V I C f lh H Q U O f t i1
try Stefan J Malerek
A Mew H istorical Perspective
When nomadic w arr iors began migr at mg aero» the
stepped of Southern Asia toward wha, is now moder n
(My Europe between five and eight thousand years ago
- - in the wake of the retreating glaciers of the last Ice
Age - - they b ro u /it w ith them their cruel and vicious
male gods who demarxted utter obedience to their
authority - - w ith to rtu re and (teeth being the
punishment for defying them They treated others - -
fr lend and foe •• an th e ir grate tre a te d them They
brought about the fa ll of the Mmoan C ivilization, the
last to embrace the concept of the bountiful, egaiitar lan
□rxktess. Gaia, providing completely for the needs of all
of humanity without discrim ination
We on Planet Earth hove been locked into this same
operative par adigm - - baaed on the isolation of the
individual, h o stility and compel it ion toward other
isolated md separate individuals, and dominance over
Natur e - - demanding, in the words of Sir Francis
Bacon, that we ‘ torture rc r u n til jhg reveals hgr
secrets' in order to get whet we want from life and the
world These kinds of attitudes and misunderstandings
hove led us to the brink of planetary ecocide, liv in g on
a plw w , awash w ith racism and sexism and plagued by a
global economic system that thrive s on war and power -
broker mg among the industrialized nations
What we have lost in this frenzy of production and
consumption is the connection w ith our own bodies -
and se nsitivity to the needs of others and the planet
These attitudes have been fostered and encour ged by
moder n industrial societies as being good for
business because the needs and concerns of the
individual are supreme • - and the false notion that r®
who dies w ith the most toys wins"
The roots of this thinking lie deeply bur led in the
mind bod/ s p lit - fir s t promulgated in the
philosophies of Plato, Pythagoras and Par amenities - -
mar king the beQirmirgof an era when knowledge *8S no
longer divine and revoelod from inner source, but was
something which could tie quantified and
'objectified - - a n d thus obtained from external
sources This effectively gave recognition to the sp lit
between the "male" intellect and the equally intelligent
"female" body, givinq precedence to the former Rene
Descartes gave this disjunction a scientific formalism
during the Enlightenment Project of the Seventeenth
Century and bequeethed to us a continuous process of
object it icat ion which has enabled the human race to
reach new heights of scientific knowledge and
technological advancement But we have cr eated, and
increasingly re ly upon, deified experts upon whom we
hove been led to believe that we must be re lia n t for all
the m yriad kinds of knowledge and needs of our
increasingly complex lives
Power and Social Conditioning
Since societies exist before we do, there is always a
p re -e xistin g social stru cture of some sort into which
we are born, one w ith its own set of rules and
regulations, visions and p rio ritie s , gmls and agendas
A ll of the people in that society, including ones
parents, are invested in the operative bluepr ,nt of the
particular society for survival and the furtherance of
their own individual goals
We are disempowered from the moment of b irth , our
ostensible caregivers - - and the whole of society
through them - - being given an oppor tunity to have
th e ir own deepest power and dependency needs met
through the medium of the newborn child, for whose
destiny they have already made plans, consciously or
otherwise We directly absorb these ear best examples
of power and intimacy from the role model ingot our
most intim ate and immediate caregivers acting and
reacting in certain ways to the needs and demands of the
larger society because neoteny - - the plasticized brain
learning of infancy and early childhood - - allows us to
adapt to anything without discrim ination Because we
are totally open and vulnerable, we are im printed with
the emotional tone of these lessons like black ink on the
white paper of our conxiousness We have, without
any conscious thought on our parts, been mtrockjced to
expectations - - certain ways ot acting, thinking, being
Because we are cognitively immature, we are
engraved emotionally, absorbing these im prints in the
neural networks of the brain U ntil examined they
have a life long effect on the determination of one 5
belief system - - basically an acquired taste" for
certain prefer ences and kinds of knowledge, based on
those of our caregivers and their role modelling Our
intellectual predilections ere often an extension or
rationalization of these early emotional choices or
conditioning For example, one must only look at how
frequently the bulk of people act contrary to their
stated, conscious, intellectually formulated goals and
ideals, chorainq instead unconscious, unexamined
emotionally based ones
Having internalized the essence of these ear best
lessons without question, ( i e "Don, c ry ' Be a
N an'“ ), having learned to squelch our own needs in
favor of the prevailing attitudes of society embodied in
our caretaker s - - we are bound to repent them in our
own lives unless and u n til we consciously choose to
examine them. deciding the ir "correctness" and
appropriateness" in terms of our own lives in the
