Empathy is absolutely knowledge based.

I spotted some comments on Facebook,  about a Picture, from the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, of a billowing fire and smoke cloud and firefighter’s  water spouts that were taken as tusks, red eyes, in the flames etc etc that ‘looks like’ an ‘angry’  Elephant.

There had been a few previous comments all of the same tone as the ones in bold type, so I chimed in…. and was deleted from that persons list….  within 30 seconds of making the last comment, which is fine…

>That one is even frightful! There are so many problems with purity in Japan... It is a cleansing

> Yes Mother Earth is certainly doing all this...Shri Mataji did say that all the natural disasters would stop when people turned to a spiritual life and came into ballance...

look! to us they appear as natural disaster to the Earth they are part and parcel of living processes... to tie them into Spiritual beliefs (invented spiritual beliefs) and judgement is simply rude...

The Cui Bono Logic test for BELIEF ( things that one reads about yet cannot test or prove) - ASK "who benefits if I believe this?" and "Who benefits if I reject this?" and "Who benefits if I keep an open mind on this?" then assess all the possible benefits.

> I feel sorry for them, even if they are blind, they must be so scared... it really is time now for the people of the world to sit up and take notice of the truth, and stop the accelerated head on collision with our own destruction... I was told today that in Japan they are very materialistic and into the acquisition of material things, blinded to spiritual life, I wonder where in the world will be hit next? in the run up to 2012

that's about the ugliest thing I have ever read - that the 'materilaism' of the Japanese people brought this upon themselves.... it's akin to saying that I chose to be beaten, sexually assaulted and psychologically tortured in my childhood to learn a lesson, or that Rapists are in fact Teachers and Women need to learn the lessons.

Your sympathy is devoid of empathy and betrays a Hubris...

----------------------  the other person deleted me within 30 seconds!  ------------

What I find, time and time again, is that believers of all kinds can demonstrate a callousness that is quite possibly one of the 9 wonders of the World.....

We KNOW that earthquakes come in cycles.

To ascribe the Earthquake to a Judgemental God (on whose side one is) and to emote 'sympathy' for those 'poor people' who have drawn it upon themselves due to their 'materialism' is actually very ugly.

This is the same kind of thinking or psychology that can hit a child and tell the child that "This is for your own good" and rationalise or justify all kinds of violence, in a good cause.

I also realise that I 'triggered' the person who deleted me, and pretty much shoved that persons attitude into his or her face, big time...

I could have been more subtle, and tried to slowly get him or her to think about it .... but some days I am just not in the mood.

However it serves my own purpose to illustrate the dangers of belief.

The Rapture.

The dangers of believers.

Lethal Homophobia.

The link between belief and lack of empathy.

"She was aksing for it!"

The link between knowledge and empathy.

"I know how you feel!"

Empathy is absolutely knowledge based.

"I know how you feel!"

And the biology proves it is so :

http://www.parentingscience.com/empathy-and-the-brain.html

And of course the honest person who wishes to be helpful would say "I don;' know how you must feel, but can you talk about it?"

And underneath all of this is Power Relationships - the believer wants to retain Power over the situation, over the other person, rather than face their own powerlessness.

That is, simply put, selfish!

That's what makes this so, so ugly to me.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

‘No record’ of how Cork charity spent state funds : Irish Examiner, my response

http://www.examiner.ie/ireland/politics/no-record-of-how-cork-charity-spent-state-funds-136526.html

A Chara,

With regard to Right of Place, we are seeing a problematic lack of transparency similar to that of the Catholic Church Bureaucracy, past Irish Governments, and others involved in the Residential Schools horror story.

...

This is in stark contrast to the open-ness of many Survivors, who have had to deal with an unwillingness to believe them, fear and ridicule, intimidation and, not least, the adverse affects of what they endured.

Let it be said that those who deny, turn their backs on the story, or for whatever reason feel fearful of facing the truth, have not and will not suffer anything like the Survivors themselves if they face the truth.

