All For One and One For All

Laura Knight-Jadczyk
laura-knight-jadczyk.blogspot.com
Thu, 24 Jun 2010 12:00 EDT




The issue of methane and outgassing has occupied me to quite some extent for the past few years particularly after writing New Light on the Black Death: The Cosmic Connection. I even asked the SOTT.net editors to keep their eyes open for news items about anything that might be related to outgassings. There's quite a collection in the database if you search. And now, with the recent news about the methane involvement in the BP Gusher, and that news getting more dire every day, I started digging around for some data I knew I had written about and, after finding a few things, I thought: how interesting that this "Mother of all Gushers" may give birth to the "Mother of all Storms." You'll understand what I mean in a minute!

First, read this bit that is current on SOTT. The Real Consequences of An Ocean Floor Collapse.

Note that it says:

The two possible scenarios are either a complete collapse of the ocean floor right above the Deepwater Horizon well and surroundings or a partial collapse in the form of a mud slide on one side of the well.

In this article I wrote back in 2007: Fire and Ice The Day After Tomorrow there's a bunch of collected articles which includes one about The Lake Nyos Gas Explosion, Cameroon 1986 where we read:

Lake Nyos is one of only three lakes in the world known to be saturated with carbon dioxide -- the others are Lake Monoun, also in Cameroon about 100 km away, and Lake Kivu in Rwanda. A magma chamber beneath the region is an abundant source of carbon dioxide, which seeps up through the lake bed, charging the waters of Lake Nyos with an estimated 90 million tonnes of CO2

Lake Nyos is thermally stratified, with layers of warm, less dense water near the surface floating on the colder, denser water layers near the lake's bottom. Over long periods, carbon dioxide gas seeping into the cold water at the lake's bottom is dissolved in great amounts.

Most of the time, the lake is stable and the CO2 remains in solution in the lower layers. However, over time the water becomes supersaturated, and if an event such as an earthquake or volcanic eruption occurs, large amounts of CO2 may suddenly come out of solution.

Although a sudden outgassing of CO2 had occurred at Lake Monoun in 1984, killing 37 local residents, a similar threat from Lake Nyos was not anticipated. However, on August 21, 1986, a limnic eruption occurred at Lake Nyos which triggered the sudden release of about 1.6 million tonnes of CO2. The gas rushed down two nearby valleys, displacing all the air and suffocating up to 1,800 people within 20 km of the lake, mostly rural villagers, as well as 3,500 livestock. About 4,000 inhabitants fled the area, and many of these developed respiratory problems, burns, and paralysis as a result of the gases.

It is not known what triggered the catastrophic outgassing. Most geologists suspect a landslide, but some believe that a small volcanic eruption may have occurred on the bed of the lake. A third possibility is that cool rainwater falling on one side of the lake triggered the overturn. Whatever the cause, the event resulted in the rapid mixing of the supersaturated deep water with the upper layers of the lake, where the reduced pressure allowed the stored CO2 to effervesce out of solution.

It is believed that up to a cubic kilometre of gas was released. Because CO2 is denser than air, the gas flowed off the mountainous flank in which Lake Nyos rests and down two adjoining valleys in a layer tens of metres deep, displacing the air and suffocating all the people and animals before it could dissipate. The normally blue waters of the lake turned a deep red after the outgassing, due to iron-rich water from the deep rising to the surface and being oxidised by the air. The level of the lake dropped by about a metre, representing the volume of gas released. The outgassing probably also caused an overflow of the waters of the lake. Trees near the lake were knocked down.

The lake Nyos situation was about a different kind of gas... maybe. In any case, a similar event with methane is even more problematical.

Anyway, there is a lot in that article I wrote in 2007 that applies to the present situation, most particularly:

John Barnes, in his fiction novel, Mother of Storms, described the release of vast quantities of methane as the trigger for a global superstorm that nearly destroys the earth.

Mother of Storms takes place about thirty years from now. The UN has become dominant and at the start of the book the US President is maneuvering desperately to avoid losing any more sovereignty to the UN. The UN undertakes a nuclear strike against the Siberian Republic's secret--and illegal--nuclear weapons caches buried in the Arctic seabed. The explosions result in the release of huge amount of methane from the methane clathrates buried there. The methane causes a near-runaway greenhouse effect with global temperatures going up by 10 degrees F in a matter of months.

The hot, wet oceans are perfect breeding grounds for hurricanes which rapidly develop into storms of unprecedented strength, duration and number.

Obviously, if such a scenario were to play out at present, the roles would be reversed to what Barnes imagined: it would be the U.S. undertaking a nuclear strike that unleashes the methane that triggers the Global Superstorm. It would probably only be in such a manner that enough methane would be released fast enough to make such an impact.

The above really caught my eye. In the book, Mother of Storms, the methane is released by a nuclear explosion in the arctic... well, so far they haven't set off any nukes in the Gulf of Mexico, but it looks like the situation there is developing rather similarly to what John Barnes described in his novel. He did a lot of research on the science, by the way, so it's worth reading just to get an idea of what COULD happen!

