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How does the CBS relate to Bardon's system?
And:
Franz Bardon's system as an educational program for the entire humanity.
©
Paul
Allen, 21 August 2002
Franz
Bardon Research (English)
Franz
Bardon Forschung (deutsch)
Contents
II.
Why is it impossible to eradicate the belief in "ghosts" and "apparitions" ?III.
The Charles Bonnet Syndrome (CBS) and the errors of the occultists.IV.
The CBS-article as a model of excellent research regarding special mental abilities and phenomena.
V.
The Tesla-level: Franz Bardon's system as an educational program for the entire humanity.
(main section)
Introduction
When I put some time ago the article about the Charles Bonnet Syndrome (CBS) on my website, I thought, that most people would recognize immediately the relevance of these new scientific findings.
But after a number of email discussions about this topic I soon found out that many people didn't realize at all, for what reason I put the CBS article on my site or for what end it was intended.
Therefore I have decided to summarize here the most important points in the hopes that they will stimulate further discussion on this topic.
I.) The disproved prejudice:
Hallucinations, visualization and, more in general, imagination as insane mental states.
At first I would like to write about a common and widespread prejudice, which is very well disproved by the article on the CBS.
We all know that hallucinations are commonly associated with many mental disorders like Schizophrenia, psychotic breakdown, the Parkinson disorder (the sooner hallucinations begin to manifest and the more frequent they are, the worse is the prognosis, i.e. the faster is the progress of this mental illness), brain-degeneration of the elderly (dementia), extreme conditions of the body like high fever, severe exhaustion, hunger or pain, and also the delirium tremens of alcoholic-addicts in terminal conditions.
Likewise also many psychedelic drugs produce severe hallucinations, drugs like LSD, the Psylocibin contained in a number of different species of fungi, the Mescalin contained in some cacti and the Ahayahuasca (made from a combination of different plant extracts; the effective ingredient is a tropical liana), to name only some of the most important ones.
Therefore the word "hallucination" is in the public opinion mostly associated with devaluating implications as of sickness, mental disorder, madness, drug-abuse and so on, all notions that connote a very negative concept.
But we know that most esoteric traditions involve special methods to create exactly such hallucinations and this causes in most people, who are working with those methods, many preoccupations and fears.
To prevent these fears and preoccupations most systems avoid the word "hallucination" and replace it with some other term like "visualization", "lesser" or "greater" "ritual of the pentagram", "recapitulation", "mandala meditation", or whatever.
Nevertheless most students intuitively understand very well that also with these methods is involved exactly the production of hallucinations, and therefore a number of different fears and preoccupations become dominant, even if they remain confined sometimes to a subconscious level or they get repressed to the subconscious ("don't-want-do-think-about-it") domain. This can result in a profound (and often unnoticed) resistance of the subconscious part of a persons personality, which make success with this special system very difficult or even impossible, especially if the subconscious reaches the conclusion, that an insane state or other damage may be the outcome of the training.
As Richard Bandler puts it very clearly: "When the subconscious gets in conflict with the conscious part of the personality, then the winning part is always the subconscious." I would alter Bandler's "always" to a "most often", but in essence he is absolutely right. For this reason it's so difficult, to maintain a wish or command established by the conscious "I" against deeply rooted subconscious patterns, for example to reduce the body weight or to quit smoking.
If the subconscious decides, that "success" with a certain method will result in a very dangerous outcome to the entire personality, then it is almost impossible, to circumvent with our conscious "will" this decision because the subconscious has always the ability to "torpedate" with manifold means our conscious actions and decisions (e.g.: "Today I have no time to practice, I will do it tomorrow or even better, next week", etc, we all know many examples of this kind of excuses ...).
At this point now, the article by Teunisse et al. on the CBS can be a very valuable contribution to abolish this common prejudice that hallucinations are always associated with mental disorders or with a disorder of the brain.
