The Alexander Material by Ramon Stevens
Issue No. 9
Q:
I have a question about what happens during self-healing. It is well known
how medical science treats or removes cancer cells or tumors. However if someone suffering from
cancer successfully starts changing beliefs and removes the causes of disrespect, etc., and starts
attracting a healthy future self again (referring to your book Conscious
Life and I am also saying that people always seek medical counseling) how then in this
self-healing situation are cancer cells or tumors removed from the body?
(W.B.)
A:
They dissolve. If self-harming beliefs and disrespect lie behind the
tumor; and if the individual makes a concerted effort to reverse the self-harming beliefs,
their physical symptom, the tumor, is no longer needed and will dissolve. This is true only in a
situation where no other factors are involved in the production of the tumor—for example,
family dynamics, karmic braids, or a higher-self determination not to live a normal life span.
Q:
I saw part of a movie where a father, son, and daughter were mountain
climbing and were tied together as mountain climbers often are. They got into a situation where
they were all three in danger of falling to their death. The father decided the best chance for his
children's survival was to cut himself from the tether and fall to his death, which he did,
and the children survived and were later rescued. Would a father incur any karmic braids with the
children from this kind of action, and was his action the same as any other suicide from a karmic
point of view? To incur no karma, should he have just tried to secure all of their lives as best he
could, even if it seemed very likely they might all die? (A.H.)
A:
We are not clear on who would have incurred karma—the father or the
children? We will assume you mean that the children generated karmic braids due to the fact that
their father died to save their lives.
Remember that to generate karmic braids, intent must be married to action. Where
a death is involved, one must intend to kill, and then kill. Here, the father did not
intend to kill anyone—doubtless he would have hoped he could save himself despite
being untethered—nor was his action intended to kill anyone. How would karma arise?
The children certainly did not intend that their father die, nor did they take any action to bring
that about.
There is a great difference between one who kills himself due to despair and hopelessness; and one
who dies to save the lives of his children. That is, there would be much less to work
out in the spiritual realm after death than is the case with a typical suicide.
Q:
What do you think about the impact of religions, especially Christianity on
modern society? The U.S.'s most Christian region, the Bible belt, is said to be
the area of the highest divorce, murder, STD/HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy, single parent homes, infant
mortality, and obesity rates in the nation. Similarly, according to Barna Group, divorce rates
among conservative Christians were significantly higher than for other faith groups, and much
higher than atheists and agnostics experience. On the other hand, I live in a post-communist
country, where most people claim to be atheists and we have also have a high divorce rate, lots of
corruption, thieves, prostitutes...Well, is the overall influence of religion and Christianity on
society positive or negative? Is atheism a better option? (R.G.)
A:
We have stated elsewhere that there is no such thing as a war of religion:
that other, baser, motives are wrapped in a mantle of celestial blessing to justify the leaders and
motivate the soldiers. Using religion as compensation is hardly limited to war, however. Among any
marginalized, repressed, disenfranchised, or otherwise disempowered group, religion rises to
prominence. Where power, respect, dignity, and wealth are denied, religion compensates with promise
of a future in which all are treated with divine equality in a land of milk and honey—or,
better yet, with the promise of vengeance wreaked on one's enemies!
It should not be a surprise, therefore, that in a region with generally low educational
achievement, and the host of social ills you mention, religion should be so tightly woven into the
social fabric. The people in this region, feeling alienated from the power brokers and
intellectuals who set the direction for and manage the country, resort to religion to compensate.
Those Harvard boys may enjoy the fruits of their earthly labors now, but when the Rapture
arrives—ha! only the saved will be saved! (again, revenge on others is a key
element of religion's attraction).
To ask whether the impact of religion is positive or negative is to miss the point: religion is so
elemental to humankind, so deeply embedded in psyche and society, that one might as well ask
whether music has a positive or negative effect. And where an official religion is
denied, as in atheism or agnosticism, the impulse remains. You live in a country formerly part of
the Soviet Union. Its leaders tried, with varying success, to redirect religiosity onto the State;
by erecting statues to Lenin and Stalin, for example, and encouraging their cultlike worship. But
all the while, traditional religious practices continued in furtive ceremony, and once the hand of
repression was lifted, erupted from the cellar, restored to prominence.
