How Metahistory Works Continued from home page NOTE: Broken links will be corrected by 31 december !

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Orientation to #etahistory
Beliefs may be patently absurd$ ridiculous on face %alue$ but those who adopt them are empowered by what they belie%e" They may act for or against their own humanity$ depending on what they belie%e" &ow to e'plain this dynamic( The Power of Believing The )ocratic ethos may be thought to further relati%ism" *n fact$ it does not" *t nurtures a critical spirit and immuni+es students against the facile notion that any %iew is as good$ or as bad$ as any other" )ocrates taught how to distinguish clearly untenable %iews from the few positions that appear to be defensible" The students of a )ocratic teacher will reali+e that he is neither a relati%ist nor a dogmatist$ and that he does not consider it his mission in life to teach them ,the Truth, " -alter .aufmann$ The Future of the Humanities Because beliefs are unfalsifiable/no one can pro%e that the world was created by a giant gnome who li%ed on the dark side of the moon$ but no one can dispro%e it$ either/they seem to ha%e a power that defies and surpasses reason" This is one aspect of their appeal" The other is that beliefs pro%ide answers to 0uestions such as ,-here does life begin(,$ that cannot be answered easily$ if at all" 1eople fre0uently say that such answers 2most notably about life after death3 console and encourage us and life would be intolerable without them/but this statement is also 4ust a belief" Not ha%ing tried to li%e without these consoling beliefs$ we do not know how life would be$ stripped of such beliefs" -e believe that it would be intolerable to li%e without unsupported and un%erifiable beliefs to answer the unanswered 0uestions that life puts before us" The strength of this belief$ rather than the un%erifiable answers we settle for$ is what deters us e%en trying to li%e without dependence on beliefs" )o$ the specious power that e'cels reason$ and the consolation of un%erifiable answers are the two primary appeals of belief5 and there is a third" -hat we belie%e is usually an une'amined idea or con%iction uncritically received from others and shared with many others$ hence$ it is basic to our identity" *n most cases$ children belie%e what they are told to belie%e$ period" 2The truth is$ children can resist with determination what they are told to belie%e$ but with no one to confirm their resistence and support their dissent$ they gradually comply and come to forget their ob4ections$ stifling the feelings that came with them"3 *n adopting beliefs$ children naturally identify with those who share those beliefs$ and who insistently impart them" The transmission of belief$ hugely celebrated in high6toned rhetoric about spiritual and cultural ,tradition$, is actually one of the great$ unadmitted tragedies of the human condition" 7nlike other animals$ human progeny are neotonic$ taking a long time to mature" -hen we are born$ the brain is not yet de%eloped as an organ" *t takes many years to ripen a brain" -hile it accounts for the e'ceptional scope of learning and inno%ation of our species$ this neotonic handicap makes offspring e'cessi%ely dependent upon what is inculcated in them by adults" The sight of children cramped in a madrasa$ an *slamic kindergarten$ nodding like +ombies and repeating the .oran eight hours a day is only one e'ample 2an ob%iously flagrant one3 of how children are programmed to belie%e" )uch practices$ which e'ist in many forms in di%erse cultures and religions$ ought to be regarded as child abuse"

