The Greatest gifts we can bequesth our children and descendants

It will take some time.

To change our culture, to bring empathy back to the core as the fundamental quality of our culture.

From the base, from how we frame ourselves as people, as parents and as children.

It WILL build as more people understand the importance of our earliest (and for most of us, forgotten) lived experiences.

The science and biology of empathy is now well established. The understand

ing of how human behaviour is mediated is likewise well established, though the mainstream still ignores it, as do most Power linked Religions.

Who can recall the DETAIL of their infancy - therein lies clues to our behaviours, our unconscious patterns and adaptations?

Vital information is there, about what we learned at the deepest pre-verbal visceral level, about Power, co-operation, empathy, sense of self.

Blaming parents for the ills of Society is a tactic that Institutional Society employs. To let itself off the hook.

That is not to say that abusive parents are to be let presented with excuses for behaviour that causes harm.

Rather it is a call to recognise that helping stressed parents understand their own infancy AND how the pressures imposed on them by work, economics, etc., increases the difficulties they face, is to recognise that helping parents to understand the natural emotional and psychic needs of their children and exploring how Institutional Society thwarts the meeting of those needs through war, indoctrination, poverty/concentration of wealth, media, marketing, coercive competitive schooling, hierarchical power will decrease the incidence of abuse for the majority of stressed parents.

Most parents do love their children, and many struggle with that love because the messages they received, that their grand parents and great grand parents and ancestors received about parenting were mediated by Institutional Society, and by Religion and by the adverse affects of unresolved trauma and there has never been a consistent effort to HELP parents resolve their own issues because those issues are often linked to how Institutional Power operates and thus affects so many lives.

Understanding that we all did not choose our families nor our society and have had to deal with any adverse affects by adapting, surviving, 'fitting in'. Understanding that intergenerational trauma patterns are a reality. Yet they are not written in stone.

We can break the cycle. We can recover our full humanity.

There is no greater gift to future generations.

There is no greater gift to oneself.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

NATURAL CHILD, NATURAL SOCIETY : A presentation

‎

NATURAL CHILD, NATURAL SOCIETY

A Talk given on May 23rd 20122 @ Inspiring Minds Forum,  Mango Landin', London

1. The Psychology of any emergent or given Society/Community/Family is both revealed, and perpetuated, in how that group treats it's children, and especially it's most vulnerable people... address that and you can change the whole society. Failure to address this where it is toxic ensures it's continuation.  Eg: Aboriginal Residential Schools were intentionally designed to alter Aboriginal Society forever. Compulsory Schooling has the same purpose.   John Taylor Gatto “Underground History of American Education” www.johntaylorgatto.com

2. Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, David Cameron, George Osborne, George Bush, Richard Nixon, Tony Blair etc  : What happened to these people when they were ‘in utero’, at birth, when they were babies, infants, toddlers, children, teenagers…. that they turned out like they have? This is a crucial question for each of us and for our culture. Alice Miller “For Your Own Good” http://www.nospank.net/fyog.htm

3. The disruption of the biologically mandated child-mother bonding process sets up a chain of events, leading to emergent violence. Attachment ‘theory’ research on primates.
   
   The flow is as follows: if the child is not related to in ways that nurture self-empathy, then the development of a loss of self-empathy occurs. With that loss comes a loss of empathy for others, a sense of disconnection is felt and with that comes more fear, compounding the fear the trauma generated.
   
   The compounded, layered fear leads directly to a perceived (often unconscious) need to control others and to control the environment.
   
   As all natural organisms are autonomous, self directing growing beings, so too they will resist, to one degree or another, efforts to control them. That resistance generates the use of violence or coercion to impose or retain that control.
   
   In human family or society, if this pattern starts, and is not resolved, then each successive generation will impose that control, and those who hold Power will seek to enhance it, learning as time passes, and the children will grow up in an environment that they will 'adapt' to, the situation demanding the internalisation of that psychological need to control. Anthropology – James Prescott - http://www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/article.html
   
   
4. What baby/child/person would not be angry, confused or frightened at not experiencing the experientials our biology has mandated? Think of the child left to cry him/her self to sleep in a room away from his or her parents, to scream and cry until finally exhaustion brings sleep. Is this not a common practice in our culture? What of the resignation, the suppression of that rage, the loss of self empathy which ensues from that suppression which is a common outcome of such a practice? Adrenaline, Cortisol vs Oxytocin
   
   Thus the need to control then gets transmitted through the structure of that family or society and over time becomes codified, normalised, embedded, institutionalised. Empire, Hierarchically Violent Societies.

             SOME PERTINENT QUESTIONS

5.  Why has neither the general public nor the secular authorities not moved to confront the Vatican on it’s record of child abuse within it’s Organisation? Linkage of Hierarchical Power Systems.
6. What does this tell us about our Society? Psychological core or root.
7. Why has natural birthing been replaced with ever increasing utilisation of ‘ceasarian section’ as an elective procedure, as a matter of choice? http://www.birthpsychology.com
8. What does coercion of children speak of?   Insecurity, mistrust, fear.
9. Why is Society left out of the therapeutic process? http://www.davidsmail.info/talk01a.htm

Social-Behavioral Characteristics Of Affectionate/Nurturant And Non-Affectionate/Non-Nurturant Primitive Cultures by James W. Prescott

http://www.violence.de/prescott/letters/Social-Behavioral_Characteristics.pdf

James W. Prescott is a developmental neuropsychologist and a cross-cultural psychologist who received his doctorate in psychology from McGill University, Montreal, P.Q. Canada. He served as Assistant Head, Physiological Psychology Branch, Office of Naval Research (1963-1966); as Health Scientist Administrator, Developmental Behavioral Biology Program, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH (1966-1980); and President, Maryland Psychological Association (1970-1971). He was the recipient of the "Outstanding Contributions To Psychology Award, Maryland Psychological Association (1977); the CINE GOLDEN EAGLE AWARD for his contributions, as Scientific Director, to the award winning Time-Life film, "Rock A Bye Baby" (1971); and has given expert testimony on the origins of human violence, particularly domestic violence, before the Senate of Canada; the U.S. Congress; and many other legislative and professional organizations.