Even though the CBS is produced by a degeneration of the visual system, it is not associated with any of the fear-provoking features of common mental disorders (like the loss of control as associated with Schizophrenia and the like, or getting absorbed into hallucinatory delusions, paranoia, etc.); in other words: people manifesting the CBS are neurologically and mentally completely sane, though they experience often several times a week very profound hallucinations.
This should reveal to the practitioner of virtual techniques, that there exist hallucinations which are not the byproduct of an insane or damaged brain or psyche, but that the practitioner is indeed able to exercise complete control over his creations. More about this point later on in this article.
To resume the above we must therefore say, that we can learn from the CBS paper, that hallucinations, visualizations and imagination are possible for completely sane people, respectively, that practicing of virtual techniques must not lead automatically to insane states of the psyche, as sometimes claimed.
II.) Why is it impossible to eradicate the belief in "ghosts" and "apparitions" ?
Another very important aspect of the CBS-article is, that it elucidates very well, why the belief in "ghosts" and "apparitions" is so widespread throughout all cultures of humankind and why it's also documented in the oldest texts and documents of ancient times.
The CBS as an entirely physiologically triggered phenomenon must have been present within all nations of all times in man's history. It is therefore a principal phenomenon wired into the human nature and was experienced spontaneously by all people who met the criteria of the CBS (i.e., reduced visual ability, old age, etc., cf. the CBS-paper).
We can suppose that the CBS is experienced even by animals with a highly developed central nervous system and sense-inventory, e.g. birds and mammals (dog, cat, horse, mouse, etc.) which are also able to dream.
It is obvious, that the phenomena triggered by the CBS (hallucinations of angels, ghosts, beings, deceased people, translucent figures floating around, and similar things) were then interpreted by people of rudimentary cultures (formerly called "primitive tribes") or by people with a "magical" ideation according to their philosophical conceptions.
That even an over-rationalistic, materialistic attitude cannot do anything about the "irrational clinging" of people to such concepts must not be explained, as it has been done until now, by the "irrationality" of people, but by the rationality of the same, because these experiences are perfectly valid as really existent perceptions.
Even the strongest dogma cannot do anything about it, that a person experiences dreams when asleep, because the ability to dream is wired deeply into the biological nature of humans. A dogmatic rationalistic attitude must succumb in the long run to the seemingly "trivial belief" in ghosts and apparitions, because these experiences, when triggered by the CBS, are in the same way a part of our human nature, as a hand or a foot is.
(Note: I'm not talking here about the problem, if "entities" like the ones described in Bardon's PME do exist "objectively" or not; this discussion must be postponed to later research.)
III.) The Charles Bonnet Syndrome and the errors of the occultists.
Now it was outlined in II. to the rationalist, what he can learn from the CBS.
Therefore it should be set out also to the occultist (as the natural opposite of the rationalist) that he must also draw his conclusions from the CBS.
Teunisse's work elucidates very well, that many phenomena which occultists rely to a so called "astral-" or "mental plane" are solely creations on its own of the human brain. A trivial occultist makes the trivial and wrong assumption, that this kind of hallucination is the product of an objective reality. Of course there is involved a lot of wishful thinking.
Certainly everyone who is lowering himself to such a laughable standard must expect the strict condemnation by more intelligent people.
Every hypnotherapist knows very well, that he must put someone only into a light trance to evoke every kind of "entity" or to create into the clients mind every kind of experience or apparition he likes. Everyone who believes that the "two miniature policemen guiding a midget villain to a tiny prison van" (here the original text) in Teunisse's article, exist objectively "on another plane" (because they cannot be seen by other people), is limiting himself to just a "Harry Potter level".
IV.) The CBS-article as a model of excellent research regarding special mental abilities and phenomena.
In this section I would like to point out the significant difference between the scientist's attitude or his working methods and the unsystematic or even dubious ways of occultists.