The danger in a society which lacks a strong religious life is that the religious impulse, ever
vital in psychic depths, may latch onto a less worthy god than God. National leaders,
sports figures and teams, music groups, writers, celebrities—all may be the target of
redirected adoration and worship. This cheapens society—for where before man was
made in God's image, now man is God's image; and God is man. The divine has been
cut out of the picture; and the deeper, richer aspects of religion—the pondering of
existential questions; the profound comfort of feeling embedded in the Divine; the sense of
Something More Out There; the humility at humankind's smallness and meanness; the stirrings of
universal brotherhood—are cast aside. To direct devotional energies onto human targets makes
man the measure of all things and strips life of its deepest potentials.
Divorce? Corruption? Thievery? Prostitution? Find a country in the world, however religious or
irreligious, which is not plagued with these ills! The problem all governments and religions face
is that people do what they want to do, regardless of legal or religious proscription. Government
offers only punishment. Religion offers forgiveness and compassion. How would you rather live?
Q:
In the constant interest in finding new sustainable energy sources, the law
of thermodynamics is challenged by new inventors who seem to find ways to produce more output energy
than input with their devices. Is the law flawed or is there other energy untapped and not measured
which is contributing to the increase of energy production? (J.C.)
A:
You tread on shaky ground formerly trod by alchemists and phrenologists. You
would need to provide specific, verified examples of scientists developing such mechanisms; which,
it seems, would already have been announced with a great flourish of trumpets.
One of the fundamental principles of nature is Balance: maintaining equilibrium amid the many
disparate forces and energies in nature. Every day the sun bombards the planet with intense showers
of energy. How is it captured, neutralized, absorbed, so as not to fry the planet to a crisp? The
oceans absorb a great deal of that energy, which stimulates plant life and oceanic currents; and
where the earth's surface is covered with vegetation, sunlight is converted into plant energy
to be utilized or stored. Consider, then, that the single most important function of nature is
absorbing and neutralizing the daily solar shower.
Perhaps you can see the potential danger of introducing manmade free energy machines
into such a system. Now, on top of the solar radiation, humankind itself would be generating excess
energy. As you know, many machines get hot when working, even when heat generation is not their
purpose, or even contrary to their purpose (i.e. an overheating car engine). Now imagine free
energy powering all these machines and generating all that new heat. Isn't
global warming serious enough already?
Of course the universe is swarming with energy that could theoretically be tapped by a device
designed to take advantage of these abundant flows of free energy. The energy that
sustains your planet is but a fraction of the energy in which it swims. However, much of that free
energy is of such a quality that it would not easily resonate with any mechanical
device designed to capture it. In other words, a given flow of energy would need to at least
partially share certain qualities with the machine drawing upon its energy. The various elements
and materials on the planet sing or hum with a characteristic resonance:
copper, silver, aluminum, steel, etc., each have their own signature vibrations. A free
energy machine would need to attract a flow of universal energy by employing
elements of similar frequency or tone.
Another option would be to employ two or more materials whose synthesized resonance taps into
universal flows. An inventor working on such a device would need a strong intuitive sensibility, to
sense the resonance or dissonance between various materials, and to feel when the
elements are conducive to receiving universal energy. At this point, you see, with so much of what
we have mentioned lying outside the purview of mainstream science, it falls to intuitive inventors,
psychics, or other sensitives, to gather the earthly materials, coupled with intuition and
feeling, that would facilitate the process.
Whether the energy thus channeled would reduce its frequency to earth-frequencies and be funneled
through the device, generating usable power; or whether it would be attracted to the
device without decelerating to flow through it, depends on the materials and their configuration.