Right of Place and others in similar positions must be made 100% transparent and be subject to adequate oversight.

Their staff must be subject to the same oversight, and also rigorously checked for their backgrounds and expertise in this area of supporting Survivors.

Failure in this is an abdication of duty of care, and will inevitably lead to the totally avoidable re-traumatising of those who need all the support and nurturance that Irish Society can generate.

Yours etc

Corneilius Crowley

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

Letter published 19th March 2011 : http://www.examiner.ie/opinion/letters/church-must-be-open-with-abuse-survivors-148683.html

My Music Promo Blurb - seeking bookings for the summer!

Corneilius sings for the Natural Child, for a Society that is empathic and non hierarchical, intelligent and nurturant.

He eats Sacred Cow burgers, and poops good poop which he composts. He calls this metabolising trauma.

He has a great voice, a loopstation, a swathe of funky licks and a dodgy sense of humour.

He loves being Corneilius, which is his chosen career.

He has been known to  play 3 hour sets and he occasionally djs.... for up to 17 hours...

Find out more about Corneilius @ http://www.reverbnation.com/corneilius and  @ http://www.dwylcorneilius.blogspot.com

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Womb World…

Womb World…

Life in the womb is one of connection, empathy, gifting, receiving, responding, learning and awareness.

The developing child within is deeply, profoundly connected to the mother. They share blood, food, oxygen. The mother excretes the child's metabolic by-products. Cells from the child and cells of the mother dance
together as a whole.

This is the first environment we all experience, and we experience ourselves as connected, part of the whole and we are aware of ourselves and of the living intelligence, the biology of the mother as parts of
a whole. We are aware too, in the womb, of the environment of the mother.

We hear the sounds. We sense the feelings of our mothers. We meet the chemicals of the environment through out mother.

And environmentalist foetus would of course be urging the mother to do everything that is natural and nurturant, and to avoid anything that is un-natural or non-nurturant.

If the Parent or Community or Society is engaged in non-nurturant behaviours, the child has no voice and no real power to suggest changes towards nurturance.

Is there a correlation in the relationship between people and Governments, Environmentalists and Corporation and the dynamics of low or non-nurturant relationships?

The Biology of Empathy





EMPATHY IS INHERENT TO THE NATUAL HUMAN BEING!

If anything we adults need to learn again the natural empathic ways - from our children - because sadly, in this society, for most, we have no recall of the detail of our early years, which translates into lack of empathy for our smallest chidlren, which damages their empathy (unwittingly) because we are fearful when we do not understand, and so we err on the side of control to cover that fear......

Excessive control or lax permissiveness (neglect) is ALWAYS a question of damaged empathy.....

And it is transferred intergenerationally because of this memory gap - for we leanr parenting by how we were parented, and if that experience is forgotten at the conscious level, it remains for it is written into our neural pathways....

Luckily the brain is plastic, and we can learn again the ways of empathy, by being WITH our children, by talking with them as real complete yet small people - we can grow together...

Behaviour is NOT genetic, it is mostly environmental. Random Mutation was adopted due to Empire Logic and Arrogance, as the model of natural change, whereas we now know and can describe change as an interaction, a response, precise and directed, to changes in the habitat, to the signals the environment sends any living organism - be they bacteria (dealig with anti-bacterial pharamceuticals.....) or larger organisms...

This a child treated with respect grows to respect him or herself, and a child treated with disdain grows to feel shame and inadequacy.... though it's not a linear process, and some children respond in doffering ways such that for some they survive harshness, and for others the subtle undermines them.... hence the need for empathy in parenting, to spot those oh so subtle differences and not so subtle differences and take them into account...

Compulsory State Education, a homogenising process, makes this all but impossible, and this deepens that lack of empathy..... Religion destroys it almost totally, for it replaces the childs sense of wonder with and imposed sense..... this is the nature of mental slavery.

This issue runs to the very heart of the State System and Society.

