Between the Cracks

An article in Sunday’s New York Times, Here’s Looking at Me, Kid by Jan Hoffman was an eye-opener about one of the most baffling psychoses on the list of hardest-to-treat-or-cure disorders, narcissism.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/fashion/20narcissist.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

Ms. Hoffman quotes authorities from the fields of both psychology and psychiatry and the conclusions were startling, unless you are a devotee of People of the Lie: the Hope for Healing Human Evil (Touchstone, second edition, 1998) by Dr. M. Scott Peck. Peck wrote how narcissists are incapable of deep and honest introspection; are selfish to the point of obsession with one’s own wishes to the detriment of spouse and children, family and friends; that, even under the care of the finest counselors and mental health specialists, narcissists do not change because the psychotic nature of their disease will not allow them to. Narcissists suffer from delusion and grandiosity, and, counter to the face they show the world, loathe themselves beyond comprehension. But as with any article that draws from the sciences, particularly psychiatry and psychology, Hoffman wrote that although she mentions well-known celebrities like Britney Spears, Madonna and Alex Rodriguez, among others, who have been labeled narcissistic, it would take one of the mental health specialists to diagnose narcissism.

There is an antidote to narcissism but I suspect it won’t ever be someone from the mental health field that will heal this dire disorder but rather an ordinary somebody possessed with a capacity that emanates from the human spirit, love. In my career as an astro-intuitive I have seen the impossible made manifest, from illnesses to sound health, bankruptcy to bounty, broken hearts to beautiful partnerships, with the transcendence of compassion, care, concern, yes, the power of love to change anything and anybody.

We all woke up a few months ago to a world that seemed to have opened up too many can of worms for us to digest or to know how to deal with: spiraling oil prices, subprime mortgage debacle, a plunging Stock Market, and the ever-present threat of terrorism and perhaps nuclear war.

It is my assessment after more than 45 years looking at astrological birth charts and counseling those who come to me, there is a bit of narcissism in all of us. When it becomes overwhelming, the narcissist is impossible to live with. If love is the reversal potency for narcissism, I would suggest that we see the challenges that face us as “our” collective challenge to turn things around rather than thinking only of ourselves individually. For those of us who endured World War II with the spirit of “we can” know that whatever confronts us all, if we see what we can do together to change our country and our lives, we will most certainly survive to thrive.

So I ask you: Did the narcissism, great or small, within you help create the chaotic world we now find ourselves in? Have you sought to have “things” beyond your means that the dark side of you demanded? Do you have the courage and faith to face down that part of you that caused the chaos in your life? I asked myself these questions recently and I have begun to rearrange priorities but reconnecting to the still small voice of intuition that speaks for my highest good.

Al Gore gave a speech last week in which he challenged the country to be 100% free of dependence on fossil fuels in the next ten years. His argument was that the effort would solve the ecological, security and economic issues that we currently face. One out of three isn’t bad and I would argue that the one will be the driver that moves everything else.

Certainly a reduction in pollution would be good for the planet and the increasing number of human beings that live on it. But climate change is a tricky thing. There is certainly credible evidence that sun spots and volcanic eruptions have had a significant impact on the earth’s temperature and will likely continue to do so in the future. While human behavior is a contributor, it would seem that insisting that the climate problem will be solved through this ten year effort is most likely a prime example of overpromising. We are likely in for some disruptive weather patterns and temperature changes for the foreseeable future.

Mr. Gore also asserts that we would improve national security because we would not be engaged in invading Middle Eastern countries to ensure access to foreign oil. While it is useful to publically state the real reason for the invasion of Iraq, the idea that an energy source conversion would stabilize this region again seems like over promising results. If anything, the collapse of these economies which are almost solely dependent on selling oil would likely cause further strife rather than less. Additionally, let’s not assume that the global oil cartel is going to go softly, softly into the night. Let’s also not forget that the military/industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about all those years ago is still alive and well.

The most salient argument for Gore’s plan is the one based on economics. Secretary Paulson assured us that the banking industry was going to be fine but that the faltering economy was going to take “months” to fix. No doubt we are in for a good deal more of these prognostications in the near term. One gets the sense that he half hopes that he is right even as he proposes that the taxpayers provide a $300 billion guarantee for the people who invested in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The game of inflated value is over. There will be a good deal of rear guard action as it continues to collapse, but no amount of propping up is going to keep it afloat. The primary driver of the system as it currently exists, the consumer, is tapped out.

