Following on from the previous posts. "Defining morals" in relation to this area. From David Wilcocks video, dated 8th of March. We have this quote:
34:57: So I want you to do your best, to honour the good in yourself, and remember, that in forgiveness lies the stoppage of the wheel of Karma.
Also this:
1:34:00: At the forefront of this process, as soon as all the most important needs are fulfilled. You would practice forgiveness, compassion, patience and understanding.
I have only perused up to 2 hours of this video of Davids (It is three hours thirty three minutes!) There may be more quotes I should have included. Owing to having 85% chocolate yesterday that apparently, causes my heart to want to thump out of my chest. So I could not watch further or concentrate yesterday.
But from what I have watched so far. It seems to me that David is just kind of throwing a whole lot of kind of word salady feel good terms and link them to the Law of One. To gain the authority of being a teacher of the Law of One. Of being a person with spiritual authority. But his explanation, and likely, understanding of all this, is so bad, that it is laughable.
In a way, Davids understanding of the Law of One here goes no further than the basics. When he says "forgiveness, compassion, patience and understanding". He does not know what these things mean.
I just pulled up a Law of One quote showing the subtleties of balancing (85.16). I believe I understand what it means. But to go through it on this blog and make the argument is not the right direction I don't believe. So I will make a larger argument that forgiveness without contrition is not legitimate, and that people that make those statements usually do not know what they are talking about, and are spiritual bypassing. After that, it should become clear what is missing from Davids explanation. Or lack thereof.
Forgiveness without contrition.
When there is an argument between someone that knows what they are talking about, and someone that doesn't know what they are talking about. It goes in a predictable way. One person is engaging, giving reasons, adapting to the conversation. The other person is inflexible. Giving no explanations. But infuriatingly just having this assumption they are right, and that the other persons input is irrelevant. Or giving bad, transparent reasoning, that was clearly thought up in the moment.
This is like listening to a Stefan Molyneux livestream. Someone will come in and ask him questions and he will answer clearly. Occasionally, a caller will come in with their own opinion and he will ask them questions. Like, from the perspective of a relaxed, natural place. It is only the other person that breaks the facade of civility.
Another one of these arguments. Might be when someone has a perspective on Christianity, where they have done the research. And the other person is responding based on just what the mainstream idea is. It is a similar thing. Anger, making up quotes. On the part of the person that is trying to hold up the consensus viewpoint, but has clearly never thought about it before. The example is when someone is confronted with Aaron Abke's research, or Paul Wallis'.
There is a pattern and a feel to people who do not know what they are talking about. And that is the feel of a person that refuses to be challenged. Whom a carefully placed question would unravel their argument. Who contradicts themselves perhaps when they speak. Who says things that are obviously wrong from a common sense place to defend a position (Leftist redditors!)
This is the situation that I find myself in when I ask people questions on the forgiveness without contrition argument. Questions and logical points, there is a wall against them. One of the questions that I would ask, the one I got from my only discussion with Stefan Molyneux (and this was the topic!) Is; If you want to define forgiveness as forgiveness without contrition. Then what about people that go through a process to achieve forgiveness? Like, those where someone admitted fault and etc. Are you using the same term for these two things? Because obviously that would be incoherent, right?
This is where the discussions starts. There are many other points that layer on top of this. But this is where it starts.
But this post is specifically about the Law of One. So let's go back there. Taking one single quote from the book like that is taking one out of context. Early in session 34, the Law of One actually defined it as a PROCESS, including understanding, acceptance and forgiveness.
This is another question to ask someone in this discussion. Can you define understanding?
A lot of people on the left, the political opinions that have decided that Marxism's 100 million death toll in the 20th century is clearly not enough. Define themselves as not being able to improve morally. Their ideas, that we should take money from some people to give to others make them the pinnacle of morality and no further movement forward is possible.
I say this vaguely, but it is something I have observed in left wing individuals. Perhaps this deserves another article. But the right wing free market viewpoint does not set up the same limitations in my view.
Peoples definition of understanding is like this, but I do not agree. I will give two examples of what I think understanding is in this context. Bear in mind, I am now arguing from a perspective that the Law of One is true, not from the perspective of this is the technically correct way to use the quotes. Since if the definition of understanding within this process, can be found in my own life experiences, then there is some reality to this outside of the Law of One books.
Examples of understanding:
Example one
This is the most instructive one I think I can think of. I once listened to a Stefan Molyneux call in. Something like, "My father tried to kill me". It was a guy who was in a bad position with his wife. She had falsely accused him of something. I cannot recall. Perhaps domestic violence or something sexual, and his daughters had been turned against him. Obviously we cannot fully know he was telling the truth. It sounded like he was.
