Workshop - “Whitney ‘88” – Lake Whitney, TX 1988 - Part 1
Verbatim Transcript: 6 CDs
The following is as close a verbatim transcript as is possible.
Dr. Bob’s laid-back “Kentucky-ese” is retained –
we have neither corrected his grammar, dialect, pronunciation
nor taken it upon ourselves to change his words.
Audience (laughter) is noted; he was a master at keeping the mood up!
Audience participation is (parenthesized) and separated from his words.
Emphasized words by the speaker are in italics.
If the words were unintelligible, there’s a blank: “_________.”
[Anything that offers clarity to the reader is italicized inside brackets.]
CD 1 of 6 “Lake Whitney, TX 1988”
I was to start and then they told me that wasn't gonna work. So, now I said when I get the questions answered, why, I'll be ready to go; we got two. And Richard asked me what I was gonna talk about and I said I hadn't figured it out yet, but I'd get it figured by the time we got up here. And Miss Barbara tells me that I'm supposed to talk about "what do you value." Okay, that ought to be easy. What do you value? The biggest part of us, without ever stoppin’ to think about it, value more than anything else not bein’ disturbed, is that about right? (laughter) Now we got what you figured out, what you value. And we also figure that if we come to these kind of meetings and all the others they have here and you read all the books and listen to all the tapes and if you get to be goody-good enough, you will not be disturbed. But I got news for you. It don't work.
In other words what we talk about is not how to not be disturbed, but how to use the disturbances. You're gonna have em, we live on planet Earth and there's no way to live on planet Earth awake and not be disturbed – and most of us have bad dreams, so when we're asleep. And so an awful lot of people have used various and sundry substances that seems to make you unconscious for a little while and they hope to be non-disturbed that way. Does that work, Barbara? It don't work either, does it? Okay?
So let's make a fundamental up here. This is the biggest misconception that all people have. They have the misconception – we'll put the back down – [writes it on the chalk board] “It is possible to live disturbance-free on planet Earth.” Now that is a misconception. Now, most people have it and they don't believe that they have it, but it is fundamental. It's right there. But, so I said what we all value is workin’ at all times.
[woman joins the group] How you doin’, Miss Tanya?
(Just fine! How are you?)
Oh, I couldn't be better. I'm at my usual stuff, honey.
So, that's one that you value is to be non-disturbed. Is that about what you work at all the time? Huh? Ever time you complain, it's because you've been disturbed. Ever time you stick up for your rights it's to make somebody quit disturbing you. Ever time you blame something is because it disturbs you in some way or other. Ever time you feel obligated – I must please this person even though I don't want to please em – is because you're trying to be non-disturbed; don't dare rub em the wrong way, they'll bite. Okay?
(Or keep him non-disturbed.)
Or somethin' on that order. And we try to have authorities who will tell us if we do all the good things they want us to do and everything… My mother who was of course my first authority told me if I always did the right thing, everything would be fine. But, poor lady, she never did get around to tellin’ me what the right thing was; and of course, she didn't know. So, she thought I would be good and not embarrass her – that was the whole bit she wanted. So, there is no way we're gonna get along. Now we try to improve ourselves. You ever been through that routine tryin' to get better, be Miss goody-good-two-shoes? And if you just do everything properly, why you'll be improved and then you won't be disturbed, is that right?
So here is what do we value is we value non-disturbance. And if I may set off, let's change that misconception right now. You're not gonna live on planet Earth without some disturbances. That about right, Richard? If it's not the kid, it's something else, is that right? Huh?
(That's right.)
No matter what it is, the boss, it's the traffic. It's the weather. It's the way I feel today. And you can just find jillions of things to blame. Have you ever tried blamin'? Never tried that in your life, did you? Never. Never. Course you're one of those goody-good-two-shoes, (laughter) but…shoes are black though. So here is a misconception. Now we face a little cycle we call
The Vicious Cycle
– most everybody has it to some degree. Some have it intense – The Vicious Cycle. It goes on day in, day out and it is what makes us age. We get on the Vicious Cycle and stay there for a while and it's… I read all kinds of material that comes across my desk. Some of it I read, some of it I look at. One gets a whole bunch of ads about every month how to not age. It's a book, you know, I get the ad for the book. The book cost $30 and I can send it back after 30 days if it didn't work. So how you gonna tell where you got through agin' in 30 days? Is that right? Takes years sometimes to figure it out.
So the first thing we put on the Vicious Cycle is a “
Misconception.
Now, all kinds of people write letters and they call collect to see what I mean by that misconception. You think I'm kiddin' about the collect calls? I had a call at 3 o'clock in the mornin' about a week ago, collect, from Algiers, Morocco. You wanna pay for that one? I'm still payin' for it, but I accepted the call. So the misconception is there. Now, sooner or later this misconception…
Here is a misconception that it’s possible to live on planet Earth without disturbance.
That's one we're gonna call, “The Big Prime Misconception of all Time.”
Sooner or later you're gonna have the false – I'll spell it all the way out [he writes it on the board]–
“False Feeling of Emergency”
because you're gonna be disturbed. “And here I've been goin' to talks. I've been goin' to read things, I've been listenin' to tapes, I've been prayin' about it. I've been doin' all sorts of wonderful things and here I was still disturbed.” So I have a False Feeling of Emergency. That False Feeling of Emergency sometimes is experienced as fear; sometimes as guilt, sometimes as anxiety. It can go on and on. Sometimes we have to invent words to have what we're upset about. But we got it because we wanted to be non-disturbed; and sure enough we feel disturbed a little bit. My solar plexus is goin’ “bip-bip-bip-bip-bip-bip.” And they can go on with a hundred and one other things. “I have a pain somewheres. I have a headache. I got a backache. No tellin' what, got somethin' goin' on because I've been disturbed a little bit or somethin' is disturbin' me and here I've studied all these things, did all these things and that's supposed to make me” – they believe – to be non-disturbed.
Now, I've never told anybody if you did any of the things we talk about that you would be non-disturbed. We said you can handle it easier because you just don't care anymore. You know. They used to tell a story about Robert that said there was – back when I did a little practice here and there instead of just talkin' about it – as told a story of one time I was invited to talk to the Lions Club, I think it was, and a man got up to introduce me. So I always say no introductions anymore. NEVER. I'll tell you who I am.
This guy got up and he said. “Well it's kind’a hard to describe what Dr. Bob does; but the best way I can tell you is about a friend of mine.” He was goin' down the street and he saw an old neighbor of his and the man was draggin' along just barely gettin' by and he went over and said, "Bill, what in the wrong world is wrong with you? What's the matter?"
He said, "Aw, I wish I was dead."
He said, "Well what do you mean? What's wrong with you?"
He said, "Aw look, I just dribble my pants. I can't control it at all."
And the man said, "Well, where have you been?"
He said, "Well I got some stuff down to the drug store and it didn't do any good. And a neighbor of mine give me some herbs and that didn't do any good. It's just nothing, it's hopeless."
He said, "Well, for goodness sakes, go see a professional man and they can take care of that. You won't have any problem." He said "I didn't see old Bill for about a month and I saw him goin' down the street. He was whistlin', walkin' along havin' a great time. And he said, "Hey Bill, I'm glad to see you lookin' feelin' good. How's everything?"
He said, "Oh it's just fine."
He said, "Well what about the dribblin', did it get over with?"
He said, "Oh, yeah…no, didn't get over with."
He said, "Well what did you do?"
He said, "Well, I took your advice and I went to see a professional."
He said, "Who'd you go to?"
He said, “Well I went to this Dr. Bob Gibson over here."
He said, "All he does is talk to you."
"Yeah, that's all he did. We just talked and he drew some pictures on the blackboard and stuff like that and we just got along fine."
He said, “Well, did all the dribblin' quit?"