Neotony offers to our species the uni0ue ad%antage of a re%erse transmission of generational assets$ from younger to the older members of the tribe" 2This is the theme of my book$ Quest for the Zodiac"3 *n other words$ nature re0uires the long6term maturation of human offspring so that the e%olutionary potential to learn and inno%ate embodied in the new generation can be shared with the older generation" Children come into the human tribe for us to learn from them$ not for us to tell them what we belie%e" -e are all tulkus" The threefold power of belief/unfalsifiability$ consolation$ identity/is not to be discounted$ but the power of belief is spurious: it simply does not deli%er what it appears to deli%er" The Tyranny of 8aith e'plains how the placebo effect works in belief$ deli%ering a false return on a huge in%estment" *t is not easy to detect and understand such dynamics$ but it is essential to anyone who intends to become free of recei%ed beliefs and neotonic programming" 1hantom Belief e'plains the same dynamic from another perspecti%e and e'plains how$ even though faith is in decline all around the world$ the illusory power of belief is escalating to dangerous le%els/ toward total dementia" One of the essential messages of metahistory"org is that belief can destroy our capacity to experience" Citing the work of 9" :" ;aing$ the ;e'icon entry on beha%ior e'plains how we can be robbed of our own e'perience$ so that we end up li%ing on terms that do not reflect our authentic talents or inner potential" < lot of what has been called ,spirituality, and ,inner work, since the 1!= s is about deprogramming$ liberating oneself from recei%ed beliefs$ and getting back to the authentic resources of indi%iduality" This is the gist of the human potential mo%ement" 7nfortunately$ the work of deprogramming often morphs into games of ,personal growth, and ,empowerment$, leading people to belie%e that spirituality is about getting your way in the world$ winning at social games$ etc" On this site$ we distinguish self6empowerment from consecration$ and emphasi+e that human potential goes to the highest le%el of fulfillment when the lifepath of the indi%idual is integrated with the ways of >aia$ the li%ing planet" &ence$ the concept of coe%olution that is e'tensi%ely de%eloped in these pages" *t is$ of course$ impossible to proceed with such initiati%es without operating on beliefs of some kind" )o what are we asking you to belie%e here( -e ask that you take nothing said in this site on belief$ but we in%ite you to consider how we assess beliefs 2metacriti0ue3 and choose among them" Metahistory proposes a cautious selective reliance on beliefs about human potential, rather in the manner of "secular humanism," but with the difference that this path does not categorically e clude the mythical, mystical and supernatural, or discount them as illusional, but recogni!es their essential role in our species" e perience# Throughout this site * argue that it is desirable to believe as little as possible$ and to rely upon direct e'perience rather than speculation$ hope$ and fantasy/this depends on the capacity for e'perience being sane and whole$ healed from damage and crippling beliefs/and to enter a %isionary path of commitment in which we belie%e in what can actually be achie%ed$ rather than in what might be possible$ or what we would like to pretend is possible" *nsane and *nhumane describes the basic beliefs to be de%eloped on this site$ and makes it clear that such beliefs are not to be adopted as a predetermined platform or blind agenda" -e do not ask anyone to go along with these beliefs$ but we in%ite e%eryone to e'amine$ discuss$ and perhaps test them out e'perimentally" #etahistory 2<pproaching >nosticism3 proposes a clear distinction between belief and faith: the former is blind dependence on what cannot be pro%en or e'perientially known$ the latter is confidence in the power to define$ reali+e$ and accomplish all that we can truly imagine" The >nostic principle 21istis )ophia3 of belief ad%ises:

Believe that you can discover innately whatever you seek to know through an e ternal $uest for knowledge, or through the adoption of received beliefs as substitutes for direct knowing" How Metahistory Works

)ocrates was no scholastic" &e was a loner who 0uestioned the common sense of his time" ?et he did not try to spell out a %ision of his own" &e made a point of not being a %isionary and of being$ in effect$ antischolastic" &e e'amined the faith and morals of his time$ riciduled claims to knowledge that were based on uncritical reliance on consensus$ and e'erted himself to show how ignorant$ confused$ and credulous most people are""" -alter .aufmann$ The Future of the Humanities To foster free and conscious choice of beliefs$ rather than unconscious enactment of them$ metahistory"org offers two tools: metacriti0ue$ the radical analysis of beliefs and belief systems$ and an open source narrati%e for e%ol%ing a different story of what it means to be human" *t is now widely recogni+ed that human beings in all times and cultures enact stories 2scripts$ or agendas3 of si' recurrent types: religious$ racial$ national$ se'ual$ political$ and familial" -e look into the content and composition of these stories to see how they dri%e beha%ior" The power of stories is uni%ersally appealing$ but e%en more powerful is the transmission of fundamental beliefs in story form" We behave as we believe. The effect of a story or script is to produce identification$ but usually this happens in an unconscious way" -e adapt the beliefs encoded in story form without a truth6testing process$ or a clear awareness of what the beliefs actually entail" Once the beliefs carried in stories are e'posed$ their moti%ational force can be e'amined and the beha%iors dri%en by them changed" The blind enactment of scripts at personal and collecti%e le%els is typical of human history$ but beyond history there is another way to manage the power of beliefs$ a path of reasoned choice and enlightened response" < path of alignment" Belief %hange The motto of Bioneers$ who collaborate with the #arion *nstitute to offer the annual conference$ Bioneers by the Bay$ is ,connecting for change", The mi' and merge of our different realities induces a sharper$ more compassionate sense of our common reality" Beliefs that we ha%e ac0uired through others can be changed by dialogue with others 2but not without confronting fear and attachment$ emotions that link us to unsustainable beliefs3" Belief6change is the single most re%olutionary action leading to a sane and sustainable future for human life on earth" On this site we e'amine beliefs to disco%er what guides the human animal$ for better or worse" Belief6change enables us to make personal and social commitments freed of blind conformity to recei%ed stories$ imposed rules$ and une'amined agendas" *t is easy to talk about change$ but more difficult to change the way we talk about oursel%es and our e'periences in the first place" To make the shift toward more cogent and effecti%e language$ a synta' for optimal li%ing$ metahistory considers different e'pressions of belief found in stories of all kinds$ from Biblical tales to news reports" This process in%ites dialogue$ shared e'plorations of our collecti%e and personal scripts" Because we all enact scripts of the si' types$ often in tight combinations 2familial and religious scripts$ for instance3$ we are all 0ualified to detect how the power of stories is demonstrated in our li%es and in the world at large" Participation is the essence of the 4ourney that takes us beyond the conditioning of history"