SOCIETAL CHARACTERISTICS

HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

1. Martrilineal

2. Polygyny has low incidence

3. Women's status not inferior

4. Low avoidance of In-Laws

5. Low incidence of Mother-Child households

6. Small community size

7. Low societal complexity

8. Large extended family

9. Wives are not purchased

10. Slavery absent

11. Grand-parental authority over parents is absent

12. Subsistence is primarily by food gathering

13. Low class stratification

14. Political integration at community and family level

15. Metal working is absent

INFANT/CHILD CHARACTERISTICS

HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

16. High infant physical affection

17. Low infant physical pain

18. High infant indulgence

19. High reduction of infant needs

20. Immediate reduction of infant needs

21. Low infant/child crying

22. Prolonged breast-feeding over 21/z years

23. Low child anxiety over performance of responsible behavior

24. Low child anxiety over performance of obedient behavior

25. High smiling, laughter, humor

26. Low anxiety over transition: infancy/childhood

27. High number of food taboos during pregnancy

28. Abortion permitted

29. Strength of desire for children is low

SEXUAL BEHAVIORAL CHARACTERISTICS

HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

30. Premarital coitus permitted

31. Extramarital coitus permitted

32. Post-partum sex taboo less than one month

33. Sex disability absent

34. Castration anxiety is low

35. Low sex anxiety

36. Narcissicism is low

37. Low exhibitionistic dancing

SOCIETAL CHARACTERISTICS

LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

1. Patrilineal

2. Polygyny has high incidence

3. Women's status inferior

4. High avoidance of In-Laws

5. High incidence of Mother-Child households

6. High community size

7. High societal complexity

8. Small extended family

9. Wives are purchased

10. Slavery present

11. Grand-parental authority over parents is present

12. Subsistence is primarily by food production

13. High class stratification

14. Political integration at state level

15. Metal working is present

INFANT/CHILD CHARACTERISTICS

LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

16. Low infant physical affection

17. High infant physical pain

18. Low infant indulgence

19. Low reduction of infant needs

20. Delayed reduction of infant needs

21. High infant/child crying

22. Breast-feeding less than 21/a years

23. High child anxiety over performance of responsible behavior

24. High child anxiety over performance of obedient behavior

25. Low smiling, laughter, humor

26. High anxiety over transition: infancy/childhood

27. Low or no food taboos during pregnancy

28. Abortion highly punished

29. Strength of desire for children is high

SEXUAL BEHAVIORAL CHARACTERISTICS

LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

30. Premarital coitus punished

31. Extramarital coitus punished

32. Post-partum sex taboo greater than one month

33. Sex disability present

34. Castration anxiety is high

35. High sex anxiety

36. Narcissism is high

37. High exhibitionistic dancing

WAR/VIOLENCE/CRIME CHARACTERISTICS

HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

38. Low adult physical violence

39. Low or no warfare

40. Low military glory

41. Bellicosity is low

42. Low or absent killing, torture, mutilation

43. Low personal crime

44. Incidence of theft is low

WAR/VIOLENCE/CRIME CHARACTERISTICS

LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

38. High adult physical violence

39. High warfare

40. Military glory emphasized

41. Bellicositiy is extreme

42. High killing, torture, mutilation

43. High personal crime

44. Incidence of theft is high

JUSTICE/RELIGIOUS/SUPERNATURAL CHARACTERISTICS

HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

45. High God is mainly absent

46. Low or no religious activity

47. Superordinate justice absent

48. Supernatural are benevolent

49. Fear of humans rather than fear of supernatural

50. Belief in reincarnation absent

51. Low ascetecism in mourning

52. Witchcraft low or absent

53. Religious specialists are part-time

NOTE: The above social-behavioral characteristics of primitive cultures have been derived from: R.B. Textor (1967) A Cross-Cultural Summary, HRAF Press New Haven.

JUSTICE/RELIGIOUS/SUPERNATURAL CHARACTERISTICS

LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

45. High God is present

46. High religious activity

47. Superordinate justice present

48. Supernatural are aggressive

49. Fear of supernatural rather than fear of humans

50. Belief in reincarnation present

51. High ascetecism in mourning

52. Witchcraft highly present

53. Religious specialists are full time

Matrilineal cultures are those where inheritance follows the female line; Polygynous cultures are those where men have several wives and is a measure of sexual exploitation and control of women by men; High desire for children is a measure that reflects exploitation of children: high value of male and female fertility; and use of children as economic resource, thus, its linkage with abortion being punished. Presence of a Supernatural (High God) with high religious activity in low affectionate/nurturant cultures reflects the need for "divine love" when human love is absent or significantly diminished. Similarity, God is made unto the image and likeness of man — violent cultures have violent Gods; peaceful cultures have peaceful/benevolent Gods.