He said, "Aw, hell no, it still dribbles. I just don't give a damn anymore." (laughter)
So, if you're gonna be disturbed, maybe you can just not give a damn. So, so what. You expect it to be that way. So now you can change it from a False Feeling of Emergency to somethin' else. But then, what does a False Feeling of Emergency do for you? When you have an emergency, the body mobilizes energy to fight or run. So it's mobilized energy. Yeah, you don't have any fightin' or runnin’ because the whole thing is not there, you know, there's nothin' to fight from. I just been disturbed. Somebody said “psst!” to you or somethin', you know. So that mobilized energy is unreleased. So we have unmobilized and unreleased energy – I'll just kinda hyphen that out – energy;
“Mobilized and Unreleased Energy”.
(That is what's called stress.)
You can experience it as anxiety, as nervousness. You ever been nervous, hon? A few times, hmm?
So that's mobilized and unreleased energy. When you have mobilized and unreleased energy, you feel all uptight. I think that's a good word for it. So when it's there, you mobilize energy. It must be used or it's held energy and that is an imbalance inside the living body and intelligence the body was always trying to make balanced. You're gonna get it balanced one way or another.
So, there's two ways to use up this mobilized and unreleased energy, okay? So, of course, you can call this
“Neuromuscular Tension.”
That's another word for it; everybody knows what that's like. You get tension headaches, you get all kinds of other things. So there's two ways to adapt. Now an “Adaptation” is absolutely necessary or otherwise you blow up. You can't go along with mobilized and unreleased energy.
So the real good people – those that's been to all the talks and everything and tryin' to be good and they've been improving themselves – they adapt first by
“Unusual Cellular Activity”.
A group of cells in the body begins to do something – and it doesn't matter where they are – to do something that they ordinarily don't do because they're not doin' ordinary function. They're burnin' up this mobilized and unreleased energy, usin' it up. So the unusual cellular activity always produces unusual sensation. Now, it may not always be pain. Sometimes it's just a tight feeling. Sometimes it's a feeling of puffiness. Did you ever tell somebody you felt all puffed up? It’s uncomfortable. Tried that one? Yeah. And this can go on through and through and it can be pain. Now, when we have unusual sensation our whole idea of the world is to be non-disturbed and here we're bein' disturbed by an
“Unusual Sensation”.
So the misconception gets stronger and now we have more False Feeling of Emergency. We got more mobilized and unreleased energy and more neuromuscular tension that requires a bit more of this [Adaptation]. So it gets more intense and we go on around this whole thing again. About that time we go somewheres and get a diagnosis. And when we get a diagnosis, it frightens you. You know there's all sorts of things put on cigarette packages and now it's on every gas pump in California that this product may be hazardous to your health. Well, the most hazardous thing to your health is a diagnosis.
Years and years ago old man Hahnemann, who was the father of homeopathic medicine, wrote that the most damaging things to wellbeing was an unhappy domestic situation. Well, we've gotten used to that so it don't bother us anymore. So, now it's diagnosis that gets us all torn up. So, we'll get a diagnosis and the doctor says you probably won't be six, seven months before you feel any better and maybe not even then and so on; so it goes around. So finally just the unusual cellular activity can't quite get it done and besides that, it's messin' up some cells. So then we have
“Tissue Cell Alteration or Breakdown.
Now we got the whole gambit of physical symptoms. Doctor, is there any other symptoms besides unusual function, unusual sensation and tissue cell alteration or breakdown? Give me one. Or does that cover everything in the books of symptomology, from beginning to end – just rearrange em a little bit according to colors, size, shape, location.
(That’s the most I ever heard of.)
That's all of it. So then we got this. Then we know that we really got something wrong with us. Before, the doctor might a said we should go see a psychiatrist. But when we get tissue cell alteration or breakdown, now he finally sees that for real, I was sick. Now I got something to prove it. All the hypochondriacs in the world said, “I knew they'd find something sooner or later!” and finally this doctor found it. Course, it just started a few days ago when he got there. So now we have the Vicious Cycle. Now that takes care of that.
Now, the old reprobates in the world – which, of course, none of em are here – they try
“Unusual Behavior.”
Now unusual behavior will burn all this stuff, use it up. You read frequently of some very severe unusual behavior is where somebody goes out and takes an axe and whacks up the whole family. Or he takes a gun and kills a bunch of em and so forth and so on. Or maybe he just gets on a big drunk ever now and then. Maybe he just goes off and throws rocks at cars off of the freeway overpass or somethin', but he's got unusual behavior. He drives 70 miles-an-hour down Main Street – whatever. So now, those guys wind up with two different options. They're either put in jail or a mental psyco ward for a while, okay? Now, you don't get many get-well cards, you don't get many visitors. They don't come to visit you very much.
Now the other one up here, you get in the hospital and there's all kinds of people come to see you. They send you get-well cards. And lots of people come in to visit and sympathize with you. But when you indulge in Unusual Behavior, you don't get much of that. But it sure makes a lot less scars on the body. May make a few marks on your record, on your resume and so forth, leaves a few blank spaces in there that you have to pass on by, but nevertheless, far less wear and tear on the body, hmm? That about right? Hmm?
I worked with one nice old gent. His family had finally talked to him till he got sober. He'd been drunk for approximately 40 years, and he finally sobered up. Now, you think all of his problems was over? No, he got so he couldn't walk; his legs wouldn't work. He was on two crutches and had to have somebody have him hold him up. So he and I sit and talked for a while and he said that there was no one could find what was wrong with his legs and all these things. Well, I sent a little kid out with a note to a friend I knew and told him it was from me and not the kid. The kid was legal age, but he was kind of a small guy. He come back with a pint of Jack Daniels and I set this out to the guy. And by the time he got through drinkin' half of that Jack Daniels, he could dance, he could walk, he didn't need crutches. In other words, he got back to his unusual behavior and he didn't need this stuff anymore.
Now, the first sight of him walkin’ and movin' around, the family said, “A miracle!”
I said, “No, just common sense.” And as soon as they smelled his breath and looked at his eyeballs, it wasn't a miracle anymore. But nevertheless, he could take his choice of which way he was gonna adapt or he could change his viewpoint – change his whole lifestyle, not just one little aspect of it. So when we changed the whole lifestyle, which we did about a week later for the old gent, then he could walk without the booze or the crutches. Now I thought that was a fair piece of work. I never did get paid for it. But nevertheless, I thought it was a fair piece of work cause the whole family was ticked off at me and he didn't have any money. So we didn't get anything out of that. But anyway, I thought it was fun so I learned a little bit anyway.
So now then, here is the Vicious Cycle over here. The Vicious Cycle. We'll just call it VC. Now obviously if there's a Vicious Cycle, there must be a Living Cycle. So we'll try to look at the Living Cycle for a minute. And soon as I get the eraser here, we'll take this down to size.
First off, is there any questions on this one, on the Vicious Cycle? Anybody got a question on the misconception up there? We'll start there. Anybody got one or can you kinda see that you're not gonna get along on planet Earth without a few jolts here and there? Thank goodness because we couldn't live if we were totally non-disturbed, we'd all be floatin' around like wet Jell-O. So it's good we have it; but it's even better if we understand that it's there and that it's not damaging. It's not wrong. I haven't done any evil thing in order to get it. It's just part of… comes with the territory, so to speak. Okay? Yes.
(Is there any validity what they're saying that people genetically, we have a predisposition to alcoholism or somethin' like that?)
Well, yes because we all have a predisposition to it if we wanna escape long enough – everybody has one; but I don't use it.
(Is that just an excuse?)
Oh well, it's just a good thing to keep you from feelin' responsible.
You know the hardest thing in the world to sell? You are responsible for you.
(Well I was __ askin the question ___)
Sure, so I'm responsible. I have a predisposition to be anything you want to mention – murderer, thief, robber, rapist – you name it. I have a predisposition; but just because I have one, I don't have to do it. I also have predisposition to be a saint and I don't wanna do that either. That don't look like any fun to me. Okay? But yes....