The approach of occultists and esoteric people is more like that of a pioneer and adventurer who jumps into a new and unknown territory and begins to investigate this new domain just "somehow" in an unsystematic and arbitrary way. As soon as he finds out or experiences a new phenomenon he is fascinated about his new "cognition" and questions not at all the meaning and relevance of these phenomena in regard to the overall context of his experience. He takes his experiences as such as they present themselves to him and thinks that they are in the same way valid for all other people or that his new "wisdom" as applicable to the most different domains and circumstances.
He jumps to conclusions which must not at all be generally valid or might be even wrong. He is working completely on his own as an isolated individual and doesn't compare his experiences with the ones of other pioneers investigating the same area. The occultist relies always only on his own perspective and his own experiences and never "wastes" his time to investigate how they relate when compared with the findings of other people.
Also, the employed methods are very often highly dubious or of an absolutely trivial nature. Just think about the assessment of e.g. color meanings/relations by the pendulum, or about the kabbalistic method of Gematra, where the cross-sum of the numeric attributions of two words is supposed to prove something objective about the relation of these two words. Another example is the sort of "wild" exegesis (interpretation) of the Bible or other standard texts as a common practice of esoteric people, not to speak about the widespread practice of pseudoepigraphy (= to publish a book by the name of a well known philosopher or mystic to heighten the prestige of these writings) which is nothing other than fiction or in other words a plain lie in the meanest and most condemnable sense of the word. Hundreds of examples could be offered here and many very well known occultists would show up in such a list (e.g.: Eliphas Levi, Robert Fludd, Khunrath, Bischoff, E.A. Waite, J.W. v. Goethe [not really an occultist], and many others).
Of a completely different attitude and nature and by far more solid is the approach of the scientist. When he discovers a new phenomenon he begins immediately to study and examine it in a very systematic way. He is not satisfied just to be able to provoke the phenomenon at hand but tries to uncover very carefully, methodically, meticulously and with immense patience the precise connections, interactions, implications, differences and conditions which are relevant to the phenomena. He is always very suspicious and tries to find errors in his methods or explications, he looks for differences which could point out that he's on the wrong track and he is always very cautious in his judgment of how pertinent his explications are in regard to the overall significance and relevance of the phenomena.
He compares his findings with the studies of other scientists that are working in the same or other areas and expects that his findings will get confirmed or can be reproduced by his fellow researchers. Here begins a vivid exchange of thoughts and views with the entire scientific community and the scientist is always disposed (or at least he should be disposed) to change his mind if there arise new findings or concepts. He knows very well that his opinions represent always only hypotheses and theories, whereas occultists often believe that they have found some kind of "truth".
The outcome of such a substantial and solid attitude is, of course, an immensely extended relevance and reliability of the scientists findings in regard to the applicability and significance of the researched topic. This kind of thoroughness ultimately pays off and is the main reason for the tremendous success of modern science. A success which could be obtained also by occultists if they were willing to improve their methods.
To give a practical example we could inspect Teunisse's work in regard to the optical clarity of visual hallucinations.
An occultist could for example find out, that his "inner vision" becomes after some training by far more acute than his perception of real existent, outside objects. Typically he would write in a publication with pompous and mystifying formulations, how superior the "inner vision" is. He would speak just for himself because he has never tested any other person, he knows nothing about how his experience is related to the experience of other people, in other circumstances and what the outcome with different conditions would be.
The scientist on the other hand studies the same phenomenon in a large number of people and is able to prove that there exist many differences with different people. Please cf. the following explanations in the next section of my article or check out the original article by Teunisse et al. on the CBS.
V.) The Tesla-level
Franz Bardon's system as an educational program for the entire humanity.
Now we are coming to the most important part of the application of the CBS to Bardon's system.
Unfortunately Bardon's system is in my opinion very often not judged properly and its relevance is greatly undervaluated or misinterpreted by most people. This is an outcome of the philosophical conceptions which are misleading practitioners and also critics of Bardon's system to the wrong direction.
In my opinion this system is meant for a much broader application as assumed until now.
I believe that Bardon's system (or a similar one) can serve as an educational program for the entire humanity!
