Rita Warren: Maybe this is my nit-picking, and we can turn off my nit-picking at any time, but I tend to get caught up in things like definitions, and making sure I understand what we’re talking about, and —
F: Could we re-phrase that? We would say you tend to get caught up in trying to get clarity! That’s what you’re supposed to do! [they laugh]
R: Oh good.
F: [laughs]
R: All right, well I think the first one will be easily taken care of. It has to do with the word “channeling.” Frank has not wanted or not used that word for what’s going on here, on the grounds that he is present. Now to me that doesn’t exclude that definition at all. Being present or not present is a matter of the development of the consciousness, whether it can tolerate being present or not. So when someone asks “is this channeling,” I hate to say no because I think it is. Do you have any suggestions around that word?
F: Well, five or six years ago we were talking to him and Bob Friedman and we suggested the term ILC – intuitive linked communication – because at that point they’re asking us, “do you have a term that will indicate more of what we’re doing, as opposed to trance channeling.” The concern on Frank’s part is almost an editor’s concern, you know; not wanting to leave the initial wrong impression that then has to be corrected. So in avoiding the word channeling he was avoiding Ramtha and even Jane Roberts, you know. Because he felt there was a significant difference between what he was doing and what they’re doing, and at the same time there’s a large unacknowledged gap in your language. There is no real word for what you’re doing. You know how Eskimos may have 57 words for ice? Depending on various qualities of ice that you can’t even see, because you don’t live in that—? Well, the English language lumps so many different variants of communication under the word channeling that the word channeling has very little meaning beyond someone who is still in the body communicating with something by non-sensory means. And that’s a very vague and unhelpful definition.
R: Mm-hmm
F: So we sympathize with the attempt to get away from the word channeling, only for fear of the unexamined assumptions that people put around the word. We invented ILC because we thought it was catchy enough that people might take to using it, by the initials, and because intuitive linked communication does express pretty well what’s going on.
Now, just as a sidelight, of course ILC happens between people in bodies all the time. And that’s another plus for using it, although we’ve never said that before, because again we’re stressing that the difference between us and you is the turf we’re on.
We don’t care, though. Use what you want, but that’s how we —
R: I’ve done quite a bit of work in this arena, and I haven’t really had the experience of exactly what’s going on here. So I can easily feel that we need other language. Maybe we have to use several concepts to describe it, but it is quite different from the experiences I’ve worked with in which people are channeling or in which people are doing several other variations of this same getting information from a non-physical source.
F: Well of course, as pioneers– not just you two, but in general – one of your jobs is to hack paths through the forest. So linguistic differentiations are both the product and the source of better understanding of distinctions.
R: This could be a very helpful part of the book, I think, to write some about the language difficulties.
F: Well, we’ll be glad to, any time you want.
You see, you know it as individuals, but you don’t always know it in the moment when you’re thinking about a different subject, but it’s always true that your language shapes your perceptions. Your language embodies so many understandings of the world that you could almost say it becomes necessary to speak incorrectly if you’re going to get any new understanding. Not quite, but almost. And in the absence of that, you have to do what in fact you mentioned a moment ago, which is what we have always done: which is, look at it from one point of view, and then another, and then another and then another, to try to triangulate it, because you can’t really describe it, you have to sort of look at the view from different viewpoints and hope that it comes across.
R: All right. [pause] I think that’s also going to be a continuing topic here.
All right, another definitional issue here. Last week, you differentiated between consciousness, awareness, and focus of consciousness. And you also differentiated between full consciousness and effective consciousness. And I struggled with all of these, and I’d like to have you correct any part of this that’s misunderstood. I came out thinking that we could say that effective consciousness and awareness are the same thing in your definitions, and that they are both the same thing as focus of consciousness and the flashlight.
F: Correct.
R: That is correct?
F: Correct with the minor caveat that the word awareness actually folds in several different kinds of awareness that vary, but yes, with that – Let’s just bookmark that for the future. But yes, that’s exactly right.
R: Okay. So that that is confusing, and I think we’ll have to spend, again, some time on thinking about how to best deal with that. Because often people think of overall consciousness and awareness as the same thing.
F: We think that if you, Rita, will begin to explore this with us, from the unusual and quite unorthodox perspective of regarding what you commonly call your subconscious as part of the background consciousness, we think it’ll illuminate the whole subject – if you’ll pardon the play on words.
There is no such thing as a subconscious different from a conscious, except situationally. There’s not one piece here and another piece over here and they’re separate but they sometimes communicate. The areas of your full consciousness that aren’t lit up are what you’re considering subconscious. And that starts off looking like a quibble, but as you look at it more, you’ll see, it will illustrate more.
R: I have more than a quibble about the word subconscious, because that has specific meanings in the field of psychology, and particularly psychoanalysis. And so I think we have to be very careful how we use that word.
F: Well, bear in mind, if we’re going to do this, we’re doing it for an audience whose familiarity with all these terms is not predictable. Therefore, the very things that you’re worried about are the things that will tease out the meanings. So in other words, as we come out with the words unconscious, and subconscious, and shadow and full consciousness and all that, how we see all of that, as opposed to how you see it, will be more clearly laid out by your laying out the way you see it, and it just so happens [chuckles] that you happen to be knowledgeable about that subject. What a coincidence.
