Mormons consider honesty to be an important virtue, and who doesn’t? I learned pretty quick that my mom
would punish me for lying → could read my mind → so I might as well tell the truth
When I told a whopper, my mom made me suck on a bar of Ivory™, perhaps in the vain hope some of that 99.44% pure would rub off on me. It was in those crucial formative years that I honed the lying skills that have served me so well in life. “Learn quick or suck soap” about summed it up.
As I grew up, I discovered l was surrounded by lies. My dad bought and assembled all those toys, not Santa and the elves. Thunder wasn’t God moving furniture. Touching the radio buttons didn’t blow up the car. And what a shock to learn that even Sunday school teachers told lies. I mean, what higher moral authority was there?
My brothers and sisters gleefully informed me I was never going to see my cat Frisky or my grandma in Heaven. Also, not everything I learned in Sunday School was true. The Earth grew all by itself like a giant snowball, people were really animals, and all animals developed from simpler animals. So, not only were humans mere animals, God didn’t even make the whole world in a week. Turns out everything is literally a lie.
As I wended my weary way through the public school system, I learned stuff. It turns out that the world as we experience it actually happened just under a tenth second ago. Not only that, but the objects we consider solid are 99% empty space and made of a kind of boiling foam that pops in and out of existence. Turns out everything I knew was a lie, and everything I experienced was a lie.
Then I met my wife, somehow tricked her into marrying me, and started my real education. The first thing I learned was that my wife
will punish me for lying → can read my mind → so I might as well tell the truth
Somehow, being married brings everything into focus. It separates all that philosophical stuff from bare reality. When your wife asks if a dress makes her look fat, the truth is that she is drop dead gorgeous. The best way to win every argument is to say “I was wrong”. A little love every day beats a giant fancy anniversary card. Turns out, being married taught me the truth with perfect clarity.
So what about you? What have you learned about truth and honesty during your spiritual journey? Is there a disconnect between religious teachings about honesty and what we learn in real life? How do we cope with a disconnect between what we believe and what we know? Do our spiritual leaders and teachers have an obligation to be completely honest?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
I’ve learned that since my husband cares more about my physical appearance than I do, we both value his honesty in letting me know which clothes he feels are more flattering. Lying about it doesn’t help either of us. If we just need validation about something and aren’t looking for a critique, then we signify it by a direct request, “Hey, can you come ooh and ahh over something?” Bonus points, of course, if the oohing and ahhing come before the request is made.
These interactions wouldn’t work for all couples, but that’s something that plays into a discussion of honesty. Honesty relies on communication, and that communication is predicated on what the truth teller assumes the other person wants or needs to hear.
I was married to someone who was a bona fide liar, as in the thrust-down-to-hell type. He has lied so much, even he doesn’t know the truth any more. I hope some day he repents, because that is no way to live life.
I do not tell lies anymore, even the white ones, even the “how you doin'” ones. It’s too painful.
@Mary Ann
I like the “come ooh and aah over something” idea. Half the time I am not sure what to say, so I just say the first thing that pops into my head. I don’t consider myself any kind of fashion expert.
As for honest in general (and truth) I guess my idea of it is much more fluid than when I was younger. I have wrestled a lot with the question “is it ever OK to lie”? When I was younger, I’d have said no. That “honest is the best policy”.
But, as I’ve aged, I’ve come to see that even what we call “truth” is a kind of fluid thing. And I’m leaving aside the philosophical idea that there must be some kind of “absolute truth” since I never studied philosophy. I mean truth and honesty in the practical every day sense.
I’ll give a concrete example. I’ve had occasion to tutor and mentor many people over the decades, though I’m not a teacher by trade. Sometimes a student will show me a solution that’s only partially correct or even crappy by my honest assessment. But I won’t tell the student because I think it’s better for the student to build confidence and discover the right solution on their own (which they almost always do). So that’s a case where total honesty probably isn’t best in the long run.