(Aren't they finding something in the chromosomes or genes that they say this person has –)
– a predisposition to this. Yes. I can find anything in a chromosome and genes and now then if I can relieve you of your feeling of responsibility, I've made you feel good, is that right? You didn't do it, honey, it was just those dirty old genes. Can you imagine the genes that Adam and Eve had?
(They’re just finding what they want to find.)
In other words, I can find an excuse for anybody that you're not responsible, Bernie.
(Okay.)
Okay. If it's your toenails curl the wrong way, I could say, “Well you got that as a chromosome or a gene. If you behave in a certain way, I'd say, "Well, you just inherited that." You heard about the man that was talkin' about his daughter how smart she was and he said to his wife, "I think she got all of her intelligence from me." She said, "I think so, cause I’ve still got mine!" (laughter)
So that was a good bet, see. So that's the way it goes. Now, so then they set out, “My father must have had this gene,” they find which one it was and then they hate that side of the family. Oh, it goes on and on and on. So anything to keep from bein' responsible is very welcome news. Yep, you have a chromosome that does this. I must have inherited a big size of one that made me lazy. But I don't wanna have to say, ”Well I'm the world's greatest procrastinator.” I say, mine runs in a family to be lazy, of course. Okay, any other questions on this one here? The Vicious Cycle – you got any up here? Yes.
(Yeah, why is it a “false” feeling of emergency?)
Because there's no real emergency goin' on at all. Now, sometimes if it's a tiger jumps at you, you can have a real one. Then you fight or run, you don't come up with mobilized and unreleased energy – you use it. But when it's just because I'm all upset because I've been disturbed today, “somebody rejected me, somebody ignored me, somebody criticized me,” that's no emergency. Good night, it isn't gonna hurt me – not one way or the other. I'd go around to say all the time, anybody don't approve of me has just got poor taste and what do I care about people with poor taste, you know? Hell with em. Okay? Any more questions? Thank you for those. If we don't get questions, we quit. Show's over.
(I have one.)
Good.
(Yesterday I had a real emergency.)
You had a real one.
(I had a snake in my utility room. And I got rid of it. But now I look, you know, and I imagine....)
...there's a bunch of em there.
(Yeah.)
We got a nest full of em there.
(What do you do about this imagination that tells me, oh there’s –)
– dozens of em in there. What kind of snake was it?
(It was a rattler...a baby.)
Baby… little bitty fella about that long. Yeah.
(About that long.)
That's about the size they come natural. So I guess that you will go there and look in there and do you see any more? Okay. How'd you find out about that one that was there?
(I saw it.)
Okay. You answered your question. If you see em, they're there. If you can't see em, they're not there, honey. (laughter) You see if I had a –
(How do I stop thinkin' about it? That's what I wanna know.)
Well, keep thinking about it freely. See, you're wantin' to know how to be non-disturbed here. How do I quit thinkin' those thoughts. So be free to think about snakes and the more free you are to think about little rattlers, baby rattlers, the more you won't care. So come on, let's just freely think about baby rattlers. You know if somebody walked up to you and said don't think about a one-eared elephant, what would you be thinkin' about from now on? But if nobody said it to you, it's all right. So, I'm free to think about one-eared elephants and I'm free to think about rattlers. See, there might be one in my pocket.
(I get it.)
Okay, so you're perfectly free to think about a little rattler, aren't you? Now if you're free to think about em, it don't bother you. It's when you're tryin' not to think about it because thinkin' of rattlers disturbs you.
(Yes, sure does.)
So, you're free to be disturbed now. Okay? Be free to be disturbed by thinkin' about rattlers and pretty soon you won't, but you'll be disturbed about somethin else. Okay any other question on here and thank you for that one. Anybody else got one? No? You don't have to be embarrassed. Everybody else has already did the workout first for you. It's free to do it now, okay? You got a question?
(I don't think so.)
Okay. Okay, it's clear as mud then. All right, we'll erase this one and we'll draw a Living Cycle, which we might as well live on as this one which you and I just talked about. Then you can start Livin' Cycle, okay? So we're gonna talk about a
“Living Cycle”.
(Does non-disturbance come from being in the womb and being non-disturbed?)
Is there what?
(Does the non-disturbance –)
Comes from the first day we were born. We'd been floatin' around here in a little Garden of Eden called the uterine world. There's no disturbance much in the uterine world. But in the process of gettin' from the uterine world to the Earth world, it held a lot of it. And they decide right then and there – each of us did, seemed reasonable to do – what we want to do is get back in that uterine world where I didn't have to bother with breathin'. I didn't have to struggle to get somethin' to eat. I didn't have to look for… I didn't even ever get hungry, huh?
(Yeah.)
And another one, I didn't get cold, I didn't get hot. So this is pretty relatively non-disturbed essentially, okay? And when you got kicked out of that world, you've been tryin' to get back there ever since unconsciously, so you might as well see that you're not gonna get there anyway, honey.
(We have an unconscious memory of that.)
Well, we got an unconscious habit, too.
(Yeah.)
Yep, we're still tryin' to do it.
Once a decision is made,
it's the rule of attitude-action from then on till you reevaluate it.
I don't want to live in a place of non-disturbance. I'm weak enough as it is. If I didn't have any disturbance, I couldn't even stand up. Okay?
So we'll draw us a Living Cycle. So this starts with recognizing that this is false. We would call that “perception.” We can recognize that whole idea up there is false. Then we would have a
True Feeling
about it. Now if we get run at with a truck or a little rattler starts singin' at my feet, I'll have a real disturbance and feeling of emergency and what'd you do? Did you go sit down and fret about or did you get the durn little snake out of there?
(I got a broom and got the –)
...and got him out.
(– snake and flipped him out the door.)
So you mobilized some energy to get rid of the baby snake and you used it up right then. So, that was mobilized and released by sweepin' him out the door – brutally. (laughter)
(Well I wasn't as brutal as the gal the worked for me, got the hoe and killed it.)
Well, that's all right. So the whole thing, the energy was used up. You mobilized it. Now, if I stood up here on this podium – I think that's what they call the things – I stood all the way up there and I look over here at the floor and I see how far it is, I can jump down there and it won't harm me one iota. Okay? Cause I mobilized the exact amount of energy to take for this to land on the floor. Now let's say that I demonstrated that at a time or two and somebody said we'll show him and he cut the carpet up and he cut out about two inches or three inches deeper under there and then stretched the carpet back over about where I'd land. And I jump and think I'm goin' to stop there, but I go three inches further. I'm gonna have a bunch of busted up bones, right Doug?
(I would imagine.)
Yeah, I know so. I tried it once. And you will get a bunch of broken bones and the orthopedist has a heyday puttin' you back together again. That's all right. Now, you mobilized energy, but you didn't have enough for the fact of what you were gonna do. If you'd a raised it up three inches suddenly it would have done the same thing, too.
So you had mobilized and released the energy. You didn't have neuromuscular tension. You had
“Neuromuscular Tone”
which is fine. You didn't require any adaptation, so you took a
“Creative Act”.
You threw the snake out and said, "Look I pay rent, or I own this house and if you wanna live here, you gotta get out. I don't want you there. You're not welcome."
(I’m not sharin' with ya.)
Not sharin' it with you. You don't have title or interest here, so out you go. So now that's the Living Cycle. And you perceive somethin' else goin' on in a few minutes. But then they come back and said, “Well, let's get her back on the Vicious Cycle.” So somethin' says, "What if there’s a bunch more of those little critters in here?" What if, what if, what if? I had umpteen calls last night and three of em was on the same subject – it was ladies callin' me to say they didn't trust their relationship. One says, “I'm ten years older than he is. He treats me wonderful. He is the most romantic man I've ever been around. He is an utter delight. But I don't trust that he will stay with me cause I'm 10 years older than him; and in a few years at the most, he'll drop me and go after some young chick. Now what if he does that? Huh?” So she left him. (laughter) Moved out, totally and completely, and she was utterly miserable.