The future will be defined by whether or not these issues are faced up to and dealt with; punishment that is abusive will not help; incarceration of the perpetrators, the spin doctors, the official deniers is a must; full accountability, reparations and the widespread sharing of the information that can help the victims and active support for the victims is a must.

None of us can afford to turn our hearts from these facts....

http://www.birthpsychology.com/


http://www.whatbabieswant.com/

http://www.parentingscience.com/empathy-and-the-brain.html

http://www.alice-miller.com/

http://www.naturalchild.org/


http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/


http://www.holtgws.com/


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisonous_pedagogy

The Origins of Violence and Hierarchy

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

"If you don't know how to nurture, you will be afraid!"

Russel Means speaks of the Nurturant Society, in clear and concised terms..

"If you don't know how to nurture, you will be afraid!"

And when you are afraid of you will kill what you are afraid of! (or try to control.... as we see..)






Useful and pertinent links

http://www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/article.html

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

http://www.alicemiller.com

http://naturalchild.org/

http://www.birthpsychology.com



Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

On recent developments re: The Irish Residential Schools Abuse story

On recent developments re: The Irish Residential Schools Abuse story, Statuary Funds, Cover-ups and a few words to the incoming Irish Government

To whom it may concern.

There are many problems that we as Survivors face, problems are individual and collective.

This means that there are individual solutions and collective solutions. It's not an either/or situation.

These problems are the after effects of the abuse we suffered, which are physical and psychological trauma.

The effects of not having been able to tell others, be they family, friends or support services about our experiences. Loneliness, isolation, fear.

The effects of denial or mitigation or dismissive-ness of our community when we do speak out. Anger, fear, isolation, paranoia.

The effects of holding our wounded-ness for so long, that we develop secondary psychological problems.

The effects of being unable to hold long term relationships, jobs and careers.

The effects of not being able to trust others.

The effects of knowing that the abuse was and is being covered up, the story and history being 'managed' to protect both Church and State and other bodies who held and hold responsibility.

The effects of knowing that abuse is still common, that others are being abused, even to this day, and that the roots of the abuse are not being addressed, and in spite of evidence and plenty of very good scientific understanding (out of which healthful practices have emerged to prevent further abuse) the media and State and Church still avoid promoting these learning’s.

None of these will be resolved by money alone.

They will be resolved by providing adequate support for:

Telling the truth : open forums to tell our stories, open forums to examine who abused, who cover-ed up and why they covered up; criminal prosecutions for all abusers, and detailed inquiries into the actions of all those who covered up, for whatever reason, so that the dynamics of cover-up are understood, so that 'good' people who cover-up understand the impacts of their actions and understand that they must not cover-up.

Providing for our health : by providing best possible health care, best possible community interaction and understanding of the issues and dynamics of abuse.

Providing for our sustenance : Pensions separate from all other benefits are a useful idea.

Prevention: This is REALLY important. Apart from child protection legislation with real teeth, there needs to be a wider understanding of the dynamics of abuse, within families, and within all situations where adults have responsibility and power over children. Schools, care systems, sports training, etc etc.....

There also needs to be a wider understanding of the dynamics of intergenerational trauma patterning, which is how adverse behaviour patterns are passed from generation to generation in spite of peoples best efforts as they 'cope' with the effects (above) of abuse without proper support or understanding.

For all of this there needs to be State Funding of appropriate organisations (led by Survivors, informed by Survivors) PLUS awards to individual Survivors, not as compensation or reparation, but as offers of genuine support, to nurture Survivors for what remains of our lives.

These are my thoughts on this at this time.

Finally let me say this : we have seen how two prominent Survivors, from different perspectives, have in the very recent past, engaged in public disputes that have revealed unresolved behaviour patterns : That one of these Survivors should label and judge other Survivors in adverse ways (from a position of being one who offers 'care' ) speaks of the profound misunderstandings that still dominate the discourse, speaks of the ways in which wounded people can re-wound others, and can be manipulated or 'triggered' by those who perceicve that they have the 'most to lose' in all of this - The State and The Church.