------------------------

BIOLOGY

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS IN NATURE AS A WHOLE?

FALSE LOGIC OF THE ‘EXCEPTION’?

H.ORMONES - THE HEART AS  HORMONAL REGULATOR, OCYTOCIN, ADNERALINE, CORTISOL, DISRUPTION OF NATURAL STRESS MECHANISMS

THE HEART AS A COGNITIVE ORGAN OF PERCEPTION – HOW THIS WORKS, BIOLOGICAL EMPATHY.

ADAPTATION AS A LEARNING PROCESS:  NOT ‘HIT AND MISS’, NOT ‘RANDOM’, BUT EXTREMELY PRECISE.

NEUROPLASTICITY – WHAT DOES THAT TELL US ABOUT ‘ADAPTATION’?

BEHAVIOUR

TRAUMA CYCLES AND BEHAVIOURS – COPING AND RECOVERY.

SOCIETAL BEHAVIOUR PATTERNS – HOW THEY EVOLVE.

INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA PATTERNS – WHY THEY PERSIST.

INSTITUTIONALISATION – GLORIFICATION OF WAR, POWER, HATRED, PROPERTY.

ANTHROPOLOGY

BIOLOGICAL EMPATHY – PARENTING, MEMORY OF CHILDHOOD, EXPERIENCE OF CARING IN EMPATHIC ABORIGINAL SOCIETIES, BACTERIA, EMPATHY AS A BODY-SENSORY EXPERIENCE,

WHY ARE WE DIFFERENT? WHAT ARE WE DOING AND WHY ARE WE DOING IT?

CHILD ‘REARING’ – POISONOUS PEDAGOGY, ELITE PRACTICE.

TRADING ON PARENTS FEARS – WHAT ARE THOSE FEARS?

JAMES PRESCOTT’S WORK WITH JOHN BOLWBY,AND BEYOND …

RESURGENCE IN ABORIGINAL MOTHERING, LANGUAGE AND CULTURE.

SOLUTIONS

PARENTING – TRUST IN OUR BIOLOGICAL MANDATE.

IF PARENTS CAN UNDERSTAND THE SITUATION THEY ARE PLACED IN AND HOW IT CAN HARM THEIR CHILDREN, WILL THEY ACT ON WHAT THEY KNOW?

WILL THEY ACT CONSTRUCTIVELY OR DESTRUCTIVELY?

COMMUNITY – HOW NATURE FUNCTIONS.

UNDERSTANDING THE SITUATION WE ARE IN – AVOIDING THE COMFORT OF CONSPIRACY THEORIES, FANTASY OR IDEOLOGICAL SOLUTIONS, STICKING TO RELIABLE PROOFS.

EMPATHY AND SELF EMPATHY IN SELF GOVERNANCE.

RAISING CHILDREN WHO WILL RESPOND RATHER THAN REACT.

REALISM : START WITH SELF, EXTEND OUTWARDS LOCALLY.

TIME AND PROCESS, NATURE AS A CUE, AND AS A SOURCE OF CLUES.

CONFRONTING ‘RECEIVED WISDOM’ WITH DATA, EXPERIENCE, EMPATHY.

NOTE : Another component of the heart-brain communication system was provided by researchers studying the hormonal system. The heart was reclassified as an endocrine gland when, in 1983, a hormone produced and released by the heart called atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) was isolated.

This hormone exerts its effect on the blood vessels, on the kidneys, the adrenal glands, and on a large number of regulatory regions in the brain. It was also found that the heart contains a cell type known as 'intrinsic cardiac adrenergic'' (ICA) cells. Theses cells release noradrenaline and dopamine neurotransmitters, once thought to be produced only by neurons in the CNS.

More recently, it was discovered that the heart also secretes oxytocin, commonly referred to as the 'love' or bonding hormone. In addition to its functions in childbirth and lactation, recent evidence indicates that this hormone is also involved in cognition, tolerance, adaptation, complex sexual and maternal behaviours, learning social cues and the establishment of enduring pair bonds. Concentrations of oxytocin in the heart were found to be as high as those found in the brain.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

How could I NOT love ALL the children equally

ANY ADULT WHO DOES NOT immediately ACT effectively and with force and clear intent to STOP AN ABUSER OF CHILDREN is the abusers friend, and the child's enemy. They are enemies of healthy community.

There is in the 'lynch mob' also those who wish to use the Church as a way of avoiding looking at how the State treats children, how Society misinforms parents as to their proper relationships towards children, especially towards ALL children, not just 'their own children' .. for example mothers letting their children enlist in the Military ...

I recall looking at my daughter and welling up with a fierce love for her, and having an insight which said "I love you, and loving you as I do, how could I NOT love ALL the children equally, and I still recognise and know the deep personal connection I have with my daughter is special, but not separate".

At that moment my entire world changed forever. In that moment I became truly adult.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

'Evolutionary' Origins of Religion: a trauma model

*the use of the tem 'evolutionary' is entirely satrical in the context of this essay. Religion and evolvution are two mutually exclusive dynamics..