Well, here’s a topical story to discuss. Do you think Richard J. Maynes is being honest about Joseph Smith’s First Vision?
http://www.sltrib.com/home/3843144-155/mormon-leader-differing-versions-of-joseph
I think Maynes believes what he is saying, so yes, I think he’s being honest. I think this is how he views it. Personally, I don’t think the multiple accounts of the first vision undermine it the way some who are more literalist see it. Visions are like dreams, full of emotions, symbols, and layered meanings, not like video recordings or snippets of a movie. At least that’s long been my opinion. However, when he notes that it’s the only vision like this that has so many recorded accounts, surely he knows that’s really just because it’s recent.
Not sure about Maynes because I don’t know enough about him, but I agree with the rest of your comment. After all, there are many NT Biblical accounts written long after the fact that contradict each other. I never worried about that because I understood the different writers had different agendas and lived in different social and political climates. I think I can let Smith slide, too.
The comparison to biblical writers isn’t quite comparable. It makes sense different people would have different perspectives and memories. The key with the First Vision accounts is that it’s the same person creating the differing accounts.
I agree with Hawkgrrrl. I believe Maynes is giving what he believes to be true. Now, it’s highly likely that his belief derives from trusting the gospel topics essay, but that’s another issue.
Good post. What I’ve learned about honesty and religious teachings:
I’ve learned that personal integrity is really important to me, but that I don’t expect others to have it and I don’t project my own expectations of myself onto others. I think that’s where trouble lies. As House, the super-cynical TV M.D. said all the time, “everybody lies.” We all do and I think it’s a mistake to get too let down by it. I do think the church has lied and covered things up, but it’s naive, I think, to expect any institution to do anything but protect itself. Falsehood is sometimes necessary to do this.
Re the Maynes thing, I have to say I agree with hawkgrrrl that he believes what he’s saying. However, with the utmost respect for both hawk and Elder Anderson, I’ve got to disagree a bit with the notion of accounts of visions. To suggest, as Maynes does, that the different versions of the first vision just means it’s well-documented is simply absurd. President Hinckley stated that the first vision is the most important founding experience of our church, that everything rests on it. If that’s so, I would think the different versions would trouble a lot of folks. I’ve never had a vision, so I can’t say with any authority what it might be like, but to not be able to remember how many personages visited one and what they said, IMHO diminishes the power, or at least the truth, of the vision.
I guess my paragraph above implies that I believe that our spiritual leaders and teachers should be absolutely honest. If the truth is so important that we use the adjective,” true”, to describe most things about our church, then our leaders and teachers have a profound moral obligation to always tell the truth, regardless of the cost though, as I mention above, I don’t expect them to. Just my .02.
@Brother Sky
About the vision: I’ve had dreams that I can recall and recount with pretty good accuracy. I think that if I had a vision in which God, Angels, or any combination (I mean less than 5 beings total), it would be so extraordinary that it would be burned in my brain. I doubt my re-tellings would differ in fundamental details. As Mary Ann points out we have Smith himself telling these versions. These are not second hand accounts. I’d think if he really had the vision that all the versions would at least agree on the name and number of visitants.
I learned that we’re lying whenever we attempt to deceive.
….
For that matter, what does it even mean to say “I know the Church is true.” Does that really mean “I know it’s mostly true?” or “I believe it’s 100% true?” or “I know this is the only true church and the others aren’t true?” Can people really *honestly* testify to this?
Any way you slice it, it’s kind of a strange thing to say when I think about it. It’s kind of like saying “I know physics is true.” Well, yeah, it’s pretty reliable, but we can’t say every paper ever published has panned out, and we can’t say our body of knowledge at this moment is perfect. But I’d have no problem with honestly testifying “I know physics is true.”
@Howard
Also, what a tangled web we weave. 🙂
The gospel is true, the church is clearly and demonstrably false:
Behold, this is my doctrine—whosoever repenteth and cometh unto me, the same is my church. Whosoever declareth more or less than this, the same is not of me, but is against me; therefore he is not of my church.