Then, there is the issue of earthquakes in the Gulf of Mexico. A few years ago I noted that there was an unusual earthquake in the Gulf and we archived the item on SOTT.net: 5.2 Earthquake Dead Center In Gulf Of Mexico - Precursor to a New Madrid Big One? Just read it and think about it.

Next, History Channel Mega Disasters - Methane Explosion, just to give you an idea of what all this means.

Even if nothing so cataclysmic happens, we have to deal with Gulf Coast Toxicity Syndrome which could kill and/or disable millions.

Many different gases from hydrogen sulfate to benzene are being released into the air at around 4000 times what it considered safe to humans. As a result of this people are going to become gravely ill. People are going to be poisoned and unfortunately some are going to die. We have already seen breathing problems in the Gulf region and now reports are coming in as far away as Atlanta, Georgia. [...]

In addition to destroying the wildlife, killing animals and devastating the coastal economy, the massive oil spill in the Gulf will have damaging psychological and physical consequences for Gulf coast residents, the entire state of Florida, and now it seems that Georgia and the rest of the southeastern United States could be threatened considering we are already seeing problems from people in Atlanta. And we are not even talking worse case scenarios. [...]

Others are worried about a massive loss of life through a methane explosion that would create a tidal wave that would take out all of Florida and most of the rest of the Gulf region. Included in the worst case scenarios is a toxic rain falling upon tens of millions further north from the Gulf as wind patterns and or a hurricane comes barreling into the region. Others see the entire North Atlantic turning into a black and very dead sea and the nightmare scenarios go on and on making any serious readers' stomach sick to death over what has been done to our planet. We have allowed corporate capitalists do something they cannot undo and this is sad and truly tragic for the future of our children.

I know that all of us are feeling a little shell-shocked with the current events. It really is scary and for a good reason: it is a dangerous time to be alive. According to the Cs, we have very little time left. And, based on what we are seeing with the climate change business, adding the possible effects of the BP Gusher on Florida, the "coming global superstorm" is not so crazy an idea anymore. It could be next winter, or the winter after... and the planet could be locked down in ice for the next 10,000 years or so. We don't know.

We DO know that economically, this next year is going to be tough. I'm seeing failed harvests all over the globe due to the weather and the price of food going through the roof. Revolution is also possible. One thing is certain, Florida is going to be a place to get out of and stay out of because the situation is so unstable there.

Human beings were only able to evolve because of social ties. Trusting others seems to be an evolutionary strategy that served us well for a long time. In that evolutionary struggle, man was opposed to a "natural enemy," the environment and all it contained. All he had was his bigger brain to compensate for his smaller strength and speed; and, of course, his network.

Nowadays, we are no longer opposed to the natural world out there as the sparring partner, we are opposed to a culture that has been slowly infiltrated and taken over by pathologicals. At the same time, this outer world that has been shaped by pathology, also represents a certain pathological state within normal humans - their lack of ability to see pathology in individuals that look like themselves - an intra-species predator. Humanity's failure to perceive this, to adapt, means that our inner world, taken into us from the outside by means of identification, has become an "independent power" which, in its turn, by means of projection, is our own creation. After all, it is normal humans, not pathologicals, who have the real power to "create reality" as a group. Pathologicals only influence us - mostly women - to believe certain things are the norm, and we then act as they pull our strings.

This outer reality which has such a powerful influence on the formation of our character and the focusing of our creativity, has become a power itself and we are being challenged to become "new beings" that can evolutionarily adapt to this changing situation. Either we become fully pathological, in which case there will be no stress (the Service To Self route), or we return to our roots taking with us the knowledge of the new "opponent" that will enable us to rebuild our social bonds and structures and survive through the massive changes that are ahead of us.

Because, realistically, even if no cataclysmic scenario of any external kind manifests, anybody with two neurons firing can see that we are most definitely heading straight into a "clash of civilizations" though it is not at all what is being touted. It is a clash of normal humans with pathologicals and right now, they have all the assets (which they have by trickery, cunning, cheating). Even the mildest scenario of the future is not pleasant to contemplate: Climate Change and its effects on humanity. It's not a pretty picture.

This principle that the inner world is taken in from the outside by means of identification, and then, in its turn, by way of projection, alters the external world so that it corresponds to the inner world even more closely, requires some serious thought. Basically, we have to bootstrap ourselves out of here by reversing the process: we must create an inner world in the face of the opposition of the outer world, that then becomes strong enough, EN MASSE, to change the outer world.

The creative individual must be able to create and develop his standards beyond the identifications of the external pathological world. This means, in the simplest of terms, connecting with the higher self so that this part consciously guides and rules the creative will even in terms of the personality. The important factor here is that groups of individuals must get from here to there - here being the false personality created in us by the pathological external world, there being the merging with the higher self - by consciously choosing those factors that he will identify with.

This must be a group effort.

