The Enlightened Person Balances Masculinity and Femininity

Posted on by
4

[Written around 2006.]

We are all comprised of the masculine and the feminine. Our job on earth is to balance the two within ourselves in accordance with our soul’s deepest truth.

The masculine is the mind, the feminine the heart. The feminine is the emotional, the masculine the rational. The masculine is form, the feminine content. The feminine is passion, the masculine perception. The masculine drives the car, but the feminine is the engine and the gasoline. The feminine is the root of the masculine. Continue reading →

Truth Is Not Subjective

Posted on by
Reply

[Written around 2004.]

There is but one truth. This one truth is reality. Reality is what is, whether we see it or not. Although truth is not subjective, our perspectives on truth can be subjective. Until a person becomes fully enlightened – and can see full truth – his vision of truth will be at least partially distorted. He will believe things to be true that are false. His knowledge of cause and effect will be limited. He will lie to himself. Continue reading →

The Root Cause of Addiction

Posted on by
17

[Written around 2004.]

The root of addiction is unresolved emotional trauma. When traumas, be they extreme or mild, are not resolved they leave behind a slew of painful, unprocessed feelings in the unconscious. These feelings are never content to remain silent and instead clamor for release. When they express themselves openly and without disguise this activates the healing process. The healing process, however, is so painful and potentially discombobulating that very few people, unless they have a great deal of mature external support and internal self-understanding, can dare undertake it. Continue reading →

Every Rapist Was Himself Raped

Posted on by
3

[Written around 2004.]

Every rapist was himself raped. Although all were probably raped in body, all were definitely raped in spirit. No one who was not spiritually raped could ever bring himself to rape another. It would be contrary to human nature.

Likewise, every child molester was himself molested spiritually, his boundaries disrespected viciously by those controlling his fate, just as theirs were also disrespected long ago when they themselves were vulnerable and full of passionate need. Continue reading →

The Advantages of Being Conventional

Posted on by
Reply

[Written around 2004.]

The world loves the conventional. No one attacks you. No one hates you. No one criticizes you. No one rejects you. No one steps on your toes while at the same time accusing you of stepping on theirs.

But the conventional are dead. They were long since routed out of the best of themselves. They were long since hated and criticized and civilized into soul-numbing defeat. They were long since divorced from the best their potential had to offer. Their now-loving parents once injected poison into their veins. Continue reading →

Critique of Judith Herman’s classic book, “Trauma and Recovery”

Posted on by
7

[Written around 2004.]

“A Strong Book with a Limited Perspective”

This book is brilliant – but short-sighted. From the introduction Judith Herman provides a clear paradigm for understanding trauma and recovery: “The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma.” What she fails to understand is how this applies to her – and those like her…that is, everyone. Continue reading →

Dreams and Traumatic Experiences Are Flip Sides of the Same Coin

Posted on by
1

[Written around 2005.]

Dreams and traumatic experiences have much in common.

Both involve intense emotion, though in traumatic experiences the emotion results from external stimuli, whereas in dreams it comes from internal flashbacks of the split-off trauma we carry in our psyche.  No surprise that adults and children with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder often have terrible flashbacks in their dreams. Continue reading →

Dissatisfaction is Mentally Healthy

Posted on by
Reply

[written in 2004]

In a world as troubled as ours, dissatisfaction is an excellent sign of mental health. Certainly there is nothing more motivating for growth than dissatisfaction. It is the root of struggle, and thus evolution. No one struggles because he wishes to, but rather because it is his calling in life. His home is the mountainside. Yet some have been granted their wish of a home on the plateau. They are the upholders of emotional compromise, and the “normal” world idealizes them for their beauty and poise. They are the world’s happy people – on the surface. Continue reading →

Genetics Behind Psychopathology: A Convenient Excuse for Parents

Posted on by
3

[Written around 2007.]

By and large I do not believe genetics to be behind such psychological “disorders” known as schizophrenia, depression, autism, and bipolar. I believe that psychological trauma and other environment horrors lie at their root far more than most are willing to concede – or even imagine. And yet the psychological field so often promotes – however scientifically flimsily – genetic origins. Genetic arguments serve to protect the parents – and basically let them off the hook for their pathological, traumatizing behavior. This is convenient. Or is it? Continue reading →

The Four Stages on the Path to Enlightenment

Posted on by
12

[Written in 2004 or 2005.]

As we walk forward on the path toward full enlightenment, different parts of ourselves live at different stages of healing. Some parts can be amazingly healed and insightful, while others can remain buried and out of touch. Our different parts traverse the various stages at their own speeds, seemingly independently – but ultimately connected to our core of perfection by our universal thread of truth. Continue reading →

Eleven (Now Twelve) Situations In Which It Is Not Appropriate For You To Have Children

Posted on by
12

[Written in 2004. This essay, perhaps the most controversial on this site, appeared on the original version of iraresoul.com in 2004. I’ve gotten more emails, some of them quite angry or even hateful and threatening, regarding this essay than any other thing I’ve written. Many times I’ve considered changing this essay or taking it down, mostly because it was almost too stressful for me to stand behind, but then I’d reread it, and decide…that I still agreed with it. And so it’s stayed. Meanwhile, I’ve added a 12th situation…at the end.]

