Listening to the Spirit

Are you listening?

As I have mentioned a few times in the past, I have a very musical brain, and one of the ways that my psyche and spiritual guidance comes through is via song lyrics and music which enter my head at random times, especially when I am very relaxed, or when almost asleep. Quite often I awaken from sleep with a song playing in my head. In fact it is very rare for me NOT to awaken from sleep with some music playing in my mind. As I explain in Discover Yopur Soul Template - which is all about developing intuiition and what I call Integrated Intelligence - I once had no idea that this information within me had any importance at all. I simply ignored it, because there was no cultural model from which to work to integrate the knowledge or to think of it in any way as being meaningful. I could have gone my entire life ignoring such information, except that nearly twenty years ago I had a psychic reading from an Aboriginal kadaisha woman (shamen) who told me to start paying attention to my guidance, especially the music that came to me. In fact, she relayed a stern message to me from her spirit guides which was a direct admonition for my failure to listen! 

So in the weeks and months that followed I did just what I was asked, and soon discovered that I was being guided through my life every day by spiritiual forces that I had never previously even considered possible, let alone acknowledged.

The reason I tell you this is because a few months ago a rather peculiar song kept coming to me.

Why we are not ready for radical transparency

In a recent post I argued that as a collective, we are not ready for Julian Assange’s concept of “radical transparency.” As far as I can make out from what I have read of Assange, radical transparency involves the release of as much confidential government/corporate information as possible. With the current WikiLeaks documents, certain names and details have been removed to protect vulnerable individuals. Nonetheless, some names and individuals have been named, and Assange has been criticised for putting those people at risk.

Yet my concern about radical transparency is not so much to do with risking the release of personal information. My concern emerges from my own experience working with the spiritual realms of human knowledge. As an intuitive, I am able to access information within the psyches of individual people, and groups of people. Further, I have worked intimately with others who are well versed in Integrated Intelligence. So, what I am about to write is based on what I have learned from this intimate experience with the human psyches of others, both in spiritual circles, and with the general community.

Here is the bottom line. The typical person of today is simply not at a high enough level of spiritual/psychological maturity. Part of this involves the fact that the personal responsibility levels of most people in modern society is insufficient for them to be able to act with integrity when granted access to a greater degree of knowledge, including personal information of others, and other groups.

Just as one example, recently on the China Daily forum (China’s government sponsored English language newspaper’s discussion forum), one Chinese poster has been uploading documents which detail some of the abuses by American troops and military personally in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each post includes a generic denunciation of “The Anglos” – i.e. white people of English ancestry. One post concludes with the words, “Is there any single act low enough that these human scum will not sink to it?” These comments are clearly written about white people in general, not merely those engaging in the said acts in war zones.

Imagine then, what would happen if suddenly all details were released regarding abuses of power and authority around the world! Just think of all the world’s hot spots which could quickly degenerate into violence, as people of undeveloped spiritual maturity reacted to the data, at the whim of their egos.

Confusion, Information Overload and the Future of the Intuitive Mind

In my last post I wrote about the way that Integrated Intelligence can assist people in modern societies avoid being manipulated by the establishment - government and corporate power. In this post I am going to write about one of the most obvious characteristics of your average person in modern knowledge economies - confusion. This confusion stems from three interrelated problems – complexity, information overload, and meaninglessness. In today’s post I am going to talk about the way that having a well developed spiritual intuition can help us deal with this situation.

1.      The Complexity Problem

Steadily increasing complexity has been a long-term tendency over the last three centuries in capitalist societies. Academic Geoffrey Hogdson pointed out a decade ago that there has been a growing diversity of interactions between human beings, and between people and their technologies. New analytic problems are an inevitable scenario given the degree of innovation and change. Further, the nature and diffusion of knowledge creates difficulties in dealing with implicit, context-specific, and distinctive knowledge or skills.

In short, despite the benefits of technology-assisted automation, it’s getting harder to do your job.

Is Your Country Making You Stupid?

Stupid is as stupid does together

There are smart people, and there are dumb people.

Some races are smart and others are not so smart.

People in some countries are smarter than others.

Or so we may assume.

The truth is far more complex than popular depictions of intelligence suppose.

In fact, the scary thing is that your country can make you retarded. Quite literally, as in the place where you live can retard your intelligence. No, this is not a thread of Irish jokes, Polish jokes, or other politically incorrect humour. Instead I am going to show you how your mind is literally belittled by the world you live in, and you probably don’t even know its happening.

First, in order to understand what I am saying, let’s take a look at what really makes people, smart – or stupid.

In his brilliant little book The Making of Intelligence, Ken Richardson completely decimates mainstream dominant models of intelligence, and especially the idea that people have an innate and unchangeable IQ which is controlled by genetic factors. In doing so, Richardson has developed his own five-tier model of intelligence. Richardson does find a place of genes, but he identifies another four important factors which influence intelligence. Here I am going to tell you what those five factors are. Yet even Richardson does not go far enough. Based on my own exploration of the mind at a first person level, and from my research into the subject, I am going to add another factor of my own.

Genetics

There is a genetic basis of intelligence. Nobody disputes that. Yet just how much of a role does it play? Most researchers put it at about 50%, but some put it at no more than 20%.

Genomic factors

We must also take into consideration what happens during the development of the individual. So, physical/environmental issues in the environment might come into play here, such as pollution, nutrition, and the quality of nurturing.

Epigenetic factors

Here Richardson refers to intra-generational change. It is well known that IQ scores go up at about the rate of 3% per generation.  This is known as the Flynn effect, and it is probably due to the fact that key concepts have been commonly accepted into society. Examples might include natural selection, the paradigm, and the idea of perspective itself.

Cognitive factors

The way people use their brains in the world affects their intelligence. If a person is a writer like me for example, they have to exercise their ability to think analytically and logically. It’s normally a ‘left-brained’ process, although, as I have written elsewhere, I deliberately incorporate the intuitive mind as I write and research.

Socio-cognitive factors

Here Richardson is referring to the way people work together to be smart as a group. Some forms of intelligence can be expressed within a group, or with the help of others. Cultures can also suppress intelligence where the society refuses permission for its expression.

It is interesting to note that “China” produced both the brilliance of the 2008 Olympics, and the insane tragedy of the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s, which led to about 45 millio0n deaths. There are reports of starving Chinese peasants in the far provinces praying towards Beijing and Chairman Mao to save them, tragically unaware that their ‘saviour’ was the one who had created their suffering. Same country, same gene pool; different policies/culture, different expressions of intelligence.