Brother Sky: “. President Hinckley stated that the first vision is the most important founding experience of our church, that everything rests on it. If that’s so” That’s the thing. It ain’t so, or at least it certainly wasn’t in the early days of the church. Missionary efforts were focused on selling BOMs. Nobody even talked about or knew about the so-called First Vision. Only many years later did it become a front and center church script. Prior to that it was just a personal experience of JS’s. When the church co-opted it (some say to bolster the church’s standing, but it was at minimum not used as a missionary tool for many decades), then the “story” had to become a consistent narrative, so they chose one version that worked best for that purpose.
Whether Pres. Hinckley knew that history is questionable.
hawk: Thanks for the history lesson and the reminder. That does raise a question, doesn’t it, about the relationship between truth and expediency? I’ve always thought the correlated (for lack of a better term) version of the first vision could be somewhat similar to the Paul H. Dunn issue. The stories weren’t “true,” but they illustrated true principles, so the stories weren’t historically accurate but contained a kind of “truthiness,” to use a Colbert term. A lot of Mormons seem okay with this, perhaps because they think of truth as a hierarchical thing, not as a metaphysical absolute (see Elder Anderson’s question about what is true above). So a story that claims to be true can legitimately claim to be so as long as it demonstrates a “true” principle. I’m sort of a literalist, so this kind of thinking makes me really uncomfortable, but I think it’s pretty embedded in church thinking.
Elder A’s question also illustrates a rhetorical device a lot of Mormons use when giving their testimony. I have heard the phrase “I KNOW it’s true” about a thousand times more than “I BELIEVE it’s true.” Our rhetoric and they way we talk about truth seems to really put pressure on people to say the former and not the latter. As Elder A’s questions imply, we throw the word “truth” around a lot and I’m not sure we really even know what we’re saying when we use it.
Having received revelations and visions I am undisturbed by multiple accounts of the same vision, one’s understanding expands with time and often by prompted by the spirit to tailor the telling for specific audiances. For me the multiple accounts are faith promoting and validating
When people say “the church is true” they are referring more to a confidence in the unique revelation and priesthood authority providing saving ordinances. That belief is usually based on personal spiritual experiences, which from a secular sense are inherently irrational. We can’t put them in the same category as secular/rational truths, confirmed by objective scientific methods.
Where we run into trouble is when someone claims that the church is “true” based on a specific historical event taking place. If you can prove via secular/rational means that the historical event did *not* occur as understood, it then casts doubt on the claim that the church is “true” from a spiritual/irrational angle.
@Howard
I am jealous. I wish I could see one. You don’t have to say what was in the vision(s) if it’s personal, but can you tell me in detail what it was like to have one? Were you awake? Did you think during the vision that it was “real” or did it feel like a dream? That kind of stuff…
Elder Anderson,
I was blessed (perhaps at times cursed?) with a spiritual awakening that was 24/7 and lasted 7 years. It began with the experience of shaking (quaking) outlined in D&C 85:6 and 3 Nephi 11:3. I was trained over a long period of time how to receive a variety of types of revelations via a variety of methods then I was trained in visions and later telepathy. Visions begin with a seer stone or some other prop, this facilitated two things 1) my (mistaken) belief that waking visions come through the eyes and 2) it gave my eyes a fixed point to focus on – this is the main purpose of the stone, it has NO supernatural properties, only the natural properties of reflection within a usable range. Receiving visions using a seer stone is like learning to ride a bicycle using training wheels. The learning progresses through Black and While, grayscale and finally color stills, then short movies, the stone is left behind in this progression and the images begin to form in your awake mind rather than in your line of sight. Eventually they become a combination of image and description that can be fully comprehended without the high level of concentration required to unpack the image itself. This is pretty advanced but I have no way of knowing if there are levels beyond this. I enjoyed uncountable revelations and visions, their content were highly important in training me but they were mostly lessons and mostly not profound lessons for the church or world. For example it is my belief that Adam God theory was nothing more than an intern lesson not a revelation for the church or world as I experienced a similar lesson. If you’ve received a revelation it’s good to get over the idea that it is some profound lesson for everyone chances are you are simply being taught by using your own frame of reference as a baseline or you are being comforted for some reason. The extension of this is very disturbing because Q15 are clearly little more than beginners.