present This in trojecling of parental mandates is that
to which John Bradshaw was re fe rrin g when he said
8
UPPER L E T T t D & t M W ECH I W
3
"That of which we are unaware drives us
Just as the individual contains and reflects society in
embryo, so does society contain and reflect the
collective vibrations ot all individuals Thus, even by
default we live in exactly the wor Id we want; We ma,
t r y to deny this, but it does not matter what good
intentions we might lave - - collectively we ^jner ate
what we call "re a lity " we are the co-creators of a ll
we see W ith either conscious w ill and intention or
uncxjnscious w ill by default, we manifest what we c a rry
most deeply w ith in ourselves and create the wor Id
If one can look without prejudice at this so called
"external world" and its changes as m irro r images of
our collective inner world, we may begin to reflect on
bane changes, using them as guides to inner knowing
and s p iritu a l progress The environment in which one
lives - - which we almost universally perceive to be
external to our individual selves - - is re a lly nothing
more than a direct projection of our th o w /its, ideas and
desires and well w ithin our a b ility to change
The institutions that govern our lives in th is post -
industrial world represent a system of social control
w ith their hierarchical structure, system of rewards
and punishment and male dominance They also
represent a process of continually deepening
conditioning in which we are encour agBd/coerced to
give up our inner authority - to our parents and
fa m ily, then to teachers and doctors and c le rg y , to the
policeman, the fireman and hundreds of others in
almost every asport of our daily bves We are ra re ly ,
if ever , encour aged to live our lives in tune w ith our
own internal signals - - indeed we are often encouraged
to ignore the body completely in favor of completing
o th e r, "more im portant" mental tasks
Driven by these internalized mandates, we often
unthinkingly repeat the lifestyle choices and dictates of
these ear best, most essential people in our bves I
believe that the current state of the global environment
- - economy, politics, religions and the biosphere - -
reflects this lark of self examination on a massive
scale Because we are encour aged to maintain a sense of
self defined by the status quo society, because we have
been conditioned to believe that this is who we really
are. and, because we believe that our very w ell-being
is m tr icafply linked to i t . we are afraid to change
much as expulsion from the tr ibe was consider ed to be
the most extreme punishment possible, tatamoun, to
death, in ancient societies
Choice. Intention and a New Attitude
It is th is inner se e rch its e lf which holds the key to
the "war on drugs", violence in the streets, the
contmued (tegr a dat ion of our cities and way of life , the
increasing sense of alienation from our jobs and
relationships, the p ro liferatin g «Mictions and diseases
that plague modern life and the planetary ecological
c ris is It is only w hen each in d iv id u a l chaoses to take
on the burdens and guesiions of th e ir own lives chooses
to examine and define who he or she is in their own
r it f it without reference to the needs and demands of
society, takes the danger ous and potentially most
heeling step possible and examines the internalized
dictates and memories of their own life , that we, each
of us, can became tru ly responsible ( develop the
a b ility to respond) firs t of all for our own bves and
decisions and ultim ately for those which affect the
planet itself (acting in concert w ith other s who have
trod this most d iffic u lt and fu lfillin g road)
What is required is a new attitude - based on
rigorous honesty and self-examination - - that posits
that we. as planetary people, can change any situation,
no matter how impossible it might seem. from losing
weight to becoming protectors and stewards of the
planet - - but which requires, firs t and foremost, that
we ourselves change in such a w<n that we are able to
align ourselves w ith the desired change and become it
This w ill require a new way of seeinQ one's own life and
world, a Quantum Psychology, if you w ill, that is based
- - not as the old, on separatist, isolating categories of
hostile, opposing elements ( which reflects the
dominant wor Idview of the tim es), but on an e ntirely
new system - - on the cooper at ion and bar mony of
holism, a new octave of change, a quantum jump in
thinking
Healing emotionally is the true key to this sp iritu a l
growth and change It is only by livin g the "re a lity " of
a vision of harmony and beauty that w e can make it
real, incorporating it into the practices of our daily
bves in such an in trin s ic way that w ith every breath
we take, we are, ,n effect, changing the world through
the revolutionary action of sim ply being alive But
becoming authentic moat often involves unravelling the
often subtly interwoven tyrannies of everyday life
There are several areas which need to be addressed in
this respect - - on the road to functional wholeness and
s p iritu a l growth of any individual
Transformational Tools for Healing
I Recovery The internalization of the victim stance
is most intense amongst child abuse su rvivo rs - -