So I said you got over your feeling of insecurity with the guy, what kind of a feeling now?
She said, "Oh God, it's awful. I feel lonely and I feel hurt. I feel guilty. I feel..." You know, she went through a whole litany of em there about how terrible she felt. And I said well wouldn't it have been better to just been free to feel insecure?
I'm insecure every time I get in a car. Are you? I’m liable to get clobbered. I see it on the freeway about every day. I'm not free to… I've got insecurity if I go in apartment. It may have asbestos on the ceilin', who knows? And every time I eat, God knows it may have cholesterol in it. It may have this in it. It may have all kinds of contaminants. Maybe they fed that poor beef on hormones and antibiotics. And think I'm eatin' that? Good grief, huh?
So “what if” can drive you up the wall. So, what if I'm not non-disturbed this time next year? Okay. What if I'm not non-disturbed 12 years from now? So the girl had a wonderful opportunity to have romance and companionship and joy for… even if her imagination was somewhat correct, the man would have at least found her interesting. I met the lady and she's a beautiful young lady. And she's not as young as some people are, but she's not as old as some of us are either, by any means. So she had at least ten or twelve years of fun in front of her – at least that much, hmm?
(Why waste it.)
Why waste it? Go on! Now she's gonna sit around and feel miserable, chew her fingernails off to her elbows and carryin' on and feelin' guilty and miserable and did I do the right thing. Oh man, you can make yourself miserable tryin' to be non-disturbed.
(She might have got tired of him!)
More than likely she would have. So that's my viewpoint exactly. And I so stated it before I got through. But I at least started off politely. And I get brutal after while; and after I get the mood up a little bit, then you can afford to be flamboyant. So I had two others that was almost identical situation, only it wasn't about the same thing. It wasn't because she was ten years older'n him. Some of it, it was the other way around. But it can be done over anything.
What if? Well what if the sky falls in tonight? Huh? What if there's an earthquake? I live out where they have one every once in a while and somebody always sayin' what if you have earthquakes there? Well, we had one a few days ago and all I noticed was it felt like somebody hit the corner of the building with a sledgehammer and I just went on about my business. I was talkin' on the telephone when it hit and I was talkin' on the telephone cause it quit, just… that's all there was to it… a little bigger than that. But it won't hurt you. It won't harm you. It just rattles and so what. I don't mind the buildin' rattlin', do you? Nicer than havin' rattlesnakes in there. (laughter)
(I've been in an earthquake, too. It is better.)
Huh?
(It’s better than rattlesnakes.)
Yep. So who's gonna holler about em, you know? There's not very many people get hurt with the thing. If you get dead, so what? You can't expect to live forever anyway and I might as well die in an earthquake as of AIDS.
So name it, you know, you got your choice. What's the difference. So you can live on the Living Cycle when you know this is a misconception. If you believe that that is possible. I don't care what you think it takes to get it possible. Maybe you gotta have a million dollars. Maybe you gotta have five million. Maybe you gotta win the California lottery for 60 million overnight. But whatever it is… Maybe you gotta have an automat to live with so you can program it to do what you want it to. If you want it to leave, you push a button, it'll leave. You want it to come back, push another button, it gets back. There's a design magazine, electronic design magazine come out two months ago, and it describes the perfect lady – just as the sexists feel, you know. Do you get the magazine?
(Nope.)
Well, they got it here and it sells however you want it to do. It's got a whole list of things this long – what you want to do and how you program it – how you push this button and it does this. If she's in your way, you can do this. She'll go away and be quiet. If you want her to be there, you push this button over here, she comes and is very loving. You get tired of that, you push that, she goes to sleep and etcetera – it's all very good. I'm keepin' it and I'm gonna copy it. It says on the magazine, not to do that; but I'm gonna do it anyway. I got it sittin' in the drawer and I'm gonna copy it 'cause it's the ultimate in sexist literature. It says these natural women are a mess; and this one that they designed electronically, you can have do the ideal. Now, I'll be the guy gets tired of it in a few days.
So you can have the Living Cycle or you can have the Vicious Cycle. Now which one you wanna carry around with you? It's your choice. But Bernie, you have to be responsible to decide which one you're gonna live on. You gotta be responsible to see that, well, I can jolly well see that this is a misconception up here. And once I see that it is, I'm already on the Living Cycle then. All I gotta do was see that that false idea is false. That there's no way to bring it about and that unconsciously I've been tryin' to achieve it every day of my life, okay?
Unconsciously we've complained, we’ve bitched, we've tried to get rich. We've tried to get rid. I know some people got rich and then they tried to get rid of it so they wouldn't be disturbed with havin' it. And this goes on and I know people that get disturbed because they don't have a companion mate; and then after they got one, get very disturbed about havin' that one. Have you ever noticed that, Barbara? Never in your sweet life did you ever see that. Huh? Now we can go on with this for hours. But now we're gonna stop for a minute and say questions, comments, discussions. This is not a lecture; this is a discussion group. We sometimes even call em, we're havin' a workshop. Now, work means everbody gets involved and does a little bit with it here. Come on. Richard? Can't you knock somethin' down. Put me down. Good Lord, so I can at least defend an idea or do somethin'.
(If a person gets to the point, this point where he just doesn't care anymore…)
Yeah. Like the....
(Whether he’s disturbed or not disturbed.)
Right. It doesn't matter whether he cares or not. He just knows that that's the way it is and so he will use the disturbance to learn somethin'. Okay? But all right, he doesn't really care. Okay?
(You just quit tryin' to be non-disturbed.)
Yeah, you just go on and use that non-disturbance.
(You get to that point and isn't it true that you could get into a joy and more non-disturbance?)
Well, more than likely. But don't let that get you into saying this is… if I'm free to be disturbed, I will be free of disturbances. No! They're still gonna be there, Richard. You just don't care and when you don't care too much, they don't bug you as much. In other words, if the baby cries and I don't wanna hear a baby cry, but if I'm free to listen to baby’s cry...
I was on an airplane the other day comin' from Salt Lake City to San Jose California and the lady sittin' next to me in the seat of the airplane had a baby. And I think its ears hurt probably when the airplane went up because he cried from Salt Lake City till the plane landed on the ground in San Jose. When it got on the ground, the baby was quiet. Now, if I wanted to scream and yell and have a fit, I could a done so, is that right? But I know babies. They cry. So, I didn't say I enjoyed the baby cryin' all the way, but I decided that I would just take a nap and let the baby cry. I couldn't stop it. I told its mother to put its hands over its ears and it would probably be quieter. But she only spoke Vietnam and I didn't speak any of that and so we didn't communicate very well, so she didn't do that. But soon as the plane landed and I think I was right – the baby's ears was hurtin'. But nevertheless, I had a sense of compassion for mama and the baby. The baby and the mama because the mama was desperately trying to quiet it down. I think that I wasn't disturbed very much. Yes, it was a disturbance. I would of rather it wouldn't have been there. Okay? But I didn't have any choice about it. Okay? So what.
(You weren't pursuing this non-disturbance.)
No, I wasn't workin' at being non-disturbed cause I know I'm gonna be disturbed. My mama told me early in life that if I moved to get away from bad neighbors, they'd beat me there. So I haven't tried to do that either. So that was an unpleasant neighbor, not a bad one – a sweet little baby and a sweet little mother. But I wasn't trying to be non-disturbed and I wasn't gonna move because what would I'd a gotten into if I could? The plane was full, so there wasn't any question about that. But had I insisted on it and there was another seat, what woulda been in that one? I don't know. But I'll bet you one thing – it'd a been somethin'. Okay? So, when I am free to be disturbed, I'm not torn up by these little challenges in life and don't get on the Vicious Cycle. But still the disturbances are gonna be there, okay?
