit from that awareness.
In that one instant where I saw beyond my memory, I understood how
human motivation is a reaction to six principles that govern a hierarchy of need.
These are arranged as reactive desire that can be conscious motivators, or a selfactualizing
vision.
Our needs become apparent to us as our mind expands from the reactive
into the proactive and creative paradigms. Since creativity - consciously willed -
is magic, that state of mind is at the top of the ladder. We can actualize twelve
levels of need, and attain a state of perceptual fusion with Pure Light.
At that highest level, we understand the need expressed by My Father And
I Are One and the biblical promise for the 2nd coming of God-the-Son. The 10th
level of motivation a self-actualized rapture that is also called Ananda in
Sanskrit, or attaining God-consciousness.
I climbed the ladder. I encountered needs at every level and filled them.
My mind expanded. I discovered 4 levels of needs for the reactive mind, 4 levels
of need for proactive thinkers and 4 levels of need for creative people. My
accident awakened a realization of my higher level needs, and I answered the call
and worked at them.
Through my experiences, I saw how the mind reaches higher states of
consciousness by detaching itself from the more mundane and adding psychic,
spiritual and creative powers to itself. And once I discovered that by actualizing
my higher level needs I could more easily recognize and fill the lower level ones,
there was no looking back. The idea is not to ignore the needs of the flesh but to
fill the needs of mind and spirit too. Creative order includes equilibrium, and
that discovery contributed to my becoming lucky.

Human motivation
A lot of people suppose that most of their acts are justified by the circumstances
of their lives, and that they have good reasons for behaving as they do. If asked,
many would probably say that they have free will and that, by and large, they are
choosing to live the life they do.
In fact, argue the philosophers, most people live quiet lives of desperation,
because their will isn't free at all. Research agrees. If we were in any way free to
act like we wanted to, would we self-sabotage so readily in the awful ways that we
do? Would we work so hard to resist the greatness of our potential?
Where I live, in the free and democratic world, people treat glitz and
glamour as if these had real value, pursuing fame and other folly. Many mask
their delusion by acquiring consumer goods, learning psychobabble, adopting
religiosity or feeling guilt. We ignore our own best intent in exchange for
immediately gratifying a need to feel good that's triggered by our habits.
Consider how today, all over this planet, millions of people suffer
miserably because we, the citizens of the free and democratic world, are able to
tune out their lament and satiate our own habitual needs.
There is a correlation between human need and human “will”, so an
ultimate question might be - what is the nature of human motivation?
I'll give you both the nature and the nurture perspectives. First,
motivation is hardwired as the instinct to survive in every self-organizing system.
The word motivation shares its origin with words like motor and motive.
Understanding human motivation is important because it is the basis for our
behavior. It's what stimulates, drives and restricts us.
As such, human motivation explains each of us. It determines all that we
are and can be, and it directs everything we do. It influences our capacity to
perceive, to learn and to grow, and it shapes our mind, its expectations and
desires.
Your level of motivation tells you how to experience your life.
The primary reasoning that underlies human behavior is our hardwiring to
satisfy immediate needs and those that occur over time. Because our needs are
constantly changing, they direct us toward different reactions at different times.
Psychologist Clark Hull defines the reactive movement as the need to fill a void, a
deficiency or a biological lack, that is crucial to survival. 34
No matter what the behavior, we are always filling needs. If we stop
feeding our body, it will start to feed on itself. An example of how needs compel
is dehydration. From the body's need for water comes that desire (nature) that is
now influenced by the experience and knowledge of the particular mind

(nurture). Need is thus translated into emotion (e-motion as energy-in-motion)
and I sorts through its subjective noosphere as the mind is motivated to find a
glass of water, soda or juice. Mind can now steer the body towards liquid
fulfillment.
Abraham Maslow built on Hull's theory, adding that human reaction is not
only motivated by physiological needs, but that we also have the need to enhance
our psychological worth and esteem. 35
Motivation can be
defined as the instinct
to satisfy our needs.
We are motivated to satisfy a hierarchy of need as it appears during our lifetime
and we must fill every level in order to become aware of our full potential.
Creativity, passion and personal power come as rewards for those persons
who effectively run up their entire ladder and get passed more material
considerations. Those who remain oblivious to their higher potential suffer from
dissatisfaction and lack. This because filling our needs engages the creative
process, and acquiring power is a result of that process.
Motivation has little to do with the enthusiastic rah-rah that's pumped-up
by an impassioned motivator. Enthusiasm is contagious, and because
enthusiastic people certainly may seem motivated, it's easy to confuse the two.
In fact, the word enthusiasm comes from Greek en theos, and means with
God, as in filled with passion or creative intent. Being enthusiastic is to be filled
with the sacred fire and comes from being a vehicle for the primal energy. In
order to have enthusiasm, one has to freely and good-naturedly spend his or her
energy. The more we give away the energy we have, the more Infinity replaces
what we spend. When the exchange happens quickly, the feeling is experienced
as enthusiasm.
I discovered that everyone is motivated all of the time. That’s a
controversial statement, unless you realize that being motivated doesn't
necessarily mean being enthusiastic or positive. A person can be motivated to
stay in bed all day, to do nothing of any worth at all or to negatively disrupt the
neighborhood. We can also be motivated, or moved, to learn, to share or to turn
something ordinary into something great.
People are motivated by and for different reasons but always in answer to
a need. Even if our reactions seem determined by unique circumstances, they're
always an answer to something on the universal hierarchy of need. When a
suicidal person chooses to end his life, when an alcoholic forces down bad wine
and when a battered woman remains with her batterer, it's because they are
motivated to.

The six principles of motivated creativity
Before my accident and hospitalization, I knew Maslow's motivational guiding
principles for ascending the hierarchy: 1) A need satisfied is no longer a
motivator, and 2) A need unsatisfied is a negative motivator.
The trauma gave me a second chance, and so I put my knowledge into
practice. The first thing I did was to expand on Maslow's perspective, adding four
additional ideas to the two he described. I realized how important they were
during my ordeal when, instant following instant, I had no idea what was
happening. There are forces at play that are greater than any personal view.
When I was so low that I wanted to die, I couldn't. And when I was free
from pain and hoped to be fine, I found myself in crisis. I recognized how limited
my perspective was. The four other principles served me so well after I realized
them that I never suffered from the usual negative psychological reactions that
are usually part and parcel of traumas like mine.
I never went into denial over my disabilities, nor did I suffer periods of
depression or anxiety, because I understood how these principles link me to a
larger creative force. Before a negative perception could get a hold of me, I'd act
on one of those principles.
Synthesis # 19 - The 6 principles of creative self-motivation
CREATIVE MOTIVATION
1. The sphere of awareness is a self-organized and closed loop system. It is
impossible to arrive at a conclusion about something outside the sphere
by the reasoning process inside the sphere.
2. The solution to a problem cannot be found at the same level of realization
as the problem. If the solution to a problem is where the problem is,
the problem cannot be. [(+1) + (-1) = 0].
3. We have a psychological need to solve all our problems.
4. Motivation is the inner drive to satisfy all our needs.
5. A need satisfied is no longer a motivator.
6. A need unsatisfied is a negative motivator.

I was passionate about being alive and determined to be happy above all other
things. As an indication of my mood, the day before I left rehab, I gave the staff a
seminar on the principles of motivation as described in the above box.
The sphere of awareness is a self-organized and closed loop system.
It is impossible to arrive at a conclusion about something
outside the loop by the reasoning process inside of it.
I recognized this first principle early on, in hospital. It helped me avoid being
discouraged or depressed. I remember the exact event. When I had enough
strength to sit up in bed, my physical therapist brought an enormous wheelchair -
like a giant Lazy-boy - into my room and told me that I was going to learn how to
sit vertically that day. Two orderlies picked up my body and placed it in a
wheelchair.
For the first time in months, I was actually sitting vertically. I experienced
such a flood of strange sensations that I didn't even realize I was losing
consciousness. I woke in my bed, confused. The staff explained that my blood
had trouble circulating when I was in the vertical position, that my feet had
become as red as wine and my face as white as milk and that I'd passed out.
"We'll try again tomorrow!" they promised hopefully.
It took a painful two weeks before I reached the point where I was able to
sit comfortably for a short while without becoming distressed. I didn't know what
to expect and I treated each day as a complete unknown. Try again? Sure. What
could I lose?
I did everything I could and let Infinity take care of the details. I truly
believed this played in my favor because if, at any point, I had decided that I
could not endure sitting up, I'd either still be abed in an institution today, or
dead.
Most people like to think they have an open mind. We tend to forget, if we
ever realized it, that is, that the brain is a closed-loop and self-organizing system.
If we walked about with an open mind, we'd be bombarded by so much
information coming at us from all sides that we'd literally overload and lose our
marbles.
Dr. Edward de Bono did a lot of work on self-organizing systems and he’s
written books on creative strategies to disarm our brain’s tendency to sabotage
our efforts. Aware of it or not, each of us will select what enters our sphere of
consciousness and disregard the rest. Because we can't bear to be without
answers, though, we also have a tendency to take random elements from our past
and project them onto our present.

Some people will impose their ignorance on others rather than open their
mind to any facts that might ask it to change.
In order to integrate
the first principle, you learn
to open your mind.
The solution to a problem cannot be found at
the same level of realization as the problem.
The second principle suggests that an individual must become more flexible with
his thinking if he wants to find solutions to problems. Rules that stem from
reliable logic in one paradigm can seem irrational in another.
Without denying the existence of situations that must be managed or
challenges that must be met, problems only exist in the eye of the beholder. Since
a solution and its problem cannot coexist in the same space, we must change our
way of perceiving if we want to solve things.
This realization suggests that we must first somehow detach ourselves
from our problems in order to see them objectively. This is why it is so easy to
give other people advice. When we are not personally involved in a situation we
can see more clearly the solutions to problems, while those who are affected by
the problems are rather oblivious to their solution because they are emotionally
attached to them.
In fact, whenever you perceive a problem, give it the numerical value (+1),
and you'll understand that the solution is part of the unknown, the (-1).
A problem as seen by one person is not necessarily a problem for another.
No problem is objective or neutral, common to all, without any exception. War
and violence may well be disastrous to the general public, but they are without a
doubt, good opportunities for arms merchants to sell off their inventory and
realize huge profits.
If we see a situation as problematic, the equation [(+1) + (-1) = 0] can help
us find the solution. For example, if you want to eliminate war, as (+1), you have
to add its opposite value, peace as (-1) to it. This may seem like a simplistic
exercise, but consider how the actions needed to end a war are not the same as
those required to start a peace.
In order for a solution to work, it has to be more intelligent than its
problem. For example, it's only by pursuing health, a concept that encompasses
life and all the needs of a physical organism, that we can efficiently eliminate
disease.
A flexible paradigm invites the unknown to become known and opens
itself to a multitude of solutions that might be totally invisible to the inflexible

paradigm. For a brilliant piece of work that can help you solve all your problems,
try the dictionary of antonyms. By reducing a problematic situation to a word or
an expression, antonyms give us a choice that will lead to solutions.
In order to integrate this second
principle, you must develop
a flexible way of thinking.
We have an evolutionary need
to solve all our problems.
Most people's lives are filled with a variety of problems that are very often the
result of how they were taught to be human beings. Some of these problems are
simple and/or trivial, while others are quite complex and can have major
importance for the person who experiences them.
Our sphere of awareness is filled with remembrances of things past and
any unprofitable life-lessons or bad programming of any kind we received are in
it, possibly affecting our potential happiness.
Many people believe they've put all their negative experiences behind them
because they've forgotten them or have chosen to ignore them. We'd like to
believe that we are free from the negative effects of our bad conditioning, but
nothing can be further from the truth. Even our genetic baggage can come back
to haunt us.
Everything that isn't confronted and exorcised out of our noosphere will
continue to affect us, even on a daily basis. And because we may have learned
incorrect responses to life, we may not know the correct ones. Then comes a
vicious cycle, in which ignorance is not bliss. For example, a child raised with
little or no nurturing and praise will not inherit a very positive self-image, and
will not have much experience of the nurturing process.
This person will become an adult who does not know how to nurture, and
that adult's own kids will see their own self-image sabotaged. As the wisdom
books say, the sins of the father are passed on to the sons (and moms and
daughters, too). These continued cycles of negativity demand that each of us take
our personal limits very seriously and address them, so we no longer pass them
on.
We each have a personal mix of problems that require our attention. Even
the most basic definitions of what constitutes a problem will find argument, but
I'll suggest that problems can be found wherever we notice differences between a
situation we find ourselves in and our perceived ideal of that situation, or when
the path to our objectives gets difficult or confusing.

We have the need, the potential and the capacity for a more creative way of
perceiving. This need is not always apparent, as more basic needs tend to
overpower us.
According to psychologists, finding solutions to a problem requires
analyzing three vital aspects of it: a) the situation as you perceive it, b) the
intended objective or the desired situation, and, c) the strategies that will allow
you to move from a to b. They also stress the importance of defining the
problems and intended objectives accurately so as to be able to determine the
correct plan of action.
Later, I'll explain how the two hemispheres in the brain rule our
perception of problems and solutions, and how they do this separately. But for
now, recognize that problems that aren't resolved consume an extraordinary
amount of energy. Focusing on problems tends to lock us in our left-brain mode,
far from where solutions are assembled by the right side of the brain. It also
increases the amount of inner dialogue.
The hemispheres are constantly communicating, but problematic
situations need a breakout action plan. Just thinking about acting will feed the
left-brain with all kinds of awareness about the problem, but it moves
consciousness away from the right brain and the possibility of any action leading
to solutions.
Sometimes, the hold our inner dialogue has on us is so powerful that we
hardly remember the road we took to get home, or where we left our car keys
when we got there.
We may start the day off with resolve, but preoccupations can take over
and control our mind until late in the evening, at which time we add those
problems to the ones we've already stored up. Stress is the result of those
thoughts going round and round in your mind in the futile hope that the
solutions might just happen on their own, and the problems can solve
themselves. Stress is born in the resistance to act.
Don't forget that creativity is 2% inspiration and 98% perspiration! The
most creative people are those who have no resistance to doing all the work,
taking care of all the details and settling any situation that needs it. Winners get
to be that way by doing the things losers won't do. It is only once you've managed
to solve all your problems and reconcile your thoughts and actions that you'll
actually hear the roar of silence as your inner dialogue stops and you are free to
access power.
People who are overpowered by their inner dialogue will greatly benefit
from using a small notebook, a magician's notebook, to record their thoughts.
Take ten minutes when you wake up in the morning to write down what's on your
mind. This will create a void, a space that will allow you to free your spirit from

those looped thoughts that would imprison you. Try it. As your inner world is
being taken seriously, your outer view will expand, magically.
To integrate the third principle, take
responsibility for your life and commit
to actions that can make it better.
Motivation is the drive to satisfy all our needs.
Motivation does not come from outside forces in the environment or elsewhere.
Enthusiasm and a dynamic persona are not necessarily part of it. The process of
being motivated is rather simple. With a need comes a desire to satisfy it.
Motivation is movement with a motive, or behavior with creative intent.
The motivational drive is first and foremost a survival instinct, then a
genetic and tribal conditioning, and then a conscious decision born in selfesteem,
followed by willful acts with a creative purpose. And when creativity is
applied consciously and with the intent to improve the world, the result is selfempowered
magic.
Integrating this 4th principle means
you must satisfy all of your needs.
Maslow first identified the next two principles in his theory of self-actualization
by ascending a hierarchy of need. 36 The ascension expands the sphere of
consciousness.
A need satisfied is no longer a motivator.
As a pressing need is filled, our attention is drawn to another which, when
satisfied, gives way to yet another. The idea of ascending a hierarchy makes
sense when you realize that it's only on a full stomach that you have the energy to
protect yourself from the dangers that can arise in the environment. It's only
when your physical needs are appeased that the metaphysical ones appear. We
concern ourselves with tomorrow only after our immediate needs have been met.
I can vouch for it. When I was lying flat on my back unable to move
anything and relying on machines to help me breathe, on orderlies to turn me
over every two hours, and on nurses' aides to feed me and just about everything

else, I wasn't concerned by anything intellectual or spiritual. I was just holding
on.
When a need is satisfied, it ceases to compel. If it's ignored, however, it
will return again and again, becoming more and more demanding, and may end
up controlling our life. For example, when not satisfied, the need to feel secure in
a relationship is projected outward as jealousy. When jealousy and its need to
control “out there” replaces the self-esteem “in here”, obsessive-compulsive
disorders generally follow. Fetishes are examples of needs that are not satisfied
at one level, compelled by some unknown neurosis but not satiated, that alter our
behavior to seek fulfillment.
You are not likely to obsess on lunch if you've had a good breakfast, but
skip a meal or two and tell me what you’re thinking about.
The integration of the 5 th principle means that
you must paradigm-shift to a higher level of
concerns as you satisfy more basic needs.
A need unsatisfied is a negative motivator.
Needs that are not satisfied can tend to dominate a person's behavior and halt
progress. This sixth principle suggests that if our body's needs are not met, for
example, it's probable we’ll not have the energy to reach for other needs - like
friendship, partnership, creative self-expression, self-actualization and more.
When a need has to be ignored due to situations beyond our control, it can
cause such a state of dissatisfaction that it risks diminishing our life. Think of
self-esteem issues and how they've ruined relationships, or other sabotaging
habits that affect your overall sense of well-being.
We human beings have a need to feel we are in control of our lives, and
when that is put at risk, we will go to war. That war will be waged out there with
others where it risks destroying us, or in here where it will sabotage and destroy
us for sure. If the truth were to be told in a single sentence, it is that repression is
the only sin. Not filling our needs makes us negative and miserable, and misery,
loving company, will seek to control others.
To integrate the 6 th principle,
recognize that negative perceptions
are the result of a failure to satisfy
higher levels of need.

The hierarchy of need in human nature
My shift from a reactive paradigm to an expansive and magical mindset required
me to better understand my inner dialogue, or what kinds of thoughts tended to
empower or sabotage me. I determined how my hierarchy of needs should be
satisfied, the way I would fill them and the ideal that I aspired to. And then I
worked at it, and consciously ascended.
The hierarchy is transpersonal. How we choose to answer the need, with
either a strong or a weak interaction, can define the differences between us. The
way we realize our goals will distinguish us from one another by determining our
degree of inner strength, characterized by our attainment.
In Physics, strong interaction is described as a binding force that causes
forms and structures to come together. It is responsible for individuation. Weak
interactions are called the radioactive force that is linked to entropy and death.
How do we satisfy our needs? Either by binding to them and, in so doing,
contributing to being more powerful, or by avoiding them and weakening
ourselves.
Answering each level of need with a strong interaction gives power. Not
doing that weakens us, and the weakness contributes to the radioactive noise of
our inner dialogue, which acts as the entropy that drags us down into death.
Let's take look at the first five levels of need before we examine the higher ones
that pertain to magic and the spiritual dimensions. Start at the bottom of the
following box and work your way up.
Synthesis # 20 - How to actualize a quality of life.
The hierarchy of need in human nature
Level of need How to fill it Ideal
5. Need for quality of life Tithing culture Altruistic self-interest
4. Need for ego/esteem Will culture True will
3. Social need Ethical culture Integrity
2. Need for security Energy culture Vitality
1. Physiological needs Physical culture Physical health

We are first and foremost physical organisms in constant need of the essentials
required to survive.
Our physiological needs
We need air, water, food, clothing and shelter. Depending on how well we
actualize these basics, we can even thrive. We each practice some sort of physical
culture that describes how we meet these basic requirements for life. In order to
fill our physiological needs, we learn how to breathe, what to drink and eat in
hopefully a healthy way, to dress comfortably and to acquire a safe haven where
our body and spirit can be rejuvenated and entertained and where we have peace
of mind.
How we fill our needs affects the vitality, strength, endurance and general
wellbeing of our physical organism, and it influences our emotional, intellectual
and spiritual wellbeing too.
Are you healthy? Do you feed your body in order to satisfy a lifestyle or to
nourish it for optimum performance? Do you have the power to successfully
navigate your day? Do you dress for comfort or for style? Is your environment
conducive to peace of mind?
Security needs
We have physiological needs and our security needs refer to their long-term
fulfillment. The need to feel secure can dominate our mind and become a
controlling force in our behavior to the same degree as filling physiological needs.
We particularly notice how fragile our continuity can be during times of
threat.
People tend to focus a good portion of their mind on the pursuit of
security. Even folks who appear to have everything will fret about loss or changes
that can affect their sense of continuity and wellbeing. Security needs also
represent an indivisible link between who we are and who we would like to be.
People who feel insecure in the company of luminaries are comparing themselves
and feeling inadequate. The social pecking order preys on this so the slaves will
serve.
That search is part of our need to procreate and ensure the survival of the
species. The sexual instinct wants to attract others, coexisting with our desire to
protect ourselves from danger or from anything that jeopardizes our perception
of the quality of life. The need to attract out there and to protect ourselves is the

terrain of our subconscious emotional conflict. Most of us are insecure coming
out of the shoot.
Far from being limited to a paycheck or having a secure job, money or
property, the concept of security is about a state of mind that has to do with
feeling confident while considering our future. Security needs are about the
attitude that accompanies the actualization of our physical needs. Feeling secure
has to do with whether we are assembling a fear-based worldview or a love-based
worldview. And assembling a love-based worldview is subject to the expansion
factor from selfish love, to symbiotic (or relationship) love, to self-esteem, to
unconditional l.o.v.e. (limitless oscillations of vibrating energy).
People who feel secure give off an aura of assurance that they'll have no
problem satisfying their own needs over the long haul. This feeling is put to the
test whenever they are forced to face the unknown or to deal with sudden change,
so it had better be real. Nurturing a preference for the known - for the status quo,
for the habitual or for familiarity and stability - weakens us by default. Change is
the only constant and it is waiting for us at every turn. Without learning to deal
with it, we can't develop successful coping and resolution methods that build
confidence and contribute to genuine feelings of love that is security.
The rapidly changing world and all its problems, from its fragile ecology to
its unstable economy, can undermine your sense of security. To compensate,
invest in your own emotional strength and develop your potential, your abilities
and your creativity. Rather than be a victim of how you feel, understand how
emotion is an empowerment process.
Researchers have determined that emotions have their origins in a five-step
process in which energy is put in motion to reach a goal. They say human
emotional response stems from:
1) An event - Something happens that triggers a reaction in consciousness
that moves to identify a potential threat or a personal enhancement.
2) The perception of the event - We become aware of the event in a large
experiential sense (we physically sense it via seeing, hearing or reading
about it, etc.) and add stored input from previous neural patterns into a
new whole perception.
3) The appraisal of the new whole perception - We refer to our memories
to assess whether or not an event can satisfy a goal - or move away from
one - and we give it a value. That value will directly affect the strength
of our emotional response or whether it is a strong or weak interaction.
4) The filter on the appraisal - We choose an appropriate response from a
personal inventory that we believe is the appropriate one for achieving
our goal.

5) The reaction to our filtered appraisal - We then transform our
emotional response into a coping mechanism.
How we put our energy-in-motion dictates how secure we are likely to feel. If we
get trapped in emotional reactions that weaken us, we get tired, sick or in many
ways distressed; our energy levels are lessened, and so is our ability to respond
positively to everyday situations. With lowered emotional output, our mood is
considerably affected and that sends a negative signal out there, attracting bad
luck. But by mainlining universal l.o.v.e., the limitless oscillations of vibrating
energy, we get magic.
Feeling secure means having a lifestyle that increases our vital energy.
Good nutritional habits, being in good physical shape and having a well-rested
body and mind all contribute to reaching high levels of energy, as does having a
more trusting and worry-free attitude. With more vital energy (devoted to life)
we can more easily and more effectively handle life's challenges and obstacles.
So, to be secure, practice an energy culture and learn to manage your e-motion.
We can also improve vital energy levels by engaging in activities that give
us a sense of personal wellbeing and satisfaction. Helping others, laughing,
playing, cuddling, relaxing, sharing a warm bath or great sex - all these things can
increase vital energy and redirect it away from stress. Meditation, a hike in the
woods, playing music or having a creative, animated and fun discussion with
friends can also contribute to increasing vital energy.
Anything that wastes, lowers or depresses our energy levels compromises
our ability to satisfy our needs. Not solving our problems, avoiding important
decisions (indecision is a real energy vampire) are as toxic as a bad diet, lack of
exercise and an apathetic outlook at draining energy reserves and sapping
vitality. Do you find yourself unable to generate positive enthusiasm when
thinking about your future prospects? Then you are insecure, and
overcompensation, exhaustion, depression and burnout will follow.
Do you use your energy effectively? Do your personal prospects worry you to
excess? Do you find it hard to relax? Are you aware of the link between your
moods and the quality of your energy? Are you a positive energy source or a
drain? Do you have the vitality needed to enjoy life?
Social needs
By practicing both a physical culture and an energy culture, you'll feel healthier,
more energetic and self-confident, and begin to notice that how you see your
options evolves. Then your choices and direction will improve.
We coexist, billions of us, each pursuing the same basic needs, and yet
each us will have relationships with life and luck based on feelings. Emotions

determine our perception of security, and that determines our place in the tribal
pecking order.
We interact with others based on how we feel. Therefore our negative
energy states limit us while positive energy-in-motion opens the way for
empowering feelings like belonging, affection and love.
Our social needs reflect the human desire to live in community. The social
fabric is a complex phenomenon, encompassing all the interactions that connect
individuals, from language to customs, from family structure to tribal tradition.
Our limbic brain system is hardwired and its subconscious message is quite clear:
there can be no greater threat to personal survival than to be rejected by the tribe.
Our social links - who's who in the pecking order - are often invisible but
always quite powerful, notably for those who believe in the importance of stable
relationships. Those links contribute to our sense of continuity, and influence
how we pursue goals and how we participate in the development of the
collectivity.
Social needs are also manifested as intellectual and creative pursuits,
leadership, management and empowerment. We input information from others.
We imprint values for our words, ideas, and concepts. Our mind thirsts for
stimulation and challenge and, in order to live successfully, we must understand
those who surround us and learn from the events in our lives.
"No man is an island onto himself," wrote John Donne, the English poet. I
hope you never find yourself in an ICU depending on a medical team to bring you
back from death to figure out just how true that is. Healthy and secure, we are
social creatures, dependent on others.
We humans profit from a wide variety of relationships, from a broad
spectrum of ideas. We also profit from a great diversity of experience from
recreation and fun. We need to express our thoughts openly and honestly, and to
accept the honest and valid opinions of others. In this interchange, we grow and
then capitalize on our knowledge and our experience.
In a global village, concepts like ethics or a just social code of conduct will
shape and shade the rapport that will be developed between us. Our personal
values, however, must reflect universal law; the golden rule is a code that must
apply to everyone. Man's laws must be subservient to Nature's laws, which are
subservient to the law of One, as I'll explain in chapter 7.
Even if all that exists is created with the same energy, and energy as mass
is subject to the physical laws of movement as action/reaction, love cannot be
imposed. If we are to live in a rational and harmonious way so as to avoid further
conflict between individuals and between nations, the golden rule of positive e-
motion must apply. We cannot break the law; we can only break ourselves
against it.

In fact, to be a real leader, you should develop an intuitive sense of what's
true, just and loving, and seek to project those values in altruistic self-interest.
Consequently, you will then easily recognize the ethics of the people who
surround you, making it easier to make selective and strategic choices in terms of
the relationships you develop with them.
There is great wisdom in the adage that says birds of a feather flock
together. It tells how our own ethics determine our world, the game we'll play in
it and the players who'll play with us.
A person who cultivates a sense of personal ethics and morality will be free
from social conventions and will then answer to the highest levels of integrity.
The opposite is also true. People who rely on others to know what's right are
weakening their integrity and their sense of what is ethical. Removed from
developing those deeper values, we lose the ability to acquire inner strength. I
recently saw a reality show that demonstrated this. One contestant was earnestly
avowing her relationship to the Lord, experiencing it in a rather sad way.
Scheming and plotting negatively with the best of them, she was boastfully
confident that the Lord would later forgive her cheating ways.
Carl Jung thought that one of the best ways to discern between individuals
is that some people put a much higher value on ethics and integrity than others.
A lack of ethics really means a lack of respect and consideration for yourself, for
others and for your place in the creative overall plan.
Do you integrate the lessons from the negative things that occur in your life?
Are you a loving person? Are you lovable? Do you have friends that would be
happy to have you show up to spend time with them on their vacation? Are you
involved in community projects or a charity? Are you able to seek out any help
you might need? Do you have ethics?
Ego needs
First coined by Freud, and then by Jung, and then by an army of psychologists
and therapists, the term ego is commonly used to describe the image we have of
our self. I define my own ego as my integral being, as my body linked to my
brain/mind and memory, or to my knowledge, experience and desires all in one
whole package I call me.
How ego is perceived is very important. Consider that we have the
capacity to form an image of ourselves and then decide if we like that image or
not. Establishing a sense of self and giving that self esteem are ego needs.
Confused? Self is a quality given to our ego to fill our body/mind's need
for survival. A healthy ego is so essential to one's development that, without it,
other fundamental needs are seriously jeopardized, even sabotaged. Consider

how every human breakdown or suicide begins with an ego that no longer invests
in his or her self.
Paradoxically, regardless of a person's amount of ego, it is only by
becoming more aware of inner dimensions like will that we develop a valued
identity, a sense of higher self. In this sense, the ego is defined by personal
memory - even if every person has a creative potential that transcends memory -
while the concept of self includes a link to the larger whole. Ego is who I am and
all I was, while self is that – plus all I can be.
Ego defines who we are. We can then decide to esteem that identity, or not
to. Choosing to esteem our self gives us real power. The wise ego practices a will
culture; with discipline, we can assure that our ego carries out certain doings and
certain not-doings that allow us to feel good about ourselves.
We have a need to feel good about ourselves, to stand apart from the tribe
as esteemed individuals, and to claim a separate and unique identity. Our ego
should feel that we contribute positively to life, and therefore merit success and
happiness. People who esteem themselves will work to actualize the idea of good
and thus feel good about their acts.
Ego determines our personality, our place in society, our relationships
with others, and our ability to express ourselves in spite of our fears of criticism
and rejection. It dictates our belief about our right to a satisfying and meaningful
life. Genuine self-esteem will be felt in direct proportion to the quality of our
deeds and acts.
This is not a moral judgment. Rather, it's a self-evident truth that can only
be resolved with personal experience. I am reminded that when I changed from
being an up-and-coming executive in a fast-moving company to being an
unemployed disabled man in the flick of an eyelash, I felt my status change.
Since then, I've seen how my own self-esteem directly influences how others
respond to me.
A strategic will culture suggests that any action that brings me closer to
creativity, personal power and feelings of wellbeing and joy, is good. Easy
enough to see how anything that distances me from that state of health is bad.
Short of that, reacting to desire is not in our best interest. The wise
sorcerer Don Juan Matus, in anthropologist Carlos Castaneda's books, says selfempowerment
is the true path. He reminds us that, "What makes us unhappy is
to want; yet if we would cut our wants to nothing, the smallest thing we'd get
would be a true gift. To be poor or wanting is only a thought, and so is to hate, or
to be hungry, or to be in pain. Only a warrior can survive want. A warrior knows
that he is waiting and he knows what he is waiting for, and while he waits he
wants nothing and thus whatever little he gets is more than he can take." 37

Quality of life needs
By increasing our will, we can turn to actualizing higher needs like those
pertaining to quality of life. It is in our self-interest to discover what exactly
quality of life really means so that we can discipline our ego to help us reach it.
What about you? How do you see your ego? Are you creative, and using your
will to cultivate your physical being as well as your energy and ethics? Do you
think that your personality has evolved in the last five years? Have you taken
complete responsibility for your personal happiness? What would you rather
be, right or happy?

Chapter 6
ON META-MOTIVATION AND THE SOUL
Beyond our ego-centric limits
The need for quality of life
The need for personal growth
The need for self-actualization
The need to paradigm-shift into a more creative worldview
The need for joy and a passion for life
The need for a creative Super-consciousness
The 11 th level of need is whole-brain seeing
Understanding the 12 th level of need, where all is One
Altruistic self-interest: filling organizational needs
"Everything in the universe has a purpose. Indeed, the invisible intelligence that
flows through everything in a purposeful fashion is also flowing through you."
Dr. Wayne Dyer

Chapter 6
META-MOTIVATION
Our self-image affects the way we understand and satisfy our needs. At any given
moment, some needs tend to dominate our mind, requiring us to make decisions
and take actions. We must satisfy our needs or remain unsatisfied.
Linked to our overall development, the pursuit of needs is organized
naturally as a hierarchy. When one level is filled, it makes way for another, which
then holds our attention and so on, in continuum. Sometimes our reactions to
these needs are conscious and sometimes they're not, but they are the motive that
drives the motor that compels our motivation. Filling our needs occupies our
behavior.
Wisdom offers us two great lessons. If you want be happy, learn how to
satisfy all your needs. If you want to be prosperous, help others satisfy theirs.
How we satisfy our needs is a private and personal thing. It's what
differentiates us, what makes every one of us unique. In that sense we are the
same. According to Abraham Maslow, the average person is always partly
satisfied and partly dissatisfied with the fulfillment of their needs. One level is
not necessarily satisfied before another level requires attention - so unless you
know about the whole hierarchy, you're condemned to remain in a reactive state
of growing chaos and dissatisfaction.
Self-actualizers, or creative people, devote themselves to the process of
filling their needs by concluding - "As long as filling my needs is a
predetermined, natural and continuous activity, I might as well be good at it."
Discovering how to fill all your needs isn't a sudden knowing, but rather a
gradual thing. The apprenticeship should continue as we realize that we have
higher needs like passion and personal power. Maslow said that even if we are
unaware of them, our needs unsatisfied are a negative force. He says not
actualizing needs that we aren't aware we have yet, allows us to suffer negatively
as surely as if essential nutrients were missing in our diet.
The creative strategy is to bring even the subconscious needs to the
conscious light of day. Only then can we fill them to satisfaction and be joyful.
Beyond our ego-centric limits
In his studies of human motivation, Maslow recognized how certain aspects of
human nature influence motivation and satisfaction. Humans appreciate and

tend to seek out those ideas, services and things that give them pleasure and that
promise to make life easier and more enjoyable. We try to avoid pain. It's not
really that complicated: if we esteem ourselves more, we will give more value to
our experience of life. And then we’ll tend to give more quality to it.
So, strategically, proactive thinking begins with the premise I can give
quality to my life.
Synthesis # 20 - The hierarchy of personal need, 1-12
Level of need How to fill it Ideal
12. Self-understanding Self-actualize Oneness
11. The pursuit of ideal Whole-brain seeing Personal power
10. Creativeconsciousness
Stop inner dialogue
Ømega point fusion
9. Joy/Passion Transcend limits “Suchness”
8. Old/new paradigm Conscious choice Here/Now I am creative
7. Need to self-realize Spiritual culture Unconditional love
6. Need for personal
growth
Psychic development
Self-awareness: “I am”
5. Need for quality of life Tithing culture Altruistic self-interest
4. Need for ego/esteem Will culture True will
3. Social need Ethical culture Integrity
2. Need for security Energy culture Vitality
1. Physiological needs Physical culture Physical health
Humans with a healthy ego and self-esteem can cut to the quick and start
pursuing their self-defined quality of life. Ego's evolutionary thrust, their true
will, is directed by Nature's creative imperative to seek out quality. Values like
quality remain self-defined, though. Let's agree that personal growth should be
factored into any understanding of it.

Some people will consider material things before spiritual development or
the more altruistic pursuits. In order of subjective perception, we encounter
physical, security and social needs before the ego is fully formed. An ego that is
shaped under dire conditions will have a different perception of quality than one
raised with that silver spoon we’ll read about.
Ego is shaped by how we answer genetic signals that are determined by
Nature's bio-clock. Leadership qualities that are not developed as a young adult,
for example, will be more difficult to integrate by older managers. Bad attitudes
developed when young can follow people throughout their lives, and may
interfere with other, more profitable, attitudes.
The benefits of experiencing a general attitude related to love, joy, passion,
etc., are beyond any intellectual debate. The hormones, neural-receptors and
other chemical mixes physically present in our body when we entertain a positive
attitude are measurably real. Before an ego can begin to esteem itself sufficiently
to release those chemicals though, its “I am” has to figure out that the quest for
quality depends on first shifting paradigms, from a reactive to a proactive state of
mind. In other words, even wanting a quality life depends on personal growth.
The quality of life is part of a hierarchy of need that includes personal
growth, spiritual empowerment, self-actualization and more, may be foreign to
your reactive ego. Proactive people will want to learn all about it to satisfy their
needs so they’ll consciously seek out the facts. They get how needs are actualized
with a strong interaction (self-empowerment) or with a weak interaction (selfsabotage).
Actualizing your first 4 levels of need with a strong interaction produces a
healthy body, emotional strength and maturity, ethical relationships and an
esteemed sense of self.
The quality of energy produced by filling the first 5 levels in the hierarchy
liberates ego's subjective will so it can further develop personal power. This will
be defined as the freedom to pursue your own definition of a quality life. Now
you don't have to think about it… there is no resistance, you just to do it. You
determine the quality of your life.
Focused on a quality life, the ego will determine how to satisfy the next
eight levels of need and reach those higher realms. Subjective ego dictates how to
benefit from the needs attained and how to participate in the pursuit of a higher
evolution.
The need for quality of life
Ego reacts to its personal inventory of knowledge, experience and desire. People
trade ideas, interacting through time and space, and so how we react and with

whom can bring us closer to our goals, or farther away from them. How we react
to life circumstances and events makes a huge difference because it helps
determine who we are.
For most of us, the quality of life is a rather vague concept that resists
definition except from a perspective of immediate desires. “If I had that, I’d be
happy!”
Interesting questions have been answered about the links between
physical health and wealth, and between social condition and personal wellbeing
and attitude. The answers tell us that our way of seeing - how we perceive – is
the most significant factor in determining whether or not we enjoy life.
Some studies suggest things like salary, housing, good transportation,
health and higher education are not real indicators of how the of life is perceived
by the members of a community. 38 Experts say that a quality life depends on
personal power - which is available to any person facing everyday challenges.
Quality describes whether we enjoy our life, or not. Our attainment of a
quality life is largely dependent on whether we can transform life's challenges
into opportunities.
The idea of personal power also has no objective definition. Rather than a
mere term used by sociologists and sorcerers, it should explain how well we adapt
to life's demands. Do you feel lonely or loved, confident or unsure, strong or
weak? A self-sabotaging ego reacts to what life throws its way, while selfempowered
people link their quality of life to their accomplishments, to their own
doings and not-doings.
In order to add quality to life, the wisdom books suggest that we practice a
tithing culture. Give quality to life. This takes quality and makes it personal. An
action brings a reaction; we get what we give, what goes around comes around,
and all the rest. Tithing means more than the amount of money we should give a
church, even though it may certainly mean that too.
Tithing in a larger context means giving to life. What are you contributing
to your life and to the lives of people around you? Think of tithing in terms of
applying Nature's management rule: altruistic self-interest.
I've met several people who were disappointed with what life gave them
without ever caring to consider what they were giving life. So many folks impose
their bad attitude on a given situation, to then insist that the situation itself was
bad, or that they were ill treated or unlucky.
People who give love and joy to life can expect to reap those qualities in the
sense that they are flooding their own body-mind with the hormones and
neurotransmitters that do the most good and feel the best. Pure life! People who

only give out the tired somebody-done-me-wrong song are so busy pointing their
finger at others they can't begin to know about the self they should be esteeming.
And they won't hear the alarm bells sound until it's too late. To enjoy a
quality life, increase the quality you give your life. Do more. Give more freely the
best of you, and let Infinity take care of the details. If you take a serious look
around, you'll find that the quality of life is poorest where people are far removed
from the Golden Rule.
If you want physical health, give yourself quality air, food, water, exercise,
clothing, and shelter. Take care of your body. If you want a long, secure, happy
and exciting life, develop stores of courage. Form the habit of doing things with
enthusiasm. Put your enthusiastic energy-in-motion until you realize that it fuels
passion. Then, love is magic, and personal power.
Any harmonious social interaction requires work; so choose to give your
relationships the best of your work by subscribing to the idea of good. If
everyone gave quality to life, this planet would be transformed into Paradise on
Earth. Well, don't wait for the others. Realize that it's in your own best interest
to create your own piece of paradise, and to feel those hormones.
Personal power starts to accumulate as soon as you stop waiting for
somebody else to give you permission. Imagine your corner of paradise and then
give yourself joyfully to the task of making it real, or actualizing it.
You can suppose that other pieces of paradise are also being put into place,
and so a whole-Earthly paradise is being born of the effort. In the least of your
efforts, you will realize that joyful doing is its own reward.
The opposite also occurs, of course, when people meet their life with an
attitude that stops any creative flow: egoism, ignorance, mean-spiritedness,
greed, anger, pettiness, revenge, and all the rest of those bad feelings are antievolutionary.
Anyone banking on material goods for happiness and not giving
their inner needs any consideration is truly sabotaging his or her quality of life.
It takes an awful lot of material wealth to compensate for an unbalanced
ego. Don't expect fulfillment to come from things, because joy is an emotional
state that has little to do with stuff and instead the most to do with how you are
participating in life.
People who are not giving quality to the physical, emotional, intellectual,
spiritual and transactional dimensions of their life can't hope to be satisfied. We
will be dissatisfied if we don't take responsibility for giving the best of ourselves
to our own wellbeing.
So what about you? Are you giving “quality” to your life? Are you shaping
the inner qualities that are top priority in the pursuit of happiness? Can you see

how your will determines your levels of satisfaction and your capacity to actualize
yourself?
The need for personal growth
In psychology, «I am» is described as an actor, a processor of information and a
integrator of experience within a human body. Ego embodies the soul. The soul
is said to be our universal identity or our true self, while our mind is ego's
mediating agent, author of our thoughts, emotions and actions.
That part of me who saw my body from an out-of-body perspective when I
was dead is the real me. I am soul, while ego is my body's view, its memory.
Ego chooses what information to pursue and process, and how to integrate
ideas into a whole view. Let me summarize some of the current options. We can
expand our worldview by shifting through four paradigms of thought. We can
change from being relatively reactive to our life's circumstances, to being
proactive and then becoming creative and self-empowered. With personal power
comes spiritual magic.
The magical paradigm includes a new attitude that is motivated by, a)
mind expansion, b) life extension, and c) self-actualization.
Nearly 100 years ago, William James, one of the pioneers of modern
psychological research, urged us to open ourselves to the infinite possibilities that
are a part and parcel of our human heritage. He said, "I speak not merely of
savage priests and prophets whose followers regard automatic utterances and
actions as by itself tantamount to inspiration. I speak of leaders of thought: the
whole array of Christian saints and heresiarchs, including the greatest - the
Bernards, the Loyolas, the Luthers, the Foxes, the Wesleys. Each had their
visions, voices, rapt conditions, guiding impressions and 'openings'." 39
Abraham Maslow added to that theme, suggesting that we can realize our
potential if we listen to our inner voice. He said that while our ego can't
recognize its own potential, it does intuit that, “I could become my true, better,
happier and empowered self if only I invested in my self and seriously worked
at it.”
He also suggested that anyone who undertakes this serious work has to
first do away with the need to bask in the good opinion of others. Resist the urge
to measure yourself in the eyes of other people. Actualizing your true and
empowered self has nothing to do with the opinions of others. Each of us must
tame our own demons.
Philosophies and religions have offered many descriptions of this true self.
However they see it, most agree that our inner sense of self is distinct from our

physical body and its ego/mind. Our true nature, or soul, is a link to our creative
origin; it is ultimate spirit – energy – and most often described as our universal
or divine identity.
Ancient sages suggested that we are aspects of the Creator and modern
physics proves it. While the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, it is
nonetheless indivisibly bound to and part of them.
Buckminster Fuller, the author of so much breakthrough thinking on
universal principles of synergy, believed that a creative intelligence – the
consciousness that permeates all of existence – should be seen as a gift that links
us directly to God. Describing the Creator as a Great Architect, he believed that
Infinity includes an intent that ensures that every life can be crowned with
success and happiness. If he's right, the price we are paying for our self-sabotage
is awesome.
If you do not enjoy the quality of life that you believe you deserve, open
yourself to the unknown. Personal growth involves determining the quality of life
you want, devising a strategic plan to realize it, and then developing the qualities
you need to work it through. Personal growth refers to our psychic development.
The notion that we only use 10% of our brain isn't that far off. We use all of our
brain, but only a small portion of our mind.
In my seminars and conferences, I describe the psyche as that part of the
mind that links ego to the true self. I am universal energy, consciousness. I
suggest various ways to practice a psychic culture to help focus attention on our
creative nature. I explain how a psychic culture consists of practicing who we'd
like to become. It’s easy enough to realize that you'll improve your tennis game by
hitting balls, so if you need better communication skills, for example, learn and
practice better ways to communicate. It's that simple.
Any person who wants to be a great musician must practice linking up the
neural pathways in his or her brain that will reflex and replay great music. The
brain is a self-organizing system, and practice soon becomes habit, music. As ego
becomes more conscious of music's codes and language, it can think and the body
will answer the mind precisely. There are no quick fixes, no free lunches and no
head transplants.
What you don't image in here won't automatically appear out there. Magic
is defined as causing change to occur in conjunction with your will. Causing it,
not hoping for it.
The reactive mind can't imagine the possibilities that will present
themselves as it is transformed into a proactive force and then a creative thinking
tool. Personal growth can transform an ordinary existence into a magical one.
The creative mind can easily see the possibilities that exist by living in harmony
with the Infinite. It is that change, the paradigm-shift from one way of seeing to
another, which will empower your life.