R: [chuckles] All right. In a way, I listed this as definitions; actually they’re big chunks of things we have to deal with. And one thing we can do is simply say, “for the purposes of this book, this is what this means.” So that we don’t have to use a language that’s acceptable to a whole body of —
F: Oh no. No, no, we’re going to be extremely incorrect. Politically incorrect. But what we meant was, you have the ability to set out the way that it’s commonly accepted. At least in Jungian terms. We have the ability to pick that apart and say “if you take this term which you use for that, and realize that this term and this term are actually looking at the same thing in two different ways and thinking they’re two different things…” You see? That process will tease out a tremendous amount of meaning and even if your readers don’t know where they’re left, it will still be worthwhile because they will begin to effectively think about something that at most they’ve only read about and passed on. In other words, it will give them a place to stand on the subject.
R: Another phrase you used was the intelligence of the universe, and although I thought in the context I understood what you were saying there, is there some more you can say about that? What do you mean by the intelligence of the universe?
F: We don’t know in context either.
R: Well I don’t know that the context was being contrasted with the intelligence of the individual. And in that section was saying that it might easily be substituting the intelligence of the individual for the intelligence of the universe, which is where you would want to be looking at, there.
F: This is – This is, uh, total blank.
R: Okay, I could easily find that section. Fortunately I’ve marked the page and part. But let’s not bother to do that now and waste our time. I can run it down later.
Frank: Well, see – Now, this is Frank again. This is exactly what I wondered would happen. When you asked them a question and nothing happened, I’m going, “okay, how come they don’t have an answer for that?” I don’t know the answer, but – [laughs]
R: It would probably be helpful to get that reference.
Frank: Yeah, but why shouldn’t they know? Anyway, all right, we won’t worry about that. We’ll go back in.
R: Well, it’s interesting because it suggests an intelligence inherent in the universe. Not all people would subscribe to that idea.
Frank: That’s self-evident!
R: — I think that that’s a very interesting idea.
Frank: It’s self-evident!
R: Well in a way it seems self-evident, and yet what does that really mean?
Frank: Well, I’ll tell you exactly what it means. [Sliding back into TGU’s “voice,” their “feel,” in the next few words.] Anyone who believes – anyone who could believe that the universe is not intelligent, could only do so by believing that at least part of the universe is dead, is matter, is something other than a great thought. And so that’s the only way that one could force oneself to believe that the universe or any part of the universe is not intelligent. Starting with the universe as consciousness; starting with the universe as a – for lack of a better word – spirit, it’s by definition impossible for it not to be intelligent. That’s the way we see it, anyway.
R: All right. So there are all of those assumptions in it, that are important –.
F: Well, they are assumptions, aren’t they, but it seems such a stating that the sky is blue, [inaudible]
R: And of course there’s no reason to believe that the sky is blue. Analyze it —
F: Why bother? Just look! [they laugh]
R: Okay, you think that’s self evident also, huh? Let’s move on. Another follow up from last week. I asked about co-creation between you, the guys upstairs, and a life form, and you gave the example of a maple tree, and noted that it was better to think of one generic maple tree than to think of ten thousand maple trees.
F: We didn’t say better, we just think it’s more useful, more accurate.
R: So my question is, would you say that maple trees or other life forms such as whales, for example, have a group mind?
F: [pause] If you hadn’t said whales, we would say yes, because everything has a group mind, including even things like clouds and rocks, even things that are quite ephemeral, because that kind of mind is fed directly from what you call the other side, rather than having to be passed on genetically. The reason we hesitate on whales is they have a group mind in the same way as you have a group mind, but they also have individuality in the way you have individuality. More so than, say, a maple tree. It’s just that their flashlight is a much brighter flashlight than maple trees.
R: And is that distinguishing point at the difference between plants and animals, or where is that?
F: Mmm. [long pause]
You understand, any distinguishing point, by definition, is going to be arbitrary. Or we could put it this way, by definition it’s going to be by definition. [they chuckle]
If we had to give you a rule of thumb, we would say that you could make the limit between plants and animals have more ability and therefore more responsibility to take care of themselves as individual units. You know? A tree, being planted, granted it puts out chemicals and can defend itself in limited ways, still basically it is where it’s planted, and that’s it’s life, whereas a deer or a woodchuck or a mouse can enhance or detract from its own life by its own decisions. Therefore the circumstances of animal life automatically imply a certain budding out from the common consciousness into a consciousness of the individual more. However all of your animals obviously have instinct. What is that instinct? It’s actually the group mind providing the underpinning of the life.
R: You’d say, I guess, they have more choices.
F: They have more choices physically, and therefore they have to make more choices which makes them slightly more aware, yeah. They have to be more aware.
R: The reason I’m bringing this up is, because I think I didn’t understand why you felt it was more useful to think of it as a generic maple tree rather than a thousand individual trees.