I know a guy who got in a fit and was sick for four days because the Dodgers won the World Series and he was bettin' on the whatever it was – Oakland, whatever there is. What is it?
(Oakland A's.)
Oakland A's. Well he was all in favor of them and he had it all ready that they were gonna win the World Series and they didn't and he was sick for almost a week. Couldn't go to work. Who cares? It all come out the same. Come on, any questions, comments? Yes?
(In a real emergency...)
Yeah.
(...when we start processing through and you kick out to the inappropriate behavior, have you fallen back in the Vicious Cycle?)
Well no, you wouldn't have unusual behavior. If you had a true feeling of emergency, you're gonna respond to it. Then afterwards, like our dear friend here, you can make yourself miserable again, right?
(Not only that, I blame livin' in the country.)
Right.
(And my husband was the one wanted out there.)
He's the one that got you out there and if it hadn't been for that dog, we'd a never had these damn snakes in the house....
(That's right.)
We woulda lived happily ever afterwards. (laughter) I know. So you see one leads to another and you get yourself all worked up, is that right? But at first she responded to the true situation – rattlesnake in the house. Get the broom, sweep the bastard out, get your friend to go kill it. But then she sit down and decided, “Well, what I really want is to be non-disturbed. Here I am livin' out here in the country with these varmints. And my husband got me out here and if it hadn't a been for him, I would' a been livin' in some–“
[End of CD1]
CD 2 of 6: Lake Whitney, TX 1988
... city and I wouldn't have all these things. Course, she'd have a crack house next door and a few other little things – gang activity on the street, a few murders here and there. Go on, because you can always twist it up if you want to, you see? Okay? We'll get to that after while how we can work up “everything is a terrible emergency.”
(I said he was in California yesterday.)
Yes, he was out there havin' a good time while I'm here brushin' the varmints out of the house. I know.
(Absolutely.)
Yes, ma'am. I know the story well. I hear it several times a week – almost identical. It isn't always a rattlesnake, but it's somethin, okay? It's this car. It's this house. It's this environment out here. It's this traffic on the street. Why didn't we stay in Podunk Center instead of movin' to this blankity-blank city, hmm? Okay. All right no more questions, we will stop for a while.
(Bob?)
(Bob?)
Okay, now we'll get em with it. Okay. Come on, Doug; then I'll do you, Bobby.
(When somebody gets into severe adaptation and ends up with the diagnosis of cancer. when you get to that point, then is this sometimes reversible or is it irreversible?)
Sometimes it can be reversed, but it makes it a lot more difficult, okay? Now if I just described some symptoms to somebody, okay? You're liver’s doin' this or that and it's all here and we'll go to work on it, do something, get it out – change your viewpoint, change attitude, etcetera, it's not so hard. But once you scare the person with an implanted idea – you got cancer – and that's the same as puttin' you on death row basically in today's society, is that right? Especially if they tell you, you got one of these kinds you gonna live three months.
A gentleman called me not long ago and he said he'd just been diagnosed as having cancer and the doctor gave him three months. That's the way he said it – gave him three months to live. I said, “Well that was nice of him – he at least give you three months.” (laughter) So I got a little giggle out of that but not much cause he was pretty scared. So he went to see another doctor about a week later. I told him I'd work on it and we'll do a bit of a healing and etc. So he went to another one in about a week and they told him, they gave him six months to live.
And he's doin' pretty good, so he went to another one and that one said, "I'll give you a year to live." So he called me and told me what they said.
I said well you’re sure improvin' fast. You're gettin' well in a hurry; three months, six months, now you're up to a year.
He said, "I hadn't thought of that." But he was really gettin' better quick, wasn't he? Huh?
(Sounds that way.)
Yep, but they took care of that to ruin it the other way right quick. But nevertheless, you see it's hard to get a diagnosis out of a person's mind. Now you can describe somethin' without puttin' a technical name on it. And as I frequently probably told you that a diagnosis in the Dorland’s dictionary doesn't say what everybody thinks it says, okay? You know. Have you looked it up?
(Tell us.)
Huh?
(Tell us.)
Okay, “di” is a great prefix in the technical lingo, right? It means two – divide, diameter, etcetera. Huh? And "agno" is the Greek root word in this technical lingo for "I don't know." We all know what an agnostic is. He isn’t an infidel, he isn't a believer, he says I don't know. He's an agnostic, so show me. So that's “agno”. "Osis" merely means condition of, like tuberculosis, havin' a condition of tubercles. Scoliosis, a condition of curved up nice spine laterally. And you could go on all the "osis" there is. So di-ag-nosis means a condition of two not knowing. The patient didn't know, but he went down and told the doctor a bunch of symptoms in English and the doctor translated them into this technical lingo and give him the word. Now we got a di-agno-sis. Now you say, I go in and say to the doctor, “I have stiff joints and every once in a while it will look red and kind of swollen. What do you think it is, doc?”
“Well, we'll take some tests.” After appropriate supply of tests, which cost a wee bit of money of course, then you get a diagnosis of arthritis. Arthro means joint, it is – inflammation thereof.
“I just told you that in English. Now after a few hundred dollars worth of tests, you tell me, “You have arthritis, Bob. Okay.” Now then I can go out and be scared and I can tell all the neighbors what's wrong with me. I've got a name. It's really an adjective and when you convert an adjective into a noun, what do you do, doc? When you use an adjective as a noun, you’ve created a certain amount of confusion, is that right?
(Right.)
Nouns are not adjectives and adjectives are not nouns. But when I tell you, you have arthritis I've really given you a technical description, which hopefully the rest of these folks don't know. Is that right? “Arthro” means joint. “Itis”, inflammation thereof. “Well, they just got through tellin' me I had inflamed [corrects himself] I just got through tellin' him I had inflamed joints. That don't scare you. But arthritis, that's incurable! And it hurts!” And so on and so on and so on. This is just a normal adaptation to some good things goin' on in the body; but that's all right.
Okay, now we got those two questions. Do I have to say I’m gonna quit again 'fore we get another one?
(You didn't finish my question.)
What was yours that I didn't finish?
(Well I guess I want… you said it's possible for reversible. What would be the first....)
...step I would do to reverse it? I'd laugh at it. That's the first thing. I'd make it ridiculous. I just went through the act there a little bit, okay? I would first get out of what the diagnosis was and we'd make that a little funny. In other words I'll try to get the poor guy to laugh – man or woman, whatever it is. Sometimes it's pretty hard, but usually I can get a little giggle out anyway. And we can keep this up for a while and when we can assign some descriptions… sure, I have to take a few punches at the brotherhood but that's all right. I've been there so I don't mind bein' punched; and we can bring up a few of those.
So we just talk. Like the man said that had the difficulty with the dribblin'. We just talk, but we talk about things that are pertinent and it makes it a hundred times more difficult than if they hadn't had the diagnosis; but I'm used to workin' hard. I’m lazy, resist it, but might as well do it. Okay? So you just go ahead. I have no particular set technique, Doug. Wish I could tell you one. I just tell you to have a conversation with the person and get it light instead of heavy cause they got it pretty heavy. Now I can't get it always, I don't get it undone more that about 20% of the time. Yes?
(Whenever I called you when I was pregnant? And I –)
Yes.
(...made it that about the diagnosis they’d given me? And of course I couldn’t get ahold of Richard and I called you and you talked to me and then we decided not to go ahead with the __)
Right, and all that good stuff.
(And then Erin when she was born was a 9 at birth and a 10 five minutes after birth.)
And she's a lovely little girl, isn't she?
(Yeah.)
But if we'd a listened to the diagnosis, she wouldn't exist, is that right? So can you tell Doug how we did it or did we just talk a while?)
(You just talked to me and you said a few things.)
We just talked. We just talked and you got calmer and calmer and calmer and got un-scared.
(Well you reminded me that she was blessed.)
