Yes, a vacation. Some way to shake it off, to not take oneself so seriously.

I assume by the one-eyed man reference that you're citing Kurt Vonnegut, that if you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man (sic) in the land of the blind. I quoted that yesterday, so maybe we're on the same wavelength.

A one-eyed man in your situation stands a better chance than a know-it-all. Tentativeness is in order, if you really want your question answered. This is a case for egolessness. As in, "Ta-TA! THIS is a case for SUPERMAN!!!" But I'm serious - This is a case for egolessness. You state the problem as religious egofulness versus atheist egofulness, and certainly they do go round and round in ponderous silliness. Einstein came to E=MC2 through egolessness. Newton met the falling apple with egolessness. The best thinking, the best double-blindly verifiable thinking, comes through stopping thinking; through egolessness. It is a practice, like pitching horseshoes. It can be practiced religiously or atheistically or artistically or athletically or many other ways. Try it. You'll like it. Or, it'll scare you silly or bore you silly and then you may or may not like it.

As to the coming survivalism once oil is gone, which is a particular interest of mine - We can learn to not behave survivalistically. As you suggest, now is the time to start. Non-fanatical egolessness may have something to do with this.

In this vein, Joseph Campbell talked about joyful participation in the sorrows of the world. It sounds like you do not think this is a possibility and so see only grim truth or lying fluff to bring to your daughter. Are you willing to open your other eye?

Best,

(More, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")

I think Ken Wilber made - I can't find the quote - a very neat summation of the fact that medicine uses double blind research precisely as a tacit acknowledgement of the reality of the placebo effect; that is, the reality of the mind/body effect. I'm not so sure I'm hearing that from you.

Then there is the AMA-recognized disease (1956) of alcoholism, most successfully treated with mind/body interventions.

By the way, you speak of cures by faith. Faith, along with such notions as belief and morals appear to not be the central vehicles of healing in at least the case of alcoholism. So-called spirituality - that is, egolessness - is. Faith, belief and morals, centering as they do around ideas of the spirit, of egolessness, rather than the experience of egolessness itself, are in the mind, the ego. They are egoful ideas of egolessness. Add in willpower - "I'm going to FIGHT this thing!" - and you have what certainly to the recovering alcoholic is an unhelpful mix. What works, rather, is a paradoxical approach of simultaneous holding on and letting go, that you use the old willful ego to, one day at a time, put the desire to not drink in your heart, and then you let it go. You forget it. If all goes well, you don't drink today.

There's no magic here. Put the desire to get shitfaced in your heart and let go to it and lo and behold, you're crocked. I thought of it as like when you forget a word or name and wrack your brain for it, and then you give up. Later the word or name pops into your mind. (I was surprised to find that a hundred years ago Harvard's William James cited this same example in "Varieties of Religious Experience." I don't think of them as religious. Atheists have them too.)

In any case, as egolessness effects electroneurochemistry - that is, the body - perhaps is will be found to effect more of our health.

You talked about groups for breast cancer sufferers. Perhaps studies couldn't be replicated because of, as they say, karma yoga. That is, you do your egolessness to do it, not for any outcome. Breast cancer focuses the mind, certainly, but not so much on egolesness. Perhaps these first groups happened to be less self-conscious than subsequent attempts. Not that I begrudge Bill Moyers his cameras and coverage.

I'm not so sure I hear you studying the combination of traditional and alternative medicines. It's as vital that science weed out alternative horseshit as that it has already included the many alternatives that really work. The jury still remains out on many more possibilities.

Best,

(More, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")

In New Hampshire Hillary showed us she can be as likeable as Bill.

In South Carolina Bill showed us he can be as mean as Hillary.

Best,

(More, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")

Thanks for the article.

Mysticism certainly does tend to get a bad name for itself. As a Manhattanite originally, I'm more a fan of the New York school of mysticism typified by Walt Whitman, Henry Miller, J.D. Salinger, Joseph Campbell, and Allen Ginsberg. I like brass tacks, a good solid interconnection with reality. AA, too - though a Vermont stockbroker and an Ohio doctor gave it its kick start in Akron, it's a distinctly NYC phenomenon - hopeless drunks bailing their sorry asses out of physical AMA disease with not-necessarily-religious mysticism; all that.

Mysticism does too often lead with its chin. The experience of egolessness can have as a side effect certain synchronicities and synergies, often beginning with some fairly startling coincidences. But these become occult only when egolessness is done for far-out shit rather than for itself. Then it blows up in a public way, because anyone with an ounce of sense can't help noticing when mysticism gets wifty.

Anyway, lets hear it for practical mysticism.

Best,

(More, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")