That ANYONE sees it thus - that they have something to lose - speaks volumes of the psychology of the inadequate responses to the abuse story.

There is still so much to do in all of this.

Kindest regards

Corneilius Crowley

London

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

My Single Issue Obsession - The Facts.

Here are the facts. It's NOT all doom and gloom. Some seriously good work is being done in understandtng the dynamics of abuse relationships, the intergenerational and cyclical effects of PTSD, with an eye to prevention, (founded upon proven practice, biology and science) as many are concerned that thus far, the vast maority of abuse remains, in relative terms, a largely misunderstood by the general populace, and is still very much a hidden, denied and masked reality.

However...... truth beckons.

One out of every four people in Ireland  will have experienced a serious sexual assault or serious abuse during their childhoods.

This pattern is replicated across the entire developed world. No Child Left Behind rings hollow and echoes down through History.

Informal networks of organised, self protecting abusers exist in EVERY area concerning children – sport, drama, education, scouting, state care, psychiatry, psychology, health, religion.

Governments and Churches have created, funded and operated  well documented systems, that purported to ’care’ for children, and other vulnerable people, yet have seriously abused the majority in their care. These are called Residential School Systems. Social Services Care Homes. Juvenile Offender Prisons. Schools. Care Homes for the Elderly. Psychiatric Units. Orphanages.

The history of childhood ‘rearing’ texts is littered proffering ‘good advice’ that is on the face of it abusive. This literature is known as Poisonous Pedagogy.

Rather than empathy, manipulative techniques of control are espoused as best practice for parents, teachers, and others responsible for the care of children. Behaviour Modification techniques. Ritalin. Seroxat. The DSM.

These same organisations, Religious and Secular, launch wars, trade in arms, people and in drugs, send mercenaries to do their bidding, employ manipulative strategies against all their perceived enemies, in particular the whistle blowers, and are corrupt to the hilt.

The adverse effects of Industry on the habitat are also part of this abuse picture. To deny the ‘external costs’ of Industry to both people and the habitat is abusive.

Green-washing is an example of the manipulative means by which those who abuse the environment portray themselves as saviours. The best paid lawyers in the world are those who defend the Corporations who pollute, who bribe officials whose role is defined by a duty of care to those they purport to serve.

Foot-washing in Churches follows this same pattern.

Meaningless gestures, empty words.

Any Survivor who dares to speak the truth is a whistle blower. Bradley Manning.  Colm O’Gorman. Paddy Doyle. Noam Chomsky. Martin Luther King. Rosa Parks. David Shayler. Julian Assange. Kevin Annett. Ward Churchill. Russel Means. Howard Zinn.

All Survivors are treated as potential enemies, as a potential threat to the status quo. Why is it thus?

Not only by those who abused them, but by others in positions of responsibility and power, who feel threatened by the disclosures.

The Philadelphia Grand Jury Report. The Ryan Report. The Ferns Report. The Murphy Report. The as yet unpublished Cloyne Report.  The Forde Inquiry.

The many documentaries on the Residential School systems designed by Governments and run by clergy for Indigenous or Aboriginal Children. The Forgotten Australians. Hidden From History.

The Canary Effect. Deliver Us from Evil.

The Murphy Inquiry into Irish Swimming and similar reports into UK Sports. 

I have omitted more than I have excluded here.

This list is only the tip of the iceberg. 4 Dioceses reports exist in Ireland’s investigations into criminal child abuses in 26 Dioceses.

There are reports due from Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland, the UK. Work has started on similar investigations in Africa, South America and Asia.

The Chilcott Inquiry. The 5 Inquiries into UK Government decision making regarding Iraq and Afghanistan. These all follow the same pattern of half truths, denials and white washing.

How many scandals in various arena’s have blown up in the past 40 years where people who were abused went public and those who had official responsibility, who were often colleagues in work of the accused, refused to accept the truth of these public statements, who hid the facts of specific accusations, allegations and actual reported crimes, investigations and trials from the people and constituencies they served?