Right so you know, let's get this thing straightened around. There's all sorts of ways to go about it, okay?
(The patient that has the results of the CAT scan and the x-rays, that’s just compounding the diagnosis.)
Oh yes, that adds on and I can show you shadows and scare the hell out of you.
(Yeah.)
And I can show you other shadows and say they're shadows and that's what they are. Okay. Now in other words we coulda taken shadows – you had a few shadows didn't you – and it was a terrible thing. She was gonna have a monster.
(I have one question.)
We all, all our babies are monsters I guess. Yeah, what are you doin', Tanya?
(What was Patty’s diagnosis?)
What was Patty. Oh, she didn't get one.
(__________.) [Patty gives long medical word.]
She can stand up and tell you the fancy word. I don't care. I didn't even listen to it.
(It was something that said that she should not have a child.)
(That's right.)
Oh yeah... Oh yeah, you have to abort this thing 'cause it's gonna be a monster.
(Well they said I had to go in on Monday...)
It was gettin' past time, right, and we had to talk up a storm for a half an hour or so; but we had a good conversation. When you quit...
(It was beautiful.)
And you got to feelin' pretty good, didn't you? Now we was just talkin', is that right?
(Mm-hmm)
We didn't cover any great mystical talks or anything. We just talked about a little horse sense. But, at least she's got a beautiful little daughter and she doesn't have a monster, is that right? Except when she picks on Richard. [chuckles]
Okay? Let's take a break for -- we've been yakkin’ away for at least an hour, so let's take a break for about 15 minutes. Walk around, get awake again and we'll try it again in a little while, okay?
[after break]
(Apple?)
That’s good. That's good stuff. [All talk as they sit down again.]
Saw our old friend, Louis, the other day. I saw Louis the other day. He was… did you know him when he was down Austin? You didn’t know him down there?
(I know Louis.)
Well I saw his… you know Louis.
(How’s he been?)
Well, he was playin' sick when I met him, but three hours later he was walkin' around like he knew what he was doin'. He was bein’ very –
(Was he still using the cane?)
… the cane. And I took the cane and said I need it worse than you do. You go on. He got all right in a few minutes. He got goin'.
Can you give me somethin' you said you'd like to talk about a minute? You're like me, your Alzheimer’s is workin’ or you’ve already forgotten it.
(We were talkin' about the approach of making it not important to accept a diagnosis, of changing the –)
Yeah, how you go about changin' your mind. So we're gonna talk about attitudes I guess. How would that be? We'll try that. We'll try that. Okay everybody here and ready to go? Yeah, kids… comes Miss Barbara in the door. She's got somethin' to eat and all those good things there. So let's talk about attitudes – if I can find one of these that’ll mark... [writes on board] A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E-S.
(Use a black or a blue.)
Any color will be just fine.
(_________.)
I got a red one, that's about all.
(Okay.)
Give me any kind, I don't care. So…
(Here’s a black.)
Attitudes
Good. Thank you. So we got a live one here, too. So, we'll talk about attitudes. Now, whatever the person's attitude is, it is possible to discover that you're a regular powerhouse. You're a generator of tremendous power. We talked a little while ago about you could be all upset. You can be frightened and you generate tremendous power to destroy. And you can tear a lovely human body up in a very few weeks with a big gob of fear. Cause your attitude is now that of fear, you can generate tremendous energy to cause a disintegration of a human body. If you have an attitude of peace, it's remarkable how much power you have. Let's take an attitude of enthusiasm. You ever have that one, Miss Pattie? And that's tremendous power.Now, we have experimented. We're not just talkin' now by the side of our neck or anything; we've tried it. One time over here in extreme west Texas, we set up a business in a horse lot, on top of a sand hill in a horse lot. We never did put a sign on it and we never wrote an ad, never told anybody about it, okay? We just opened a business there one night. And that’s a funny thing, there was 19 people showed up the first night.
Now all we had workin' for us was an attitude of enthusiasm and havin' a good time. So we opened up this business and the next night there was close to a hundred people showed up. And in a very short order they came from all over. You happened to come by a time and stayed there a bit. Am I tellin' it straight? They were all over the place. Pretty soon they were waiting in long lines to get into the place – without a sign, without any notification it was open, without any advertising. All we had was a wonderful attitude of feelin' fine. And that we liked everybody that come by and etcetera.
We just thought a good thing. All the girls that worked there wore evening gowns so they came to work in evening gowns and looked fantastic. The men looked pretty good, they were dressed up a little bit. And people came from all over – not just up and down the road from near El Paso. They came from far away. And how they got there was by a wonderful feeling.
So we had up to 65 people a night workin' there and if somebody came in and they was kinda downy, I said go out and throw your attitude in the trash barrel and when you get it out come back in if you're feelin’ fine. If you can't feel fine, go home; I'll do whatever you were supposed to do tonight. So that's the way it worked. So, you turn on a good feeling you find that 65 people had a tremendous lot more drawing power than one did or four or five, which is probably the first night we opened – there was only about five of us was workin' around there. So you can demonstrate any time that if you put on the proper attitude, it will generate people. That right, Barbara? You do it over in your joint? And if you go in someday and say ughh...
(They stay away.)
They stay away in droves, don't they? Yeah. And if you're actin' up and you in feelin' good and you're a pretty Barbara and doin' your thing, they come in droves.
When I used to play that game of workin' with sick people and tryin' to make em all feel good, I didn't ever make em feel good. I had a comedienne for a receptionist; she kept em laughin' in the reception room. When I got em, I did. And when they left, they went away feelin' real good. I don't know how technical smart I was; but anyway we got em all feelin' good. I figured that that's why you go to a doctor's office is to feel good, is that right?
(Yeah.)
You don't get that much any day since the doctor has to practice defensive medicine. You get goin' out scared because he's gotta tell you, “You won't ever get over it and this is the worse possible thing and so it won't be my fault if you die next week,” okay? Huh? So you get told all the wrong things sometimes. But at least I didn't have that reputation to defend.
We just had everybody laughin'. And if you're laughin', you feel pretty good, is that right? Did you ever notice that? You can't feel lousy and laugh, so you can't laugh and feel lousy. It works the other way, too. So we try to see that everybody had a wonderful good time. And we gave nobody any diagnoses – period. They didn't get any. I didn't know any so I couldn't give em one. I could describe a few things as Doug told me a little while ago. He hadn't seen any patients in several years now since '79 when we first talked about it that’s got arthritis. They come in with the same thing, you know, but they don't have arthritis. Now they can get well; but if you got a diagnosis of arthritis, everybody knows that's incurable; it just gets worse as you get older. So that takes care of it.
So your attitude is a powerhouse. And that power can be used… [aside] That's the funniest black pen I've ever seen. Anybody see black there? Looks to me like brown, but that's all right. As long as you can see it, it's okay. So it's a brown pen instead of black. Okay, so you're a powerhouse. Now if you have an attitude, which generally the world calls positive – I call it factual – if you have a factual attitude, you're a powerhouse in a functional way. If you have an attitude of fear, anxiety, etc. you're a powerhouse in destruction. Now which one would you rather tote around, huh? That's easy to do.
The Tone Scale
Now we draw a little picture sometimes about attitudes [The Tone Scale] and I'll draw part of it tonight. I'm not gonna draw it all. So we'll put some attitudes here and we'll call this “Attitude/Action”. On this side we could call it “Condition” over here if you want to, okay?So, the lowest one of zero down here is “Death”, of course, so we won't talk much about those cause we're not very well acquainted with any dead people, are ya? Huh?
And the next one up here above that would be called a “Coma” and we don't see too many of those, thank goodness; but they are around, and that's one tenth zero one [.01] – one 100.
So the first one we generally see around is “Apathy.” Now you know what apathy is or do you only know what other people call it? We'll call that a one [1]– Apathy.
(I hope so [mimicking apathetic voice].)