F: Well, the maples are more like a maple sharing a group mind then they are like each individual maple being a part of a community. That’s the distinction we were trying to draw. Again, as in most things you could look at it the other way and there would be a certain justice to it. Things can always be seen more than one way.
R: Well, within the animal kingdom, is there just a gradually progressive, more and more individuality, or individual choices —
F: Along what scale?
R: Along the scale of the developmental complexity of animals.
F: [laughs] Well —
R: So that an ameba would presumably have a different number of choices than an elephant.
F: Oh yes! Yes. We thought you were going to try to establish a hierarchy between cats, deer and horses, say.
R: Not to establish the hierarchy, but to assume there is one.
F: Well, in general, the easiest way is to assume that as the abilities are greater and the environmental hazards slash opportunities (they’re the same thing) are greater, then the nature of that existence will call forth more separation from the herd.
R: Mm-hmm. And what is group mind mean when you get to the human being?
F: Well – look at it from our end. If we are in continual contact with each of you — as we are — and we are the same “we” on our end, then chances are the input that you’re each getting has a lot of similarity that is not based on anything you’re doing as individuals. It’s again, the nervous system down to the fingers, even though the fingers are in rubber gloves – you remember –
Well, the nervous system is the same nervous system, so that it will seem to you to function as a group mind. Most people are not even aware you have a group mind. If you want to look at it as group mind. Well, let’s back up a bit here.
From your end, it looks like you have individual consciously created consciousnesses, with subconsciouses and racial subconsciouses and human subconciouses. Al right? You know, the Jungian factor. But from our end, that’s a big confusion, because what you really have are you as individuals continuously and inevitably slopping over between yourselves at your own level, between other levels of yourself, between other lifetimes of yourself, between other realities of yourself, and in all of those cases, at the same time intercommunicating with us back and forth. Now, where is there room for individuality in that? There is, but – there isn’t. You see?
There is, but individuality is not what you think it is. It’s not as individual or isolated as it feels. You’re always in communication with so much, but that communication is so constant and in a sense it is at such background level, that it is usually overlooked and not even considered. So, in that respect you have a group mind because you’re all in the same family, you’re all in the same mental environment, and you react to things in the same way as others who seem to be individual react, for the very good reason that you and they are reacting to the same things inside, regardless what it’s like outside. Is that too complicated?
R: No, that’s all right. I’m going on in my mind to thinking about what we’re getting from the other side, because as current events are very clearly indicating, there’s a very different message coming from the other side to some parts of the world than there are to other parts.
F: Oh, do you think so?
R: Well, it seems that way. What Allah insists on seems quite different from what some perspectives of God requires.
F: [chuckles] Oh yes, but Allah and God might have something to say about it if they were consulted! We’ll back up here just a bit.
If we from our side pour forth the admonition “love your neighbor,” and that admonition goes in one place into a culture which is formed in such a way as to refuse to recognize as neighbors anyone who is not of the same race or class, and in another place goes into a culture where class and racial barriers are more or less irrelevant, and in a third instance goes into an area where it’s only class, or only race – you see, the same impulse sent forth will express in very different ways.
R: Be interpreted very differently.
F: [pause] Well now, that’s an interesting word. Yes, interpreted differently, but that’s another way of saying it will be experienced differently. Yes, it’s absolutely true that all of you interpret the impulses, but people don’t think of it as that, they think of it as “that’s what it was.” So, because the interpretation is a cultural one, and it is also – confusingly enough – a personal one (because it’s running through the filters of that individual mind which is shaped by other lifetimes and other realities) the potential for infinite variance of interpretation is, well, is infinite. There’s no limit to it. We can send forth a very simple message and have it interpreted approximately six billion different ways! Because of the receiving sets.
R: Mm-hmm.
F: Also, do remember, it’s not necessarily in your interests that there be no conflict or that there be no progress in this drama. Remember that everyone in any situation is a volunteer, and some of those volunteers are playing heavies. Now, who’s a heavy on one side looks different from the other side, but it is not our intent or our wish – even if we could do so – to come up with a conflict-free situation, given that the situation is so heavily toxic and needs to be cleaned.
The day before the airplanes hit the buildings, no one would have described the world situation as wonderful or as something where you would want to stay, or something where you would even expect to be able to stay. So what’s different the day after? There are things that are having to be destroyed – and we don’t necessarily mean buildings or cities or even civilizations – but there are attitudes, there are certainties, there are comfortable assumptions; there are all sorts of things that need to be attacked and destroyed in the best interests of all concerned. Well, to do that, you can’t have everybody thinking you are getting the same message, you know.
R: Or even thinking they’re agreed on things.
F: If we were not fundamentally and primarily concerned with your free will, it would be easy. But in the absence of interfering with people’s free will, we can only advise, and that advice or those promptings will be processed through the individual’s filters, biases, experiences, hopes, dreams, fears, wishes….
R: All right. I’ll leave us stuck there, with the free will.
F: It’s the greatest gift in the universe, what are you complaining about?
R: [chuckles] I understand that that’s true.
F: [chuckles] We just want you to grovel a little. [they laugh]
[continued next post]