1) You are not fully enlightened.

If you are not fully enlightened it means you still repress some degree of unresolved trauma. We all have a compulsion to act out our repressed traumas on our intimates, and all the more so on our vulnerable, needy children – because they cannot refuse it or escape. Therefore, where you are not enlightened you will abuse your children to at least some degree. This is inappropriate. Continue reading →

The Traumatized Are Safe

Posted on by
7

[Written in 2004.]

A traumatized child is safe to broken parents because he does not threaten their dishonest authority. Thus he earns his crumb of love. A traumatized student is safe to broken teachers because he does not question their unearned authority. Thus he earns his right to gain a false education.

A traumatized worker is safe to broken bosses because he follows their numbing orders. Thus he keeps his dead job and perpetuates a dead system. Continue reading →

We Are Destroying Our Planet, and We Are Responsible

Posted on by
12

We humans are destroying our planet—and we are responsible.  We spread pollution through our industry, our overpopulation, our fertilizers, our trash, and our insecticides.  We wreak ecological havoc through our unsustainable farming, logging, mining, fishing, and exploitation of the world’s other natural resources.  We are making our home unlivable not only for ourselves but for the millions of other animal and plant species with whom we share it.

Continue reading →

What Constitutes Child Abuse?

Posted on by
8

[Written around 2005.]

The definition of child abuse is simple: whenever the spirit of the child is disrespected the child is abused. Abuse of the spirit of the child can take many forms, from the overt forms of child abuse that conventional society is able to accept – such as overt sexual abuse, physical violence and the extremes of neglect – to whole realms of abuse that fall below society’s radar and are considered normal and healthy forms of parenting. Continue reading →

Dissociation Mimics Enlightenment

Posted on by
24

[Written in 2004.]

Dissociation (being split-off from one’s deepest truth) mimics enlightenment – but it isn’t enlightenment. People who are dissociated live in great peace. But this is only because they have blocked their negative feelings. The enlightened person resolves his negatives feelings, and thus his peace is not false. Continue reading →

The Fundamentals of My Perspective on “Enlightenment” and Healing from Unresolved Trauma

Posted on by
7

[Original essay written around 2006.]

[Introduction/addition, March of 2013: I no longer really use the word “enlightenment” anymore.  As a term it is too loaded — too many people equate it with some sort of Buddhist-like dissociative state, which is the exact opposite of what I’m talking about.  Nowadays, when I am trying to express the concepts I define below as “enlightenment,” I prefer to use the terms “being healthy,” “being real,” “being honest,” having “resolved our inner traumas,” or “being fully conscious.”  I ever prefer the term “self-actualization.”  But since I have used the word “enlightenment” a lot in past incarnations of this website and also in my books, I don’t want to remove the word entirely…  So please take my use of this loaded word with a grain of salt!]

What is enlightenment? Continue reading →

My Intended Audience for wildtruth.com

Posted on by
8

[I wrote this essay in June of 2011.]

Many parents have asked me, “Who is your intended audience for this website?”

This is often followed by their admission that they feel alienated or attacked by my writing.  Not infrequently, this is followed by a suggestion that I rewrite my website.  Although they acknowledge that some parents can be terrible, other parents, they say, are looking for help, and can’t get it from a website that labels them as abusers.

Although I recognize that parents need help, helping parents is not the primary purpose of this website, because parents as a group are not my intended audience. My intended audience is the child:  the child within everyone, the wounded self within each of us who was never fully heard, never fully recognized, and never fully nurtured by parents who themselves were never fully heard, recognized, or nurtured.  In order to speak directly and honestly to this audience, I take the side of the child.  If I did anything less I would fail at my mission. Continue reading →

The Briefest Nutshell of My Entire Point of View

Posted on by
10

[I wrote this essay in July of 2011.]

I create my writing, videos, and music in the context of my broader point of view.  Many of my individual works, however, reflect but one facet of that viewpoint, and when studied out of context risk giving a misleading impression of where I stand.  For that reason I write this essay:  this is the nutshell of my whole point of view.  Continue reading →

My Values

Posted on by
11

[I wrote this essay in July of 2011.]

For several years I have been studying people in deep, long-term friendships and couples in happy, long-term, committed relationships, in order to determine what makes the relationship function.  What keeps them together?  What keeps them “happy” in their relationship?  The general answer I have found is simple, and is neither a good nor a bad thing:  it is common values.  The reason I say it is not necessarily good is that I have seen many happy, functioning couples or friends who share values I find disturbed or offensive, such as fundamentalist religiosity, mutual denial of their abusiveness toward their children, xenophobia, hypochondria, overlapping areas of sexual acting out, shared love of the same drug, and love of living in a bubble of comfort, to name but a few.

My reason for writing this essay, however, arose when I got down to brass tacks and asked myself about my own values, and thus, in turn, about the types of people I am most likely to gravitate toward.

What do I value most in this world? Continue reading →