There is a natural resistance to changing the frequencies of an energy flow, so only a device which
'entraps' that flow—almost against its will—can successfully serve as a
free energy machine. Energy flows attracted by, but not decelerating through, such a
device will still electrify the air, the atmosphere; vitalizing the minds and bodies of
those nearby. A creative and sensitive inventor may gradually reach closer to the sweet
spot of perfect harmony by feeling the rush of energy that has almost, not quite
decelerated to the device, but with just a tweak, may do so.
Our earlier cautions remain, however; and given humankind's spotty record of using its
inventions with prudence and consideration for consequences, free energy machines may
best remain in the realm of dreams.
Q:
In the Alexander book Earthly Cycles, in the
chapter on Lifetime Planning, the text seems to say that we humans are but filaments of
our individual higher self. And moreover that we don't actually reincarnate but another
filament from our higher self incarnates and picks up the karmic braid while the me
that I consider me goes on to other learnings. Is this what happens? Will I
never return to this earth? And if I never do, what will my relationship be to the other filaments
that are a part of my higher self? Do I go on to learn more or must I hang out with my higher self
until all of its filaments have completed all that our higher self wants us to learn? (Y.P.)
A:
A review of Earthly Cycles should answer most of your questions. No,
you, the unique ego with its unique life history, will not return to earth. Your
primary relationship is with your higher self, not its other offshoots, though some interchange of
life gleanings can occur. The progress of your soul fragment's onward journey is unique and is
not delayed by the progress (or lack thereof) of other offshoots.
Q:
There is consistent mentioning in various metaphysical and spiritual
material (including the Alexander Material) of an amalgamation of entities or bodies of
consciousness into bigger and bigger units. How the closer one gets to the source, the
larger these entities become. How far is Alexander removed from the source? And is there anything
beyond the source? Could it be the source is also one step in a larger unexplainable
(in human terms) reality. Where does it end? It is frequently said reality is infinite, but the
reality of a source denotes a certain limit. It is a difficult concept to grasp. Could you shed
some light on this? (J.P.)
A:
You might review the Spirit Wisdom II chapter entitled Cosmic
Adventure Travel. We describe there several levels of consciousness germane to human life,
and ourselves as speaking from the zeta level. This is an invented term, of course, for
entities at a level of development not normally directly interacting with or concerned with life on
earth or any other planet, but doing so given the dire predicament in which the human race has
placed itself.
It is futile to try to describe how far the zeta level is from the Source or Universal
Mind, as there is no such thing as distance or other spatial considerations in the spiritual realm.
One possible measure would be the number of soul fragments embedded in an entity. In the chapter
mentioned above, we said that theta guides, the highest level of spirit directly interacting with
humankind, contain the fragments of 500 to 1,000 souls: that is, the earthly experience, and the
wisdom gleaned from that experience, of that number of lifetimes is their background knowledge.
By that measure, entities at the zeta level contain the fragments of anywhere from 1,000 to a
million soul fragments. At this level, such measuring begins to break down because of
the distance from earth and the lessening importance of earthly soul fragments as constituents of
an entity's knowledge and experience. Other elements are more important, you see. At lower
levels, an entity will resonate differently given the quality and quantity of the soul
fragments it contains; at higher levels, soul fragments contribute less to the entity and thus do
not affect its resonance to such a degree. And the soul fragments are less and less individualized,
their ego shells and unique life experiences melting into gestalts of sympathetic resonance.
From our perspective, there is nothing beyond the Source, or Universal Mind. If everything
originates from the Source, what more could lie behind it? However, if in our continuing
development we discover a Meta-Source beyond the Source, we will send back a postcard!
Q:
When I do the 5-minute affirmation exercise from Conscious Life, is it fine that I repeat the phrase more times than you
suggested, as long as it is done within the 5-minute period? Also, is it okay to do spoken
affirmations that aren't 5 minutes to affirm positive thought patterns in general, along with
the 5-minute focused ones? Is it fine to do affirmations throughout the day or night that
aren't the same as the 5-minute one, but nearly the same, etc? (T.W.)
