Back when I was around 11 and 12 years old, I was studying a book called, “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. As part of a class at LA Baptist High School when I started 7th grade, I was required to read two books about the same time that I was still studying this, called “The Greek Way” and “The Roman Way” by Edith Hamilton. They were talking about the demise and the contributing factors in that demise of those two societies historically as “Atlas Shrugged” described much of what could happen if those who could didn’t or weren’t allowed to contribute when it mattered.
Just for the record, I had already been working on applying the principles of two other books I had been studying for awhile. One was “Psychocybernetics” by Maxwell Maltz and the other was by Norman Vincent Peale about positive thinking, “The Power of Positive Thinking,” along with other positive thinking and can-do thinking books by Dr. Robert Shuller of Garden Grove Church.
As much as all of my family is and was from the South ( in the United States) and in spite of my starting elementary grade school in Georgia, we were in California off and on through my elementary school years, then stayed in California from about my sixth grade year through high school. At 7th grade, I started attending a college prep school (at that time) called LA Baptist High School in Sepulveda, California in the San Fernando Valley. It was before this and during this time, that I was studying “Psychocybernetics” and “Atlas Shrugged” on my own to apply them to my daily living and was introduced to these other books.
To say they influenced me would be misleading. Unfortunately, I had already traveled with my family across this country a couple or three times and had noticed huge and alarming disparities in a number of key areas but I didn’t understand why they were so.
I was inclined to look for disparities because in my years of trying to learn and understand Daddy’s college books on thermodynamics and in many talks with him, I knew – “disparity in a system = volatility and weakness in the system or indicates unknown variables & factors unaccounted for otherwise (in equations & theories).” – quote mine.
Social, political and knowledge-based disparities are the same way. And, then I read those books. “Atlas Shrugged” told me possible whys. Norman Vincent Peale books in their prologues and explanation of our times explained where people’s mindset stayed most of the time. “The Roman Way” and “The Greek Way” fully fleshed out historical references that expressed where our society stood at that time and its possible future progressions, without change occurring before unfolding (possibly in my lifetime or that of my children, if I decided to have any.)
Then, I had an idea that if I and others like me simply changed as part of our society’s members, then the unfolding as it happened in the Great Societies that have fallen before ours ever existed, could be altered. It would be (by nature) altered by the fact that some would exist in it that could affect change as needed in small ripples of difference here and there. So, I set about to change me from inside out and by sharing what I learned with others around me as I moved forward in my life.
To do this, I used the “Psychocybernetics” materials to do several things and the “Power of Positive Thinking” to do some things for the creation of new habits of thought. These were added to what I already had inside which was a lot of despair and futility about a whole lots of things that I already had realized.
Yet, still I wanted what I had asked God to give me when I was five years old and every prayer thereafter – “for me to have – Wisdom”. I thought it was really, really valuable and important. Now, I wish never to have asked for that but during all of my years growing up I believed that “challenges” and to “thrive and succeed through challenges” were something magic and powerful which would make me a much better person and more capable to do more things in my life.
As I approached making changes in myself using the techniques and knowledge from these books, the goals had to be created and they were these:
First, I knew that, “I need to know everything I know, have read, have learned, have studied, have seen, have heard, have experienced, have thought, have created, have figured out, have analyzed and have cross-checked and/or cross-referenced – when I need it available to me.”
Second, I knew that, “I needed all new information of any and of all kinds to be efficiently and automatically fit and referenced to everything I already knew.”
Third, I knew that, “ways and methods to do this already existed that I only needed to work on applying these to myself.”
Fourth, I knew that, “I’m inherently lazy and good for nothing by human nature which would make this difficult to do over any appreciable period of time.”
Lastly, I knew that, “I wanted to do it, that it was worth it, the reasons for it were right, my motives would always be questionable (as a human being) and that my spirit / my soul was and is powerful enough to do it, regardless of any other thing, event, situation, person or stumbling blocks.”
So, I set the work of the “Psychocybernetics” book into action by self-hypnosis and by establishing goal-driven positive thinking habits and games of recall.
Internally, I used the “Island In the Sky” from the book, “Psychocybernetics,” and “The Power of Positive Thinking” to create a place for safety and meditation as well as a place to do work learning, inventing, playing music, resting, writing, creating – inside my mind and psyche. I worked over each element of it with intention and purpose, using self-hypnosis to establish it and to strengthen its mental imagery. Then, I purposefully created a core and other spaces – gardens, waterfalls, gentle streams, ocean and places with its scenes to walk there, forests, meadows and a mountain where I could interact with God, although He is everywhere in my eternal worlds inside that I created. There are also places I like that are there including a rock house near a small stream where I can rest and heal, a place in the forest with beautiful soft mosses to lie on next to a sparkling creek and several other places to swim, ride horses, rest, sleep, fly, play, walk on the beach – all in my mind’s special island.
Then, I asked myself through the self-hypnosis night after night as I lay down to sleep (for over thirty-seven years now) to cross-reference every thing to every other thing by my subconscious & to allow me to have it whenever, however and for whatever reason I ask (immediately or sooner.)
After about two months of doing this before going to sleep each night, I was in meditation one afternoon before practicing the piano, (I think it was a Saturday afternoon alone at my family’s apartment) when I discovered a new place in my internal world. I had not put this place there but it was there and I explored it with amazement. I was twelve years old at the time and had been working with the “Psychocybernetics” book for awhile at that point.
There was this great central core inside my mind and subconscious that I could easily see in its entirety with many floors and rooms holding everything – all things I knew or had worked on or created or learned. I was able to go on any floor, in any room and find things there in progress as I had worked on them at three years old, or five or eight or ten or whenever and it was all there waiting as new parts and elements were being added. Some things I started at six years old had the necessary elements to do a little more work and complete them now at twelve and thirteen years old. And, some of my most recent learnings set on shelves and in other rooms of their own in progress with groups of new information standing in stacks nearby.
Over the years, I had used this process each day never really understanding that it was in any way unusual. It works for me and as things happened in my life, I restored these things at each point that it was necessary to relearn them or re-establish them. As much as I haven’t been tremendous at anything in my lifetime, it may seem unnecessary to psychologists and psychiatrists. Yet, I beg for mercy and freedom to be allowed to be such that I am and no longer be forced to be like any one else. This way works for me.
It is not very impressive to see what is considered normal, especially considering it is now the twenty-first century with a very educated population. But, for some reason – there exists less basic literacy among educated individuals than I would’ve ever expected. My guess is the degree of input far outstrips the skill sets that many have been given. All I know to do now – is to share what I do in the way I know to do it that maybe this will be of some help. It takes work, though, and it rarely seems that people around me are willing to make that effort for themselves.
And, after all these years of doing it this way, I can honestly say – it is worth it. There are many things that do not enhance life, that do not encourage quality of life and that do not get better as they go along. These skills are enhancing of life, they do encourage quality of life and definitely get better, make life better and make more possible in every day than anything else I’ve ever seen or experienced. Now, if I can simply acquire the rights and freedom to be as I am and do what I know how to do – my life will be much better and more comfortable.
Written by and about Cricket Diane C “Sparky” Phillips, 2008
04-15-08 Cricket House Studios – USA
“Creating the Tangible from the Impossible every day.” – quote and slogan of Cricket Diane C Phillips, 2008
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