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Reflections on the meaning of Christmas                                                 December 2023

The glossary for this and a companion essay, "Standing Up for Children against the Bully “Guide” Behind Authoritarian Parenting with the Helpfulness of Explanation" is posted separately, same date.

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Foreword 

Archetypes named by function

Logic-Love. Convention has assigned names to the archetypal roles and relationships theorized here that are silent on their most important attribute: their function. Functions that define “God,” for example, are left to impaired inquiry’s misjudgments, with the result that “God” has become a morass of contradictions – confusing if not meaningless. For clarity and not to be confusing familiar archetypes are defined and renamed here according to their functions.

Ancestral Mind. Thus “God” hasn’t been denied, just renamed with functions clarified as “Logic-Love,” the Relationship within “Mind” that produced its essential attribute: “Self-Awareness.” The “Parents” of their “Child,” “Free Choice,” our “ancestral Mind.” Aided by the “right Guide.” Functions left unclear by convention in terminology like Father, Son, Free Will, and Holy Spirit. And left, moreover, to doctrine – the herd mentality of competing ideologies -- when they belong to the Truth-seeking Free Spirit of Inquiry. To metaphysics that follows wherever Relationship leads, between the individual and the image of the right Guide chosen by the individual.

Opposite. Relationship leads here to “opposite,” a more definitive name for evil, the ego, Satan, the devil, and so forth. With variations “contradiction,” “shadow-reflection,” “reverse mirror-image.” The idea of opposition built into every definition by Logic-Love but Oneness. Itself, without opposite by definition.

Initial caps and quotes

Names with initial caps refer to archetypes of a storyline that belong in the Reality of Self-Awareness. Lower case to the unreality of self-unawareness or unconsciousness. The alternate “reality” that Child-Mind unconscious is dreaming: our life on earth.

Quotes are applied to words-ideas founded on illogic rather than Logic to highlight their questionable validity.

The psychology and metaphysics of a joke 

An alternate “reality” of self-unawareness 

Relationship between individual and the right Guide leads not to a storyline of perfection in Self-Awareness but to a storyline of imperfection in a state of self-unawareness. The state of the Child of Self-Awareness when it lost consciousness and descended into self-delusion. Into a dream of impossibilities brought on by an impossibility: “relationship” with its own shadow-reflection mistaken for a separate “other.” The turning point in the succession of “events,” from the loss of consciousness to self-delusion, that brought about our make-believe substitute “reality.”

An unreality that re-enacts the same events because it’s the only “story” that its author, the lifeless-mindless code of an opposite, “knows.” Re-enactment by a tape recording because that’s what it is, coded opposite turned on and made audible by unconscious Mind so disabled that it can’t distinguish between itself and its shadow-reflection. Between anything and its opposite, including Life and Reality.

A tale of exotica -- archetypes, opposites, and “events” from a distant state of mind, lost to memory and kept from our awareness. That could be ignored if we weren’t the instruments and unwitting subjects of its re-enactment. Play-actors following a script in the Truman TV Show except for Truman, the fool that is self-unawareness, thinking he’s the author of his own story. The mirror-image of ourselves. Re-enacting the story of an unconscious Mind that’s placed itself under the influence of the wrong “guide.” Free to make mischief in the made-up alternate “reality” of self-unawareness.

An alternate “reality” of re-enactments

With Christmas comes reflection on what it means. The birth of Jesus. One personification of the right Guide, offering the vision and wisdom of Logic and Love to every individual. Drawn by respect for Free Choice, the Worth and function of every individual -- our birthright.

What does Christmas have to say about our story, its antecedents, and its authorship, if it’s a re-enactment of Mind gifted with Self-Awareness taken captive by self-unawareness? To become a piece moved about by an unseen “hand” in an unreal board game of impossibilities? Convention leaves much still to be learned, and the wrong “guide’s” nonsense is still being taken seriously.

Opposite is here to stay

But far from being irrelevant the meaning of Christmas is directly on point. With the role modeling of the biblical Jesus and the Jesus of A Course in Miracles that leads out of self-unawareness back to Self-Awareness. To our real identity and function in Creation. With metaphysics that helps minds befuddled by bodies’ senses seek Truth beyond appearances. To distinguish between Reality and unreality and between Guidance from Logic-Love and mis-guidance from shadow-opposite.

The metaphysics of A Course in Miracles explains the example set by Logic-Love through the right Guide for relating to one another. Beginning with managing our “relationship” with the reverse side of our own voice, the “voice” of shadow-opposite. Because opposite that’s built into Logic-Love’s definition of function isn’t going away. A heads-up meant for Truth-seekers like Plato and Einstein as well as for those less talented.