The Bhagavad-Gita suggests that personal growth strategies or
transformational strategies require the novice to respect three conditions. The
first is to act without focusing on the results of our actions. Doing something
while focused on its result limits the intellectual energy needed to give what we
are doing the full attention it merits. If fully given to the process in the joy of
doing, then the act itself will teach us something. It will sharpen our judgment
and increase our self-esteem. By becoming more aware, we notice the causes that
precede results and then can exercise greater influence over events in our life,
acting on causes rather than reacting to results.
The second condition is to act in the name of SPIRIT. In other words, to
surrender to the idea of good that is generated by unconditional love. Loving
without condition lets us identify with the creative process as it works through us.
En theos, the extra energy and feeling of connectivity, builds into
enthusiasm that allows us to be ready for anything the world can throw at us.
Unconditional love, of course, includes self-love, so the feedback we receive from
our inner dimensions advises us on any adjustment that might be needed. One of
the great advantages to acting out of unconditional love is that it makes it easy to
spot those who aren’t, and allow for that in our strategic plans.
After we embrace the process of personal growth, the third condition is
that we act with our impeccable best at all times. In this way, the ancient sages
thought, we'll have no regrets when looking back. Even if the results of our
doings are not what we expected or even particularly wanted, there'll be an
outcome, a lesson, and satisfaction to be had. Impeccable behavior lets us see
how and why events unfolded around us as they did, how and why those less than
positive outcomes came about. Then any adjustment that's needed can be made
with confidence and, over time, shaped into a more desirable result.
Those 3 conditions should be our guidelines when facing life. They should
figure in every phase of our creative development as they assure essential
progress. A good number of people, prisoners of their reactive mind, stopped
dreaming about what they'd like to be when they grow up. Soon after accepting a
first paycheck, many people sell out their potential for a pot of beans.
Consequently, people resist further growth and self-empowerment,
imposing their right to remain petty, childish and reactive and to impose on
others. They cannot break evolution's law; they can merely break themselves
against it. They are asserting their right to self-destruct because ignorance of the
law is no excuse. But what about you - are you becoming all that you can be? Or
did you sell your soul to satisfy a need for security, for friends or for ego strokes?
Who are you growing into? Do you adhere to the golden rule or to the rule of
gold?
Lack of motivation and refusal to grow are the principal ways in which we
self-sabotage. We reap what we sow, the wise sayings warn. We need a more
expansive set of values. The turbulent job market of the last several years forced

many people out of their comfort zones and onto a path of re-questioning and
personal growth.
Are your spiritual beliefs helping you rise above your limits? Are you growing
into a happier, more powerful person? Are you awakened to your creativity,
and do you realize that creativity consciously and willfully applied is magic?
The need to self-actualize
William James believed that our most important transformation comes from
discovering that a change of attitude can transform the whole of our life. That
change of attitude is a paradigm-shift that comes about from taking complete
responsibility for our life. From the recognition that we do have a spiritual
potential, we must pursue self-actualization.
Self-actualizing human beings are persons on a quest to make their
creative potential actual or real. They are doers. In fact, at this level, a happy of
life is simplified as merely being a list of doings and of not-doings.
You are the only one who can give yourself physical health and more vital
energy, who can maintain the personal relationships that enrich you, who can
esteem yourself enough to commit your will to the changes that you know can
improve your life. As you are the author of your life, you must create your own
version of paradise on Earth. It takes the same amount of time and the same
amount of energy to experience a most glorious life as it does to experience hell
on Earth.
Our life-experience takes all our time and all our energy. So why not
invest in glory? Why not invest in your own creative capital?
Each of us alive on Earth is sharing a global experience in some real sense,
and we must manage ourselves as if we are affecting the WHOLE. If you haven't
yet adopted an attitude or a mindset with that degree of responsibility for your
existence, take it to be your first challenge. Be proactive about saving the Earth
because even if you choose to believe that you don't have any control over your
life, that choice will contradict the notion. But if you act on your belief, it shows
that you are, in fact, creating your destiny.
Beliefs compel doings and not-doings. If you believe you can you can and
if you believe you can't, well, you can't... so why even try? Just believing you can
doesn't mean that you can, but it does mean you should try, to see what result
you obtain, and then to adjust. And with sufficient adjustment, you probably
can! With sufficient time, you probably will.
To fill our self-actualization needs, we have to practice a spiritual culture.
By this I mean that we must develop our inner spirit. The spirit is willing but the

flesh is weak, wisdom teaches. By developing a greater spiritual strength, we can
get the body-mind to respond in wondrous ways. Then we adjust and make the
choices that can benefit us.
If your inner spirit won't actualize what's best for you, then it needs
discipline so that it will. The spiritual culture of a person who is habitually
aggressive is to do what’s necessary to gain personal power and control his or her
anger. Increasing personal power is the only sure way to attract success and
wellbeing. Self-empowerment tools and techniques and body-mind disciplines
like yoga or Tai Chi are great ways to build a creative, powerful and magical
mind. They'll hone your subjective will and align it with creative intent.
If you refuse to take responsibility for your life, you cannot hope to
manage or control it. Some people may believe they found spiritual truth because
they are familiar with the words, concepts or philosophies, but that's not the way.
There are no exemptions to the need to take actions that improve your life.
Praying or meditating that a personal God or universe bends the law to
solve their problems, people wait, only to discover that yes, indeed, things can get
worse. Prayer is a poor substitute for action. Besides that, considering that
wisdom asserts that Heaven will only help those who help themselves, it's
spiritually lazy.
Based on some of the questions I've asked you so far, have you recognized
any kind of resistance that might be sabotaging you? A learned rabbi once
suggested we ask ourselves a couple of serious questions when we examine the
need for concrete action in our life. "If not me, who? If not now, when?"
The need to paradigm-shift into a more creative worldview
In large measure, our beliefs are shaping how we think and how we can think. If
your own beliefs aren't really contributing to your self-empowerment, change
them. I'm willing to bet that they were force-fed to you before you even knew
what side was up. Paradigm-shift.
The words, concepts and ideas we use to describe our relationship to the
world significantly contribute to how we are likely perceive the quality of our life,
how we'll view our responsibilities and how we'll respond to our need for
evolutionary growth.
Helen Keller, the famous author who spent all but the first eighteen
months of her life without her sight and hearing, wrote about having no way to
connect her inner reality to the outside world until she had language. Before, she
was lost in her own mind. Exchanging ideas with others helped her develop her
cognitive abilities and her sense of self. And then self-esteem, self-adjustment
and personal growth became possible.

The decision to believe in God or not is tantamount to an act of great
power, and so is deciding how to believe it. We can choose to explore the insight
and wisdom of an expansive philosophy, or the half-truths and repressive
poppycock that promise pie-in-the-sky after we die. We can actualize ourselves
or obey others, lead or follow, learn from the forces in Nature or from a Ouija
board. Whatever you decide, the universe doesn't care.
What does matter is that we choose to believe something. If we choose to
disbelieve, we court disaster. The old sorcerer Don Juan Matus tells
anthropologist Carlos Castaneda that if we choose to believe nothing, we are
playing Russian roulette. He explains that it's important to put our beliefs about
life first and foremost in our mind, so that we can make the most of our decisions
and our efforts. He says there's power in making sure we enjoy everything to the
fullest degree because we are alive on this Earth for such a short time.
Bringing conscious choice to what you believe is a strategy aimed at
silencing your inner dialogue, those thoughts that are describing the world to
you, you can seize any moment and choose to offset the reactions imposed by a
self-sabotaging inner voice by challenging them.
Self-actualizing people structure and contemplate every decision. They
consciously choose how to invest their energy, and then will those actions that fill
their needs. In so doing, they gradually break away from the world of routine
and reaction, and participate in a world of creation and magic.
The reactive mind will continue to believe it has little choice about how it
sees the world if it does not recognize that most of its choices are habitual
reactions. Reactive people don't believe that they in large part actually create
their life. It doesn't figure that they will suddenly start considering a life that
would see them change and prosper. Often believing the end justifies the means,
reactive minds tend to be less concerned about the consequences of actions and
more about their perception of success or defeat.
People react because they want to remain unaware that participation in
life gives us a large part of responsibility for our every choice. People with
creative minds focus on the process, the very way that they perceive, think and
behave.
In the universal action/reaction law, an impeccable process yields
impeccable results.
Are you aware that you need to change your mind in order to improve your
life? Are you aware of the power your subconscious mind and your habits have
over you? What sort of behavior must you adopt to achieve your goals and
objectives?

The need for joy and a passion for life
In the process of photosynthesis, life depends on light from the sun. Unresisting,
plants naturally turn towards our sun, which radiates much more than light and
heat.
That star – a sol G-type – responds to Galactic intelligence and sends a
complex electromagnetic field of intelligence to Earth in both continuing waves of
cosmic frequencies and regulating bursts of solar energy. In creation's galactic
Order, life on this planet is responding to a spectrum of Light frequencies,
causing biology to evolve in all its complexity.
The planet's biological intelligence, including its human component, is
directed to take its fill of that life energy, to be over-flowingly healthy with it. The
state in which human beings are overflowing with vitality and health in ex stasis,
we call joyful. Joy is a measure of emotional energy, an intensity of light that
humans are naturally programmed to seek out at birth. We also call the
experience bliss, satori, rapture and other words.
The movement that is propelled by our motivation to be happy triggers a
transformation. Our reactive ego becomes more self-conscious, and then chooses
to evolve a proactive attitude. Thus begins personal growth wherefrom a creative
paradigm can emerge. The creative emergence is accompanied by the capacity to
“aha!” or reach for bursts of joy. And when joy is claimed as personal power, we
call it passion.
Since joy is the barometer in the quest for creative self-actualization, the
more joyful and passionate about life we are, the more we participate with
creative intelligence. To integrate joy at every level of need, we have to acquire all
the skill, the will and the practice we can. Wanting to live blissfully is an
important decision in developing our creative potential. “Do what you love and
money will follow”, many people discover.
Think outside the box for a moment: To let joy and passion rule your life,
you must detach yourself from everything that will prevent joy from ruling it.
Such is the path.
Contrary to popular myth, being detached doesn't mean leaving everything
behind for the life of an unfeeling recluse. Over the course of our life, we'll
acquire habits that define our behavior and determine our lot. Detaching
ourselves from whatever habits limit our experience of joy means that we no
longer give our attention and will to those things that are hindering our creative
expression.
Habits can thus be replaced by an unconditional focus on the pursuit of
happiness. And how do you know what will make you happy? Well, it’s like
finding Prince Charming. You have to kiss all those frogs and toads.

Just as heavy curtains will prevent light from entering a room, our
personal limits are what prevent joy and passion from being the focus of our life.
To be detached doesn’t mean to reattach to some sort of new religion or forget
material comfort. Rather, its just letting go of whatever is stopping us from
enjoying life and experiencing joy right here, right now and in continuum.
Consider joy as a feeling that comes with an empowered mind. Limits on
our creative potential are the problem, what we must detach from. Ancient
seekers referred to breaking through the Veil of Maya, the world of illusion and
material focus. In a final paradox, one learns that detachment does not mean less
– it means more. In the self-organizing, creative and infinite universe, limits are
perceptual.
The law suggests that when a close-loop system opens up, even though the
fear is that some things will escape and be lost, other things in fact manage to get
in and expand the limit.
In order to be happy you are going to have to change. So where do you
start? Start with an activity that can break the limits of your perception. Try new
beliefs, traditions, habits and rules. For example, let's agree to rise above fear
and its derivatives (pettiness, hostility, shyness, anger, etc.) and embrace love so
we move closer to joy and passion. So what's the change process? Try new loving
behaviors, ignore resistance and fear, and shop around for exciting rewards to
make the discovery process as pleasant as possible.
What about changing ideals? Integrate all those ideas that give you the
greatest joy, because if you know how to reach joy, then the petty stuff really
doesn't matter.
By proactively using the creative self-empowerment tools and techniques
in the Toolbox and by adopting a body/mind discipline that's aimed at increasing
your vital energy, you can deliberately bring order into your life. Your ego then
will be more aware that a creative mind is an extension of itself and will be more
apt to let this mind lead. The creative mind will figure out how its potential is
infinitely more magical than the ego ever gives it credit for.
Reactive paradigms draw on beliefs limiting the in here and project them
on the larger reality out there. Reactive minds’ limited view of reality most
probably seems so real to them that they may believe it's the one true reality.
Attached to a personal past, with all its exhausting emotional games, fear,
pettiness and self-importance, reactive minds struggle in a world where they have
no clear grip on the events that unfold in their lives.
The creative mind pursues joy and passion as the result of the choices
produced in its own integrity. I've integrated joy and passion to my experience of
life and I'm actualizing quality in my life. A magical mind experiences joy and
passion no matter what circumstances may surround it. Joy and passion are its
reason for being, its driving force.

Do you experience a need for more joy and passion in your life? Are you
living in the past, are you co-creating the present or are you just wishing for a
better future? Are you focused on changing the habits that are limiting your
enjoyment of life? Ask yourself this: what habit, if you changed it right now,
would give you the most joy?
The need to reach creative Super-consciousness
Since we are indeed using our mind – at least in some part – to create the
circumstances of our lives, being more conscious of our power to do it represents
what Nature considers to be an evolutionary advantage. The philosopher's quest
to “know thyself” refers to our larger, transpersonal self and recognizes our
transcendental need to experience creative order. The chaos in universe is not
“out there”, it is “in here”.
There is a creating intelligence. Light is contained in four fundamental
forces that fashion the universe. Beyond that, everything has to do with one's
personal perception. There is a state of consciousness, an experience of joy and
passion beyond time and space that exists independently of any one person's
temporal and local brain hemispheres.
In other words, the experience of joy is available at every given moment as
a universal potential, but individual brain/minds have to tune into to it.
As this is difficult to prove without sounding like some sort of mystic, I can
only offer my own testimony and, in the following chapter, show how it is
supported by recent science. Because it refers to a subjective state of mind, the
enlightened perception of the universe cannot in fact be fully understood unless it
is experienced.
From the moment it is subjectively experienced, though, we are indivisibly
linked to a super conscious reality, a perception of universal order that allows us
to see with a master-Mind.
I was transformed in terms of my perceptual context (I see the energy
fields that radiate from people, their aura) and my content (in my life, I
experience God with a certainty most people don't have). Except by sharing the
syntheses in this book, I don't know how my relationship to the universe's
creative intent can help you and your life. Enlightenment is a personal thing. So
is joy.
When I was clinging to life (try weeks in an ICU to see how the minutes
inching by allow for intense consideration) I vowed that, if given another chance,
I'd experience life as fully as I could. Knowing what's waiting for me at death, I
shudder to waste a moment's time, and I've used my second chance with as much
gusto as I could.

It's a long story and worthy of another book, so I won't describe all that led
to my becoming aware of Super-consciousness without dying. Simply, months
after leaving the hospital, while meditating, I quieted my inner dialog and found
myself standing outside my body.
At that moment, I totally remembered my previous encounter and was
filled with joy in the realization. Then I remembered being filled with love and
joy as I expanded when I was out of my body before, and that filled me with more
joy, so I surrendered to the experience. And Pure Light once again overwhelmed
me. I was in a state of complete bliss, ecstasy and rapture. I understood in one
instant that every answer to every question I'd asked myself about life's mysteries
was this: oneness.
The creative order of the universe can be understood when we base our
thinking on the idea of oneness. Creation is a single continuous outpouring of
limitless oscillating vibration energy, l.o.v.e. which then organizes itself into
diversity. Seeing that diversification as Pure Light will naturally and
spontaneously occur if brain/mind stops its chatter. When your brain/mind is
not busy describing what it thinks of the world, it can open up to the possibilities
that it can't yet describe. The essence of all of life is universal energy and Light.
This is its soul.
Stopping one's inner dialogue produces a state of mind called Ømegapoint
fusion, in which the usual interpretations of reality disappear to give way to
a new and whole perceptual order. Dr. Joseph Campbell explains that stilling our
inner voice causes the end of the world because our old way of seeing stops. "The
old way of living is annihilated. That is the end of the world. The end of the
world is not an event to come; it is an event of transformation, of visionary
transformation. You see not only the world of solid things, but the world of
radiance." 40
Personally experiencing the creative order in the world comes from
removing a barrier that separates the left side of the brain, or ego, knowledge and
reason, and the right side, where self, experience and intuition resides. Dr
Stanislav Grof, a medical doctor, consciousness researcher and founder of the
Transpersonal Institute, says that Super-consciousness offers us both a dramatic
event and an all-encompassing change of mind. He describes it by saying that
every barrier perceived a moment before it is permanently dissolved in the fusion
of consciousness and brain, and every distinction between a separate ego and
others, or any other object, disappears in the realization that energy is oneness. 41
People who meditate can experience this state of enlightenment and
actually come into contact with the Creator of the universe. Once you experience
this level of mind, there is no doubt it will nourish your soul and transform you.
The fusion of personal ego and the transpersonal and Super-conscious energy of
the universe liberates the ego and lifts it into a state of enlightenment, were it has
access to creative intelligence, joy, passion and personal power.

Any technique that quiets the inner dialog can give us access to greater
intelligence and the power to rise above our limitations. When we meditate,
whether by sitting quietly some place or mindfully going about our business, we
are training ourselves not to react to our conditioned reflexes in our old habitual
ways. This kind of discipline creates a space between action and reaction where
we can choose. And making choices is a magic power.
We should think of meditation as part of our normal lifestyle. Connecting
with a higher mind should be an integral part of life because it has the added
value of enhancing our creative capital and can help us change our behavior. The
practice of stilling our inner dialog lets us reach an absolute silence. And the
action willing a void has its corresponding reaction of Light: enlightenment.
While the reactive mind identifies with beliefs and disbeliefs, the creative
mind relies on whole-brain realizations. Believing becomes self-sabotage when it
reduces our chances for joy and happiness. It weakens us and sabotages our
potential by offering views, behaviors and habits that may be less than profitable
and preventing us from finding our own links to joy and passion. Fusion, or
oneness, comes from bold and empowering actions.
Are you limited by your beliefs? Have you ever tried a technique or substance
that altered your thinking processes? Do you suspect a larger reality might
exist beyond your own perceptions? Have you ever felt a connection to a larger
whole? Are you pursuing a link with creative order?
The 11 th level of need is whole-brain seeing
Enlightenment means having an indivisible view of the link between in here and
out there. Quantum. Once your brain is enlightened, your mind can access a
super-conscious state of intuitive Intelligence. Western minds have called this
state of being reaching the Godhead or the Higher Self and many other names
explained in the Eastern concept of Atma, or ONE soul or God essence. It is
Christ consciousness, Krishna consciousness and Rapture.
If you reach that exalted state of mind, resistance from friends and
neighbors being what it is, you may have to cleverly mask it lest you be crucified.
After a brief apprenticeship which is often accompanied by an incredible burst of
creative productivity and a wish to convert the world, the magic settles in and life
start to get real interesting. There are people who get and people who don’t. And
you see how there are predators and prey.
In whole-brain seeing, pragmatic realizations are important. Only you can
define your own state of physical ideal wellbeing, that's evident, but unless your
definition reflects the realization that perfect health is more than a concept, you
are self-sabotaging. Health is more than the absence of sickness. With clear

seeing and a creative intent, it's indeed possible to reach levels of energy and
vitality that dispel any doubt about our ability to satisfy all our physical needs.
Choose your emotional ideal. See the universal law in “love is magic”.
There's also universal law, or the universe and all things therein as limitless
oscillating vibration energy, l.o.v.e. You and I are that energy. If we dedicate our
energy to living life to the fullest, there'll be no energy wasted on fear, old
baggage or whatever emotional preoccupation can weaken our resistance and
lead us into stress, illness or premature death.
For we humans, the most significant changes needed are the ones that lead
us to participate in what Teilhard de Chardin called "acquiring selfconsciousness".
More self aware, we'll want to develop the ability to shift
paradigms from a reactive to a proactive one, and then a creative consciousness.
Then we take our place as empowered and magical beings. Embracing mind
expansion, we'll humbly note, "Today, I am much more creative than I was
yesterday, but a great deal less so than I can be tomorrow."
More self-aware, we can more easily open ourselves to new perspectives
and express a greater part of our potential. This will allow us to develop notions
of self-interest and self-mastery that, in turn, will encourage us to become even
more aware of our creative self. Rather than a chore, inner development is a
spiritual power in itself that lets us immediately benefit from a blessed life.
Mind expansion to the creative and magical paradigms also enables us to
manage our psychic energy more efficiently. By distinguishing between reactive
desires and proactive motivation and creative will, we become free to pursue our
highest levels of wellbeing. We can add habits to lift the spirit, soothe the mind
and rejuvenate the body.
There is no healthier state of being to enjoy than having a body filled with
a passion for life. Trust me on this part. My own body is paralyzed from the
armpits down so you can rest assure it doesn't suggest I drag it off on adventures.
It's my passion that drags the body to the jungle. Once you understand
how your perception of the world is related to how you feel and vice versa, you'll
willfully develop that force and use it to enlighten the path of the heart, the path
that gives you the most joy, creative intelligence and personal power. Carlos
Castaneda's sorcerer simplifies the idea with his words. "For me there is only
walking on the path of the heart." 42
One of the great delights in reaching any destination is to look back on the
journey and feel a moment's sadness for its end. If your experience of life is in
any way less than heartfelt, you must use your available energy to change it. If
you no longer love what you are doing, rethink your direction. The experience of
love is more than a rule. It's the condition for connecting with creative intent and
magic. The sorcerer Don Juan Matus gives us a hint into that mind. "In terms of
his connection with 'intent', a warrior goes through four stages. The first is when

he has a rusty, untrustworthy link with 'intent". The second is when he succeeds
in cleaning it. The third is when he learns to manipulate it. And the fourth is
when he learns to accept the designs of the Abstract." 43
Are you a prisoner of previous decisions? Are you ready to strategically
liberate yourself of your bad habits so you can follow your heart? Do you know
what would give you most joy? Can you open yourself to the possibility of
universal power and magic in your life? Do you have a creative intent?
Understanding is the 12 th level of need, where all is ONE
Understanding follows experience. In order to explain the entire hierarchy of
need, I have divided it into twelve steps. Human beings are motivated by genetic
predisposition, instinct, desire, self-consciousness, and a will to understand how
we are indivisibly bound to a universal and creating Light, or what our ancestors
and our wisdom books have named God.
Indivisibly bound. This rather radical idea didn't alarm me when I first
came across it because my foray into the monastic brotherhood prepared me for
that radical Jesus declaration, "My Father and I are One."
Sharing that state of creative intelligence is the creative flow state when we
see that, no matter where we find ourselves in the hierarchy, or at what level need
we are assembling our perception, all our other needs also exist. As everything is
part of Oneness, no one thing can matter any more than any other thing.
Altruistic self-interest recognizes that each level has a significant impact on the
others.
At the top of the ladder we understand that by being a conduit for
universal force, we can cause change to occur when our will is aligned with
creative intent. Then, one step down, we see where and how to use that power.
We can stop time by stilling our inner dialog. From the quiet, joy from the next
good idea emerges.
My life's dramatic turn brought me back to square one. I had nothing but
the will to live happily. I was grasping for survival, unfulfilled at even my first
level needs. I was paralyzed, without a job, money or career. So I went within and
reached the source of Light. All I did have was a chance to get to know myself
and to understand the principles and procedures of creative motivation and
empowerment, so I took it. With nothing, I had nothing to lose. I decided to
learn about creative power and magic.
I made a list of all my needs. I knew what level I'd reached before the
accident. I'd enjoyed a promising career and had prosperous a future, fun
relationships, a relatively good dose of self-esteem, a seemingly enviable quality
of life, but also a bunch of emotional issues that were major contributors to my

accident. I adopted the rule to love God first so I'd find the power to love others
as myself.
And then I started getting real lucky.
At the bottom of the ladder, it was reasonably easy to see how to rebuild
my life to where it had been. I already had many positive neural pathways that
could lead me to happiness and I decided to ignore those that that led me to
unhappiness. I made a lot of changes, some of them radical. Instead of just
cutting things out of my life, I added those experiences I suspected might
increase my happiness. I tried all kinds of things.
Wisdom says the measure of a man is not how many times he fails, but
how many times he gets back up. How do you get a good idea? Get a lot of ideas
and throw out the bad ones. In short order, I was able to intuit next steps, put
together win-win-win scenarios and magically change things. For example, as a
wheelchair user, I often come into contact with architectural barriers. So I
learned all about practical, hands-on ways to adapt places and, with altruistic
self-interest, volunteered to work on universal access issues at several levels. So
I’ve managed to influence laws in local, national and international arenas and
help get things done.
Our insecurity causes us to react poorly to change. It makes us fail to
understand how change is the door to opportunity. Magical minds don't secondguess
themselves; they manage results. As you accept responsibility for your
inner life, recognize how the concept of oneness requires new ways of thinking
and different abilities than what is acceptable in a divisive and tribal worldview.
Human history is told in tales of broken friendships, ruptured alliances,
territorial lines drawn on a map, and savagery – both offensive and defensive.
The tribal mind is programmed to see the world in terms of “them and us” in
both geopolitics and love relationships, aligning values to exploit differences.
Politicians divide to conquer us. Depending on where we care to look,
they've successfully demonized races, colors, creeds, nations, cultures, languages
and genders that are different from their own. As a result, the whole Earth
system is struggling at the edge of chaos. Who will lead us to peace and
prosperity?
Unified minds concentrate on developing their higher intelligence and
personal power, investing all their energy with joy and compassion. Lifemanagement
at this level of realization is simple: creative self-empowerment is
all about choice. Everything that removes you from experiencing joy must be
questioned, and everything that brings you closer to participating in your life with
joy confirms that you're on the right track.
Are you aware that we are not all actualizing the same level of need as
yours? When you communicate with others, are you on the same

wavelength? What level of need does reading this book help you fill? Are
you aware of your soul's needs? Have you accepted that you must
actualize all your needs? Have you intuited your universal identity?
Altruistic self-interest: filling organizational needs
Every living being – whether a simple organism, a whole person, a family, a
company, a large community or a nation – has needs that it is motivated to
satisfy. Filling these needs is not only a personal matter; it is an organizational
thing as well.
Synthesis # 22 - The hierarchy of organizational need
Comparing personal and organizational needs
Personal need
Organizational need
7. Actualization needs Need for continuous improvement
6. Evolutionary needs Need for creativity and innovation
5. Quality of life needs Total Quality from empowerment
4. Ego needs Intra- or Entrepreneurship
3. Social needs Team building needs
2. Security needs Communication needs
1. Physical needs Health & Safety needs
In a workplace that several people must share, the organism's physical needs
relate to occupational health, safety, productivity and sustainability. Because we
cannot separate our quality of life from the quality of time we spend at work,
managing our professional needs has significant importance in the enjoyment of
our life.
We spend a major part of our lives working cooperatively with others in
some sense, so our security depends on efficient communication between
everyone involved in our work environment. A group's security needs are met by
forging strong and lasting communication bonds between the people performing
the tasks.
In order to answer the social needs of their workers, organizations will
encourage cooperation and teamwork. Invariably, a hierarchy and pecking order

appear. Instead of real collaboration, ego needs force people to play at petty and
political intrigue or other power games. Real teamwork comes from true
collaboration and sharing power.
The basis of participation in high performance teams is agreeing to let
your mind be influenced by the others. Anyone who refuses to change his or her
ideas can't possibly collaborate creatively, as that process demands exchange and
new synthesis.
Team members have a need for self-esteem, so that empowered leadership
and the sharing of responsibility can occur. This organizational need for
empowered people is also described to as intrapreneurship. An entrepreneur is
any dreamer who acts but an intrapreneur is someone who is self-empowered in
an enterprise that doesn't belong to him
Entrepreneurs see what needs have to be filled and, without asking
permission, offer to fill them. An intrapreneur is a dreamer with an
entrepreneurial attitude who works in an organization that doesn't belong to him
or her.
Intrapreneurs see the workplace in terms of "me and my company"
whereas many workers only stop at "me" and will consider the company to be
"them." Because the quality of life in the workplace is everyone's responsibility,
organizations must stimulate their workers so they'll improve their job function,
their workstation, their performance or their personal productivity.
As we become more creative and adept at making correct and successful
decisions, our personal options will broaden and so will our capacity to actualize
an organization's continuous need to adapt and improve. Then we'll be less likely
to follow the bush-league thinkers into failure destruction or folly. We'll be more
likely to organize ourselves for greatness. And we'll recognize our soul's oneness
with Infinity.
Have you accepted your potential for acquiring power? Are you benefiting
from your indivisible link to l.o.v.e., the universal and limitless oscillations of
vibrating energy? Do you participate in your professional and community life
with the realization that you are an equal part of a larger whole? Are you
consciously expanding your mind?

Chapter 7
WHEN POWER GETS PERSONAL
One Soul: Our ultimate identity
Absolute, relatively speaking
It all depends how you see it
Creative order includes a soul
Frequencies of soul: how the brain becomes mind
Magnitudes of soul: intensities of the Master Mind
Amplitudes of soul: ascension through the dimensions in mind
Of mind and mood
Your body's creative intelligence
"In the days of the 7 th angel, when he shall begin to speak, the mystery of God
should be finished, as He hath promised His servants, the prophets."
The Book Of Revelations

Chapter 7
THE SELF-EMPOWERED MIND
Human beings all over the world are actualizing a hierarchy of need. This quest
tends to dominate most of our lives because we are hardwired to satisfy those
needs in order to survive and even thrive. We must climb the evolutionary ladder
or die. In other words, self-actualization is a vertical zip, an ascent in spirit. To be
oppressed means to be somehow prevented from that ascension by outside
forces. Self-sabotage means the oppression comes from within.
In fact, human beings are programmed to pursue mind expansion, as in
survival of the wisest. Wise folks get that way by learning to adapt. From their
expanded mind perception, life extension seems to make good sense, as the
wisest generally live better and longer lives. As we mature, it becomes evident
that self-empowerment is the real key to a better life. Surviving and thriving
require degrees of personal power. There is, however, no place to suddenly buy it.
No one can give personal power away. Power must be claimed.
Given sufficient time to actualize our needs, we would eventually discover
our link to limitless power, but most of us break down along the way. We can
lament the fact that we don't come into the world with a set of instructions to
explain the care and repair of our body-mind but it won't help. If we did come
with a learner's manual, I most probably wouldn't be in a wheelchair now. I
didn't know that a stressed mind could attract disaster, but I became real
interested in the subject right after it happened to me.
Throughout our lives, we are urged from within to satisfy our pressing
needs and desires, and those that emerge as we progress, mature and grow.
Resistance to this pursuit stresses the whole body/mind system and determines
how we assemble our worldview, i.e., from a reactive, proactive, creative or
magical state of mind. This chapter looks at the whole
brain/mind/consciousness/universe as a unified system.
Our mindsets divide us socially, economically, and in every other way. So
we've got to learn to change our mind in some sense in order to become
empowered and to actualize our needs. Begin with a mindset that is accessible to
power. Then develop a dominant personality or a somewhat more forceful ego by
filling your needs. But hear the caution: even if people are attracted to the
dominant members of any group, they also fear them to some point.
In his book The Social Contract, anthropologist Robert Ardrey explains
how the pecking order is established in societies. "Dominance has long been
described as what happens when any two animals pursue the same goal - one
succeeds in establishing the dominant relation, the other becomes the

subordinate and that relationship will determine, without further quarrelling,
all other rivalries.” 44
This social contract allows us to follow strong leaders and to accept their
vision, actions, motivations and drives. We can thus avoid personal
responsibility for our excesses or failures in a self-sabotaging response to the
fight-or-flight syndrome. For many, this reaction is largely subconscious stress
that comes from genetic body/mind fears of tribal ostracism. Therefore
submissive personalities choose to let stronger tribe members have their way.
Submissiveness allows dominating behavior to lead, establish and
maintain the pecking order, and to officiate its rules. But, observing our leaders
over time, we come to doubt them and their vision, and so we regularly look for
paradigm-shifting change.
In animal packs, alpha males lead. In tribal societies, wise elders have the
most influence. But in modern times, it seems that only money talks. Even if
those elite members in any society often wield the illusion of power, real power
can only come from pursuing your own vision of a quality life, or your basic
survival needs plus those factors that relate to claiming your individuality, and
then reaching for joy and Infinity.
Abraham Maslow said that developing a more dominant personality
requires “…doing away with the need for the good opinion of others." 52
Actualizing one's own inner vision of quality of life propels the self-directed
movement that promotes the growth that can be translated into personal power.
And having a strong personality is important when individuals of unequal assets,
abilities and strengths must live together.
Leadership skills evolve from mimicry and practice. We learn to use
management tools by observing significant others and experiencing what works
for us. We are shown how we should relate to important people when we are
children and many of us never outgrow those early paradigms. How you relate to
authority tells a lot about how you will use authority yourself and if you even
consider concepts like strategy and personal power. Do you lead or follow? Do
you take what you need or must someone give you permission? Do you act
decisively or do you wait for instructions? What does power mean to you?
Why do some people thrive when so many others get stressed out? I
recently heard golfer Tiger Woods give the answer when he explained how he
feels about marching down the fairway over the last few holes in a tight match,
when all the pressure is on. He described every aspect of the human fight or
flight stress reaction, except for one. He smiled with a wide-eyed pleasure and
added, "I really love that feeling!"
Love really is the answer. The mood releases hormones that heal stress
but we can only discover it through experience. Reading about it doesn't do it.

People are fascinated by dominant personalities who seem to have found
their mythic identity. We both admire and resent leaders who shape our
opinions and our destinies. Witness the cult-like following of movie actors or
rock stars and measure the influence wielded by politicians; but also look at how
media-frenzy quickly feeds off of a fallen hero, or watch paranoia rise if you
describe them with the word cult to understand what I mean.
We tend to gravitate toward people who have personal power. Not
everyone is for the same reasons. Some want to bathe in the energy, other folks
are drawn to the dark side of powerful people. The admiration we give elite
members of society represents a desire to be like them. We want to do away with
the limits of our own tribal thinking and claim both our ego and our identity.
Even if only subconsciously, most of us do recognize that self-actualization
requires claiming the power that comes from having a creative spirit.
Ardrey explains that our fascination with powerful personalities is really a
longing for fulfillment by osmosis. We hope power has a trickle-down effect, or
that it might somehow be catching. But he also says that the mythic identity of
dominant people, like their charisma, is only the sense of mission that marks how
they pursue their own needs.
Dominant personalities have an unabashed preoccupation with
themselves and their own views and interests, and they possess the desire to
actualize their own will. They understand that we become powerful by taking
care of ourselves and that we become prosperous by helping others take care of
their self too.
Self-empowerment means claiming your individuality and taking care of
yourself. That may be a frightening prospect for many because it involves adding
an unknown (a rather metaphysical hope that an empowered identity can link
them to cosmos) to our known (the ego and its habitual thinking). Because it
resists what it perceives to be the price it must pay for claiming its true self (my
more spiritual state of mind means giving up), the reactive mind fights for
survival. "I must change to be a self-empowered leader but if I change will I still
be 'good old me'?"
This generic yet very personal question can only be resolved by honing our
will in the creative fire where we perceive and esteem our whole self (our bodymind-soul).
The search for cosmic identity is a quest that 's defined by how well
we understand the self that we are expected to esteem and actualize.
So how do you see your empowered self? Who are you really? Can you only
consider your physical body or do you have a more spiritual identity, an inner
life? Are you leading your own life or following someone else's dream? Are you
a dominant force in your environment or a submissive one? Have you
discovered passion yet?

One Soul: Your ultimate identity
Many psychologists believe that a neurosis is a form of fear of freedom, arguing
that we humans experience a lot of problems coming to grips with our
individuality. As such, we prefer to submerge ourselves in mass behavior, social
ritual, implausible beliefs and rather cavalier agreements about “us” and “them”,
and about what's right and wrong.
Fear-based thinking is where most of our social codes, ethics and laws
come from. Some of them are real doozies. Some are barbaric. Unfortunately,
most of us blindly accept the truths we were taught as children. These beliefs
have replaced the self-determining core values and guiding principles that can
transform us into empowered leaders. It stops us from getting what we really
need: an understanding of our sacred identity. We must grow from accepting I
am! to discovering Who am I, really?
Carl Jung believed that the cause of mental breakdown in the majority of
the people he treated had to do with their failure to connect with the inner
identity that could supply them with a sense of oneness with the whole of life.
While most of his later years were spent concerned with what his colleagues
dismissed as superstition, he was in fact looking into the roots of religious belief,
into alchemy, astrology, myth and magic. 45
Religion holds that man is linked to God, the Creator of universe, and that
we all share that soul. From the Latin “re legentia” - the word religion means to
link again. Empowering religious practices want to unite individual perception
and God, so that we find the creativity that links us to the creative Source. Jung
considered this quest for ONE to mean connecting with our universal identity,
our absolute and primal creating energy. He suggested this pursuit should lead
to our “true will” since it helps us discover the creative reason for being.
Enlightenment occurs when the personal mind and the God-mind are
ONE mind in an absolute “aha!” moment. Then the universe reveals its formulae
for success: Along with Survive & Prosper:
Energy contained = Force
Force focused = Power
Power - Obstruction = Vitality
In his own way, Jung was exploring the demands of the Absolute. He wanted to
experience the choices implied by identifying with the Sacred. He found that
every symbol and archetype from the dream world has value, and that we can

find guidance by relating universal meanings to our personal life. He was busy
filling his own need for identity when he stumbled into myth and magic. While at
death's door during a serious illness in 1944, he felt himself pulled out of his body
only to be called back by the voice of his doctor. And that was the beginning of
"…the second and most fruitful half of my long life." 46
Religious belief must be replaced by the direct experience of mystics so we
can be sure that our personal continuity, that universal Soul, really does exist.
The world's gods and demons haven't disappeared; they've merely acquired new
names. Today's god is more often money, and the world's demons are called
anxiety, phobia, stress and burnout. These are new names for the soul sicknesses
of old. The world’s breakdown comes as a direct result of overtaxing our tribal
brain and letting the limited ego rule.
Realizing how psychology concentrates more on symptoms than on the
metaphysical causes of disease, offering few real solutions, Jung suggested: "…we
turn away from ritual and therapy in order to embrace 'the art of living'." 47
He found that most people experience life in one of two ways: We either
behave as if pleasure might suddenly be taken away from us, or as if life is too
scary a process to fully engage ourselves in it with real abandon. We either
charge our way into opportunities and relationships, or we wait passively to be
rewarded by them; we enthuse or we doubt; we provoke or we question; we love
or we live with apathy; we achieve or we drift aimlessly, all in our quest for a life's
reward: connectivity.
Actualizing a superior quality of life is no longer a big mystery. Just climb
the ladder, giving superior quality thinking to every aspect of your life. Do this
and acquire the power needed to fill in the details. Simply stated, giving superior
thinking to your life means knowing what you want and letting others know it
with a certain degree of assertiveness.
As things can get a little testy when everyone is looking for the same
banana, making sure you are clearly understood by others will create a greater
likelihood that your own needs are met and that your place in the overall scheme
of things is respected.
Asserting oneself, in a certain sense, means communicating with sufficient
emotional force to establish order and negotiate outcomes. Then any
disagreement or dispute can be settled and any trespass amicably forgiven.
Communicating with power means having a creative intent and
maintaining the confidence that you will reach your goals while realizing that the
people you exchange with can help you do it.
Powerful people thus empower others to help them by encouraging them
to express themselves openly. In this way they can see who, where, when and

how others can help – or not. Acquiring personal power means developing five
important aspects in our selves.
Synthesis 22 - The 5 keys to communicating with power
To cultivate personal power, develop:
A strong physical presence
An emotional authority
An intellectual assertiveness
A spiritual accessibility
A creative force
A strong physical presence is an image that is consistent with having a healthy
body and healthy dose of self-esteem. Walk proud, stand tall with your shoulders
back and maintain a steady gaze (in my case I sit tall and preside). Self-esteem
has to do with the quality of your energy so you credibly project the message you
want communicated out there. The quality of your consciousness in here
becomes important as you realize how out there tends to react. If you don't
esteem yourself, why should I?
People are attracted to great personalities, with some reservation. Leaders
don't wait for others to come forward. When dealing with them, consider that
you have something of value to offer, look them in the eye, greet them with a firm
and friendly handshake and tell ’em. Use a sure, even tone to state who you are
and what you want of them; and use body language – movement and gesture – to
emphasize your point. Display passion but do it in a measured and focused way.
Then wait for them to give you some complete answers.
Emotional authority comes from calming your inner fire while you wait.
You achieve this by having confidence in your abilities, by recognizing that you
deserve to succeed and by knowing how to negotiate outcomes. Deal with any
answer that is given to you as if you expect the person you are addressing to find
creative solutions to any problem, and communicate your willingness to help
them find those solutions.