How many more will it take before the pattern now absolutely clear to anyone who reviews the data is made clear to the general public, and is tackled by those good people within Governance, Policing, Health Care, Education and Religion in areas concerned with the well-fare and care of children, in meaningful and effective manner, leading not only to the prosecution of abusers and those who covered up, but also and importantly to educational campaigns, founded on solid scientific understanding and proven practice, to prevent more abuse, to break the intergenerational cycles of abuse?

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

11 Seconds that could transform our world.

A very short video, outlining the simplest of concepts, supported by research evidence and practice.

www.alicemiller.com 

www.whatbabieswant.com

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

A Rejection of the Concepts of Victim, of Apology and of Reconciliation

A Rejection of the Concepts of Victim, of Apology and of Reconciliation

Apology is often taken as meaning remorse. But there are situations when it is a DEFENCE of an action,  as in apologia or apologist.

The etymology of the word APOLOGY is revealing : "defense, justification," from L.L. apologia, from Gk. apologia "a speech in defense," from apologeisthai "to speak in one's defense," from apologos "an account, story," from apo- "from, off" (see apo-) + logos "speech" (see lecture).

The original English sense of "self-justification" yielded a meaning "frank expression of regret for wrong done," first recorded 1590s, but it was not the main sense until 18c. The old sense tends to emerge in Latin form apologia (first attested 1784), especially since J.H. Newman's "Apologia pro Vita Sua" (1864).

Thus when the Church or State Apologises, it is adopting a position that defends it's current status. 

As eternal institutions of political power they understand their intended meaning of the words they use. They are the source of our legal language, and the Law is created in the first instance to perpetuate and  maintain their status and power, and to avoid the necessary consequences of their actions when they cause harm to people in pursuit of retaining that power.

This can be observed in with the way both have responded to the emergence of living witness evidence with regard to Residential School Systems in Canada and USA, which have existed since the 1860s, in which Aboriginal children have been incarcerated by force, brutally harmed in systemic fashion for more than a century.

Saying 'I am sorry' has no meaning unless there is material action to back it up, unless there is a clear indication that whatever transgression occurred will not occur again.

And in cases where the harm caused is beyond remediation, then accountability demands corrective measures be applied to those Institutions. Corrective measures mean open, honest accountability, reparations, and the return of what was stolen in cultural, economic and political terms.

The etymology of the word VICTIM "living creature killed and offered as a sacrifice to a deity or supernatural power," from L. victima "person or animal killed as a sacrifice." Perhaps distantly connected to O.E. wig "idol," Goth. weihs "holy," Ger. weihen "consecrate" (cf. Weihnachten "Christmas") on notion of "a consecrated animal."

Thus the ancient roots of the word suggest a meaning that makes the creation of a 'victim' within the context of a consecrated 'sacrifice', reasonable, or acceptable.

The concept of sacrifice is in itself the measure of a price worth paying (by those who make the sacrifice... not by those sacrificed,... of course).

As Madelaine Albright or Tony Blair have asserted. That neither have been roundly condemned by the majority of mainstream media, let alone the courts speaks volumes of the acceptance of the 'consecrated sacrifice' mindset that permeates Power.

To be labelled as a victim then carries this hidden meaning,  as in one who has not survived a trauma, in that the trauma extinguished the life of the person... and what must be remembered is that often the Survivor bears the scars of the trauma, indelible marks that last a life time that cannot be readily erased, even if they can, to a certain limited extent, be lived with

So let me make this very clear for all : I was not so much a VICTIM as I was VICTIMISED - a defenceless, innocent and beautiful child harmed and brutalised by priests, nuns, teachers and others who bullied me.

The person victimised is not a victim, rather she or he is a victim of - the action of another person is the driving force of the status of those who are harmed to meet the perdeived needs of the brutaliser.

The use of the word victim as a noun typically implies weakness, rather than vulnerability.