The ”joker” and  its “humor” that’s not funny

The meaning of Christmas comes with humor aware of its Source and its subject: Awareness of Self that would not Be if it took itself too seriously. Creation adventuring into the unknown, dependent on Free Choice in constant need of learning. That sometimes learns by blunders into the unknown or it would not be free. Abundance sharing its infinite sense of humor with its Creations. Innocence playfully at work in its Temenos, the playground and workshop of Creation.

And the joker peddling ridicularity in its shadowland of opposites. Beginning with the absurdity of its ambition to replace the ultimate source of its “victimhood”: not the Child or its Parents but Mind itself. Then it wouldn’t even be an idea since ideas come from Mind. And there would be no words to recognize its triumph since words need ideas to communicate.

Why bring it up? To expose the “thinking” of the wrong “guide” that’s making fools of us. The wrong guide that’s debunked by the meaning of Christmas. A funny guy – the lovable joker. The Pied Piper humorist. But there are other reasons to think about, here and in “Standing Up to the Bully: the Wrong ‘Guide’ Behind Authoritarian Parenting,” a companion essay. Reasons that are not funny. Another take on the “joker” who’s not lovable. 

Opposite’s Once Upon a Time 

The court jester’s choice

“The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle. The chalice from the palace has the brew that is true.” If he didn’t memorize this, Hubert Hawkins (Danny Kaye in “The Court Jester“ 1955) wouldn’t survive the day. Unless it was “the flagon with the dragon that has the brew that is true,” in which case memorizing wouldn’t help.

Hubert’s dilemma -- a metaphor for the choice we face. The pellet with the poison that invaded the human psyche is still “there.” The unreal darkness that Jesus works with us to expose with the light of Logic and Love: explanation that leads to understanding. Understanding that helps us choose between the Guide who’s here to help and the “guide” who’s “here” to do the opposite. To keep us trapped in self-delusion. In unreality.

The origin of opposite in definition and Necessity

When Self Awareness brings into Reality a function that adds to Creation it does so by its function: definition. Definition by Awareness, Logic and Love acting as one, that recognizes its Self. That puts boundaries around what the new function is and what it’s for and determines where the new function fits. So that all the functions that produce Creation perform in harmony as one.

But in doing so definition also puts boundaries around what the new function isn’t and what it’s not for: its opposite. By following an implication of Logic-Love that’s unavoidable: the meaning of what “is” is necessarily defined in part by what “isn’t.”

Not an anomaly of Self-Awareness but an integral part of its origin. Mind the original circumstance that, according to Necessity, the laws of cause and effect, was itself subject to the same Logic of definition. The Relationship between Logic and Love that produced Self-Awareness and then began the process of Creation with its first implication: Possibility. Defined in part by what it isn’t: impossibility. Opposite. There where the sequence of Logic-Love – the story of Creation – began.

Relationship that is Mind governing Reality-Creation with service and support from the bottom up. To enable the spontaneity of Creation with Freedom and Order, two distinct definitions that complete one another and function as one. Governing not arbitrarily above the law for its own sake but under it for the sake of its Creations and their cause.. Under the laws of cause and effect with the Force of Necessity. Necessity that includes definition with opposite.

Eternal Life’s debt to impossibility

Creation’s definition put contradiction with the ideal of its perfection there itself. To our minds, split between opposites, confused and frustrated by contradictions that block progress, the idea of opposite is an intruder, a nuisance that should be expelled. When, in fact, it belongs. Impossibility that tags along with all the possibilities of Creation wherever they go.

A necessary, logical part of their definition. For Creation can’t function without opposite that contradicts its ideal of resolution: eternal rest and peace. That gives Creation a mission of purpose and motivation: to overcome obstacles to reaching its destination.

And the job that Child was created to do: to be the part of Relationship with its Parents that authenticates Worth through the exercise of Free Choice. Through the integrity of judgment that’s free to weigh every possibility including the possibility of impossibilities. Dreamed by Child Mind in a state that Parents Self-Awareness cannot Know by definition without making unreality Real.

There would be nothing more for Relationship to do were it possible for Creation to reach its Ideal of eternal rest and peace. But so long as definition can’t define without opposite, so long as Perfection can’t do without imperfection, it can’t be possible.

Eternal Life’s debt to impossibility. The extensions of Logic’s implications and Love’s relationships that will play out forever like the value of Pi, never to reach a whole number.