So how does free energy address the economic calamity that we are currently experiencing? It’s important to understand that there is no magic wand or silver bullet that is going to make everything all right again in short order. We are going to live through some difficult times, not only economically but politically and diplomatically as well. But free energy has the potential to restructure the economic system. From a practical perspective, if the country undertook the ten year challenge, millions of jobs would be created in building the new infrastructure and dismantling the old one. But more fundamentally we would have a change in the value system.

What was once scarce would become free and ubiquitous. There would be a shift to an economics of abundance. Certainly if energy for everything could be obtained from a free source we would need to question to scarcity of other goods and services. Priorities might shift. We might again realize that our strength as a nation is derived from our reputation rather than our military might.

We have confused ourselves about the definition of freedom. We behave as if freedom were about having whatever we want whenever we want it. That is the freedom of a spoiled three year old who has his parents running around in circles. That’s a freedom that has the results that we are now experiencing. Freedom is really about the ability to choose your own disciplines. It is really about the ability to decide what is important and to behave with integrity. Freedom is not free.

There haven’t been many ripples on the pond since Gore’s speech. The national media is more interested in the latest McCain/Obama dustup or how bank stocks go up when they loose less money than expected. It is not likely that our political class will lead on this issue without a significant push from the public. We’ve had a history of doing or allowing many foolish things for the past 30 years. The long sweet slumber is over. It’s time to get up off the deck.

“All upward movement is by spiral staircase”

That quotation hung on the wall of my college apartment during my senior year. I believe it is from Isaac Newton although I have had difficulty confirming that one way or the other. It came to mind because of all the talk about karma these days in relation to the financial meltdown and the perceived increase in natural disasters.

We have come to blend what we used to call spiritual terms and ideas into our everyday lives. It’s well known that Presidents have consulted astrologers and you don’t have to look too far to find any number of business leaders who seek the counsel of psychics and numerologists. We may still try to separate church and state, but an increased awareness of consciousness and its relationship with science and quantum physics is now a part of the popular culture. The degree to which an understanding that there is something larger than our own egos at work in the universe gives us a sense of humility that is useful. The problem with some of the ideas about karma is that they have the potential to be misconstrued into the latest escapist explanation of why we aren’t responsible for the fix that we are in.

In a financial context a different word for karma is the “business cycle”. When we hear that term we understand it as something that is immutable - it just happens. We can look back through history and see that it has happened in the past so we assume that it will continue to happen. Like a Mandela it just goes around and around. The problem with this explanation is that it is similar to the superficial understanding of karma. It almost seems as though we are all victims of forces beyond our comprehension and out of our control.

Consider this analogy told to me by someone much wiser than I:

You throw a ball at a wall. It hits the wall and bounces back to you. That’s karma, its cause and effect. What you do causes something to happen and it comes back to you. But what if, once you threw the ball, instead of waiting for it to come back to you, you ran forward and caught it before it hit the pavement. By your actions you would change the course of the ball. That’s how you change karma. You behave differently than you have in the past given a similar set of circumstances.

There are similarities to what we have gone through in the past in terms of economic turmoil but there are also differences. We now have a truly global system and it is computerized to move with a velocity that defies rational thought. The prognostications of those who should know how and when the nchaos will end become vaguer with each passing day. This uncertainty creates anxiety and then fear. So although the process is familiar, its dimensions are much greater than we have experience before. That’s the upward movement that Newton is talking about. While it seems ominous from a financial systems perspective, the fact is that we are all connected in a manner that we have not experienced before.

What is different is the awareness increasing numbers of people have of the opportunity to behave differently. It is the opportunity to shift the definition of value and to create a commercial system based on real need rather than artificial profit (and surely the current situation demonstrates how truly artificial that profit has become). This isn’t an esoteric, Pollyanna exercise; it is fundamental and practical. The obstacles may still seem overwhelming but there is a good deal of evidence that this shift is occurring.

We have seen risk in the past as the potential to loose what we have. We need to see risk as the actions we want to embrace to take to get what we need.

