Group dynamics

Thursday, August 15, 2024

4:50 a.m. I don’t know if this will work, but maybe. Jon, I wonder what we can say about yesterday’s disappointing session.

You mean, what do we dare say, or what can we attain clarity on?

Either. Both. Maybe keep it to ourselves.

We don’t have to. You can if you wish. One setback isn’t a defeat unless you give up.

No, of course not. But still it was a disappointment.

Maybe you’re just expecting too much.

Was it a difference in the number of people involved? I half expect that was part of it.

Number, composition, sure – but are you thinking that anything about it was an accident?

I felt the people were withholding, that they were reluctant to expose the partial contacts they made, because they were partial, or inconclusive. And I didn’t know what to do. The more I intruded myself, surely the more they would hold back. Maybe I ought to let them do it on their own.

So think about Pentecost and don’t worry about blasphemous comparisons. We aren’t saying you’re Jesus, we are saying certain situations have similar dynamics.

Hmm. Well, what I got is that Jesus said the Paraclete (the holy spirit) couldn’t come to them while he was with them. I hadn’t thought of that as meaning, “While I’m here, you’re naturally leaning on me because I showed you the way. Once I leave, you’ll be able and willing to stand on your own feet.”

You could say he showed what was possible by living it, and the example was contagious, but nobody wanted to set up as competition with him, which is how they might see it.

I can see that if I had been fortunate enough to study with Jane Roberts or Edgar Cayce, say, or Carl Jung or William James, it would have been a great opportunity that might have had two contradictory effects: encouragement and discouragement. I would have been able to see what is possible, and I would have doubted I could match what I saw.

And it might have been complicated by your seeing their human flaws. You would have had to reconcile the message and the messenger. It might have added dissonance.

The effect is less with a smaller group. Why?

Isn’t it obvious?

Not to me. Not yet.

In a smaller group, the bond is stronger, one-to-one and also one-in-all. Every person you add to the group dilutes that bond and at the same time adds to the group energy, so you wind up with a different kind of dynamic. It is the difference between a group of two or three truth-seekers and the congregation of a megachurch listening to a televangelist. It is the difference between a prayer meeting of two or three and a football stadium of people exulting in the group-enthusiasm but unable to do so while retaining their individual judgment.

Are we saying that 10 or 12 is already too many people to work together?

Not at all. It’s a good number to experience together, as you have seen. But think of your rule of thumb about conversations.

Yes, I see. I always say that conversations get shallower as they include more people, even if the people are the same. You just can’t – I can’t, anyway – have as deep a conversation with two as with one, nor of four as with two, nor of six as with four. I don’t know where the limits are. So what do we do in practice? And as I ask the question, I hear the answer: Let people choose for themselves.

They’re going to anyway.

Split the group into subgroups so that everybody is in one?

Are you going to force somebody to do it?

I didn’t mean instead of the big, group, I meant in addition to it.

The larger group – and the shadowy even larger group that listens to the recordings but does not attend, that you tend to forget about – will have a purpose of its own, and will take care of itself. But people who want to work more intensively can group themselves, just as you have already done in practice.

And I get, some will and some won’t.

Isn’t that true of everything? Are you back to helping the sun come up in the morning?

As a practical matter, I don’t see how I can be a member of a group, fully connected, yet withhold a lot because I don’t want to take it over. As it is, I’m never sure where the line is.

What is clearer to me than to you is that everybody, in every group, faces that same dilemma. That is one of the things that makes larger groups harder than smaller: Everybody has to judge, should I contribute this or not? Am I speaking too much, or not? Is this only my opinion, or am I getting a message? All these hesitations add up.

So this is about group dynamics.

Partly. Partly it is about how everybody has to decide for themselves, all the time, what is appropriate and what isn’t, what is authentic and important, and what isn’t. and the more people you have doing that at the same time, the more complicated it gets.

Monroe programs are usually two dozen people.

And how many people speak during a debrief? And how long is the debrief compared to the individual tape experience?

Maybe that was the step too far? Trying to do with the large group what we did with the small group?

“Make haste slowly.” You might think about tattooing that on your forehead so you can see it in the morning when you’re shaving.

So maybe suggest to the larger group that we do a drumming, and then report, as we have been doing?

Or maybe alter it. Do the drumming and discuss rather than sequentially reporting. People will have to be careful not to step on each other, but interaction will be a step up in understanding over merely hearing one after one.

A step up because active rather than merely passive?

All I can say is, you might try it. There’s nothing wrong with trying things and failing. You know what Edison said.

“That’s one more thing I know doesn’t work.” That’s how he finally figured out what light filaments could be made of.

I assume you continue to be ready to assist in the process.

Who do you think is there by accident?

Very funny. And I get, you aren’t the only one.

You have all been accompanied – shadowed, if you like – all the way. This is of great interest here as a practical way forward.

This isn’t a natural segue, but I’m moved to ask – maybe by you, for all I know – what can you say now about your connection with your guys who you used to say betrayed you? I assume things look different now?

You assume that naturally I’m now going to see it your way.

Laughing. Yes, I guess that was my assumption.

Well, I don’t. But of course I don’t’ see it the same way I did when I was under the pressure of 3D constrictions and expectations. It didn’t occur to me, what I mentioned the other day, that restrictions are focus. I never thought about it this way, but frustrations can be very powerful focusing devices. I was a concentration of frustrated aspiration, and that energy form remains.

That last isn’t quite clear.

I never thought it would be. Let’s let it lie for a while.

So are you saying your guys really did “underinvest” in you, as you used to say?

Let’s put it this way: My composition and the events of my life and my perseverance in desire led to 3D frustration; that was obvious enough. What I didn’t consider was that frustration can be used to fuel the engine. Just because the ego-level consciousness isn’t getting what it wants doesn’t mean it isn’t getting what it needs at a larger level. This may sound strange, but I don’t regret my anger and frustration and sense of disappointment and betrayal. Those feelings were right in a way, wrong in a way.

We spend so much time sorting things into right and wrong, desired and not desired, it makes it harder to see things neutrally. I would say now I am seeing it neutrally, seeing that everything has the defects of its qualities, as everybody knows, but the defects are as valuable as a qualities.

Shouldn’t you have figured that out, as a psychiatrist?

Psychiatry assumes desired and undesired. It assumes an intent to help people cope. It doesn’t necessarily say, “Well, sure, that hurts, but so what?”

Well, thanks for all this. I’ll sent it around and we’ll see how many people think I think I’m Jesus.

They’re more likely to be relieved to see that you don’t.

We’ll see. Thanks again.