[matches her in a woebegone voice] Why, I sure hope so… (chuckling) Used to have a few old apathetic ladies. When you run a practice you're gonna get some. They came in and I would try to get em to laugh, but the best I ever got was this weak grin. And when they went out the door, I'd pat the dear old lady on the back and say, "You'll be feelin' much better by morning."
And she'd say, [with deep sigh] "I sure hope so." Which said very plainly, “I know damn well I won't.” That was her attitude, so sure enough in the morning she wasn't much better.
So one day one of these little old ladies who frequently came in and I patted her on her back, shovin' her through the door to get her out of there as quick as possible 'fore she contaminated the attitude, (laughter) was I said "You'll sure be feelin' better in the mornin' Miss Burger." [corrects himself] Er,I didn't say it that time. I said, "You'll be dead by mornin', Miss Burger. Goodbye." And she truckled off, said [big sigh] "I sure hope so."
And about three hours later, it evidently sunk in. She called back and said, "Dr. Bob, did you say I'd be dead in the mornin?"
I said, "Of course not."
"Well, I sure thought I heard you say that." It took her three hours to get this through. That's how slow the apathetic brain works. It took three hours for those words to get through. So at least we got her mood up. She went from apathy to “Fear”, which is a notch up, because she thought I said she was gonna be dead in the mornin' and when I told her no...I said that isn't what I said at all, she was relieved – a bit. So we got her up about three notches there and so what.
Now the apathetic person has the attitude of nothin' will be any good, this is a sad world, and I'm worse off and so on and they have ever symptom in the book. You name em. They've got unusual cellular activity. They have all sorts of unusual sensations. They can read you an organ lyric any time, an organ recital comes right out – everything was hurtin.' Is it hurtin' today? No, it was yesterday. Well, why tell me about it today? You don't have it today. Oh well, that's all they talk about. So their attitude is 100% on themselves, called introspection I think. So if you wanna be real ill, you just check your body over ever day – carefully. Feel of it and see if it's got a lumpy here. See if it's a little numb here. See if it's got a sensation here. You check all the way from between your toes up and I guarantee you in a few days you won't be able to get around. You'll have dozens of things.
And, of course the best diagnosis is the one you make on yourself. That's when you try to play doctor. They told me when I was goin' to school that if you tried to doctor yourself, you had a damn fool for a patient and a quack for a doctor. So stick out of that and let it alone. You don't need to play that game. World's got enough doctors in it without you playin'. So you can go from apathy up.
Now the next one above apathy is “Fear.” Now you know you're better off when you're scared then when you’re [makes a huge sigh] apathetic. You're a little better off.
And now the next step up is called “Held Resentment.” Now we'll put that on [writes it on the board] “Held Resentment.” That's when you're fearful, you're angry, but you're afraid to express it. That's Held Resentment. Another word for it’s hate. So you're angry about somethin' but you're afraid to express it cause they'll cause you trouble if you do.
Now the old homeopathic profession, which is tryin' to have a wee bit of revival without knowin' what they're doin', call this is where 99% of all the patients that came into the general practitioner's office fell between these two attitudes. The fearful one is called “Wet Man” in the homeopathic literature because they’re basically holdin' all the water and everything else they get. They hold it in and they get kinda round, some of em excessively round; and it hangs. You've seen em walkin' down the street and flesh in the legs is hangin' down over the shoe tops. You ever see that? Yeah. It's just down. Everything's down, down, down; this is down. The ears waddle about that far down, and hangin' down – pfft. So that's “Fear”. That's the wet man.
And the “Held Resentment” is hatin', so they're burnin' themselves up with hate. So that's “Dry Man”. So they’re havin’ the two descriptions. You see they didn't do diagnoses much either. They had wet man and dry man. Well, that's not too bad, you know, they tell you you're gettin' a little wet, you know, okay? [chuckles] This one over here's a little dry, so that's not too, too bad. I can soak a while and get over bein' dry and it don't scare you too bad. And so they work on these attitudes. They knew what they meant and they were workin' on the attitude.
Now they gave a little pill that wasn't a pill, it was a little flake of milk sugar. But it was given like sacrament in the church: hold your tongue out and the doctor had to put it on there and you didn't get to take the bottle home with you. It was done for you. And you were told how you would have certain reactions and etc. over a period of time; and then you would cease to be wet man or dry man and that's the way it worked because there was a good suggestion. This little sugar thing was “potentized,” it's called, which you put it in a bottle with somebody else's one little crystal that had been done. You shook that up and that was called “grafting'” and you could go on. They haven't made a new one in ages. So, but it was given with great skill and things, so it was a powerful suggestion. And you could say it was a form of suggestive therapeutics which is fine because if you can get a person's mood up with suggestive therapeutics, get it up! Cause what we're workin' for is to raise the person on this mood level. Cause whatever mood or attitude they are, they got great power to actualize that – every one of us is a regular powerhouse. Now, we could actualize this down here and scare myself to death or I can work on up.
Now, the next one above that's “Anger.” I have managed to work with some people that started off in Apathy. And so you kinda play around here and use certain things. You get em up to where they lookin' pretty scared of you, then you can get them to resent you and then they're very angry with you – they're ready to do you in. Okay, I'm gettin' better. They're goin' uphill now. You don't say because they're angry they're in fine shape, but they're sure better off than they are in apathy, they're a lot better off than they are in fear, right? So you just goin' along and they're goin' through these attitudes for you.
And so then above anger is “Boredom.”
So they'll begin to yawn and act like [he yawns] and this stuff and then you can get them up to “Contentment.” They'll actually get up to where they're sittin' there talkin' just kind of contented. So that's the next one up.
Contentment is the dividing line between disintegration and integration –
between fallin' apart and growin'. Contentment is neither one. It's just on the line.
Now we'll take one or two above and we're not goin all the way up. They can go a long ways, but I'm gonna just go a few cause no use goin' further than we can; no use climbin' a mountain when there's no mountain there at this moment. So above contentment the next is “Vital Interest.” Ever now and then somebody comes in the office and they sit down and say, “I wish I could find somethin' that I could do.”
“Well, what are you interested in?”
"I don't know."
"Well how you gonna find somethin' interesting if you don't know what's interesting to you? So we suggest you go out and look all over the place and see if you see somethin' that grabs you a little bit, gets your attention.” So, sometimes they'll go out and look at their toes or their sandals while they walk down the street and they didn't find anything. But we get em to lookin' in shops and factories and what-have-you – all sorts of places, galleries, second hand stores, whatever and finally they come in and tell me one day they found somethin' they really want to do. Now they've gone a long way from almost into this, all the way up to Vital Interest.
Now, if you're really interested in somethin', you have tremendous energy exuding from you. We say it's a powerhouse. Now you got an interest. You wanna go to work. You wanna go do the thing. You wanna get out and see whatever it is that you're doin'. I know some people interested in raisin' certain kinds of plants and they have a ball raisin' those plants. They can't get up early enough of a mornin' and get out there and get with em. I know other people that's interested in building. And they can't get out there and get started soon enough in it. I know people who are interested in manufacturing' things and they can't get to the shop soon enough and get started on it. They got a vital interest. I know a few doctors who are so happy to get to work – not just to make the money but because they got some idea they're workin' on that they can see it functioning and oh, man, you can't keep them away from the office. They're down there. Now if they's just there to see how much he can make, he's very bored. He has a need of a lot of vacations. He could be overworked with five patients a day; just can't stand all this stuff.
I know restaurants, they get upset when somebody walks in the door because they're interfering in my work, you know – rubbin' the counter off or somethin' like that… polishing the table.
