In Chapter 3 the Author issues a few warnings to the Individual interested in transmitting Truth. The first is that unless we are clean that we are subject to transmitting falsehood although our intentions are pure. Therefore it is essential that verbal self-purification be an ongoing process in order to minimize the transmission of cultural propaganda. The second warning is that debating right or wrong - good and evil - in short any polarity - with the Populace is doomed. This is true for two reasons. The First is because the Majority inadvertently tends to side with the ruling class. One will always lose the True False Game when playing the Establishment. They have too much experience and resources. The Second reason is because one is inadvertently supporting the underlying misconceptions of the culture whenever one begins debating the polarity, because that is the misconception. The Author has two bits of Advice to the Individual attempting to transmit Truth. The first is to point beyond the Verbal Polarity to Direct Inner Experience - which is the only Reality. The second is to inspire and teach Individuals to break down the Verbal Illusion in order to replace it with Experiential Reality.
In Chapter 4 the Author attempts to deconstruct another implicit belief - namely that numerical and verbal logic are the same. This is another very deep misconception that distorts communication. While numbers and their logic are precise and content based, words and their logic are relative and contextual - Crisp numbers vs. fuzzy words. In number logic, true and false are facts. A statement is either true or false. In word logic, true and false are adjectives. A statement is not true or false; instead it has true and false components, which each have their true and false components. This is not to say that the number and word logic are mutually exclusive. In fact they are both employed to purify each other in the verbal context. Word logic injects relativity into the rigidity of number logic, while number logic injects precision and accountability into the looseness of word logic. Excessive number logic denies the bigger picture, while excessive word logic gets lost in relativity.
We suggested that it is necessary to examine the foundations (underlying assumptions) of our logical Web in order to avoid being a Victim. In this light we attempted to deconstruct a few very deep assumptions. First we attempted to look at the misconception that statements are either true or false. This led to another misconception that we either understand completely or not at all. Finally we suggested that these misconceptions were based upon another misconception that number logic and word logic was the same. Each of these misconceptions is based in the rigid Either/Or logic of Numbers rather than the Both/And logic of Words.
In this chapter the Author revisits problems with Clumping into words or ideas. Because Clumping is approximate the concepts connected to a particular clump might behave similarly or independently. However Propagandists lean on the common underlying assumption that all elements under a common clump behave identically. We will call this Either/Or behavior. Another Either/OR to beware of in order to avoid manipulation.
It is important if possible to identify those who are attempting to mislead from those who are merely confused. Here is one criterion. An Honest person uses modifiers to clarify clumps, while Propagandists use modifiers to confuse clumps. A good example of the two is the Politician and Common Man. The Politician deliberately obscures the question in order to seem to be everything for all people. While the Common Man might be confused, he attempts to make sense of the mish-mash thru modifications and clarifications.
For those wishing to persuade the Group to accept the Truth, it doesn’t really pay to attack commonly accepted beliefs for 2 reasons. One, more will be alienated than persuaded. The number of marginals that will be convinced is minimal compared to those that will be driven away. Two, the attack on sacred cows sets up the Us/Them polarity, which is fatal. It is fatal because most would rather belong to the Group - because belonging brings rewards, while not belonging commonly brings punishment. Again the Author calls upon the Truth Speaker to transcend the Polarity of the commonly held belief rather than falling into the trap of fighting against it. The Propagandists are experts at actually co-opting the commonly held beliefs with the proper verbiage so that any who oppose them are automatically against these commonly held beliefs. The ‘Family values’ buzzword of the Republicans is one of those.
Further for those wishing to deconstruct the external beliefs of others or the internal beliefs of oneself, it is important to watch out for the approximations and assumptions of clumping.
In Chapter 6, the Author attempts to further deconstruct the Either/Or logic applied to verbal transmissions by differentiating between the Liar, the Honest Man and the Propagandist. While the Liar’s words contradict Experience with Falseness and the Honest Man attempts to reflect Experience accurately with a Lean Truth, the Propagandist attempts to project fat Truths. The words of the Propagandist might be true but the Intention behind them is False. A good example is when our present President calls himself an ‘environmental president’ because he likes to spend a lot of time in the environment, while consistently enforcing policies which rape the resources of the world with no attempt at protection. His words are true while the intent is false, because he intends to deceive the environmentally conscious Public into voting for him because they think he will protect the environment.
While the Propagandist has false intent, an Honest Person can inadvertently transmit False information with True Intent. This is the case with those who believe the Propaganda - And this is all of us in one context or another. This is why it is mandatory to practice mental purification in order to avoid being an inadvertent transmitter of Propaganda. Purify yourself of the disease so that you don’t spread the infection.
The Author then attempts to deconstruct the underlying assumption of the Logician that Logic reigns supreme. This is especially important information for those wishing to transmit Truth, as they tend to overrate the importance of logic in communication. Before Logic ever comes into play the Listener evaluates the Source, for instance whether they consider him to be honest or to be a liar. This is why the Propagandists love to get Honest people on their side.