The only solution I can see at this point is for humanity to unite their consciousnesses in awakening and DOing what needs to be done to ameliorate the situation if possible, and pass through this Horror that psychopaths have created on our planet. The big question is: how to do that effectively and efficiently? In other words, something that really works. Something that really gets everyone on the same page, going in the same direction toward Truth... and the answer that I see is to follow what the Cassiopaeans have outlined as the only possible way out: to engage in practice that will help to rapidly clear old emotional programs that get in the way of both effective networking and effective SEEing and discernment: the Éiriú Eolas program that I have created with the help of the Cassiopaeans. And no, I'm not selling it though it will help us a lot if you DO buy the DVDs. We can then make more of them to give away. No, in fact, you can watch the whole program for free on the EE website.

So, that's the first order of business: getting clear. The second is for all of humanity to be praying in the same "direction." For that, the Prayer of the Soul which is part of the EE program is exactly designed to help you awaken. The breathing exercises combined with the meditation and prayer will quickly help you to achieve that state of consciousness necessary to be able to see the unseen and know what it is you must do in concert with others.

As I explain in the video introduction to EE, stress is a worldwide epidemic. The number one disease of adults in the world is depression. Depression is the most extreme form of stress in your nervous system.

But here's the rub: stress response is vital for survival in times of danger. The problem comes when it is turned on too strong, too often.

The very fact that our stress response has gone off the charts tells us that our bodies are telling us something about our world! There is DANGER out there, only it is hiding amongst us in the form of pathologicals! We are constantly in a state of stress because we are in a state of cognitive dissonance. We sense the danger, but we cannot SEE it because we have been programmed NOT to see it by lies and false reality constructs.

James Surowiecki's book, The Wisdom of Crowds, suggests that multiple viewpoints from individuals with a wide range of backgrounds, rather than the restricted viewpoints of experts or specialists, are crucial in reaching informed decisions on complex topics. Getting input from a broad variety of people is like getting input from a wide variety of devices such as microscopes, telescopes, litmus paper, tensile testors, ultrasound devices, scales, and so on.

Here, of course, we are not talking about getting a lot of EMOTIONAL viewpoints, but rather perceptions and assessments of the shared, Primary Reality - what is REAL "out there". Even if we are agreeing that there is a real reality and it is what it is, no one of us has the all-encompassing way of perceiving that would give us the understanding of EVERY ASPECT of what is out there.

So, in this sense, the network itself is the Teacher.

But in order for a network to go anywhere and not just fall into entropy, there must be a direction and in that sense there must be a vanguard.

Vanguard: Etymology: Middle English vauntgard, from Anglo-French vantgarde, avantgarde, 1: the troops moving at the head of an army 2: the forefront of an action or movement.

It is also reflective of true evolutionary social activities that there are some who are trailblazers and others who support and "watch the back" of the trailblazers. Once the trail is blazed, and the destination is reached, the others not only benefit from the struggles of the trailblazer, they also set about organizing the details of the new environment and stabilizing it. So, everyone plays a role and if the network is tight, they all arrive pretty much together.

The bottom line is this: we are all in this mess together and we sink together, or we get our boat to harbor, but somebody's got to be the one who coordinates or we'll just go endlessly in circles, nobody will be bailing, paddling, or evaluating currents and signs to determine direction. I've created the EE program, right now hundreds, if not thousands of people are doing it and reporting amazing results. I have also created a legal organization for protection of our activities: in a world run by psychopaths, sometimes you have to take a play from their rule book to bootstrap yourself out of their trap: Fellowship of the Cosmic Mind. You can become a member and join with thousands of others who are networking to get themselves cleared and awake and working in a co-linear direction to transform our world.

As I said, we evolved to trust one another - but that was a world where others were trustworthy. We live in a different world now. The cheaters in our world have evolved ways to induce us to trust them, but we can tell by our stress that we are going in the wrong direction, we are in mortal peril. But still, to get anything done at all, we MUST TRUST. And to figure out who to trust, we need to rely, again, on the network of observations from many observers. Again, we are not talking about getting a lot of EMOTIONAL viewpoints, but rather perceptions and assessments of the shared, Primary Reality - what is REAL "out there" and what really seems to work, to explain things, and has internal consistency over time.

Those who are able to accomplish this task of rebuilding social connections based on the new evolutionary standard of accounting for pathology in the equations, will evolve. Those who do not evolve will perish.

In short, I think the Cassiopaeans are right: we have just a couple years, if that. We really need to get people on the EE program asap. If you are not currently doing it, or involved in some way with sharing it with others, I hope that you can begin to feel the urgency of the situation. As I have said before, I don't see anything more important to be doing now than that, not only for the potential of the self, but also because, in coming times, an awake and aware nucleus of people is going to be needed to provide leadership to the lost sheep.

That's what I see from where I sit right now. United we stand, divided we fall. All for One and One for All.

An Appeal To Mankind

An Appeal To Mankind

Wake up Little Man! Lay down all arms. In your esoteric sleep you suck on pacifiers and think and do what you are told. But that was then. Now you are our only hope. Our children and thus, our future, are about to be warred on again.