A:
The risk you run in overdoing affirmations is that you broadcast
you don't really believe the process can work, so you're trying to tilt the odds in your
favor. The reinforcements throughout the day betray your lack of belief—and it is
this that the deepest levels of the psyche receive: She doesn't believe it can work.
Okay, then, it won't work.
There is no harm in repeating an affirmation occasionally, especially in situations where (1)
contrary feelings or beliefs are aroused; or where (2) an affirming belief meets with real-world
validation. For (1), let's say you are working on issues of health. Your affirmation states
that your body is a smoothly harmonious perfection; even as a variety of ailments mock that
affirmation. Should such an ailment flare up or require serious medical intervention, it would be
easy to slump back into the core belief, My body is afflicted with poor health and I am
powerless to change it. In such a circumstance, calmly repeating the affirmation, so that it
overrides the reflexive negative thought, and in spite of glaring physical evidence to the
contrary, is well advised.
For (2), let's say you are working on affirmations about money. You have never had enough,
and a deeper core belief may affirm that you are unworthy of it. Walking down the street, you find
$100 lying on the sidewalk with no one around it. You wait several minutes and no one notices or
claims it. The money is yours. In this situation, it would be well to affirm, while picking up and
pocketing the money, I am showered with abundance wherever I go, or whatever wording
you have chosen. Marrying affirmation to real-world validating experience is particularly powerful.
Q:
In your answer about DNA you said that our DNA and our higher selves are in
constant contact with each other about the constant re-creation of our bodies. Does this mean that
our DNA has some kind of consciousness of its own? If so can you describe it? (W.B.)
A:
Of course DNA has consciousness—since consciousness is all there is,
DNA, like every other material entity, is merely a physicalized expression of consciousness. This
doesn't mean that DNA thinks, or plans, or schemes, but that it has its own
awareness of itself and the larger world in which it plays a part.
The interplay of the higher self and DNA is more like an overlapping, entraining wash of resonance
between disparate entities. Imagine two musicians, one wielding a mallet before a huge gong, the
other playing a bass viola. Both instruments send out fields of vibration, and where those fields
overlap, certain tones and frequencies entrain to each other, if only briefly. So it is with the
higher self and DNA: the higher self has so much more to concern itself with than the body's
condition—which is secondary to other issues the higher self considers of greater
importance—and DNA is so insular and narrow in scope that it cannot absorb or resonate with
much of the higher self's vibrational flow.
DNA is the principal architect of the body and its maturational and aging processes. The higher
self's involvement is to apprise itself of the body's condition; to verify that that
condition is consonant with, or at least not antagonistic to, the higher self's intentions for
a lifetime. It is like a parent receiving a child's report card: the report card is examined
for evidence that the child's learning is on track, but it is the child himself
who does the work.
You understand that at the levels we speak of, there is no language—nor report cards! The
exchange of information between higher self and DNA is much as described in our earlier metaphor:
two musicians playing different instruments and finding some overlap and entraining in the tones
and frequencies they emit.
Q:
Could Alexander please comment on the technique called marine cloud
brightening being proposed to mitigate global warming. Specific suggestions on how to improve
its potential efficacy would also be welcome. Thank you. (R.L.)
A:
Before we address the specifics of the technique that you mention, let us
caution you to be leery of technological fixes to the ecological mess in which you find yourselves.
There can be a reflexive tendency to think, Science can fix it, thereby relieving you
of the onerous task of reducing humankind's negative effects on the planet. It can also be a
form of denial—denial that the more egregious predicted outcomes may actually come true.
Science can fix it assuages this apprehension and allows one to go to sleep
on the issue.
A further consideration is that whenever you tinker with one aspect of an
ecological system, unanticipated consequences may occur which prove more negative than the original
problem. Nonnative species introduced to address a localized problem have ended up decimating
entire ecosystems.
Consider that a marine cloud brightening system which enhances the reflectivity of clouds, and
thereby their cooling effect, may interfere with other oceanic processes: the amount of sunlight
reaching the surface and below; the populations of creatures which may be affected by changing
patterns of sunlight and shade; the global flow of oceanic currents of warmer and cooler water.