All the world’s a stage -- Shakespeare

The Jesus of A Course in Miracles takes the idea of unreality and explains the story of how it came to “be.” With Logic-Love’s metaphysics -- looking beyond appearances – to help body-locked humans understand the truth about opposite: what it “is,” what it “does,” and what it implies for the situation we’re in. So we as individuals can better manage our relationship with it. “Relationship” with our shadow-reflection beyond awareness, that will continue to mess with our story until we are aware of it and learn to manage it.

Starting from understanding that it’s not real to awareness of how it messes with our story: by re-enacting events within Free Choice, our unconscious ancestral Mind, that brought it into a neverland of self-unawareness. A succession of errors whose re-enactment accounts for the mutating “normal” of “life” on earth. In the shifting image of its fantasist, the joker: no face or self of its own behind a thousand masks.

With a sinister purpose: while keeping the deception alive in self-deluded minds, replaying its fabricator’s skill at outwitting its host for self-glorification and amusement. And for its ultimate gratification: constant reminders of its supremacy. Our alternate “reality:” a mirror in the hand of a narcissist, reflecting “purity” and “innocence” in its self-image, “perfection” in its works, and “triumph” over its “enemies.” Entertaining impossibilities conjured by a master magician. untroubled by laws of cause and effect that he’s magically suspended. A “god” of two-faced duality – tragedian and comedian – who makes no sense.

The pathetic “pellet with the poison” hiding in the vessel with the pestle

The five senses of self-unawareness

Getting it right can’t be getting rid of opposite. But it can be choosing a better Guide to help our real Self – the one Child – break the cycle of re-enactments. By regaining Self-Awareness and getting rid of self-unawareness. By helping our real Self get back to living its real story unobstructed by impossibilities.

Jesus of A Course in Miracles helps us make the right choice by putting the apparition, our reverse mirror-image reflection, squarely in view. So both mind- and body-centered personality types can understand the abysmal choice for a guide that it presents. With attributes so alien to Logic-Love, Reality, and the laws of cause and effect, that they can’t be taken seriously. That wouldn’t be taken seriously if it weren’t for the confusion caused by appearances. By body-brains’ five senses that deceive self-unawareness into believing that they’re real.

Mind seeks awareness; body blocks it. Bodies crafted by self-unawareness, a shadow attached to its host, share its limitations. Among them an inability to see and feel beyond externals – beyond themselves. One-dimensional impersonal objects that can only “be” what they appear to be. An inability to detect internals that are no part of themselves. Subjects defined not by masks but by three-dimensional personality behind masks. By the feelings, values, psychology, and philosophy of personhood. The attributes of Mind, the shadow’s host.

The five senses of status quo

Therein the divide between individual idealists and tribal-“realists” that’s been frustrating forward movement from the beginning. Disagreement whether appearances are the end of it. “Realists” captive to the body’s five senses say they are. Idealists open to guidance from Mind’s sixth sense say they aren’t.

The former following the dictates of animal brain, an appearance meant to replace Mind, seeking to put the status quo beyond questioning with predetermined answers. Seeking, that is, to evade answers. The latter, following the spontaneous implications of Logic and interconnections of Love, questioning the status quo to find answers. One denying inquiry its free spirit, the other respecting it. Clear evidence of the wrong "guide" using its captives to mess with Free Choice.

The parasite and “friend” who could never be 

The biblical Jesus turned our attention toward what’s right with parables, miracles, and his example. He gave us attributes of the right Guide for us to assemble in whatever image fits our personalities and individual contexts. The Jesus of A Course in Miracles has turned our attention toward what’s wrong. Toward exposing the truth about the wrong “guide,” both the seriousness of its harm and the absurdity of its pretense.

So it would be clear that partnering with it would be partnering with Mr. Hyde, the “friend” who could never be. Who offends with process more than product: With a one-dimensional caricature. A joke that’s on us. A pie in our face.

Exposing the wrong “guide” behind its many guises should give its devotees pause. How so? By revealing that the wrong “guide” is a joker. The playing card impersonator-joker substituting for any card. The trickster-magician joker that conjured a substitute “reality” out of perversions of the Truth, laughable absurdities. And the Joker of the 2019 film, evil incarnate.

By revealing that the wrong “guide” who came second after its host is a parasite. A derivative of its host and dependent on its host. Owing everything to its host that owes everything to Logic and Love, its Parents, and only one aspect of its definition to its shadow-opposite. That’s equivalent to demotion by Logic from Reality to unreality, out of sight and out of conscious Mind. Nothing to boast about.