The next one here is “Enthusiasm.” Now, Enthusiasm is an extreme Vital Interest I guess would be one way of saying it. If you're enthusiastic, you're gonna attract people from far and wide. I don't care what you do. You go in a gas station that's vacant and you just go in there and you're enthusiastic, the place is full before you can get out. You go in a store and the place will fill up while you're there because you're enthusiastic. People feel it. They follow it. It's power – extreme power. This word originally, I think I've been told, means “the fire of the gods.” It’s the fire of the gods. It brings people in and you can't keep a person that's enthusiastic, you can't make em sick. Now you and I were talkin' about somebody who might retire and get bored. Well, boredom is not a very healthy deal. And then as soon as I get bored, I look to see what to blame it on and I'll probably come up with one of these or one of these, maybe even “Fear”. But if I'm vitally interested or enthusiastic about somethin', that person doesn't get ill... period! Now you let em get all bored and disgusted and they're gonna be sick pretty quick. But if that sick person could rouse some enthusiasm about anything – I don't care what it is.
I have one story that I've told many times that very clearly illustrates the point. It happened many years ago when, you know, tuberculosis used to be very common instead of cancer was then. They got changed somewhere. Hardly ever hear of anybody with tuberculosis, do you, Doug?
(Not now.)
You hear of anybody with tuberculosis? Well, when I was young, they all had tuberculosis. Nobody had lung cancer; but they had tuberculosis. And nobody had a whole bunch of things that goes around, but they had tuberculosis. They had tuberculosis of the intestines. They had tuberculosis of the lungs. They had tuberculosis of the joints. They had tuberculosis of the spine. Everybody had the stuff. In fact they got a diagnosis of tuberculosis. You remember those days? You old enough to remember that?
(I had a friend had it in the bones.)
Yeah. Tuberculosis of the bones. Now of course if they lived today, do you think they'd have tuberculosis of the bones, or would they have bone cancer? More than likely. They wouldn't have tuberculosis in the lungs either. They would have lung cancer... yeah. I don't think, you know, just styles change in diagnoses every once in a while. But at any rate, I knew this little lady, she was in a tubercular sanitarium they used to call em; and she was dying. Please, that's what was goin' on. She was dyin’. She was skin and bones. She laid in bed. She didn't move and they only eat when they force somethin' down her with a tube. And her hair was all dried up and just blech and she had nothin’. She was layin’ and starin' at the ceiling. And there was a young man brought in to the sanitarium and he had tuberculosis. Everybody there did, of course. The place was full of em. And I think he'd even had an operation to remove one lung. They used to remove one lung for tuberculosis.
But he saw this woman and for some reason he was very attracted to her. Maybe they were soul mates in a life before. I don't know. I'm not tryin' to explain that. Anyway, he was severely attracted to her. So he went there and sat by her bed and held her hand and talked at her. And he was ambulatory, I believe is the right world. He could move around, she couldn't. So he was there ever wakin' moment practically holdin' her hand and talkin' to her. In a week she begin to look better. In a month she walked out of the sanitarium feelin' fine. They went out hand in hand.
And I saw them the last trip I went to Albuquerque; they live in Albuquerque, New Mexico till this day. They're both pretty old, in their 80's I would say. They're still walkin' down the street hand in hand. And they look a lot better than they did in that sanitarium. But she got enthusiastic because she had a boyfriend there, and he got enthusiastic cause he found a girl he admired. And they've been together ever since and I've never seen one of em that I didn't see the other one ever since they've been together. I mean not just now and then, not just at night, they're together all the time. And they're still really loving to each other.
So she went from total “Apathy” to “Enthusiasm” or above. I think it was “Exhilaration.” That's the next one up here. You know, being in love is probably exhilarating. I don't know; but I expect that's as good a word as we'll find for it. Might have another one. But it's an exhilarating experience until you get to feelin' what if it ends. (laughter) So an exhilarating attitude, which made a body that got well from, supposedly in those days, an incurable disorder. Right? You might get it arrested for a while, but it's gonna get you. You might arrest the cancer today, but it's gonna break out and get you, it's gonna metastasize. And these tubercles, they spread from here to there to here and get all over the place. They spread; they metastasize, too.
But this dear little couple has never been sick. I see em every year or two or three or four. If I go to Albuquerque, I make it my business to go see them somewheres around. And they live out in not the most elegant area of Albuquerque, but it's passable. They have a nice little home out there and they play around at different things to earn a livin'. I don't think they've ever been wealthy or even what's called well off. But they're better off than an awful lot of people I know because they really have a caring for each other, an exhilarating feeling to be together. And they're always holdin' hands. So here is it went from, you might say, her death bed to bein' a healthy, lovely young lady because she changed an attitude of being dejected, hopeless – I think today they'd probably call it depression – until where she's very enthusiastic to say the least, if not exhilarated. I would say exhilarated.
She don't have a symptom one and this happened umpteen years ago and these old folks now, who were young then, are now somewheres kickin' around their 80's and they still look fantastically well and gettin' along fine. So you could say love brought them up. So I think that love is an exhilarating attitude and it brought them from way down here – she was down here, he was somewheres else along here, but he wasn't very far up either. And they're way up here and they're stayin' that way.
So, if I wanted to work with somebody who comes in that's retired and pooped out and bored… you know if you get retired, you’re bored. Every once in a while somebody says, “Bob, when are you gonna retire?”
And I say I'm damned tired, but I'll be durned if I'm gonna retire. Once is enough. So I'm just tired, I'm not gonna retire. You gonna get rid of me you gonna see em carry the boots out on him; that's it. I'm not interested in retiring one iota. And I can see change in occupations if you want to along the way; if you get tired of bein' an engineer, why take up being an artist or a water witch or whatever it takes. But be occupied doin' somethin' that you got an interest in. I don't care what it is. I can see change in careers, as they call it. Marce told me she had a new career. So, more power to it if she's super interested in it. And I hope she's 96, she comes around and tells me she's got a new career. Works real well, keep it up. So there is where your power comes and the healing comes from havin' an interest or a up attitude. So the attitude from above Contentment – Vital Interest, Enthusiasm, Exhilaration – those are “up” attitudes. And the power to heal, to regenerate, to maintain, etcetera is extreme. Ever one of us has that power.
Now, Boredom, Anger, Held Resentment, Fear, Apathy – those are powerhouses also, in destruction. If you're interested in destroying yourself, sit down and feel sorry for yourself for a while. It's real easy. All I got to do is compare it to all these wonderful things I've heard other people have. Right? All I gotta do is compare to an ideal that I could dream up and then I can run off down here. Now here is power. I’m only talkin' about power here.
You're a powerhouse and your powerhouse switch is turned on by your attitude.
Now you can have about any attitude you want to. All you gotta do is act like you already got it and pretty soon you'll have it anyway. But the main thing is just to look at it – what am I doin'? Do I want to destroy this just for the fun of it, hmm? Is it worth all that misery to just be able to complain, to stick up for my rights, find a way to prove I'm not responsible? I'm a poor victim of all these circumstances and things that's happened to me. My life has been a veil of tears... all this good stuff.I asked an old lady over in Phoenix one day… she was moanin' and groanin' about how things were goin' for her and I said, well what have you mostly enjoyed in all your life? She was a real old lady, she was maybe 62. She didn't know I could pat her on the head and carry her around when she was a baby and never miss the time.
And she said: "Well, every day has been a great disappointment to me." (laughter)
So what are you gonna do? “Every day has been a great disappointment to me.” If I compare to how I think things oughta be, then every day is a great disappointment, isn't it? So tomorrow we will talk about havin' a cycle that is like the Vicious Cycle only we'll put a lot more words in it. It's called “Expectation”. So we’ll start in the mornin' with expectations. Now this old lady all the years had expected that there would never be a disturbance and nothin' but pattin’ all through the days. So every day of her life had been a great disappointment. Her boyfriend wasn't what should have taken her out. The man she married wasn't what she shoulda married. The kids didn't turn out like they oughta been and they never did have all the money they oughta be and they didn't have the house they shoulda had. Ah, so every day has been a great disappointment. How do you think she felt? How do you think the body looked? It was a mess.
[End of CD 2]