John Stuart Mill said that "mankind can hardly be too often reminded, that there was once a man named Socrates, between whom and the legal authorities and public opinion of his time, there took place a memorable collision [so that Socrates was] put to death as a criminal."

In a similar vein, Americans can hardly be too often reminded that there was once a man named Wilhelm Reich who died in an American federal prison on charges which today would be laughed out of any court.

In 1947, following a vicious smear article in the New Republic by Mildred Edie Brady, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began an investigation into Reich's orgone work. The Brady article libelously claimed that Reich was conducting a sex racket, and the FDA assumed that his books must be pornographic literature. The FDA gestapo were uninterested in scientific information concerning the accumulator, and when Reich refused to cooperate with their witch hunt, the investigation bogged down, lacking any evidence against the accumulator.

In 1954, during the Joe McCarthy era, the American feds decided to go after Reich again. Without any proof whatsoever, the Food and Drug Administration succeeded in having a federal court brand the accumulator a fraud, with the added dictum that orgone energy does not exist, and the order that all literature even mentioning orgone energy should be burned. The FDA placed a ban on transporting or using Reich's orgone boxes. Because one of Reich's co-workers continued to transport the orgone boxes, Reich was imprisoned. He died of a heart attack in prison at the age of 60 in 1957, the day before he was to go up for parole.

Today, Reich's books are on sale throughout the world and orgone accumulators are sold in the United States, Germany, and other countries. An orgone box is a 5 by 2 1/2 by 2 1/2 foot box made of layers of sheet metal and wood which Reich claimed pulled a physical-psychic energy from the universe. The accumulators were purchased by doctors and psychiatrists in both the U.S. and abroad.

Reich wrote Listen, Little Man! in 1946 and it was published in 1948 although it was written with no intention of publishing it. The book is Reich's warning to the common man in all societies that he, the little, average man, is lethally responsible for the rapidly spreading social cancer of fascism. Reich had seen how common citizens in Germany embraced their enslavement by their Nazi overlords. He was now seeing the reappearance of the same phenomenon in the United States and Europe. Someone needed to tell the average citizen that his personal characteristics were at the root of the world-wide plague of totalitarianism.
[...]
"It is high time for the living to get tough, for toughness is indispensable in the struggle to safeguard and develop the life-force; this will not detract from their goodness, as long as they stand courageously by the truth. . . . Anyone who wants to safeguard the life-force from the emotional plague must learn to make at least as much use of the right of free speech that we enjoy in America for good ends, as the emotional plague does for evil ones. Granted equal opportunity for expression, rationality is bound to win out in the end. That is our great hope."
[Slightly modified from: http://www.hermes-press.com/reich.htm ]

So, why is Wilhelm Reich's work seemingly acceptable today? Why are his books on sale, his work being discussed openly and interest in "orgone" energy being discussed freely, without fear of censuring?

My answer is that people are 'waking up' slowly but surely, small steps at the time. We've all heard stories of the stupid, idiotic superstitions of the past that have led to everything from witch hunts to the most idiotic laws to ever be placed on the books. Yes, it is much easier to see limiting thoughts and beliefs when we look back on them from the present, even if it is too late to save those who have died needlessly.

It seems to me that every age of man has had it's visionaries and sages that have tried to warn us of the irreversible destructions of life and property that occur while a part of our mind and being 'sleeps' while holding tightly to the teddy bears and pacifiers of the day - the preoccupations of daily life and mainstream media that keep us unaware of what "the man" is doing behind our back and in the dark.

The clues to what is really going on and the attitude of those whose actions are ruining the future of our children and the planet are all around us if we pay attention. Even BP's head honcho referred to us as "small".

Unfortunately, the time for sleep is over. It is time to wake up. That pre-awake slumber that many of us are delaying in, is about to be rudely disturbed by more needless death and destruction.

It's time to awaken and take a look around us, because while we 'slept', the wolves and vampires and psychopaths thirsting for blood moved into our house and they are about to completely take it over.

It's time to call on the "Little Man" for help. But first, we need to get Little Man's attention:

We'll start with the more well-known George Gurdjieff from his book "In Search of the Miraculous, p.59":

“It is precisely in unconscious involuntary manifestations that all evil lies. You do not yet understand and cannot imagine all the results of this evil. But the time will come when you will understand.”

With that as a lead in, I wanted to introduce the following. It's a bit long, but I think the reader will enjoy it:
----------------------
THEY CALL YOU Little Man, or Common Man. They say your day has dawned, the "Age of the Common Man."

You don't say that, little man. They do, the vice presidents of great nations, the labor leaders, the repentant sons of the bourgeoisie, the statesmen and philosophers. They give you the future, but they ask no questions about your past.
...
A doctor, a shoemaker, mechanic, or educator has to know his shortcomings if he is to do his work and earn his living. For several decades now you have been taking over, throughout the world. The future of the human race depends on your thoughts and actions. But your teachers and masters don't tell you how you really think and what you really are; no one dares to confront you with the one truth that might make you the unswerving master of your fate. You are "free" in only one respect: free from the self-criticism that might help you to govern your own life.
...
You're a "little man," a "common man." Consider the double meaning of these words "little" and "common"...[ed.note: Or in BP's words: "small"]

Don't run away! Have the courage to look at yourself!

