The Trusteeship IMID Historical Treatments
Identity Technology
The Water Treatment
Circa 1973
While the 'water treatment' seemed unnecessary, it really put us in our place. We were made to go, and in no uncertain terms - had to. We were also made aware of how powerful such a small thing as a stop-cock can be!
Naturally, flooding the colon fills the bloodstream, so not only was one made to go at the time of treatment, as soon as you're relaxed enough to go to sleep, you'll need to get up and go again. You've got to go, but you can't go here, etc. And with an alarm in your bed, you'll be sure to wake if you do! I believe we were perceived to be torturing ourselves.
So while the water treatment in particular wasn't a memorable event, we got involved in patients rights advocacy services, and worked on the right to be free from restraints and so forth. And others worked on the procedure itself to debat the proper height for the placement of the bag: "3, or 5 feet above the patient?", etc. Privacy rules resulted so we couldn't be accountable for the practice, and all kinds of nightmares could be conjured up by the toddler who received the treatment.
To bemoan the discipline is to ignore the fact that if we don't learn self control, we'll either get sick trying to retain our excrement, or diseased trying to live within it. And, just because we have these skills doesn't mean that we can teach them. Living with someone who either cannot, or will not faithfully practice sanitary behavior is as unbearable as being unable to do so for yourself. So while it may have been difficult to teach bathroom habits, it's well worth the effort. And accounting for the reality of these procedures is essential to one who may not remember them clearly, or may need advocacy to challenge them. Please see: Transpositions.
Bodywork
Bodywork by Advait School
3 Minutes and 40 seconds into this video, Shakti Malan describes the problem of treating a young boy with a colonic. Please see: Treating Trauma [i].
The Limits of Human Intervention
Its unfortunate that we cannot be artistic about efforts to recreate ourselves. As soon as we begin, we become victims of our own condemnation. The fact is that most of our time and effort ends up codified in a DSM, even if it is just an effort to cope with the judgements others have made. And, to justify the theft of our children, similar judgements are used to prove that our adaptations won't work even with them under their rule.
It is here online that the battle is won or lost, and here - online, that information is used most effectively. However frail, and imperfect our efforts are to become what it is we dream we can be, the structures we're working on provide a safe place to work with our own perspective, and investigate practical solutions for the perpectives of others. I am sure that we could not heal or conceive of what needs to be done without it.
Our real lives were denied to protect those who were incriminated by our accusations, and practices such as these might have invalidated us, but had we've been allowed to continue with our complaints, or the counter claims would likely have killed us.
I didn't realize that my own accusations were deadly when I spoke them, but I realize it now, and it comes as no surprise that doubt that resulted about me because I provided a treatment like this taught me that lesson.
The increase of censorship and restraint in the world today also coincides with a lack of awareness that is also dangerous. Diagnosing despotism and rage as madness is designed to do so, but is far more expensive.
Please see: Fascism and Censorship
When the despot dies, his reign ends.
When the martyr dies, his reign begins."
Competency
"Since I am incompetent and completely undependable, I speak the truth, and thereby place them in a predicament that only the truth can extricate them from."
A man who for a long time has gone around hiding a secret becomes mentally deranged. His secret must come out despite his derangement, but his soul still sticks to its hideout. He remains present, and his disorder is healed because he believes nothing has been betrayed, and he knows everything that has gone on because he tells God, who by acquaintance with the problem can help him correct his perception to return to be present in the community of his peers without his angst.
Here, just as we do, Søren does 'the work':
Original Draft: "What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act."
(This is considered to be one of the earliest statements of existentialist thought.)
Later variant:
"What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain knowledge must precede every action."
True consciousness is mind and spirit, and in the realm of spirit, the self is divided. Doubt separates the self from itself, and opens up to spirit, making three: the self observing the self reflecting upon itself.
Because it is clear that as soon as I as mind and spirit become two, the observer makes three. The doubt belies a third that places the two in relation to each other.
We feel free to doubt what we think in order to separate ourselves from our entanglements and arrive at a formula for which there is no despair all: "The self in relating to itself rests transparently in the power that created it.". We can live with our thoughts, even when they are motivated by an objective point of view..
To deny God's truth, or the truth of an objective self, is to avoid, or surrender oneself to the opinion of others. Without confessions in madness, or what others might perceive to be madness, such as confessions before God, the opinion of others is all that God would really know about us. If what seems to be clear to others is clear to us, then we will be able to help ourselves.
Sadly, there is no God apart from His creation, and no forgiveness without His people. To continue to reject life because we made a mistake is a very serious problem, even a condemnation of life, ourselves, and maybe even creation. To reject what God gave us and call it a failure, is to fail ourselves and the gifts we were given. Some of the most important work we been given is the correction of the things that have been revealed to us as wrong. Because it's an objective point of view, the only way to resolve it is to do the work required of us to become useful with what we believe has been wrong.
Without forgiveness, we cannot escape our own rejection, and resulting conflict with others. Not even by fleeing can we regain the joy of living. We must regain acceptance within ourselves and others by correcting the wrongs that have been revealed to us, and amending our resulting mistakes.
We confess our sins to God and one another so God knows us well enough to help us before He concludes that 'what they say' about us is true, and there's nothing more to it than that.
Paraphrased ~Søren KierkegaardREFERENCE LIST
1. Dakini Shakti Malan PhD. 2009: 3 Minutes and 40 seconds into this YouTube video, Shakti Malan discusses the problem of treating a young boy with a colonic. Releasing Sexual Trauma