I read the link in the post about quantum virtual particles popping in and out of existence, which was very interesting, and sounds kind of like the experience of revelations like the First Vision. On a quantum level, in the multiverse, the cat is both dead and alive. And it seems like in the world of revelations, God is at one moment a single person, then two people, then a cloud of angels, then saying “thy sins are forgiven” in one iteration of the memory, then saying simultaneously “they are all an abomination” in another.
If this kind of spiritual fluidity reflects eternal realities, than that means that none of our literalist, mechanical readings of truth in the material world apply to the spiritual world. It means that when we die, we will be simultaneously ushered off to Spirit Prison AND reincarnated as a cow. Indeed, if you examine the near-death experiences of people with different beliefs, those experiences differ according to the person’s belief. Buddhists don’t see Jesus when they die, and Christians don’t see Buddha.
@Howard
You are very fortunate. I would not have the discipline to develop that skill. Thanks for describing what it is like.
@Nate
Perhaps there’s only one spiritual reality and nobody has the “true” conception of it. It’s the proverbial “blind men and the elephant” scenario.
You’re welcome E.A.
I worked on heroquests with pagan shamanistic practitioners. They even published some of my work.
In that framework the Joseph Smith accounts are consistent and self reinforcing.
Elder Anderson –see my post on simplification.
Howard– enjoyed your perspectives.
This exchange reminds me of when I was courting my wife and told her she was beautiful. The said “What’s beautiful about me?” I was caught off guard. I hadn’t planned on going into specifics. 🙂
I think that when a person stands up and testifies “I know the church is true” that the honest response is “What do you mean by ‘true’?” Not so much how you know it’s true, but describe what that statement means to you.
In my view, it’s dishonest to recite something in the context of “I know” without really thinking about what you know. If you can’t say what you know, then you don’t know it.
Yes this is shamanic stuff Stephen, Joseph was obviously a shaman and in my view a Great Prophet not a fallen prophet. When viewed from a shamanic perspective the Joseph Smith story warts and all becomes very understandable and very believable. Was Moses not a shaman?
@Howard
I’m so curious about this because, apparently, I am “mind blind”. My wife says she can actually, literally see an apple or our puppy in her imagination. I quizzed her about it. She can actually see the puppy running in the grass, see the surrounding houses, and see the blue sky.
I, on the other hand, am completely blind in my imagination. I have what I call “visions” as metaphors for math problems. For example, if I am thinking about heat conduction, I visualize a star fish or maybe a sea urchin as a metaphor for how the heat radiates. I can draw it on paper, but I can’t actually see these images in my mind.
Nikola Tesla was apparently able to visualize his inventions down to the tiniest detail, including the movements of the individual components. I believe I read that his parents trained him to do this from a young age.
There’s a long list of inventors who dreamed metaphors for their inventions, and that’s exactly how I do things, though I can’t literally see anything in my imagination (but I can in my dreams). See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dreams
E.A. I’d love to get deeper into this I’m out the door shortly for a day of sailing. I see imagination images like your wife describes and I have the experience of understanding (just knowing) relationships of various concepts to others similar to what you describe. To me these abilities are on the same continuum with the later being more advanced. For example I can “see” the puppy, grass and house seen without the images or with them, without is far more efficient and advanced.
Sleeping vs awake. Hmm, well as you progress the distinction between them becomes quite small, I’m pretty conscious during much of my sleep and I can rest while awake (like a horse?). An important skill is learning to extend Theta. Hold the TV remote in your hand (male version?) while falling asleep on the couch such that when you do drop into asleep the falling remote wakes you then rinse and repeat until you can achieve extended Theta states while awake. Theta is the realm of the so called “supernatural”. I can remain in Theta for up to an hour maybe longer (never tried).