Jesse Jackson recently cried ‘I’m sorry’ for calling Barack Obama ‘a nut case’ and using the N-word. Presidential hopeful John McCain had a few salacious and untrue words to say about Obama and McCain immediately wept, ‘Mea culpa; I apologize for the lies I told about Barack Obama’. There seems to be a gut-check referendum on people of stature calling out other well-known folks and then back-tracking faster than a hot fudge sundae can melt. What’s up? These half-truth pinheads didn’t have a momma hen like ma mere else they wouldn’t have lived to have to apologize, but then I grew up when folks still had manners. They have been gone with the wind since movie stars became royalty and the Clintons came into power in Washington.

Like my late and great best friend, Texas hooter and hollerer, Darrell Mae Harris used to say about an obnoxious blowhard hayseed, “He let his humming bird mouth overload his elephantine a–,” and I agree with her. We are living in such torturous times, with oil escalating, stocks tanking, sub-prime wrecking, terrorism threatening, and most of all, we are facing all the bullshit that we created and it ain’t fun and it’s causing us all to look to blame and shame anybody else in order to get the blame off Mame or us. And it is my learned opinion that it is this blame game that is causing otherwise decent testosterone and hormone ilk and types to call out someone in the public eye who may or may not be guilty of the name calling.

When I get up every morning and look in the mirror I say, “Okay, buster; face the day and see what mess of your own making you are going to have to clean up today.” I never, ever, ever say that the government is trying to break the bank-clean me out. I refuse to blame oil prices on my economic woes. I can always drive less. Bicycle. Walk. Stay home. And I cannot in good conscience throw brick bats at the Stock Market when everybody knows that it is the same as gambling in Las Vegas. I know a lot of wealthy people who like to crow how smart and rich they are when the market escalator goes up, up, up, and they snarl and blame and spread toxic thought impressions when the escalator goes to the bottom. If anyone is still reading this article just know that we have all been living in la-la land about the good times. And if I hear one more person tell me how good the times were when Bill Clinton was president, I am going to sentence them to a long and boring but honest course in Astrology 101. Hillbilly Bill inherited the folderol and fakery of a false economy built around smoke and mirrors rather than having done anything to make the good times roll.

To be true to why all famous faces have been getting in deep do-do lately for saying the darndest things about other big pieces of stuff can be chalked up to the faster-than-the- speed-of-light info-world of the internet and more specifically blogdom. And in the spirit of fair and balanced may I say that a lot of reportage consists of 10-second sound bites and images that do not tell a true story.

Having written what I have written, I am reminded of what the Divine Miss M, Bette Midler, said to a heckler once in a stadium in Cleveland, “Shut your hole, honey, mine’s making money”.

Global Prayer Project
Prayer, Meditation & Discussion
with James & Salle Redfield

A SPECIAL THANKS.  Only days after our July 1 prayer focus to de-escalate tensions surrounding Iran, Iran said it would begin talks with the European Union on the EU’s proposal encouraging Iran to halt its nuclear arms development. Wow! Our group engaged in what I think was the most intense and powerful prayer to date, and along with no doubt thousands of others individually praying, we seem to have had immediate results. We originally began the Global Prayer Project with our focus on North Korea, which has since been dropped from the list of nations sponsoring terrorism, a staggering improvement in that country’s relations with the rest of the world. Now hopefully, despite some remaining military posturing, similar results seem to be happening with Iran. Thank you for participating. We know prayer works. — James

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This week’s prayer visualization
Let’s turn the same kind of powerful prayer toward Israel and Palestine. Some observers believe never before has a true peaceful settlement of their conflict been so achievable. This week we’ll focus intensely on visualizing and holding that all the heroes who have influence on this resolution rise to the occasion and move this conflict toward peace.

Follow-up discussion
More on our personal prayer effect. Do humans now know the best way to pray?

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Tuesday, July 15
8-9 pm Eastern/US
click here to convert to your local time

If you can’t join us, please hold a supportive prayer vision for the world at that time…

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Teleconference:
Call 212/461-5860 OR 646/519-5860
Caller ID: 6999#

The phone line will open at 7:55pm EDT. Call the number above and follow the directions. Once you are connected to the call, please say your name and where you are from, and then press *6 to mute yourself so the noise level will be kept to a minimum. Each participant will be responsible for their own long-distance phone charges.

Live Webcast @ http://www.celestinevision.com/

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Our twice-monthly gatherings have been making a powerful difference, both in people’s individual lives and the world at large. Many of you have written us saying that the energy generated from this network of spiritually-minded participants is “indescribable,” and we look forward to continuing this healing circle of focused prayer. Like all prayer experience devoted to helping others, many participants have felt the results in their own bodies and received guidance for their own lives.

Research tells us that the more people praying together, the more powerful the prayer and the greater the level of energy felt by the participants. We invite you to join the largest regular prayer network in the world. If you would like to take an active role in maintaining a circle of positive intention across the globe, while going deeper and heightening your own spirituality, join us on Tuesday, July 15.

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US & CANADA
Tuesday, July 15
8 pm New York
5 pm Los Angeles

AUSTRALIA
Wednesday, July 16
10 am Sydney

EUROPE
Wednesday, July 16
1 am London

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Let’s see how large we can grow, and how much difference we can make…

Blessings,
James Redfield
Salle Merrill Redfield

EXTENDING PRAYER FIELDS
For centuries, religious scriptures, poems, and philosophies have pointed to a latent power of mind within all of us that mysteriously helps to affect what occurs in the future. We are now finding that this prayer power is a field of intention, which moves out from us and can be extended and strengthened, especially when we connect with others in a common vision.
The Eleventh Insight

 Over the past year there have been any number of people who have written and spoken about the depth and breadth of the financial crisis that we are currently suffering through. The unwinding of the derivatives that have driven the increase in wealth without any underlying value was as predictable as the dot.com bubble. The collateral effects of the decisions not to invest in our infrastructure, healthcare system and schools have also been well documented. The global demand for fossil fuel shouldn’t have come as any surprise either; US companies have been increasingly making their profits in emerging economies and the rise in living standards has had a predictable effect on the demand for energy. All this has taken place while our political class has been as moribund as ever.

Those of us who predicted these problems were right. Almost everything we said would happen has happened. Being right, however, is highly overrated. One only needs to be in a vertical position, have a pulse and pay attention to have seen what was coming. So no trophies or blue ribbons for prescience; just a chastened sense that we aren’t as crazy as some people wanted to think we were.

As with any unpleasant experience everyone wants to know if it is going to be over soon. The answer is clearly “no”. At this writing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are no longer viable and on the verge of collapse, GE has had it’s second quarterly loss in its history, oil is flirting with $150 a barrel, Citibank is selling assets hand over fist, Lehman is rumored to be the next investment bank to go bust and the New York Post announced on its front page this morning that Con Edison bills are expected to go up 22%. The end is not near and it is unclear as to whether we are at the end of the beginning.

The floods in the Midwest that have caused billions in damage are at least in part a result of the failure to address the identified levee issues after a similar flood in 1993. The fires that rage in California began just weeks after the state declared a drought emergency. Nature’s wrath and the consequences of human folly seem to be converging, not only in the US but around the world. It is likely to be our reality for some time to come. We are going to have to live through it and in doing so will create a new reality. It can either be based on a combination of fear and a grasping at what used to be or it can be based on hope and a new way of thinking about possibilities that, until now, have seemed too futuristic to contemplate.

Energy and water are the two commodities that lie at the heart of any turn in our fortunes.

Fossil fuel is finite, dirty and increasingly difficult to come by. The technology for clean energy is already here. There are cars that exist in Australia and France that run on compressed air and get 200 miles to the tank. GM’s Chevy Volt, which does not exist, will only get 40 miles per electric charge and is a hybrid; it will still require gasoline. We fiddle with a hybrid concept that Toyota introduced 11 years ago.

The two year drought in California is but the latest evidence that the water crisis in the Western and South Western United States is persistent. On the other hand, there are 7,500 desalination plants throughout the world, 60% of which are in the Middle East with Saudi Arabia taking the lead. The prohibitive cost of these operations has limited their use but it is conceivable that those costs will look very cheap indeed in the foreseeable future.

These are but two paths that we can pursue among many. While on their surface they appear to be driven by environmental concerns, their real power is in their economic impact. Plentiful water and renewable energy on a broad scale will result in a profound change in the financial and political power structure both here and around the world that is difficult to conceive.

It’s easy to be right about what’s gone wrong. Being right about what needs to go right means changing the way we think and that’s the most difficult change of all.