"By what right are you lecturing me?" I see the question in your frightened eyes. I hear it on your insolent tongue. You're afraid to look at yourself, little man, you're afraid of criticism, and afraid of the power that is promised you. What use will you make of your power? You don't know. You're afraid to think that your self--the man you feel yourself to be--might someday be different from what it is now: free rather than cowed, candid rather than scheming; capable of loving, not like a thief in the night but in broad daylight. You despise yourself, little man. You say "Who am I that I should have an opinion, govern my life, and call the world mine?" You're right: who are you to lay claim to your life? I will tell you who you are.

You differ from a great man in only one respect: the great man was once a very little man, but he developed one important quality: he recognized the smallness and narrowness of his thoughts and actions. Under the pressure of some task which meant a great deal to him, he learned to see how his smallness, his pettiness, endangered his happiness. In other words, a great man knows when and in what way he is a little man. A little man does not know he is little and is afraid to know. He hides his pettiness and narrowness behind illusions of strength and greatness, someone else's strength and greatness. He's proud of his great generals but not of himself. He admires an idea he has not had, not one he has had. The less he understands something, the more firmly he believes in it. And the better he understands an idea, the less he believes in it.

I'm afraid of you, little man, very much afraid, because the future of mankind depends on you. I'm afraid of you because your main aim in life is to escape--from yourself. You're sick, little man, very sick. It's not your fault; but it's your responsibility to get well. You'd have shaken off your oppressors long ago if you hadn't countenanced oppression and often given it your direct support. No police force in the world would have had the power to crush you if you had an ounce of self-respect in your daily life, if you were aware, really aware, that without you life could not go on for one hour. Has your liberator told you this? He called you "Workers of the World," but he didn't tell you that you and [i]you alone[/i] are responsible for your life (and not for the honor of the fatherland).

You value security before truth. You fritter away your freedom.

No one has ever asked you, little man, why you haven't been more successful in winning freedom, or if you have won it, why you have quickly lost it to a new master.

YOU:
"Did you hear that? He has the gall to cast doubt on democracy and the revolutionary upsurge of the workers of the world. Down with the revolutionary, down with the counter-revolutionary! Down!"

ME:
Take it easy, little Fuhrer of all democrats and of the world proletariat. I am convinced that your real prospects of attaining freedom depend more on the answer to that one question than on ten thousand resolutions of your party congresses.

YOU:
"Down with him! He has insulted the nation and the vanguard of the revolutionary proletariat! Down with him! Stand him up against the wall!"

ME:
All your cries of "Up" and "Down" won't bring you one step closer to your goal, little man. You have always thought you could safeguard your freedom by standing people "up against the wall." You'd do better to stand yourself up to a mirror . . .

YOU:
"Down! . . ."

ME:
Take it easy, little man. I don't mean to insult you, I'm only trying to show you why you've never been able to win freedom, or to preserve it for any length of time. Doesn't that interest you all?

YOU:
"Do--o--own . . ."
[...]

ME:
You come running to me and ask: "Dear, good, great, Doctor! What should I do? What should we do? My whole house is collapsing, the wing is whistling through the cracks in the walls, my child is sick and my wife is miserable. I'm sick myself. What should I do? What should we do?"

"Build your house on granite. By granite I mean your nature that you're torturing to death, the love in your child's body, your wife's dream of life, your own dream of life when you were sixteen. Exchange your illusions for a bit of truth. Throw out your politicians and diplomats!
[...]
Go to the library instead of the prize fight, go to foreign countries rather than to Coney Island. And first and foremost, [i]think straight[/i], trust the quiet inner voice that tells you what to do. You hold your life in your hands, don't entrust it to anyone else, least of all to your chosen leaders. BE YOURSELF! Any number of great men have told you that."

In view of all this, I'm bidding you goodbye, little man. I will serve you no more, I refuse to let my concern for you torture me slowly to death. You can't follow me to the distant places I'm bound for. You'd be scared to death if you so much as suspected what the future has in store for you--because undoubtedly you're in the process of inheriting the earth, little man! My remote solitudes are a part of your future. But for the present I don't want you as a traveling companion. As a traveling companion you may be all right in a club car, but not where I'm going.

YOU:
"Kill him! He despises the civilization that I, the little man in the street, have built. I'm a free citizen of a free democracy. Hurrah!"

ME:
You're nothing, little man! Nothing whatever! You didn't build this civilization, it was built by a few of your more decent masters. Even if you're a builder, you don't know what you're building. If I or someone else were to say, "Take responsibility for what you're building," you'd call me a traitor to the proletariat and flock to the Father of all Proletarians, who does not say such things.

You're not free, little man, and you haven't the faintest idea what freedom is. You wouldn't know how to live in freedom. Who brought the plague to power in Europe? You little man! And in America? Think of Wilson!

YOU:
"Listen to him! He's accusing me, the little man! Who am I? What power have I to interfere with the President of the United States? I do my duty and obey orders. I don't meddle with politics."