My own view regarding Evolution and Religion (The Evolutionary Origins of Religion) emerges from my own life experience and from my readings of the work of John Bolwby, James Prescott , Alice Miller, Robert Sapolsky, Judith Herman, Allan Schore and many, many others who have explored the psychology of the biological mandate towards empathy,  (and the disruption of that biological mandate) which is based on the lived experience of self empathy from within the womb, through infancy and onwards throughout life.

 Joseph Chilton Pearce suggests in his research that self empathy, awareness of self, starts within the womb.

Self awareness and awareness of other exists in a pre-verbal reality that is experienced, in such manner that the material and social meaning of the experience is known to the experiencer: this is called direct or experiential cognition.

Others have described what is called  Liminal Consciousness a silent, non verbal full spectrum reality cognition that is shared within a group,  usually groups that are what we can call pre-conquest egalitarian cultures.

"When similar child nurture was later seen spawning similar consciousness in isolated enclaves elsewhere, it became clear that a type of mentality very different from world norms today existed widely in prehistory. Such mentality emerges from a sociosensual nurture common to such peoples but shunned in Westernized societies"

Prescott's  research has found an emergent pattern of Social Behaviour amongst Societies where the natural child-mother bonding processes are disrupted, of increased Religiosity, Hierarchy and Institutionalized Violence all of which exist in proportion to the levels of disruption to the child-mother bonding processes.

Furthermore he was able to link disruption of the adolescent exploration of sexuality to the emergence of these Societal traits.

All of these experientials are embodied lived experiences, that is to say they are experienced and known primarily through the body, the senses and are biologically mandated as vitally  important life learning processes.

This 'disruption' could be called the Trauma model of the Evolutionary Origins of Religion.

David Chamberlain has written :

"From the second month of pregnancy, experiments and observations reveal an active prenate with a rapidly developing sensory system permitting exquisite sensitivity and responsiveness. Long before the development of advanced brain structures, prenates are seen interacting with each other and learning from experience. They seem especially interested in the larger environment provided by mother and father, and react to individual voices, stories, music, and even simple interaction games with parents. The quality of the uterine environment is determined principally by parents.

The opportunities for parents to form a relationship with the baby in the womb are significant and remarkable. This contrasts sharply with the previous view that prenates did not have the capacity to interact, remember, learn, or put meaning to their experiences"

It is quite obvious that those with innate or natural self empathy intact know or can better better, at a visceral pre-verbal level, how to relate to others, to meet their own and others needs, because they sense the other in intimate ways associated with their own sense of self empathy. They are more perceptive and more responsive to information contained within the other because they can more fully sense themselves.

Conversely, those whose natural self empathy has been somehow damaged have greater difficulty in relating to others, and require a set of external guidelines to manage their relationships.

This is the thrust of the work of Heinz Kohut

The resolution of the issue of damaged self-empathy would lead towards a spiritual or personally rational 'inner' motivated outlook, rather than religious 'externally driven' or societally rationalised outlook on life. Prescott's research demonstrates that where these key experientials are not disrupted, a more egalitarian societal behaviour emerges.

In terms of evolution, and of well being, it is clear that empathy, founded on experienced self-empathy is a crucially vital socialising characteristic, because it enables a visceral understanding of the world within, and of the world in which a human being is living, an almost direct perception of the value and meaning of life, and a grasping of the value of others lives to those others, and in particular the lives of other organisms that are the food we eat. This is the basis for the oft quoted respect many Aboriginal societies afford the creatures and plants within their environments, upon which they are dependent for food, medicine and other materials.

James Prescott outlined in some detail the societal behavioural characteristics to be found within a spectrum or bandwidth of societies, ranging from empathic egalitarian through to totalitarian hierarchical societies, and traced the emergence of these characteristics to the disruption or nurturing of two crucial empathic experiential learning points in the life of a human being.

From an evolutionary viewpoint, Imposed Hierarchical Religion can be seen as an evolutionary mismatch.

That is to say that whilst spirituality of some form is probably innate, and that perhaps the natural wonder so many experience (especially small children)  when we allow ourselves to simply gaze at nature and allow nature into us, is an expression of this, and that this wonder tends towards assisting in the development of nurturing relationships.

Whereas Religiosity is learned, and tends towards exclusive yet low-urturant relationships primarily with those who share the same religious viewpoints, and at the same time, religiosity  tends towards aversion of the other and or fear of other viewpoints. The history of sectarianism within religions and ideologies is all too often bloody and brutal evidence of this.

In evolutionary terms this means the person or society who is subject to imposed religiosity, or indeed ideology, (which is almost always imposed through the agency of Institutionalised Power) will be less willing to co-operate with the 'other' or to recognise it's own interdependency with all of life, and this therefore increases the likelihood of sustained behaviours that damage the environment, which inevitably reduces it's long term survival possibilities. The evidence for this lies all around us.

I have traced a path way of disruption, based on my understanding of Trauma and PTSD, which leads to the excessive control and violence associated with Institutionalised Power Religions, with Lateral Violence, Abusive Family dynamics, and much else besides.


a basic outline : loss of  self empathy due to trauma -> loss of empathy for others -> sense of disconnection from what nurtures -> compounds fear associated with trauma -> leads to excessive desire for control of self, others, environment -> leads to violence to control self, others, environment

To survive a trauma event often requires that a person undergoing the trauma suppresses his or her feelings in order to survive. This would also apply to a community that is being traumatised. If, post trauma, that person or community is unable to resolve those suppressed feelings, the suppression remains, and children born to that person or community will grow up with that suppression as part of their psychology. Such suppression leads to a disruption of self-empathy, because it leads to shutting down certain feelings or groups of feelings.