I don’t have visual memories either –or tangible flavor memories. It makes meal planning different.
Thanks for posting.
Btw. I’m quoting a summary here from someone else, but it is useful.
First Vision Accounts
1) Rough Draft, 1831-32, Joseph Smith
2) Jewish Minister, 1835, Joseph Smith
3) Official Version, 1838-39, Joseph Smith
4) Pratt tract, 1840, Orson Pratt
5) Hyde tract, 1842, Orson Hyde
6) Wentworth letter, 1842, Joseph Smith
7) N.Y. Spectator, 1843, Joseph Smith
8) Neibaur diary, 1844, Alexander Neibaur
Looking at the major points of the First Vision story to see how
they match up.
A) Religious excitement: 3,8
B) JS’s concern for his soul: 1,4,5,6,8
C) Disillusionment w/existing churches: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7
D) Which church was right: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
E) JS searches the scriptures: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
F) JS prays: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
G) Strange force of opposition: 2,3,4,5,8
H) Appearance of light/fire: 1,2,3,4,7,8
I) Appearance of Deity: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
J) Two personages: 2,3,4,5,6,7,8
K) Forgiveness of sins: 1,2,4
L) Testimony of Jesus: 1,2,3,7
M) Join no church: 1,3,4,5,6,7,8
N) Gospel to be restored: 4,5,6
O) JS filled with love: 1
P) Unsuccessful in getting others to believe: 1,3,8,
@Stephen
Of course, there are many within the LDS faith and outside the faith who claim the various accounts are inconsistent and/or unsupported by historical context. Getting back to the question at hand, do you see both sides making an honest case? For example, naysayers are generally trying to poke holes in the Mormon narrative. Yaysayers are attempting to counter that effort. Do think perhaps there’s puffery on both sides?
Aside from the First Vision question, there are many other aspects of the Mormon narrative called into question from both members and non-members. Does everyone in the fray have an agenda? Is this like a court case decided on “the preponderance of the evidence?”
I suppose what I’m asking is: Are church members always being honest about what’s in their hearts, or are they more focused on making a case?
I think our leaders need to be as honest as they can. We need to remember that our brain works through interpolation and extrapolation (part of imagination) and that every time we pull a memory from storage, we’re re-interpreting it and storing it back again. That interpretative process is influenced by our feelings and opinions at the time and can distort the truth. Our leaders are subject to that as well.
As to the multiple vision accounts, I’m surprised that it gets all that much play. At the time when I was struggling with church historical issues, the thing that hit me hardest was the multiple accounts of the Resurrection in the New Testament, which clearly didn’t line up. Shook me good. Having come to grips with that, Mayne’s point of view on the First Vision makes complete sense to me.
@Martin
“multiple accounts of resurrection”
Well, I brought this up earlier in the thread, but, as Mary Ann pointed out, it’s not the same. The NT accounts were done by different people at different times and different cultural contexts. The FV accounts were all from JS in the same temporal and cultural context.
E.A. – as far as members saying what’s in their hearts vs. making a case, it’s not always clear. Like, a GA will create an argument in a conference talk (making a case) in order to explain or justify what she believes in her heart. Also, it’s really hard at times to express in words what’s truly in your heart (some people create art or music instead). Sometimes you may not even be consciously aware of what’s in your heart until a situation forces you to face it head on.
The multiple First Vision accounts don’t bug me even though I became aware of them only in the last few years. This likely is because the First Vision has never been one of the foundational pieces of my testimony (though I believe spiritual experiences can be very difficult to describe rationally, so I’m also willing to offer wiggle room). There are a few things that keep me solidly believing in the church – only when one of those gets messed with do I get uncomfortable and require some long talking it out with God. If one of the foundational pieces of a person’s testimony was a belief in the 1838 canonized account of the First Vision, then I can totally see how they’d be rocked by the discrepancies.