ME:
When you drag thousands of men, women, and children to the gas chambers, you're only obeying orders. Is that right, little man? And you're so innocent you don't even know that such things are happening. And you're only a poor devil, whose opinion counts for nothing, who hasn't even got one. And who are you, anyway, that you should meddle with politics? I know, I know! I've heard all that many times. But then I ask: [b]Why don't you do your duty in silence when a wise man tells you that you and you alone are responsible for what you do, or tries to persuade you not to beat your children, or pleads with you for the thousandth time to stop obeying dictators? What becomes of your duty, your innocent obedience, then?[/b] No, little man, when truth speaks, you don't listen. You listen only to bluster. And then you shout Hurrah! Hurrah! You're cowardly and cruel, little man; you have no sense of your true duty, which is to be a man and to preserve humanity. You imitate wise men so badly and bandits so well. Your movies and radio programs are full of murder.

You will drag yourself and you meanness through many centuries before becoming your own master. I'm bidding you goodbye in order to work more effectively for your future, because when I'm far away you can't kill me, and you respect my work more in the distance than close at hand. You despise anything that's too close to you! That's why you put your proletarian general or marshal on a pedestal: then, however contemptible he may be, you can respect him. And that's why great men have given you a wide berth since the dawn of history

YOU:
"That's megalomania. The man is stark raving mad!"

ME:
I know, little man, you're very quick to diagnose madness when a truth doesn't suit you. You regard yourself as "normal"!

You've locked up all the lunatics and the world is run by normal people. Then who's to blame for all the trouble? Not you, of course; you only do your duty, and who are you to have an opinion of your own? I know. You don't have to say it again. It's not you I'm worried about, little man! But when I think of your children, when I think how you torment the life out of them trying to make them "normal" life yourself, I almost want to come back to you and do what I can to stop your crimes. But I also know that you've taken precautions against that by appointing commissioners of education and child care.

YOU:
"He's insulting me, he's desecrating my mission!"

ME:
I'm not insulting you, little man, and I'm not desecrating your mission. I'll be only too glad if you show me I'm wrong, if you prove that you're capable of looking at yourself and recognizing yourself, if you can give me the same kind of proofs as I'd expect of a mason who's building a house.

YOU:
"But where do you get your wisdom, you intellectual servant of the revolutionary proletariat?"

ME:
From your own depths, you eternal proletarian of human reason!

YOU:
"Listen to that! He gets his wisdom from my depths! I haven't got any depths. And what kind of individualistic talk is this, anyway!!"

ME:
Oh yes, little man, you have depths, but you don't know it. You're afraid, mortally afraid of your depths; that's why you neither feel them nor see them. That's why your head swims when you look into the depths, why you reel as if you were on the edge of a precipice. You're afraid of falling and losing your "special character." Because, try as you will to find yourself, it's always the same cruel, envious, greedy, thieving little man that turns up. I wouldn't have written this long appeal to you, little man, if you didn't have depths. And I know these depths in you, little man, because in my work as a physician I discovered them when you came to me with your affliction. Your depths are your great future. And that is why I can tell you what you will certainly not do in the future. A time will come when you won't even understand how you were able, in these four thousand years of unculture, to do all the things you have done. Now will you listen to me?

"Why shouldn't I listen to a nice little utopia? In any case, nothing can be done about it my dear Doctor. I'll always be the little man of the people with no opinion of my own. And anyway, who am I to . . . ?"

Just be still! You're hiding behind the myth of the little man, because you're afraid of getting into the stream of life and of having to swim--if only for the sake of your children and grandchildren.

All right. [I will tell you what you [i]will not[/i] do in the future] The first of all the many things you will not do in the future is to regard yourself as a little man with no opinion of his own, who says, "Anyway, who am I to . . . ?" You have an opinion of your own and in the future you will regard it as a disgrace not to know it, not to express it and stand up for it.

YOU:
"But what will public opinion say about my opinion? I'll be crushed like a worm if I express my own opinion!"

ME:
What you call "public opinion," little man, is the aggregate of all the opinions of little men and women. Every little man and every little woman has inside him a sound opinion of his own and a particular kind of unsound opinion. Their unsound opinions spring from the fear of the unsound opinions of all the other little men and women. That's why the sound opinions don't come to light. For instance, you will no longer believe that you "count for nothing." You will know and proclaim that you are the mainstay and foundation of this human society. Don't run away! Don't be afraid! It's not so bad to be a responsible mainstay of human society.

YOU:
"What then must I do in order to be the mainstay of society?"

ME:
Nothing new or unusual. Just go on doing what you're already doing: till your field, wield your hammer, examine your patient, take your children out playing or to school, write articles about the events of the day, investigate the secrets of nature. You're already doing all these things, but you think they're unimportant and that only what Marshal Medalchest or Prince Blowhard says or does is important.

YOU:
"You're a dreamer, Doctor. Don't you see that Marshal Medalchest and Prince Blowhard have the soldiers and the arms needed to make war, to mobilize me for their war, and to blow my field, my factory, my laboratory, or my office to pieces?"