Beliefs inherent to science$ religion and culture 2the three formats3 can dri%e human beha%ior in blind and harmful ways" #etahistory assesses the hidden dynamics of moti%ation to determine what is insane and inhumane in human belief6systems" The insights so gained applied in a direct way to personal release and realignment" The most potent way to change beha%ior is to change the beliefs that dri%e it$ but to do so one must courageously and honestly in%estigate and e%aluate our innermost con%ictions" #etahistory is a pro6acti%e discipline for radical change in personal$ social$ and collecti%e terms" Through the open narrati%e$ it offers a framework for commitment to a shared planetary %ision" #etahistory goes beyond a mere recounting of facts and e%ents$ and e%en beyond the interpretation of these facts and e%ents" *t goes beyond debating about ideas because beliefs, rather than ideas per se$ determine the ultimate background of e%erything concei%ed and achie%ed by human beings" Belief is the matri' from which ideas emerge$ e%en when those ideas e%entually lead to liberation from specific beliefs" To detect belief is to discern the hidden dynamics of history, as well as what frees us from history#

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*n this site we propose li%ing without faith based on un%erifiable beliefs and propositions$ but we encourage faith that can be tested by real6life e'perience" 8aith is a huge concern for many people because$ as noted abo%e$ the most essential 0uestions of life seem to be unanswered$ or answerable: oes !od exist" #hy are we born" #hat happens when we die" $s the soul immortal" #ill we see those we love after death" oes chance exist" #ho guides us, or %udges us, throughout life" #hat power directs the course of history" How will this world end" *t is easy to lea%e these 0uestions to faith$ but who pro%ides the answers and beliefs to be taken on faith( No matter what the issues$ faith always comes down to trust in sources belie%ed to lie outside or beyond our innate capacities" <lthough it seems to confer power/due to the way it allows us to face the unanswerable issues of life/faith is futile and disempowering" <bo%e and beyond all else$ metahistory poses the 0uestion: (f our faith were invested in lies and delusions, how would we know) The %ery nature of faith blinds us to the %eracity of what we embrace on faith/unless it can be personally tested" -e affirm that the authenticity of indi%idual e'perience is superior to any faith$ e'cept faith in humanity itself" Thus$ #etahistory encourages faith in the species$ in human potential$ but not e'cluding the spiritual and supernatural dimension of human e'perience$ either" *t is not a form of secular humanism$ but it addresses the key problems that humanism fails to sol%e" >oing beyond history means initiating a different story$ the ad%enture of our shared liberation from imposed scripts" <s the process unfolds$ all our beliefs are brought into focus in the single and ultimate issue: our belief in humanity itself$ in the potential of the human species to reali+e its mysterious role in the cosmos" >nostics taught that human life is this ad%enture in learning$ an e'periment in no%elty" >uided by faith in human potential and a >aian story for all species$ metahistory pro%ides a %isionary path toward all that is truly e'cellent$ and truly humane$ in the ageless stri%ing of the human spirit" re%: @anuary A B 4ll