@EA
“FV accounts were all from JS in the same temporal and cultural context”
My account at 15 is different that my account now, on just about any event. What I would think to share and hold back is entirely different. My interpretation of an event would be entirely different.
The accounts of the Resurrection are from different people, aren’t all first-hand, and struck me at the time as regurgitated rumors that didn’t hold together at all. The exact superstitious rumors the Sanhedrin were trying to prevent.
Everybody can struggle without they’re own stuff, I guess, but compared to that, JS didn’t seem all that troubling.
“My account at 15 is different that my account now, on just about any event. What I would think to share….”
Well, I was only commenting on the difference between the origin of differences in the NT accounts and FV accounts.
But, since you bring it up, I personally think (only my opinion) that the FV accounts are inconsistent. I can’t say why that happened. I can say that for any major event that happened in my teens–buying my first motorcycle for example–the details are going to remain consistent even after 50 years no matter how many times I retell it. I think a vision of God would have the same emotional impact on JS and the details would remain perfectly clear for a lifetime. If somebody tells me a story multiple times and the story has significant changes each time, I suspect the story is a fabrication. Of course, a rehearsed lie can be consistent, but, in that case, it’s *too* consistent.
Some of the comments posted rely upon the assumption that JS himself wrote multiple conflicting accounts of the First Vision. I recall Richard Bushman telling a group of us that only the first is in JS’ handwriting and it is not clear who wrote, edited, or revised the others, even though they are written in the first person as if JS wrote them. I’m no historian. Maybe either or both my recollection and Bushman’s comment is incorrect, but I’m not inclined to make too much of the distinction between JS writing conflicting accounts of his vision and different biblical writers penning conflicting accounts of an event.
@JR
For what it’s worth from the recent LDS church essay:
“Joseph shared and documented the First Vision, as it came to be known, on multiple occasions; he wrote or assigned scribes to write four different accounts of the vision.”
Elder Anderson. The inconsistency that most people point to is the one between the handwritten account, which appears to be unfinished, and the rest. In that one, he is focused on what Christ told him, and appears to have skipped the introduction, including the force of opposition he felt before the appearance. I would note that the age difference has been dropped by anti-Mormons as it is clearly created by a strenuous attempt to read a character wrong (and is clearly false, in spite of being promulgated) to anyone who looks at a photocopy of the original. Here is the handwritten rough draft account (some of the words in it are crossed out or edited in the original).
“a piller of fire light above the brightness of the sun at noon day come down from above and rested upon me and I was filled with the spirit of god and the Lord opened the heavens upon me and I saw the Lord and he spake unto me saying Joseph my son thy sins are forgiven thee. go thy way walk in my statutes and keep my commandments behold I am the Lord of glory I was crucifyed for the world that all those who believe on my name may have Eternal life behold the world lieth in Sin and at this time and none doeth good no not one they have turned asside from the gospel and keep not my commandments they draw near to me with their lips while their hearts are far from me and mine anger is kindling against the inhabitants of the earth to visit them acording to th[e]ir ungodliness and to bring to pass that which hath been spoken by the mouth of the prophets and Ap[o]stles behold and lo I come quickly as it [is] written of me in the cloud clothed in the glory of my Father and my soul was filled with love and for many days I could rejoice with great Joy and the Lord was with me but [I] could find none that would believe the hevnly vision nevertheless I pondered these things in my heart about that time my mother and but after many day”
The focus in this essay is that Christ told him he was forgiven. That was the significance he took from it initially, over anything else. He later took other details as more important and focused on them.
But this is not inconsistent as many claim when they deal with things in the abstract. Nor is it a finished product.
http://www.wheatandtares.org/20861/memory-simplification-and-lies/ is my post about an experience I had and my recounting of it.
I just had someone challenge me: but you would never state you had only buried one child … Actually, when I’ve had to deal with another grieving parent, I’ve stated “I’ve buried a child too.” That is enough to allow them to accept support and compassion. If I move to “I’ve buried three children” it changes the conversation from them to me, which is not the meta message I want to send when I’m trying to be kind to someone.