ME:
You get yourself mobilized, your field and your factory are blown to pieces, because you shout hurrah hurrah when they mobilize you and blow your factory and field to pieces. Prince Blowhard would have neither soldiers nor arms if you really knew that a field was for growing wheat and a factory for making furniture or shoes, that fields and factories were not made to be blown to pieces, and if you stood foursquare behind your knowledge. Your Marshal Medalchest and your Prince Blowhard don't know these things. They themselves don't work in a field, factory, or office. They think you work not to feed and clothe your children but for the grandeur of the German or the Workers' Fatherland.

YOU:
"Then what should I do? I hate war; my wife cries her heart out when I'm drafted, my children starve when the proletarian armies occupy my land, corpses pile up by the millions . . . All I want to do is till my field and play with the children after work, love my wife at night, and dance, sing, and make music on holidays. What should I do?"

ME:
Just go on doing what you've been doing and wanting to do all along: work, let your children grow up happily, love your wife at night. If you stuck to this program knowingly and single-mindedly there would be no war. Your wife wouldn't be fair game for the sex-starved soldiers of the Workers Fatherland, your orphaned children wouldn't starve in the streets, and you yourself wouldn't end up staring glassy-eyed at the blue sky on some far off "field of honor."

YOU:
"But supposing I want to live for my work and my wife and my children, what can I do if the Huns or Germans or Japanese or Russians or somebody else marches in, and forces me to make war? I have to defend my house and home, don't I?

ME:
Right you are, little man. But what you fail to see if that the "Huns" of all nations are simply millions of little men like yourself who persist in shouting hurrah, hurrah when Prince Blowhard (who doesn't work) calls them to the colors; little men like yourself who believe that they count for nothing and ask, "Who am I to have an opinion of my own?"

If once you knew that you [i]do[/i] count for something, that you [i]do[/i] have a sound opinion of your own, that your field and factory are meant to provide for [i]life[/i] and not for death, then, little man, you yourself would be able to answer the question you've just asked. You wouldn't need any diplomats. You'd stop shouting hurrah, hurrah and laying wreaths on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. (I know your unknown soldier, little man. I got acquainted with him when I was fighting my mortal enemy in the mountains of Italy. He's the same little man as yourself, who thought he had no opinion of his own.) Instead of laying your national consciousness at the feet of your Prince Blowhard or your marshal of the world proletariat to be trampled on, you'd oppose them with [i]your consciousness of your own worth and your pride in your work[/i]. You'd be able to get acquainted with your brother, the little man in Japan, China, and every other Hun country, to give him your sound opinion of your function as a worker, doctor, farmer, father, and husband, and convince him in the end that to make war impossible he need only stick to his work and his love.

YOU:
"That's all very well and good. But now they've made these atom bombs. A single one of them can kill hundreds of thousands of people!"

ME:
Use your head, little man! Do you think Prince Blowhard makes atom bombs? No, they're made by little man who shout hurrah, hurrah instead of refusing to make them. You see, little man, it all boils down to one thing, to you and your sound or unsound thinking. And you, the most brilliant scientist of the twentieth century, if you were not a microscopically little man, you'd have thought in terms of the world and not of any nation. Your great intellect would have shown you how to keep the atom bomb out of the world; or if the logic of scientific development made such an invention inevitable, you'd have brought all your influence to bear to prevent it from being used. You're caught in a vicious circle of your own making, and you can't get out of it because your thought and vision have taken the wrong direction. You comforted millions of little men by telling them your atomic energy would cure their cancer and rheumatism, though you were well aware that this was impossible, that you had devised an instrument of murder and nothing else. You and your physics have landed in the same blind alley. You know it, but you won't admit it. [i]You're finished! Now and for all time![/i] You know it, I've told you so very plainly. But you keep silent, you go on dying of cancer and a broken heart, and on your very deathbed you cry out, "Long live culture and technology!" I tell you, little man, that you've dug your own grave with your eyes open. You think the new "era of atomic energy" has dawned. It has dawned all right, but not in the way you think. Not in your inferno but in my quiet, industrious workshop in a far corner of America.

It is entirely up to you, little man, whether or not you go off to war. If you only know that you're working for life and not for death! If you only knew that all little men on this earth are exactly like yourself, for better or worse.

Someday ( how soon depends exclusively on you ) you'll stop shouting hurrah, hurrah. You'll stop telling fields and operating factories that are slated for destruction. Someday, I say, you'll no longer be willing to work for death but only for life.

YOU:
"Should I declare a general strike?"

ME:
I'm not so sure. Your general strike is a poor weapon. You'll be accused--and rightly so--of letting your own women and children starve. By going on strike you will be demonstrating your high responsibility for the weal or woe of your society. Striking is not working. I've told you that someday you would work for life, not that you'd stop working. If you insist on the word "strike," calling it a "working strike." Strike by working for yourself, your children, your wife or woman, your society, your product, or your farm. Make it plain that you have no time for war, that you have more important things to do. Outside every big city on earth, mark off a field, build high walls around it, and there let the diplomats and marshals of the earth shoot each other. That's what you could do, little man, if only you'd stop shouting hurrah, hurrah and stop believing that you're a nobody without an opinion of your own . . .