After the Source and before the Logic, the Content of the transmission is evaluated as to how well it fits existing belief structures. The Message will be given a false rating if it seems to contradict the implicit beliefs of the Listener or if the Content seems similar to an ‘alien’ belief system belonging to Them. Thus the Source and the Message must come in a familiar - non-alien - form before the Logic is ever evaluated. If the Truth Teller is dressed oddly and begins speaking in terms of Eastern religions to businessmen from the Midwest his message will be rejected no matter how sound the reasoning. The point is that Logic only comes into play after the other filters are passed. Therefore it is mandatory for the Source to consider the Listener’s filters if he wishes to persuade.
For those wishing to transmit only the Truth and avoid transmitting the Propaganda, the Author suggests the only way is to stick with Direct Experience. Any information transmitted from others is suspect because they could be Propagandists, Liars or Honest People who have been infected. Further they could have misinterpreted the original Message because they have a lower level of understanding. In this case the Listener digests the Message according to their own belief framework and then transmits the Message out of this mental structure.
If the Listener is at low level of understanding the original Message is misinterpreted or dumbed down, perhaps missing essential ingredients. If there is an emotional reaction to the Message the Listener might derive an insult or a suggestion, when there is none. If the Listener is at the same level as the Source then the Message will be understood fairly accurately from this framework. If however the Listener is a Master then he can hear and respond to the implicit content of the Message, which the Source might not even be aware of. An easy example is the Mother who hears the crying of her child and knows that they are asking to have their diaper changed or for some food.
All of these ways of looking at communication are just an attempt to make the Reader aware that the logical content of a message is secondary to its packaging. The implicit belief that the logical truth will eventually win out is a lazy way of behaving which shows no respect for the major filters of the Listener. Before Logic the Listener evaluates whether the Source is Us or Them thru Behavior, Appearance and current Mind-set. This is the primary criteria, i.e. whether the Source is one of Us, participates in the culture of the Listener. Because the Propagandist realizes this they dress themselves in the behavior, clothes, and thoughts of the Populace - the Wolf dressed in Sheep’s clothing in order to have easy access to the Flock. This exhibits that the Predator has enough respect for the Prey that he has studied their habits thoroughly. The idealistic Truth speaker thinks that logic will be enough - as he offends his audience with his actions, appearance, and his manner of speaking. This is one reason why the Populace tends to follow the Propaganda despite all evidence to the contrary. The Establishment has respected the Public enough to study them thoroughly in order to manipulate their behavior, like the puppeteer and his puppet.
Further deconstructing the communication process, we see that the Message must pass thru four filters, each with their own criterion. First the Source filters the original Experience, translating it into his own terms. Then he evaluates the Listener and then filters his internal experience into words so that they can be understood. The Listener then filters the Message in order to internalize it. Then the Listener filters the internalized message in order to respond in some way.
The criteria for these four filters are created from a mixture of Cultural Conditioning and Experience. The Master attempts to strip off the Conditioning to get right to the Direct Experience of Reality unfettered by the Chains of Society. The Normal Person just reinforces the common cultural conditioning while the Propagandist attempts to increase the complexity of the Chains.
For those who wish to transmit Truth, one must either strip away the Cultural Conditioning by pointing to Experience or to communicate thru the existing conditioning in order to achieve illumination. Further those wishing to transmit Truth must consciously deconstruct their own Cultural Conditioning so that they don’t inadvertently transmit the Propaganda. This is the only way to be truly free.
Deconstructing underlying assumptions is of paramount importance if we are to avoid being a Victim of Life. On the surface these assumptions take the form of misguided ideas. For instance someone might mistakenly think that the USA is the protector of the rights of the common man throughout the world, when all the facts indicate otherwise. However this is just a matter of opinion. Of more importance is the way we think about ideas. If we are locked into the Either/Or way of thinking then we are discouraged from investigating because once we ‘understand’ there is no reason to look further. If the Speaker is from the Establishment, they must speak the ‘truth’. Therefore there is no reason to investigate their unfounded claims. This reasoning is misguided due to an innate feature of language. In the verbal realm neither understanding nor truth is absolute. Instead both are relative. Accordingly, investigation is mandatory in order to clarify the ambiguity of most transmissions.
In this last section we addressed the underlying assumption of the Speaker of Truth, which is: if Intent is pure then the Message is equally true. We discovered instead that an Honest Person could easily transmit falsehood unless he sticks to his own personal experience. Even then his own Experience is translated thru his own Cultural conditioning and so is subject to distortion. We also attempted to further deconstruct the importance of Logic by showing that most the externals of the Source of information are frequently more important than the content of the Message. For instance if the Source looks and behaves ‘weirdly’ then the Message will tend to be rejected before the content is analyzed. Because of this it is extremely important to be sensitive to the external values of the Listener so that the Message can sneak thru the filters without obstruction. This is one reason why the Propagandists are so successful; they respect the Listener enough to come in the proper packaging. Finally we saw that criterion in the filters of the Receiver are based upon a combination of Cultural Conditioning and Experience. The purpose of the Master is to point to the Direct Experience of Reality rather than getting caught in the Ideas about this Direct Experience. In some ways the thrust of this section was to transcend the concept of right and wrong ideas. Truth and falsehood are replaced by the techniques of investigating truth and falsehood. The transmission of ‘true’ ideas is replaced by pointing beyond ideas to personal experience. Overall the attempt is to replace ideas with experience, rather than replace false ideas with true ideas. The Process of thorough and careful investigation needs to replace the idea that there are right or wrong ideas. This book is not about Truth. It is about techniques of Investigation.
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