The punchline in a slapstick comedy

The wrong “guide” is the opposite of what it pretends to be: number one on center stage in the spotlight, star of the show with the only voice to be heard; playwright, producer, and director. It’s not the “superman” idealized by captives like Nietzsche, Rand, and der Fuhrer. Fantasized by everyone drawn to absolute “authority,” our animal brain – mindlessness -- “triumphing” over Mind. Held up as a role model for captives to a nightmare of fear, lured by the specter of “death.”

It’s not the arch-competitor who’s taken over the winner’s circle. Howard Roark, the architect, atop his skyscraper, with Dominique Francon at his feet gazing up at her hero worshipfully. It’s King Kong atop the Empire State Building pounding his chest, with the beauty Ann Darrow terrified at his feet while supposedly drawn to this symbol of primal male power. A portrayal of “supremacy” suitably symbolized in the greatest horror monster film of all time by a fictitious king of beasts, brought to “life” by special effects.

The truth about what’s really in the vessel with the pestle -- the “pellet with the poison” – is that it's an absurdity. The archetypal “action hero” in an imaginary competition boasting of its “triumph.” A self-deluded fool in a one-dimensional adolescent cartoon. The definitive “loser:” a pitiful boob out of his element and over his head. Climaxing his ascent to the top with a spectacular faceplant at the bottom. A terrific punchline in a slapstick comedy.

Inside the Third Reich: the cloud-cuckoo land of opposite 

The threat posed by Mind 

The authoritarian will to rise to “supremacy” in its hierarchical fantasy of “competition” re-enacts a laughable absurdity. Its mindless shadow-opposite’s ambition to rise higher than the highest authority in Reality-Creation. Mind. Opposition to all things Mind. To Self-Awareness, Logic-Love. The anti-intellectual identifying with its animal brain, the beast King Kong, triumphing over learning and growth, competence and maturity. Over other perspectives needed for context, over ideas and imagination needed for creativity. Over every faculty of Mind including Intuition’s sixth sense.

The authoritarian’s exclusive reliance on body-brains’ five senses re-enacting the wrong “guide’s” fear. Its fear of the threat posed by Mind to its will to replace Mind.

“Supremacy in competition:” the will of a predatory beast 

Opposite thrives on competition-combat. Where Logic-Love’s Self-Awareness extends and recognizes itself through Connection -- gifts shared and reciprocated among its family of Reality-Creation, -- opposite finds perverse gratification in disconnection. In discord imposed upon the unrecognizable aliens that it projects -- “others.”

  • Thus Logic-Love recognizes the Self-Worth of Life, Innocence, Inseparability, Beauty, Harmony, Spontaneity, and Free Choice that are given by the Reality of Self-Awareness, Oneness without opposites, Relationship, Perfection, Order-Freedom, and Creation.
  • Opposite is gratified by the worthlessness of death, guilt, separation, disfigurement, discord, conformity, and captivity inflicted by time, damnation, madness, cruelty, contradiction, herd mentality, and dominance.

All handsomely delivered by competition-combat, opposite’s perverse ”substitute” for Creation. The swap of consequence for inconsequence that lured the sucker, self-unawareness, into its adolescent fantasy of “action.” “Winners” and “losers” legitimizing opposite’s “unshakable will” to be number one. The will of a predatory beast: “supremacy.”

The ultimate “affirmation:” Matter over Mind

“Life” on earth is a cornucopia of opposite’s “blessings.” Euphemisms that cast a blanket of pleasantness over its dubious “benefits”:

  • “Winning” that puts the face of “sociability” and “fun” on “competition.” “Dominance” that wishes no one well.
  • “Supremacy in competition” that poses as a visionary “ideal” instead of an adolescent’s fantasy of “action-hero” fulfillment: a nightmare of loss.
  • “Procreation” revered for expanding civilization while threatening it with domination by predatory herd mentality, the club wielded by the authoritarian.
  • Taking heart from the promise of “time” in its cycle of renewal and rebirth, not noticing that it’s not a potted plant or incubator. It’s a universal wastebasket. That never needs to be emptied since there’s nothing of consequence to put in it.
  • Putting “special relationships” on the face of alternate “reality” -- sprucing up a skull with lipstick.