The loss of self-empathy leads to a loss of empathy for others, which can also be described as a loss of empathy for all that nurtures one, or a sense of disconnection from all that nurtures one. This will generate fear, which compounds the fear associated with the trauma, and leads directly to a sensed need to control the people, environment or world around one in order to have certain perceived needs met.

When any autonomous organism is subjected to external control, it will resist, and this is where violence is utilised, to break that resistance. That violence can be physical or psychological. It can be immediate and final or long term and sustained.

Naturally enough, a community or family that has been traumatised, and has been unable to resolve the feelings suppressed, will pass that on to the next generation. As each successive generation 'evolves' evolves they will inject that psychology into the structures they create around their system, structures that will become core beliefs, attitudes and over time Institutionalised patterns of permitted behaviour.

If a child somehow retains some of his or her original natural autonomy, which is a core biological and evolutionary trait, then violence, both physical and psychological, will be permitted to be utilised against that child to break the child, to show the child who is master. This is the basis for what is called 'Poisonous Pedagogy' which has a long and well documented history in Europe.

Recent calls from UK Government Ministers and Teachers Unions for more Power to control children in schools reveals that this is still an active paradigm within the UK - the 21st Century is still Governed by Mediaeval and Victorian attitudes. David Cameron's call that children ought to 'stand up when an adult enters the class room' is very revealing, though he himself is totally unaware of what he is revealing.

Likewise the Catholic Pope's record on dealing with widespread child abuse within Catholicism, and the stance of so many Catholics in protecting both the Pope and the Institution of The Vatican.

Baroness Varsi, a UK 'Muslim' Peer, visited the Pope recently, and made no comment whatsoever on the issues facing the Vatican. Because those same issues are pertinent to ALL Governance as we know it today.




Evolution of life on Earth is more about interdependency, co-operation, mutualism, nurture than it is about competition, mere survival, hierarchical or linear growth. Religiosity is clearly of the latter stream, and is an evolutionary mismatch. The same can be said of ideology, nationalism, sexism, racism. That many people have been questioning these latter attitudes for so long, in a climate of almost constant oppression and denial, speaks to the innate power of our natural biological mandate towards self empathy and empathy for others.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Motherhood, Fatherhood and Nurturance.

I was asked the following question :

"Why always the biological mother relationship?" and "Why is there no mention of the paternal role in your writings?"

This is a good question.

This is my answer:

My focus on the mother child link is really simple.

We are alive and conscious and forming/developing within the womb, our first world. Any culture that nurtures that first forming, that first world will nurture what follows. Any culture that understands and respects that first world will understand and respect what follows.

Thus we learn, as Fathers, within the womb, what it is to feel to be nurtured or not at the most profund levels. The base.

Furthermore, the egg that became me was alive in my mother, in my grandmothers womb, and within my mothers body, living cells of me lived for the duration of her life. There is a distinct matri-lineal biology that expresses itself in the experiential learning of nurturance.

Nurturance is the most fundamental of all human behaviours, in terms of healthy societies. It goes way beyond parental 'roles' and extends to all behaviours within any given family, community or society - in it's healthy expression or it's distorted expression.

I speak as a Father.

I also speak as one who is deconstructing those processes that are related to the emergence and continuation of Hierarchically Violent Societies. One has to get to the root of the problem no matter where it leads.Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Revolution or Emergent Recovery from a post traumatic stress Society?

By the way REVOLUTION is a rotation around a fixed point.... that fixed point may move forwards or backwards, which describes the trajectory of Power throughout History. That fixed point is the use of Power adversely against the most vulnerable, to meet the perceived needs of the most Powerful.

Thus all the prevailing mainstream and political media discourse is about how to 'save civilisation', to 'save Western values'.

The wars underway at present are driven mostly by the 'strategic interests' of Western styled Corporations and States

The values of the Powerful.

And, it must be asked, and answered honestly: who pays?

The truly impoverished, the relatively poor, the vulnerable, the elderly, the native peoples of the world, the environment...... and ultimately all our children pay, and their children will pay unless we - that's you and I, and my friends and family and your friends and family, our neighbours and our communities decide that we refuse to pay that price for the needs of Power.

What I want to see and feel is an emergent recovery from a post traumatic stress based Society, such that we recover our innate, empathic and nurturant psychology at EVERY level of our Culture.... this a long term project, the work of many decades, for all the children's futures (which is our primary responsibility as adults..)






Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Limbic Imprint and The Emergence of Behaviour and Violent Societies

How Society Normalises Dysfunctional Behaviour.
An optimistic view.

Limbic Imprinting at Birth and The Emergence of Dysfunctional Behaviour

”We come into this world wide-open to receiving love. When we do receive it, as our first primal experience, our nervous system is limbically imprinted with an undeniable rightness of being.”  Elena Tonetti-Vladimirova 

Limbic Imprint is the term used to describe the processes of experience 'writing' the neural networks , the connections within our brain, heart and body during our time in the womb, and in particular during birth, and often in the immediate aftermath of birth.*

That is to say that our rapidly growing neural systems record whatever occurs, and that then becomes the base pattern from which we will evolve. In babies this growth is incredibly rapid, in the region of 200,000 connections per minute being created. Being held in our mother’s loving arms, feeding from her breast and other sensations provide us with a natural sense of bliss and security which forms the neural networks that will be the loving base from which we grow into loving adults.