The first hour or so of this discussion was agonising. Because, every time Stefan would ask questions of the guy he would create a new story. It was like: "So when you worked away from your children for ten years did you miss them?" "Yes, after about two years it did start to sting". "OK, so when you started to miss them did you not think of changing your work situation?" "Well no not really, I was actually working from home three days a week and we would go to the park on Saturday". It was contradictions like this the whole time. The guy could not communicate coherently. Could not stand potential conflict. He folded and made new stories every time, and it was not even clear that he knew he was doing it.
The story ended up that when this man was young. His father had been very abusive, and had almost killed him even. Lifting him off his feet, strangling him. Throwing bricks at him etc. So he had grown up with the survival imperative that he could not answer in a way other than what the abuser might prefer.
Where this fits in with this process then. Is that the guy did not know this was his motivation. He did not know he was answering people in such a confusing manner and that this was the mechanism for that. So, this casts a different light on the situation. This way of communicating is going to alienate the good people, and even normal people, that won't be able to stand it; and attract the bad people with their own similar problems. Those that for whatever reason, do not want the communication to be sincere.
This potentially changes the entire situation big time. In seeing his own part in it. And communicating in a better way in the future. But it is understanding. It is dear bought.
Example two:
This is a personal example. The first example is preferable. But has the drawback that honesty cannot be definitively known. This is my own example. So even though I COULD be lying, and this is a relatively low stakes example. It is unlikely that a reader would both want to read my words, and also think I was the type of person to lie about this sort of thing. Since if I made up my own personal experiences, then there would be no value to reading this blog.
My experiences with women, in the sense of looking for dates or any other particular thing. Have not been... "good". I suppose good might not be the right word, but I hope it suffices in explaining my point.
When I was a teenager. I had a very idealistic "blue pill" view of women. The kind of view that does not see women as having any particular sex drive, as an example. Sees them only with divine motives (to be psychologised like a romance film).
My real experiences were what brought me out of this. I watched videos on absorbed via social media the red pill, some of my understanding was from real life. It was my objective, every day experience of trying to be romantic and getting rejected. That formed my idea of women to be one that was very ruthless and sexually based.
This ALSO went into my sexual fantasies. My fantasies are not just what I want. They include fairly complex ideas as to how to get the best results out of women. Like a natural instinct of how best to exploit any particular situation. How to identify the greatest value in any situation.
From about the beginning of 2020. Right around lockdown. Up until June 2022. I had a friendship with a woman. We were both very single. I was not well but did not really have a lot of insight into that. The end date of the friendship is when she died via suicide. I was not actually friends with her by that time, as she had broken it off a few months prior.
We did talk about sexual matters and my ideas of women were reflected in that. They were also heavily reflected in my fantasies. Sometimes made into erotic stories but not written down usually.
I was reading the Law of One a few days ago, and session 84.20 discusses relationships. Away from the red pill kind of attitude. It talks about how sex that includes "green ray energy" is the most valuable thing a person has to offer, and that relationships should be to try and court this from the partner.
This has created a sudden change in the way I think of women. Even fantasies. It has also allowed me insight into this friendship I had with this girl. The insight also allows additional insights.
BUT, this is coming up on four years after the end of our friendship. It is a little bit of understanding, but it is certainly not clear that it is the "end" of my understanding.
This is the point I wanted to make. I have other examples where insights into events even further back were important. Without understanding, no meaningful work on a situation can continue. But understanding, takes YEARS. To just assume one understands a situation, like leftists assume they understand morals. Both of these perspectives include a kind of belief in ones inherent perfection, and a complete lack of humility. Is not at all functional.
Conclusion:
For David, to just put words up on a slide like "understanding" as though that explains anything, is pretty useless. For him to selectively quote the Law of One in order to gain spiritual authority is also, pretty useless.
I suspect the Law of One was only offering enough to point people in the right direction, but a lot more is needed to truly make a workable system.
This was my first blog post, analysing Davids use of the Law of One. There were two things he said about it that gave me enough rage to start writing this. Two things he has said which were badly quoted and confused, destructive even.
My next post specifically on David will literally use direct quotes of his and show where in the Law of One it shows his quote is not correct. This blog post was on an overarching point. Forgiveness and contrition. So it's not quite yet into the analysis of Davids use. But on the philosophy of the Law of One and its practical meaning.
Like I said, 85% chocolate DOES NOT, agree with me. I would have been three hours through had I not had to take yesterday off and I am still not well today (going to miss todays gym session, fallen off meditation routine!) So I might leave it a little while before following up on Davids video further, and perhaps write a few other articles in the mean time. Or perhaps get straight into Davids video and the Law of One sooner than that.


