Prometheus Rising (7 page)

all their lives and even grew up to be several inches shorter than

the average adult height for their sex.

What makes for "susceptibility" (aside from possible genetic

factors) can only be such an anxiety imprint (muscle tension) on

the first circuit.

Christian Science—or any other religion that dogmatically

insists that
"God" wants us to be happy and successful—
can

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Prometheus Rising

cure such conditions "miraculously."
What the Thinker thinks the

Prover proves.
Absolute faith that "God" is supporting you,

beamed out from the brain all day long, day after day, signals the

muscles to relax, and natural buoyancy and health returns.

Throughout human life, when the bio-survival circuit senses

danger, all other mental activity ceases.
All other circuits shut

down until the bio-survival problem is "solved," realistically or

symbolically. This is of crucial importance in mind-washing and

brain-programming.

To create a new imprint, first reduce the subject to the state of

infancy,
i.e., bio-survival vulnerability. We will enlarge upon this

later.

In pre-neurological terms, the bio-survival circuit is what we

usually call "consciousness,"
per se.
It is the sense of being herenow,

in this vulnerable body, subject to the raw energies and

forces of the physical universe. When we are "unconscious," the

bio-survival circuit is turned off and doctors may cut us up without

our attempting to flee or even crying out.

EXERCIZES

1. Determine to
enjoy
this primitive circuit fully from now on.

Play with yourself and others and the environment
shamelessly,

like a newborn baby. Meditate on "Unless ye become as a little

child, ye shall in no wise enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

2. Never mind your diet—you will reach the optimum weight

for your height when your brain is operating properly. Enjoy
one

really sweet and gooey desert every week. Diabetics, of course,

should buy this goody in the non-sugar section.

3. Get "high" (on marijuana if this is permissible to your

superego, or on ginseng, which is legal everywhere and recommended

by many holistic physicians) and then go to a health spa.

Enjoy a good swim, a massage and a sauna. Repeat every week,

forever.

4. Take a course on
kung fu
or
karate
for at least three

months, then re-read this whole chapter. You will be surprised at

how much more
every
sentence will mean.

5. Lie on your back and pant rapidly to the count of 20. (Each

exhale-inhale cycle counts as one, not as two.) Panting means

breathing rapidly through your mouth, as forbidden by almost all

Prometheus Rising 59

experts on health, but this is only an exercise, not a full-time

practice. When you reach 20, stop and resume nose-breathing, in

the slow, rhythmic manner recommended by yogis, to the count

of 20. Then repeat the panting to the count of 20. Then repeat

proper yoga breathing.

This is known as the "breath of fire" in Tantric yoga. The

results are most amusing and enlightening. Try it!'

6. Visit an aquarium and observe very closely. Try to see the

bio-survival circuit of the fish brain in operation and recognize

when and how that circuit in your own brain has operated

throughout your life.

7. If you don't have a baby, or haven't had one for many

years, play with somebody else's baby for an hour. Then reread

this chapter.

Like opiate use, this exercize seems to trigger neuro-transmitters

similar to mother's milk; i.e., it takes you back to the snug security of

breast-feeding. And it is not addictive.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE ANAL EMOTIONAL

TERRITORIAL CIRCUIT

Run, puppy, run!

Run, puppy, run!

Yonder comes the big dog —

Run, puppy, run!

— Children's rhyme

61

The second circuit, the emotional-territorial networks of the

brain, is concerned entirely with power politics. This "patriotic"

circuit is built into all vertebrates and is perhaps 500 million to

1000 million years old. In the modern human it seems to be

centralized in the
thalamus—
the "back brain" or "old brain" and

is linked with the
voluntary nervous system
and the
muscles.

This circuit appears in each newborn when the DNA master

tape sends out RNA messenger molecules to trigger the mutation

from neonate to
"toddler,"
which involves first of all standing

erect. Walking, mastering gravity, overcoming physical obstacles

and learning to manipulate others politically are the vulnerable

points at which imprinting and heavy conditioning occur. The

muscles that perform these power functions are quickly programmed

with what become chronic, life-long reflexes.

Depending as always the accidents of the environment—
what

happens at points of neurological vulnerability—this circuit will

organize itself into a strong, dominating role in the pack (or

family) or a weak, submissive role. Without going into the

jungles with the ethologists, one can observe this mammalian

imprinting process in any litter of puppies. It is very quickly

determined who is TOP DOG and who is BOTTOM DOG.

Status in the pack or tribe is assigned on the basis of preverbal

signaling system (kinesics) in which these muscle reflexes

are crucial. All of the emotional
games
or
cons
listed in the

popular psychological game-manuals of Dr. Eric Berne and the

Transactional Analysts are second-circuit imprints, or standard

mammalian politics.