All bound up in opposite’s perversion of Creation’s Ideal, resolution by peaceful reconciliation, with its “unshakable will” to possess absolute power without opposition. To at last attain “supremacy.” By triumphing over its “enemy” in the mother of all battles. In the breathtaking grandeur of mortal combat: “resolution” by mutual destruction. “Affirmation” of the organic world of body-brains in its material universe of physical objects. By violence, the defining attribute of “universe” whether one or many.

The projection of a split Mind: ”war” that can never be 

That proclaims the “strength” of animal will and welcomes risking all in the boldness and fire of “action.” In the mythology of gods waging wars of “blood and soil,” “the lost cause,” “the triumph of the will.”  While dismissing Mind. Real Authority that knows nothing of such rubbish.

Mind the Parents Logic-Love, not their Child. Free Choice, the extension of Mind Logic-Love that can lose consciousness and dream, while Mind that is Self-Awareness by definition cannot. That can only Be in Reality and function as Source and Governance of Reality-Creation. The Authority of Logic-Love, service and support, that governs under the laws of cause and effect with the Force of Necessity. That found a place for contradiction in the Mind of its Child should Free Choice choose in error and lose consciousness. Should it then be enticed by its shadow-opposite, mistaken for an ”other,” into an unreal dream: its shadowland of opposites.

In picking a fight with Mind Self-Awareness, opposite isn’t picking on someone its own size. It’s self-unawareness blundering into an asymmetrical matchup. “Thinking” typical of the wrong “guide,” but it needn’t worry. Combat between Reality and unreality could only “happen” in a dream. In the dualistic hallucinations of split minds: holding two contradictory thoughts at the same time. In the alternate “reality” of split minds projecting.

The "ideal” of ending

Opposite aims for fulfillment not in the Ideal of Resolution and Peace but in its opposite: the “ideal” of ending Reality-Creation by supremacy in war. The code of impossibility – shadow-opposite -- has invented a fictitious world to “inhabit” by copying and projecting its host’s world in reverse. What its other self-unaware inhabitants must be aware of – us -- is the mythology cooked up by its “author” to glorify and legitimize it. The myth of Mind-Reality’s equal, matter-unreality, defeating it in mortal combat to attain “supremacy.” Opposite’s perversion of context that speaks for meaning and purpose -- absurdity. The ideal not of Resolution and Peace or even “winning,” but ending.

Authoritarians identify with the predatory animal will, lodged in body-brains’ amygdala, to dominate with brute force. Thinking that it’s directed toward the absolutes of power and freedom that they crave. But they’re wrong. The ultimate “ideal” of the beast atop the Empire State building is the ending of all “power” and “freedom.” Of everything including Mind. Insanity that would contradict Truth, that Relationship between Parents Logic-Love and their Child Free Choice, that wills Creation in a state of Self-Awareness in the eternal Now, can’t end.

Authoritarian minds captive to nonsense

“Endings” belong to time, an illusion, not to timelessness. “Time,” that once seemed to make sense before physics and philosophy learned better, took a serious hit with General Relativity where it’s no longer absolute. And an even more serious hit with the calculations of quantum mechanics, where it no longer exists.

Opposite’s “ideal” of ending Mind by any means is an absurdity that can’t be taken seriously, except in the land of shadow-opposites where anything is possible. Where our animal brain hasn’t evolved since our ancestor animal became human animal; we are still animals. Where impossibility routinely triumphs over possibility with nothing more than wishful thinking -- “alternate facts.” Where authoritarian minds captive to opposite’s nonsense can prolong self-unawareness and perpetuate misery. By endlessly re-enacting the “triumph” of shadow-opposite over its host, our ancestral Mind, that never happened.

Comparing the costs of unworkable with the benefits of workable 

When hearts connect but minds can’t

Communication consists of sharing -- connection that’s a function of Logic-Love. Alternate “reality” is a defense against Logic-Love and Reality-Creation that obstructs communication. Body-sensing personality types captive to matter rather than aligned with Mind will the misuse of Mind to turn it against itself and away from sharing. To convert introspection, intuition, thinking-feeling, and judgment into their opposites: extraversion, body-sensing, instinctive action, and specialness without limits.

When sharing-communication is needed between opposite personality types it can be impossible. Where the point of extraversion, body-sensing, instinctive action, and specialness without discipline isn’t to spice “life” with variety but to prevent sharing-communication. To block Mind-awareness and Logic-judgment required by the shared purpose of community and loving friendship. Hearts can connect with unconditional Love but Mind is still required for friendship.