If our first impressions are anything less than loving (for example, painful, frightening or lonely), then those impressions will imprint as our valid experience of love, and of life itself. It will be immediately coded into our nervous system as the norm, our comfort zone, acting as a surrogate for love and nurturing, regardless of how undesirable the experience actually was.

As adults, we unconsciously, automatically recreate the conditions that were imprinted at birth and through early childhood. Research conducted by the pioneers of prenatal psychology, such as doctors Thomas Verny, David Chamberlain and William Emerson, shows that an overwhelming amount of physical conditions and behavioural disorders are in reality symptomatic of unresolved traumatic gestational experiences during pregnancy and complications during delivery.

This is compounded by how the child is related to as he or she grows. If the child’s symptoms of distress are misunderstood, and treated as ‘bad behaviour’ and subject to sanction, this deepens the problem, the child becomes identified as the problem and will in turn internalise that identification.

Fortunately, not ALL children exposed to this dynamic will be overburdened by it, and many do 'escape' the worst affects, either through their own efforts of if they meet what Alice Miller calls an 'enlightened witness'. However enough do not survive intact, and may become as adults less than empathic, and will be absorbed by the Power structure where they will be 'successful'. Others are afflicted with the symptoms of thier distress, and are demonised by the Power structures and used as scapegoats. All of which, is of course avoidable....

Imposed Societal Values and How They Emerge.

The psychology of any given society is revealed in how that society treats their children. The adult world is created in the womb, the cradle and throughout childhood.

If a child, or adult for that matter, for whatever reason, is traumatised, and is unable to resolve that trauma, they remain in the 'coping strategy' stage, that is to say they will shut down awareness of aspects of their experience and feeling. As survival strategy; coping is a useful temporary strategy, but becomes adverse if extended, and it is this extension of the suppression of vital information (what is alive in the person) that leads to a growing loss of self-empathy, which undermines the development of empathy.

This compounds the fear inherent in traumatic experiences, and leads to an unconscious drive to exert adverse control over others (including the environment). Any adverse control imposed on a natural organism will meet resistance, and that resistance becomes the focus of violence, applied to overcome that natural resistance.

When any individual or group in this condition builds a societal structure, those structures will contain expressions of the unresolved fear and the drive to adverse control. This is how Hierarchically Violent Societies have emerged. Such societies codify their psychology over time, and thus behaviours such as war, concentration of wealth, racism etc become normalised and institutionalised. They are therefore more willing to inflict trauma than other more empathic societies, who are vulnerable because they are less likely to engage in whole sale violence to meet their perceived needs. To heal this dynamic is now the single most crucial work ahead of us. 

Fortunately Nature is With Us.

This dynamic does not affect every child in the same way, and therefore many people do recover to some degree. Were it not so, then we would not notice the costs. There would not be people like you, like me, like the many that are outraged with the harms associated with the current status quo. We would all of us be 100% normalised to the abuse. The urge to grow, to live as an empathic, connected, sensing member of our families, communities as a part of our Earthly environment is perhaps the deepest, most naturally embedded drive of all.

There is also ample evidence to suggest that people afflicted with dysfunctional behaviour can be nurtured in ways that enable them to recover. Thus it is also possible for entire societies. If the will is there. It is a question of making a choice.

The Current Situation

The current situation, of wealth and power disparity, of widespread institutional violence, of environmental degradation with all the costs to real peoples lives associated, is the result of the interplay of the limbic imprint and imposed societal values.

We know all to well what the dry facts and statistics tell us. To change how our Society behaves and operates, we must understand its roots, and learn again how to live without adverse controls on our natural growth. We must address how we treat our children, part of which is personal, resolving how we ourselves were treated as children, and part of which is societal which is where we must engage in peaceful, determined and well informed direct action, collectively, to confront the current situation. They are all of a piece.

 * a similar process also applies in the aftermath of any serious trauma....

Resources :        

http://www.whatbabieswant.org- a well researched and powerful documentary

http://www.birthpsychology.com-web portal for the research of Thomas Verny, David Chamberlain and William Emerson

http://www.alice-miller.com– pre-eminent researcher and writer on the sociological influences on parenting and child 'rearing' and the processes of recovery

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com– award winning teacher, author of the definitive history of Compulsory State Education

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

The roots of violence are clearly two fold :

The roots of violence are clearly two fold :

1. the disruption of the natural, biologically mandated child-mother bonding processes that occur, in utero, at birth and in early infancy.

2. the cultural or societal conditions of life for the people in that society, which are largely determined by Power.

In the former the fullest support for attachment parenting is crucial, in the latter Social Polices that are informed by what we now know to be true about the development of empathy, the disruption of the child-mother bonding process, the long term adverse effects of unresolved Trauma, of which Historical Trauma is possibly the largest affector.

We know that income inequality, war, adverse religious dogma, indoctrination all generate a Societal lack of empathy and must therefore be confronted.

I am working on a book 'Natural Child, Natural Society' which outlines the reasons why these processes exist, which will join the dots, so to speak in such manner as to present an opportunity for all parents to engage with their own children as Natural Children, to also heal any unresolved issues they might have and to equip activists across a wide range of issues with the same skills, because any activist who has been unable to resolve their own attachment issues will merely create other forms of control, which will replicate that which they seek to address.

