I went to a Christmas party last year and met a bunch of my new neighbors. These are older folk and they are kind and friendly people. So when asked, I introduce myself as a guerrilla ontologist. What is that, I am asked? Well, I question the fundamental assumptions that drive our interpretations of reality. We had great conversation and as I always note, I get to say some pretty wild things as long as I don’t trigger ego defense responses. In my old job doing custom trim on upscale remodel projects I met plenty of ‘smart’ people. I love the game and my boss says he sometimes ‘warned’ the customer about me.

Now when I work I do not talk. The customers love me because I assure them that I will deal with every detail (that is within the contract) before I leave that job. It is when we are talking details that I find out about the customers take on life. Achiever types love to tell you about themselves. How they achieved their success and all. Then they may notice about ten minutes in that I have not said word one about myself. Then comes some variation of; “Oh, well check this out, this is what I’m about”. And they feel obligated to listen because they just went on about themselves for ten minutes. It depends on the personality and its response whether I say very little or a lot. Insecure types will cut me off rather quickly sometimes. That is fine, I simply get back to work and the customer goes on about their business. A good portion of the folk are university profs and vp’s and in one case president of a very large corporation. I give no quarter. Usually while we are talking, at some point a sort of veil will drop down across the face. This is the point where they realize; Shit, this guy (asshole workman) is questioning the stuff that provides me with my sense of identity. This usually ends the conversation, but at least they have been left with something different to think about.

In the case of the jobs done for the ‘large corp. president’, they were five or so separate projects done over several years. All the built-ins, cabinets, except kitchen cabs, mantles, columns, railings and raised paneling were made on site, with over 90% of the finish work done by me alone. (That is how I work). The woman of the house has a philosophy degree and the best coffee and treats one can imagine. One thing to be said for the better customers is they are less insecure. They know what they want and they know why they want it. Anyway the man of the house had just come back from Washington and was telling me about the excellent speech Paul Bremmer had given the day before. I jumped in, interrupted really, with a rant about how Bremmers protocols were a recipe to asset strip Iraq and represented the craven activities of an imperial power. Now, he did not like it, but he never seemed to hold a grudge. It is at least better than the folk that have their ego bruised long before issues of substance are even brought up.

I have no idea where I wanted to take this but my original thought was along the lines of saying that intelligence is imagination that has been fixed.

Fixed as in set or put in place. Or an idea stuck to a category or form via the taking on of beliefs provided by corollaries implicit within our psychical conditioning systems.

This was inspired by; Symbols, Hand Signs and Enduring Lies.


Les wrote…

"The seeming, hard-wired appearance of what we are told is real is based on what we have allowed ourselves to believe. It is not real. It is held together by an incessant, subliminal programming and our weakness in believing what we have been told.

Instead of generating our own symbols- retaking the original meaning of ancient symbols- and giving them our focus in the place of the insidious icons they have used to manipulate us, we have spent our time arguing about the meaning of their action instead of taking actions of our own.

I’ll be back again with the vin ordinaire and leave you with the enduring hope on my part that we can all begin to wake up to what is being performed upon us in order to make us behave like those who are abusing us. Gain control of your own heart and mind and their power and influence will be rendered mute."



This post is in answer to a call by Les Visible for people to intensify our efforts to change the conditions of our existence. Given the style, depth and productivity of Les’s approach to this project, he is a fine person to make this call.


We all connect to universal mind in various ways depending on our temperament. But while universal mind provides the material of our existence, it’s up to us to create the framework and shape that the (subtle) material will take. The framework then in turn, influences future connection to universal mind (God, source). The framework mediates our connection to the ineffable and will both cultivate connection and limit the depth of connection depending on how one relates the framework to the conditions of our existence.

This is where I’m coming from:
Faqir Chand says this at the end of his railroad story; “Whosoever remembers God in whatever form, in that very form he helps his devoted.” He came to this conclusion after his guru appeared in a vision, gave advice and saved the lives of many men. He was then confronted by a bunch of men intent on worshiping him, because he also appeared as an apparition to them, again saving lives. He concluded that the originator of the apparition produced the effect, not the Guru.

My own window into the ineffable, while somewhat small has some advantages to the windows of others. However if these words are being read in the spirit of the current age, most of the substance will be missed. Because words are generally used to rationalize and justify the existing framework and/or ones relations to it, if they are used to break down this framework, unease and a sense of foreboding often results. So, the breaking down of the current psychical conditioning system calls for a new system for understanding so that we might lessen the trauma of the breakdown.

Because the current psychical conditioning system is so pervasive and deep, even those that are earnest in ‘breaking the system’, become enablers of the system because they do not understand certain truths about the system. A system built on a false premise will work better if people do not understand the inner workings of that system. Take Marxism as an example. The stated premise was that the proletariat would take over the means of production from the bourgeoisie, eventually creating a workers paradise. The truth is, the aristocrats, the same landed gentry that ruled in feudal times, will collapse society before they will cede power to some upstart merchant class. It is fiction and false narrative and the rebels fell for the same incorrect premise that shaped the earlier (religious) conceptions of reality.

The PTMB (powers that make belief) do not care what you believe as long as the fundamental split is maintained between the unmanifest and the manifest. The enduring nature of Dualism stems from its match to appearances and innate appeal to two polarized styles of mentality. Still its limitations will be exposed and thereby provide us with the privilege of watching Dualism, the spirit of this age, come to the point of breakdown.

As Les and many others indicate, trauma to be experienced will be related to ones attachment to personal identity and current formsof understanding. And just to make sure our challenge is plenty difficult; the PTMB will be selling fear, and producing deceptively framed trivia as being earthshaking, to better market the next product that will cure all your ills.

OK, really they are only ‘transitional objects’ that substitute for the felt lack of authentic expression in your life, but you knew that already anyway.