The relevance of Bardon's method is in my opinion not limited to the occult/esoteric domain, but is by far more outreaching, encompassing an almost global scope.
In order to clarify what I'm talking about I must return to our main subject.
The CBS-article proves in a very impressive way that the brain of completely sane people is able to produce virtual pictures (hallucinations) in the wakeful-/everyday consciousness with such a degree of clarity, that there is not left the least difference between these virtual pictures and the pictures produced by really existent objects, or that the clarity and acuity of these virtual pictures even surpass real objects: 45% (it's almost one half) of all clients studied in Teunisse's article experienced hallucinations that were clearer than real objects; cf. this section in the CBS article.
Part of Table 1: Characteristics of hallucinations in 60 patients with Charles Bonnet Syndrome
As real objects Clearer Less clear Variable Movement "en bloc" Always Sometimes Never
And exactly this ability we learn in Step Three of Bardon's system.
That is very important !
Very often the degree of ability that Bardon is requiring here is severely underestimated. Most often people content themselves with the visualization of ordinary pictures. But it is of vital importance that one must be able to produce with open eyes virtual spatial pictures in a way that there remains not the least difference between this created visual spatial object and a real objective object. (The term "picture" is often misleading because it connotes for most people only a two dimensional, flat image.)
Therefore one must be able to put for example a visualized, 3-dimensional spatial orange next to a real, objective orange and there must not be any difference between the two in regard to clarity, color, shape, shade, depth of focus, and so on.
Another very important and most often overlooked point is that the practitioner must also be able to do this in his wakeful/everyday state of consciousness; in other words: by no means should there arise a trance, not even a light one, (autohypnotic state), which makes this kind of hallucinatory production of virtual objects a lot easier.
If one tests the ability of a number of practitioners in this regard one will find in most cases, that this degree of mastery is accomplished very seldom. Most often it is found that only very poor abilities become apparent and that the more versatile practitioners get into a, at least light, but most often even deep state of partial trance, when they try to produce this phenomenon.
A person born with this kind of ability was the great scientist and inventor Nicolai Tesla.
As so often with such abilities, which we regard as highly welcome, when they manifest spontaneously, they are sometimes very troublesome. With Tesla these pictures were so intense that he spoke even of an "ailment" which bothered him in his youth.
As a boy, Tesla was tormented by flashing lights and images of remembered scenes that would appear before his eyes without warning and with blinding intensity. A single word spoken to Tesla in conversation might suddenly trigger a lifelike image of the person or thing that the word represented. These images were so real that Tesla found himself "quite unable to distinguish whether what I saw was tangible or not" a confusion which caused him "great discomfort and anxiety".
And exactly this ability we acquire in Step Three of Bardon's system.
Therefore I'm calling Bardon's Step Three in my private terminology the "Tesla-level".
That this terminology is very impressive but meets only a part of the truth is realized at once when we understand, that the term "Tesla-level" addresses only one sense modality, namely the visual one.
In Step Three we must master the same ability also with all other sense modalities. Especially in the auditive sense modality.
We could name therefore Bardon's Step Three (IIH) also the "Beethoven" or the "Mozart" level, because those two composers were blessed exactly with this ability to create "inner" sounds (music) with a degree of clarity, that was comparable to that of physically produced (instruments, speaker, etc.) sounds. Probably also in this sense modality the virtual sound production might exceed the quality of physically produced sounds, even if we have no scientifically proved data regarding it to date.
Very interesting in this regard is the fate of Beethoven, who developed just deafness in his later life-period, what for any "ordinary" composer would mark the end of his career.
Not so for Beethoven because he could make use of his virtual soundspace which we also achieve by practicing the Bardon Step Tree exercises; therefore Beethoven was able to continue with his composing of marvelous symphonies, even as a completely deaf person. Mozart surpassed even this degree of skill because he wrote in his diaries, that he was able to experience an entire composition simultaneously in a kind of "spatial-sound like" structure, in way we experience a physical object in one instant visually as a complete structure.