I bear the scars of the abuse inflicted upon me, and  to some degree I have been able to recover.

 The more the Society that permitted and perpetuated that abuse (mine and that of the Iraqi people, and all who suffer needlessly in wars pursued by Governments, that of the Aboriginal Children forced into Residential Schools, that of the children of the poor forced into Residential Schools) denies and obstructs Survivors calls for restorative justice, the more likely it is that others will suffer as we have, and I cannot countenance that, because I know what that suffering was like, and I would not wish it upon anyone.

Restorative Justice is what we want, not verbal apologies and settlenents......

Restorative Justice means public trials, jail sentences, files opened and Institutions that are harming children be openly, transparently remorseful and prepared to commit in toto to prevention of any further abuses - it means that Society speaks and acts to protect all the children, and does so forcefully.

To demand accountability for criminal behaviour is not abusive. It may be seen as punitive, and perhaps there's an argument for making incarceration less inhumane, yet such is the nature of causing harm - there's a consequence that MUST BE PAID BY THE CRIMINAL and that must also protect Society and in our case, all our children, from any future abuse.

Likewise, that oft used word, Re-Conciliation, comes from the Roman Empire.

It means to ‘make friendly’ again. Let’s make-up!

Reconciliation : From Latin reconciliatio (“a re-establishing, reinstatement, restoration, renewal, a reconciling, reconciliation”), from reconciliare

Consilio is to do with being at home or amongst friends.

Roman reconciliation was the practice of Rebels being brought to Rome, after their rebellion had been crushed, and the rebel leaders were made to prostrate themselves and admit of their 'treachery', to become friends again with the Emperor, and then ritually strangled,or so it is told. This act then brought the lands and the peoples the rebel leaders came from back into the Roman Empire's family. It re-established Rome's authority.

It is important to understand the power of legal terms when used by Governments and States, for within their mindsets these masked meanings loom large, as we see in the various attempts of those who have been harmed, brutalised and degraded by the actions of State and Church make any attempt to reveal the crimes, and press for Restorative Justice and the treatment meted to any who dare to do this work.

Feet are washed, Inquiries held to white wash the incidents, green-washing PR campaigns are funded and promoted, Truth and Reconciliation Commissions are set up, and in each case, their primary function in material terms is proven to be to protect the status and power of the abusers and their  old power Institutions.



Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

21st Century Democracy and Ireland

Letter sent to Irish Media folowing the election in Ireland..

A Chara

The mandate of the People of Ireland is not necessarily the mandate upon which Fine Gael will form a Government.

Enda Kenny’s declaration that the ‘Irish Revolution’ is a Democratic Revolution, unlike that of the Revolutions sweeping North Africa and elsewhere, which he typified as ‘taking to the streets’ was more PR than a reflection of the Irish People’s genuine concerns for their past, their present and their futures.

Fine Gael  has not been given a majority, and their success is less a mandate, than a vote of no-confidence in Fianna Fail.

This is not successful democracy. Successful Democracy, in 21^st Century terms, is when the will, intent and decisions of the people are expressed in the daily actions of Government, when the people lead the Government.

As we have seen in the past, Irish Political Leadership, be it the ruling parties or the opposition parties, has lacked the courage to hold the Irish State, The Church and Corporations such as Shell to account.

If those who form this next Irish Government do not act so as to demand that accountability, if they do not move forwards in the just and reasonable demands for Restorative Justice from Survivors of Institutional and Clerical abuse, and others who have been oppressed and neglected by successive Irish Governments, such as the people of Corrib Bay, the children who were exposed to Vaccine trials in Institutional settings, the elderly placed in privatised and ill-regulated for-profit ‘care’, tax payers coerced into paying the gambling debts of investment bankers, and many, many more, then what will be left to the Irish People except to take to the streets?

Enda Kenny’s leadership MUST be as a spokesman for the Irish people, and not as a Ruler.

Irish eyes will be watching, very closely.

Kindest regards

Corneilius Crowley

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