Suggest to them how your needs can best be served. Radiate warmth and
confidence and maintain an honest can do attitude, showing that you are ready to
patiently work out any and every detail.
Intellectual assertiveness means being honest, direct and tenacious
without anger or impatience. It means being proactive: creative process +
strategy + motivation. An assertive attitude works best in conjunction with
emotional maturity, self-respect and a respect for others. From this position
you'll see that your own needs, goals and desires are equal to those of any other.
Assert your inner self by wanting to cooperate, negotiate and influence.
Negotiation is not a race, so stick with it with unbending intent until you
have forged your desired outcomes. That old bit of strategy, keep your friends
close and your enemies closer, was probably thought up with this idea in mind.
The way that resolution can occur over the long haul has to do with a likeability
factor. We can't get into somebody's face with aggression and then expect
them to feel like sticking around and helping us. Help others make the needed
neurological links between their own acts and your instructions to help yourself
and practice magic. Radiate l.o.v.e. Use its conciliatory and win-win language
and see if you can cause their mind to change.
Spiritual accessibility means that you are available to other points of view
and you hear them with empathy. Powerful people try to understand what
others are thinking before trying to be understood by them. With this creative
strategy, they deliver the correct message in the correct way. Empowered
communicators, persuaders, realize that ideas are energy that can be contained
into a transactional force. Force focused is power. Give quality to your
communications and imbue them with the power to convince by first considering
who you'd like to convince and what convinces them.
Realizing how the mind responds to both positive and negative emotional
charges, magical people will encode their communications with appropriate
emotion in order to attract a resonant want to response from the people they are
exchanging with. Brain science and studies of hemispheres show how can do is
linked to want to, so a positive want to attract a positive can do. The lesson
learned by empowered individuals is that persuasiveness has less to do with
what's communicated and more to do with how their message is received.
Empowered people develop transactional force and maintain a network of
collaborators with whom they can positively and quickly exchange energy and
ideas. In this way they are assured support for their interests and an
environment where they can make lucky connections and join with like-minded
others in projects based on common interests and mutual gain.
Add the power l.o.v.e. to your transactions with others, and I guarantee it
will change your life. If the idea that love is magic is new to you, practice turning
it on a few times in an out of the way setting that won't matter much to your ego.

Experience how the world responds to you when you lead with love and go there
first with every response.
Actualizing a happy life is summarized this way: how you do it is what you
are doing! Realize that your ideas will continue to be communicated even if you
are no longer in physical contact with others; now they are a part of the Morphic
universe, competing with every other thought.
What do your ideas say about you after you've left? Did your behavior
seduce people to feel like helping you? Was your intent clear? Did you get
positive results? Generally speaking, are you communicating with sufficient
power to actualize your needs?
Don't muddy up your message – your instructions, request, desire, etc. –
with meaningless patter, non-descriptive words, slang or jargon. How
strategically you treat your every day communications can imbue them with force
and power, so get right to the point in a clear and concise way. Develop an
effective vocabulary to explain how others can help you.
Filling needs is hard work, so why do it alone? Take the lead by asking
others how you can be of help to them, and then teach them how to give you what
you require. Learn to profit from the golden rule. See it as a proactive force and a
license to act, and then watch magic happen.
Absolute, relatively speaking
Self-esteem involves surpassing ego limits to embrace our universal and sacred
identity. People who are truly empowered have transformed themselves into
their whole and creative self. Artist Pablo Picasso gives us a glimpse into this
transformation when he says, "I am always doing that which I cannot do in
order that I may learn how to do it."
Magical people unite their “I am a physical body” perception to a
metaphysical “I am universal energy” and experience the oneness perception: “I
am a co-creative being!” Having eliminated the fear that maintained ego in a
duality mode, their mind is now profoundly transformed. In recognition of their
universal identity, they are empowered to actualize higher needs. Then, as they
unite body and soul, a more enlightened mind results.
That famous Cartesian statement, I think therefore I am, points out the
perceptual separation that exists between mind and matter. It explains how we
don't see out there directly, but think it in here. The division distances us from
recognizing creative order since it obliges us to reason with a duality that isn't
real in the universe at large.

Over the last one hundred years, physicists have produced science that
determined how the physical universe is energy, and the energy contained by
sub-atomic particles that join together in atomic and molecular forms. At certain
levels of self-organization physics becomes biology, which evolves with
consciousness. The relative energy is a constant light frequency that's not only
creative - it is intelligent and influenced by the way we think, individually.
Energy is not immediately available in the sense of running down to an
ocean of energy and scooping some up. Most of the universal energy is occupied
being the world and everything in it, visible and invisible. Knowing how energy
is everything, though, gives us a glimpse into our own creative potential.
You can recognize that understanding your true will, your soul, will have
strategic importance when you want to develop your creative capital. Before
investing your time, energy and resources into anything, it's wise to know the
territory.
The universe may seem complex, but it is quickly demystified if you
understand its four fundamental forces. As mentioned above, a force is energy
contained, so think of the basic forces as what energy is doing. Universal energy
is occupied by four basic jobs.
Here's what I've seen: Existence is Creator’s INTENT - or Light - is
contained by two macrocosmic forces called gravity and electromagnetism, and
two microcosmic forces called the strong nuclear interaction and the weak
nuclear interaction. These forces can be broken down into secondary forces and
are indivisibly bound with quantum force. Those 4 fundamental forces are
complemented by their containment in a hyperspace, which is behaving as the
perfect contradiction to each force. Hyperspace is then a universal anti-force.
Gravity is energy as it’s contained in movement and direction. Its
direction comes from a secondary force called Spin force. Because the spin force
directs movement from here to there, gravity is being expressed as a time-wave.
Electromagnetism is universal energy contained in a field of transverse
wave-patterns that are displacing space. Space is not empty. It’s filled with fields
of electric, magnetic, non-electric and gravitational waves of energy. These
limitless oscillations of vibrating energy meet at right angles to each other.
Secondary forces are fashioning the electro-magnetic field into things we
recognize - like acoustics, optics, heat, light, cosmic rays, etc. The visible light
spectrum - from infra red to ultra violet - has a very minute range in that field, so
do consciousness and those things that go bump in the night: Think of radio
waves, x-rays, microwaves.
Think of energy as digital (+) and (-) and so then wireless phones,
magnetic imaging, ultra sound technology and PET scans are possible. So

Quantum, fusion, lasers, and satellites in Space give you a glimpse into the
possibilities. What about time travel and fusion potential?
Together, our perception, gravity and electromagnetism form the Time-
Space-Consciousness universe. In continuum, energy is contained as intelligence
and then transformed by the two microcosmic nuclear interactions into in a
sphere of awareness and all things intelligent.
The two forces co-create existence by constantly uniting tiny bits of energy
into larger forms and breaking them apart. In continuum, inside anything that
seem solid, the strong nuclear interaction (also known as the force of unification
or the binding force) joins together energy as it spins into bits of matter and then
organizes those into larger forms. Meanwhile the weak nuclear interaction is
looking to disorganize them and set them free.
From unity and self-organization came need and differentiation, and then
diversity, complexity, biology, and rules. Universal ONEness can be seen at work
in the laboratory. One reason stem-cell research is such an important field,
offering hope for so many people, is that these magical bits of biology are able to
become a working part of larger organisms, and a great variety of organisms. A
stem cell can become brain tissue or spinal tissue or part of an eye or anything,
depending on what's required. Molecules, tiny spheres of energy, bind together
in magical and mysterious ways. At that level, our races, colors and creeds, and
politics of the petty kind don't really have any place.
As part of this grand unification process, the strong nuclear interaction, a
non-electric force, glues bits of Time-Space-Consciousness into particles by
binding them with gluons. Unification is seen giving creative intent to gravity's
movement.
The 4 th force, the weak nuclear interaction, aka the radioactive force or the
force of entropy, imposes a life-limit on every different part because, when all the
forces come into play, that same one energy is contained and thus constricted by
all of them. Any bit that stubbornly insists on remaining apart is as good as dead.
Solid forms exist as a resistance to universal and formless energy; energy is
molded into matter countless times each instant.
Science has counted some of those tiny bits and physicists tell us that, at
subatomic levels [+W mesons], energy is being created and destroyed 180,000
times a second. The amazing thing about all this is that when I say a second, I'm
still referring to the timeless constant now.
Over limitless time, all things fade or break down to their essence, into
pure energy. As that Neil Young song reminds us, "Rust never sleeps." All goes
back into ONE. God is absolute Light as contained by hyperspace.
In human dynamics, energy-in-motion can be described as two forces we’ll
call the erotic drive (binding us to the l.o.v.e. of universe) and the aggressive drive

(entropy in reaction to fear). These two human forces contain our e-motional
polarities and thus dictate how we’ll react to our life and death scenarios.
Together, the 4 fundamental forces are containing primal energy, a
realization that is indivisibly greater than the sum of its parts. Concluding that
our emergence from the oneness was not as random an event as some would like
to believe, Albert Einstein intuited that a creative link is binding everything in
space/time transformations. He spent a great deal of his later years trying to find
a single mathematical equation that could explain all of creation and its Creator
in a unified field formula.
His modern idea of unifying all of the world's forces into oneness has
ancient roots. Metaphysicians, magicians and sorcerers have been doing it for
eons. At the dawn of history, the forces of the universe itself were known to be
aspects of one God. Early Christians described the one God as the force of
creation indivisibly manifest as three forms or persons: God as the Father, God as
the Holy Spirit and God as the Son.
In that worldview, God the Father says of Himself, "I am Alpha and
Omega…the beginning and the end." In this way, God the Father asserts that He
is all of TIME itself, the whole play.
God the Holy Spirit relates how "The Spirit (Energy) of God is
everywhere." Then God is the whole spirit of the limitless energy of SPACE itself,
the whole energy.
God the Son says of Himself, "I am the 'word' made flesh." Jesus the son
of man stated he is a resonating vibration of energy, bound in biological FORM, a
god-human evolving in time-space. With his declaration, "The Father and I are
one!" he was not the first nor will he be the last person to understand that
humans are Light-beings... God!
We are God's creative intent. Learning, actualizing, teaching and sharing
that degree of self-awareness is our human birthright. A magician, God the Son-
Jesus tells his followers, "What I have done, you will also do these things and
much more."
Uniting ancient wisdom and modern science, a Theophysics synthesis
concludes that God the Father is the absolute now time, and God the Holy Spirit
is the subjective here space. Space and Time here/now require God the Son – i.e.
each one of us – to paradigm-shift into responsibility. "I am a creative force
here/now awake. God’s creating INTENT is that I « Survive & Prosper ».”
God the Son - as idea meaning that you are the creator of your life
becomes your sacred identity. It is mine too and so many other leaders in
history. This is the meaning of the Second Coming of Christ. Now there's a
mathematical formula, an absolute, to back it up. So go for it. Take your creative
power!

Barely different from ancient metaphysics, Theophysics is gleaning some
very pragmatic rules from the mysticism that has guided humankind since the
beginning. Every one of us is attached to the unified whole. Each of us is linked to
an infinite creating Intelligence.
Imagine the potential! Imagine the genius! But first consider the rule: in
order to further understand our own existence, we must paradigm-shift into a
new way of seeing our mind, our place in the cosmic scheme of things and our
relationship to the greater whole.
We have to assemble with eyes that see harmony, beauty, love and joy. In
fact genius is as simple as feeling Nature's creative order and its self-organizing
principles.
It all depends how you see it
Everything is Light, a field of consciousness bound in Time-Space. And your
perception, how you think, is the relativity. Because this fact is a constant, being
alive offers a constant choice: Accept and explore the larger reality outside your
limiting sphere of consciousness - your link to its magical potential - or not.
Science and religion have already agreed that we are more than we think
we are. If we shift perceptual modes, we can see that we have both a physical
body and an energy body: matter and spirit. For a glimpse into your real
potential, you have to realize that we don't have two bodies. Rather, there are two
ways of seeing your one body. How you see it is part of the magic.
Prior to my accident I saw the world out there with my eyes and thought it
solid and real. Then I was dead and my out-of-body view saw a lot, lot more
wonder than that. I saw Light. I saw a creating Intelligence. In my mind, I saw
God directly, without the benefit of thinking Him. He isn't what I'd thought. It's
much more wondrous than that. It's indivisibly One. It's therefore constantly
creative and intelligent. And funny.
Imagine how I felt. At a specific moment, I felt myself fall within my body,
as if fainting but staying awake for the trip. Imagine that all of a sudden,
everything that you see out there has collapsed. You see it begin to dissolve as
you to fall into yourself, and then both you and out there spiral into collapse as if
water down drain.
Imagine suddenly seeing your own head as if it was a washbasin, your
mind as if it was water and the world out there as if images made of soap in the
basin. Imagine your mind like a whirling stream of fluid discarnate soapy images
(awareness) and suddenly, mind and out there are slipping down the drain.
Imagine your mind being sucked into a single point and then exploding into Pure

Light, or love, at the other end. Your imagining might give you a glimpse of what
I experienced at the moment of my death.
From the movement of falling inside, I found myself suddenly outside of
my body. That was during my second near-death experience, so I was less scared
of the collapsing inward feeling. When I fell out of my body again, I realized that
I wasn't really dying. I wasn't the body. Then I was suddenly filled with such joy
that I felt myself grow in, how to explain, anti-weight or having less gravity, and
suddenly being propelled through the hospital ceilings and pulled at increasing
and incredible speeds into space. I traveled across Infinity until I experienced
myself in total blackness. And I saw Pure Light.
As soon as I could, I wrote notes of my experience, explaining that I'd seen
God-intelligence emerge from a single point in an absolute void - a hyperspace -
and become the world and everything in it. I saw Pure Light - l.o.v.e. - the
limitless oscillating vibration energy of universe that is [e = mc 2 and e = hf] as
creative intelligence, and it organized itself into countless billion bits of world
and everything in it.
A phenomenon that quantum physicists call the observer effect explains
how waves of energy only collapse into points of potential matter when they are
observed. Only then are they solid in any real sense, or as conjunctions in timespace
that can be measured. Physicists know that when they aren't observed,
particles of solid matter are more properly viewed as intersecting waves of
energy, or as an electromagnetic field of oscillation. At higher magnitudes in the
field, energy is consciousness. That means that solid particles are really tiny
pieces of time-space-mind.
Neither my brain's organic memory nor my Judeo-Christian beliefs had
prepared me to experience myself out of my body, to experience myself as soul or
energy potential. Switch the language around to fit what you might want believe,
but for me, in that first instant, everything changed. I saw beyond the solid
world, I saw where all is Light. I was so exalted in the perception that I prayed I
would never forget. And I never have. I left the hospital with a new mind and
continue to see everything with its light aura extending from it.
Then, over years, I learned to focus on how the aura interacts within and
without its people, first in myself and then in others, and fills their sphere of
awareness.
When I wondered how to integrate the phenomenon of seeing people as
ceaselessly changing energy fields (or inside bubbles of light), fate interrupted in
my life again and introduced me to a Theophysics that explains the particles of
mass (including you and me) as being more than we think.
In a Theophysics worldview, molecules are more than countless billiard
balls bouncing back and forth in ceaseless reaction. Solid particles only represent
conjunctions where universal forces can be observed. To see all the forces in

action, we'd see limitless oscillations of vibrating filaments of Light - pure
Intelligence - at it assembles those countless bits of matter.
Theophysics describes a unified view of the universe in which time-spaceconsciousness
emerges from a hyperspace [e = mc 3 ] as a limitless outpouring of
creating intelligence, to then radiate outwards [4 p r 3 / 3] over a discrete distance
[4 p r 2 ] where it is limited into spheres of consciousness. Once it's out there,
consciousness behaves according to laws of matter and energy [e = mc 2 ] until it is
reclaimed into a hyperspace.
Whereas science recently informed us of discoveries that explain how
atomic particles have intelligence, paradigm-shift to understand that infinite
Intelligence is the particles that are forming us. You and I are "The Word Made
Flesh".
If you only see yourself as a physical body, your view is partial and
therefore somewhat chaotic. If you see how your solid body is also somehow
energy, you're in transition mode, or paradigm-shift. If you see energy as
filaments of Light resonating in an infinite potential – well, consider how that
potential reveals itself as we think, grow and make things happen, linking our
neurons.
As we allow the full measure of universal intelligence - consciousness - to
enlighten us, we are participating in creative order, in cosmos. Seeing how that
limitless energy is pure l.o.v.e. can make everything magical.
Creative order includes a soul
Quantum physics can explain how we are both matter and Light. Not either/or,
but both.
Theophysics can then tell us how we must expand our mind to overlap and
acquire this cosmic consciousness. First we must learn think of ourselves as both
a physical body and metaphysical soul. Try it this way. I am mind, a limited
sphere of consciousness. When I look out there, beyond my sphere, I see solid
things; but if I look in here, within my sphere of mind, I see awareness, energy
and Light.
Perception is the trick. The only thing preventing us from understanding
God and creative intent is how we perceive. Focus out there and think, and you'll
only see the illusion, the form created from formlessness. Focus in here and stop
thinking to see the formless creating intent, the unifying Light that is the soul of
things.
Don't think to the past because God didn't create the world a long time ago
in some storybook. Don't think future because God is not waiting somewhere to

judge us. Don't think, because as God is creating the world here/now in a
quantum way (that means He is indivisibly bound to creation), your thinking may
be interfering with your perception.
Months after I left the rehab hospital, I had another out-of-body
experience, this time without dying. In that experience I was bathed in Pure
Light once again, this time allowing me to understand something that's critically
important to my new worldview: we don't have to die to have a Pure Light
experience.
Those traumatic happenings were an indirect result of what occurred to
me. Death stopped my inner dialogue, my thinking. That's because my
consciousness was no longer interacting with my brain. And when my
consciousness was freed from my brain, I experienced the universe, the non-local
here/now and everywhere else universe, in a direct way, the way it really is, as
energy and potential.
Light emerges from hyperspace as a creative intent, and then it tones
down into the limitless oscillations of vibrating energy that's forced into form. I
had a direct experience of myself as a soul. While I was out-of-body, I saw the
Light, the creating word of God, become the all in all. I saw God become me. I
can't take myself that seriously because I saw God become you and everything
else too. I saw God's pure intelligence face to face, in here and out there, without
dying.
My paradigm shifted again. Before I thought of myself as a body and a
soul. Then I saw myself as a soul energizing a body. I saw my body being created
from soul. There's a subtle but very fundamental difference. Before, I thought I
was human and having a spiritual experience but now, I recognized that I'm a
spiritual being having a human experience.
Universal law allows for both, so the difference lies in which view we care
to experience, the spin we care to give it. Body and soul both exist, and mind is
the transition point between them. I always suggest identifying with the soul
because the body dies.
I'll dare to tell you that my own quality of life – and I've come a long way
back from being dead, having a paralyzed body and facing financial ruin – is
much better served because of my inner life. I understand myself as a soul
animating a body. I claimed my sacred identity and decided that Creator was
animating a broken body on wheels, acted according to what gave me and others
joy, and let Infinity take care of the details. And from my own actions, I began to
see that l.o.v.e. is magic.
We are beings of Light even if our tribal/social brains have trouble with
the concept. But I'll paraphrase the old wisdom question to highlight that
knowing how to see your soul is crucially important. How will you profit from all
the kingdoms of the material world if you lose your soul?

Understanding that I am a soul with a body attached required that I
develop a new syntax. I needed a new language and new neural connections with
a lot of my old data. It's important to know how this works because the way our
soul, or consciousness, is interacting with our brain and central nervous system is
what's creating our mind.
The mind can be understood in terms of the frequency, magnitude and
amplitude of the consciousness that is interacting with a subjective brain.
Understanding your mind implies knowing a little more about both its biological
mass – brain – and its quantum energy states – consciousness – as they assemble
your perceptions into logic. The biological mass is more than gray matter; it's a
mass of chemicals that interact electrically. Your brain and universal energy, or
consciousness, are interacting, and the result of that interaction is your mind.
Regardless of your mind's content, we can monitor the interaction.
Frequency is the measure of the number of interactions between your
consciousness and your brain. It counts those interactions over a specified
period of time. Magnitude is a measure of the intensity of light, the brightness,
reflected by your consciousness during those interactions. Amplitude measures
the force contained by consciousness when it is assembling your mind.
Frequencies of soul: how the brain becomes mind
I'll explain in chapter 10 how to master the frequency modulation between your
brain and consciousness so you can reach for more creative power whenever your
habitual thinking is intent on a little self-sabotage. Frequency measures how
universal consciousness, or your soul, is interacting with your brain in hertz or
cycles per second as registered by an EEG machine, an electroencephalograph.
Realizing how perception and creative self-empowerment depend on the
quality of your use of consciousness, you can manage your brain by becoming
more aware of the three variables in your states of awareness that experts call the
level of activation, the source and the mode.
J.A. Hobson, a researcher at Harvard University, reveals that the sources
of consciousness can be in here, or awareness generated by our instinct or will,
and out there, or awareness triggered by an external source like an image, music
or a conversation. Self-awareness comes in the mirror of those two sources of
influence.
In The Chemistry Of Conscious States, Hobson explains that our level of
activation refers to the frequency of brainwaves generated and recorded on an
EEG. The brain moves between different states of consciousness – from
conscious, subconscious, unconscious and even Super-conscious states – but we
only notice our level of activation in terms of the information that's available to
us. 48

He explains that because we retrieve information with our mind for our
ego perception, only two terms are required to describe their source: information
comes from conscious and non-conscious states of mind. The first describes the
data we access at a desired moment, and the other is what is not available at that
time. To a perceiver, what realm of the mind information is coming from doesn't
really matter. We act as if any information in our mind is our opinion, if not the
truth.
Mode is our degree of neural activity. Hobson refers to the brain's primary
chemical states as the wakeful state managed by one's own instinct and volition
and the creative states characterized by REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, by
dreams and by lucid dreaming. These altered brain states also include delusions
that are often characterized by visions, hallucination or unmanaged lucidity and
other mania.
These perceptual modes are what anthropologist Carlos Castaneda refers
to as states of ordinary and non-ordinary reality. An empowered mind manages
the flow of consciousness in its brain to magically conjure the most appropriate,
correct and viable information, as and when required.
Synthesis # 24 - The frequencies of soul in your state of mind
MEASURED ON AN EEG, CONSCIOUSNESS IS INTERACTING
WITH OUR BRAIN IN FIVE MAIN OPERATING MODES
In the +40 hertz down to 14 hertz or BETA brainwave states, we are conscious,
relatively self-aware and focused out there.
In the 14 hertz - 8 hertz ALPHA brainwave states, we are self-aware, focused in
here, contemplative, meditative and dreamy.
In the 8 hertz -4 hertz THETA brainwave states, we are less self-conscious, more
focused, and we are either visualizing our world or seeing our worldview dissolve
into dreaming.
In the 4 hertz to the edge of 0 hertz, in the DELTA brainwave state, we are lucid
and aware of a larger world of in-here-dream. We participate in a physical world
that extends into Morphic densities. There is an infinite creating Intelligence.
Inside the flat-line at 0 hertz, in the Ømega state, brain liberates subjective
consciousness so it becomes aware of the l.o.v.e - the limitless oscillations of
vibrating energy of universe. We participate with the Intent creating the whole.

In the Beta brainwave states, at 14 to more than 40 hertz, the brain's
consciousness is fractured into a multitude of distinct thoughts. Here we are
awake and aware. Mood can assemble many potential thoughts into a view that
will be projected out there, onto the world. Some people have sufficient force to
actually impose their views on others and cause them to conjure up the mood
that assembles the desired pictures in their own mind.
Relax and ride the Alpha waves, where cerebral activity diminishes into
the 14 to 8 hertz range and the flow of consciousness enters meditative states
where we can actually be aware of our awareness. Relax, close your eyes and
you'll soon see all kinds of random and general pictures from your life floating
past your mind's I. Relaxed meditation lets us sift through our sphere of
consciousness and recognize how much baggage we've actually stored there.
Mood decides which of those images from our past we'll later assemble
and project out there on our family, friends or colleagues, so making sure we sort
out our junk on a regular basis is an empowering strategy. After all, it isn’t really
the devil who makes us do bad things; it comes from our feeding our selfsabotaging
habits.
Then, into Theta waves from 8 to 4 hertz, consciousness moves around the
brain slowly enough so that I can control it at will. “aha!” We've crossed the
threshold. At 7.89 hertz, we feel life's pulse and see the larger dreamscape that
extends from it, the collective consciousness. Now we are awake in our dreaming
body. These energy states are also measures of electromagnetic fields and subatomic
waves, so we see from the perspective of our body of Light. Here we
assemble the magical universe.
We do it all the time when asleep and call it dreaming. Awake, with
creative visualization, we'll realize that we can assemble intelligence from
anywhere in mind.
A fluid mind can transform old thought-patterns into innovative
realizations, “aha!” new ideas and even create new neurons in the brain. We can
link information from a wide variety of pathways with conscious, creative and
empowering “inter legencia”. Relax and see the potential of your own Theta
brainwave state. Dream a better future and then awaken and make that dream
come true.
On Delta brainwaves, in the minus 4 to 0 hertz state of mind, in that
deeply relaxed brain where all is lucid and Light, our conscious thoughts are
barely audible, a murmur in a torrent of intelligence available. But our moods
exist and they, electric as they are, still have attractive power. This is where the
brain becomes aware that the inner world overlaps with out there and shares
filaments of consciousness. Here we'll see that matter is an extension of soul and
that the world is magic.

At these frequencies, matter provides very little interference to mind and
moods are the assemblers of creation. Here we can visit worlds beyond limit and
beyond ego with experiences of a lucid kind. In dreams, we can explore our
reason for being and learn how to express our unique creative identity. We can
dream any dream. We can dream that we are dreaming and then we can wake
elsewhere. Learn to master mood and you can open doorways across Infinity.
At the Ømega point frequency, when consciousness is no longer in contact
with the brain, you will perceive that all is energy, and that “One” energy is
Light/consciousness. You and I are more than organic lumps of meat. We are a
magnitude, amplitude and frequency of God's soul.
No longer hindered by a mass of meaty neurons separating thought into
countless parts, consciousness experiences pure Light, l.o.v.e., and magic.
After identifying yourself as a soul, or as light waves, and learning to set
aside your solid body view long enough to appreciate it, you'll realize that matter
– what you left behind – interfered with claiming your immortality.
The mind is empowered as you allow your higher nature to lead the way.
Maintaining a creative intent and identifying with Light, be it l.o.v.e., soul, true
will, holy spirit or whatever else you'd care to name it, will direct your attention
to those tools and resources that can empower you in physical, emotional,
intellectual and spiritual ways.
Magnitudes of soul: intensities of the Master Mind
To see the soul, you have to look at energy's degrees of brightness. Think of a
burst of energy, whether a tiny burst like proton or a giant one like a star. When
energy emerges from hyperspace, it radiates out in every direction to its
gravitational limit, which then describes a limited sphere of light. The intensity of
light, the magnitude of its brightness, allows the burst to reach much further.
When a burst of energy has sufficient brightness to overlap and combine
with other energies, creative and even magical things can happen.
The mind reaches five magnitudes of consciousness, from lower to higher
intensities of Light. A mind has to reach these higher levels of awareness in
order to acquire a dominant personality, so we can surmise that Nature's plan is
that we access these greater magnitudes of creative intelligence. Magic occurs
after we do. In my case, I can testify that my own capacity to link with awareness
that's not mine allows me to assemble a much larger view of the possible than I
would be able to alone. I believe in magic because it works whenever I do.
The following intensities of soul offer any subjective brain/mind a magical
perspective on the world. Each is a window through which the mind can receive,

synthesize and project information. The choices available to a mind that is
contemplating at magnitude five are not the same ones that are available at
magnitude one or two.
Synthesis # 25 - The magnitudes of soul in your state of mind
Magnitude as a measure of the consciousness in brain/mind
The fist magnitude in brain/mind is the state of being self-aware, or conscious.
The second magnitude in brain/mind is the state of being aware of
consciousness.
The third magnitude in brain/mind is subjective will at an intensity of seeing
consciousness as universal energy.
The fourth magnitude in brain/mind experiences universal consciousness as
l.o.v.e., or as a limitless oscillation of vibrating energy.
The fifth magnitude in brain/mind is experienced oneness with l.o.v.e. as the
force of creating Intent. This state of mind shares actualizes Superconsciousness,
aka Cosmic or Christ consciousness, or God-mind, or any other
name for the brain illuminated by Divine Light and pure creating Intelligence.
When your brain interacts with energy at magnitude one, it means you are alive,
aware and processing data. Your Lights are on and your brain's consciousness,
both as the stuff of the universe and the essence of your human experience, is
being processed. At this degree of brightness, a mind will be reactive to its
limited sphere of awareness.
How we interact at basic levels of consciousness greatly varies.
Researchers speak of an openness dimension which measures our curiosity and
desire to explore out there, an extraversion dimension which describe our
capacity to deal with others, an agree-ability dimension wherein we learn to
submit to or to defy others and their views. Beyond the levels of how we share
with others are dimensions in which we are concerned with ideas, needs and
goals that can empower or sabotage us personally.
In a NED response (when personality is assembled from what behaviorist
call the Negative Emotionality Dimensions) people will either be resilient when
facing stress or they will react to it by entering deeper negative state. If resilient,
we can be proactive, claim more self-awareness, and then turn up the volume by
reaching higher magnitudes of consciousness.

A mind receives more Light as it relaxes. While there is, strictly speaking,
no extra Light, the energy once trapped as stress and now relaxed is released and
available for work. Relaxation lets us see that we aren't restricted to our normal
or habitual thinking patterns and perceptions. Mind is an interaction between
our subjective brain and objective energy, or universal consciousness.
Higher states of mind reach Infinity, and to access them we need only
relax our own mind and attract those higher magnitudes of Light.
While the brain seems solid enough, hardheaded as some of us might be, it
really isn't. It's a lot more than that. It is a great mass of electrical and
neurological interactions and chemical compositions, decompositions and recompositions;
it is habitual patterns of force and flashes of genius and much,
much more. At the chemical level alone, a mind can change rather quickly. Have
a couple of Zombies or any other mood changers and you'll know what I mean.
The brain is limited. Ron Howard's film A Beautiful Mind, starring
Russell Crowe, gives an artful spin on the result of a brain's chemical imbalance.
The movie is about the life of Nobel Prize winning mathematician John Nash and
the delusional schizophrenia that affected him. Nash saw characters belonging to
a separate reality than the one shared by the people around him. He reacted to
chemical compositions in his brain that assembled characters who seemed real to
him. His incredible intelligence in one domain, mathematical logic, did not
protect him from a disorder that affected his mind.
If brain is limited, consciousness is not. So mind expansion more properly
refers to the expansion of consciousness in the brain. John Nash worked hard at
ignoring his delusions and not reacting to them. He continued to work at it over
the years, even while teaching at university, and his crippling disease gradually
became relatively disarmed.
Consciousness can transform the brain by letting us access information in
new ways. Self-aware, I can think in patterns so as to assemble inter legentia, or
make links between the most intelligent options available. With conscious
choice, we can really improve both our mind’s input and its output.
An empowered mind can recognize that energy - consciousness in terms of
amplitude, magnitude and frequency - can reach everywhere in brain fast, and it
can be projected beyond brain to influence out there. Mind expansion implies
acquiring more energy in terms of greater qualities of consciousness.
To see the potential, try the following experiment. Stand at the center of a
dark room. Let your eyes get used to the dark. After a few seconds begin to
faintly make out the room's rough dimensions, even if the darkness prevents you
from seeing things clearly.
Then light a candle and find that you can now see the immediate
surroundings more clearly. From where you're standing, you can see a much

wider area but, in still limited light, details in the far corners of the room are hazy
by comparison. Over by those walls, shadows hide details from your attention.
This simple experiment can reveal a lot of things. For example, it tells why
a person who's on a quest for personal growth, or who begins a psyche or
spiritual development program, will often feel that ordinary people are
increasingly more negative than they realized – more materialistic or mean
spirited.
In fact, out there hasn't changed but rather in here has increased its
magnitude of awareness and can see things that were previously in the shadows.
At the second magnitude of consciousness, mind is aware of its self, its
own limited awareness (and that of others). I realize that how I connect with the
world is entirely dependent on mood. We can connect and commune with Pure
Light –and the whole Morphic universe of ideas by first becoming aware of itself.
Beyond the sub-atomic realm in the world of Light, before anything has solid
form, creative ideas, still independent of any thinkers, are just waiting to be
discovered.
The openness is developed by being curious about the world – i.e., more
familiar with both our inner and outer dimensions. Dream states, contemplative,
meditative and hypnotic states, various drug induced states and an assortment of
other psychic impressions give us clues about what is really available to a mind
that wants to explore creative growth.
At the second magnitude, a mind has sufficient Light to see which ideas
have survival value and which have none. As long as we can think most anything,
we might as well think smart. Aware of the effect that our state of awareness has
on our life, on our choices, decisions and actions, consider how you can change
any course of events by first changing your mind. You can, for example, withdraw
from an argument and make opportunities appear; you can learn to suffer or to
make pain disappear; you can see yourself as one of life's victim or you can
choose to open yourself to ever more Light.
Meditation and contemplation are excellent ways of becoming ever more
aware that we are conscious beings who can modify our perception. Close your
eyes and sit quietly. You'll see thoughts and ideas in your mind's eye. Then
realize that it is indeed possible to think anything you wish. Learn a few
meditative techniques and practice visualization, and you can expand your
consciousness and become aware of all that you can be. You can see, plan and
build your better future.
At the third magnitude, we’ll experience “will” as a level of awareness.
Will is consciousness when it is self-contained and focused. This is where
proactive thinking can become creative. It is when personality explores the
extraversion dimension and interacts with others. A manifestation of ONE, your

true will is experienced as feeling free and it is characterized by inner peace,
expanded perception and alignment with the creative intent of Universe.
At this magnitude, everything is extremely clear and actions are deliberate.
From many options and choices, only the most creative, or those we truly want to
actualize, are retained. In this higher magnitude of Light, you'll see how your
subjective will is composed of filaments of luminous fiber, an objective
concentration of energy that extends from your center outward. The magical
paradigm reveals that will is a power that can be directed to any conceivable goal.
Once will is fixed on something – energy-to-energy and consciousness-toconsciousness
– it becomes an extension of it. I'll give you a concrete example in
my own life. An ex-cigarette smoker, I'd tried quitting that very addictive habit
on several occasions. I chose not to worry whenever I relapsed, deciding instead
to use each experience to learn and grow. I accepted that I was doing myself
harm and so I didn't resist any information about the awful things it does or
defend my addiction in any way. I chose to remove myself from intelligent nonsmokers
that made me ever more aware of what I was doing to myself (so many
smokers deny this to themselves) rather subject them to my habit.
At one point, when my awareness reached magnitude three in my mind's
eye, I was so fully conscious of the danger and ills that I just stopped smoking. I
used my will to not smoke and experience getting well. Soon I was one with
being a non-smoker. I suffered no physical hardships and have never looked
back.
Will is how we participate in Nature's order. Claiming our will is one of
Nature's self-organizing principles, so we can will ourselves to organize for
success.
The fourth magnitude of consciousness has to do with mainlining
universal energy, or l.o.v.e., the limitless oscillations of vibrating energy. At this
intensity of awareness, love is not the emotional attachment that comes and goes,
nor is it a romantic attachment to another person. Rather, it is a creative force.
It is tapping into an unending source of positive wellbeing and motivation. When
you experience this magnitude of mind, you feel totally alive, unconditionally
loving and radiating joy at every level of your being.
While this degree of illumination is experienced whenever we are in love
(especially those hormone-induced early explorations), the difference is marked
when love is not focused on a specific recipient. Magnitude four refers to love -
pure and without limits - and this opens us to the agreeableness dimension where
we measure altruism as compared to egoism.
The consequences of attaining this state of mind are unexpectedly
empowering. Tapping into the l.o.v.e. of the universe and then loving ourselves
without limit makes all things equal. No one thing can then be more or less

important than any other thing. This totally liberates us from our tribal thinking,
as it removes the conditions we attach to the emotion.
Imagine your noosphere as a drop in the ocean. In a universal view of
things, do you think your drop is more or less wet, or more or less salty than
others? In the perspective of seeing ourselves equal to all things, terms like
detachment, objectivity and equity can make sense. Equal to it all means worthy
of all, doesn't it?
Consider how your drop has the same general qualities as the whole, or
how the tides, currents and underwater streams can force life-changing
interactions on you. Now, in the spirit of altruistic self-interest, shouldn't you
insist on creatively co-managing the seas?
At the fifth magnitude, consciousness is in communion with the creative
intent of Universe, Light, God. Reaching this state is accompanied by the
experience of limitless waves of joy, bliss, and rapture. This is the consciousness
dimension where persona shares the magical paradigm, and acquires the power
needed to actualize itself.
With creative intent we can fulfill our every level of need and accomplish
all our plans. Unlike the capriciousness of human intent (don't good intentions
pave the way to hell?), the view from this Light magnitude lets you to establish
goals that have the force of creation behind them. This quality of consciousness
allows you to understand the soul of things and to then act on its very essence,
light to Light. Bathing in the Creator lets us to choose an empowering direction.
Amplitudes of soul: An ascension through dimensions in M.I.N.D.*
*Move in new dimensions -­‐ Consciousness not brain.
Light/energy contained by the electromagnetic force interferes with gravity's
propagation wave at right angles. Amplitude measures the force contained by a
wave in movement, from its base to its peak. Amplitude measures a vertical zip,
or how high a wave rises.
In its wavelike movement, oscillating from the center of a sphere to its
circumference, the soul can be observed interacting at eight planes of
consciousness. When the center of your noosphere is the wave's base and its
circumference is the peak, then amplitude measures the force needed to climb the
eight steps between those two points.
Imagine yourself inside a noosphere composed of eight levels of
consciousness (like the successive skins that make up an onion). These represent
specific conjunctions where soul can interact with your brain and the rest of your
central nervous system to assemble your mind and its perceptions of reality.

These are called the Physical, Astral/Emotional, Intellectual, Spiritual,
Atmic, Monadic, Logoïc and Morphic planes of consciousness, but they've been
named various other things by different schools of thought. Seven of these planes
of consciousness are assembled inside our noosphere and the eighth is outside,
attaching us to Infinity.
Synthesis # 25 - The amplitudes of soul in your state of mind
The subjective mind can assemble 8 planes of consciousness
The Reactive Mind
1. Physical plane
of consciousness
2. Emotional plane
(or Astral)
What is perceived:
Mind receives data from out
there.
What «I am» feels about
what is perceived! - Mind
validates its data in here.
The Proactive Mind
The Creative Mind
3. Intellectual plane
(or Mental)
4. Spiritual plane
5. Atmic plane
(or Creative)
6. Monadic plane
What «I am» thinks about
what is perceived! - Mind
engages in conscious
thought.
What «I am» intuits about
what is perceive! -
Mind is opened to higher
consciousness.
“aha!” What is! - Mind
sees its “will” as a part of
the creative process.
What can I do about it! -
Mind focuses on strategy,
direction and evolution.
The Magical Mind
7. Logoïc plane
(or Magical)
What I do! -
The mind acts in the
time/space/consciousness
continuum.

8. Morphic plane What I did. - To glean
understanding, the mind is
a reflection of its acts, now
recorded as memory.
Once the mind has access to the Spiritual dimension, magic can become the order
of the day. Maintaining a focused intent helps us cross into new dimensions.
Spiritual development (love) guides the mind as it expands so we can see
glimpses from the world outside of our limiting sphere of consciousness.
From the Spiritual plane you'll see how to participate in a world where
people are, at first, souls trapped in their limited sphere of awareness, their
energy envelope or aura. And you'll see that there are four other planes of
consciousness beyond the spiritual to be assembled and experienced.
You'll see the aura that extends from people at the Atmic plane of
consciousness. You’ll see the rules for further progress and understand how to
transform your own noosphere at the Monadic plane. You can participate
magically in the world from the Logoïc plane by interfacing with universal energy
and its Morphic fields of consciousness.
In The New Seekers Handbook, John Nash offers easy definitions for the
higher states of mind. The Atmic plane is reached in the creative “aha!” moment
where the mind expands and we see ourselves as more than a body but as a soul
too. Seeing our link to the creative Light is defined by experiencing joy, nirvana
or bliss. 49
The Monadic plane of consciousness is where we recognize that all souls
are indivisibly linked to the universal creating Light, that we share the same
essence or energy. When the mind is there, it feels one with the Divine (and
really clever).
The Logoïc plane in mind is reached when we are participating with the
cosmic plan, with the implicate order in Nature. We are projecting unconditional
love and joy and are thereby attracting magic. We can see how Light is contained
by universal forces and quickly learn how to cooperate with them. One can't
break universal law; one can only break oneself against the law.
Logos is where God is Father and Mother, Christ and Sophia, Light and
Void, Contex and Content, Container and Contained. God is perfect process as
energy form and force. Think holograms of Light assembled into intelligence –
awesome, live, loving Intelligence.
Magic comes from interfacing with the Morphic fields of consciousness,
that place where all is formless energy, or all is awareness and ideas. At the

Logoïc plane, we can attract a thought and intend forces that will cause change to
occur so that thought is materialized. That's pure magic applied.
The Morphic plane of consciousness is the place where creative spirit
exists as potential; it's where ideas are waiting to be assembled into concrete
thoughts. You can affirm your oneness with the Infinity by thinking creatively.
Go ahead! Attract a new idea from it.
If the life-after-death realities are in any way to be believed, it’s because
they've been experienced by thousands of people, and reaching those states can
be duplicated by anyone.
Here's the thumbnail of what happened to me: I died and reached the
Ømega frequency state when my consciousness stopped interacting with my
brain. My perception was then propelled beyond my personal limits and I
experienced oneness. I met God; I perceived the Logos behind the physical
universe, and I was in rapture. I prayed to never forget, and then I wasn't dead.
Later I learned to do it without dying. A person whose mind is assembling
reality from data that is only received from the Physical plane of consciousness is
aware of the world out there, the world of physical appearances, ego image, how
things look, physiological needs and comforts, and circumstances that affect
those things. That person is not assembling much else.
According to Manly Palmer Hall in his classic book Healing, The Divine
Art, people preoccupied with the material world, with appearance, possessions,
prestige, perks and other illusions, have a tendency to try to fill the need for inner
growth with external decor. 48
Hall explains that when the Physical plane becomes the center of the
mind's attention, stress must inevitably follow. The ego, in a body now stressed,
has its creativity obstructed, and the mind must therefore remain reactive. In a
linear projection, ego seeks to please, dominate or blame out there. Fortunately,
we are more than just physical meat.
Mind also assembles reality from the Astral or Emotional plane of
consciousness. It's so named because metaphysicians of old believed that old
emotions, as energy-in-motion, behaved like stars in space, with wave-like
oscillations. They were correct. Energy-in-motion (e-motion) is electric in
nature and it attracts as a reaction to its radiance. Positive and negative states
are reflected across dimensions in energy, biology and mood.
Researchers have found that higher energy states foster positive moods,
and lower energy states subject us to tension and stress that result in negative
moods. During their low energy states, people are more easily subject to
increased depressions, and the body reacts to the stress, affecting its decisionmaking
processes. If depressed states of body are sustained, mind can burn-out.

I'll come back to mind and mood a little further on in the chapter.
When ego perceives reality from the Emotional plane, it's concerned with
its feelings, its desires and its personal gamut of learned responses. At this
amplitude, the mind is only accessing its memories of how to respond, or
habitual reflexes that will trigger what mood is appropriate to the situation. As
such, the information ego receives from this part of the mind is partial, not
necessarily accurate nor particularly appropriate to circumstance. Even so, how
we feel about something will direct consciousness with sufficient force that we
react and fall in love, or hate with vengeance, or even die of fright.
In the context of assembling your overall mind, what the mind feels is
more important (to the ego) than what is actually being perceived, the object of
the attention. Marketers and professional sales people rely on this; their training
manuals explain that people buy emotionally and only rationalize their decision
intellectually later.
If the emotion experienced is fear, every suggestion, circumstance or
condition entertained by the reactive mind will be some form of anxious response
and every shadow will seem threatening. For anger, ego may assemble vengeful
thoughts or other aggressions, and hold them within or project them without.
When a body feels love, mind might assemble from a desire for things beautiful,
fun and erotic; but selfish love will want to possess, symbiotic love to relate to,
and self-esteem to direct that erotic drive into the unconditional feeling of love;
this to remove any impediment to l.o.v.e.'s actualization.
Whatever the emotion felt, it's the glue that links in here to out there.
A reactive mind automatically assembles reality from those first two
planes of consciousness. Everything ego has on its mind feels important to ego,
and as it is generally determined by the body's positive or negative energy state,
egocentric minds are ruled by their emotional reactions to their own life
experiences.
When the mind also assembles reality from the Intellectual plane, ego
becomes aware that it is thinking based on its feelings, and that it can think
anything in its emotional range by shifting its mood.
Stop for a moment and connect with your own thinking. The Intellectual
plane of consciousness is where you are aware of awareness. Assembling reality
at a purely intellectual level means that how ego thinks determines how it can
behave.
An intellect will reasonably perceive that a glass is sitting on a table with
half of its volume occupied by water. Is the glass half-full or half-empty? It
matters not to the glass, but the perception can change everything in the
perceiver's mood.

"I'm entitled to my opinion!" ego insists, as if every opinion had equal
value. At this intellectual level, ego can become proactive and give more
importance to what it thinks about what it perceives, than what it actually
perceives. It can recognize that even if the body affects thought, mind also affects
the body.
Proactively, every ego thinks its world. We give meaning to symbols and
words, arrange them into ideas and concepts that form our mind, and give them
logic and use that to explore our environment.
The thinking mind lets us see the potential in an empty lot. But, logically,
we can also reason ourselves into and out of anything, and often do. Ego does not
consider how its intellectual processes might work fine with the known and the
familiar. The intellect is next to useless with the unknown, because it's only a
regurgitation of the known.
Conditioned by our way of seeing, we acquire facts and figures and use
them to label life, often at the expense of developing any real wisdom. Consider
how you receive hundreds if not thousands of bits of data everyday and classify
them instantly and without question.
Intellectually, we can choose how to perceive by pre-selecting our moods
(emotion). With a little work we can evaluate ideas and link concepts into
creative new forms, but more often than not we just repeat tired old clichés and
routines. Most of what the ego considers to be important in the world is only a
limited inventory of its past, pre-formulated opinions and factoids, often with
little foundation in truth and usually devoid of any real power.
Contrary to our more primitive beginnings when thinking was a skill and
the key to surviving, today we choose to believe or not, and as a result we have
largely been denatured. Nature's law of survival is altruistic self-interest, but
most people lack the ability to think simply, honestly and clearly about their own
long-term needs, and they certainly don't think too generously about anyone
else's needs.
After 25 years of defending the rights of disabled persons, I can conclude
that most people limit themselves to actualizing the egoist half of nature's rule,
and then reason away the need for any altruism with fairy tales and pie-in-thesky
thinking.
Drawing on our intellect isn't enough. In the past we followed strong
leaders because we believed that knowledge was power and that they controlled
information. We believed what we were told. But history shows we were most
often blind to the severe limits on our leaders' egos and intellects. We like to
believe our leaders are safeguarding the future, but the state of the Planet and
headlines suggest that the only future most of them are watching out for is theirs.

Who is steering Starship Earth? Concerned with petty local concerns that
blind them to the needs of the whole, many political and business leaders have
lost the moral authority to lead anyone.
The Spiritual plane manages reality at the atomic level where (+) and (-)
are absolute values. Less the moral good and evil of a child's intellect, these
values are the limitless oscillating vibration energy in its manifestations as the
electron (a negative charge) and the proton (positive). As the mind assembles
reality from that plane of consciousness, ego adds intuition to its intellectual
base. To reach that reality, you must increase your self-esteem.
The universal action/reaction law leads to creative solutions because a
thinker with self-esteem can more easily free him or herself from limiting
perceptions. By adding spiritual love to its perception, the mind also adds new
insights to its reasoning. Am I resonating to selfish love, symbiotic love, self- love
or unconditional love, where all things are possible?
The reactive mind receives input from the first two planes and must
become self aware before it can choose to expand beyond that. A proactive mind
can entertain input from the first four planes of consciousness. Your mind is
made up as your consciousness resonates in your brain's reptilian circuits, moves
into you’re the emotional circuits managed by the right-hemisphere’s limbic
system, then charges across to your left-brain's hominid circuits, and moves
toward the front of your head, into your neo-cortex.
Here, your feedback loops might suggest that your limited ego avail itself
of a little spiritual guidance. Stop time. Probe into the depths of consciousness
where you should find reasons to esteem galore. Because emotional states fuel
how the brain will react, emotional mastery is sine qua non to empowering your
mind. This usually means setting aside dogmatic beliefs, absolute truths and sure
things in order to make room for infinite probabilities.
A creative mind uses those circuits, and then adds awareness of
awareness into the mix. How am I making up my mind? Creative people can
access the Atmic and the Monadic planes of consciousness and can see what
exists beyond the (+) (-) duality expressed by the atomic world. The Atmic plane
looks into the sub-atomic world where particles and waves of energy are
manifestations of pure Light. Here, the universal rule is oneness.
The ancient word Atma refers to that enlightened place in the mind's eye
where the will and the soul are perceived. The Atmic plane is the supreme tip of
the Spiritual plane and so it resonates to “joy”. Here we can see the physical body
inside the metaphysical envelope.
Then the Monadic plane is where everything is polarity of the ONE energy
and therefore connected to its perfect contradiction. Biologist Lyall Watson
described Monads as "units of consciousness" or bits of universal mind. At the

Monadic plane, the law of love is the creative answer to every question. Here is
the universal memory... the data bank so far.
The Atmic plane can be accessed from a specific place in the brain. The
brain's hemispheres are linked into one mass by a major structure called the
corpus callosum. Mystics call this the bridge across dimensions; on one side is
the world of concrete things out there and on the other, the world of abstract
feelings from in here. The bridge handles all the communications between the
brain's hemispheres, the inner dialogue.
It is interesting to note that the female corpus callosum is on average 23%
thicker than the male's, allowing her to spend more time in the flow of things.
This extra girth gives women a greater capacity to sense messages from their
inner dimensions than men, to express their emotions and to intuit others'
feelings. Men, on the other hand, speed back and forth across the bridge. They
are more verbal and have better spatial orientation than women, but are rather
inept at discussing their feelings.
The brain's hemispheres constantly trade data with one another in order
for the mind to arrive at its creative syntheses. By maintaining a contemplative
position midway across the bridge, a perceiver can experience the mainstream of
consciousness, Light, as it flows across the bridge.
When harmony between the hemispheres exist, a perceiver can experience
input from both brain hemispheres simultaneously, aligning in here with out
there and allowing an ““aha!” ” moment to occur. The burst of Light in reaching
creative synthesis allows the mind to consider a perception of what is that is
untainted by pre-judgment, criticism or expectation. Rather, perception at this
level includes clarity of mind wherein oneness is apparent.
Eastern philosophy describes that plane of consciousness the same way
that Christianity describes the divine state of grace. Largely, it is how we feel
when we are liberated by l.o.v.e., or when we love without condition – creative,
joyful, empowered and thankful. That state of mind is also what psychologists
call a peak experience and what I call feeling lucky.
From halfway across the bridge, we can see that everything out there really
is decided in here. That gives us an awesome power. We can assemble our
perceptions from that place where joy exists. And assembling joy in continuum is
rapture.
Cross the bridge into the energy dimensions and draw from higher
organization and intelligence. In the right-brain side you'll see that you have a
causal nature. Thoughts, words and acts do matter. They are co-creating the
world subject to the law of karma, in the sense that our experiences become
memories and mind. Tell yourself that you can't do something long enough, and
you'll begin believe it yourself. The mind will draw on memory for its choices:
what can I experience and how can I experience it?

The process creates a closed loop system that is perfect judgment. Our
mind can reflect heaven or hell. In a personal example, my mind can just as
easily reflect on how awful it is to be paralyzed the way I am, versus how great it
is to be alive.
How we think does matter, and mind expansion will let you participate in
the magician's view of the universe. Across the bridge, perceivers discover there
is more to the world than we thought, there are quantum fields of intelligence
that are assembled from higher magnitudes of Light - i.e. l.o.v.e.
Accessing the Monadic plane of consciousness means assuming complete
responsibility for your life. After all, only you can add the correctives that will
align you with a creative direction and assure your happiness. Anyone who is
self-aware can learn to better manage their neural activity by modifying the
interaction of their consciousness with their brain. There are a variety of mind
altering techniques, but by just closing our eyes we can relax down to about 30
hertz, and a good belly laugh relaxes us to about 22 hertz while causing the body
to release all kinds of beneficial hormones and neurotransmitters.
Meditation, contemplation, guided or self-hypnosis and many other tools
help us become more aware of our self. Try it. Increase your self-awareness, the
level of consciousness available to you, if only to have a confirmation that there's
a spiritual slant to the world.
Anyone can experience higher consciousness as an intensity of his or her
own will. The formulae [Energy contained = Force] and [Force focused = Power]
suggest that when one's subjective will is focused, it can then become will power.
Will yourself greater degrees physical health, emotional authority, intellectual
assertiveness, spiritual accessibility and creative force, and see how that raises
your consciousness to the Monadic plane.
The Logoïc plane of consciousness is assembled when universal [l.o.v.e.] is
used as a creative force. Also called the magical or the divine plane of
consciousness in various esoteric teachings, this is where empowered minds
actualize creative will. From the Greek logos which means word - as in the word
made flesh - here we are at one with the universal forces and able to consciously
interact with them.
At this Amplitude, a mind will recognize that the world is magical whether
we understand it or not, or how or why it is that magic is. A creative intent is
causing matter to be assembled from limitless oscillating vibrations of energy and
we can participate in that process by projecting l.o.v.e.
This is where God is manifest in a physical dimension. God the Son is not
who we must become; it is who we are. What we need to do is align ourselves
with that fact.

Time doesn't really exist beyond the subatomic size, so in the tiny world
inside of things, every event coexists in an absolute now.
Space is not empty in that subatomic realm. Rather, it's a seething mass of
vibrating bubbles of oscillating force, or tiny spheres of energy - Consciousness -
formed and attached to a subjective here.
Here/now, relatively speaking, universal Light radiates in magnitude and
amplitude for an instant, only to collapse in the pull from gravity. In a constantmoment
in time, every subjective sphere in space is oscillating about its own
center and all are linked to a single absolute center.
An empowered mind can access the first seven magnitudes of
consciousness. Reactive, we can be proactive and then become creative.
Consciously creative, we can then interface with Infinity at the eighth level, on the
Morphic plane where magic of the sacred kind occurs.
Interface with Infinity by quieting your inner dialogue (frequency) and
raising your consciousness into the Morphic fields of probability (amplitude). At
one with creative intent (magnitude), you'll be aware that you can attract
anything just by wanting to and then actualizing your will with l.o.v.e.
That's a great power. Then, in self-interest, you can be receptive to those
ideas that will make you healthy, wealthy and wise, and profitably manage your
future before it even manifests. And that's real magic.
Of mind and mood...
The mind's thoughts and beliefs are more than random abstractions; they are
biochemical-electrical reactions that predetermine how we experience life and
how we participate in it. Mind is empowered or sabotaged by its emotional
interactions.
The Salovey-Goldman Model of Emotional Intelligence lists five important
development areas where a positive emotional response can be personally
empowering: 1) self-awareness, 2) self-management, 3) self-motivation, 4) otherawareness,
and 5) relationship-management.
In his 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence, D. Goleman describes selfawareness
as the ability to monitor our own feelings. He says self-management
means handling our feelings so they enhance our life - or at least don't disrupt it.
Self-motivation comes from experiencing "the creative flow-state" and that
means having intent, vision and goals. Goldman also says that other-awareness
is the ability to sense other people's feelings and to respond to them with

empathy. And he explains relationship-management as the ability to interact
with others, to collaborate with them in positive ways. 51
Largely demystified by modern science, the interaction between
consciousness, the brain and the endocrine-immune systems and the emotions is
also the basis of ancient teachings.
Chakras or Endocrine/Immune System
We find the same ideas in language that refers to chakras or kundalini for
example, or that speaks of the Tree Of Life and the Kabalah. As the story is told,
when consciousness is contained in the shushuma, a tiny hollow tunnel at the
center of the spine, it becomes a force called kundalini. Which is akin to saying
consciousness contained in a central nervous system is will.
The Eastern mystery schools taught adepts that if we direct that force to
illuminate the seven Chakras, our endocrine/immune system's glands secrete
hormones which sort of act like transducers and allow will to becomes an active
and passive power.
Synthesis # 26 - Correspondences between ancient teachings and
modern science
TRADITIONAL CORRESPONDENCES BETWEEN
CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE SOUL
8 th plane of consciousness or God Chakra
(The Assemblage Point Ømega: Infinity; Morphic resonance, creative Spirit, etc.)

7 th plane of consciousness or Crown Chakra
(The pineal gland: Magical doings, Sacred communion, SELF-empowerment
and actualization, etc.)
6 th plane of consciousness or Brow Chakra
(The pituitary gland: Clairvoyance and Psychic development; Higher or
evolutionary insight; Direction and Magic power.)
5 th plane of consciousness or Throat Chakra
(The thyroid and parathyroid glands: Soul perception, Creative synthesis,
Mastery, Clairaudience, Holistic and Prosperity thinking, etc.)
4 th plane of consciousness or Heart Chakra
(The thymus gland: Self esteem, Healing, Love as limitless oscillations of
vibrating energy, Growth, Empathy, Intuition, Nobility, etc.)
3 rd plane of consciousness or Solar Plexus Chakra
(The pancreas, kidney and liver: Mental clarity,
Logic and Conceptual thought, Personal aspirations, Ego harmony, etc. )
2 nd plane of consciousness or Spleen Chakra
(The ovaries/gonads: emotional memory, sexuality;
Emotion and Tribal intelligence; Imagination; Charisma.
1 st plane of consciousness or Root Chakra
(The adrenal glands: Personal vitality and Power,
Energy, Magnetism and Attraction, etc.)
Today, thanks to sophisticated instrumentation such as PET (Positron Emission
Topography) scans, we can actually see the brain as it is thinking, and follow the
blood's flow around the brain's hemispheres while thoughts and emotions are
being formed. It's even possible to see the hormonal changes that result from
different perceptions when faced with various situations. We can see that
consciousness links specific neurons in emotional ways.

The brain registers its perceptions as a direct result of the work of our
endocrine glands and hormones. Our adrenals react to our muscle tonus and
prepare an adrenaline response (to noise or loud music, for example) in order to
dull the sensation somewhat before it assaults our ears. Our thyroid gland sends
hormones to sort language and prepares the brain to adapt to any situation, while
the pituitary gland contributes to intelligence by comparing data and supplying
the mind with its mathematical abilities.
Research has shown that visualized imagery provokes the same
physiological effects as real situations. Directly or indirectly, the sympathetic and
parasympathetic nervous systems work independently and are responsible for
most of the physiological changes that take place in the body. These usually
work in harmony when the whole organism is healthy and functions well. This
means we don't have to suffer from stress. We can train the body/mind to relax
first, then reach for courage hormones - without aggressors - and then assemble a
creative, cooperative, persuasive and self-actualizing persona.
The sympathetic system primes the body to act. A motivational force, it
stimulates and drives energy through the body so we can take action. By raising
our energy level, it allows us to better relate to our environment and helps us
satisfy our perceived needs.
The parasympathetic system calms us and inhibits action. It helps the
body renew itself and heal or calm down to solve problems. The downshift allows
us to save energy, to recharge our batteries and to grow wiser through
contemplation and self-reflection. Downshifting, it can so depress energy levels
that a person will disengage from life and not be capable of interacting with their
environment. Imagine having less energy than needed to will being alive.
As the chemistry of the brain, central nervous system, immune and
endocrine systems, can change our thoughts, so can they affect the physical body.
We can see how our emotions release important antibodies, for example.
Feelings like being in love and the sense of having a real grip on your life will
produce neural effects that are totally different from those that result from a need
to control people and manipulate situations.
The mind can transform the real world by affecting its own chemical
molecules and their receptors. In fact, the spirit has found a way of working
jointly with communication molecules. Their association is so intimate that a
mind cannot think without affecting its body in some chemical way. It's not the
adrenaline molecule that drives a mother to run into a burning house to save her
child. Her mind is driven by unconditional love and her determination triggers
all the responses needed to protect her from pain and fire.
Imagine the power that gives us. An abstract quality like love can create a
chemical vehicle that can transform the brain and body to perform miracles and
magic.

Called Immuno-Peptides when produced by your immune system and
Neuro-Peptides if produced by your brain, a wide variety of these chemical mixes
will transport messages to receptor sites found on the surface of the multitude of
cells distributed all over your body. These chemicals travel as molecules through
the body to join the receptors where they transmit their information.
Neural sciences know that the brain doesn't send impulses as if it were
making a phone call to specific neurons in the brain. It freely broadcasts its
intelligence throughout the body where it has an immediate organic effect on
whatever responds. Because most definitions of intelligence refer to the activities
of the brain, the central nervous system and the immune and endocrine systems,
recent discoveries must alter our concepts of mind.
In her book Molecules Of Emotion, Doctor Candace Pert suggests that we
see the mind as an "info-realm" that is circulating into every cell and organ in the
body. 54 Dr. Pert refers to the whole system as a psychosomatic network of
information that unites the psyche, composed of those things spiritual like mind,
thoughts and emotions, to the soma, the material like molecules, cells and
organic tissue. This means that we can't entertain aggressive and negative
thoughts without seriously harming ourselves. While engaged in violent
thoughts, we are aggressing our own body/mind.
Dr. Pert's work shows that the brain's peptides and their receptors are the
biochemical basis of emotion. These chemical messengers ensure uninterrupted
communication between the conscious and unconscious processes in the
body/mind. Producing chemical signals that translate information into reality,
our emotions cause the mind to shift from an awareness of itself as matter (the
aggressor emotions increase brain frequency) to being awareness of itself as soul
(loving emotions relax brain frequency).
Even if we can perceive both, our moods influence us to consider one and
then the other. Thanks to this emotional network of information, a body knows
at all times what its mind is thinking, and it registers every mental event – each
perception and each emotion. Since nothing can happen in the mind without
affecting the whole body, we are sabotaging or empowering our own bodies, the
in here, by the way we consider the out there.
Science determined how emotions become diagnostic extremes. Because
our behavior quickly becomes habit, indulging in negative emotional moods can
backfire by assembling a weak personality. People who emote fear instead of
learning courage, for example, will cause their body to become flooded with
chemicals that will give it anxiety states. These very uncomfortable body/mind
experiences tend to foster timid personalities.
Anger leads to nasty reflexes and a quarrelsome personality. Sadness
depresses the body/mind to create gloomy, broken people. Generalized feelings
of disgust - for any reason - contribute to a body's experience of paranoid states
and its evolution of a hostile persona. Harboring expectations that somehow life

owes you something produces a demanding personality prone to
obsessive/compulsive disorders.
Beyond time and space, consciousness, or the intelligence that circulates
to create the body/mind, is both matter and energy. This may seem like a sort of
religious final judgment but in fact, resistance to love is resistance to the law on
how to succeed, how to be healthy, wealthy and wise.
As thinking loving thoughts tells the brain to release relaxing peptides,
mind can then assemble higher intelligence. Universal intelligence is more than
an abstract concept. It extends from the world we experience as thought and
emotion into the biological, into matter. It's what Dr. Pert refers to as an inforealm.
For many, the old saying a healthy mind in a healthy body will come as a
revelation. A cigarette smoker, for example, shouldn't expect to inhale several
hundred toxic chemicals, severely alter his info-realm, and then have his thinking
reach higher intelligence. If the info in your realm is speeding around your body
trying to repair the damage you are causing it, you can't really expect to have
sufficient energy reserves for your consciousness to attain wider magnitudes,
higher amplitudes or lower frequencies.
Famed motivator Norman Vincent Peale coined the idea of positive
thinking more than 40 years ago when he suggested a willed decision to see life in
a joyful way. Later, the idea was reformulated in a myriad of books written on
the subject of cultivating a positive attitude to attract positive things. All of those
books suggest everything starts with you.
Three thousand years ago, India's Vedic literature defined the physical
body as the outermost projection of our innermost states of consciousness into
the world.
Imagine yourself inside your noosphere, with your mood dictating an inforealm.
Because any one mood only locks onto a limited part of your potential, the
Ancients called it illusion. With every mood, you fill your noosphere with
information, which is then radiated into your immediate environment, or into the
room you're in and the interactions you enjoy. Do you give off fear or love,
courage or doubt, etc., to the people around you? Do you encourage risk-taking
and creative expression, or are you a naysayer?
The adage “Birds of a feather flock together.” explains how the world can
be divided according to mood. Change the quality of your energy - your mood -
and you'll change your access to the info-realm and what you are able to project
out there. Then you'll change what info you attract and who you attract to your
info.
Today, after centuries of amassing evidence, science acknowledges the
ancient magical view linking mood and mind. Physician Fred Allan Wolf shows

how energy manifests itself in the physical body as sensation-waves that
determine emotional states. 52 When its energy state changes, the body's feelings
are transformed and the modified emotional state attracts corresponding info.
Because our creativity is directly linked to the quality of our energy,
experiencing joy indeed attracts a more intelligent info-realm.
Empowerment comes from the realization that you can consciously invest
your will in gathering the power to transform your life. You can expand your
mind so that a more strategic, more motivated and more creative personality can
emerge. You can attract a magical info-realm through a simple series of doings
and not-doings.
Let's suppose every reader will reach the age of 70, the biblically promised
three score and ten. At that age, some people will be old, broken and ailing, while
others will be in better health than they were when they were 30. The difference
is how they managed their energy. We can change the cause rather than react to
effects. It's called preventive maintenance.
Self-mastery is a result of the process of creatively planning to be happy
and then working at it until it’s done. If I can share what I learned from my
accident experience one more time it's this: being creative has everything to do
with living in joy and passion today. And letting Infinity take care of the details
Your body's creative intelligence
Science knows the body is intelligent, that tissue has purpose and each cell is
undeniably alive and aware. Our hormones, enzymes and other informationbearing
chemicals even know how to choose what receptors they should link up
to. In a given day, your body – without your conscious will – liberates hundreds
of chemical substances at the same time and then manages every one of them by
keeping watch over the functioning of itself as whole organizing system.
Our body will tell us to increase our vitamin C or to seek out a certain
climate. As we become more aware, we see that we are linked to the intelligence
of the whole system with our state our mind. Good or bad, placing our attention
somewhere we give it an emotional and even a biological quality. As soon as we
concentrate on a bodily function, an instant transformation takes place and our
mood is transmitted to the whole system. As such, the whole body reacts to a
stimulus as a global event.
In old paradigm thinking, life is passive to the unraveling DNA, an
enormous complex structure that dictates our past, present and future. We are
intelligent meat. In the new paradigm, life belongs to consciousness, the
here/now.

Research shows that all our organic processes respond to our state of
mind. For example, if you suddenly hear an explosion somewhere nearby, the
event will provoke an adrenaline rush of hormones released by the adrenal gland
whether the event was intended for you or not. Traveling through your
bloodstream, the adrenals’ hormonal mix transmits its message to your blood
vessels and to your heart, liver, pancreas, stomach and intestines. Your brain,
pituitary gland and the rest of your endocrine-immune system receive the very
aggressive signals and respond with a variety of other chemicals.
In order to ready us for action, the body sends its information (Danger!)
even if unsubstantiated, everywhere at once and our molecular receptors selforganize
the organic sub-systems with brilliant precision. If researchers tried to
duplicate this with chemical mixes, results would be not nearly as methodical or
precise, well orchestrated and balanced.
Deepak Chopra believes the intelligence that is the body is superior to any
we could substitute externally. 53 Intelligence is what differentiates a house built
by an architect from a pile of bricks. Chopra adds that this intelligence is greater
than body as organized matter because, without its consciousness, matter would
have no direction or form, and would be chaotic.
Dr. Candace Pert suggests that happiness is what we feel when the
biochemical molecules of positive e-motion, its peptides and their receptors, are
flowing and their information is moving through our psychosomatic network. 64
When creative intelligence is freely integrating, coordinating and managing all of
our organic parts as one whole and harmonious system, we'll “aha!” a higher
intelligence that will contain joy.
Health and happiness are often mentioned in the same breath because the
body/mind and the emotions are inseparable. By learning to nourish our positive
emotions and by generating altruistic and loving thoughts, our creative intent will
reach the spiritual world, which will then release the information and intelligence
we intuit for the good of our body, our mind, and our world.
Then, far from being slaves to emotion, we can be masters of our life,
transforming it to experience real power, and claim our heritage: our creative and
magical potential.
Are you aware of your soul, your link to the Creator? Where's your mind at -
can you recognize its usual level of energy? Are you aware of your emotions
and how they rule your life? Are you conscious that your moods have an affect
on your body/mind system?

Chapter 8
INVEST IN YOUR CREATIVE CAPITAL
Personal power
The energy investment
Twelve ways to produce genius thinking
Energy is transactional
Breakthrough thinking
Self-empowered thinking
Five Stages in the Art of Strategy
Task-oriented transformation
Think creatively until your dreams are actualized
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with
sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
Galileo Galilei

Chapter 8
INVEST IN YOUR CREATIVE CAPITAL
Recent global events like the war on terrorism, the loss of investor confidence in
the stock market and a variety of climate-caused disasters, are wake-up calls. The
need for creative thinking by leaders everywhere is a reminder that we must
invest in our own creative capital. Those sorts of upheavals also remind us that
we can only really be sure about the present moment.
Here, now, I am. In my limited experience, not only is life fleeting, I know
that catastrophic changes can occur in an instant. I became acutely aware of it
while I was flat on my back in the hospital. Prior to that, I probably shared the
unexpressed feeling that belongs to many – that we are somehow immortal. But
my accident exorcised that kind of thinking from my mind and gave me an
indivisible awareness that life is precious.
I paradigm-shifted. You'd have to appreciate how much I enjoyed my life
before the car crash to understand how shocked I was to discover that I am so
fragile. By the time I began my real rehabilitation, leaning to survive as a
destitute and disabled person, I had already understood the importance of my
moods on my state of mind. That's when I decided to take my feelings and
thoughts a bit more seriously. I decided to acquire personal power.
The willingness to transform my mind and acquire a more empowered
worldview was an important part of discovering my own potential. I was a key to
overcoming my limits and transcending the barriers in a world that's too often
inaccessible to handicapped persons, both physically and attitudinally. Everyone
has his or her own reasons to seek more personal power, but making the decision
to do so is a requirement. It's a willful thing.
I'll tell you what I thought. Paralyzed from high on my chest, unable to
practice my old trade or participate in the life I had led in my old way, investing
in my creative capital made me draw a blank when I considered my potential. I
had no idea, not one clue, how to go about it or how things would work out. My
only motivator was that I had nothing... and so nothing to lose. My only gauge
was if I experienced joy, or unconditional love, in the moment. I knew that Godpower
was present and I could reach it.
It goes without saying my journey had pitfalls. Overcoming them
demanded creative ways of thinking and acting. I really didn't have anything to
lose by striving onward. In the example of so many others, I chose to follow the
path of my heart, asking permission from no one and seeking no opinions or
approvals. I experienced love as a verb and became increasingly more aware of
the l.o.v.e. of the universe and of the power in magic. My sole aim was to pursue
joy, and that opened my path to the most altruistic pursuits.

As I acted with joy, I learned that not too many people genuinely
appreciate the happiness, luck or magic of others. Many actively discourage
moves we might make towards progress and genuine happiness in our life, or will
become jealous, angry and mean-spirited about our accomplishments. For petty
minds, more for you means less for them, and who do you think you are?
Strategically, aside from your carefully chosen support network, the less
other people know about what you are planning, the less likely they are to argue,
lead you into error or create resistance towards you out there. The wise Toltec
sorcerer told anthropologist Carlos Castaneda to "erase his personal history", to
avoid revealing himself and his plans to others. If others know nothing, we have
nothing to defend. 55
The old sorcerer also thought that all we really have as magical tools are
patience and will, but that by using them we could accomplish anything. Had
someone suggested to me all those years ago that my passion for Nature and for
wilderness adventures would compel me to become a wheelchair-riding
researcher in Costa Rica's jungles, I'd have surely thought them a bit batty. If I'd
told therapists this was my career choice, I might not have gotten out of rehab.
As it stands, you can't guess how many times I've been told that I'm
putting myself in danger, or how many times I've been asked what propels me to
go off on a new adventure.
Seeing Nature's beauty, studying its management principles - its
Theophysics - and applying them to my own thinking, are what motivate me
most. After I acquired a lot of data, I taught them locally and then I was invited
nationally and internationally. That led to my writing training manuals,
magazine articles, a book, a newspaper column of my Lessons From The Jungle
and a website at www.TheJungleTimes.com.
I also created a series multimedia conferences and seminars on jungle
subjects. One step followed another. Whenever a member of an audience asked
me what's so great about being there, I'd tell 'em, and watch their face light up.
That led my partner and me to create an educational travel company in Costa
Rica and a training theme park.
These are not ideas I'd have entertained way back when. I just followed
my dream, trying to figure out how to teach Theophysics, and worked at it every
day. That work brought suggestions for needed adjustments, and thus things
evolved. All I really brought to the equation was a burning desire to share the
amazing things I learn from Nature.
Making your dreams come true means freeing yourself from your limits,
because that liberates the energy needed to attract power. Famed motivator
Napoleon Hill says his best selling book Think And Grow Rich was the result of
his following his own passion more than a decision. 56 He was fascinated by and
studied the lives of hundreds of successful people, from creative thinkers like

Edison and Bell to captains of industry like Henry Ford, in a quest to understand
the characteristics they shared.
Hill largely focused on people with great financial success but the common
thread he found is each person he studied had amassed a fortune after having
started with nothing more than an idea. They had each transformed thoughts,
concepts and plans – creative capital – into amazing wealth. With hundreds of
examples he shows that a successful life has little to do with believing and
everything to do with certain specific doings and not-doings.
New ideas require more energy than ordinary thoughts. If all our energy is
taken up in daily rituals, how and where will we find the energy we need to make
the changes that will add value to our creative capital?
Psychologist D. L. William suggests that attention is energy, and that if we
learn to focus it, we can save some energy. We can then learn to channel that
extra energy so it becomes a powerful force. If we're busy running around
making deadlines, chasing rainbows or reacting to needs, our attention is divided
and we can't hope to accumulate the energy we require. To develop an
empowered way of seeing and experiencing life, we must become mindful. 57
Hurrying through life and being attentive are polar opposites, so the first
thing to do is relax. Stop time! Your success in anything is 7/8 th assured if you
learn to relax your inner dialogue and bring your full attentive mind to the task.
William says there's another difficulty we must overcome. Most people
have a tendency to assume nothing exists beyond their limited view of reality.
That's a bad habit but I can see its benefit. If there's nothing, then nothing needs
to be done.
Without addressing those two flaws – rushing around our mind and
subverting it with the notion that nothing exists beyond its limited perception –
mind expansion becomes rather improbable.
Since our mind is what determines what's real and what's important in our
life, the possibility of making choices beyond our known neural pathways is
severely jeopardized by indulging in our habitual ones, our usual way of thinking.
Change does require more energy though. As there is no bank or ATM from
which we can draw the extra energy, it's crucial that we properly manage the
energy we do have, and even more, that we consider the energy we do have as our
stake to increase our creative capital.
We can expand our creativity with a sort of parallel thinking. Imagine you
and the life you already have as being on one level, a physical plane of
consciousness, while any dream you have for a more ideal life is on another level,
the Morphic plane of consciousness. You and your dream exist at different but
parallel tracks.

In the quantum probabilities in Infinity, those parallel lines intersect. The
idea is to live wherever you are while developing your dream on the Morphic
plane. As your dream becomes more tangibly physical and you continue to
expand your mind, the two will overlap. When the parallel lines intersect, your
expanded perception will guide you to simply switch tracks. Imagine waking in
your dream. Look around and you'll see other people doing it every day.
There are a couple of management tricks you can incorporate into your
repertoire to increase your creative energy and switch parallels. Practice letting
go of the things, like habitual activities and relationships, that drain you of
vitality or that contribute negatively to your wellbeing, and add new energybuilding
disciplines to your life.
Consider how we must be in the mood to develop our creative capital.
Many creative people use a magic ritual that science calls a Synesthetic Transport
Device to get their mind from the ordinary and mundane into higher states
consciousness where they are creative.
Synesthesia means submerging ourselves in our senses so that they
stimulate one another and their combined output reaches our brain/mind.
Scents, music, foods are evocative and attached to moods, memory or intuition.
A transport device is a mechanism to focus that stimulation so it produces
inspiration.
In other words, a synesthetic transport device will change your mood and
thus your mind. Hemingway, for example, ritually sharpened a bunch of pencils
before sitting down to write, and Kipling only wrote with the blackest of India
inks. Benjamin Franklin liked to write while nude, and Lewis Carroll wrote
standing. Whatever works!
Arrange your life so that the choices you make increase your vitality at
every level - at the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual planes of
consciousness. And then life's magic will start finding you. Become increasingly
mindful, and you'll soon reach a vitality level from where you can attract anything
you want from life
Personal power
In a knowledge-based economy, information has great value. In a digital age, it
has real monetary worth. As there's no shortage of teachers, consultants and
gurus and there is never a shortage of needs in the global village, any help you
might need to further develop yourself is virtually assured. I'm constantly
amazed at the information I can connect with in a few minutes of surfing on the
Web.

Be aware though, that any wisdom, training, tool, book or therapist is only
helpful when we are ready to act. It's only once we take responsibility for
developing our creative capital that these things can help us in concrete ways.
I've had the great pleasure of training thousands of people over many
years and I can easily spot great differences between participants. Some people
are being trained because "the boss sent me!" Others have a personal dream or
goal and want the training to help them achieve it. The people in first group have
to be convinced the information holds value for them, while the people in the
second are looking for practical applications in most everything they hear.
We don't have to believe, but we do have to act – if only because
understanding follows experience. It's not what you do that’s important; what's
important is how you do it and who you become as a result of your doing. A
person can have ten years of experience while another will gain six months
experience twenty times over during the same period. The two apprenticeship
processes are not the same!
After I decided that I had little choice but to invest in developing my inner
resources, I opened my mind onto the unknown and went looking. I was sure of
only one thing: I had to increase and manage the little energy I had at my
disposal. Even if 80% of my body was totally paralyzed, I knew I was more than
the sum of my parts.
In my death experiences, I found that my spirit had power even if my body
suffered a major breakdown, and so I just started there. I decided to focus on my
creative spirit.
I became attentive to this spirit within me, and came to know, befriend
and integrate it into my daily strategies. It is that part of me that's aligned with
the idea of good.
I quickly realized that I could increase my personal power and free myself
of self-sabotaging habits by adopting a spiritual discipline, a surrender to joy that
looked to actualize the idea of good. I developed a sort of personal disability yoga
and looked for opportunities to move past my limits, or the known. I set
objectives and goals and showed up to explore the unknown, love without limit. I
got results and adjusted until the results matched my overall objectives.
In order to avoid delusional beliefs that might interfere with my quest, I
kept that magic law, you shall love the Lord God with all your heart, all your soul,
all your mind and all your strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself,
as my only rule. I then plowed ahead, did my best and haven't looked back. The
way I figured it, because God the Father is Time itself, all I needed to do was give
life my best and let time take care of the details.
Adherence to that rule has led me in and out of situations where I was able
to claim personal power, and those situations brought opportunity and clear

seeing. I became an outspoken advocate on disability issues, and was elected to
represent different organizations and negotiate agreements with business and
government. Power also came from addressing local and international bodies,
from chairing various committees and volunteering to do many things. These
experiences have contributed enormously to my personal sense of feeling
empowered and to my professional life.
I can therefore assure you of the following: acquiring personal power is
more than just an abstract intellectual concept; it's more than a metaphysical
notion that can be believed or disbelieved. Self-empowerment is something real,
experiential, spiritual, creative and subjective. Wondering or reading about or
discussing the subject will do little but engage the intellect in a regurgitation of
the known. We'll know something about personal power, but won't necessarily
have any. Personal power is the result of satisfying your immediate needs
impeccably well, and then climbing the hierarchy.
For me, having personal power means doing exactly what I want with my
time and energy, when what I want is aligned with Nature's law – love. Having
personal power is the result of aligning myself with higher power in altruistic selfinterest.
We can't expand our mind to see it by engaging in petty thoughts and
we can't actualize ourselves by trying to be someone else.
The energy investment
You might think that the notion that we humans perceive the world through our
neurological paradigms is an interesting one, but so what? It becomes so much
more than that when you consider what you can do with the information.
As mind is being made up in the interaction between consciousness and
the neural pathways in our brain, we can shift worldviews and transform our
thoughts into creative capital just by choosing to. We can also add new pathways
to our brain, make innovative links between old ones or completely ignore any of
the ones we've already etched there, if we want to.
With a little self-management, we can alter our past, adapt in the present
or change the future. For example, I don't visit my memories of the pain,
indignities and despair I felt in the weeks after my accident anymore, but I do
remember every kind word and act of the people who helped me though it.
If you adopt a spiritual discipline to develop your creative capital, you'll
immediately profit from learning GI/GO (Garbage In = Garbage Out) and
GSI/GSO (Great Stuff In = Great Stuff Out) thinking. Over the years I discovered
and filled a toolbox with creative thinking techniques and templates for the mind
that have profited me on many occasions.

If we invest our attention in ideas that give us power, we attract power and
add value to ourselves as thinkers. Invest energy in ideas that waste your time
and diminish yourself.
Napoleon Hill believed that if we had a good master plan, we could
transform our ideas into wealth by repeating an easy six-step process as often as
needed. 56
Synthesis # 27 - The 6-steps in transforming ideas into wealth
Hill's process for amassing wealth
1. Fix what you desire in concrete terms - be it an amount of money or a specific
contact, or a job, contract, property, opportunity or any some such - by
writing it down;
2. Determine what you will give for it, what ideas or concepts you have that are
worthy of what you desire, because (ready or not), the golden rule is the
universal action/reaction law and there is no free lunch, and write that down;
3. Write down a strategic plan in which you specify how what you have to give
merits what you want to receive, and who would profit from the exchange;
4. Fix a date by which your plan will be actualized. This step is what brings ideas
to the physical plane of consciousness. Start right away and make needed
adjustments as you go. Don't wait for the perfect plan;
5. Compose a statement of intent that simply and concisely outlines steps 1 to 4
and give it an emotional and heartfelt language and tone;
6. Read your statement every morning and every night, with all the sincerity and
emotional force you can muster, until your not-yet-conscious responds with
further suggestions.
The collection of paradigms - knowledge, experience and desire - that influences
your sphere of energy, your body/mind, can be modified so as to assure you a
wondrous and magical life. The creative paradigm sees how your body/mind
system exists within a large planetary bio-system, life.
Align your thinking with life. You'll soon see that social laws and rules are
subject to Nature's laws and rules, which are subject to God's one law. We are
organized chemicals, or biological beings. We become conscious and so we can
shift orders of magnitude and appreciate how we are also being created from the
inside out. The bio-beings are molecules, atoms, energy and Light.

In the universe at large, at subatomic rules of organization where matter
and Light are one and the same, duality and polarity are worlds apart, even if
indivisibly bound together. To think creatively at this level, we must tolerate
contradictions, paradoxes and counter-intuitive scenarios, and explore the
concept of oneness.
The brain's neural circuitry is more experienced with thinking in its
habitual ways, while innovative breakthroughs will require new links. As
brain/mind is a self-organizing system, it can generate new ways of thinking by
adopting a few creative techniques.
12 ways to produce genius
You can consciously train your brain to input and to output genius perceptions
about any subject at all, including how to trade those ideas for commercial gain.
Below you'll find twelve creative thinking techniques to help the brain organize
its data in exciting new ways.
Synthesis # 29 - How the mind produces genius ideas
1. Understand and undermine the effect of paradigms on your thinking by
breaking through limits with creativity's tools, techniques and templates;
2. Examine problems from every angle and resolves conflicts by seeking out
beauty, simplicity and elegance;
3. Produce a lot of ideas. Test them out and throw out the bad ones;
4. Make new and novel connections between dissimilar ideas;
5. Force relationships by moving into the macrocosm or into the microcosm;
6. Think in terms of unifying opposites and appreciating paradoxes; support
contradictions, tolerate ambivalence and hold incompatible positions;
7. Thinks in, like, metaphors man;
8. Makes your thoughts visible and look for patterns and anomalies;
9. Understand how to use humor and seek out joy;
10. Allow for chance and serendipity; prepare to get lucky;
11. Look for confirmations from the natural world;

12. Realize how understanding must FOLLOW experience.
Creative thinking techniques allow us to receive and generate new thoughts,
make creative new connections between all kinds of thoughts, and guide the flow
so they become profitable ideas. And, perhaps even more importantly, they help
us revisit old positions so you can draw new insights from them as well.
The positive and negative forces in human nature are our e-motions. We
color events with an emotional tone and then store them in memory for future
reference. That tainted information will be accessed if we revisit those same old
emotional events in the same ways. Creative thinking techniques give us access
to much greater areas of the mind by letting us reason in a depersonalized ways
to consider the probabilities of all kinds of data.
Philosophically speaking, the battle of good and evil is waged emotionally
in each one of us all the time as we attract ideas to our emotional charge and
project them into the world at large.
Throughout history, we've translated our metaphysical ideas into positive
and negative acts, and then invoked God into our doings to justify them. The
Theophysics of universe says that God and Satan are not equal forces. That fairytale
thinking dishonors the Infinite. The gods and satans battling it out in the
world are us, god-sons awake and not-yet awakened godsons (Christ and ante-
Christ).
We experience emotion first, and the hormones released assemble our
mind. Then making up our mind decides how to act. In terms of actually
experiencing emotion, many folks are oblivious to the fact that the opposite of
love is not hate. Hate is something else, assembled from other hormones. The
opposite of love is apathy, or not feeling love or assembling its worldview.
Similarly, the opposite of self-empowerment is self-sabotage, or not actively
developing personal power.
You can't wait for magic to happen; you have to act first. You'll learn about
magic as you do everything that is needed to gain personal power. First acquire
power, and then watch magic happen.
Adopting a proactive plan with heart gives you free rein in the pursuit of
happiness, to give your life all the creativity and power it needs so you are filled to
the brim with energy. Then, no matter what destiny presents you, you'll be ready.
Traveling on the path of your heart gives you confidence in your abilities
by showing you that you are not separate from the creative laws and forces in the
universe; rather, you are a part of them.

Energy is transactional
Our moods and their resulting assemblage of mind are also forms of energy. In
continuum, the electromagnetic force - or God the Holy Spirit - is an indivisible
force field from which most everything is created, even if we might not see it that
way. You and I and the space that separates us in a crowd are mainly frequencies
vibrating in an electromagnetic field. By communicating information, we are
trading energy, even if we don't think of it that way.
I'm often reminded of the invisible and indivisible energy-world, though,
whenever, for example, I lock or unlock my Jeep with the remote key. I can see
the tiny waves of oscillation generated by the device reach out to interact with a
sensor. The doors unlock and the ceiling lights go on at a click because
electromagnetic waves of energy deliver information. I can see my computer
interface with a hot spot connection when I log-on in the Internet café. Infrared
frequencies connect cyberspace to my laptop, digitally trading all kinds of data.
People trade moods and energy states and we affect one another in much
the same way. We transact by projecting our emotions and their assemblages on
the environment that surrounds us, on our significant others; we offer our
personality to a world that we attract in consequence. Change your mood and
you'll change your politics.
Did you know that we receive and communicate information from one
another directly? We exchange ideas without saying a word, without even seeing
one another. Who hasn't felt oppressed by an aggressive environment, or been
filled with energy in one of Nature's power spots and beautiful sites? Who hasn't
felt an instant attraction or aversion to someone they’ve met for the first time?
Ever walk into a room and feel the general uneasiness that was provoked by a
tense situation before you arrived?
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake who contributed a lot of research to establishing real
science on the Morphic fields that resonate about solid energy states writes in his
book, The Sense Of Being Stared At: "Telepathy and other psychic phenomena
contradict the assumption that the mind is confined to the brain. Therefore,
from the materialist point of view, they are impossible, and dogmatic skeptics
dismiss them as illusory. Nevertheless, many people claim that they themselves
have had telepathic experiences." 58
In fact, research show that about 75% of people have had some sort of
paranormal experience, and in recent American and British national polls, 45% of
respondents said they had telepathic experiences and 59% said they believed in
the potential.
Sometimes we'll be on the same wavelength and empathy will lead us to
assemble reality from the same plane of consciousness. Then we communicate
much more easily and mirror the best to and from one another. Animals and
very young children are particularly sensitive to differences in the quality of

transactional energy. Some babies will categorically refuse to let certain
members of the family come near them. Or they'll totally surrender themselves
into the care of a complete stranger. Dogs sense aggression and love with
uncanny ability, as we know, but can sense disease, malfunction and psychic
disturbance as well.
Have you ever been afraid of someone without good reason, or caught a
laughing fit without being sure what was going on? Some people are so dynamic
that an exchange with them gives us a complete boost. Others are energyvampires,
sucking so much vitality out of us that we feel drained after a few
minutes of conversation with them.
By being more aware of how you affect others with your energy and how
you are affected by their energy, you can choose relationships that add to your
creative capital. While creative breakthroughs are certainly made by a person
working alone, the creative process will most often profit from collaborative
efforts.
Investing a little attention in your energy transactions will also allow you
to distinguish between general intelligence and specialized intelligence.
Specialized intelligence is information that can be organized into creative capital.
It's data you can transform into assets and then barter to reach the goals you've
set.
The maxim knowledge is power is only true when the knowledge is
organized into creative ideas, contained in a strategic plan and focused on
obtaining results. Without that creative assemblage, knowledge is just data.
Our exchanges have as much power as the results we get from them. You
can get the results you want from your exchanges with others by organizing the
knowledge you need for success. Arrange information in terms of how it can serve
others.
Divide your sphere of awareness into your known and your unknown, and
seek out those people who can illuminate and guide your explorations of the
unknown.
As we do not generally possess all the knowledge, experience and
resources required to create a worthy project alone, an empowered mind seeks to
forge alliances with experts who can contribute the specialized information,
talent and drive needed to succeed.
Depending on the alliances you form, realize that most people don't
contribute their time, energy and resources for nothing, especially over any
reliable length of time. An individual with a plan can transact with others in
many ways. Of course, paying them will work just fine, but unless you have
sufficient resources, trading your creative capital works fine too. You might be

surprised at how many profitable deals begin with an agreement in principle,
with resources to follow.
People transact freely from co-ownership positions and when they'll profit
from shares and bonus plans. You can barter goods and services with things like
talent and time and come up with many win-win-win scenarios by exploring
altruistic interests.
Breakthrough thinking
In order for creative breakthroughs to be possible, we thinkers must first realize
that our assumptions about the world, or how things are, interfere with our
capacity to give creative thought to how things might be. Most anyone can make
creative, innovative and even visionary links with information in any field of
interest, but each must first break through their limiting neural paradigms.
The mind is guided to record impressions, which we then believe to be
objective fact. Our assumptions are information that we've pre-judged. Because
our assumptions suppose things are as they should be, they inhibit further
thought about them. To breakthrough prejudicial thinking, we only need develop
a little curiosity to think in terms of what ifs.
Innovative breakthroughs seem to be attracted to curious people. Many
folks believe they'll suddenly become curious when they have something to be
curious about. In fact, the human mind works in exactly the opposite way.
Rather than identify gaps in our knowledge for further inquiry, the brain will fill
in blanks with all kinds of assumptions and suppositions. If something seems
askew, we'll just invent a scenario to rationalize it.
"We've always done it that way!" assumes that it's the only or the best way
to do it, and stops further exploration. "We can't do that!" stops everything. We
humans have a tendency to form judgments first, and ask questions later, if at all.
We'll assume that we know what the client wants, what our spouse’s answer will
be or what the boss expects of us rather than question their motives and
intentions. And we are so often wrong. Who would have suspected that one of
the largest accounting firms in the world would cheat and lie their way into the
headlines? Don't we just assume that reputable auditors – certified accountants,
after all – conduct reputable audits?
“Never assume,” say the wise, breaking the word into simple pieces,
“because when you do, you make an 'ass' out of 'u' and out of 'me'."
Certainly, assumptions are necessary if we are to function on a day-to-day
basis. On waking, we assume the day starts with the sun in the east, our car keys
where we put them the night before, trains are running, and that house and
hearth will still be standing when we get home. While we are not 100% sure

these will always be true, our assumptions let us plan our lives without constantly
dealing with the unknown.
Assumptions are our shields against the vagaries of the awesome out
there. Making assumptions is only a problem when we forget that it's a
shorthand way for us to maneuver through life. If we don't challenge them, they
become reinforced and our shields become impenetrable walls that hide the
potential of an idea, a proposal or an opportunity. A breakthrough thinker, by
definition, looks beyond the limits created by masks, shields and assumptions.
The force needed to break through a neural paradigm is curiosity.
The following technique can free you from any limit that might be
undermining your potential, even if you don't want to know about it. People
tend to hold onto their scariest assumptions, keeping them tightly locked in their
mind. Those assumptions begin to work themselves free when they are exposed
to the light of day and exposed to the heat of logic.
The creative light can shine when an assumption such as the world is flat
is rephrased as a question: how is the world flat? The question is now a
hypothesis that can be tested as the mind opens to information. A question
requires answers, and those answers will point towards directions for further
explorations. The breaks will appear at the assumption's outer edges, where it is
confronted with fact.
Synthesis # 29 - The 5 steps to breaking through your limits
Breakthrough thinking:
1. Recognize your limiting assumptions;
2. Record each assumption;
3. Translate the assumption into a question;
4. Seek out facts;
5. Challenge the assumption.
Recognize your assumptions. Become aware of the limiting personal, corporate
or social truths you've accepted by recognizing clues from your own or other
people's body language, emotions and words. As a general rule, when your body
is closed, tight and stiff, or if it's defensive or if you deride data that doesn't
support what you believe, or if you feel threatened by information, it is likely that

you've been making assumptions about something. You are being defined by an
assumption of what's true or not.
If we consciously or even subconsciously feel insecure about facts, we tend
to defend them as beliefs instead of wanting to shed as much light as possible on
the subject. In fact, universal truths can stand any test and have no need to be
defended. That's what makes them universal. Anything less is dross.
Record your assumptions as you uncover them. Write down your
assumptions or those you discover in others to make them real; isolate them from
casual observance and see them concretely. That makes all the difference. Once
it's documented, an assumption can be viewed objectively and tested.
Being a breakthrough thinker isn't just froth. It's hard work. Look around
you and ask, why not? Write down, then study your assumptions and create a
distance between you, the observer, and the idea observed. Leave it behind you
and come back again another time. The distance will allow you to benefit from a
detached overview and that can lead to a multidimensional perception. Later on,
you'll see what can be changed as you get curious about notions like better and
best, or more and most, or sooner and soonest.
Learn to translate your assumptions into questions. Ask yourself
important questions like, “Why do I believe this? How did this belief become
mine? Why do I think that way? Could I be mistaken when I think about how
that might be right or wrong? Can facts be falsified? Do complementary and
contradictory facts exist? Is there science? Does my own experience support my
belief? Where can I find other opinions? Etc., etc."
After you've posed a few clear questions, check out the facts. Start with a
search through billions of Web pages and go from there. Make use of libraries,
schools, books and technical manuals. Search in non-habitual places and the
edges of belief for far out relationships. Look for larger patterns in dissimilar
data. Find creative indicators by pursuing order, beauty, joy and humor. Follow
your heartfelt intuitions and be ready for the unexpected and the serendipitous.
Get lucky.
Challenge your assumptions. If you find that they are not substantiated by
facts, get real curious about what other ideas might be supported by the false
truths. Innovative breakthroughs will be found just past your limits. Be careful,
though, your shields protect your ego, a powerful foe that won't give up without a
fierce struggle.
Self-empowered thinking
My life and my assumptions about it were completely shattered in one fateful
moment, but then creative thinking helped me reconstruct a better view. At the

very beginning of my transformational pilgrimage, I knew my memories and
habits slowed my personal growth, so I developed and integrated a strategy to
allow me to get beyond them.
I considered my assumptions about the world to be an underlying reason
for my accident, and I recognized that they consumed too much energy for me to
ignore them. So I consciously decided to question them... all of them. What did I
know for sure?
Paradoxically, having my reality in turmoil fired up my determination to
become a more powerful and a more creative thinker. At the time, I was heavily
involved in disability politics and was finding out that my naïveté was fodder for
the pros and the spin-doctors. To my great luck, I learned the following formula
and incorporated it into my life.
Synthesis # 31 - The creative self-empowerment formula
Ego + Identity = Personality -> Individuality
Ego: Who I am
Identity: A creative role I can adopt
Personality: The fusion of [ego + id]
Individuality: Whole-brain experience.
Ego is my persona, the physical, emotional and intellectual dimensions of my
sphere of consciousness. I am at the center of my sphere here/now. At any
moment, my ego can imagine its self - a transcendental identity - with spiritual
characteristics I can mimic.
Ego can adopt a role, incorporate its appropriate behavior and experience
it. Actors do it all the time. The result of the new combination, ego + identity, is
a personality with the creative flexibility to adopt behavior as needed. And that is
magic.
After the hospital, I vowed that I'd get to know and understand myself
better. Looking back, I see why I interpreted that quest as a path of creative
expansion. I took charge of my needs, did things, encountered obstacles, and
adjusted. For example, in the first five years after my accident, I moved five
times, but then kept the last address for all the years since. In that same time, I
radically changed professions three times and how I practice teaching in a dozen
ways.

I tried hundreds, and very quickly outgrew, many interests and
compulsions. The more I took charge of myself – the more I practiced those five
roles and freed myself from my limits – the more I could overcome obstacles, and
the happier I became. Acquiring power resulted from the process, but thinking
and behaving as creatively as I could was the process I committed to.
As I practiced creative thinking and incorporated empowering new
knowledge into my sphere of consciousness, another formula caught my
attention: Attitude x Frequency = Power.
Very simply, encouraged by my own progress, I used creativity tools more
and more often, and then I could access new intelligence with greater ease. In
fact, by repeatedly reinforcing the empowerment pathways I etched in my brain,
they became new habits and templates from which even more creative
possibilities emerged.
I practiced 5 roles to entertain ideas with whole-brain benefit. Creative
thinking involves changing moods so I became a stalker, a dreamer, a seer, a
warrior and a creative-communicator. We can play those five roles to resolve any
personal and professional challenge or to solve any problem. The formula tells
how to map out new directions, design innovative services and products, manage
projects and relationships creatively and make dreams come true.
Synthesis # 32 - The roles of a creative thinker
5 roles in creative thinking
A stalker seeks out information;
A dreamer incubates information for intelligent insight;
A seer analyzes the data and puts the “aha!” in a creative plan;
A leader implements the plan, verifies its expectations with facts and adjusts;
A communicator shares the intent of the plan with others.
The five roles of a creative thinker is a behavioral role-playing technique that
shapes information into creative ideas and profitable projects. Based on the
natural workings of the brain as a self-organizing system, it involves seeking out
data (from everywhere) in the role of stalker, and incubating the information
found at both conscious and unconscious levels of the mind for insight as a
dreamer.

Because understanding follows experience, we can analyze the insight
produced later, when acting as a seer. As warrior, we implement the fruit of the
analytical labor in the real world to try it out, and then, creative, we communicate
our intent to others.
Stalkers seek out data. In a continuing search to fill my own needs
(personal, cultural, social, professional, global), I align my amphibian/reptilian
brain-circuits to gather information. Consider how snakes are perfectly adapted
to seek out prey, how they taste moods and sense body heat. Carefully positioned
where it can see its world pass by, a snake might stay immobile and invisible for
hours or even days; and then, when the object of its stalking appears, it strikes
suddenly and without hesitation.
I've learned to stalk information in the asphalt jungles, the political jungles
and the cyber-jungles. I found that stalkers need clear goals and must transcend
personal fears and limits to become curious. I learned to look for ideas in many
strange places, to entertain many different options and to be open and broadminded
when I considered some data's source or practicality
I participate in all kinds of networks that provided the kinds of
information I'm seeking out, and I let myself be guided and inspired by all kinds
of things. (You'd be amazed, for example at what you can learn at a trade show or
product conference.) To avoid frustration, a stalker must understand others'
limits and how to use obstacles, so I practiced determination, persistence, ruse,
etc. I learned strategy.
After I stalk information, I can become a dreamer. That is, I let the
information sit in my mind for a while and let consciousness transform the data
into all kinds of creative concepts. Dreamers activate their mammalian braincircuits
– our limbic emotions – and probe the subconscious, unconscious and
Super-conscious depths of their mind. And they don't even have to be asleep!
As new information bounces around, it can “aha!” in creative new
potentials. To be an effective dreamer, I learned to synthesize my findings and
put them into creative order. I learned to imagine seemingly impossible
concepts, and to visualize, meditate, mediate and intuit an idea's full potential. I
learned to identify contradictions in my findings and adopt those views that
seemed like answers for the greater good.
Dreamers, or people with hopes and wishes, open their mind to every
potential. Morphic depths offer up images and opinions of all kinds, so serious
dreaming means not getting hooked on a particular facet of an idea in order to
stay open to the larger possibilities. Dreamers dissect their ideas and examine
them from every angle to see how they fill needs.
Then, as a seer, I use my left-brain logic to judge the pertinence of any
concept that I dreamed up, and to assess its potential use. In this role, I question
data and challenge facets of ideas or projects, questioning myself about intent

and desired outcomes by asking, what am I trying to accomplish? On what
aspects of this idea/project can I build? What are the advantages and
disadvantages of this idea? Have I thought the idea through to a realistic
conclusion? Am I sure of the information I am using? If my concept can't be
developed, what aspects can I salvage? What am I assuming? Are my
assumptions still valid? Has the idea or project been done before? What am I
unaware of? Am I ready to make a decision? Etc.
Leaders act. Playing this role means tuning into my neo-cortex where I get
instant feedback from my actions and reactions. In this role, I recognize how I
am my own biggest obstacle, and my attitude my only real battleground. Selfaware,
I can see accepting any new idea – by me and most anyone else – requires
a strategy, so I evolve my what if thinking to what is and make a strategic plan,
what can be done and all the rest, how, who, when, where?
Leaders overcome procrastination and get rid of all of their excuses or
defensive attitudes. They must factor in the data on how other people accept new
ideas into their plans, and take responsibility for every detail. Adopting the
warrior's role, I've learned to be pragmatic and to consider win/win/win
scenarios whenever others are involved.
Communicators are the animators of creation; they bring it to life with
transactional energy. To actualize my dreams, I learned to recognize that selfesteem
has little to do with what others think of me, but everything to do with
how I think about them.
Persuasive communicators speak with all the passion they can muster and
give others their full attention when it is merited. I learned to give directions as
clearly and as simply as possible, and to remain totally receptive to my
environment at all times so I can adjust to it and let it adjust to me.
I realized how speed kills, so I slowed my inner dialogue to where my own
creative intent took the lead. I also learned to present facts in theatrical ways, to
separate people's questions from their objections, to seek out excellence and the
idea of good, and to understand the power of silence when assessing ideas and
persuading others.
Communicators continuously reestablish their link with the spirit of
l.o.v.e., because that's the medium through which they'll be understood and
accommodated.
Integrate the five roles of a creative thinker into your life and you’ll acquire
the intelligence to transform it in any way you choose. The tool can be used to
clarify your ideas, to make strategic plans, to connect with others and to reach
your goals.
Over time, you can accumulate a wealth of data on subjects of interest that
can fill your needs and the needs of others. You can consciously transform that

information into creative concepts by adding value to it – your own inter
legencia. Your ideas can be organized into health, wealth and happiness and
released into the global marketplace.
Be a stalker
Expert thinkers will tell you that if an idea is not acted on in the few minutes after
it appears as a thought, it dims, and then disappear. Jot your ideas and bits and
pieces of ideas down. They can be saved and may, over time, gel into concepts
and whole-blown notions. Ideas that may seem unrelated at first will connect to
others that come later, in ways that might produce astonishing results.
Stalkers carry a notebook in which to jot down their findings. You are
consciously looking for opportunities to add to your creative capital and ideas
only have value after you write them down. You don't have to understand where
an idea comes from, why it appeared or how it connects to other ideas. What's
important is to define exactly what you are stalking, stay alert and consider any
data that'll enlighten your quest with an open mind.
If you answered the questions I asked in preceding chapters of this book,
you'll already have a pretty fair view yourself and your life. That's a good place to
start.
Determine what level of need will benefit from what improvements and
head down that path. That'll be your creative intent. If your health isn't what it
should be, note your eating habits and stalk the correctives. Do you exercise?
How does your body affect the quality of your mind's energy? Start thinking
about a healthier living plan and stalk ideas, introducing them into your daily
habits. A stalker will consider him or herself as his or her own greatest obstacle
At the very least, constantly give your body/mind the nutrients, the work,
the rest and the play it requires before you stress it with abuses. When your body
is fit, it'll supply your mind with an abundance of spirit. If you saw your
body/mind like a wondrous, latest super-duper electromagnetic bio-computer,
would you treat it with anything but admiration and respect?
How much vital energy does emotional life consume? Note how your
creative intent can be undermined by a negative mood. Are you stressed out or
calm? Are you easily angered, discouraged, aggressive, depressed, submissive,
serene, optimistic or joyful? Note your usual emotional range and what effect
emotions have on your energy levels.
Are you a healthy human being? Does your environment nurture you or
alienate you? Are your ethics above board? Are you happy in your relationships?
Are you easily defeated or victimized? Are you leading with your heart?

Examine your life and ask yourself if you're satisfied with what you've
accomplished so far. Do you like the person you're becoming? Are you apathetic?
Or are you actively making your dreams come true and helping others with
theirs? What's missing that will give complete quality to your life? Are you
working on a plan to satisfy your needs?
Your view of life and the way you participate in it are a reaction to the way
you feel. When we are sad, the skies will seem dark in spite of radiant sunshine.
If we are enthusiastic, life's challenges can motivate us to greatness! Note your
moods and jot them down. I'm not talking about therapy here, I'm talking about
strategy. You are a stalker merely seeking out information, not assessing nor
analyzing it.
The quality of your life is the quality of your vital energy, so at this stage
you should consider stalking whatever is limiting your magnitude, amplitude and
frequency.
Be a dreamer
Dreamers transform information into creative concepts. Dreaming lets us jump
ahead to how things can be so we can look back, noting how they are, and then fill
in the gaps. Dreamers build bridges between here/now and there/then.
A dreamer will first shape perceptions in here and then choose the
relationship they want with out there. Proper alignment is magic. By paying
attention to dreams, we can use them to align our plans in synchronistic ways.
Dreamers use tools like positive imagery, affirmation, visualization, and even
tantric yoga or sex magic to shorten the divide between their conscious minds
and Super-conscious intent.
Dare to dream how to improve your life, and then move in the directions
your dreams suggest. By noting how your consciousness interacts with your
brain in those mind states called alpha, theta and delta, and you'll find it easier to
gain control over your dreams. As you give attention to your dreams, your ability
to visualize creatively and imagine will improve, and so will the quality and scope
of the dreams you'll have.
Several good books can help guide the neophyte learning to relax and
dream a better world. Soon you'll enter dreamscapes as if exploring other worlds,
and discover the unlimited creative intelligence available to us.
Asleep, use dream gates. Human brain activity is well suited for breaking
ideas down into manageable bites before reconstructing them into new potential.
Make sure you enjoy regular sleep cycles (dream gates are generally wide open
between midnight and dawn, and in the mid-afternoon from about 2:00 to 5:00

P.M., the best time for dreaming) and use the data gathered in the Morphic realm
back on this physical side.
Don't forget: Over time your mind will change and images you have of
yourself and your potential will chang. Dream a positive future for yourself, see
yourself in that future, and then practice being that person here and now.
Be a seer
Seers validate the information they stalk and the concepts they dream in order to
establish action plans that can take them where they want to be. They examine
ideas to see if and how they can help their goals. As a seer, you must be process
oriented rather than result-oriented, as the following story illustrates:
Once, a young man traveled to Japan to attend a school where a famous
martial arts master taught. Reaching the dojo, he was greeted by the
Sensei who asked him, "What do you want from me?"
The young man answered, "I want to become your student and be the
finest karateka in the world!” Then he added: “How long must I study
with you?"
"At least ten years," replied the master.
"Ten years is a very long time," said the traveler. "What if I study twice as
hard as other students?"
"Twenty years!” he was answered.
"Twenty years! But if I practice night and day and devote all my efforts
to my studies?"
"Oh, then thirty years," said the master.
"How is it possible to need more time if I study harder? If I work hard
shouldn't I succeed sooner?"
"The answer to your question is simple," said the Sensei. "When a mind is
focused on the destination, it is not free to experience the way."
If we examine an idea while lusting after an objective, we taint the results so that
facts and real conclusions are no longer possible. People often fall into the trap.
Imagine a dieter who sets a specific goal, such as losing 20 pounds, and focuses
on that goal, temporarily altering habits but not addressing issues like what or
why he eats. The idea that a time-specific goal will give a permanent result,
regardless of habit, is unreal.

In my example, process orientation means learning to eat well, to exercise
and to listen to your body so your ideal weight finds you. Any self-improvement
plan has to recognize the great enemy who'll oppose any change that might be
suggested. As a seer, you can defeat this enemy by choosing among the facts
stalked and concepts dreamed, to retain the information that aligns you with your
dreams.
Stages in the Art of Strategy
Synthesis # 33 - 5 steps in a personal strategy
1. Analyze your situation;
2. Learn as much as possible about your inner opponent;
3. Develop a winning strategy;
4. Review your strategy and its chances for success;
5. Act.
In The Art of Strategy, R.L. Wing calls resistance our inner opponent, and
suggests that we can defeat this enemy by managing the five stages of a strategy.
1. Analyze your situation: This most important step will determine if you
are ready to take on the challenge. If, for example, you conclude that greater selfesteem
will bring you closer to your goals, then you must analyze each facet of
what that means and note how changes will impact your life. If you believe that
esteem work will be worth it in the long run, if it's something you want and you
are determined to go through with it, then you are ready. If you experience the
slightest hesitation, start somewhere else. It doesn't matter where you start.
What matters is starting and not stopping.
2. Learn as much as possible about your inner opponent: Familiarize
yourself with its habits, its reactions and its effects on other aspects of your life.
For example, where, when and how do you suffer from low self-esteem? You can
play stalker again and take notes. Soon you'll surround your enemy and trap it,
leaving it no room to escape.
3. Develop a winning strategy: Be precise and detailed as you prepare
your action plan. Avoid half-measures and make sure you integrate rewards of
various kinds that will encourage your progress. Design your strategy as if you
were planning to rid yourself of a pesky insect or unclog a drain; beating your
inner opponent might require special preparation and tools. If need be get

training on strategy or read a book on the subject. Vanquish self-pity, excuses,
anger, fear and other crutches.
4. Review your strategy and its chances for success: Before acting, it’s
important that you reexamine your action plan to ensure that, once in place,
things will progress as desired. If you've anticipated that a decision risks
affecting members of your family, for example, you need to determine and assess
its repercussions to avoid slowing down or having to modify your own actions.
A well thought-out plan can save you time, energy and resources.
Consider how to fight a dragon with 1,000 heads: you can either battle each one
of those snarling, biting heads one after another, or you can chop the dragon's
neck so that all its heads fall at once. Choose the most disruptive element in your
life and invest your energy there, to change that one thing. Then see what's
behind that barrier.
5. Act: Understanding and adjustment only follow action, not precede it.
Be a leader
A leader acts. There is a war between a reactive mind and its limiting paradigms
and the emerging magical mind. As your first leadership strategy, expand into a
proactive mode. Your strategic plan requires doings and certain not-doings.
Concentrate on the quality of your energy and participate in the creative
process. Develop your ideas, concentrate on their strengths and seek out allies
who can help you actualize your plans. As a warrior of spirit, become aware that
your doubts and fears slow your progress more than any rival can. Practice
detachment, behave in ways that are above reproach and act with purpose,
strategically investing your “self” where it will do the greatest good.
A leader is motivated from within. Taking full responsibility for how to be
and live, a warrior realizes that power is an expansion into a higher mind.
Warrior-work means freeing yourself from your limits to love, and transacting
profitably with others. Leaders transform their every act into an act of power, and
thus become more powerful with each strategy.
With your energy focused on mind expansion, life extension and selfactualization,
playing those roles will help reach your goals. Your identity and
attitude as a spiritual leader will define your position in the world.

Be a persuasive communicator
Persuasive communicators are first and foremost masters in the art of strategy.
Authors of their own success, great communicators create the conditions that
stimulate and maintain the interest of listeners (the Latin word communis means
common). The intent behind an effective communication should contain hope
for mutual gain. As such, when we communicate, we establish a kinship with the
other, with the aim of sharing a mood or an attitude that trades information or
ideas.
Knowing how ideas must move from unconscious to conscious realms in
the mind before they are accepted and can be acted on, master-communicators
expect nothing from listeners. Every communication solicits an outcome, and
great communicators adjust to it by managing the emotional context of the
communication, its mood. They carefully choose their words – nouns, adjectives
and verbs – and select visual, audio or technical aids to orchestrate all the details
of their communication.
Persuading people to respond in the way that you want them to, or to act
according to your suggestions, is both an art and a science that profits from some
basic understanding of marketing and sales. If your goal is to actualize your
intent, you'll need an honest appraisal of all the players, what they are ready to
buy, and how to approach them.
A sales manual is valuable help to anyone who wants to increase the ability
to communicate, as is a good book on negotiation. Remember, your
communications are only as effective as the results you are getting.
A persuasive communicator will capture the listener's attention before
sharing his or her own intent. Be receptive to the impact of your communications
on others and you'll see where to improve them. Listening is not just being quiet,
it's taking a genuine interest in what you are hearing. Effective communicators
decode body language, moods and words to get an overall sense of what they are
hearing. Be aware of any resistance you might provoke, and then try a strategic
approach that minimizes it.
Prepare important communications by answering a few questions: With
whom are you communicating? What are the perceptions of this audience in
regard to you, and what you will share with them? What are your objectives
and strategic considerations? Why would this audience or this listener benefit
from hearing you at this time? What communication aids and media will you
use? How will you successfully address specific needs and motivations?
Simple though they may seem, these questions are not that easy to answer.
But answer them you must, if you want to avoid the trap of wishful thinking, or
wishing others would buy, rather than persuading them with good reasons they
must deal with you.

Your family and friends will most probably be affected by any changes you
embrace. You can facilitate your transformation into more creative and
empowered states of mind by avoiding any resistance from them. Carefully work
out a communication plan, a strategy that decides who needs to know what,
when, where and why, and then take others into consideration.
For example, for several years after leaving the hospital I never answered
my phone directly, as had been my habit. I let the machine record a message and
I'd decide later how to sort it out. Before, I had a rather customer-service
reaction to whoever called me, and was too accessible and too willing to put
others first.
The inner work I had to complete required me to break that habit, and I
was amazed to see how that simple act freed up so much time for me. It also
improved the quality of my communications, as I was now less off the cuff and
reactive with my remarks. I was able to give thought to the message received and
the answer to be provided. That small thing changed a whole lot of others things
in my life, but some people took offense to it and left nasty messages, confirming
who they really were.
Avoid wasting your energy by needlessly talking about your plans,
proposals and projects, especially if you find yourself having to defend them. You
shouldn't feel you have to share decisions with anyone unless you're sure they will
be affected by them or can contribute to them.
Task-oriented transformation
It's impossible to be creative in an abstract sense. In the abstract, everybody is a
genius, but nothing gets done. It's also improbable that anyone could transform
his or her mind and commune with the Super-conscious M.I.N.D.* just by
wanting to. Self-empowerment is a transformation process, and a creative and
powerful mind is a result of that process.
Self-empowerment requires participating in a process wherein we
physically etch new paradigms in our brain. Tools like breakthrough thinking,
self-empowered thinking, and five roles thinking, allow us to connect the dots
and make innovative links between some very beneficial and profitable neurons
in our brain. The power neurons are already in there, waiting to be connected.
As consciousness accesses those pathways, mind is empowered.
Decide what aspect of your creative capital you want to develop – your
logical, or musical, or literary, or interpersonal, or other intelligence. Look for or
initiate a project that will allow you to develop the talents that required by that
capital. Join with others in any manner that might be required, but give the very
best of you. Your creative expression must come from adding value to what is.

My partners and I used these and other tools as templates to help us
realize a dream in a magnificent rainforest in Costa Rica. I'll briefly describe the
techniques and the context where we used them here below, but complete
instructions are at the back of the book in the Tool Box.
We treat any project as a magical operation. Actualizing a project causes
change to occur in conjunction with subjective will, pure and applied, so
transforming a dream is a way of containing, focusing and developing our
creativity.
We adopted the 5 roles of the empowered thinker. We used other tools to
help play each role and clarify our thinking and they made managing the project a
lot easier. Even if there's a logical order for using the five roles, we should stalk
the facts before dreaming the concept. And because some of us have a natural
affinity for one role more than another, our self-empowerment requires us to use
every role as need be.
If you are dreaming the finishing touches on a concept and recognize you
are missing a fact, stop and stalk it before continuing to dream, and then see if
the whole concept isn't perhaps creative enough.
We stalked information
Deciding to create a theme park in Costa Rica, our first task was to separate the
information we had from the information we needed. Our passion for Nature had
led Suzy and I to a wealth of knowledge on «Sylvantherapy» - a science that
studies the healing and wellness properties of forests and wilderness areas. Early
in our relationship our interests came together in this little known discipline and
we'd been avid students of its various elements: trekking, medicinal plants, ecotourism
and heuristic learning, etc.
From the Latin word for forest, Sylvantherapy recognizes how certain
climates affect mood and the nervous system. Think of tonic air high in the
mountains, or the soothing seashore. We both served on the board of directors of
an organization that incorporated all those concepts into the design of national
parks and reserves, so this all factored into our decision to create a theme park in
the jungle.
I should add that we fully appreciated our limitations: my being a
wheelchair-jockey, Suzy being petite, and both of us having been raised in the big
city. At the same time, we decided we wanted a project on a scale we could build
ourselves. Even if we were open to associating with others, we wanted no
encumbrances.
Creating a park in a relatively remote place is a rather complex and lengthy
job and, to avoid prolonged explanations and engagements with partners whose

interest might wane over time, so we decided to assume the costs and do the work
ourselves.
Our decision required some very creative mind work, and we incorporated
an exercise called abstract thinking into our daily routine to help us identify what
we already knew and separate it from what we didn't know, to avoid re-inventing
the wheel and to avoid the ego's intellectual pitfalls.
Abstract thinking is a modified version of the creativity tool called
brainstorming invented by ad-man Alex Osborn in 1952. This particular
application let us toy with ideas as abstract concepts, allowing us to share our
known and receive new ideas and more easily accept them so we can make
creative connections between them.
The tool asks us to see any idea conjured as merely an abstract concept, an
idea that is stripped of emotional value until written down and specifically
claimed by someone. Ideas are abstract in the sense they are not to be accused
nor defended.
The tool allowed us to generate a great diversity of ideas, to share
knowledge about who knew what and how, and it let us overcome the widespread
tendency to overlook obvious options before beginning to search for new ideas,
programs and projects.
Abstract thinking is a discipline that's used to keep the mind open while it
entertains information. If new information is viewed in an abstract way, it can be
combined with existing data and produce a new “aha!” Abstract thinking lets us
subscribe to Dr. Linus Pauling's strategy for getting a good idea, gather a lot of
ideas and throw the bad ones away.
Our basic approach begins with the question, "Tell me what you know
about…" and then, with fresh coffee, people, paper and pen, and the Internet, we
jot down all the ideas put forward. We suspend judgment and use humor to
disarm our logic and assumptions. We link ideas that are similar and form
patterns. And then we incubate the data by dreaming on it.
We used that exercise to generate lists of all our project-related questions.
As we stalked answers to these questions, we discovered amazing information
and resources. We visited all of Costa Rica over several trips before deciding on a
general area for the park, and once made, that decision introduced us to many
other complementary ideas. Focusing our search in the southern zone, we
proceeded to acquire and study topographical maps, weather charts, soil reports
and others indispensable data essential to planning the park.
We use another creative technique called constructive thinking to help us
share and build on the nuggets of ideas as we find them. The tool can be used in
roundtable discussions with a motivated and creative team to help improve,

amend, expand, resolve and evolve ideas, concepts or situations, or on a bulletin
board.
It's an excellent way to help people to overcome territorial limits on ideas
or to get buy-in. Try it by sticking any idea to a wall and inviting people to
improve it, just to see what will happen. People will contribute their ideas and
add creative capital and value. Working separately but together, members of a
group can experience ownership with a project by being allowed to contribute to
its creative possibilities and by being encouraged to explore its potential in many
different directions.
The rules for constructive thinking are simple enough. Write a description
of what you want to explore on a sheet of paper and give copies to several people
convened in a think tank or post them on an idea board. Have each person write
a short sentence that builds on the idea described on the piece of paper.
After jotting down thoughts, each person passes the info to the person to
his or her left (or to the next person on a list) and receives info from someone on
his or her right, for a second round of improvements. In round two, everybody
reads the two ideas on their sheet of paper, and adds a third, constructing on it.
Repeat the steps for as many rounds as you want until everyone has contributed
to everyone else's original idea.
Use constructive thinking by jotting down a few lines describing
something you need on a wish list and then solicit ideas on how, where or from
whom to stalk it. You can post your list on a bulletin board in your office, at the
local mall or on the Internet.
We dreamed the concept
Suzy and I stalked a lot of data and considered many scenarios. Some seemed
conflicting; Suzy prefers mountains, I love the sea. As we examined the
information, we formed a better idea of what could and couldn't be done, and we
focused our attention on dreaming a property that would serve all our needs. We
used two creative techniques to help us: divergent thinking and provocative
thinking.
Divergent thinking lets us see a concept with its thousand components,
and visualize it in a dozen ways. Developed by author Gabrièle Lusser Rico, who
calls it grouping, the technique stimulates the imagination by allowing us to
move away from a central point without getting lost. Author Tony Buzan calls it
mind-mapping and says because it has an open structure and uses free
association, it allows us to grasp the complexity of new concepts and thoughts.
An easy tool to use, it starts by writing a word at the center of a piece of
paper that expresses a concept or idea you wish to develop. Draw a circle around

it and then stare at it, writing every thought, emotion and association it
stimulates in an expanding circumference around that word. Plan to do that over
a good length of time, while you experience different moods.
Draw circles around each of the ideas stimulated. Allow your thoughts to
contemplate each new circle in the same free-association way, and then circle
every new idea stimulated. Allow your ideas to take you in any direction. Write
them all down as quickly as you can until no more come to mind, then move away
from the page, to return later. You might spend several days or weeks on
important ideas.
Draw lines and join circles you see as somehow similar or linked to one
another. Create colored patterns by visually grouping your ideas with felt tips
pens or crayons. Let the patterns organize your thoughts in new ways. What
ideas blend? Which cross over and overlap? What is ignored? What's important
or urgent or forgotten? What can be added to make things whole fusion? What is
harmonious?
When an idea or concept is ripe for a creative breakthrough, use a
provocation technique to force connections. Provocative thinking leads to the
kind of disruptive brain patterns that are encouraged by Dr. Edward de Bono's
PO theory, or Provocative Operation. He says that conscious provocation forces
the brain to reorganize its information. Provocative thinking is using questions,
analogies and metaphors to create new data mixes and to arrive at new
connections.
To cause paradigm-shifts and summersaults in thinking, begin with a list
of about twenty general questions that relate to a problem or preoccupation at
hand, and then use these to force connections between different ideas. For
example, what would happen if we altered the shape of the park (or its design,
size, etc.)? If a concept contains an element we don't like, we'll provoke it, asking
how can we get rid of it? Why is the opposite of what we are doing a better way?
What if we change an ingredient? Why not switch markets? What if we sell the
recipe? Why don't we try and give it away? What if others do it? Why can't we
double it? And more.
To use this technique, start by identifying a situation and write it down.
Next, gather information about ideal solutions from a variety of sources. Input
from random intelligence and then mix the information you already have with
the new in a series of force fits. Provoke new connections by questioning any and
all assumptions with that prepared list of questions. To force innovative links,
keep questioning the mix of ideas and use the answers to transform the
information outlandishly and differently.
Then start wondering how the outlandish could be better than the status
quo. Finally, test your ideas with a series of why not questions. Keep all those
notes. Get good ideas from weeding out bad ideas from the lot of ideas. In our
case, the tool probably saved the project when I wanted a garden by a river and

asked how we could bring the resources to the site. Running a pipe lets you put a
garden anywhere.
We conceived and wrote down exactly what we wanted, in every detail, and
created the clearest vision of what we needed. Creative ideas make logical sense
after they've been discovered, introduced, accepted. They are so illogical they do
not even exist before they are provoked into existence. Provocative thinking
stimulates creative breakthroughs by adding new possibilities, tangent ideas and
daring concepts to our data.
We wanted to see what could work
The role of the seer is to analyze information without an emotional charge that
can taint it. A seer wants to forge a clear image of an idea's worth, without bias.
We used a great empowerment tool to help us evaluate our findings that's called
lateral thinking, and we particularly favored a version Dr. DeBono named Six
Thinking Hats.
Describing 6 complementary ways of perceiving, the technique allowed us
to quickly shift thinking modes. To use it, wear or have others wear any or all of
the following hats and record your perceptions from suggested vantage points.
While White-hat thinking, for example, we are asked to be open-minded and to
only deal with input, data, facts and numbers. Like abstract thinking, wearing the
white hat forces us to question and listen without judgment so as to let the
unknown become known.
After you have information, do Red hat thinking to look into your
emotional brain and see how you feel about it. Wear a red hat to deal with
emotions, intuitions and spirit. One never has to justify red hat input – just be
aware that emotion does have an influence. By soliciting other people's red hat
opinions, you can identify positions and potential resistances.
We did Black-hat thinking to examine our findings from the logical
negative perspective. Many entrepreneurs believe they have to hold a positive
vision and so they will not look at an idea's downsides. This failing probably
explains why such a high percentage of new businesses fail. Wearing a black hat
obliges us to recognize if something does not fit the facts or correspond with
rules, culture or policy, etc. Black-hat an idea to see downsides, predict failure
and say why a concept won't work. The black hat lets us prevent, fix or rethink
aspects of an idea before it’s too late.
We did Yellow-hat thinking to look at the logical positive aspects of our
ideas. This hat asks us to examine benefits, advantages and reasons why
something could or should work, in spite of any negatives. It tells why ideas must
move forward, how to profit from them and how to expect and prepare for
success.

Next, Green-hat thinking deals with alternatives. It encourages us to
make off-the-wall suggestions, innovative propositions or provocations, and it
favors wow ideas and future/now projects. Green-hat sessions can be used to
deal with issues found lacking while black hat thinking.
Blue-hat thinking asks that we consider the doings and not-doings needed
to implement an idea. We wear it and ask who does what? When? Where? Why?
Blue hat thinking allows us to go the extremes of thought, and push an idea to the
next level or see its ultimate impact. Blue hats consider the steps and processes
involved in actualizing ideas. Blue-hatters let the dust settle on a proposal,
creatively incubate their thoughts for a time and consider long-term logistics.
We generated a lot of ideas, and then we threw out the bad ones. Our
concept for the park – the physical look of the property, its size and approximate
location, its attractions and how they enhanced the environment, and many other
considerations – became clear. We wrote it all down, including details, and got
ready to succeed.
We became leaders
Creative people want as much information as possible before they commit
themselves to a decision or direction, and so we also tried contemplative
thinking. This exercise is a powerful tool to let us to consider how our goals or
plans will affect others. It should be used before making any significant decision
to review its potential fall-out.
All these thinking techniques let us consider the full spectrum of
intelligence that was contained by our plan. There's deep wisdom in recognizing
that the intellectual work to figure things is best completed before spending
money. We noted and registered all our perceptions as we contemplated the 8
rays of the light spectrum. To get an illuminated glimpse into the future, we
asked ourselves ten questions and contemplated the answers. Contemplation
meant getting in here to respond.
The red ray refers to the physical dimensions of the plan. From this
perspective, we tried first to foresee what had to be done and in what times
delays, and secondly looked ahead into that predicted future to figure out how the
project could be completed and who could do it. We jumped ahead in
imagination and looked back to see if we could prevent, minimize or repair any
negative impact from our doings.
We looked at the emotional dimension of the idea with an orange ray. We
examined the impact our project would have on people and resources. Our third
and fourth considerations were then the emotional and physical repercussions on
human resources and the people committed to the project, and the repercussions
of this decision on material resources.

Then, with a yellow ray, we examined intellectual resistance. Our fifth
consideration was to use positive logic to plan strategies that minimized any
resistance.
The green ray looks at spiritual values. Our sixth question was, with
common interests for mutual gain, how this idea could evolve into win-win-win
scenarios.
The blue ray considers how to get a creative consensus. Our seventh
question was how we could be sure all the needed agreements could be obtained
in acceptable time frames.
The indigo ray sees action. Our eighth consideration was what could be
done immediately, and what the very next step would be.
A violet ray looks into continuity and renewal. Question number nine was
what follow-up mechanisms could be put together to assure a creative
management of this idea.
And finally, white light sees global connectivity. The tenth and final
consideration was to link all the facets and all the tasks of common interests for
mutual gain to the follow-up mechanisms and time frames.
This was not a long process because the concept itself was sound and
welcomed by everyone we met, and we'd used all the above-mentioned tools often
enough to be quite proficient with them. Having thought everything through, we
were ready to act, and we had full confidence and expectation that our plans
would be realized.
Then we practiced storyboard thinking to plot our progress and put our
plan into action. We divided the days into a series of four panel sketches or
storyboards that represented what meeting should happen or how a discussion
might turn out. We got real with things like how the real estate agent would
present our offer, or why a municipal official might want cooperate, etc. And
then we sought out those meetings and acted out our scenarios. And we saw
magical things happen.
We communicated persuasively
We drew up our wish list, translated it into Spanish and added an eye-catching
visual. We had it printed and distributed it to various people and locations.
Simultaneously, we arranged to have officials standing by, hired a reputable
lawyer, a knowledgeable real estate expert and a land surveyor, and we got
equipped to field the response.

Offers came in a deluge, as everybody in the region seemed to have the
exact piece of property we wanted. Having already integrated a tool called
empathic thinking into our arsenal, a technique that's used in all our professional
interactions, we knew how to avoid seeing those properties that didn't fit our
needs without bruising any egos or driving up prices. Empathy has to do with
giving quality to your listening and asking the right questions to discern the
intent behind a person's communications. Empathic thinking means trying to
understand before wanting to be understood.
We were able to minimize our displacement and visit less than a dozen
places in a few days. We found nothing that matched our list. I even had several
people tell me with grave concern that, "considering the Señor's wheelchair,
finding a primary jungle in the Mountains with these considerations is
impossible!"
Faced with a deadline and the possibility of having to go home only to
come back and look again next time, one aspect of creative communication
became clear: even the best laid plans might need a little magic help. On Monday
night, with a plane to catch on Saturday morning, we were down at the beach
having supper and celebrating my birthday, which fell that very same day, when
something extraordinary happened.
Driving in the mountains back to our hotel after supper, while discussing
our options and the difficulty we were having, I happened to mention a piece of
spiritual lore I'd come across in which God the Father professes unconditional
love for his creation - including me. In my story, I tell Suzy that a spiritual
warrior, at the end of his long life and facing the Creator, asks Him why, if he is
indeed beloved, he never had property and riches while alive on Earth.
To this, God tells him: "You had not because you asked not!"
Just as I told her this, we drove out from under dense cloud-cover into a
clear sky and the fullest, brightest moon staring directly at us, illuminating the
entire valley below. It was stunningly beautiful and Suzy said, "It's your
birthday, why don't you just ask now?"
And so I did. I pulled over, faced the sky, invoked Infinity and humbly
asked for an exact property description, reading from our wish list. Well, believe
it or not, the next day we got a call to see a property that looked promising. It
turned out not to be what we wanted, but on the way back from that visit, in
about as circumvented a way as you can imagine, we were shown the exact
property we wanted for our needs and we purchased it.
We knew the storyboard and we got into action. Our team was ready and
the deal was signed, sealed and delivered before our flight home. It goes without
saying that all the contracts were drawn up to our complete satisfaction, and this
after everybody said closing a deal in a couple of days was impossible. Well, there
must have been magic in the air then.

Creative thinking allowed a dream to come true. Our main consideration, that we
could create and manage every detail in the park ourselves, was respected in a
brilliant way as was everything else. The conversion was easy.
Think creatively until your dream is actualized
I've used those thinking tools dozens of times with clients and have seen them
save or make millions of dollars. I know scientists, artists, business stars and
politicians who swear by them. We have taught them to many people who now
use them in their own particular way.
I have complete confidence in them but, as with any new recipe, I suggest
you first try them in some simple exercise, and then adapt them to suit your
particular purposes. Soon you'll be adding your own personal touch to them and
producing every manner of creative output.
A conversation that's often repeated in corporate training discusses how
participants rarely apply and practice what they learn. Recently, a friend was
telling me how he'd really profited from the management training his company
had provided him over the years. He even requesting many courses and
programs that they were happy to provide. He tried the techniques he learned
and found they helped him manage his life in such a way that he succeeded and
climbed the ladder.
At one point, he quit his job to do something that he thought might feed
his passion and pleasure. He and his wife bought a nursery in the countryside to
grow trees from seedlings. Now, a few years later, his success assured, he says he
applied what he'd learned in this whole new field, innovated and managed well,
dreamed and acted on his dreams, and has loved every minute of it. He added
that a majority of his colleagues had complained about having to take courses and
often tried to get out of them. He said that they had regularly reacted to
problems and situations they could have easily resolved by applying the strategies
and tactics they were taught in training seminars.
Unfortunately, unless new information is acted on and practiced so it
becomes habit, it can't help us when we need it. For every reason I've already
mentioned, there's never been a greater need for creative leaders and innovative
thinkers than today.
Look at your own potential. You can change your mind and choose how to
see the world in others ways. You can make your dreams come true as you
become creative and use the above-mentioned techniques. Personal power will
come as a result of that process.
What about you? What project will you actualize? What problem or situation
will benefit from your creative thinking? How will your life improve if you

consciously learn to change your mind? What if you invested more time and
energy in your creative capital?

Chapter 9
RESISTANCE: KNOW THYSELF
Two zones of influence:
Brain and perceptual duality
Know yourself as consciousness
The transpersonal aspects of consciousness
Surfing your brainwaves
Beta: using your conscious mind
Alpha: probing your subconscious mind
Theta: exploring the collective unconscious mind
Delta waves: accessing the Super-conscious mind
Ømega - Pure Light - Oneness with the Divine
The key to developing a magical mind
"Strong minded, resolutely willed, you can create out of nothing a great
business, a huge empire or a new world. Others have and they have no
monopoly. "
Claude Bristol

Chapter 9
RESISTANCE: KNOW THYSELF
Do we really have the power to choose how to experience life? Can we really
generate new, unique and innovative ideas at will? Can we act on our ideas,
realize our objectives and influence people and events so they appreciate us? Can
we really expand our minds so as to be more creative, even magical? And if we
believe that we can, are we deluded, over-confident or arrogant, or are we, in fact,
already creative thinkers?
We do have that capacity to choose. That's what defines humanness. We
can choose how to see past and present events – from reactive, proactive or
creative paradigms – and that gives us a capacity to assemble a future that is
empowering. Imagination, Einstein said, is more important than fact. Anyone
can stop time and halt the past's momentum. It might be difficult or even
improbable for some people to imagine it, but that imagination is based on their
memory past. Move away from the memory and create a new destiny.
What if you developed a strategy or cultivated the discipline needed to
overcome your past and its self-sabotaging habits? Aware of it or not, you are
connected to Higher Intelligence, and your mind can avail itself of that
Intelligence. But since there is no assurance that a new empowered mind will be
better than your old one, transformation begins with a conscious leap into the
unknown.
From a decisional viewpoint, if your way of seeing life and its potential is
limiting rather than liberating, hindering rather than helping, or is fear-based
rather than love-based, then a more creative mind is a rather good thing.
The action/reaction law of energy-in-motion says think positive to attract
positive, and think even more positive to overcome negative. If you participate in
that, you participate in cosmos. If you don't participate in that, you participate in
chaos.
Now choose. Don't wait for proof that your new mind will be any better.
Move if you realize that your old one isn’t good enough. Why resist, why selfsabotage?
Two zones of influence
Quantum physics shows how I am is part of a larger field of l.o.v.e. - the limitless
oscillations of vibrating energy - that is configured by 4 fundamental forces. That
means the energy is contained in four basic ways. Two macro forces - Gravity

and Electromagnetism - are forming the Time-Space continuum and they are
joined by the two micro-forces (the Strong and Weak nuclear interactions) that
create mass and matter in from continuum. The forms as molecular energy are
subject to human perception. We see, hear, smell, touch, taste, feel, think and
sense our world
Personal perception - your consciousness - is a part of the equation. How
you and I perceive and react to the world out there is decided in here. Physics
also confirms that the 4 universal forces respond to every observer in a direct and
personal way.
Regardless of your relationship with the world, you are influenced by and
you influence two zones of awareness, and that will remain constant throughout
your life. The 1 st is called your intrinsic zone of influence and it's made up of
everything in your immediate control: your thoughts, feelings, etc. Here you have
a direct influence. Your 2 nd zone of influence is called your extrinsic zone of
influence and it deals with everything outside your direct control in the real world
out there - like weather, death and taxes. You have less extrinsic influence, with
an impact that's rather indirect and diminishes as events and circumstances
move away from your immediate control.
It's been determined that people who put more importance on their
extrinsic zone of influence, where the opinions of others, fashion, or the weather
impact on their mood, for example, give their power to factors that they cannot
control and over which they have little or no real say. By putting importance
where you have a direct influence you are investing in your creative capital. In
expert opinion, that's where it will pay off.
I've worked for change long enough to meet every kind of tyrant,
opponent, foe and nasty you'd care to imagine. If I gave importance to those
outside factors rather than to the goals I set for myself, I wouldn't have the inner
strength needed for my ultimate journey. I know I'll be facing death again. I've
been able to focus on my development because I detached from the world out
there even while fully enjoying my time in it.
My body is so afflicted that I am not about to let my mind and spirit be
stopped too. No matter; with the connectivity I feel, I don't suppose I'll I stop
dreaming better dreams.
Trying to please out there will make you vulnerable and reactive to an
unpredictable environment, and will cause you to waste power you need to
develop the only place you have any power: your intrinsic zone of influence.
Wasting energy out there leaves less energy to contain in here where the real
power is found.
In here, energy can be contained into the force needed to meet any
challenge. From in here, force can be focused into power. To paraphrase an old

sage, reactive minds look for approval in the eyes of others and call it respect,
while creative people look for impeccability within themselves and call it power.
People who orient their attitude toward the approval of others also tend to
blame the world for their problems. Reactive minds expect their partners, fate,
God or other forces to make them happy, healthy and wise. And so they wait for
life to invite them. They need strong leaders or heroes to save them and so are
always vulnerable and preyed upon.
Psychologists James Johnson and Irwin Sareson of the University of
Washington report that depression and anxiety are highest among people who
think they have little or no control over their destiny. 59 On the other hand, folks
who have taken responsibility for their intrinsic zone of influence don’t suffer
nearly as much, even if they experience situations that are considered very
stressful by others.
Research shows that people who are upbeat and optimistic live longer than
others, and will enjoy a vastly better quality of life while they are alive. There is
more than good luck involved if, all over the world, we can see that good, loving
and joyful people are living good, loving and joyful lives. People who experience
the law of love don't see adapting to it as an imposition. They see it as a guide to
successful living.
With control of our intrinsic zones, we can link up with creative ideas and
influence our destiny, not be victims of it. The level of difficulty and stress in any
situation will depend on how we choose to experience that situation, and whether
our choice to see things the way we do is consciously willed or not.
In my case, I had inner values – an uncomplicated and unconditional love
of God – before my accident and that helped me tremendously throughout the
ordeal. It helps me in all areas of my life. My core values help me in a direct way,
because I have no resistance to venturing within myself to find the solace that
power supplies me with. My relationship with power is nurtured in Nature,
where I learn God's self-management rules firsthand.
While I see the body-mind in its universal context, how everyone is
connected to God, I also see how each mind's content, our personal beliefs or the
lack of them, plays a significant role in how we face adversity.
What distinguishes one person from another is their level of courage and
confidence in their own ability to handle life's challenge. Courage comes from
within, and confidence from finding creative solutions and answers there with
consistency.
We live in difficult times. Having a sense of control over the events of our
lives means integrating the realization, “The solution is that I…" A proactive
thinker recognizes that a positive attitude, a natural and expansive philosophy,

and egalitarian regard will lessen conflict with out there and will also soothe in
here.
A variety of tools can then help determine appropriate and profitable
actions to take during an event. Creatively, we can alter how an event might
affect us by managing our relationship to it.
Empowered people explore their inner dimensions, their mind, will, soul,
spirit, creative intent, and choose to strengthen their intrinsic zones. They learn
to distinguish between those elements in their lives that they can control, and
those they cannot. And as twelve-step programs suggest, they seek the wisdom
to tell the difference between them. As there's little I can do to overcome being
paralyzed for example, I'll invest my energy in adjusting my attitude about being
paralyzed, and get on with my life.
Given little choice, I choose to see paralysis as a challenge. Then I decide
how well I'll meet that challenge. Years later, I'm still paralyzed, but practice
meeting the challenge is made perfect, a snap, a new habit. My investment in
developing my inner strength profits me every day, and the increase in my
creative capital will pay me dividends for the rest of my life.
In order not to react to outside factors, choose to develop your
own creative capital. It doesn't matter how, or in what domain. Add to your
creative capital as a preventive measure because increasing your personal power,
paradoxically, will increase your influence out there.
Far from feeling powerless, when a proactive mind can’t change a
situation, it accepts it and shifts its focus, acquiring a creative and empowered
attitude, to then choose an alternative course of action. The roles of a creative
thinker are a great place to start.
In this way, the intrinsic zone of influence expands, and that affects the
extrinsic zone, influencing it in a positive way. Personal power increases as soon
as you contain your energy and focus on a course of action. The outside, now an
extension of your inner sphere, will respond as you generate that positive
influence.
You have the ability to be joyful, creative and empowered and the power to
radiate that. By allowing fear, anger or other petty emotions to take over, you are
letting outside factors influence your intrinsic zone of influence. Rather than
expanding, your mind contracts into a reactive state. You are under a selfsabotaging
attack and you indeed lose control of your potential to a negative
force.
Empowered individuals realize that if they expect to change anything at
all, they must first change how they view change itself. Every time you allow
outside influences to control you, you self-sabotage and you lose a little piece of

your soul. Not taking every opportunity to identify with power, and letting your
inner zone be attacked, means you are undermining your own magic potential.
We can't practice expanding our mind by contracting it into primitive
reactions
Research will confirm that people who effectively manage their personal
and professional life have an increased resistance to physical and mental illness.
If you already find it difficult to find solutions to problems, adapt quickly before
you do further harm. Shift your attention to areas in your life where you can
minimize damaging physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual effects that
unsolved problems might be having on you. Increase your energy and you can
transform the extra awareness into will power. Are you fit? Do you eat right,
exercise and get enough rest? Do you seek help when you need it or do you suffer
alone?
Improve the areas of your life where you can right now. Add the extra
energy to your brain/mind – regardless of the level you already have – and you'll
find the transition from reactive to creative and magic easier and easier to
accomplish.
Look for ways to increase the quality of your energy. One of the many
downsides to being paralyzed, in my example, is the greater risk of infection and
subsequent need for antibiotics, and the long-term harm they can engender.
Proactive, I've learned to do things that minimize infections. I also do things that
clean my inner system from antibiotic residue to offset any damages. Creative,
I've learned to relax, to exercise, to rest, to add certain herbs to my diet and many
other things to repair my damaged body from the grind of daily living.
While I know I'll meet my old foe Death again, no need to rush the rendezvous!
Brain and perceptual duality
The idea of breaking away from the tribal mind and claiming oneness with
universal mind certainly seems promising enough. Most people only poke
around the subject of their own enlightenment though, and never really get there.
Socrates explained that the key to personal power is Know thyself. If we
understand our mind, we can move away from its reactive limits. Our mind is
managed by our central nervous system. That wondrous information network
includes our brain, our spinal cord and nerve fibers all over our body. Properly
speaking, we are a body-mind.
How it all comes together is an amazing process wherein I am (our ego)
receives information from our two zones of influence simultaneously. Imagine

that our brain-mind is like a radio that can receive and play both AM and FM
signals. While that’s a good thing, it causes us to think with that either/or
mentality.
As you know, the brain is composed of two symmetrical halves joined at
the center by the fibrous corpus callosum. From a unifying maze of
interconnections, the brain's two halves are in permanent contact and they
ceaselessly trade information. One side's information is being broadcast like an
AM signal and the other like an FM signal.
Down from this same corpus callosum, the spinal cord runs from the base
of the brain to the coccyx where it stretches out into millions of luminous fibers
called the cauda equina, the horse’s tail. Imagine a fiber optic antenna network
receiving and emitting consciousness. Those filaments modulate the information
between in here and out there. As discussed previously, brain-mind is
broadcasting its awareness a discrete distance about the physical body into a
sphere of consciousness.
Now imagine each personal sphere of awareness trading consciousness
with others and with a larger sea of consciousness.
The spine is the main cable connecting a host of separate systems, some
acting like frequency modulators to transfer information to and from your
noosphere. The fore-mentioned chakras allow the nervous system to process a
lot of data, from different dimensions, simultaneously and at great speeds.
Each brain hemisphere has distinct but complementary functions. One
side manages acquired knowledge (like the AM band on a radio), the other side
monitors life experience (like FM). The left-side receives data from out there and
projects its thinking there while the right-brain receives signals from in here in a
direct and indivisible way. Each hemisphere senses and synthesizes its
information independently, and each manages motor functions on opposite sides
of the physical body via the network of nerve filaments.
The left-brain perceives information in a symbolic, sequential and limited
way – using words for example. The right side receives a constant flow of
communication, intuitively and most often silently. Listening to your left side
think might interfere with sensing what your right side says. If those two
hemispheres aren't feeding you in sync, you'll have a troubled mind. Here below,
a list of how the brain manages your two zones of influences.
Synthesis # 34 - How the brain manages zones of influence

The Brain's hemispheres manage zones of influence
LEFT-BRAIN hemisphere
Rational perception is:
RIGHT-BRAIN hemisphere
Intuitive perception is:
- logical - imaginative
- symbolic - analog
- limited - expansive
- linear - omni-directional
- sequential - indivisible
- yang (outer projection) - yin (inner receptivity)
The conscious mind:
The subconscious mind is:
- discriminates - undifferentiated
- divides - undivided
- compares - indeterminate
- categorizes - suchness
- distinguishes opposites (+1) or (-1) - sees unity [(+1) + (-1) = 0]
THE RATIONAL DEALS WITH DATA:
THE INTUITIVE MANAGES EXPERIENCE:
- linear knowledge - higher consciousness
- relative awareness - absolute awareness
- conditional truth - transcendental truth
- the body’s cognitive processes - the mind transcends the physical body
- the known - the unknown
- awareness - aware of awareness
- the ego - the higher self

The left-brain has verbal, analytical, sequential and rational functions and is
oriented by time and matter, not spirit. It divides, discriminates, compares,
categorizes and discerns or creates opposites; it elaborates detailed plans, turns
abstract ideas into concrete facts and manages how we do things. It furnishes the
mind with its linear, daily knowledge, its relative awareness and its conditional
truths. It interfaces with the known.
The right-brain hemisphere has non-verbal, intuitive functions, and is
oriented in a timeless now continuity that deals with spirit, not matter. It
understands things in a universal, undifferentiated, undivided, indeterminate,
holistic way. It seeks unity and manages why we do things. It furnishes the mind
with higher consciousness, absolute knowledge and transcendental experiences.
It interfaces with the unknown.
While the differences are basic, learning how to maximize your potential is
essential to ensure a harmonious and creative life. That means training both
sides of your brain so they complement your mind and give you access to your
whole noosphere
The information processed by your left brain is stored as abstract
knowledge in your noosphere, while your right brain perceptions monitor how
you experience life. When you react, you hear its voice calling you to higher
intelligence. If the voice is dim, it's calling in a desert. If the voice is present but
unanswered, a dialogue will ensue.
The inner dialogue can rationalize any dichotomy between the two
hemispheres. That's why people burn out. They push beyond their body's
warning signs and overload the mind's circuits with their inner dialogue.
Reading a book on diet alone, for example, cannot help a body lose weight. But
how many people stop there?
That dialogue between their “I know” mind (the latest way to diet) and
their “I experience tempered meals and a good exercise program” mind will
remain at odds until the experience becomes real. Or until the diet knowledge is
somehow dragged out of existence.
The dialogue is created by not taking our own good advice. How many
people will have a strong intuition, and scoff it away? Yet they'll advise their
children to “listen to their heart" or some such to align them with their inner
values.
In his research on brain symmetry, psychologist Robert Ormstein suggests
that our social learning styles are reflected in our creative development. 60
Fascinated by the way in which consciousness operates in relation to human
activity, Ormstein found that our society’s preoccupation with language and logic
favors the development of left-brain functions. He notes that the right-brain

hemisphere is more developed in Oriental cultures, where it strongly influences
self-image, belief and daily thinking.
Dr. Ormstein says that a brain will specialize in one kind of thinking mode
and that as a result we tend to rely on one hemisphere more than the other.
Some people will even disavow one side or the other, treating the non-habitual
side as a separate state of being. Remember that you only have one brain and the
duality is an illusion.
In tests we sometimes conduct in our workshops, we can determine how
efficiently people access each hemisphere. Recently, one person became alarmed
when he realized how left-brained he was. As in a flashflood of realizations, he
saw that his longtime avoidance of all things spiritual didn't mean that they
stopped to exist, but that he was totally left-sided.
I saw him again a short time later and he was transformed. Beaming, he
proudly announced that he was doing some serious right-side work. When I
asked him what it consisted of, he answered that he recently did something
different. He’d gone to see a Harry Potter movie with his kids and when he got
home, resisted the urge to pontificate on his opinion, got on the floor with them
and listened as they explained how and why magic is real.
Where he might have logically argued their knowledge before, he now
enjoyed his experience of them and their logic. He enjoyed it again as he
recounted it to me and felt the positive buzz. The dialogue between our brain
hemispheres is reflected in our choices, behavior and approaches to problem
solving. A tendency to let analytical approaches rule might signal left-brain
domination, while using heuristic ways of managing data might indicate we are
more right-brain dominant.
Too controlled by our left-side awareness, we might think well but not act.
Too right-side dominated, we might feel like leaping before we look. Is your
knowledge limiting how you inter legencia your life? Are you learning winning
strategy from your experiences? Are you gaining wisdom?
Harmony between the hemispheres can transform desire into a motivating
force. Inner dialogue perpetuates a dualistic perception, and that collapses
without our subjective participation. Magi suggest we ignore the dialogue and act
with our heart. When all the brain-mind energy that's caught up by the dialogue
is liberated, it's transformed into the motivating force we call will. And as I'll
show, subjective will can be transformed into objective power.
Although one side of our sphere of consciousness tends to dominate the
other, it rarely has control over our essential functions. Note, however, that if the
dichotomy between the accumulated knowledge and life experience is substantial
enough, it will result in conflict. What might begin as an animated conversation
between the two hemispheres to address a perceptual conflict can, if not resolved,

become a ego-driven force, accelerating our roof top chatter until it takes on a life
of its own and cause serious health issues.
Young children rarely have enough self-knowledge to complicate their
life’s experience so they have little inner dialogue. They prefer to externalize
their conflicts and talk them out with imaginary friends. They hum songs to their
teddy bear and whisper words of consolation to a doll to soothe the “self”.
Anything they don't understand is either ignored or becomes subject to that
famous right-side question - Why?
Unrelentingly curious, healthy children continue to ask why until they
either get an answer that satisfies them, or they are successfully ignored. Not
surprisingly, our dialog only becomes inner when we reach what is often called
the age of reason. That’s when we accept the worldview presented to us by
others. And that's when we begin to notice that our ignorance can hurt.
Often, when one hemisphere dominates perception, we'll find that
opposites attract. And we’ll relegate that in the search for the perfect soul mate.
Folks who are serious both in their professional and personal life might find
themselves suddenly attracted to people who are the opposite of their own
personality. A quiet man may link up with an assertive woman, an artsy girl with
an accountant, a hard-nosed businessman will pursue an adventure-seeking free
spirit.
In fact, the pursuit for our so-called better half is based on a deep
recognition of our less dominant brain hemisphere. We’ll find those qualities
that are less developed in ourselves in our mirror of self-reflection. In this sense
it's not so much our opposites but rather our complements for a larger whole that
we seek.
The dialogue experienced by the brain creates a duality in perception that
divides our mind into a personal past and a potential future, into in here and out
there. That duality does not exist in the universe at large. Universally, only an
absolute now time exists and we are spheres of consciousness materialized into
bodies.
Harmony between the brain's hemispheres frees consciousness from its
work managing inner conflict and allows it to think from new perspectives. When
developed, the whole brain will enjoy a healthier exchange between hemispheres
to ensure its continued maturity and self-empowerment.
Attaining inner harmony lets us experience the constant universal now
moment, as opposed to being locked in the left side's rather more stressful
temporal constructs. Very young children experience this eternal now perception
and, for the longest time, are relatively immune to our attempts to show them
how to divide time. Consider how next birthday can be light years away to a
toddler. Time seems to pass slowly when we are younger. I'm reminded of a TV

ad where a wee lad is shown quite pleased with his creativity, beaming at the
camera and announcing, “It was the best idea I ever had in my whole life!"
Time speeds up as we mature and add years of experience.
We can disconnect from time without losing sight of its uses. Artists,
musicians, scientists and athletes are often capable of letting go of time's passage
and entering the right brain's timeless zone and its non-material view. They'll
focus on a task, enter that zone of maximum influence and no distraction, and
give themselves totally to the eternal now moment.
Anyone can do it. When we are passionate about something, time and its
limits literally disappear as we are absorbed by our attention. There is
timelessness in the right side of the brain. There is oneness. There is
consciousness and its magic time. But do we see it that way? It’s like waking up
without an alarm to go fishing or to tee-off, having traffic clear as we approach
and a parking spot open up as we arrive. Life is great.
Forced into something tedious, time will drag on endlessly, and we'll even
oversleep to avoid unpleasant tasks and self-sabotage. Because time is
interacting differently with each of our brain's hemispheres, that gives us great
power. I can list so many times that I've entered the magic time zone and
managed to meet impossible deadlines or conjunctions. My partner Suzy is
particularly adept at wrapping time into stupefying knots.
For the longest time, we believed that the right brain was responsible for
our creative work. Now science has evidence that the whole-brain is involved in
the creative process. In spite of the insistence from many who may venerate the
right hemisphere as all good and wondrous to the detriment of computer-like,
commercial and somehow less left side, recent findings say that creative
expression needs both hemispheres to act in concert.
Creative thinking comes from harmony between the hemispheres.
Imagination, dreams, intuitions or visualization from the right brain favor
the ability to alter our perception and to imagine or generate ideas, while the left
brain's logic, analytical skills and pragmatism are what cause these ideas to
materialize in the real world.
As I’ve said, magic can be defined as creativity applied so selfempowerment
is all about achieving this whole-brain harmony. And it's about
unifying our behavior and our values in order to get there. It's about adding what
you are not yet to what you already are. You'll appreciate your whole-brain as
you become more analytical and imaginative, more logical and intuitive, more
active and receptive.
To become more, actualize your creative potential. How do you invest in
your creative capital? Studies show that the brain can best process its flow of

consciousness when we are in states of deep relaxation. They also reveal that the
brain's hemispheres become progressively synchronized in the meditative states
of mind where the information input slows and flows more freely. When we are
relaxed, our intelligence can merge and be organized in new and novel ways.
Studies find that meditation, as measured on an EEG, helps the brain
integrate information better, more quickly and more completely. Simply put, the
more relaxed we are, the more intelligent we can become. In other words, our
brain benefits from harmony, which gives our mind more psychic force.
When we reach the intensity of mind where we become aware of
awareness, we benefit from a paradigm-shift in perception. The synchronization
of the brain hemispheres has also been shown to improve our thinking modes.
Meditation can improve both our logic and our intuition. By becoming more
aware of our altered states of mind, we can access intensely lucid, intense and
vivid perceptions that Maslow called peak psychological experiences,
characterized as the feeling of being complete, integrated and unified.
Are you more left brained and therefore more easily influenced by outside
factors? Are you too right brained and prone to overreact to your emotions?
How are you developing your whole brain? Is your mind working overtime to
get nowhere?
Know yourself as consciousness
Physiologically speaking, without that energetic component called consciousness,
the brain is nothing more than a chunk of meat. The brain's energy is an
indivisible aspect of the creative process. Interestingly, the brain only represents
about 2 to 3% of the body’s mass but consumes more than 20% of its energy.
In the neurosciences, our consciousness is regarded as an integral part of
both our universal identity and our personal ego. I can have no personal doubt
of its separate existence to my ego because while I was thought dead by others, I
experienced myself out of my body, ego-less spirit and free from its pain, but still
very much me. I realized then that I am is more than a physical body; I am
energy, or soul. Call it what you will, we are a spirit with a body consciousness.
For this realization to offer us bold new possibilities, we need concrete
proof that consciousness is non-local, or indivisibly everywhere. We are in luck.
Einstein himself worked out the details with the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen
Paradox, and in 1982 science proved it when a team from the University of Paris
conclusively demonstrated quantum non-locality 7 .
This is without doubt the most significant realization I brought back from
my accident and death experiences: consciousness is everywhere. It was such a
monumental confirmation of life that, for a short while, I was actually afraid I

might forget it. But I needn’t have worried. That first OOB realization is as vivid
today as it was twenty-five years ago. It's an indivisible part of who I am.
More than sixty years ago, English astronomer James Jeans explained how
the universe studied by modern science looks more like an infinite mind than any
sort of mechanical process. Watching the night sky, he noted that, at higher
energy levels than normal awareness, it's apparent that a master mind is
interpenetrating everything that exists, and that its giving universe its creating
order, its intelligence.
As such high energy levels, the indivisible link between matter and energy
- or consciousness - can be understood with the following metaphor. Imagine
that all physical matter is made of ice and that consciousness is humidity; the two
are indivisibly the same thing – water – and yet are different and independently
affected by other forces like hot and cold.
The transpersonal aspects of consciousness
Five major qualities give consciousness its universal and transpersonal character.
SYNTHESIS # 35 - How your mind is linked to the universe
Consciousness is experienced personally. Even so, it's that part of the
creative process that distinguishes I from not-I and is therefore a universal force
of alignment. Subjective, it’s perceived as self-awareness; universal energy
interacting with my brain is identified as my mind.
Consciousness is fluid. Ever changing, the flow of consciousness can't be
interrupted or studied as if an objective thing. In 1892, William James described
consciousness as flowing ceaselessly like a river. We refer to it intuitively as the
stream of consciousness, to a flow of thought, to thought waves, to deep thinking
or to depths of consciousness. The fluidity of consciousness can speed our
thoughts like a raging torrent when we are stressed, or slow them like placid
waters during more reflective times.
Consciousness is selective. It chooses. Concentrating the mind on something
specific, consciousness isolates it from Infinity. And it can open itself to the
infinite and access all of creation. Depending on what's required, consciousness
continuously selects how it allocates its attention by highlighting some elements
and suppressing others.
Consciousness is constant. Transcending individual experience, consciousness
qualifies our understanding of the universe. Everything is an energetic
manifestation of the creative force as explained in Einstein's relativistic physics [e

= mc 2 ] and Max Planck's quantum physics [e = hf]. In addition, Theophysics
explains how universe is a limitless oscillating vibrational energy [l.o.v.e.].
Consciousness is indivisible. Continuous, it cannot be divided into separate
pieces that would allow us to determine where one thought ends and another
begins. Also, consciousness is non-local; by interacting with a brain, it unifies
both the observer in here and the observed out there in a whole perception.
We are more than sophisticated animal forms with computer-like brains. We’re a
sort of information bubble. At one level, we are electromagnetic spheres of
consciousness and that gives us incredible potential. The above qualities link our
personal mind to an infinite universe. In order to benefit from that link we have
to increase our power and rid ourselves of whatever is preventing us from
realizing it.
To establish a link with your creative birthright, you should better
understand the various states of consciousness available to you. By definition, an
altered state of consciousness means changing perception. These changes are
caused by consciousness resonating with a brain at different frequencies, thereby
modifying its neurochemistry.
Surfing your brainwaves
We can access higher intelligence right now, not only in some pie-in-the-skypromise.
All we have to do is learn to relax – but I mean really relax. Here's why.
The brain communicates in an elaborate but very understandable way.
As strange as this may be, get used to how consciousness is interacting
with your brain to create your mind. Change that interaction and you’ll change
your mind. And as you know, learn to change your mind and you can change
your world.
Once you know how your brain does what it does, you can help. When
consciousness travels along your brain's neural pathways it reaches junctions
called synapses and causes them to release hormones that are appropriate to the
mood we're experiencing. Called neurotransmitters, these fill the synapses, or
the tiny spaces that exist between neurons, and force consciousness to move in
one direction or another.
Because its basic functions are located all over the brain, accessing those
neurons that are needed to lead a creatively intelligent life requires that all the
different parts cooperate.

Beta: Use your conscious mind
When you are awake, conscious and your attention is turned to the world out
there, your brain produces beta waves. This range of frequencies is associated
with a generally high metabolism, a good blood flow and alertness. Its rate of
speed increases with the onset of anxiety and decreases in more relaxed states.
When you are relaxed, thoughts are more pleasant, and easier to formulate and
manage, yet your brain's energy is still available for high performance work.
Not everybody is thinking at the same rate, at the same time. This is
because none of us has the same lifestyle, are concerned by the same ideas, are
pursuing the same needs, nor do we consider them in the same way. As most
now think at the faster end of the Beta range than ever before, we are not only
more excited and more excitable, but as recent phenomena like road rage
indicate, we're more stressed as well.
To master your mind in those frequencies, increase your energy and
enhance its quality. You know the drill: Eat right, exercise, take your vitamins,
sleep, and think positive and creative and good thoughts. No resistance = No
stress.
Alpha: Probe your subconscious mind
From a beta state, your brain's rhythm of activity slows down. Relax and you'll
gain access to the more powerful alpha waves in the meditative states. Here, your
attention is tuned to the in here world as your mind is freed from outer stimuli.
Now you can participate in a world of reverie, of discarnate intelligence and of its
innovative (re)organization.
Enter a meditative (medi means mid-way) zone that opens you to
empowering contemplation and deep wisdom. Meditation lets you access the
information highway that runs between the left and the right brain hemispheres.
Straddle the corpus callosum that acts as a bridge between your conscious and
sub-conscious minds.
The Latin word meditarus gives us medical because reaching alpha waves
promotes healing, in mind and its body. Meditative brainwaves are available as
soon as you close your eyes and are generated by relaxed feelings of detachment.
To a calm mind comes inspiration and further receptivity to within. Relaxation
enhances your imagination, sharpens your memory and gives you easier access to
the wealth of resources available from the subconscious realms of your mind.

Theta: exploring the collective unconscious mind
Reaching theta waves indicates that you've slipped across the Einstein-Podolsky-
Rosen Bridge into the subconscious states associated with sleep and deep
dreaming. Often accompanied by the perception imagery that's not associated
with one's own conscious thoughts, here you are aware of the universe as a
dreamscape. Here you can see that energy is alive and not limited to your
thinking. Here you dream yourself elsewhere, depending on how you feel.
Here the levels of energetic activity have decreased considerably, and
while breathing is regular, the heart rate slows, blood pressure is diminished, and
a blend of growth hormones are released into your bloodstream to facilitate your
body's communication and rejuvenation process. This is the tranquility phase of
sleep where nothing of any real significance seems to occur. It's associated with
dreams that seen unrelated to the observer, inconsistent, highly symbolic and
rather erratic.
People who are wakened from this state of mind will often report feeling
disoriented and rarely remember that they were dreaming. In this state, we
interface with the universe as discarnate consciousness directly. Immediately.
Here we see that Infinity is much more than we think.
Mental imagery and creative visualization
The brain's theta rhythm records the mind's experience of states associated with
creative visualization. Research has found links between this state of dream and
increased mental imagery and creativity. Theta is where we experience creative
breakthroughs and innovative “aha!” moments. Great numbers of people report
discovering important solutions during this state of reverie and intuitiveness.
Einstein, for example, dreamed that he was traveling at the speed of light to
witness the universe from that perspective, and arrived at his breakthrough
theory [e = mc 2 ].
Having studied the psychophysiology of consciousness and creativity for
more than thirty years, Alice and Elmer Green believe that the brainwave state is
not only the key to creative breakthroughs, but to physical healing and
rejuvenation as well. 62 At this level of consciousness, they found that we gain
access to inner processes and shorten or even eliminate the distance between our
conscious and our subconscious mind.
As the visualization states of mind are reached, the body/mind can be
programmed, and its directives more easily acted on. Emotional limits can also
be examined from a more detached perspective here, and can be understood,
accepted, rejected, or even replaced with more appropriate emotions. Problems

that seem impossible to resolve in our conscious state of mind can be examined
and strategically solved. If the power of the conscious mind can be imagined as a
45-gallon drum, then think oceans of subconscious potential.
Many athletes now spend as much time practicing visualization techniques
as they do working in the gym, on the ice rink or on the playing field. Research
shows that when we visualize our body in action, real inner changes occur even at
those levels considered impossible by the conscious mind.
It is possible for us to alter our immune system and our overall state of
health solely by imagining optimum health or visualizing ourselves getting better.
Conversely, Superman star Christopher Reeves recently demonstrated that
training his body with conditioned reflex had a corresponding effect on allowing
his brain to keep its neural pathways of communication open.
Studies confirm that the events we experience while dreaming or while in
states of deep visualization affect our brain and body as much as if we were awake
and really having the experience. The mind makes no distinction between
dreaming or visualizing an activity and actually performing it, between reality
and illusion, between fantasy and fact.
This discovery explains why dreams can often seem so real. Next time
you're awakened from a nightmare and relieved to realize it was only dream,
realize that your body – its breathing, pulse and heart rate – was reacting to a
real situation triggered in your brain. Dreaming made it real – for your mind.
Reaching this highly relaxed brainwave state clears the way to increasing
your personal power by giving you the capacity to visualize the changes you'd like
to incorporate into your life. Activities requiring preparation, like strategic
planning, behavior modification or seeing yourself win a competition, can be
practiced in your mind before they take place.
In the same way actors see a scene a hundred times before opening night,
if you relax totally and visualize/dream a presentation, action or speech first,
you'll be amazed at the results. Even if you deliver that speech for the first time,
the action of having practiced it sufficiently in your mind has linked your neurons
into pathways you can now surf on.
Extra-ordinary dream states
Close to 4 hertz on the EEG, you'll go through a dramatic transition and enter a
state of mind that psychology calls paradoxical sleep. It's paradoxical because
any excitement or stimulation you experience is accompanied by almost total
paralysis of your body, from your neck to the tips of your toes. Without this, you
would sleepwalk the night away.

Accessing a world of deep dream, your breathing accelerates and becomes
irregular, and your brain burns as much fuel as when it's awake. Jarred from this
state, we remember scenes much as being clearer, more vivid and colorful than
reality. Many people speak of prophetic dreams in which they receive guidance or
ideas. Others speak of developing psychic powers from what they learn in
dreams.
Theta waves are significant because they indicate how information that's
gathered while we are awake is reorganized during sleep. When we are agitated,
stressed or overly active during waking hours, or if we're having a hard time
managing our activities, our sleep time is mainly used to deal with our problems,
rather than enjoying visionary and intuitive dreams or developing psy power. If
stressed we will not reach those lucid states.
Lucid dream states
Dr. Stephen Laberge, a psycho-physiologist specializing in the study of lucid
dream states, was the first to show that we can be totally aware that we are
sleeping and yet remain fully aware while in dreaming. The lucid dreamer visits
the world of dream as if a separate and distinct reality from the physical world,
like traveling abroad. A lucid dreamer can interact with the Morphic plane of
awareness.
Laberge notes that lucid dreamers can change the landscape of their
dreams at will, and experience things considered impossible in the Physical
plane 63 . For example, while in lucid dreams we can fly, move about at the speed
of thought or alter the time-space of our dreamscape. We can look for specific
information while in a dream, or command new elements and connections to
reveal themselves, and we can explore new potentials and possibilities. We can
even choose to remain in dreaming…
Lucid dreaming is an extraordinary tool to accelerate personal
development like increasing self-confidence, reducing anxiety or nightmares,
promoting good physical and mental health and make hopes and wishes come
true. Lucid dreams help us prepare for an event, facilitate problem solving and
ease decision-making by providing deep insight into the causal reality.
Lucid dreaming lets you yourself as a co-creative force. Dr. Laberge found
that it also improves intelligence, explaining that the advantage of lucid states of
mind is their ability to help us be more creative and empowered when facing life's
tasks and problems.

Delta waves: accessing the Super conscious mind
Delta brain waves are caused during the most restorative states of sleep, give us
access to the collective unconscious mind, and let us intuit Super consciousness.
Delta waves are attained when your energetic activities are completely at rest,
when your mind is completely free of stress.
Easy to reach with meditation practice or contemplation in wilderness
areas, this level of consciousness is recognized in oriental traditions where the
ego of the separate I consciousness dissolves. All personal memories, problems
and troubles are left behind and a much larger reality appears: here/now Infinity.
Dr. Jayne Gackenbach, a psychologist at the University of Alberta,
confirms that lucidity is the starting point to an even more detached level of
mind: the witness state. 64 In this lucid dream state, the sleeper detaches himself
totally from the content of the dream and can either travel in a larger dreamscape
as "I am awake in my dream" or can choose to maintain an observer position as
in "I am having a dream."
The state of mind where the observer approaches timelessness lets us
perceive the heaven that is the basis for all our beliefs. Heaven is here/now on
Earth, in another, larger, state of mind.
Ømega - Pure Light - One with the Divine
From 0.5 to Ø hertz, the dreamer and the dream dissolve into a single
consciousness. At 0 hertz – the Ømega point – consciousness no longer interacts
with the brain, and the dreamer become aware of the constant: Pure Light.
Dead - or with no consciousness interacting with my brain - I became
aware of God's intelligence! When consciousness is trapped in my brain, my
resulting mind is limited to my own intelligence. Described with rapturous but
inadequate words by sages through the ages and every saint, sorcerer and
prophet since the beginning of history, that process wherein a subjective mind is
enlightened involves stopping the inner dialogue.
Beneath the separateness of our personal view of the world as perceived in
our brain's neural pathways, there's a unified view. Imagine water rising and
overrunning all the riverbeds to make the land disappear. Sitting in a rowboat
and rising with the flood, we'd soon see separate forms disappear and give way to
the oneness of water. In that sense, inside of molecular form, inside atomic
forces, inside limitless oscillations of vibrating energy, there is a constant: a
unifying Light.
At the Ømega point, time-space collapses to reveal pure consciousness -
pure intelligence - and the experience of awareness of awareness supplies joy and

solace to any inquiring mind. At quantum levels of organization, the universal
law is understood in magnitudes of Light. So is the spiritual law.
Research in neurophysiology confirms the ancient ideas and sentiments
expressed in the Mandukya Upanishad. "This state of consciousness is Atman in
its purest form - here we are awake to Supreme Consciousness. Here the mind is
not turned in, nor out, nor is it half conscious, nor asleep, not more conscious,
nor unconscious. It is Atman and its spirit cannot be seen, nor touched, it is
above all things and beyond all thoughts. Indivisibly, the only proof of its
existence is union with Atman. It is non-duality. It is peace and love."
The Ømega point accesses the Super-consciousness that's described with
exaltation by mystics who attained it from contemplative practices and states of
meditation. Over the years I've met quite a few people who survived a deathexperience
or a major ordeal and they described their own meetings with Infinity.
Each was changed. Each was awed by the experience.
You might see the Light when you are at the threshold of death, when your
left-brain no longer interferes and interprets the world to you. In death, your
beliefs and illusions will cease to matter and you'll see physical form in all its
wonder and see a world maintained by a constant outpouring of Light.
In the recent past, science produced enough verifiable results to suggest
how bio-photons of light – the consciousness in living systems – are directing the
activity of cells and organisms. Photon emissions are even believed to provide
the communication matrix in which billions of individual plankton behave as a
single, live, aware super-organism.
I've met a few people who slipped past all the stages in death like I did, and
who had the joy and good fortune of experiencing pure mind. Each will avow
having encountered God, even though we admit that this is not quite accurate as
God is in least ways like nothing explainable and there are no words to properly
describe the perception. Terms like God or Rapture or Infinite Intelligence are
the closest we can get to what experiencing the bliss is like.
You don't have to die or to buy the descriptions of others to see the Light.
Practice any meditation technique you enjoy to stop your inner dialogue and that
will allow you to reach the Ømega state, which, in fact, means not thinking. This
is the very essence of the world's spiritual disciplines. Reaching No thing, or not
one thing and therefore limitlessness, is manifest as a perception of all things, as
pure Light.
The key to developing a creative mind
Managing your mind means mastering the flow of consciousness as it travels
across your brain's corpus callosum. That will allow you to willfully move from

one brain hemisphere to the other and give you an evolutionary advantage.
Instead of being reactive to your usual state of mind, you can be proactive and
creative, calling on each brain hemisphere as and when it's required.
The flow of consciousness is naturally from the right side of the brain
(drawing an emotional charge from in here's limbic system) to the left-brain
hemisphere (from where we project ideas onto out there). The creative individual
adopts any kind of body-mind discipline to relax this flow. You can use a variety
of thinking tools and exercises to help disarm the emotional charge.
By doing this, you will learn to move from your left brain to your right
brain, and then to willfully slow down your brainwaves. If you need to quickly
enter a creative mood, do whatever silliness is needed to get a good belly-laugh
going. The endorphins released by tears-in-your eyes laughter will slow your
brain down to 22 hertz on the EEG, and you'll be that much closer to accessing
the right-brain hemisphere.
Laughter is said to clean the soul because energetic good humor banishes
fear. Magic is the ability to cause change to materialize an idea, so willfully
changing your mind might mean letting go of your usual way of doing things -
your known - for awhile, in order to allow a new mind to emerge - your unknown.
Relax to bring harmony to the communication between the hemispheres of
the brain, and then let your conscience, the inner voice that's arguing for the idea
of good, lead to you to your own meeting with destiny. No one can escape time,
or God the Father, at Ømega-point. Whether our time runs out at death or we
stop it by stopping our inner dialogue, no one escapes Light's pass/pass not law.
The Super-conscious perception will enlighten your brain so you can
assemble Paradise while alive on this Earth. Joseph Campbell says that living in
Paradise occurs when we can actually perceive the sacred Light shining upon the
world. In that seeing, he says, "The old way of living is annihilated. That is the
end of the world. The end of the world is not an event yet to come, it is an event
of psychological transformation, of visionary transformation. You see not the
world of solid things but a world of radiance.” 65
Don't resist your noble self. The paradigm-shift from a reactive to a
proactive mindset only requires positive movement into self-awareness. Shifting
from a proactive to a creative mind needs movement to awareness of awareness
with a plan. More awareness will suggest a strategy in which you fill all your
needs.
The change from a creative to a magic mindset means moving into
universal awareness, l.o.v.e. by helping others fill their needs. Nature's plan is
for us to be altruistic self-interest all the way up the social ladder, so stop
resisting and help the process.

Experiment with various body/mind techniques and open your mind to
the concept of investing in your creative capital and personal power. Find
something you enjoy and explore the inner world. Add wisdom and grow more
intelligent.
The duality in your perception will vanish when you see how in here is
attached to an Infinite out there. Deepen your understanding of your own
creative nature and the nature of universe because all universal principles include
you.
Become a stalker, a dreamer, a seer and a warrior. If you practice the
series of body-mind exercises called empowered thinking for 20 to 30 minutes a
day, you'll quickly improve the quality of your life. They'll help eliminate the
stress that's associated with a reactive inner dialogue. The technique called
raising the inner fire will tune up and charge your whole nervous system in a
very short time – a matter of days.
Other tools all have their uses. Start and don't stop until you get your own
confirmation from spiritual realms. Then be a magician and a persuasive
communicator.
You'll find the instructions in the Tool Box at the end of the book.
Remember: Power comes from doing, not from thinking about doing.
New neural pathways must be etched by consciousness (spirit) into a
dense brain (gray matter). Increasing your awareness so it is your will gives it
force. Willful work with a loving spirit stokes the inner fire and then you can
align yourself with l.o.v.e. as universal law. Willing your self to love focuses your
energy into power needed to perceive the Intent that's creating the universe first
hand.
Integrated into your routines, these creative tools, templates, techniques
and exercises can help you remove any resistance to seeing yourself as co-creative
force. They can help you increase your personal power and facilitate your
enjoyment of a magical life.
Have you noticed how your worldview is altered if you use alcohol or drugs, or
if you are worried, afraid or angry? Do you recognize that you can choose how
to perceive the world? Can you see the aura that surrounds everything? Is your
dreaming life a beacon to further growth? Do you know what time it is on the
God-clock? Do you feel connected spiritually? Are you a believer or do you walk
the talk? Do you love? Really?

Chapter 10
PASSION FOR LIFE
Human evolution as a right, a duty and a power
Developing passion in strategic areas
A powerful mind comes in a passionate body
Conscious suicide: the jump into the unknown
Ten great tips for acquiring magic power
We are co-creating our common future
"We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal and then leap into
the dark to our success."
Henry David Thoreau

Chapter 10
A PASSION FOR LIFE
We should feel an urgent need to safeguard the Planet. Humankind has become
a major force in Nature. We are the consciously destructive one. Noospheres on a
Biosphere, we are involved in the ceaseless changes that are deeply transforming
the Earth, and we can already see the negative effects of our ego-centered ways
reflected on the fragile conditions that support life.
We are in a race called creative evolution. If we lose, we find ourselves in
chaos and calamity. Our next evolutionary jump involves willfully choosing to
practice altruistic self-interest in order to safeguard our world.
Al Gore, former Vice-president of the United States, recognizes our need in
his book Earth In The Balance: Ecology And The Human Spirit. He writes, "The
more deeply I search for the roots of the global environmental crisis, the more I
am convinced that it is an outer manifestation of an inner crisis that is, for lack of
a better word, spiritual.” 66
As God is omnipresent, in self-interest we should see the living Earth as
God the Mother of us all. Then we might repair the damage we've caused Her.
Nature's extraordinary ability to maintain conditions that are essential to life
come from it being an effective intermediary between spirit and matter. But
human activity has seriously complicated Earth's spiritual evolution.
We've accelerated the destructive processes that are the causing our
ecological problems, and we've put money – the god mammon – before Nature,
as well as before our own sacred nature. We've permitted human nature's
destructive greed to lead us to an appointment with destiny.
Spiritual evolution means becoming aware of the indivisibly sacred aspect
of our human nature. The Study of World Religion initiated by Harvard
University examined the established religions with regards to their views on
ecology. It found that their mindsets are still very tribal, fruits of a very long
history of ego-focused moral codes that treat the balance of Nature as consumer
goods to be dominated, packaged and sold. They are not poised to save the Earth.
I no longer have the ability to ignore my own behavior in terms of how it
impacts my enjoyment of life, or my potential for an after life. I know what's
waiting. Light is the constant in death, there's no avoiding it. Time is stalking us
all. That realization alone should make our every act more powerful.
When we behave like we have all the time in the world, we waste our
energy and treat it as if it was something trivial. If we behaved as if the next

moment was our last on Earth, we'd give our acts a lot more power. Let’s not
waste an instant.
Contrary to what you might imagine, by believing you are only a body –
meat –you tend to lessen the value you give yourself.
The reactive mind is largely denatured. Rather than responding to global
needs in altruistic ways and safeguarding our common interests, many people
protect their closed-loop paradigms, defend their folly or attack messengers who
may suggest genuine change or authentic growth. Hamish McRae, an awardwinning
writer at the Independent in London, doesn't believe the negative forces
that threaten world stability can be contained for more than one more
generation. "If the world seems dangerous now, it will seem much more so by
2020." 67
He says that the two real strengths of the North American economy are
our culture and our intellect; in other words, our creative capital. We prosper
when our perceptions and culture add value to something, somewhere. We
prosper even if our own culture cannot be replicated, because intellect (the how
to) always can.
McRae suggests that two eroding facets of the American psyche are at odds
with the promise of our creative capital. The first is the strong sense of selfreliance
and freedom of action that contributed so significantly to North America
becoming the world's most powerful economy. That’s being curbed by rampant
corporate me-ism – Omni, Inc. sees the world as a border-less, faceless, soul-less
money-churning super-organism.
Management egos rule the world by focusing on 90-day bottom-lines, and
making decisions based on corporate share value, stock options, bonus packages
and market trends. Shortsightedness has devastated the whole matrix. As
creative thinking is a skill that can be learned and practiced, Edward de Bono
says it's the cheapest investment any company can make in its own prosperity, far
outweighing any other investment, bar none.
The other negative force that McRae sees as a major threat is the
widespread tendency for people to not take responsibility for the consequences of
their actions. That flaw obliges us to become more uncaring, defensive and
vindictive, instead of behaving within a learning curve that guides us towards
altruistic self-interest.
A mega-industry has spawned people who sue the government, the
corporation, the family or anyone else for their own bad decisions. Every kind of
therapy exists to fix the booboo by blaming out there, and folks with any manner
of complaint are paraded in front of national audiences as victims of life
disadvantaged by it in some way.

In Nature’s plan, of course, this is folly. Survival in the wilderness plays no
favorites, as the whole cannot tolerate self-pity, complacency or self-indulgence.
McRae observes, "The most alarming aspect of all this denial of individual
responsibility occurs at some universities where it is not possible even to discuss
the extent to which social problems might be a result of the individual being
stupid, selfish, lazy or wicked, rather than some external force." 68
The nations that can think and grow rich into the future and plan their
quality of life for the next few decades will be those that have a vision of a society
that's larger than the collection of individuals. Individuals must be organized
into creative teams in order to produce outstanding wealth and an exceptional
quality of life. The organizations and individuals who will inherit a better
tomorrow are those who are developing their creative capital today.
The road ahead is perilous. Not only do we face awesome challenges that
will multiply over the next generation, but we, the crew who must deal with those
challenges, are also undergoing significant changes. Baby-boomer retirement is
already starting to impact labor demographics, for example, and it's barely
started.
As there will be fewer workers to accept the challenges, McRae lists some
of the kinds of adjustments to prepare for:
1. The retirement age has to rise;
2. Female participation in the workforce and in management has to
increase;
3. Part-time work must continue to increase;
4. People will work longer and will be trained continuously in serial
careers;
5. The unemployed will have to become more quickly retrained and
placed;
6. There will be pressure to only teach marketable skills in school and to
use student labor;
7. There'll be a great shortage of volunteer labor for non-profit tasks.
We aging boomers had better quickly decide on the future we want to live in.
Consider how people tend to slow down and break down as they age, and think
about how long social change actually takes. With more than 25 years of activism
on behalf of disabled persons and universal access issues under my belt, I can
assure you that it's still like a jungle out there. Every change was hard fought and
took ridiculous amounts of time.

And as the world is not significantly adapted to be user-friendly for one
and all today, what do you expect in a near future? Consider the next 20 to 30
years. The number of people who work will get increasingly smaller, and that
smaller workforce will have to do more work.
The work itself will therefore have to be better managed than before. It will
be organized around self-empowered teams and creative people. Hamish McRae
states that, "The key to economic success in the future will be to find a way of
balancing the two: Group responsibility and personal creativity." 69
Human evolution as a right, a duty and a power
The decision to develop your creative capital is yours alone. However, a positive
response to that decision depends on whether you accept yourself as an integral
part of the universe. On one hand, that's an empowering thought. But it can also
frightening, depending how you think about it.
Dr. Edward de Bono reminds us that intelligence is a potential, but that
thinking is a skill. As such, thinking can be learned, practiced, mastered. In
chapter 9, I outlined several thinking styles and how they can be used for fun and
profit. Try them as you would a recipe, and then practice them until you can
shape your consciousness and transform your mind so you see your own
potential. Imagine an alliance with the creative forces in universe and then
actualize it.
Biologist Lyall Watson says our next jump in intelligence is full
consciousness. He identifies 3 levels of organization of consciousness in living
systems:
(1) - A system can be relatively unconscious – like a jellyfish that carries on
complex biological functions without seeming to refer to anything but in
here.
(2) - An organism can be relatively conscious – a child floating jellyfishlike
in an embryonic sea inside its mother can distinguish between in here
and out there, between self and non-self.
(3) - An organism can be fully conscious and it can exercise its
consciousness in deliberate interaction with other life forms. This state
involves discrimination and selection, in other words, choice. 70
Choice implies subjective will and the potential for creative growth. Will is the
wonder ingredient that makes higher evolution possible. Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin suggested that superiority over our primitive origins begins with selfknowledge,
which then becomes an ability to project a better image of us in time
and space. 71

We can put the past aside, think creatively in the present and will
ourselves a better future. A magical paradigm perfects this to the point where we
are fully conscious of our co-creative role in the universe and our responsibility to
it. And that supplies magicians with passion and power.
Over the years, I've had the pleasure of meeting many people who
discovered, each in his and her way, their reason for being. One who impressed
me greatly was a woman named Nora who is very severely disabled. She is so
afflicted that she can do very little for herself, can barely speak and doesn't move
except with spastic gestures. Yet I've only seen her radiate the warmest good
humor.
One day, when her husband and constant caregiver and I were engaged in
a conversation about fate and destiny, I turned to Nora and asked her, "How do
you see your life? What's your 'higher calling'? How do you serve the creative
plan?"
Her husband set a large sheet of paper in front of her and put a pen in her
hand, then laughed and turned to me, saying, "You've given her a good one there.
It'll take her twenty minutes to get an answer down, so come out to the garage
and I'll show you something I'm working on while we wait."
When we returned, she was in her wheelchair beaming. On that paper
she'd written - "I help keep people kind! Most see me and then want to help me!"
Each one of us evolves from a different perspective. Our background
determines our beliefs and how we understand ourselves, our world and, in large
measure, how we determine goals and how to reach for them.
For some, accepting the creative imperative to form a new relationship
with the Cosmos may not be so easy. We share a collective consciousness that is
strongly influenced by the zeitgeist – the credence of our times – and today's
media has an enormous influence but is unfortunately focused on selling us
sensational headlines. As such it may be difficult for some thinkers to break away
from their limiting habits. Even if the good news about your awesome potential is
broadcast daily on your inner radio, how will it help if you’re tuned to another
channel?
It may be difficult for you to actualize your uniqueness. All the same,
mind expansion is both a personal and a global need, so let’s get past the slogans
and create new memes, new replicating ideas.
In the same way that Marxism, like Christianity, was driven by a scant few
memes over a very short period in Earth history, so can a new creative ethic
emerge from a few good people. It takes work, but a good idea can change the
world in a flash.

If we limit our creativity to biology, our genes might need several million
years to complete an adaptive mutation and hardwire our brain with the idea of
good. But a meme can be produced, reproduced and multiplied to electrify the
collective mind in less than ten years. 72
To actualize real potential, we must stop and listen. The future is asking
each and every one of us to creatively increase our passion for life.
Developing passion in strategic areas
Ever since man-the-storyteller, we humans have felt the need to give meaning to
life, to dream and pursue our dreams – i.e. to grow, to improve our lot and to live
joyfully. Much more than an emotional or intellectual attachment to someone or
something, in this sense passion is an intensity of energy that affects the
brain/mind positively.
Passion is the soul's response to actualizing a path that has heart.
Moreover, it is a power that results from devotion to that path. It's a quality of
the creative energy we give to an activity or cause with a deep inner commitment
to growth and acquiring personal power.
In this context, the concept of personal power means the freedom to
develop your creative capital and to organize a magical life for yourself. Personal
power comes from developing a relationship with transpersonal power. There
are no exceptions to this rule. Power over others is an illusion, so sharing
creative power can only result from self-empowered individuals coming together
and working as a group.
Passion is the interest on the investment in your own development. For
the creative mind, real power has to do with one's inner dialogue; by thinking
what you want, when you want to, you develop personal power. The thing is, the
inner dialogue is only a regurgitation of our past, and any creative breakthrough
will only occur when we slow it or stop it.
The key to magic, then, is learning to stop your inner dialogue. Do that and
everything is possible. Below you'll find a quick guide to the investment needed
to reap passion as the interest in your journey of empowerment.
Synthesis # 36 - Develop your passion in 7 strategic areas
The empowered mind is impassioned:
Creative Intelligence + Wisdom + Will = Passion

Acquire a passion for... that is manifest by and develop:
Life itself …the desire to live long and well… Hope
Happiness …the desire to live joyfully… Enthusiasm
Freedom
Personal growth
Self-actualization
Connectivity
Leadership
…the desire for a self-determining
personality and outlook…
…the desire to live in harmony,
with inner peace or balance, etc.,
…the desire to find your reason for
living or your sacred identity and
to realize your full potential…
…the desire to share, to participate
in a greater good, to give of
yourself…
…the desire to create, to
accomplish and to prosper…
Courage
Self-esteem
Curiosity
Love
Personal power
In their book on the subject, Muriel and John James describe passion as an
intensified urge that is directed toward a specific goal. From the Latin passio, or
suffering, the word is often used to mean strong emotion like love, hate or lust.
We'll hear of crimes of passion committed by people who were inflamed by
their emotions. The authors define passion as all of that. "It is a state of
psychological intensity with a strong commitment to be or to do something." 73
Psychotherapists suggest that all healthy individuals need to reach this
intensity in order to appreciate life. I can add to their testimony. I often enough
find myself in relatively dire situations – like driving alone during a Quebec
winter storm, or waiting to see if my wheelchair arrived after a flight – when I am
fully aware that my passion for life is more than an intensity of energy. It is an
independent force that's animating me, an objective drive that can lift my spirit
into communion with infinite potential or that I can suppress. Passion is a
conduit for the spirit – God as the Electromagnetic force – and a transition point
when I increase my will to the magnitude of l.o.v.e.
In fact, I give myself to passion because it soothes my broken body, adds
an awesome pleasure to my spiritual life, and offers me some outstanding counsel
and direction.

A powerful mind comes in a passionate body
Passion comes from living in the creative flow state where joy exists. As joy is the
chemical reaction to the intensity of energy released in the brain in the “aha!”
moment, passion is that joy multiplied in frequency. It is available to each us as
potential, just by our changing our mind. Shifting your paradigm from being
reactive to being hopeful, proactive and enthusiastic, to acting with motivated
creativity and strategy in a direction that suggests joy might exist there, will help
you ignite your passion for life.
In my case, my passion helps me transcend the physical handicaps and all
the reactions they cause me in a largely inaccessible world. That I should claim
and develop passion for life in spite of my limits wasn't evident when I was flat on
my back, unable to move. I remember how bleak things seemed all those years
ago in my hospital room and recognize that my choice to follow the path of my
heart made perfect sense.
The hope of reaching joy and passion were all I had. My body had endured
the lowest lows so I knew what that felt like, but I also remembered feeling joyful
and free and I knew how my body benefited from that. My transformation since
then has been punctuated with specific decisions. I remember making concrete
decisions to not despair on several occasions. I consciously decided to hope.
On the day in 1977 when the Canadian Football League's championship
game was played in Montreal, instead of using my 45-yard line tickets as planned,
I almost fell into a depressive funk. I'd recently been transferred from the
Neurological Institute's ICU to my small room and was staring blankly out the
window at Mount Royal where, although beautifully decked out in its autumn
reds and yellows, I saw only dark shadows.
I was unable to even turn myself from side to side at that point, and I lay
wondering what my future held. The next day a friend came to visit and he
sneaked a beer into my room for me to enjoy while we chatted about the game I'd
missed. The nursing staff had propped me up in my bed and I saw myself in a
mirror on the back of the door. I was a dismal sight: pale, thin and unshaven
with a plaster cast on my left arm and tubes and connections here and there, a
broken man sticking out from under a disheveled white gown that hung askew.
That sight of me was deeply troubling.
I did I feel very joyful, but I put it aside and reached for the cold can with
my good arm, pretending all was O.K. I was aghast when it slipped through my
fingers and fell to the bed because I didn't have the strength to close my fist and
hold onto it. Later that night the shadows descended on me, and choice
presented itself quite clearly: despair or hope. I considered them both in every
detail and then I chose. There is Light.
I chose to believe things could get better, that I would make them better.
Not knowing anything for sure, I opted for hope.

Passion for life comes from that kind of optimism. Empowered minds
choose to believe that things will improve, and they couple that choice with a
belief that there's intelligence greater than their own. This doesn't necessarily
require a mystic connection. In an easy example, I always considered that the
neurologists, the surgeons, the physiotherapists and the others who helped me
had intelligence that was superior to mine in their chosen fields so my optimism
was born in humility.
There is reason to hope. The world is more aware, more conscious than
ever before. In these times, more and more people are living a longer life, and
science reports that the main characteristic shared by people who live one
hundred years or more is their sense of hope, order and control over their own
life. Hope promotes health by reducing the effects of stress on the mind, and by
improving the effectiveness of the body's self-healing systems. 74
An important role for hope is to let us anticipate and then work toward a
happier tomorrow. The desire to be joyful is stamped onto our soul. I can still
hear the voice that jarred me when I was dead and falling into despair. "Sadder
words I've never seen than the words 'it could have been'."
Later, as I recognized that my life as a disabled and destitute Canadian
entailed real work, I thought the only reason to be empowered was to enjoy my
life. Joy excites all of the body's cells and lifts us up so that we actually radiate
power. That extra energy is translated into enthusiasm, which is a powerful
attractive force. Enthusiasm helps us shift into the proactive attitude where we
can focus our attention on the strategies that make us happy. Joy emerges when
we have no inner conflicts to contend with, and when our energy is fully given to
managing our life well.
Joy is our consciousness when it is willfully invested in l.o.v.e. Even if we
don't think of it that way, real joy comes from the alignment between in here and
out there, when we participate in the beauty and the order of Nature. Often, we'll
feel genuine bliss in our communion with creation in the form of a beautiful
sunset, a spectacular vista, a wondrous contact or an awesome natural event.
Seeing yourself aligned with creative order lets you participate in deep
wisdom. The awareness of greater intelligence will accompany your intuitive
perception that everything is in its rightful place, that the universe is unfolding in
all its magnificence – if you develop the inner qualities that let you savor every
moment as a gift.
Passion often accompanies a desire for total freedom that's important to
people with a strong character and a self-determining personality. When I was in
rehab, I shared my room with a fellow who was about my age and who'd been
paralyzed for several years. Back for some tests, he was a wealth of information
and we chatted amiably for a while.

Then, tired, I rang for a couple of orderlies who lifted me out of my
wheelchair and into my bed. I was very surprised to see my new friend request
the same service and now saw myself a prisoner dependent on others for the rest
of my life. As soon as we were alone I bombarded him with questions. He
explained he had a trapeze bar installed above his bed at home and he just swung
in and out of his wheelchair using that, but that here, he didn't have the
equilibrium to transfer safely without someone to help him.
That night I thought about how my love for travel and Nature were
compromised. My passion for life was at risk unless I got some better answers.
The next morning I questioned my physiotherapist until she assured me that I
could adapt my life so as to be free of any device – except a wheelchair and handcontrols
to drive a car – if I wanted to.
I chose that route and, knowing that the world is not physically adapted
for disabled people, I decided to be adaptable instead. My desire to be of
independent was not dissociated from my passion for life, but required that I
develop the courage needed to constantly face the unknown. Years later, I've
stayed in countless hotels, motels, inns and cabins all over the world and I
adjusted to each one, sometimes acrobatically.
Passion comes from having the courage to dream and to negotiate with
others so that your dreams can come true. Rollo May says courage is not just a
value like other values such as love or loyalty, but rather, it's the power to make
your own values and give them life. 75 Without courage, love will wither away into
co-dependent fear.
Vital to our wellbeing, courage comes from making wise choices and then
committing to them. After leaving rehab, I made the kinds of choices I believed
gave me greater inner peace and let me live with greater harmony. Many of those
choices tested my mettle and forced me to reacquaint myself with the courage
born in a desire to feel free.
If we expect to be free to create the conditions that assure our long-term
happiness, we must develop self-esteem. Because it is directly proportionate to
the investment of our will, self-esteem increases as we actualize our dreams and
decreases considerably if our actions are destructive.
The concept of loving yourself without becoming an egotist might trouble
some folks. Well, first stop time, then discover your sacred identity and esteem
it. Unconditional love is the law. I even learned to esteem my severely disabled
form. It was easier after I formed an image of my higher self as a sort godson-onwheels
and started to wheel the spiel in terms of loving my neighbor as myself,
but it did trickle down to the physical level.
My link to Creator fed my curiosity and so I began to push back my limits.
I questioned every reason why I was paralyzed and discovered things about
myself that I never suspected. Know thyself was indeed the ticket. Then I

questioned why disabled people were excluded, and discovered it was time to get
busy. As I pushed back barriers and opened new horizons, I caught glimpses of
my potential, and my passion for life grew.
I discovered that everything that's related to my acquiring power also
relates to everyone else. I uncovered universal principles and that also shaped
my worldview. Wanting to share my realizations and the joy I was experiencing, I
then opened myself to others and learned. Growing love from the selfish to the
selfless doing opens the way to real power and magic. It frees us from emotional
dependence, from that fear of not being loved by others. By guiding us to l.o.v.e.,
it becomes a radiant force.
The effects of love on the human organism are recognized in science, and
several studies prove that love strengthens the immune system and improves the
general health of the body/mind. Tests at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka,
Kansas, for example, showed that people who love produce a much higher
number of infection-fighting white blood cells and more of the neural chemicals
that contribute to feelings of euphoria and to pain reduction. 76
Love initially benefits the lover, who, by releasing that creative energy,
then inspires others. It really can change the world. Love is magic's power. I am
convinced that the love I felt for my daughter when I heard her name literally
pulled me back from death. When I heard the doctor say, "Come back for
Natalie!"
I was flooded with emotion, with unconditional love. I felt myself expand
like a balloon as love filled me, and I realized that she couldn't possibly spend her
life without a father. Then I exploded into a billion bits of Light – of l.o.v.e. – and
I was suddenly back in my body. Alive.
Since then I've embraced that extraordinary feeling. An indispensable
ingredient in both personal health and healing the Planet, that magic power is
intelligence unplugged. Love applied is the basis of personal power and it's the
source of our ability to imagine and to accomplish greatness. L.o.v.e. is the stuff
of our soul. Shared, it will unite us in prosperity.
My life changed as I pursued the fulfillment of my needs with creativity
and passion. The decision to claim power led me to develop my leadership skills
as my counsel attracted collaborators and clients. Rights had to be wronged,
positions had to be clarified, suggestions had to be creatively constructed,
permissions had to be negotiated, and laws had to be changed.
With practice and adjustment, I acquired personal power. And then a
passion for life was mine to keep.

Willed fusion: the jump into the unknown
Stick your tongue out at a three-month old baby and hold it while it assembles
the neural pathways needed to respond and connect an answer. Give it sufficient
time and you'll laugh knowingly when its own little tongue juts out of its mouth to
say hello back at you. There's a thinker in that tiny body learning how to make up
its mind.
We are thinkers at the center of a sphere of mind that's filled with
information we've collected and connected along the way. Capable of constant
change, our mind reacts to consciousness as it interacts with our brain. A thinker
can attract thoughts from beyond his or her usual limits.
Our consciousness will usually take the path of least resistance – our most
practiced habits – even if it can connect with Super-consciousness (creative
order). The mind can be depressed and will then experience life as a narrow,
somber, lonely tunnel. Or it can expand and perceive life as a bright, hopeful,
magical experience.
Acquiring a creative view of the world is a victory in itself. That mindset,
coupled with a highly productive life, can redefine everything you ever thought
reality to be. There is a better world, a better life, available to anyone who'll move
in that direction. Once the choice is made, all you need do is keep moving with
unbending intent.
People who have known over the years that I've been disabled will confirm
how busy I am every single day. In spite of the limited energy I have, the limited
resources, the limited use of my own body, I do all the work I can every day, and
it adds up. Because I've taken responsibility for being creative, my every
movement positions me closer to my goals, or farther away from them. The
creative process is available to everyone. It isn't restricted to a few lucky people.
Although the path of your heart may seem paved with effort, every
triumph will bring you that much closer to your true creative nature, to the
person you were destined to be. The true you is your timeless self. I am awakens
with the conviction that you, your life and the people in your life deserve more.
Leap into the unknown, into your ultimate identity. I like the following
story to illustrate a variation on the theme. It happens often enough that people
aren't very happy with their choices and come to envy the path not taken. This
springboard story examines "what if…"
Millennia ago, when the sorcerers of Mexico were designing great cities,
they ordered stones and statues to be crafted. Ara was the greatest of the
stone carvers; he cut solid rock into the wondrous forms called for by the
designers, and he marveled at how those sorcerers could see the buildings
that were not yet built.

Ara enjoyed his life and was proud of his work, even if it was physically
demanding. He was happy enough, but he would often think, "If only I had
studied to become a sorcerer, then I would have great powers and I
wouldn't have to work so hard."
One day Ara walked home from work exhausted. The Sun was still bright
and hot, and so he sat at the side of the road for a rest. A few moments
later a local sorcerer, who was also tired and needed a rest, sat down next
to him. Basking in the warmth of the day's last rays, Ara had a sudden
thought: "The Sun gives us light and heat and healing energy, and so surely
it must be the most powerful of all things. If I was the Sun, that would be
even better than being a sorcerer."
Continuing on his way, Ara pondered his idea from every angle until he
bumped into the greatest sorcerer in the land and, not giving it a second
thought, he excitedly and blurted out, "Mighty Sorcerer, I want to feel
what it is like to be powerful. Can you transform me into the Sun?"
The sorcerer answered, "You can be the Sun. Yes indeed!"
And as he said this he reached over to Ara, grabbed him by the shoulders
and tossed him into the sky where he indeed became the Sun. And he did
feel strong and powerful. He shined down on the world below, fed it
energy and was truly happy.
A few days later, a large puffy white cloud appeared in the sky, drifting
about and, nearing Ara, blocked his sunrays and cast a shadow on the
world. Ara was surprised as he saw the world quickly cool and he thought:
"Surely this cloud is more powerful than the Sun as it completely nullifies
my heat. If only I was a cloud, then I would be the most powerful being of
all."
The sorcerer heard him and answered, "Ara, you can be a cloud." And so
he transformed him and Ara floated about the sky feeling blissful. But the
next day he saw a huge black cloud drift his way. As it surrounded him, it
began to spit fire, roar and spill water. The drops fell to the Earth and Ara
saw the world respond by sprouting to life, and he saw the water continue
to flow and rush down the mountains, to become streams and then a
mighty river that moved everything in its path.
Ara saw that the black cloud held water, which must be all-powerful so as
to freely run all over the Earth, and then he thought, "If only I was water in
a river how mighty I could be. Then I would truly be happy."
Again the sorcerer heard and answered, "You can be the river."
So Ara flowed along, feeling the great rush of being water. When he got to
a bend in the path, a huge boulder jutted out at him. The boulder held the

water back, swirling it on itself and forcing it to bend to its will. Ara
thought, "A rock!! At last I have found the most powerful thing. If it can
hold back the force of water contained in a river, then stone is the most
powerful thing. If I were a huge rock, I'd be happy."
And so the sorcerer made him into a boulder and Ara stood there, holding
back the water and feeling very powerful and solidly happy. Imagine that
one day a man stepped into the river, waded over to that boulder and cut
off a large piece of it. Ara was stunned - no longer was he so powerful if a
mere human could come along and cut him up. "If only I could be a man
strong enough to cut up stone, then I would surely be empowered."
And then the sorcerer appeared to Ara and told him, "As we dream so we
can become, so we do become. Today, you'll awaken to see that you are a
great stone carver and that any real power must come from being happy
with who you are!"
And what about you? Are you happy with your life? If not, what are you going
to do about it? If so, is today a lucky day or did you claim power?
The energy interacting with your brain has already given you force – mind.
That force can be used to remove obstacles to your health, wealth and happiness
– if you climb your hierarchy of need. You'll find joy at the ninth level, in the
“aha!” moment after your shift in paradigms. Joy is also found at that magnitude
of consciousness where the mind perceives the creative intent that gives order to
the universe. Love is like a pilot light. Reach it as often as you can until your
inner fire is aligned with joy and then passion.
An unlimited creative potential exists in the time-space continuum.
Personal limits are the only barriers. The dialogue between your conscious and
subconscious minds and the influence of the collective unconscious may be
interfering with your direct communication with the sacred Super-consciousness.
Stopping your inner dialogue is key to accessing its power.
Stop thinking. Act.
10 great tips for acquiring SPIRITUAL power
In my quest for wellness, I use a self-styled disability yoga that isn’t of much use
to anyone but myself. My partner Suzy does Tai Chi and my daughter practices
some other school of yoga, but our aim is the same: quiet time where we’ll keep
an appointment with POWER. In my mind, that means how I see myself as God’s
messenger… how well I convey Nature’s rules and laws. My personal touch is
what defines my link to the creative SPIRIT.

There are a number of tools, techniques and disciplines to help us acquire
creative power, and the following 10 great tips have helped me glide past my own
life's trials.
#1 - Find a development technique that works for you
and really try it for a predetermined amount of time.
Try meditation or any other form of contemplation to help you still your mind.
Examine your mind’s separate components - brain, neural circuitry and
consciousness. Do something to explore your inner dimension every day and
stick with it to allow any real benefits to occur. As you know, practice makes
perfect.
Some people meditate half a day and spend the rest of their time expecting
out there to appreciate it or pay for it. More than a way to relax, meditation is a
way of increasing your self-awareness and of mastering your mind and thoughts
so you are not reactive to them. Every activity can be a meditative act. Aware of
awareness, you can be PRO-active… that is you can act with conscious,
predetermining thoughts.
Learn to relax. Some people use a massage or a hot soak to relax, others
run or swim, and still others use technological or organic aids like biofeedback,
brain-sync machines or herbs. Whatever works for you is great. Joan Borysenko,
Director of the Mind/Body Clinic of Harvard Medical School, explains that, "The
ultimate aim of meditation is to remain aware of our experience so that
relaxation and serenity of mind become the norm rather than the exception." 77
# 2 - Put EVERYTHING you can into
EVERYTHING you do, so you can draw
EVERYTHING you should from
EVERYTHING you did.
Every activity is an opportunity for creative power to manifest itself through your
acts. The fact is, how you do it is what you are doing, and what you do is who you
are becoming. Consider how the pros will tell us that correcting our bad habits is
a lot more difficult than acquiring good ones. Keep your head down, work on your
grip, do some weight training, and all the rest.
You can profit from this wisdom by developing a superior work ethic. I
enjoyed my work before the accident and never doubted that I'd work again. I
enjoy doing my creative best, whatever the task. I bring enthusiasm and passion
to everything I do. How you do it is who you become. As long as you are putting
in the time, you might as well develop some skills. I happily passed on that

nugget of wisdom to my daughter, who profits from it every day. Now I tell the
grandkids… Have fun - that’s your job!
Giving your all to what you do will get results. At the very least, you get to
learn what your all actually is. That will allow you to properly evaluate your
creative capital so you can properly represent it in the marketplace. Then you can
use what you learned to advance your plans with confidence, determination and
power.
# 3 - Consider EVERYTHING
as a learning experience.
An empowered person sees everything as if it was a learning experience, an
opportunity to discover something about himself. Be strategic, play the five roles
of a creative thinker. Stalk information you need, dream concepts, see what
works, act decisively as a warrior would, and then communicate with out there.
Just to see what it feels like.
You are the only one who gives importance to information that enters your
sphere of awareness, by welcoming it or rejecting it. I was told that I was now a
severely disabled man, but I choose to understand differently-able when I think
about myself. In this way I am free to invest in those abilities I still have. I
rewired a lot of the data I believed before my accident, and now I see so many
things in new ways. I choose to experience life by feeling lucky.
Even if you don't get much pleasure from certain activities – after all, who
really enjoys doing menial tasks? Take advantage of those situations that
displease you. Use them to focus your mind not on what you are doing, but on
how well you are doing it. This will slow your inner dialogue and help you
transform the job into a quest for power by freeing energy that would be wasted
by resentment, avoidance tactics or mindless escapism.
You'll get a boost in your self-esteem by appreciating who you are
becoming as a result of your efforts. This realization can add to your quality of
life.
# 4 - Be self-disciplined. Choose to walk on the
path of the heart. To be disciplined means to
follow it the right way. Self-discipline means to
follow it a better way: your own.
Without discipline, efforts will rarely prove positive. You can mouth all the
positive affirmation you wish or pray from now 'til the cows come home, but
without concrete actions they mean nothing. In fact, affirmation without

disciplined action is the beginning of delusion. I've had much occasion to meet
all kinds of adherents who believe in prayer, affirmations, subliminal tapes or any
other way of communicating with out there, and by-pass the actions that cause
change.
Even if we become real sure that we want to change, it's only with
discipline that we can actually act and integrate new skills and abilities. Aligning
our neurons to pray that things get better won't make them better, but it will
make you better at praying.
Self-discipline isn't something moral, philosophical or mystical; it's
behavioral, strategic and empowering. Chinese warrior-philosopher Sun Tzu
thought that personal growth, more than any other thing, depends on selfdiscipline.
He said self-discipline is naturally developed when we challenge inner
conflict. Stare down your opposition to acquiring power.
Learn to work on the process rather than only lusting after results. Focus
your attention on defining what you want, and then plan the necessary steps to
get it. If your plan considers others, you'll be surprised how old win/lose
thinking can become win-win-win scenarios that magically come together.
There's wisdom to be gleaned from the caution, "If you meet the Buddha
on the road, kill the Buddha." It says that we can't follow someone else's path.
While spiritual wisdom is universal and will address everyone, it’s always subject
to personal interpretation.
The key to your success is a deep commitment to your own evolution, by
challenging your own fears, taboos and resistances, and acquiring the selfdiscipline
to actualize your dreams. By cultivating self-discipline, you'll begin to
notice that you accomplish more with greater ease and fluidity. Synchronicity
and opportunity will follow.
Your disciplined assemblage of the neurons in your brain has to
correspond to your own vision of the path of a heart because wherever you go,
there you are.
# 5 – Infinity does not measure gains or losses –
only outcomes. Consider how your life is a series
of doings and not-doings that offer personal
experience and opportunities for growth.
Wise folks explain how success is not a destination; it's a voyage. You are the
only common denominator between you and every person and event you've
experienced so far in your life. So what kind of travel companion are you? On
Starship Earth, are you a passenger or a member of the crew? Are you an officer
or a swab?

Focus your energy on your own empowerment to increase your creative
capital, and you'll find that you'll get lucky. Become more aware of your inner
self and you'll soon see that you are increasing your awareness of power itself.
Then you'll find it easier to consider doings and not-doings that can transform
your life.
Through willful doings, get to know God as l.o.v.e. – from selfish and egocentric
desires to its unconditionally awesome force. Recognize it as universal
energy that you can transform into power and unleash with a creative intent.
Acting with intent can assemble events into opportunities. Creative intent is an
edifice that defines the rules of the game. Intent is where God invites us all to
take our fill of l.o.v.e. and transform it on the world stage.
# 6 - Developing your spiritual being is the key
to happiness! Determine who it is that you
want be, what kind of person, and then do the
work needed until you reach your goal.
You are completely responsible for your life and for your higher evolution. Your
efforts alone will open you to a creative and magical paradigm. People who do all
of the work all of the time succeed. In order for universal power to become
personal, pick any dream, any goal, give it a creative intent and work at it until
you make it come true.
Choose a dream that requires that you learn every technique and use every
resource that helps you focus your energy positively. A worthy dream will help
you eliminate your useless habits, excite your most positive emotions and attract
collaborators who'll contribute to your success as if it was an extension of their
own.
# 7 - Don't create and analyze at the same time.
These are different processes that use different
brain hemispheres.
In order to bring forth your creative ideas, you have to relax so you are able to
concentrate, visualize and write. While your left-brain analytical perceptions
point out problems that need solutions or opportunities looking for success,
relaxation lets you access your right brain.
We receive left-side perceptions in the beta brainwave frequencies. The
right side dominates the mind while we are in the alpha-theta frequency range.
Concentration lets us focus our attention in one side, and then the other. And
visualization lets us translate images from the right side into new potentials.

Many people have good ideas but censor themselves as these ideas appear
in their mind's eye. Remember Dr. Linus Pauling's advice. Get a lot of ideas and
throw out the bad ones. There is an important time lag between those two
operations. The creative mind must move away from success/failure thinking in
order to surrender to the process.
Studies show that creative breakthroughs are not time limited. Ideas that
may seem improbable or unpromising at first glimpse can, over time, be found to
be more promising. That kind of self-censorship or out of hand dismissal of ideas
is a projection of emotional limits. Truly great ideas rarely hatch in an instant.
Write all promising ideas down and then let them be for a while. Revisit them
several times and force-fit them with other ideas to compel breakthroughs.
# 8 - Surrender to joy whenever you can. Have fun!
Things are a lot more enlightened that we think.
Joy x Frequency = Passion
Humor and joy stimulate the release of hormones that are beneficial to the body,
the mind and the spirit. Dr. De Bono says we can learn more about the brain as a
self-organizing system from humor than from any other human activity. The
brain works like an asymmetric information retrieval system. Overall, it doesn't
care about our logical expectations.
The brain retrieves its information without your giving much care to how
it does it, and you experience its output as a constant flow of familiarity. Humor
will cause your neural patterns to break away from your expectation and
suddenly present you with an alternative potential, an inter legencia that is
unexpected. Just think, the brain expects to zig and instead, it's made to zag. Ha,
ha, ha! Who would have expected it?
It is really a magical process. Humor provides the brain with a small
“aha!” moment that is almost like having a creative idea. The magic part of all
this is that human brains can connect or reconnect information into creative
capital by being funny, joyful and flooded with good feelings. What's up with
that? Who had that great idea?
When faced with a difficult problem or challenging situation, learn to
laugh, at it as the best first step to finding a creative solution. Laughter sets up
your neurons for a link with creative intent and floods your brain/mind with a
chemical mix of that attracts solutions. With a great belly laugh, the interaction
between consciousness and brain slows to about the 22 hertz range, and that is
slow enough to act like a sort of search engine that connects ideas in a non-linear
way.

The alternative is to get stressed out and release chemicals that accelerate
your perception so you can only react and solidify your problems into actuality.
Develop the power to laugh your way into neuro-peptides that bring solution to
you. Like the hormones we experienced in all our joyful states, laughter's
chemical bath changes the relationship between the observer and the observed
allowing an “aha!” of new realization.
Humor changes our perspective and attitude, and allows us to approach
difficult situations in a more empowered way. Research also confirms that it
greatly increases the antibodies released by the body, and decreases our
aggressive hormones. Laughter can release endorphins associated with euphoric
states and the reduction of pain.
As joy accompanies our subjective “aha!” as bursts of light, consciously
resonating to joy attracts ideas from a higher magnitude of intelligence. Joyful
intent is an edifice that invites us to enter and participate with an expression of
creativity.
# 9 - Question all the rules, even your own rules.
Creativity is needed everywhere, all the time.
Apathy is our deadliest sin since it limits us to life in our discomfort zones.
Defined as a lack of feeling or emotion, a sort of impassiveness when faced with
the opportunity to act, it is anti-evolutionary. Don't bore God! To evolve from a
reactive mind to a proactive mindset and to develop our creative capital demands
action. Apathy, on the other hand, is the refusal to act.
Questioning the origins and the reasons behind any rule is a good way to
assess whether it is necessary or effective. The tribal circuits in our brain place
have placed severe restrictions on who, what, where, when, why and how we love.
Know thyself! Most of our rules come from learned neural patterns, old
paradigms imposed on us long before we were in a position to question them.
Sometimes it's easier to follow old rules than to question them. But our
tribal brains are more than mere curiosities; they impose perceptions and
behaviors that are based on beliefs from the past that have present and future
consequences. Your own rules may be allowing your past to impose itself
negatively on your future.
Create a space where you can evaluate your desire for a better future
against your attitudes and beliefs to see if they limit your further development.
As you ponder, consider this: if a rule is limiting you, if it isn't universal,
evolutionary, creative, loving or natural, it may need to be changed or eliminated.
Take a walk on the wild side. Break a rule just to see what happens.

# 10 - Develop your creative capital by
expanding your sphere of awareness so you
will participate more fully in life’s challenges.
As you create your own piece of paradise, you’ll share in the spirit of visionaries,
those architects of the future, the dreamers who act. Work yourself free from the
limiting effects of your neural-paradigms and use your verbal, musical,
mathematical, visual/spatial, kinesthetic, intra- and interpersonal and naturist
intelligence to creatively think ways that can give you a passion for life.
Imagine that, in a world filled with problems and challenges of every
description, the problem solvers themselves, those who accept the challenges,
will become more intelligent than their problems. Creative thinking will bring
light into the darkness.
Eastern philosophies speak of right livelihood to explain how our acts
leave traces in our own brain. They are who we become. Be more creative every
day and there you are. The evolutionary path is a war against our own limits, our
personal weaknesses and fears, against a fate that is pre-determined by our
individual and collective past. If you look back and are embarrassed by your
past, that's a good thing as it means you've grown since then. If you look back
and find you haven't changed much, well, you don't really know who you are –
potentially.
Embarrass yourself today. Do something you've never done before just to
feel the rush of thousands of neurons lighting at once. There’ll be grey-matter to
move while new thinking takes root. So much energy in your brain at once will
redden your cheeks. You flush with self-consciousness. That's a good thing, and
the more you give yourself the embarrassment of new trials, the more your brain
will etch the investment in your account as creative capital.
A life filled with passion starts with choosing your acts. Give the best of
yourself to life to generally maximize your creative energy. Altruistic self-interest
suggests that this is a good thing. Not only will you contribute positively to your
own existence, you'll be a positive source of life itself, where we can all benefit
from it.
The quantum effect of acting in creative ways is that we learn to be more
creative, and those moments become more frequent. Then you'll agree that
magic is real and you can bring all of yourself to the process. And that's when life
really gets lucky.
We live in times that are described as the final days or a new age,
depending on who experiences it. There is war, political division and threats to
social order; at the same time, information age thinking already promises
incredible potential. But first smell the coffee. The final battle between good and

evil is really the battle between old-paradigm reactive thinking and a creatively
self-empowered mind that's waged inside each of us.
Your old habits battle with your creative intent. I hope your creativity
wins. Consider how the universal law of creation and its rules are structured to
help you. Remember, you can't break the law; you can only break yourself
against the law.
Co-creating our common future
The terror many felt in the days after America’s 9-11 tragedy has largely subsided
as humans do succeed in rebuilding lives after trauma. Most try to rebuild them
as close to what they were before disruption. Heroes are made in crisis, but even
that luster fades. Promises are made, but as the kinds of deals children make
with an invisible God.
Since that fateful day we've learned that people will conspire to do all
kinds of evil things. As I interpret the Jesus example, he died for the love of God,
and did not kill in His name. Because God the Father is time itself, no one
escapes pure Light judgment, whoever he or she is or whatever he or she believes.
Imagine, the end of life is all about unconditional love – limitless oscillations of
vibrating energy – and its pass/pass not rule. Any part of the noosphere that
doesn’t resonate to love does not pass.
People can conspire – band together with Spirit – to plan something
wonderful. I like to remember a magical operation where some us decided to give
ourselves to the underprivileged kids in a small town one day. Believers in
random acts of kindness and senseless displays of beauty, we found out the local
welfare office was organizing a party and we asked to attend as volunteers. We
dressed in festive costumes, bought goodies from the dollar store, and showed up
with huge bouquets of balloons to help organize fun and games. We played all
day and shared the spirit of unconditional love.
While there are dozens of great stories from that day, I'll always remember
the happy, serious and solid gaze one young lad gave me at the end, as he shook
my hand and thanked me for coming. We'd chatted back and forth that morning
and he began asking advice on family issues. Over the course of the day, he
sought me out several times and we hammered out a strategy. He was more joyful
leaving than he'd been when he arrived. Causing change to occur really is magic.
In the spiritual and magic worldviews, we are born into the world to
actualize a single creative intent – to express l.o.v.e. That rule stopped being
philosophical or religious, a bit of dogma to be believed or discarded, with the
first sustained reaction. From [e = mc 2 ] we discovered quantum magic at [e= hf].
Moving forward, conclusions from the unified field worldview suggest that the

universe is indeed [l.o.v.e.] - limitless oscillating vibration energy - indivisibly
bound to matter [e-motion], an empowering fact.
Emotion assembles awareness and so love really is magic.
Each self will have to claim the good news individually, personally. Each
has his or her sphere of awareness, or accumulated baggage, to contend with.
The conscious mind and its subconscious depths occupy a cell of time-spaceconsciousness
in a universe of infinite proportions. Each mind is interacting in a
larger unconscious mind, indivisibly bound to the Super-conscious mind –
creative order.
Each of us can take his or her fill of the creative intelligence in universe.
Some ancient cosmogonies suggested that God is dreaming paradise on Earth,
here and now. They say that by dreaming God's dream, we can acquire the force
of His creative mind to back up our life and gain the power to make our own
dreams come true. God first. Almost sounds religious. In other words, the only
power you have is the power to choose power.
Ready or not, like it or not, care to believe it or not, deserve it or not, you
are divine Light. For every sort of reason, the majority of people are unaware of
or unwilling to take their place in this magical reality. They put every sort of
condition on experiencing that unconditional truth.
Love has no conditions. It's a feeling that attracts creative intelligence. No
loving feeling = not much intelligence. As luck would have it, an important
characteristic of the human mind is that it can outgrow limits that interfere with
its own survival. Nature's self-organizing process wants us to expand our mind in
altruistic self-interest.
[Reactive mind + Proactive mind = Creative mind => Empowered life]
I'm convinced that human beings are not created to suffer in this world, or to be
rewarded with pie-in-the-sky-after-we-die, or punished by some giant head.
Creation is a process. In my experience, creating my own vision of paradise on
Earth means developing a self-empowered life here/now. Then a creative mind
asks, why not?
Without being naive or ignoring the fact that humans are the authors of
just about every problem and challenge we face, I choose to believe that we can be
just as successful at creating as we've proven we are at destroying. I choose to
believe because it makes my body feel better. Want to feel lucky?
Our common future will improve in direct proportion to our ability to join
together in celebration of the natural world – from its creating spirit to its created
life forms – and to accept our rightful place in it. To participate, claim your

birthright, the power to love, and then act. To accept your inheritance, open your
mind to being blissfully happy, strategically clever, magically productive and
prosperous.
And call that an investment in your creative capital.

THE TOOL BOX
Abstract thinking
Constructive thinking
Divergent thinking
Provocative thinking
Lateral thinking
Contemplative thinking
Storyboard thinking
Empathic thinking

Abstract thinking
Introduction:
Abstract thinking is based on the technique invented in 1952 by Alex Osborne
and called brainstorming. It lets people toy with ideas as abstract concepts so
they'll share data and make new connections. It also allows us to overcome a
widespread tendency to overlook obvious options before beginning to search for
new ideas.
It's best used as a group technique to open minds, generate ideas and assess the
known, although it's also a good personal discipline to practice detachment from
ideas. It can be an effective tool for examining virtually any type of problem or to
generate innovative options for analysis and development.
Method:
• Select a facilitator
• Use paper and pencil
• Suspend judgment
• Insist on writing down all ideas put forward
• Link ideas that are similar and form patterns
• Draw out ideas that may be inhibited by the patterns
Note:
Avoid analyzing any answers, as this will only stifle the flow. Allow as much
humor as possible to influence the process, as this will help transcend personal
inhibitions. Bring forth as many answers as possible, as limits are contrary to the
whole spirit of brainstorming.

Constructive thinking
Introduction
This exercise in constructive thinking was conceived to help people share and
build on ideas and overcome their territorial limits. It generates new possibilities
and allows concepts to grow in different directions. It can be successfully used in
roundtable discussions with a motivated and creative team. The tool was
designed to improve, amend, expand, solve, change and evolve any idea, concept,
situation or project.
This tool can be used by people over a period of time, a few hours or a few days.
Divergent streams of thought are collected, and then can be used to stimulate
reflection and analysis.
Method
• Orchestrate a group meeting with 4 to 8 people at a large table (or via the
Internet, for example);
• Write a description of what you wish to explore on a sheet of paper and give
copies to everyone;
• Have each person write a short sentence that builds on that idea on its sheet;
• Having recorded their thought, each will pass the note to the person on their
left (or next on a list) and receive a note passed from someone else for a
second round;
• Every person now reads two ideas on the sheet now before them and adds
another improvement to it, building it further; repeat the steps for as many
rounds as you want until everybody has commented on everybody else's
ideas.
• You now have an improved list of creative and constructive ideas! Have fun
making them real!
Note:
You can use this tool with family, friends, teams of colleagues and associates to
practice total quality thinking that has to implant a continuum of improvement.

Divergent thinking
Introduction
Divergent thinking is a creativity tool developed by author Gabrièle Lusser Rico
who calls it grouping. Author Tony Buzan calls it mind mapping.
The exercise stimulates the imagination, allowing you to move away from a
central point or pre-conceived concept without getting lost. Because it uses an
open structure and free association, it lets you explore various kinds of idea and
add to your thinking.
It lets you develop complete scenarios around a new idea while keeping a
disciplined focus on the creative intent of the exercise.
Method
• Use a paper and pencil;
• Write a word at the center of the paper to express the concept or idea you wish
to develop;
• Draw a circle around that word and write every thought, emotion and
association it stimulates in an expansive circumference around the key word;
• Draw circles around each of those ideas;
• Allow your mind to expand on the circles and jot down and circle every new
thought;
• Allow your mind to take you in any direction;
• Write down all your thoughts as quickly as possible until no more ideas come
to mind;
• Draw lines to join the circles that you see as being similar or somehow linked.
Note
Divergent thinking will allow you to organize your thoughts, clarify your position
or direction, explore options, analyze any subject and creatively examine new
possibilities.
The technique lets you explore different perspectives of a single thought. Make
connections. Use metaphors, analogies and comparisons to generate new ideas.

Look for material outside of your normal fields of interest. Take creative risks. If
you want original and innovative idea, you've got to break old thinking habits and
start doing your automatic reflexes in different ways.
This means taking a walk on the wild side, exploring the unknown and the new.
You won't get lost.

Provocative thinking
Introduction
Provocative thinking is for visionaries who, instead of waiting for creative
breakthroughs, go get them. It begins by realizing that your assumptions about
how things are supposed to be are interfering with your giving some serious
thought to how things might be. Robert Kennedy expressed this idea when he
asked, “Some men see things as they are and ask 'why?' while others see things
that can be and ask 'why not?'"
Method:
Breakthrough your assumptions in easy five steps: 1. Recognize the assumption;
2. Record the assumption; 3. Translate the assumption into a question; 4. Seek
out facts; 5. Challenge the assumption to provoke breakthrough thoughts.
1. Recognize your assumptions.
Become aware of personal, corporate or social assumptions by recognizing clues
from your own or other people's body language, emotions and words. If a body is
closed, tight and stiff, or if you and others automatically deride data that doesn't
support what you believe or feel threatened by information, it's likely you're
making assumptions that something is true or right and you are consciously or
subconsciously protecting your assumptions. Truth stands the test of time and
does not need to be defended. Airing out ideas should bring truth to light. The
process, however, is most often thwarted by our emotional attachments: our
assumptions.
2. Record your assumptions.
Creative people think with a pencil. Writing down your and others’ assumptions
makes them real, and that makes all the difference. Once documented, an
assumption can be viewed objectively and tested. Being a creative thinker isn't
just pap; it's work. Writing down and studying assumptions creates distance
between the observer and the observed. That distance allows one to benefit from
a detached overview and permits multidimensional exploration for
understanding and change.
3. Translate your assumption into questions.
First you must paradigm shift into the curiosity mindset, from why to why not. To
do this, ask questions like these: Why do I believe this? How did this belief
become? Why do we think that way or do it this way? Could I be mistaken when I
think about what's right and wrong? Can facts be falsified? Are there
complimentary and contradictory facts? Does my experience support my belief?
Where can I find other opinions? Who is doing it differently? What can limitless
resources contribute? Etc.

4. Seek out the facts.
Once you've posed a few clear questions, check out the facts. Start with Google’s
billions of Web pages and go from there. Look in non-habitual places for far out
relationships. Look for natural patterns and synchronicities with dissimilar data.
Find indications of order, beauty, joy or humor, or of human limits. Follow your
heartfelt intuitions and be ready for the unexpected and the serendipitous.
5. Challenge your assumptions.
If you find your assumptions aren't substantiated, get real curious about what
other ideas are supported by the false truth it is based on. Innovative
breakthroughs will be found just past those limiting fakes. Careful though, the
status quo is a powerful foe.

Lateral thinking
Introduction:
The lateral thinking technique was developed by Dr. Edward deBono, who calls it
"6 HATS THINKING". It lets you think in six complementary ways, and allows
you to shift thinking modes quickly or to direct others to change their mind
without offending them. For example, you can ask an individual or a group to
wear a specific hat or to change one hat for another while examining an issue, or
you can indicate that you are going to wear a specific hat and examine a situation
from that perspective.
Used by group brainstorming sessions, the method is excellent for minimizing
resistance to new ideas, new concepts or new directions; it allows you to explore
concepts from several angles and to avoid overlooking any of their various
aspects.
It is a great analytical tool as it let's you pre-select the mood you'll see with.
Method:
Wear or have others wear any or all of the following hats and record all the
perceptions from each vantage point.
WHITE HAT: Open-minded thinking. Inputs data, facts, numbers. Questions
and listens without judgment. Likes abstract thinking. Lets the unknown become
known.
RED HAT: Emotional brain thinking. Includes feelings, emotions, intuitions,
guts and spirit. These never have to be justified. By soliciting others' red hat, you
can identify potential positions and resistances.
BLACK HAT: Logical negative thinking. Justifies why something does not fit
the facts, rules, culture, system, policy, etc. Explains why ideas are bad, why they
won't work or what to fix or rethink. Predicts failure, etc.
YELLOW HAT: Logical positive thinking. Examines benefits, advantages and
reasons why something could or should work. Tells why ideas must go ahead,
who would profit and how to expect success, etc.
GREEN HAT: Alternative thinking, off-the-wall suggestions or creative
provocations, innovative propositions, wow ideas and future/now thinking, etc.
BLUE HAT: Thinking about doing. Examines the steps of implementation. Asks
who does what? Goes to the end of a thought, evolves an idea to its extremes or to
its next step. Lets the dust settle, works ideas or creatively does nothing but
incubate them for a time, etc.

Note:
Creative people want as much information as possible before committing
themselves to a decision or a direction.

Contemplative thinking
Introduction:
This exercise in relaxed illumination is a powerful tool that considers the impact
of our plans, goals or objectives. Used to see how a significant decision can affect
others, the technique allows us to preview the potential fall-out of an idea or
project, to predict the effect of a decision and to prevent, minimize or repair any
negative impact. You will be enlightened as you consider the full spectrum of
intelligence contained in a decision.
Directions:
Plan some quality time where you can relax. Alone or in a group, note and
register your perceptions as you allow your mind to ascend through the following
eight rays of awareness of the full light spectrum. As the future requires a more
contemplative state of mind, practice asking yourself the following 10 questions.
Let an authentic in here respond.
The red ray looks unto the physical dimensions of the idea. In this
perspective, foresee:
- What will be done? In what time frame?
- Then, jump ahead into that desired future where the idea has been
implemented or the project completed to see, in retrospect, how it was done.
Jumping ahead and visualizing back to the present allows you to foresee,
prevent, minimize or repair any negative impact.
Look at the emotional dimension of the idea with the orange ray.
Examine its impact on people and resources:
- What are the emotional and physical repercussions on the human resources
or the people committed to the project?
- What are the repercussions of this decision on the material resources?
Under the yellow ray, we examine any intellectual resistance:
- What positive logic can be used to plan strategies that minimize any
resistance?
The green ray looks into spiritual values:
- With common interests and in light of mutual gains as the universal politic,
how can this idea evolve in an ideal way?

The blue ray considers the need for a creative consensus:
7. How can we be sure all required agreements can be obtained in appropriate
time frames?
The indigo ray is a look at actions and their requirements:
8. What can be done immediately?
The violet ray looks into continuity and renewal:
9. What follow-up mechanisms can be put together to assure a creative
management of all this?
A pure Light ray opens onto global connectivity:
10. Link all the faces and all the tasks in view of common interests for mutual
gain, to the follow-up mechanisms and the time frames, and then create a state of
receptivity to the idea of good.

Storyboarding
Introduction:
To understand a storyboard, consider how a comic strip tells a complete story in
only four panels. Storyboarding is a great management tool as it facilitates the
creative-thinking process. It takes ideas and displays them, so a group can work
together and contribute to a project or solve problem and benefit from clear
directions and guidelines.
Storyboards will give participants total immersion in a scenario by letting them
see how everything fits together. Run it up the flagpole and we'll see how it flies!
- captures the essence of the process. The process works well with group sessions,
because as thoughts are put into some sense of order, people can see connections,
how various ideas relate to one another and how all the pieces come together into
a whole.
You can also see what ideas might be missing. When ideas start flowing, they take
on a life of their own; then the people working on a storyboard become immersed
in exploring the scenario, situation or solution as they work their way from panel
to panel. People can hitchhike onto each other's ideas and a story can evolve
unexpectedly but ever creatively.
Method:
How do you get good ideas? Get a lot of ideas and throw out the bad ones. To
make a simple storyboard, use cork or a similar surface that allows you to pin up
index cards. Start with a general topic card and under that, place several header
cards that contain general categories or particular considerations, etc. Under
those cards, place sub-headers with themes that fall under the header. The subheaders
can list details or ideas generated in the creative-thinking session that
support the headers or need to be developed. Then list as many ideas as you can
generate.
Try the five major kinds of storyboards:
• Idea boards
• Planning boards
• Organization boards
• Creation boards
• Communication boards

Idea boards let people trade information in a continuous brainstorming
session. A corkboard as described above, a large bulletin board, a chalkboard, a
dedicated wall painted with flat white or an Internet BBS can also be used. Idea
boards should be created around specific themes, and need to be fed and cleaned
regularly.
Planning boards let people see processes, steps and timelines. Think of a
recipe; knowing what you are cooking assures that a meal will turn out as
expected. Strategy can be plotted and possibility scenarios added or deleted at
will. I like using shelf-lining paper to plan out scenarios and events. Tape several
feet of paper, to represent a numbers of hours, days, or weeks, etc., at eye-level on
a wall (some plastic kinds have an adhesive backing like Post-It Notes). Draw a
horizontal line midway along its length, use vertical lines to space out sequences
and make time-space panels. Find your own variations on the technique and
you'll be amazed at how your next month - or year or two - can look at a strategic
glance.
Organization boards let you see who's who, what's what, where's where and
when's when. Getting feedback for several collaborators is easy when the
feedback process is structured on boards that have fill-in-the-blanks panels.
Presentation tools like PowerPoint can be used to present ideas in a logical order
and let you to benefit from visual cues; emailing a presentation and letting others
shift things around can give you another slant on things.
Creation boards should have discipline and regular follow-ups included in
their process so that people contribute various kinds of input at specific times.
Let contributors experiment with different media. Make color, sound, texture,
form, etc., part of the process. Explore the organic ways relationships come
together and come undone, to help with transitions and communication. Use
conscious provocation and outside resources to add to the mix.
Communication boards should be facilitated sessions wherein a diversity of
contributors deposit their ideas as they get specific but limited instructions. Try
large sheets of paper and colored Post-it notes at strategic places. How about a
telephone-answering machine where people can phone in 24-7? Ideas could be
transcribed and forwarded to all collaborators. How about using the Internet?

Empathetic thinking
Introduction:
This exercise is also called a Salon. Well known in European and early American
society, the practice dates back to Antiquity and is still widely used by indigenous
people around the world. The idea of a salon, which means structured exchanges
between people, is enjoying a revival from middle America to corporate training
boot camps.
This technique allows people to mirror streams of thought for one another and to
create some new syntheses from their divergent views. It is an empowering tool,
since it allows people to understand other reasoning processes, solutions and
resources. Empathetic thinking encourages listening to others with the creative
intent of reaching a greater depth in one's own understanding.
The French word salon means a sitting room but the dynamic idea behind the
word means sitting around and communicating in depth and with rules. Think of
great and earnest philosophical meetings throughout history or sitting around a
campfire on a mellow late summer night, to recognize how one idea will bring
another. Get a nice glass of wine, a cool beer or a mug of herb tea and get the
bottom of a local or personal problem.
Method:
The technique involves listening open-mindedly. The rules allow people to
express themselves without the fear of being interrupted, judged or negated in
some sense. The exercise involves orchestrating a totally receptive
communication context and mood.
Empathic thinking means seeking to understand before seeking to be
understood. Empathy is walking a mile in the other's shoes as a basis for
understanding; it is a quality and a power. Empathic thinking is best used in
small groups. There is a variation for large groups called Ear of the Jaguar.
• Use a talking stick. (Can be anything as it is a symbol meaning the rules)
• Choose a facilitator.
• Determine topics, time limits and subject, number of rounds, breaks, etc.
• Commit to adhering to the rules of empathetic thinking.
• Choose a time for each intervention (between 1 and 3 minutes).
• Choose a theme or question to be discussed.

• There is a experiential difference between serving the moment and wanting
the moment to serve you. More than a tool, the first period of time is devoted
to silence in order to allow the participants to reflect on the theme.
• The facilitator then passes the talking stick to the first participant.
• Each participant expresses himself for the allotted time. Each uses time,
dividing it with words and silences as s/he sees fit. Each participant must
agree to speak from the heart.
• The group agrees to listen attentively, receive the communication in the heart
and each tries to discern the creative intent behind it, to learn something of
value.
• As soon as the time expires the speaker passes the talking stick to a next
participant.
• When all have spoken, the facilitator can offer a synopsis, précis, synthesis or
reminder before introducing the next round.
Note:
The technique works best with groups of 12 or fewer people who:
• Agree that everything that is said during a salon will remain in the salon.
The talking stick is a symbol that gives the person holding it the power to speak
or to express him/herself in the above context and receive respectful audience.
Still waters run deep, suggest wisdom books. Team members who have difficulty
communicating might have something creative to contribute. Conversely, just
because team members can dominate with a glib word doesn't mean they offer
depth. Set the rules -times, number of rounds to be played and expectations.
Modify the exercise as a tool for larger numbers of participants. During a
business meeting for example, set down rules such that any participant can grab
the talking stick to immediately stop time and receive the empathy and respect
allowing him or her to go to the end of a thought.

Win-Win-Win Thinking
Introduction
This creativity tool will allow you to consider the positive impact of an idea,
concept or action on the all the stakeholders involved. This simple exercise
examines common interests and mutual gains so that everyone or everything
concerned profits from a proposed scenario.
In order for the whole to win, each part must win. The creative intent behind the
concept is made clear by the following example. A shaman saw men destroying
the forests and its resulting erosion in which part of the whole, the topsoil, was
washed off to sea lost forever by the rain. The shaman knew the men worked for
personal profit, so he asked, "What will we do after we've destroyed the Earth, eat
money?"
Method:
1) Draw three columns on a sheet of paper;
2) In the first, list all your own interests or what you, those in your team or your
company can gain from the idea;
3) In the second, list all the interests of others who will benefit from it;
4) In the third, list the interests of the larger whole, the community or the
environment;
5) Consider the impact of your idea, the gains or losses it will impose, and list
these in the appropriate columns. Seek out any contradictions that might
arise.
Note:
If an idea isn't a winner for everyone, if it doesn't recognize common interests or
offer mutual gains, then it just isn’t creative enough. Since creativity's source is
Infinity, use others tool found in the toolbox and keep working on your idea until
it's a winner.

I quoted passages from…
Chapter 1
1. K.C. Cole. Sympathetic Vibrations: Reflections On Physics As A Way Of Life.
Bantam New Age Books, 1985.
2 . Dr. Robert Anton Wilson. The Cosmic Trigger - Final Secret Of The
Illuminati. Falcon Press, 1977.
3. Chris Morris. Taking Action -We’re killing the ourselves and the planet: UN
Report. Canadian Press, 1996.
4. Alvin Toffler. Future Shock. Bantam Books, 1971.
5. Watson, Lyall. Ideas on the Edge of Natural History. Hodder and Stoughton,
1986.
6. Kevin W. Kelley, ed. The Home Planet. Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1988.
Chapter 2
7. Dr. Charles M. Johnson. The Creative Imperative. Celestial Arts Press, 1986.
8. Ibid.
9. William James with Bruce Kuklick, Editor. The Varieties of Religious
Experience. Library of America, 1988.
10. Nicholas Wright, ed. Understanding Human Behavior(contributions by
Abraham Maslow). Colombia House, 1974.
11. Dr. Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth. Doubleday, 1988.
12. Dr. Ernesto DeMartino. Primitive Magic: The Psychic Powers Of Shamans
And Sorcerers. Prism Press, 1972.
13. Lyall Watson. Supernature. Coronet Press, Hodder Books, 1973.
Chapter 3
14. Thomas S Kuhn. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of
Chicago Press, 1962.
15. Willis Harmon. An Incomplete Guide to the Future. Norton, 1970.
16. Adam Smith. Powers of the Mind. Ballantine Books, 1975.

17. Marilyn Ferguson. The Aquarian Conspiracy. Tarcher, 1980.
18. Joel A. Barker. Discovering the Future: The Business Of Paradigms. 3rd ed.
ILI Press, 1989.
Chapter 4
19. Thomas Armstrong. 7 Kinds of Smart. Plume Books (Penguin), 1993.
20. Shunryu Suzuki. Zen And The Beginner's Mind. Weatherhill, 1970.
22. Morton Smith, Ph.D. Jesus the Magician. Barnes & Noble Books, 1978.
23. Tarthung Tulku. Skillful Means. Dharma Publications, 1978.
24. Peter G. Hanson, MD. The Joy Of Stress. Hanson Stress Mngt Organisation,
1986.
25. Nicholas Wright, ed. Understanding Human Behavior. Colombia House,
1974.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. Donald Lee Williams. Border Crossings - Carlos Castaneda's Path Of
Knowledge. InnerCity Books, 1981.
30. Joan Borysenko, Ph.D. Minding The Body Mending The Mind. Addison
Wesley, 1987.
31 - Goswami, Amit Ph.D. The Self-Aware Universe. Tarcher Putnam, 1993.
32 - Frankl, Viktor E., Man's Search For Meaning. Beacon Press, 1992.
33 - Swami Prajnananda, The Mystery of Karma, in the book Ancient Wisdom.
Modern Science. Edited by Stanislav Grof. State University of New-York Press,
1984.
Chapter 5
34. Clark, Hull. Principles Of Behavior.Prentice-Hall, 1943.
35. Abraham Maslow. Motivation And Personality. Harper-Collins, 1970.
36. Abraham Maslow. A Theory Of Human Motivation. Psychological Review,
Vol #50.

37. Carlos Castaneda. A Separate Reality. Simon and Schuster, 1971
Chapter 6
38. M. Schneider. The Quality Of Life In American Cities: Objective And
Subjective Social Indicators.Social Indicators Research, 1975.
39. William James. Varieties Of Religious Experience. Collier, 1961.
40. Dr. Joseph Campbel with Bill Moyers. The Power Of Myth. Doubleday, 1988.
41. Dr. Grof, Stanislas. The Holotropic Mind. Harper-Collins, 1992.
42. Carlos Castaneda. The Teachings Of Don Juan - A Yaqui Way Of Knowledge.
University Of California Press, 1968.
43. Carlos Castaneda. The Power Of Silence. Simon and Schuster, 1987.
Chapter 7
44. Robert Ardrey. The Social Contract. Athenium Press, 1970.
45. Carl Jung. Man And His Symbols. Doubleday, 1972
46. Ibid.
47. Nicholas Wright, ed. Understanding Human Behavior. Colombia House,
1974.
48. J.A. Hobson. The Chemistry Of Conscious States. Little Brown, 1994.
49. John Lash.. The Seekers Handbook. Harmony Books, 1990.
50. Manly Palmer Hall. Healing - The Divine Art. Philosophical Research Society,
1950.
51. D. Goldman, Ph.D. Emotional Intelligence. Bantom Books, 1995.
52. Fred Allan Wolf, Ph.D.The Body Quantum. MacMillan Publishing, 1986
53. Dr. Deepak Chopra. Quantum Healing. Bantam Books, 1990.
54. Candace B. Pert, Ph.D. Molecules Of Emotion. Scribner, 1997.
Chapter 8
55. Carlos Castaneda. The Teachings Of Don Juan - A Yaqui Way Of Knowledge.
University of California Press, 1968.
56. Napoleon Hill. Think And Grow Rich. Fawcett Books, 1990.

57. Donald Lee Williams. Border Crossings. Inner City Press, 1981.
58. Dr. Rupert Sheldrake. The Sense Of Being Stared At. Crown Publishing,
2003.
Chapter 9
59. James Johnson and Irwin Sareson. Life, Stress, Depression And Anxiety.
The Journal Of Psychosomatic Research, 1978.
60. Robert Ormstein, Ph.D. The Psychology Of Consciousness. Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1977.
61. Amit Goswami, Ph.D. with Richard E. Reed and Maggie Goswami. The Self-
Aware Universe. G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1993.
62. Elmer and Alice Green. Beyond Biofeedback. Dell Publishing, 1977.
63. Dr. Stephen Laberge. Lucid Dreaming. Tarcher Books, 1985.
64. Dr. J. Gackenback and J. Bosveld. Control Your Dreams. Harper and Row,
1989.
65. Dr. Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers. The Power Of Myth. Doubleday, 1988.
Chapter 10
66. Senator Al Gore. Earth In The Balanace: Ecology And The Human Spirit.
Plume Publishing, 1993.
67. Hamish McRae. The World In 2020 - Power, Culture And Prosperity.
Harvard Business School Press, 1995.
68. Ibid.
69. Ibid.
70. Lyal Watson. Gift Of Unknown Things. Destiny Books, 1991.
71. Pierre Teillard de Chardin. The Future Of Man. Éditions du Seuil, 1959.
72. Howard Bloom. The Lucifer Principle. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995.
73. John and Muriel James. Passion For Life. Dutton/Penguin Books, 1991.
74. Shaver and Freedman .Your Pursuit Of Happiness. Psychology Today, Aug.
1976.
75. Rollo May. The Courage To Create. Norton and Company, 1975.

76. Blair Justice. Who Gets Sick. Tarcher Books, 1987.
77. Dr. Joan Borysenko. Minding The Body, Mending The Mind. Addison-
Wesley, 1987.

About the author
Lawrence J-E. Poole is president of Gestion Consult-IIDC Management Inc. in
Canada, an innovative training consultancy bringing together high caliber
specialists in a mission to offer the services and products to develop the creative
capital of their clients’ human resources. He is also founder of the International
Institute for Creative Development in Costa Rica.
With his life-partner Suzy Ethier, he developed a program of heuristic learning
events and multimedia presentations called “Lessons from the jungle…” that
explain Nature's strategic processes. As understanding follows experience, their
training programs are designed so participants use the ideas, concepts and tools
presented.
Lawrence has had a monthly column called « Lessons from the jungle…» in the
French business magazine “La Réussite” for several years and he writes a weekly
blog for “La Métropole”, Montreal’s online portal.
A respected and inspiring conference speaker, he has served important
corporations and associations in Canada, Europe and Central America. As the
result of a tragic automobile accident, Lawrence is a paraplegic. You can visit him
at www.TheJungleTimes.com.