To what point these abilities of virtual constructing with all our sense modalities (virtual reality) will lead us and how far-reaching these abilities are, we aren't even able to glimpse at present.
So we could name Bardons Step Three also the Tesla-Beethoven or the Tesla-Mozart level.
And I'm very adamant with this terminology, because these abilities lay the foundation for the auditive and/or visual genius such as Beethoven and Tesla.
By the way I should mention that Tesla (as well as Professor Ludwig Staudenmaier and many others) tried his entire life to ban his vivid images onto a photographic film. This is a further indication how clear and intensive his images must have been. Though even the great Tesla was not blessed with success, it is very improbable that we will have more success with it in the near future.
That this ability is not only a gain but can become also very dangerous when it gets out of control you can guess from the example of Schizophrenia and craziness. You can find also many examples of the dangerous nature of it everywhere in the scientific literature.
I know personally about the case of a student at the local high school who was able, by reading any text only once, to reproduce it as a mental picture before his "mental eye" exactly as it was written. It happened that before one test, for which he had done no preparatory homework, he was able to read hastily in part the relevant text in the textbook immediately before the teacher entered the classroom. During the test he was able to reproduce the text exactly till to the point where he had to stop reading when the teacher entered the classroom. You see, such abilities are not so rare as you might think. To point out the danger of the ability involved you should know, that this student became crazy some years later on and finished in the lunatic asylum, probably because he was not able to get control over his very vivid mental images.
And again we can see, how ingenious Bardon's system is. The banning of images, sounds and other components of our thinking process is learned (in Step One) before one learns to create such intense virtual pictures, sounds and feelings, so that the student is prepared for the further skills.
No wonder that even Tesla spoke about an "ailment". Imagine to get bombarded all the time with flashing pictures or noisy sounds throughout the day. Tesla eventually overcame this "affliction" through mental exercise and sheer willpower.
Now we should speak about the applications of Tesla's abilities. Those are unbelievably manifold and of a so far-reaching importance that we are not in the least able to evaluate them at present.
Tesla possessed the remarkable ability to visualize his inventions in minute detail before even beginning to write them down. He would mentally build a new device part by part and test-run it, all in his imagination. So accurate were Tesla's mental blueprints that he could diagnose a problem with a machine by the way it ran in his mind.
Tesla wrote: "It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop, I even note if it is out of balance. There is no difference whatever, the results were the same."
This is exactly the point which is important to me.
For this reason I believe, that Bardon's system could serve as a training program for the entire humanity. Imagine a world where everyone has at his disposal this very ability (and many others pertaining to the other sense modalities) ! ! !
And we are speaking here only about the Tesla-level, Bardon's Step Three ...
The same of course holds true for all other sense modalities.
What the importance of these abilities are in the domain of all areas of the "ordinary, everyday life" becomes apparent by the example of Tesla's abilities.
Everyone gifted with a little bit of fantasy will realize immediately, how strong the impact on the evolution of humankind would be. Think about technology, architecture, etc., etc.
Even Bardon speaks about it when he says in Step Three: "Those students who are willing to make the necessary effort will be greatly satisfied with the powers they acquire through these concentration exercises." And: "The concentration exercises of this step not only strengthen the willpower and the ability of concentration, but all our intellectual and mental powers."
Every person with such abilities will be highly welcomed in every domain of all human activities and he will never be in the need to get undue advantages over his fellow men by "occult" means.
Such a person will be a highly respected and most valuable part of the human society, he will create unbelievable treasures for our culture and foster the progress of humankind as a whole.
Of course many readers of this article will remain skeptical, if the here described abilities are really in reach of everyone of us.
It is naturally not sufficient to create an Utopian like concept, but one must also make sure, that the realization of such a one gets accomplished in the real world.
To this aspect of the practical realization I will pay attention in my next, more practical oriented article, where I will try to prove that this admittedly high degree of mastery is indeed in the reaches of every ordinary person.
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