To quote from my novel
Schrodinger's Cat:

Most of the domesticated primates of Terra did not know they

were primates. They thought they were something apart from

and "superior" to the rest of the planet.

Even Benny Benedict's "One Month to Go" column was

based on that illusion. Benny had actually read Darwin once,

in college a long time ago, and had heard of sciences like

ethology and ecology, but the facts of evolution had never

really registered on him. He never thought of himself as a

primate. He never realized his friends and associates were

primates. Above all, he never understood that the
alpha males

of Unistat were typical leaders of primate bands. As a result of

this inability to see the obvious, Benny was constantly alarmed

64 Prometheus Rising

and terrified by the behavior of himself, his friends and associates

and especially the alpha males of the pack. Since he didn't

know it was ordinary primate behavior, it seemed just awful to

him.

Since a great deal of primate behavior was considered just

awful, most of the domesticated primates spent most of their

time trying to conceal what they were doing.

Some of the primates got caught by other primates. All of

the primates lived in dread of getting caught.

Those who got caught were called no-good shits.

The term no-good shit was a deep expression of primate

psychology. For or instance, one wild primate (a chimpanzee)

taught sign language by two domesticated primates (scientists)

spontaneously put together the signs for "shit" and "scientist"

to describe a scientist she didn't like. She was calling him shitscientist.

She also put together the signs for "shit" and

"chimpanzee" for another chimpanzee she didn't like. She was

calling him shit-chimpanzee.

"You no-good shit," domesticate primates often said to

each other.

This metaphor was deep in primate psychology because

primates mark their territories with excretions, and sometimes

they threw excretions at each other when disputing over territories.

One primate wrote a long book describing in vivid detail

how his political enemies should be punished. He imagined

them in an enormous hole in the ground, with flames and

smoke and rivers of shit. This primate was named Dante

Alighieri.

Another primate wrote that every primate infant goes

through a stage of being chiefly concerned with bio-survival,

i.e., food, i.e., Mommie's Titty. He called this the Oral Stage.

He said the infant next went on to a stage of learning mammalian

politics, i.e., recognizing the Father (alpha-male) and

his Authority and territorial demands. He called this, with an

insight that few primates shared, the Anal Stage.

This primate was named Freud. He had taken his own

nervous system apart and examined its component circuits by

periodically altering its structure with neurochemicals.

Among the anal insults exchanged by domesticated primates

when fighting for their space were: "Up your ass," "Go

shit in your hat," "You're full of shit," and many others.

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One of the most admired alpha-males in the Kingdom of

the Franks was General Canbronne. General Canbronne won

this adulation for the answer he gave when asked to surrender

at Waterloo.

"Merde,"
was the answer General Canbronne gave.

The word
petard
means a kind of bomb. It comes from the

same Olde English root as
fart.

General Canbronne's mentality was typical of the alphamales

of the military caste.

When primates went to war or got violent in other ways,

they always said they were about to knock the shit out of the

enemy.

They also spoke of dumping on each other.

The standard "authority" reflex on the emotional-territorial

circuit is to swell the muscles and howl. You will find this

among birds as well as mammals, and in the Board meeting of

your local bank. The standard "submission" reflex is to shrink

the muscles, lower the head, and "crawl away." You will find

this among dogs, primates, fowl and employees who wish to

keep their jobs everywhere.

If the first (bio-survival) circuit is chiefly imprinted by the

mother, the second (emotional-territorial) circuit is chiefly

imprinted by the father—the nearest
alpha male.
It has been

proposed, by sociologist G. Rattray Taylor that societies swing

back and forth between "Matrist" periods, in which motherly

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oral values predominate, and "Patrist" periods, in which fatherly

anal values are in ascendance.

THE STANDARD AUTHORITY REFLEX

Prometheus Rising 6j

Taylor's table of the characteristics of these "Matrist" and

"Patrist" periods is as follows:

Whether or not societies wobble between these extremes as

Taylor claims, individuals certainly do. These are merely the

consequences of (a) having the heaviest imprint on the oral

(Matrist) bio-survival circuit or (b) having the heaviest imprint

on the anal (Patrist) territorial circuit.

In pre-ethological terms, the emotional-territorial circuit is

what we usually call "ego."
Ego is simply the mammalian recognition

of one's status in the pack;
it is a "role" as sociologists

say, a single brain circuit which mistakes itself for the whole

Self, the entire brain-mind apparatus. The "egotist" behaves like

"a two year old," in the common saying, because Ego is the

imprint of the toddling and toilet-training stage.

The question of how human an animal is (especially a pet dog

or cat) never ceases to divide scientists from laypersons—and

one scientist from another. In terms of the present theory, the

differences between domesticated primates (humans) and other

domesticated animals are virtually nil, as long as we are talking

only about the first two circuits. (Since most people spend most

of their time on these primitive circuits, the differences are often

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