The psychology of any given society is revealed in how that society treats their children. The adult world is created in the cradle.

If a child, or adult for that matter, for whatever reason, is traumatised, and is unable to resolve that trauma, they remain in the 'coping strategy' stage, and this leads to a loss of self-empathy, which undermines the development of empathy.

This compounds the fear inherent in traumatic experiences, and leads to a desire to exert adverse control over others (including the environment). Any adverse control imposed on a natural organism will meet resistance, and that resistance becomes the focus of violence, applied to overcome that natural resistance.

When any individual or group in this condition builds a societal structure, those structures will contain expressions of the unresolved fear. This is how Hierarchically violent Societies have evolved. Such societies codify their psychology over time, and thus behaviours such as war, concentration of wealth, racism etc become normalised.

To heal this situation is now the single most crucial work ahead of us.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Self Empathy and Power.

Having studied parenting for some time, I note that parenting occurs in a context determined by  very powerful Societal Influences which are masked - the Vatican harbours abusers to protect it's status (even though we KNOW that many tens of millions of children over the past 150 years have been abused) : States operate 'secret services' that utilise organised criminal networks, launch wars under false pretexts : Schools and education systems use reward/punishment as a coercive technique : Marketing uses psychological techniques known as 'aspirant' advertising which key in on known psychological insecurities in the target audience : all claim to be 'beneficial' and refuse to address the adverse affects of their behaviour. When confronted they mitigate, spin and scapegoat.

A classic denial situation.

A profound lack of empathy.

I have outlined a process that is simple to comprehend.

Let's start with an infant. Take for example the practice of training a baby to sleep alone, by letting them cry themselves to sleep.

The infants needs are not met, and the infant has to 'cope' by ignoring his or her feelings: this process leads directly to a loss of self empathy, because one cannot shut down ANY feeling without compromising the entire feeling ability, and of course it follows that this leads to a loss of empathy for others. Because children's sensitivity and constitutions are massively variable, some survive with some empathy intact, some recover, some 'adapt' and others go crazy....

It must be said here that letting a child cry themselves to sleep is but one of a myriad of practices Society induces that have the same adverse affect.

Nonetheless, if this process occurs to the majority, then that lack of empathy becomes part of the societal norm.

Furthermore this induced lack of empathy leads to a lack of felt connection, and for an infant that is a disconnection from that which nurtures in the natural sense..... this leads directly to fear and that fear drives the urge to over-control. ANY control imposed on any natural organism will generate resistance, and this is where violence enters into the picture.

When any person or population endures a trauma, they will also have to cope, (by suppressing feelings, emotions and memories) and if they cannot resolve they will remain in the coping mode.

Any societal structure they build will have those elements of fear and control built into them.

This is the modern Institutional World, as it was the ancient 'civilisations'. Most Institutional Religions utilise processes that disrupt the natural mother-child bonding. They KNOW what they are doing.

They have studied this for many thousands of years....

James Prescott, Alice Miller, Bowlby and others have mapped out apsects of this.

What we HAVE to recognise is that there are influences in Society that apply this as a technique to embed their control. This is difficult for most to face up to. Nonetheless, it's absolutely essential that we do.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Single Issues, Riots, Ideology and the Truth: The Dominant Culture is Toxic.

If there is an ONE single root to the riots, it lies deeper than any of the current public media analyses, most of which are geared to an ideological stance, the basis of which is that the psychology of the current dominant culture is more or less OK, and that these riots are evidence of a malaise with Society, a disenfranchised minority behaving badly. With the emphasis on 'minority' and 'behaving badly'.

It's clear that each person who engaged in the rioting and looting had their own reasons for so doing.

It's clear that each of those individual decisions emerges out of a larger context: poverty, police immunity in death in custody cases, consumerism driving the desire to HAVE, economic policy that coerces people into work through the stick of poverty.

Economic policy that rewards the rich, undermines the poor, traps the middle class and loots 'resources' from distant lands, bloodily; a 'lack of respect for authority' amongst children and the youth, obvious corruption in Governance, in Commerce, in Justice, in Institutional Power of every kind. A lack of respect amongst Authoritarians for children which more than mirrors that lack of respect amongst children, whose sense of injustice is ever keen.

Add to that the black markets, the black economy, the war on drugs which criminalises self-medication (addiction is 80% the result/symptom of Adverse Childhood Experiences), the wars being prosecuted, and profited from, and these are  realities that are being masked, spun, obscured, lied about by Politicians and other Institutional Power actors EVERY DAY, such that they reveal a willing denial of the reality of our Dominant Society.

Add to all that that SOME people within all that were merely opportunists, who went along for a laugh, a buzz. And add to that some people who are really, really angry, enraged and almost out of control - both as rioters and as police men.

Quite a mix. Lots to look at. And there's more of course .... the list is endless..

Under Common Law, or Common Sense Law, there are two primary instructions : Cause no Harm, Cause no Loss and Address all Harm, Address all Loss - address means in this context deal with the situation such that the loss or harm is resolved. Common Law seeks resolution and restorative justice, rather than punishment ...... though to some minds it might feel as though resolution IS punishment.... because they perceive that they lose whatever they gained by their adverse actions in the resolution of the case.

What few appear to be willing to admit is that the fundamental basis of this Society is sick, that the sickness is not something attacking the culture, but is in fact fundamental to the culture. The Dominant Culture, Industrialised Society, is founded upon coercion, might, power and the immunity of those who 'rule' from accountability for their actions, especially when those actions cause harm or loss to others.