As you know, the rise of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, lies behind the increasingly
evident climate change the planet is now experiencing. Marine cloud brightening does
nothing to mitigate this, but is an unrelated remedy which, again, could relieve societies and
governments of addressing the root issues. It is a quick fix at best, one unlikely to
effect the comprehensive reversal of global warming necessary to avert calamity.
Q:
I've noticed some people say that Native Americans are simply
transplanted Asians. I disagree with this view on different levels. I realize the races symbolize
diversity within unity and that our unique strands of consciousness combine to create an immense
power and beauty (of which society still needs to evolve to using more of this potential)! I know
you have spoken before about some of the nuances of the races, what is your take on Native
Americans simply being thought of as Asians? (T.W.)
A:
It is generally accepted in anthropological circles that Native Americans
derive from Asian forebears who arrived either via the Bering ice bridge or on trans-Pacific
voyages. Certainly if you spend much time meeting the various native peoples of the
Americas, you may be struck by their similarities to Asian peoples, including prominent epicanthic
folds.
The USA is a nation of immigrants. Would you consider it accurate to say Americans are just
transplanted Englishmen, or Africans, or Asians? The USA has developed its own distinct culture(s)
and cannot be considered merely an extension of its inhabitants' ancestral homelands. So it is
with Native Americans: their ancestors may have arrived from Asia, but over the millennia they have
developed distinctly different cultures and languages; along with the great civilizations of the
Aztecs, the Mayas, and the Incas. Biologically, the strands may run back to Asia; but culturally,
linguistically, religiously, and in every other sense, Native Americans are distinctly unique
peoples.
Q:
For this question I'm asking you if you could look at a cloud for me
(if possible). This is a link
to a webpage about the cloud. In short it is a new classification of cloud
that became noticed back in 2009. If I'm correct it isn't yet officially a new cloud. On
a personal note and also the reason for this question, if my memory service me correctly it was
also around that same year that I saw this type of cloud here in the Netherlands for the first
time. They weren't big but I instantly knew that I had never seen those kind of clouds before.
I didn't find them so much beautiful but rather haunting and still do if they appear. And to
be honest I saw them rather as a kind of a bad omen, and still do. A new type of cloud means
changes in the air. Perhaps this attitude stems from some xenophobic tendencies on my part but
could you perhaps tell us from your perspective what the story or a part of the story is around
this new type of cloud? (W.B.)
A:
First, let's understand what clouds are and how they form. Water vapor,
air currents, temperature, and air pressure contribute to the atmospheric medium in which clouds
form. The conditions at the time of formation determine what type of cloud will emerge. Most of the
clouds you are familiar with have regular shapes and patterns: puffy, flat, or streaked. (Readers
of Conscious Life may recognize Nature's two fundamental shapes—the axis and
the sphere—in these cloud patterns.) This makes the appearance of a new cloud pattern a
phenomenon remarkable enough to attract media attention, as this new cloud formation, dubbed
asperatus, has.
Consider for a moment that the clouds with which you are familiar from childhood reflect the
atmosphere in a relatively healthy, natural state. That these new clouds—rough,
ragged, ominous in appearance—should appear now serves as a celestial warning
that the atmosphere itself is being degraded. The roughness and ragged
appearance—so unlike the puffy or flat clouds—illustrate that the atmosphere has been
sufficiently disturbed that, at least temporarily and locally where these clouds appear, it has
lost its smooth, harmonious qualities. This can result from localized or distant drought or flood;
unusual high or low temperatures; and especially air currents degrading from their formerly smooth
flow into ragged, angry, roiling pits and pockets of unstable air.
Your intuitive sense that the asperatus clouds represent a bad omen are on target,
then: they do. In a perverse cycle, the clouds both reflect a disturbed atmospheric medium and
contribute further to the disruption of precipitation cycles, which in turn further degrades the
atmosphere. Just one more thread in the previously stable and now unraveling eco-tapestry.
Join the conversation! Ask Alexander a question
here!
© 2011 Ramón Stevens