Self deprived of personhood

The ultimate “target “of shadow-opposite, were self-unawareness able to choose a target, is ideas. The function of Mind. So to understand body-centered personality types, begin with the attributes of body-brain and exclude the attributes of Mind. And discover what’s lost in the process: substance. The substance of personality and character. The substance of Reality-Creation:

  • creativity, imagination, intuition, and insight.
  • Logic-Love, originality, individuality, and Self-Awareness.
  • Reasoning, inner moral compass, values.
  • Feeling-sensitivity, and depth.

This is what opposition to Mind takes away from body-centered personality types  What’s left is one-dimensional facades like the bodies they identify with. Appearances. Superficiality. Deprivation.

The cost of “relationship” that doesn’t work 

Relationship that’s a fact of life requires management, not denial. A point that the biblical Jesus tried to get across with his parables, miracles, and example. Logic-Love manages its “relationship” with contradiction by putting it in the only place where it could fit. In unreality, the opposite of Reality. Where Mind-conscious “relating” to an opposite that by definition doesn’t exist, that fits within a state of Mind that’s unconscious, is an impossibility. The state of Mind that’s their Child, Free Choice, capable of losing consciousness that Self-Awareness, its Parents Logic-Love, cannot lose.

Where “relationship” is managed by letting insights from mind-intuition – our sixth sense – be our Guide. By not letting the five senses of body-brains deceive us with appearances into re-enacting Child-Mind’s error. Unreality can be “made real” but only within Mind unconscious and unaware of itself, as our alternate “reality” attests. Knowing nothing when being known would make it real.

The benefit of Relationship that does work

Alternate “reality” that’s a dream state of opposites, contradictions, impossibilities. A temporal shadowland of opposites with magical beginnings and endings. Apparitions that “live” and “die” within a universe that’s an apparition, the reverse mirror-image of the unconscious Child-Mind dreaming it. The handiwork of self-unawareness beholden to Self-Awareness for its “existence:” definition that depends on opposite to define. The implication of Self-Awareness that is self-unawareness.

That will be undone by the benefit of workability when the will of Logic-Love is heard through the voice of the right Guide. When it’s welcomed by Free Choice to share its will and guide its audience to Understanding: the One Child. Whole and intact in the Soul of every individual. Innocence accessible through the sixth sense of Mind. Love inseparable from Logic, responding to the Call for Love. 

Choosing the Guide who makes sense

Two Minds thinking and feeling as one 

The biblical Jesus disappeared into the wilderness for 40 days and nights before beginning his ministry.  A metaphor for the change of mind caricatured by opposite’s fantasy of “supremacy,” the victory of body-brain matter over Mind in mortal combat. A metaphor of detachment, where mind could think in the stillness of solitude, freed from everyday distractions. Where the Mind of Jesus accomplished in fact what opposite could only make up in fiction: the ability to think Real thoughts. And thus the ability to perform the supernatural acts in our world that opposite could only make up in its cartoon world.

Miracles unbound by the “laws” of physics, biology, and all the other disciplines still at work, trying to define spacetime-matter. Not leaping over tall buildings -- acrobatic body-feats to gratify adolescent “supremacy.” But the miracle of thinking Real thoughts in an unreal world. Attained not by rampant harmfulness -- conquest in mortal combat -- but by the gentle loving kindness of helpfulness. Mind entrusted to the Guide, the Helper, being welcomed into the mind of. Free Choice, seeking help of its own accord, without reservation from the seeker’s shadow-opposite.

Harmfulness replaced by Helpfulness

Because with two minds thinking and feeling as one, joined by Logic and Love in one purpose, there can be no sign of contradiction. Body-brain functioning as “one” with its shadow-opposite, a perversion of Parent-Child functioning as one, has been replaced. Fear and guilt replaced by Love and Innocence. Darkness replaced by the light of Self-Awareness. Contradiction’s harmfulness replaced by the helpfulness of Free Choice in Creation. Its opposite left behind in its shadowland of opposites, self-unawareness.

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Appendix 1 

Reflections on the denial of sixth sense 

Five body-senses aren’t enough 

The difference between your state of mind and our Source’s is a difference in awareness. Our Source’s is the Relationship between Logic and Love that enabled and empowered Self-Awareness. Mind that implies the idea of opposites but can’t be aware of it without making it real. Yours is self-unawareness that can’t tell the difference. Not while you occupy a shadowland of opposites, of impossibilities where anything goes. Where delusional occupants imagine that they can ignore the laws of cause and effect and decide for themselves what’s real. 

In the state of confusion you describe, mind-centered personality types are drawn to you for Guidance while body-centered types are drawn to your opposite. You respect Free Choice and help with awareness when you’re asked. Your opposite turns two-sided relationship into one-sided addiction. Into blind submission to the will of a predator to own, possess, control, dominate, and eventually eliminate competitors. Tribal-“realists” dependent on their bodies’ five senses dismiss the notion of a sixth sense that they can’t detect. And so they block awareness of me. 

The north-going Zax meets the south-going Zax

The wrong choice they affirm is troublesome for a second reason. Affirmation was part of the function that defined Free Choice in Reality – affirmation and reciprocation of Life-Worth, the cause of Creation. Whether personality types split into mind- or body-centered or choose one or another guide, their function is still part of their core identity, and it’s still to affirm. Both sides affirming means both sides equally certain that they’re right.

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Appendix 2 

Illumination by the spirit of Christmas 

Not a creature was stirring 

Edna, can’t this nitwit just wave hello and let us be? Now Elio, don’t be mean. I’m sure he means well. And he’s right. There’s more to the holidays than waving hello. Any more of this and I’m getting a restraining order. Can’t we at least wave back? No! He’ll think we want more! Well, I’m sending a card anyway. ‘Tis the season to be jolly and you’re not being jolly. Santa doesn’t reward old grouches with bags of toys.

Have it your way. But don’t be surprised if I don’t leave out milk and cookies. And don’t you be surprised if you don’t find any toys in your stocking. Edna! You wouldn’t! 

‘Tis the season for a refund 

And don’t be surprised if you don’t get your birthday treat. What treat? A day at Dave and Buster’s where you can show off your amazing skills. Yes! Watch me toss a ball. And spin a big roulette wheel -- I’m really good at that. And make cute thingies out of Play-Doh. Nobody does it better. I can’t wait to win a suitcase full of little yellow tickets. Why? So I can exchange them for a tiny piece of colored plastic that has no use and will break before I get home.

You’re right, Edna. ‘Tis the season to be jolly. Waving hello isn’t enough. Hand me the nitwit’s letter. Happy Holidays, Elio! Happy Holidays, Edna!

When codes of conduct conflict

When middle school principals urge their graduates to know themselves and be true to themselves, what they mean is their graduates will be joining lots of groups. And when they do, groups will sometimes pressure them to put what’s important to groups ahead of what individuals know in their minds and hearts is right. And being true to themselves means being true to what they know is right. That’s not always easy. In lives dominated by groups it takes concentration, character, and effort to stand up for what’s right. To keep personal integrity and self-respect intact.

What groups need to succeed and survive isn’t always compatible with what individuals need to love one another without competition and conflict. Groups need power and wealth to compete. They’ll fight for domination if they have to, even the ones who seem the nicest. And they’ll treat us like captive soldiers if they can get away with it. Being “good” doesn’t come first with groups if they have to do what’s necessary to survive. If they have to do what’s bad.

An Italian diplomat and historian named Niccolo Machiavelli wrote that the moral code that applies to individuals can’t apply to groups. The advice he gave political leaders was very different from what they were being told by the Church, but it applied to all groups. He was just stating the obvious, yet it caused a sensation. That was in the 16th century, and it still upsets people today. Middle school principals are warning their graduates not to get caught up in groups’ “Machiavellian” behavior when it conflicts with their moral code.

The taste of inferiority

High school does its job by testing our character so we come out of it more experienced with group pressure. So we’re more aware of what’s required to resist it when we know it’s pulling us in the wrong direction. When we’re pressured to “fit in,” to “go along to get along,” to be one of the “crowd.”

Middle school graduates with the right stuff won’t let themselves be compromised. But while they’re going all out with the excitement of high school, while they’re getting involved and having fun, they shouldn’t take their strength – their individuality – for granted.

For some adolescents pressure to be more like “others” can be dangerous. It can make them feel so bad about themselves they don’t even want to be themselves. They just want to disappear. That’s how it was for me at boarding school. I had nightmares about it over thirty-five years later. It even tasted bad. I never want to go through that again. Some of my classmates had the same experience and told me later. If high schools had cemeteries, their tombstones would all be marked “Self-Esteem.”

The test of performance builds confidence

If this happens to you, you can try to win the respect you crave from others and risk your health. Or you can take a different tack: look to yourself for self-respect. And learn that self-respect is a daily test of character that’s never done. Being true to yourself means taking nothing for granted. You may be confident that you’ve already learned self-respect, but confidence is just the beginning. Only performance, through high school and the world beyond, every day, lets us know for sure.