And that means that the 'sickness' cannot be healed without profound changes to the culture, changes which would move us towards a more empathic, nurturant society based on meeting our natural needs, and the needs of the environment that supports us.

This is what the Natural Child expects. This is what the Natural Child is biologically geared to grow into, or emerge from within.

Natural Child, Natural Society. People meeting people's natural, genuine needs.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Loss of Self-Empathy and the Urge to Power.

The disruption of the naturally mandated child-mother bonding process sets up a chain of events, leading to emergent violence.

The flow is as follows : if the child is not related to in ways that nurture self-empathy, then the development of a loss of empathy occurs.

With that loss, a sense of disconnection is felt and with that comes fear.

The fear leads directly to a perceived need to control others and to control the environment.

As all natural organisms are autonomous, self directing growing beings so too they will resist, to one degree or another, efforts to control them.

That resistance generates violence to impose or retain that control.

In human family or society, if this pattern starts, and is not resolved, then each successive generation will impose that control, and their children too will grow up in an environment that they will 'adapt' to the situation, internalising that psychological need to control.

What baby would not be angry at not being met with the experientials our biology has mandated? Think of the child left to cry himself to sleep in another room, to scream and cry until exhaustion brings sleep. Is this not a common practice in our culture? What of the resignation, the suppression of that rage, the loss of self empathy which ensues from that suppression which is the outcome of such a practice?

That need to control then gets transmitted into the structure of that family or society and over time becomes codified, normalised, embedded.......

Not all children respond or react to the situation in the same way, thus variations arise in the need to control and the levels of violence used to retain control will emerge, with some retaining their basic empathy.

Some will resist the controls. They will be subject to the efforts of others, by violence or by other means, to control them. This resistance leads directly to violence on the part of the controlling parties, because the fear is that if they are not controlled at all costs, then the safety of the controllers is at risk. This is of course unnecessary.

If the issue of empathy is resolved, nurturant co-operation is the natural outcome. We are at our happiest when we meet each others genuine living needs.

http://dwylcorneilius.blogspot.com/2011/06/empathy-and-fear-based-control.html

http://www.birthpsychology.com

http://www.naturalchild.org

http://www.alice-miller.com

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

DIRT : The Movie. A Nurturant Society...

Previously I have written a piece on the Nurturant Society, and coined the word THRIVIVAL. I have used this word in a few essays to describe a reality that I see in nature all the time. I have used it to make a distinction between the sense of 'survival' which is less than abundant, is fear based and generates unnecessary need to over control things that actually reduces the likelihood of Thriving.

A Nurturant Society is the emergent Society that by it's action nurtures life for all life, that by it's action takes an equal part in the biology of life, that by it's action enjoys the life it expresses and returns the gifts that life has bestowed upon it. Thrivival is the state of such a Society.

The movie DIRT is a stunning documentary, a profoundly nurturing expression of what is truly possible, what is within our ability to bring into being. It's about the living soil and our relationship to that living soil. It's not an ideological movie. It's a natural logic movie.

Watch it. It's amazing. See the effect working with plants and soil has on incarcerated people. See the rapidity with which soil and humans can remediate damaged lands.

DIRT : THE MOVIE

Get yer hands in the soil and help plants do what they love doing, gifting you and universe in the process.

We REALLY NEED to focus on the creation of a Nurturant Society, at every level of our Culture, starting with our own lives, and extending outwards into our communities, and we need to look at EVERY process and activity we are engaged in and really understand that if it is NOT Nurturing more life for all life, then it HAS TO GO!

It really is THAT SIMPLE. We are either nurturing life or we are not. And when we look at what we do, we have to take into consideration ALL the outcomes..... no 'externalisation' of costs. No justifying adverse 'collateral' damage because of one or two perceived benefits.

And we need to start NOW!

ALL LIFE MATTERS. There exists a viewpoint that is an expression of resignation, extreme low self esteem and profound selfishness.

It runs a bit like this :

"Nothing really matters, at the end of the day. We all live for a bit, have a few good times then die."

When we die, the materials our bodies are made of are released back to feed more life.

We give back what we have been given as a gift to those who have yet to come. We do this, and we gift life. That is the bare minimum.

It's a choice as to whether or not we take action in our day to day life to bring that gift or not, before we die and release the materials of our bodies.

Your materials will be released whether or not you like it or get it. That much is assured. Death assures us all of that.

What is not assured, and what is down to OUR CHOICE, is whether or not our actions nurture more life for all life and return the gift. It's your choice, it's my choice and yet I ask that each of us bears in mind that our choice has an affect on others, and if you chose not to, if I chose not to, then we deprive others yet to come of their access to that gift, by defaulting on the action possible in our lives.

I am not trying to lay a guilt trip on you. The Dominant Society is a pretty grim place to have been born into, and I wouldn't say to anyone DO NOT ENJOY BEING ALIVE.

I am just pointing out the REALITY. And the possibility.

When I confront the Church, the Government, the Corporations I do it to bring that gift through, and not to get revenge or to become the judge and punisher. That's not saying that I intend to let those Institutions of the hook, or that I give them an excuse or that I am going to be all soft and fluffy. It's to make it abundantly clear where I stand and what I intend. I will not back down, and neither should you!

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe