Wandering Reflections

On Primary Integration, psychopathy and average person

2008-05-04T16:11:00.003+02:00

By Elizabeth Mika
November 2002
link

The concept of integration in psychology has predominantly positive connotations, usually describing a state conducive to coherent, predictable and effective functioning of an individual in the world. Disintegration, on the other hand, is typically considered a negative and undesirable aspect of human existence, characterized by lack of coherence, chaos and general ineffectiveness. Dabrowski’s aim was to show that both concepts as descriptions of psychological states can have either positive or negative meaning, depending on their role in individual development.

The term ‘primary integration’ denotes a type of a character structure and/or state of being not amenable to growth through positive disintegration. It is a concept derived from and of particular importance to developmental psychopathology. As Dabrowski writes, “The concepts of integration and disintegration are typical ‘growing’ concepts which develop in proportion to the development of psychology and psychopathology of higher mental functions.” (Dabrowski et al., 1973, p. 45). Dabrowski designed the first level of development, level 1, as the level of primary integration.

In TPD, primary integration, also called ‘negative integration,’ is a state contrary to development, which, in its extreme, characterizes severe forms of emotional and mental retardation. In Dabrowski’s words, “The concept of negative integration is indispensable to the understanding of psychopathy, some global forms of mental retardation and rigid mental structures which do not present development or only weak or partial forms of development.” (ibid., p.40)

In cases of psychopathy (emotional retardation), we find a distinct unification of psychological functions into a coherent character structure, where intelligence is subsumed under control of primitive egocentric drives and instincts such as the instinct of self-preservation or primitive sexual instinct. “Negative integration is a primitive, inflexible structure of functions, which shows a low level of narrow rigid organization of primitive, impulsive, nondevelopmental forces, with intelligence subordinated to those forces.” (Dabrowski et al. 1973, p. 40)

From the point of view of emotional development, psychopathy is characterized chiefly by the inability to experience empathy and guilt, two emotions crucial for development of a conscience and growth through positive disintegration. Empathy, and related to it an ability to experience feelings of guilt, act as disintegrative factors toward primitive, instinctively based behaviors, and thus introduce elements of inner conflict and inhibition, which are absent in psychopathic individuals.

For a long time, empathy and guilt were considered to be distinctly human emotions, not found in the animal world. Modern research in behavioral biology disputes the human uniqueness of both, showing that an ability to experience empathy and guilt is characteristic for animals as well (Preston, S., de Waal, F., 2002; O’Connor, L., personal communication). Experimental evidence, gathered through a decades-long research, reveals that in many species empathy toward another animal in distress overrides even instinct of self-preservation, leading to actions directed at relieving another’s suffering even if such actions cost the “rescuer’s” life. Moreover, many animal species can be taught to respond with empathy to distress of another (Preston and de Waal, ibid., 2002). Available data strongly support the contention that empathy is “a phylogenetically continuous phenomenon” existing in different degrees in nonhuman species (Preston, de Waal, p. 284), a view expressed already by Darwin in his 1871 work, “The Descent of Man.”

But perhaps even more thought-provoking than examples of empathy in animals are instances of failure of empathy in people. As psychological research shows, and daily experiences prove over and over again, empathy in human beings, although apparently hard-wired into our nature by selective pressures of the evolutionary history, is a relatively fragile trait, easily extinguished by such powerful motivators as fear, desire to dominate and control, and a need to submit and to belong. In an average person, empathy is limited to his closest circle of relatives and friends, and rarely stretches beyond the confines of his private world. This explains the ease with which many can dismiss the needs of “the other” who does not belong to their own group, and engage in most violent acts toward him without feeling much guilt. Examples of war atrocities, everyday violence, and indifference to pain and suffering of others, provide enough evidence of the fragility of human empathy. A somewhat different, though related phenomenon is the failure of empathy toward one’s closest relatives, despite one’s professed and enacted love for humanity at large – a trait frequently found in some social reformers, spiritual leaders and other eminent individuals with narcissistic character structures.

It is important then that the ability to experience empathy, apparently universal in group-living species, be distinguished from empathy as a dynamism of conscious personality development postulated by Dabrowski. Even though the capacity for empathy (and guilt, in some primates) is based on the same psychobiological factors common in species which develop complex systems of social interactions, only in a relatively small group of people it is coupled with cognitive complexity that gives it the strength and conscious, autonomous dimensions necessary to make it a major guiding factor in personality growth.

Degrees of primary integration

Although primary integration describes level 1 and thus encompasses the majority of individuals in the present human society, people existing in primary (negative) integration do not form a homogenous group. According to Dabrowski, there are degrees of primary integration, just like there are degrees of disintegration. An overwhelming majority of people possess some developmental potential, which means that they have some capability for positive disintegration. Dabrowski also notes that a great majority of people also exhibit some psychopathic traits; but only constitutional psychopaths and persons with global mental retardation are so highly integrated that they are incapable of any degree of development.

Based on the degree of integration and disintegration, Dabrowski described the following groups of people inhabiting level 1:

1. Psychopath and psychopath-like individual.

2. Borderline between average person and psychopath.

3. Average person.

4. Borderline between average person and psychoneurotic (Dabrowski, 1986).

The above groups differ in the degree of integration: from the high degree in psychopaths and psychopath-like persons to a less rigid integration in average persons; and still less integrated character structures in those who possess some symptoms of nervousness, which predispose them to positive disintegration (even if this disintegration is limited in its scope and transformational strength, never reaching beyond unilevelness).

The table below illustrates an approximate distribution of different developmental categories along the integration/disintegration continuum. (Please note that as a rough approximation, the table does not provide exact proportions of the listed categories as they occur on any given level of development; nor it exhausts many different developmental and psychopathological combinations observed in people. Development through positive disintegration, although conceptually divided into discreet levels, in reality occurs largely along the integration/disintegration continuum, with varying degrees of both present in most people who possess any measure of developmental potential.)

Secondary Integration	Level 5	Personality exemplars
½	Level 4	Developing personalities
ML disintegration	Level 3	Psychoneurotics
½	Level 2	Neurotics, mentally ill
½		Borderline of average person and (psycho)neurotic	ü
Disintegration			½
½		Average person	ý Statistical norm
½			÷
½		Borderline of psychopath and average person	þ
Primary Integration	Level 1	Psychopaths

Dabrowski maintained that the more individuals on the borderline of the average person and neurotics/ psychoneurotics, the healthier the society and the better the chances that its most creative and developmentally advanced members will be recognized and appreciated for the universal human values they embody in their lives.

The more so-called ‘normal’ individuals bordering psychopathy, the greater possibilities of serious social maladies, since a society structured around low level values, represented most vividly in actions of prominent psychopaths, will create and foster “suffering, mass terror, violent oppression, genocide and the decay of civilization.” (Dabrowski et al. 1973, p.40)

Average person and psychopath

The distinction between these two categories, although subtle in Dabrowski’s thought, is nevertheless important. As mentioned above, psychopaths are characterized by a strong degree of primary integration, defined here as the propensity to act on low level instincts, without possibilities of experiencing disintegrative influences of such emotions as empathy and guilt. Psychopathy is an example of either none or extremely weak developmental potential; or of negative developmental potential, if the primarily integrated character structure includes a-developmental components of overexcitabilities, namely of psychomotor and sensual OE.

An average person, in Dabrowski’s understanding, possesses some, albeit limited, developmental potential. Thus a character structure of an average person is amenable to certain disintegrative experiences, which may lead to the rise of unilevel developmental dynamisms. But experiences of disintegration in average people will not reach the breadth and depth necessary for the developmental leap toward multilevelness, even though they may lead to a certain sensitization to their inner and external environment, and occasionally awaken creative strivings. Neither their creativity, nor sensitivity, however, will assume multilevel and multidimensional proportions easily observable in psychoneurotics driven by the instinct of self-perfection. Despite often strong suffering and inner chaos associated with unilevel disintegrative experiences in some average people, their limited developmental potential places constraints on their personal growth. And so strivings toward transcending one’s psychological type and the biological life cycle, based on conscious efforts at autopsychotherapy and self-education, are generally absent in an average person. (It is important to note that the term “average person” is a concept designed to reflect statistical norm, and just like developmental levels, it does not have a tangible representation in reality. Any ‘average person’ we pick from a crowd of so-called ‘average people’ represents unique, unrepeatable characteristics tied closely to his unrepeatable life history, irreducible to conceptual shorthand.)

Even though both an average person and a psychopath inhabit level 1, primary integration, they function differently most of the time. While a psychopath’s actions are expressive of negative maladjustment (disregard for social norms and conventions in pursuit of one’s own egocentric goals), an average person represents negative adjustment (typically a faithful, often unreflective adherence to social mores). The difference between the two, though disappearing in times of social upheaval and disorder, is the difference between evil and (often harmless, sometimes not) complacency toward the societal and personal status quo. And although an average person is closer in his developmental trajectory to a psychopath than to a psychoneurotic, abolishing all distinctions between them (i.e. between psychopath and average person) is unwarranted in light of TPD.

More on Dabrowski’s views of psychopathy

Occasionally, we can hear that Dabrowski used a unique definition of psychopathy in his writings, one that would justify putting a psychopath and an average person in the same category. This is not so. Dabrowski’s views on psychopathy closely reflect contemporary knowledge about this condition, making them very relevant to today’s clinical practice.

Psychopathy is historically the oldest personality disorder described in psychiatric literature. Its validity has been supported by both clinical and research data. Although no longer officially included in the current classification of mental disorders, it still serves an important function and many advocate for its return to the official diagnostic nomenclature as the “clinical construct whose time has come” (Hare, 1996). From Pinel’s “insanity without delirium;” through all-inclusive “moral insanity” proposed by J.C. Prichard, and Lombroso’s examples of “born delinquents,” who were “emotionally hyperactive, temperamentally irascible, impetuous in action, and deficient in altruistic feelings” (Millon, 1998, p.7); the clinical picture of psychopathy evolved in the last two centuries toward contemporary definitions, rooted in clinical descriptions of Cleckley (1976) and Hare (1993). A documented progression of this conceptual evolution is the subject of “Historical Conceptions of Psychopathy in the United States and Europe” by T. Millon, E. Simonsen and M. Birket-Smith (in Millon, T. et al, 1998).

Dabrowski was aware of the changes that psychopathy as a diagnostic entity had undergone in the psychiatric terminology and his understanding reflects contemporary and commonly accepted clinical definitions of the term.

The unique contribution of Dabrowski’s approach to psychopathy was to stress its adevelopmental aspect, in line with his reasoning on the importance of disintegration in personality growth. A psychopath, due to the high integration of his character structure, which is devoid of capability to experience empathy and guilt, cannot undergo positive disintegration and engage in development, understood as a progression from automatic, instinctual egocentrism to conscious alterocentrism. Because of that, Dabrowski called psychopathy “the greatest obstacle in development of personality and social groups” (Dabrowski, 1986).

Primary integration and children

In many of his works, Dabrowski describes human infancy as a period of primary integration.

“The first year of a child’s life is a period when its psychophysical organism is an indivisible whole. An infant's activities have a character of simple reactions to stimuli. From these simple reactions there are created, thanks to environmental influences, behavioral habits." (Dabrowski, 1964, p.14)

“The period of infancy is a distinctly integrated one since all the activities of an infant are directed to the goal of satisfying the basic (needs).” (Dabrowski, 1964, p.97)

However, in his later works, Dabrowski adopts a more nuanced position, stating,

"Of course, one could say that the period of infancy is one of primary integration. However, we cannot at that time identify the developmental factors (...). By the time a child begins to speak in sentences we can attempt to discern developmental factors and establish whether the developmental trend is integrative or disintegrative." (Dabrowski, 1996, p.23)

Because childhood and adolescence are periods when basic psychological structures are just developing, Dabrowski notes that talking about disintegration during these years is unwarranted unless we observe distinct symptoms of quantitative or qualitative changes in a child’s development, significantly exceeding developmental patterns typical for childhood of the human species. Such changes include multiple types and forms of OE, excessive sensitivity, and neurotic and even psychotic symptoms, associated with accelerated or uneven growth of different psychological functions.

Dabrowski discusses forms and types of disintegration observed in childhood in several of his works, most notably in his “Spoleczno-wychowawcza psychiatria dziecieca” (Socio-educational child psychiatry).

References:

Dabrowski, K., Kawczak, A., Sochanska, J. (1973). The Dynamics of Concepts. Gryf Publications, London.

Dabrowski, K. (1964). Positive Disintegration. Little, Brown & Co. Boston.

Dabrowski, K.(1964). Spoleczno-wychowawcza psychiatria dziecieca, 2nd ed. PZWS, Warszawa. (excerpts translated by E. Mika)

Dabrowski, K. (1996). Multilevelness of emotional and instinctive functions. KUL, Lublin.

Dabrowski, K. (1986). Trud istnienia. Wiedza Powszechna, Warszawa.

Cleckley, H. (1976). The mask of sanity: an attempt to clarify some issues about the so-called psychopathic personality. Mosby Publisher. St. Louis, IL

Hare, R.D. (1993). Without conscience: the disturbing world of the psychopaths among us. Pocket Books. New York, NY

Millon, T. et al. (eds.) (1998). Psychopathy: antisocial, criminal, and violent behavior. Guilford Press. New York, NY

Preston, S.D., de Waal, F.B.M. (2002). The communication of emotions and the possibility of empathy in animals. In: Post, S.G. et al. (eds.). Altruism and Altruistic Love. Oxford University Press, New York (2002).

Comment on the article by Ms. Mika

I thank Ela for the excellent article and her permission to post it here. I have also tried to make these basic points over the years - that the psychopath and the average person both inhabit Level I, but differ by degree and also by other characteristics. I often use a quote from Dabrowski (1964) to illustrate this: "The state of primary integration is a state contrary to mental health. A fairly high degree of primary integration is present in the average person; a very high degree of primary integration is present in the psychopath. The more cohesive the structure of primary integration, the less the possibility of development; the greater the strength of automatic functioning, stereotypy, and habitual activity, the lower the level of mental health. The psychopath is only slightly, if at all, capable of development; he is deaf and blind to stimuli except those pertaining to his impulse-ridden structure, to which intelligence is subordinated. The absence of the development of personality means the absence of mental health." (pp 121 - 122)

Ela's diagram of sub-levels and description also illustrate this. Had Dabrowski published the breakdown of sub-groups that this article presents, perhaps things would have been more clear.

The article does not mention the primary reason that I have felt compelled to try to address these points in the past - over the past 20 years, several prominent authors have placed the "average" person at level II in their writings on the TPD. In my opinion, this has led to a great deal of confusion. I trust Ela's article will go a long way in clarifying this confusion.

The article first appeared in the Dabrowski Newsletter, Vol. 8 (1) Winter 2003.

Bill.

Eric Pepin - Higher Balance Institute Sue SOTT for 4.47 Million Over SOTT Forum Comments!

2008-03-08T02:08:00.001+01:00

Laura Knight-Jadczyk
sott.net
Fri, 07 Mar 2008 06:10 EST

Yesterday, as I was working on finishing up the next installment of the Comet Series of Articles, FedEx delivered a packet of mail from our corporate registered agent in the U.S. It was "Complaint and Demand for Jury Trial" filed in the State of Oregon by Eric Pepin's Higher Balance Institute, LLC. The reason? A discussion on the SOTT Forum that begins HERE.

Well, that was entertaining enough when you think about the fact that the discussion that he objects to was centered on several newspaper articles that describe his close calls with the legal system in Oregon over charges of sex abuse.

The legal document I received is 10 pages long so I'm just going to summarize it here. If you want to read the whole thing (it's hilarious beyond belief!) go HERE for the pdf.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF OREGON

Civil No.: CV '08-0233 HA

COMPLAINT AND DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL

HIGHER BALANCE, LLC, an Oregon
Limited Liability Company, dba HIGHER
BALANCE INSTITUTE, Plaintiff

v.

QUANTUM FUTURE GROUP, INC, a
California corporation, and LAURA
KNIGHT- JADCZYK, Defendants.

Plaintiff Higher Balance LLC, dba Higher Balance Institute ("HBI") files this Complaint against defendants Quantum Future Group, Inc. ("QFG") and Laura Knight-Jadczyk and alleges the following:

...defendants committed intentional torts that were purposefully targeted at HBI within the State of Oregon; defendants knew that HBI is a resident of the State of Oregon; defendants' tortious conduct cause HBI to suffer economic harm within the State of Oregon; HBI's claims arise out of defendants' activities relating to the State of Oregon; and the exercise of jurisdiction over defendants is reasonable in light of their intentional misconduct directed towards a resident of the State of Oregon.

As this Court has specific personal jurisdiction over the defendants, venue is proper in this district and division under 28 U.S.C 1391(a)(3)

General Allegations:

HBI is an Oregon-based company with over 40,000 customers from all over the world. HBI is dedicated to helping its customers relieve stress, reduce anxiety, and achieve emotional balance and spiritual enlightenment through meditation techniques. The majority of HBI's revenues are derived from the online sale of its books and CDs, which are designed to help its customers learn these meditation techniques.

[Etc...]

Defendant QFG operates a website known as Signs of the Times ("SOTT"). QFG posts articles and sponsors forums regarding various conspiracy theories and allegedly corrupt organizations on the SOTT website.

Employees and agents of QFG, including defendant Knight-Jadczyk, serve as administrators and moderators of SOTT forums. QFG employees and agents, including defendant Knight-Jadczyk, post comments and analyses in SOTT forums. These employees and agents act within the course and scope of their agency for QFG when serving as administrators and moderators of the SOTT website and when posting comments and analyses on the SOTT website.

SOTT forums are available to the general public online.

...Many of HBI's existing and potential customers read the SOTT website as a source of alternative media....

FIRST CLAIM FOR RELIEF - Defamation - Libel

....Beginning in May 2006, QFG sponsored a forum on the SOTT website concerning HBI under the heading "COINTELPRO."

Beginning in November 2007, defendants intentionally posted several false, baseless, and derogatory accusations concerning HBI on the SOTT website including, but not limited to:

a. HBI is a "front for pedophilia";
b. HBI is a "cointelpro" organization;
c. Meditation, as sold by HBI, is an act of "falling into confluence with a psychopathic reality";
d. Those associated with HBI must be careful to avoid sexual molestation by HBI members;
e. HBI is conning the public;
f. "Fishy sexual conduct is occurring at HBI; and
g. HBI "leads people more deeply into sleep."

By posting these statements in a public internet forum, defendants have published and communicated false and baseless accusations concerning HBI to third parties, including existing and potential HBI customers.

Defendants' statements tend to subject HBI to hatred, contempt, and ridicule and tend to diminish the esteem, respect, goodwill and confidence in which HBI is held by the public and by its customers.

Defendant made these false statements with knowledge of their falsity or with reckless disregard for their truth.

As a result of defendants' false and defamatory statement, HBI suffered general damages in the form of loss of reputation in an amount to be determined at trial, but in any event, not less than $500,000. HBI has also suffered special damages in the form of lost income in amounts to be determined at trial, but in any event, not less than $834,732.

Defendants defamatory statements are still available to the general public on the SOTT website and are easily found through internet searches relating to HBI. Defendants conduct causes HBI irreparable harm, and HBI is entitled to an injunction preventing defendants' continued defamation of HBI.

SECOND CLAIM FOR RELIEF: False Light

Defendants intentionally gave publicity to matters concerning HBI that placed HBI in a false light before the public. etc

...economic damages ... not less than $834,732.

THIRD CLAIM FOR RELIEF: Intentional Interference with Economic Relations - Interference with Business Relationships

Defendant intentionally interfered with many of these business relationships by communicating the false and defamatory information listed...

...economic damages ... not less than $97,299.

HBI... has also suffered damages in the form of loss of reputation ... damages .... not less than $500,000.

...Defendants conduct was malicious and warrants punitive damages...

FOURTH CLAIM FOR RELIEF: Intentional Interference With Economic Relations - Prospective Economic Advantage

Defendant's interference has diminished the esteem, respect, goodwill, and confidence in which HBI is held by the general public, thereby hindering HBI's ability to obtain many new customers with whom HBI had a prospective business relationship. ... damages to be determined at trial...

...On its First Claim for Relief, that HBI be awarded general and special damages in amounts to be determined at trial, but in any event, not less than $1,334,732, and that defendants be enjoined from their continued defamation of HBI.

...On its Second Claim for Relief, that HBI be awarded damages in an amount to be determined at trial, but in any event, not less than $1,334,732. and that defendants be enjoined from continuing to place HBI in a false light.

...On its Third Claim for Relief, that HBI be awarded damages in an amount to be determined at trial, but in any event, not less than $597,299. plus punitive damages, and that defendants be enjoined from their coninued interference with HBI's prospective business relationships.

...On its Fourth Claim for Relief, that HBI be awarded damages in an amount to be determined at trial, but in any event, not less than $1,205,000 plus punitive damages, and that defendants be enjoined from their continued interference with HBI's business relationships.

... That HBI be awarded pre-judgment and post-judgment interest on all damages recovered.

...That HBI be awarded its costs and disbursements incurred in this action; ...

Harry and David demands a trial by jury on all issues so triable.

25th day of February, 2008.

Bullivant houser Bailey PC
Renee E. Rothauge
Chad M. Colton
Tel 503.228.6351
Attorneys for Higher Balance Institute

Whoah! That's some heavy duty stuff, eh? Sounds like we just ripped up on that poor guy for no reason atall!

But that's not quite the situation. The original article about Eric Pepin that was brought to our attention on page 5 of the above-mentioned forum thread read as follows:

A 39-year-old Aloha man who promises spiritual awakening through meditation books and CDs he sells on the Internet is facing sex-abuse charges.

Beaverton police Detective Mike Smith said Eric J. Pepin runs what appears to be a cult out of his Higher Balance Institute on Southwest Second Street in Beaverton.

Pepin was arraigned Tuesday in Washington County criminal court on one count of using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct, two counts of second-degree sexual abuse, and four counts of third-degree sexual abuse. He was released after posting $26,750 cash, or 10 percent of $267,500 bail. A trial was set for Sept. 12.

Using a child in a sexual display is a Measure 11 crime punishable by a mandatory minimum of 5 years and 10 months in prison.

Jamison Dwight Priebe, 21, who works for Pepin and lives at the same address in the 19600 block of Southwest Cooperhawk Court in Aloha, also was arrested on one count each of using a child in a sexual display and third-degree sexual abuse.

Priebe and Pepin turned themselves in at the Washington County Jail last week after a grand jury handed down secret indictments. Priebe was released after posting $25,375 cash bail and is awaiting arraignment Monday.

Smith said a man who is now 20 was 17 and working for Pepin when he allegedly was sexually abused at the Higher Balance office in the 11900 block of Southwest Second Street in Beaverton and at Pepin's former home in the city.

A call to the Higher Balance Institute on Wednesday was answered by a "Personal Star Reach Coach," who referred questions to Pepin's private attorney, Sam Kauffman.

"The charges are false, and we are confident Mr. Pepin will be exonerated," Kauffman said.

Pepin's Web site claims he has located more than 100 missing persons and runaways, along with U.S. Navy submarines, through a psychic ability he calls "remote viewing."

Pepin's meditation systems, which sell for $79 to $149, help customers develop their "sixth sense" and apply it "inward to awaken a dimensional universe within the mind," the Web site says.

According to an affidavit Smith filed with a request for a search warrant, the alleged victim told police that Internet customers who rave about Pepin's teachings are men and women usually older than 35. But, the man said Pepin told him he should recruit "good-looking men" between the ages of 18 and 24 to work for him.

The court record also says Pepin knew the man was 17 when he forced him to perform sex acts.

The boy, Smith wrote, "was taught by Pepin to believe that the sexual contact was only a spiritual necessity." But after a while, the affidavit says, the boy decided he was being used by Pepin, who bought him meals and paid him $200 after sex.

The man contacted Beaverton police in January.

Smith said anyone who may have had underage sexual contact with Pepin should call him at 503-526-2280.

Smith said the man accusing Pepin told police he met one of Pepin's followers at Beaverton Town Square in April 2004. He told Smith the recruiter invited him to meet Pepin and see him demonstrate levitation.
Pepin introduced himself dressed in a robe emblazoned with the words "Master Eric" and a triangular symbol and told the victim to take off his shirt, the detective said.

"It's a cult," Smith said, "anytime you have a guy who fancies himself as the master, the leader."

Well, I've been accused of trying to start a cult myself, so I might ordinarily have sympathy for Pepin though I have to admit I blew my tea through my nose reading about the "robe emblazoned with 'Master Eric'" on it. I guess that's why I'm such a failure - I hardly ever wear anything other than sweats and bedroom slippers!

In any event, even though a grand jury felt that there was enough evidence to indict Pepin, he was eventually acquitted in a jury trial as the following report informs us:

Institute leader acquitted of sex charges

HOLLY DANKS - HILLSBORO -- A Washington County Circuit judge called the leader of a metaphysical Internet sales company manipulative and controlling and his testimony unbelievable, even as he acquitted him Wednesday of charges that he had sex with an underage boy.

Judge Steven L. Price, after a five-day trial without a jury, found Eric James Pepin, 40, not guilty of two counts of second-degree sexual abuse, four counts of third-degree sexual abuse and one count of using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct.

Also acquitted of third-degree sexual abuse and using a child in a pornographic display was Jamison Dwight Priebe, 21, who has worked for Pepin's Higher Balance Institute since he was 18.

"Everybody has stood by me who knows me," Pepin said Wednesday after hugging supporters. "They had faith in me, prayed for me. I told them I wouldn't let them down. I did nothing of what was alleged. I've been nothing but honorable and impeccable."

However, Price said it was "probable that the conduct alleged in all counts occurred," but he wasn't convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. "There's a lack of strong corroboration," such as a date-stamp on a videotape of the sexual encounter, the judge said.

The accuser testified Pepin had him take off his shirt the first day they met at Pepin's Beaverton home in April 2004.

"He was going to try and fix my energy and he needed me to trust him," the accuser said. Pepin touched the teen's "chakra points" on his heart, head and lower abdomen.

"Eric asked me to tell him everything I had done in my life that I was ashamed about," the teen added.

The accuser said Pepin asked him how old he was the first day they met and that he told him the truth.

"He said students had to be 18 because he didn't like parents fussing around," the accuser said.

But within days the two were having sex, including a three-way encounter with Priebe, the youth testified. Pepin called it "crossing the abyss," the accuser said, "surrendering yourself to your teacher, your master."

Pepin testified he is gay and has had sexual relationships with most of his 11 employees, but not before they were 18. Pepin said he gave his accuser a job, even though the teen was a poor worker, and continued to be intimate with him and give him money after he was fired, to help him out.

Stephen A. Houze, Pepin's private defense attorney, called the accuser a liar more than 100 times in his closing argument and noted that Pepin was "the perfect patsy" because society wants to believe the worst of a gay man. Houze said the accuser brought the charges because he wanted to shake down Pepin.

Pepin's Higher Balance Institute, now on Northwest Saltzman Road in Cedar Mill, reached an annual high of $2 million in Internet sales of meditation CDs, tapes and books before his arrest in July.

Pepin touts himself as a psychic and "remote viewer" who has found lost submarines and missing people, and says he created the "psychic pill" Magneurol6-S that enhances brain function, heals nerve damage, heightens paranormal experiences and relieves stress for $79 a bottle.

Andrew Erwin, deputy district attorney, called Higher Balance nothing more than a sex cult run by a "snake oil" salesman who preys on the troubled.

The accuser had nothing to gain by going to police and turned down $250,000 from Pepin to drop the sex charges, Erwin said.

"I'm disappointed," Erwin said of the verdicts. "The judge wants proof beyond all doubt and that's too high a standard."

And now, Pepin wants to sue QFG and yours truly for talking about these articles, published in a newspaper (though they are no longer on the newspaper's website, but can be found elsewhere on the net)!!

Notice that Pepin, himself, revealed his "sex cult" practices in his own testimony. We'll be getting transcripts of the trial to publish so our readers can hear it from the horse's mouth; stay tuned for that.

Notice also that Pepin's attorney, Houze, accused the victim of bringing charges because he wanted to shake down Pepin. Well, maybe that's what gave Pepin the idea of suing me. Only thing is, he's gonna have a hard time collecting his 4.47 million because I don't own a thing and QFG rarely has more than a grand in the bank at any given time. When we have fund-raisers, the funds disappear almost instantly, repaying loans and covering basic expenses for the site and equipment.

It's also humorous that Pepin is suing QFG which only sponsors a world-wide group of independent researchers who, together, make up sott.net. QFG doesn't own sott, nor does QFG have any employees nor any official oversight of anything that the sott.net researchers say or do.

But the bottom line is this: Eric Pepin is convicted out of his own mouth of being a sexual predator. I mean, what kind of teacher of meditation says that he has sex with all his employees? And all of them young and good looking?

Nope, we aren't backing down. We firmly believe that Eric Pepin is a danger to innocent people looking for spiritual guidance. Obviously, young guys just looking for sex and money and a good time will be delighted to take his pills, listen to his tapes and attend his retreats. But the wider public who are not aware of these things in Pepin's background, that even the judge who acquitted him regretted having to do so, and that the Prosecutor of the case was also convinced that justice had NOT been done, need to be warned about this sexual predator in our midst.

Maybe Eric Pepin will take sott down, we don't know. We don't have money for an expensive defense attorney, we barely stay afloat. But even if that happens (and we hope our readers will help us out now as never before), there are others who know and I don't think that Eric Pepin and all his minions can track down and silence all of them.

Even if you can't give to our legal defense fund, I will appreciate letters of support during this trying time. Write to sott(at)sott.net and I will try to answer each and every one.
Comment: Oregon police say man abused teen in cult-like operation
"Two Aloha men arrested on sex-abuse charges"
Leader of Washington County Internet company acquitted of sex abuse
Sexual predators in the religiou

s scene

Dealing with sociopaths

2008-02-27T13:09:00.006+01:00

There is a genetic basis for a disorder that accounts for some of the violent criminal behavior, but this doesn't necessarily mean it accounts for all violent criminal behavior. This group of people have a perfect mask of sanity, they don't have conscience and they are not necessarily violent criminals.

At least 3 terms continue to be mixed up and misinterpreted. Perhaps a quote from Robert Hare's book, "Without Conscience", will provide some clarity:

Sometimes the term sociopathy is used because it is less likely than is psychopathy to be confused with psychoticism or insanity.

Some clinicians and researchers, as well as most sociologists and criminologists- who believe that the syndrome is forged entirely by social forces and early experiences prefer the term sociopath, whereas those- who feel that psychological, biological, and genetic factors also contribute to development of the syndrome generally use the term psychopath. [...]

A term that was supposed to have much the same meaning as "psychopath" or "sociopath" is antisocial personality disorder (APD), described in the 3rd edition of the American Psychiatric Associations Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM III, 1980)[...]

The diagnostic criteria for APD consist primarily of a long list of antisocial and criminal behaviors. When the list first appeared it was felt that the average clinician could not reliably assess personality traits such as empathy, egocentricity, guilt, and so forth. Diagnosis therefore was based on what clinicians presumably could assess without difficulty, namely objective, socially deviant behaviors. The result has been confusion with many clinicians mistakenly assuming that APD and psychopathy are synonymous terms.

So, APD refers primarily to criminal and antisocial behaviors; and psychopathy refers to both personality traits and socially deviant behaviors. In other words, the majority of criminals have APD, but most criminals are not psychopaths. Let me explain this further...

It was my experience with deviant people that finally brought me to the subject of psychopathy, and finally all started to make sense. Before, I was trying to save someone who could not even be saved so to speak, the stress that he provoked me was making me miserable and my health was progressively deteriorating. I was projecting all kinds of struggles into a person, that didn't gave a damn to begin with. The key point is that psychopathy is genetically based and that there is a lot of confusion with the clinical terms. Criminal behavior does not equal psychopathy. In fact, 80% of imprisioned immates are NOT psychopaths. Some people prefer to use the term "sociopath", because Hollywood among others had loaded the word psychopath with a lot of stereotypes "a la Hannibal Lecter". But a psychopath is not exclusively a serial killer (like the guy in "No Country for Old Man"). In fact, it is much more subtle, some clear examples can be found in your own government and in CEO s of Big Pharma!!! Martha Stout's book introduction has a good synopsis of the psychopathy traits, unfortunately she uses the term sociopath where actually psychopath would be more appropriate This is so because it has a genetic basis, it is not something that society provokes, although society might play a role in how it manifests. To put just one practical example: some psychopaths already were killing cute little animals when they were kids just for the fun of it, even if they were raised in healthy environments were compassionate values were emphasized. Anyway, here is an excerpt of Martha Stout's book introduction:

Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken.

And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools.

Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless.

You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience, that they seldom even guess at your condition.

In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your unhampered liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is conveniently invisible to the world.

You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences will most likely remain undiscovered.

How will you live your life?

What will you do with your huge and secret advantage, and with the corresponding handicap of other people (conscience)?

The answer will depend largely on just what your desires happen to be, because people are not all the same. Even the profoundly unscrupulous are not all the same. Some people - whether they have a conscience or not - favor the ease of inertia, while others are filled with dreams and wild ambitions. Some human beings are brilliant and talented, some are dull-witted, and most, conscience or not, are somewhere in between. There are violent people and nonviolent ones, individuals who are motivated by blood lust and those who have no such appetites. [...]

Provided you are not forcibly stopped, you can do anything at all.

If you are born at the right time, with some access to family fortune, and you have a special talent for whipping up other people's hatred and sense of deprivation, you can arrange to kill large numbers of unsuspecting people. With enough money, you can accomplish this from far away, and you can sit back safely and watch in satisfaction. [...]

Crazy and frightening - and real, in about 4 percent of the population....

The prevalence rate for anorexic eating disorders is estimated a 3.43 percent, deemed to be nearly epidemic, and yet this figure is a fraction lower than the rate for antisocial personality. The high-profile disorders classed as schizophrenia occur in only about 1 percent of [the population] - a mere quarter of the rate of antisocial personality - and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that the rate of colon cancer in the United States, considered "alarmingly high," is about 40 per 100,000 - one hundred times lower than the rate of antisocial personality.

The high incidence of sociopathy in human society has a profound effect on the rest of us who must live on this planet, too, even those of us who have not been clinically traumatized. The individuals who constitute this 4 percent drain our relationships, our bank accounts, our accomplishments, our self-esteem, our very peace on earth.

Yet surprisingly, many people know nothing about this disorder, or if they do, they think only in terms of violent psychopathy - murderers, serial killers, mass murderers - people who have conspicuously broken the law many times over, and who, if caught, will be imprisoned, maybe even put to death by our legal system.

We are not commonly aware of, nor do we usually identify, the larger number of nonviolent sociopaths among us, people who often are not blatant lawbreakers, and against whom our formal legal system provides little defense.

Most of us would not imagine any correspondence between conceiving an ethnic genocide and, say, guiltlessly lying to one's boss about a coworker. But the psychological correspondence is not only there; it is chilling. Simple and profound, the link is the absence of the inner mechanism that beats up on us, emotionally speaking, when we make a choice we view as immoral, unethical, neglectful, or selfish.

Most of us feel mildly guilty if we eat the last piece of cake in the kitchen, let alone what we would feel if we intentionally and methodically set about to hurt another person.

Those who have no conscience at all are a group unto themselves, whether they be homicidal tyrants or merely ruthless social snipers.

The presence or absence of conscience is a deep human division, arguably more significant than intelligence, race, or even gender.

What differentiates a sociopath who lives off the labors of others from one who occasionally robs convenience stores, or from one who is a contemporary robber baron - or what makes the difference between an ordinary bully and a sociopathic murderer - is nothing more than social status, drive, intellect, blood lust, or simple opportunity.

What distinguishes all of these people from the rest of us is an utterly empty hole in the psyche, where there should be the most evolved of all humanizing functions. [Martha Stout, Ph.D., The Sociopath Next Door]

The best books available in this area, are Robert Hare's "Without Conscience", Martha Stout's "Sociopath Next Door" and Paul Babiak/Robert Hare's "Snakes in Suits". Also "Mask of Sanity" by Hervey Cleckley, its a classic (available on line, Mask of Sanity by Hervey Cleckley PDF - book download). There are also plenty of references in scientific journals and a considerable amount of websites.

Here are a few useful links:

http://www.friedgreentomatoes.org/articles_index.php (with LOTS of articles and references that explain main concepts), http://friedgreentomatoes.org/ is an exc source for victims.

http://saferelationships.com/

http://www.geocities.com/lycium7/psychopathy.html

The Trick of the Psychopath's Trade: Make Us Believe that Evil Comes from Others

Neurobiological basis of psychopathy

Early Signs of Psychopathy

Psychopathy and Corporations

The cat and the mouse

2007-02-17T21:33:00.000+01:00

What a cute kitty! Hey, wait a minute, kitty... What are you doing with that mouse? Are you deliberately playing with the poor little thing, torturing the poor animal before eating it? What if "something" is doing the very same thing to us, what if we are not in top of the food chain?

This week I heard Laura Knight-Jadczyk's interview on BBC radio, where she discusses these topics and others based on research which she has presented in her book, the Secret History of the World and How to Get Out Alive, available at qfgpublishing.com

Here is a relevant excerpt:

AW: Well, and, and who is, you know, perpetrating the experiment?

LKJ: Who perpetrates it? Well, I would suggest that it is denizens of this other reality that are referred to by the ancients as gods, and nowadays, of course they, they may refer to them as aliens. I don’t think they’re aliens. I don’t think they come from other planets. I think they are hyperdimensional beings and I think that they’ve been here for many thousands of years, if not for all of human history. There are records of lights in the sky and strange beings that are similar to, you know, what are called aliens down through history. Jacques Vallee referred to it as a control system. Control system, hyperdimensional reality; it’s pretty much the same thing.

AW: Hmm, I’m just wondering why, you know, why they would appear to be so fascinated with us, especially over such a long protracted amount of time. Clearly, I don’t know what their intentions are, so it’s difficult to try to gauge that, or even if they do have intentions like human beings have intentions. But what do you hypothesize is the reason that people might want to manipulate us in this way, or, I’m sorry, beings, might want to manipulate us in this way?

LKJ: Well, the evidence strongly indicates that we are food for them.

(long silent pause)

AW: Uhm, what evidence suggests that?

LKJ: Well, the evidence of, say for example, wars, and plagues and famines, and, uh, the… and I’m not saying that we are physical food necessarily, I’m saying that, you know, energy, energetic food, emotional; that pain and suffering is something they uh, they feed on, that gives energy to them. Just as the movie ‘The Matrix’, you know, said that people were in pods and their emotional energy produced energy for the system, for the machine, that they were batteries, it’s very similar, that we are, in essence, a, uh, a power supply.

AW: Well, if we, the, the, the human way of maybe responding to something like that, to maybe analyze it scientifically, typically, is to try to look for, perhaps, an example within our universe. So to look at maybe, you know, a microcosm within, I don’t know, the flora or the fauna that we research and I, I can’t think of anything, you know, and I’m sure you’ll correct me. Or at least an example within our universe of an ecosystem that behaves in that way, where you put things kind of under stress rather than just eating them or devouring them, it seems a…

LKJ: Think of the cat and the mouse. What does the cat do with the mouse?

AW: He plays with the mouse.

LKJ: I mean, is it necessary for the cat to play with the mouse before it eats it?

AW: No, it’s not (laughs) that was a very, yeah, that’s a very obvious example isn’t it? A very good example. So, is the point then that they need to kind of maintain us, and keep us here, keep us going as a food source in the same way we try to sustain our own food sources?

LKJ: More or less, and I think that in many respects, they cut us some slack, you know, they make sure we know enough to create a civilization, to feed that civilization, to build that civilization up, to increase the numbers of people in that civilization; and then, to put people into conflict with one another so that they fight and kill one another so that there is massive pain and suffering.

AW: Do you find this, I mean, having come to this conclusion, do you find that, I don’t know, a depressing thought? Or do you think it’s empowering because it removes us from some of the ways that humans have sort of been stuck to over the millennium, I mean, how do you feel having come to that conclusion?

LKJ: Well, in the beginning, it was extraordinarily depressing, as you, as you might imagine. And, you know, it was… Somebody asked me, you know, after all these years what have you learned? And I said, well, I’ve learned that there is no free lunch in the Universe and if you think there is, then you’re lunch. And also, we are not at the top of the food chain.

And, that was pretty depressing for a period of time, and then I finally began to work my way through that and I went back and started searching the literature for evidence of anyone who had found their way out of this, this - you know, had they realized this situation; had they understood it - what clues were there, and what conclusions did they come to and was anybody able to, to overcome it, to escape it, so to speak?

And, clearly, there are individuals in history; and you’ll notice that the book has a thread all the way through it of alchemy. I believe that alchemists were among those who were able to not only come to understand the system, but were able to step outside of the system, to be able to access hyperdimensional realities. Because all of these things, that uh, these special powers that so-called alchemists were be able to achieve, have to do with mastery of space and time, which is what you achieve when you, uh, achieve the ability to step in and out of the hyperdimensional realities.

So, there are alchemists, there are some types of yogis, there is, uh, there is the ancient material that was brought to the West by Gurdjieff, by Mouravieff. There is some very ancient literature that speaks to these matters and talks about people who have escaped. And that’s why there is a subtitle to the book, you know, ‘and How to Get out Alive’, because I do address that. You know, I mean, I don’t want to tell somebody, you know, hey, you’re in a, in one hell of a situation, without telling them, you know, there is a way out. And it isn’t… the way out is not in believing your way out, because believing your way out is what they want you to do. As long as they can get you to believe something; as long as they can invoke your faith, in some pie in the sky idea that you’re going to change your reality by, by believing it, or you’re going to get raptured to heaven when Jesus comes, or, uh, when the Mahdi comes, or whatever. You know, that keeps you complacent. Because…

Speaking frankly about Israel and Palestine

2006-12-12T21:18:00.000+01:00

By Jimmy Carter
LA Times
December 8, 2006
I signed a contract with Simon & Schuster two years ago to write a book about the Middle East, based on my personal observations as the Carter Center monitored three elections in Palestine and on my consultations with Israeli political leaders and peace activists.

We covered every Palestinian community in 1996, 2005 and 2006, when Yasser Arafat and later Mahmoud Abbas were elected president and members of parliament were chosen. The elections were almost flawless, and turnout was very high - except in East Jerusalem, where, under severe Israeli restraints, only about 2% of registered voters managed to cast ballots.

The many controversial issues concerning Palestine and the path to peace for Israel are intensely debated among Israelis and throughout other nations - but not in the United States. For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices.

It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians. Very few would ever deign to visit the Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Gaza City or even Bethlehem and talk to the beleaguered residents. What is even more difficult to comprehend is why the editorial pages of the major newspapers and magazines in the United States exercise similar self-restraint, quite contrary to private assessments expressed quite forcefully by their correspondents in the Holy Land.

With some degree of reluctance and some uncertainty about the reception my book would receive, I used maps, text and documents to describe the situation accurately and to analyze the only possible path to peace: Israelis and Palestinians living side by side within their own internationally recognized boundaries. These options are consistent with key U.N. resolutions supported by the U.S. and Israel, official American policy since 1967, agreements consummated by Israeli leaders and their governments in 1978 and 1993 (for which they earned Nobel Peace Prizes), the Arab League's offer to recognize Israel in 2002 and the International Quartet's "Roadmap for Peace," which has been accepted by the PLO and largely rejected by Israel.

The book is devoted to circumstances and events in Palestine and not in Israel, where democracy prevails and citizens live together and are legally guaranteed equal status.

Although I have spent only a week or so on a book tour so far, it is already possible to judge public and media reaction. Sales are brisk, and I have had interesting interviews on TV, including "Larry King Live," "Hardball," "Meet the Press," "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," the "Charlie Rose" show, C-SPAN and others. But I have seen few news stories in major newspapers about what I have written.

Book reviews in the mainstream media have been written mostly by representatives of Jewish organizations who would be unlikely to visit the occupied territories, and their primary criticism is that the book is anti-Israel. Two members of Congress have been publicly critical. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for instance, issued a statement (before the book was published) saying that "he does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel." Some reviews posted on Amazon.com call me "anti-Semitic," and others accuse the book of "lies" and "distortions." A former Carter Center fellow has taken issue with it, and Alan Dershowitz called the book's title "indecent."

Out in the real world, however, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I've signed books in five stores, with more than 1,000 buyers at each site. I've had one negative remark - that I should be tried for treason - and one caller on C-SPAN said that I was an anti-Semite. My most troubling experience has been the rejection of my offers to speak, for free, about the book on university campuses with high Jewish enrollment and to answer questions from students and professors. I have been most encouraged by prominent Jewish citizens and members of Congress who have thanked me privately for presenting the facts and some new ideas.

The book describes the abominable oppression and persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories, with a rigid system of required passes and strict segregation between Palestine's citizens and Jewish settlers in the West Bank. An enormous imprisonment wall is now under construction, snaking through what is left of Palestine to encompass more and more land for Israeli settlers. In many ways, this is more oppressive than what blacks lived under in South Africa during apartheid. I have made it clear that the motivation is not racism but the desire of a minority of Israelis to confiscate and colonize choice sites in Palestine, and then to forcefully suppress any objections from the displaced citizens. Obviously, I condemn any acts of terrorism or violence against innocent civilians, and I present information about the terrible casualties on both sides.

The ultimate purpose of my book is to present facts about the Middle East that are largely unknown in America, to precipitate discussion and to help restart peace talks (now absent for six years) that can lead to permanent peace for Israel and its neighbors. Another hope is that Jews and other Americans who share this same goal might be motivated to express their views, even publicly, and perhaps in concert. I would be glad to help with that effort.

By Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States. His newest book is "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," published last month. He is scheduled to sign books Monday at Vroman's in Pasadena.

Contemporary Asian Art

2006-12-06T20:28:00.000+01:00

As a cheap wage country, Taiwan was one of the main centers of the textile industry in the 1960s. Beginning in 1990, however, the intensive production industry migrated to countries with even lower production costs, and many Taiwanese became unemployed.
In 2003 Chen Chieh-jen invited a number of textile workers to the previously closed Lien Fu textile factory, where they had worked for over two decades, to shoot a documentary. The abandoned factory presented itself like a "relic" of the past: many objects were still there, such as calendars, newspapers, punch clocks, tools and banners, megaphones and loudspeakers from the workers' protest against the closure. What was missing was replaced, and the workers agreed to take up their work again for the film. The camera concentrates on their body language while working, on simple actions and the atmosphere of the space. Several fragmentary sequences from the time of the protest against the closure of the factory were edited in. In keeping with the women's wish not to speak, the film was shot without sound. Chen Chieh-jen takes a phenomenon of globalization and translates the transformation of the textile industry in Asia into a highly professionally made 35mm film.

See an excerpt in the following link.

G. I. Gurdjieff: The Last Hour of Life

2006-12-04T18:39:00.000+01:00

via searchwithin.org

Imagine, that you have only a few minutes, maybe an hour left to live; somehow you have discovered exactly when you will die. What would you do with this precious hour of your stay on Earth? Would you be able to complete all your things in this last hour, do you have a conscious idea about how to do it?
And letting go your last breath would you feel satisfaction from knowing that you have done everything possible in this life to fulfill that you are constantly present, always vibrating, always waiting, like the son is waiting for the father-sailor? In the manifested world everything has its beginning and its end. In the Real World everything is always present and one beautiful day you will be allowed to forget everything and leave the world “forever”.
Freedom is worth a million times more than [political] liberation. The free man, even in slavery, remains a master of himself. For example, if I give you something, let‘s say, a car, in which there is no fuel, the car cannot move. Your car needs a special fuel, but it is only you who is able to define what kind of fuel is needed and where to get it.
You have to define yourself how to digest my ideas to make them yours, so that they belong only to you. Your car cannot work on the same fuel my car is working on. I suggest to you only the primary material. You have to get from it what you can use. So, more bravely, sit down at the steering wheel.
The organic life is very fragile. The planetary body can die at any moment. It is always one step from death. And if you could manage to live one more day, it is only a chance accidentally given to you by nature. If you will be able to live even one more hour, you can consider yourself to be a lucky person. From the moment of conception we are living on borrowed time.
Living in this world you have to feel death each second, so settle all your life affairs, even in your last hour. But how can anyone know exactly his last hour? For the sense of security make up your things with nature and yourself in every hour given to you, then you will never be met unprepared. The man has to be taught this starting from the [esoteric] school: how to breath, to eat, to move and to die right. This has to become a part of an educational programme. In this programme it is necessary to include the teaching about how to realize the presence of “I” and also how to establish consciousness.
Question: How to act if you do not feel that there is something unfinished?
Gurdjieff answered after a pause. He took a deep breath and replied:
Ask yourself who will be in difficulty if you die like a dog. At the moment of death you have to be wholly aware of yourself and feel that you have done everything possible to use all, within your abilities, in this life which was given to you.
Now you do not know much about yourself. But with each day you dig deeper and deeper into this bag of bones and start knowing more and more details. Day by day you will be finding out what you should have done and what you have to re-do among the things you have done. A real man is one who could take from 2
life everything that was valuable in it, and say: ”And now I can die”. We have to try to live your lives so that we could say any day: ”Today I can die and not be sorry about anything”.
Never spend fruitlessly the last hour of your life because it can become the most important hour for you. If you use it wrongly, you may be sorry about it later. This sincere excitement that you feel now can become for you a powerful source of the force that can prepare you for perfect death. Knowing that the next hour can become the last one for you, absorb the impressions which it will bring to you as a real gourmet. When lady death will call you, be prepared, always. The master knows how to take from each tasty piece the last bit of the most valuable. Learn to be the master of your life.
When I was young I learned to prepare fragrances. I learned to extract from life it’s essence, it’s most subtle qualities. Search in everything the most valuable, learn to separate the fine from the coarse. One who has learned how to extract the essence, the most important from each moment of life, has reached a sense on quality.
He is able to do with the world something that can not be done by an aboriginal.
It could be that in the last moments of your life you will not have the choice where and with whom to be, but you will have a choice to decide how fully you will live them. The ability to take the valuable from life – is the same as to take from the food, air and the impressions the substances needed to build up your higher bodies. If you want to take from your life the most valuable for yourself, it has to be for the good of the higher; for yourself it is enough to leave just a little. To work on yourself for the good of others is a smart way to receive the best from life for yourself. If you will not be satisfied with the last hour of your life, you will not be happy about the whole of your life. To die means to come through something which is impossible to repeat again. To spend your precious time in nothing means to deprive yourself the opportunity to extract from life the most valuable.
In this world, to live life through, from the beginning to the end – means another aspect of the Absolute. All greatest philosophers were carefully preparing for the last hour of their life. And now I will give you the exercise to prepare for the last hour on the Earth. Try not to misinterpret any word from the given exercise.
The Exercise
===========
Look back at the hour that has passed, as if it was the last hour for you on the earth and that you have just acknowledged that you have died. Ask yourself, were you satisfied at that hour?
And now reanimate yourself again and set up the aim for yourself. In the next hour (if you are lucky to live one more) try to extract from life a little more than you did in the last hour. Define, where and when you should have been more aware, and where you should have put more inner fire.
And now open your eyes wider, and by this I mean – open more possibilities for yourself, be a little more brave, than you were in the previous hour. Since you know that this is your last hour and you have nothing to loose, try to gain some bravery - at least now. Of course, you don’t have to be silly about it.

Get to know yourself better, look at your machine as if from the outside. Now, when you are dying, there is no sense to keep your reputation and your prestige.
And now onwards, until the real last hour, aspire with persistence to receive the most you can from life that is of value, develop your intuition. Take just a few moments each hour to watch at the hour that passed, without judgment, and then tune yourself to extracting more from the following hour.
If we look at each hour like at a separate life unit, you can try to do as much as you can to use every unit totally. Force yourself and find the way to make the next hour much more than the one before, but also be aware that you have taken care of the debts you collected till now. Increase the self-sensing and self-knowledge of yourself, and also increase the ability to master yourself, this will change the work of your machine, which is always out of your control. And these abilities can become the indication of the real changes. And it is absolutely unimportant what the machine is thinking about this.
...To live the rest of your life rehearsing your death hour by hour – is not at all pathological. None can receive more from life than the cancer patient, who knows approximately when he will die. And since he already recognized how he wishes to spend the rest of his life, he will not have to make the total change in it, but he will be able to go somewhere, where he always wished to go, but would not do it in other circumstances.
The man who knows that he will die soon, will try to use to the maximum every hour of the rest of his life. This is exactly what Christ meant when he said that the last days will come soon – the days before the Last Judgment. We are all standing in front of the Judge, but it is not the others who are judging us, but we ourselves do the last estimation of our life. We do not have to fail the most important examination, where the most serious judge is ourself.
Each moment, taken alone, represents the particle of the eternal Creation. Therefore each moment we can extract the most subtle substances, that we can call ”the essence of life”.
Imagine yourself the substance “air” or the substance “impressions”. Finally, draw in your mind the substance “moment”. Yes, even the moments of time are the substances.
If we will be able to extract the finest substances from the coarser, sooner or later we will have to pay for it. This law is called The Law of Balance. That is why we will learn how to pay immediately for those that we receive from life. Only then we will not have any debts. To pay immediately – this is what is called “real doing”. “To do” – is to think, to feel, to act, but “real doing” – is to pay immediately.
To do – may mean only one thing: to extract the essence from each moment of life and at the same moment to pay all the debts to the nature and yourself; but only when you have “I”, can you pay immediately.
Real life is not a change of activity, but a change of the quality of the activity. Destiny – is destiny. Each one of us has to find himself in the whole order of things. It is not too late yet to start doing it now, although you have spent the greater part of your life in sleep. Starting from today you can begin to prepare yourself for death and, at the same time, to increase the quality of your living. But do not delay with the start – maybe you really only have just one more hour of life.

Question: Can we share this with others? I think it is very important what we have heard about this evening.
- You can retell it word by word, but until you will [can?] do this [exercise] yourself, it would mean nothing for others. Existence is the means, or the instrument, for action. Think about this and you will find out why it is so.
Question: Therefore, we cannot pay the debts, if we do not exist, or if our “I” is absent?
- Why do you have such a need to pay? Pay for what? If life is only a coincidence, then there is no sense to go on. This does not mean that you have to end your life with a suicide. Opposite, you have to put all your effort into ‘to live’. Ordinary man always lives, just going with the flow. He is not just sleeping, he is absolutely dead. To really live, it is necessary to support the efforts of nature, to take actively from life, and not to act passively – wherever it flows.
Extracting from life the most precious, you have to be able to operate your emotions. See how fairly you can estimate yourself. Look attentively at yourself and you will see many remarkable ways to be fair. Each time notice for yourself different moments when the desires appear. Act as before, but always be aware of their presence. Transport to the world the part of your blood, but one of the higher level.
At the end of each hour after you have estimated its usefulness, imagine that you just woke up in the absolutely unknown in comparison to the previous one gone by. It is important to note that the apparent continuation of the last hour is in reality changing with every hour, although things and people seem the same as before. With the time you will learn to see yourself as a spirit of a special substance, who is coming from one world to another, as an uninvited guest of nature.
Looking from this point of view evaluate everything you do in your life. Looking at the results of all your efforts of the past and think what sense they all have now, in the last hour of your life. Those who are engaged in the Work, are dead to this world and at the same time they are more alive in this world than anyone else. Work… something strange, imperceptible, but for many it is impossible to live without it.
The ordinary way of understanding life is vanity of vanities. However big the result is according to earthly measures, sooner or later it will fail. Even the sand is being rubbed into dust by time. Even the most significant people of history are being forgotten. To understand the real possibilities of this world, it is necessary to find what we can reach in this world that will be very useful in the Real World.
Attentively look at the lives of all the greatest people, those who were commanding armies, who had power over others. What is the benefit for them from all their great actions now, when they are dead? Even when they were alive, all these great actions were no more than empty dreams. We are not here to praise ourselves and to prove ourselves, the most disgusting in the ordinary man is the ability to quickly satisfy his flesh.
The majority of people find many excuses not to work on themselves. They are in a complete prison of their weaknesses. But right now we do not speak about them, but about you.
Understand me right, I do not need followers, I am rather interested in finding the good organizers, the real warriors of the new world. I understand the weakness of the organization, because right now we do not speak about the usual organisation which would consist of initiates.
I remind you once again, learn to live each of your hours with a bigger benefit. Create a detailed plan of the last hour of your life. To understand how one should die, you should grow deep roots into life, only then you will be able to die like a human being, not like a dog. Although, it is not given to everyone - to die. You can become manure for our planet, but it does not really mean do die. To die to this world forever - is an honour. For this honour you have to pay with Conscious Labour and Intentional Suffering. You have to earn this right.
Try to imagine yourself relatively clearly the last hour of your life on earth. Write a kind of a script of this last hour, as if you were writing the script for a film. Ask yourself: “Is this how I want to dispose my life” . If you are not satisfied with the answer, rewrite the script until you like it.
Look at life like at business. Time is your money for life. When you came into this world, a definite amount of money was given to you and this you cannot exceed. Time is the only currency with which you pay for your life. Now you see, how you used the biggest part of it in a stupid way. You have not even reached the main goal of life – to have rest. You failed as a businessman, and as a user of life – you deceived yourself. All your life you thought that everything is given to you for free, and now suddenly you discovered that – it is not free. You pay for using the time, that is why each moment of your stay here costs something.
So how would it be possible for you to reimburse [recover] at least somehow these losses? Check, if the deficit on your bank account is only temporary or is it perhaps constant? Did you loose the time or could you invest it successfully? If you have spent all your money on vacations, then there is nothing to do but to be sorry about the past.
For many years you have been spending you life as if your parents gave you a bank account with unlimited credit. But now the amount is used and you see that you are all alone and that there is none to rely on. There is no more time on your bank account. Now you are forced to earn each hour of your life. All your life you behaved like a child and spent time just like a newly married couple on their honeymoon.
Our main enemy, which is hindering us from applying the necessary efforts – is hopelessness. I know, you will have many excuses not to prepare yourself for the last hour of your life. The habit is a big force, but starting once, you can learn to do each time more and more.
Do not fiddle all day, force yourself at least one hour a day to make an effort, otherwise you will loose everything. Think about the rehearsal of your last hour as if it was ballet exercises – you have to do it all your life.
I dedicate four hours a day for this exercise, but when I was young, I spent on it two times longer.