although almost everyone is abused and/or neglected in
our exploitive, competition- based, ‘ might makes
rig h t society This abuse engenders internalized
oppression Because we heve been socialized to please
others, to meet their needs, we heve been betrayed in
our earliest, most vulnerable periods and hence c a rry
memories of pain and fear associated w ith being
emotionally open and available One must recover all
ones memories, latent abilitie s and the power lost to
emotional neglect and restore them to fu ll
consciousness- - thus ef tert ively re empower ing one s
self This work may include Twelve Step Programs,
3
psyctotherapy, regression w ork. Rebirthing. Voice
Dialogue, inner Child W ork. Co-Counselling or any
type of personal growth program to which one feels
drawn It is ultim ately the desire and intention to
change that w ill lead one to the goal of re
empowerment I have found a ll of the above methods
helpful in clearing my own traum atic history
TflX TALK
Check thia Tax
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again Kaap that in aund it
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at a m a m a g a or dim rm
Chunaa tha right U n a to
uaa thia big t a i break
2 Bodywork Body work ther apy allows one to get
in better touch ( pun intended) w ith oneself Since pain
is stored in the body, it too must be taught new and
more functional ways of being - releasing the painful
burdens of the past in favor of energy, joy and acstacy
As Michael Rossman says in V ’/ r r m ZV t o o f the
P o litic ’
living in touch w ith our v ita lity in
reawakened bodies is integral to the pursut, of the
revolution we (team is necessary
E xerelse gener ates erxtor phins, the body s own
anti-depressant It elevates the heart and metabolic
rates and is a general toner for the entire body Ha,he
Yoga techniques S tructural Intergration or any
technique to which one feels drawn can be useful If one
listens carefully, one's body w ill te ll one what it wants
and needs
3 Qroup Work Developing a new fam ily of
a ffilia tio n ( which can include members of one s
biological fam ily of or igm) comes about from pursuing
a rtiv itie s and interests that resonate for o n e -- and
finding other s who have sim ilar interests, such as
recycling, protection of the rainforests, gourmet
vegetarian cooking or creating conscious communities
As one recover s from one s own personal ravages, one
w ill discover other s of like mind, w illin g to bravely
experiment w ith a new v u ln e ra b ility now healed from
the burdens of the past and tempered by discrim ination
One s recovery can be erihanced tremendously in this
way berause a social context is created and reinforced
for a new way upon which one may comfortably and
joyously enter Joining in group activities or
meditation, one w ill find the exponential power of
developing group consciousness wherein tr u ly , the sum
is greeter than the parts
4 Meditation When one has become sufficiently
clear emotionally and mentally, i, becomes a matter of
steer ing the ship of self, as it were where one wants it
to go This is done through intending wha, one w a n ts- -
no, mere empty hoping, bu, a clar died intention to
im p rin t the Univer sal Whole w ith one s needs and
intentions This creates a powerful beacon of purpose
which - - even if not fu lfille d precisely - - draws to
one the highest good and cuts a path through the , oq to
one s goals
This w ill allow one to channel one's own previously
misdirected energies ( outward) to be tur neo inward
for self guidance - and to live in true fre e -w ill
expression and becom e, in e ffe c t, one > own parents!
Choosing conxiousiy to lim it the extent of the praettoe
of exploitation in every area of one's life - - thereby
mak ing oneself more recep, ive to the benevolent
energies of The Whole - - allows one the opportunity to
beome a livin g embodiment of change, garnering tru th
and insight, learning and qf owing from everyone $
efforts - - such that one s every breath becomes a
revolutionary ac,
Once one becomes conscious of I f * nature of
self-created re a lity , one can see the mechanism of
creation itself and take responsibility for it - -
creating anew the patterns of one's life , putt ing a
conscious and aware ego into the dr iv e rs see, of the
vehicle of conxiousness The p ossibility develops,
then, of divinQ deeply, ever more deeply, into one s own
Self in the silence of meditation - - and discover ing the
real depths of both one s awn individuality and ones
connectedness to others One must throw off the
oppressive burden of victim ization to stand as
champion to one s very own most precious self and say
"I W ill Bf A VICTIM NO MORE’ "
Bruce E. Nims, P.C.
Ctrnfxed fubltc
Accountant
32? 04*4
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73» 0247
JIM WEATHERS
C A R PE N T R Y
4 3 6 « 1885
U C IM S k O
MOMOTD BMVUnrt)
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THE
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V ic tim No M o re is an excerpt from
" Q u a n tu m
P s y c h o lo g y ” ( Ltncorelhnijthe
Tyranm o t t t jv vttev L tfA by Stefan Malecek
of Manzanita, a p riva te ly published book
available a, Ramyduy Books in I illamook , The
Crystal Cavern in Salem and from the author a,
3 6 8 - 7591 $ ' 5 postage paid
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