Saturday, May 31, 2008

The Inversion Driving Substance Abuse

We've been seduced by them, and horrified by them. Encouraged to tune out with them, and spurn them violently as instruments of the devil. We've seen them reduce users to living in hovels, and elevate dealers to palacial mansions. Legal or illegal, they're being used and abused in record numbers in our so-called evolving society.

Today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, the Inversion Driving Substance Abuse.

Well, this is some topic to consider, let me tell you. Drug abuse is a monumental topic because there are so many aspects to consider. There's the personal aspect first. Probably all of us have some direct experience with it - from our favorite uncle with a drinking problem, to horror stories of close friends destroying lives and familes with out-of-control substance abuse problems.

There's the social aspect of modern life being so bereft of meaning and purpose and spiritual values.

There's the psychopathic aspect which is always present when astronomical profits are involved.

But there is some considerable comfort to be found in the work of Brazilian-Austrian psychoanalyst and social scientist, Norberto Keppe, whose work we will be discussing in great detail at our International Conference of Analytical Trilogy (Keppe's science), Sept. 24 - 27, 2008 in San Diego. Write me for more information on that at rich@richjonesvoice.com, or visit our website, www.wcatus.org

Shakespeare said, "How far that little candle throws his beams. So shines a good deed in a weary world." That is a perfect description of Keppe's work. Reaching to the core of our difficulties and offering a strong hand up and out, and into our true position as beautiful, good and true beings in a loving universe.

But we have some problems to see along the way.

Sofie Bergqvist is a teacher here at our International Society of Analytical Trilogy, and she's been developing deep work in the roots of substance abuse for our September conference. She looks at this important topic today on our program.

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Saturday, May 17, 2008

Art and Reality

The most famous expressions of it are found in the world's great cities. But it's also scratched in caves and carved on rock walls. And it's also pinned beneath fridge magnets in kitchens everywhere.

Art, Marc Chagall said, must be an expression of love, or it is nothing. No doubt about it ... art is really an emanation of the human soul. And that makes it transcendental.

Today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, Art and Reality.

Art and creativity flow out of us when we're kids. That's maybe universal. The problem, as Picasso knew, was how to remain an artist once we grow up. Because we don't usually. And maybe that reflects a tendency we have to reject beauty and esthetics - a rejection that ripples out into our societies and cultures. Because we don't see art being given the value it should in our world. Art, so essential an emanation of the human soul, is irrelevant to a worldview that sees the primal force in live only in survival. From this viewpoint, the jumble of chemicals and compounds and biological processes that makes up man is moved only by the urge to multiply. Nature does not favor beauty or goodness or truth, these learned minds tell us. To them, the magnificence of creation is collapsed to the mundane formula of genetics plus time.

We sensitive human beings know that to be complete hogwash, of course. There is absolutely no survival need for artistry, but it exists in all of us ... though you might be hard pressed to find it in any of my personal attempts at drawing anything.

Brazilian/Austrian psychoanalyst, Norberto Keppe, whose work we will be exploring more in our upcoming teleclass series (and just write me for more info on that and to get on the mailing list - rich@richjonesvoice.com) Keppe has declared openly that art - esthetics - is the basis of civilization and our link to the eternal transcendetnal world ... and God. A far cry from survival of the fittest.

Helena Mellander is a Swedish journalist and singer who's joined me to talk about art and reality.

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Friday, May 02, 2008

The True Origin of Illness

Most place its origins on chemical imbalances, or poor nutrition, or heredity ... or even on bad karma from past lives. But with the new discoveries in psycho-socio-pathology, it's now possible to lay the blame squarely on our shoulders.

Let's face it ... if we're sick or troubled, somewhere in our psychology, that's what we want.

Today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, the True Origin of Illness.

I know, there are many people writing these days about sickness and health from a more wholistic perspective, but somehow no one has defined the origins of illness quite as completely as Norberto R. Keppe.

That's a big claim to make, of course, and probably needs some backup. Keppe created the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine at the clinical hospital of the University of São Paulo - the largest hospital in latin America - back in the '60s. Here's how it worked in those days: the most hopeless cases, the ones the medical doctors couldn't get their heads around, ended up in Keppe's office for a little of his innovative psychoanlytical technique. And many times, walked out healthy. From alergies to heart problems to gastrointestinal difficulties to terminal diseases, he kind of worked magic on them. His results continued at his own private clinic - and continue to this day - offering a revolution in treating any type of disease.

And the core of his work is this: illness is an aberration. It's a sign that we are doing something to distort or negate our true and healthy nature. And that blockage can be identified and treated, restoring the natural health that underpins all of life.

Where Freud got lost in the pessimism of seeing us as having this pathological unconscious full of bad intentions and animal instincts - and proposing that this was natural and unavoidable - Keppe restores hope by seeing us as naturally good and healthy beings in essence ... but with many inverted attitudes against that sanity. Attitudes that can be treated and controlled. There is a deeply spiritual aspect fo Keppe's work, then, that focusses the discussion of why we - and our society - are so sick, on the human psychological life. And that's something his work throws mega spotlights on. Keppe understands the human psyche better than anyone in history since Jesus - and we have much to gain by turning to his wisdom.

By the way, we'll be exploring the implications and impact of his work in many areas of human activity at our World Conference of Analytical Trilogy this coming September, 2008 in San Diego. Check it out at www.wcatus.org

And another note ... we're finally in production for our teleclass series that we've been promising for some time now. We've been a little slow getting that off the ground. We get busy around here, and it's a push to do these extra things, but I appreciate your patience. If you'd like more information about this series, or anything else you've heard about on this Podcast, just shoot me an email: rich@richjonesvoice.com

Today, psychoanalyst Leo Lima, who's worked closely with Keppe for 25 years, takes us on a journey to the origins of illness.

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