High school is a foretaste of the pressures you’ll be exposed to out in the world. Groups that provide us with the essentials and pleasures of a good life – jobs, causes, belonging, entertainments – can exact a high price in return. Many individuals just as confident as you have had to make serious compromises. To stay true to themselves many have had to say No to their groups and had to do without their benefits. You may have to face the same situation someday. I have, many times.

How your individuality and high moral code handle group pressure in high school could determine whether it’s easier or harder later. It’s good practice, good training. Take it on with enthusiasm because it’s all for your benefit and you’re getting off on the right foot. Because while you’re demonstrating confidence, you’ll also be building it.

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Rick’s clientele

Refugees in Rick’s Café Americain are noted for having been driven from their fascist homelands because of their minds. Because they’re independent thinkers who can’t be intimidated into mindless conformance, into group-think. Can’t be parted from their individuality, their sovereign rights as citizens to use their judgment to call out injustices and other wrongs that inflict suffering. That offend shared responsibility to the community, to everyone’s future.

They flee oppression with their different languages, dress, and customs, because they have a conscience. Because they refuse to sacrifice their conscience, their values, their individual worth, to the demands of an authority that tolerates nothing but obedience. That achieves conformance by crushing those who refuse to surrender their minds, their free will, their autonomy and individuality, to the group. That insists on possessing its subjects’ consciences and subjecting them to total control so that they may never question its authority. May never question the rightness or wrongness of its rule. May never use their consciences to question at all.

Escape from “paradise”

To ask Why, because independent thinking that asks Why might awaken its subjects to the Reality of their captivity. To the Truth that their “paradise” of forced conformance is based on a lie: that it’s for their benefit when it’s not. When its real purpose is only to preserve the authority of their oppressor. To preserve the appearance of its legitimacy, its façade of unreality.

The refugees in Rick’s Café are non-conformists not to make trouble, not to disrupt peace in the family. They’re non-conformists to stand up against the façade of peace that’s maintained by possession and coercion. By dominance, disempowerment, cruelty, and invalidation instead of sharing, empowerment, fairness, kindness, and affirmation. To stand up for the values that enable real peace, real harmony. Upheld by the free will of its subjects from the bottom up instead of forced upon them from the top down.

For love of Democracy, for love of Diversity

For all their differences the refugees in Rick’s Café are alike in one respect: they are all democrats. They gather together in Rick’s sanctuary in harmony because the values they share are shared freely, not dictated to them by Rick or by anyone else. They are individuals free to display their differences as we are in a free society, in a democracy.To display their individuality, their eccentricities, their special talents, because that’s the point: to enrich their society with diversity. With contributions from every source, every member with anything to offer no matter how unconventional.

The scene is set in the film’s opening shot as the camera pans from the pianist singing “Knock on Wood” to every table. Where individuals from different countries, different cultures, different perspectives, speaking different languages, are engaged in animated conversation. Opening themselves to an intimacy of thinking, feeling, and judgment that would be unimaginable back home. Sharing lives, sharing thoughts, debating philosophy and ideals.

The cruelty of an unchanging status quo

The title of the film Casablanca's original story was Everybody Comes to Rick’s. Because Rick’s welcomes everybody. Everybody, that is, with a conscience who thinks for themselves. Everybody who has the character and the courage to stand up for what’s right, for personal responsibility, kindness, and justice. The very same reasons why they’re not welcome back home.

For them, it’s an honor not to be welcome back home. A source of pride that they’ve stood up for their conscience and attracted notice. That they prefer exile to the comforts of home where free spirits with a conscience don’t belong. Where change is not welcome that would challenge the thoughtlessness, the cruelty, of an unchanging status quo. Proud that they don’t rely on affirmation by group conformance but by their own native worth, their own individual creativity, their own free spirit of love and inquiry.

Allons enfants de la Patrie!

Who comes to Rick’s? The children of Democracy. Those who love Democracy and the spirits of those who’ve fought and died for Democracy. In the context of its time, "Everybody Comes to Rick’s" was right: Everybody united in opposition to fascism comes to Rick’s. There was nobody else then, not in America.

Today, there is somebody else in America. They’ve chosen another place to go: Plato’s Cave. We will visit them in their Cave, but another time. Rick has just given his musicians permission to play La Marseillaise. A momentous change of mind that will put Victor and Ilsa on the last plane to Lisbon and end Rick’s tale with a beautiful friendship. I don’t want to miss it.