It's all in your hands, little man: not only your hammer or stethoscope but your life and your children's lives. You shake your head. You think I'm a utopian, if not a "Red."

You ask me, little man, when you will have a good, secure life. The answer is alien to your nature.

You'll have a good, secure life when being alive means more to you than security, love more than money, your freedom more than public or partisan opinion; when the mood of Beethoven's or Bach's music becomes the mood of your whole life--you have it in you, little man, somewhere deep down in a corner of your being; when your thinking is in harmony, and no longer in conflict, with your feelings; when you've learned to recognize two things in their season: your gifts and the onset of old age; when you let yourself be guided by the thoughts of great sages and no longer by the crimes of great warriors: when you cease to set more store by a marriage certificate than by love between man and woman; when you learn to recognize your errors promptly and not too late, as you do today; when you pay the men and women who teach your children better than politicians; when truths inspire you and empty formulas repel you; when you communicate with your fellow workers in foreign countries directly, and no longer through diplomats; when instead of enraging you as it does today, your adolescents daughter's happiness in love makes your heart swell with joy; when you can only shake your head at the memory joy; when you can only shake your head at the memory of the days when small children were punished for touching their sex organs; when the human faces you see on the street are no longer drawn with grief and misery but glow with freedom, vitality, and serenity; when human bodies cease to walk this earth with rigid, retracted pelvises and frozen sex organs.
[...]
You ask for guidance and advice, little man. For thousands of years you have had guidance and advice, good and bad. Not bad advice but your own smallness is to blame for your persistent wretchedness. I could give you good advice, but in view of the way you think and are, you wouldn't be able to convert it into action for the benefit of all.

YOU:
"Am I then utterly worthless? You don't give me credit for one ounce of decency. You make hash out of me. But look here. I work hard, I support my wife and children, I try to lead a good life, I serve my country. I can't be as bad as all that!"

ME:
I know you're a decent, industrious, cooperative animal, comparable to a bee or an ant. All I've done is to lay bare the little man in you, who has been wrecking your life for thousands of years. You are great, little man, when you're not mean and small. Your greatness, little man, is the only hope we have left. You're great when you attend lovingly to your trade, when you take pleasure in carving and building and painting, in sowing and reaping, in the blue sky and the deer and the morning dew, in music and dancing, in your growing children, and in the beautiful body of your wife or husband; when you go to the planetarium to study the stars, to the library to read what other men and women have thought about life. You're great when your grandchild sits on your lap and you tell him of times long past and look into the uncertain future with his sweet, childlike curiosity. You're great, mother, when you lull your baby to sleep; when with tears in your eyes you pray fervently for his future happiness; and when hour after hour, year after year, you build this happiness in your child.

You're great, little man, when you sing the good, warmhearted folk songs, or when you dance the old dances to the tune of an accordion, because folk songs are good for the soul, and they're the same the world over. And you're great when you say to your friend:

"I thank my fate that I've been able to live my life free from filth and greed, to see my children grow and to look on as they first began to babble, to take hold of things, to walk, to play, to ask questions, to laugh and to love; that I've been able to preserve, in all its freedom and purity, my feeling for the springtime and its gentle breezes, for the gurgling of the brook that flows past my house and the singing of the birds in the woods; that I've taken no part in the gossip of malicious neighbors; that I've been happy in the embrace of my wife or husband and have felt the stream of life in my body; that I haven't lost my bearings in troubled times, and that my life has had meaning and continuity. For I have always hearkened to the gentle voice within me that said, 'Only one thing matters: live a good, happy life. Do your heart's bidding, even when it leads you on paths that timid souls would avoid. Even when life is a torment, don't let it harden you.'"
[...]
I have come to the end of my appeal to you, little man. I could have gone on indefinitely. But if you've read my words attentively and candidly, you will be able to recognize the little man in you even in connections I haven't mentioned. For one and the same state of mind is at the bottom of all your mean actions and thoughts.

Regardless of what you've done and will do to me, of whether you glorify me as a genius or lock me up as a madman, of whether you worship me as your deliverer or hang or torture me as a spy, your affliction will force you to recognize sooner or later that I have discovered the laws of living energy and have given you an instrument with which to govern your lives with the conscious purpose which thus far you have applied only to the operation of machines. I have been a faithful engineer to your organism. Your grandchildren will follow in my footsteps and become wise engineers of human nature. I have opened up to you the vast realm of the living energy within you, your cosmic essence. That is my great reward.
[...]


Wilhelm Reich

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What you've just read is only a small glimpse of the power of the book "Listen, Little Man!" by Wilhelm Reich. The book is 127 jam packed pages of honesty filled with wit and wisdom. The book is also filled with brilliant illustrations by famous cartoonist and writer William Steig.
Here's 30 pages of it: http://www.listenlittleman.com/