The same is true of when I’m asked how many children I have. I might tell a casual acquaintance (like the barber I went to this Saturday) “I have two children living in the area.” They aren’t asking a “real” question, just social chatter and my answer responds to that to keep from derailing things. As it was, the hairdresser did a bad enough job that when I was paying the cashier was surprised that I was tipping them…
Howard, I had no idea you had become un-moored. I’m glad you made it to a stable place.
Stephen,
You see my experience as un-moored? In what way?
I’ve learned that truth is in the eye of the beholder: that one person’s truth is another person’s lie. I’ve learned that sometimes telling a lie is easier, that some people don’t really want to know the answer and an honest response will only cause bigger problems. I’ve learned that being a part of society requires telling little white lies all of the time while still being honest about who you are and how far you’ll bend.
I’ve learned that people can honestly believe lies, myths, and hyperbolic facts (that vaccines cause autism, that any one broad group is going to Hell, that the Earth is only 7,000 years old) and to them the lies are the truth. I’ve learned that truth is stranger than our wildest fairy tales, that eternity is broader than we can imagine, and that we’ve only scratched the surface of what truth really is.
I’ve learned that sometimes it helps to believe a lie, and that we can also forgive people for telling or teaching them. I’ve learned that honesty is great, as long as it’s not used to inflict harm. I’ve learned that my truth is my own and that no one can take it from me, but also that I can’t force my truth onto someone else.
In sum: I’ve learned that the true measure of Zion is embracing our shared differences and our conflicting truths and marching forward regardless of them, that it’s more important to love and help, to succor and accept, than it is to create barriers and foster hate. I’ve learned that love, charity, is more important than truth.
Hmm, I’m not so sure, see CDC knew MMR vaccines cause autism.
Please fish my last comment out of the spam filter.
Howard–sorry. Sometimes I assume vocabulary in common.
You broke through without a lot of anchoring and stayed that way for a long time.
Some people find it difficult to find the stability you reflect. I’m glad you reached it without harm.
Thanks Stephen.
@Megan
So eloquent and beautiful.
@Howard
Stuff on Tesla’s visualization abilities.
http://inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com/2010/09/part-1-nikola-tesla-thinking-in.html?m=1
Thanks for the link E.A.
“Tesla argued that it is a waste of time and money to build a model or prototype of anything until a number if variations have been tested in a powerful visual imagination such as his own.”
Well I agree with this don’t you? But lacking Tesla’s own Random Access Memory don’t others simply visualize parts of the design at a time and keep track of the 3D overview via drawing or CAD? I suspect there was more to Tesla than his powerful visual imagination I suspect he was open to and capable of receiving inspiration and revelation.
Early in my career I designed small simple custom machines that automated various aspects of manufacturing. I could do this while awake or via lucid dreaming and if I didn’t like the design I could reload the design into my dream imagination and improve the design the second night.
Part of LDS doctrine says “For I, the Lord God, created all things, of which I have spoken, spiritually, before they were naturally upon the face of the earth…” Isn’t this what it’s talking about? Imagining it? I believe so.
Long ago when I first started to learn to meditate my mind would wander in just a few seconds but 10 years later I was able to partition my mind into up to 3 sections each doing something different while effortlessly sliding into and out of a meditative trance. Does this make me somehow special or simply more experienced in this than many?
@Howard
“Long ago when I first started to learn to meditate my mind would wander in just a few seconds but 10 years later I was able to partition my mind into up to 3 sections each doing something different while effortlessly sliding into and out of a meditative trance. Does this make me somehow special or simply more experienced in this than many?”
Well, like a lot of things, I suspect it’s a combination of a genetic gift and refining that gift through practice. Either way, it seems like an enormously useful skill to have.
I spent decades solving research problems, and I understand the “partitioning” part of your comment. Except for me it wasn’t a partition. I would examine a few problems, learn everything I could about them, and consciously forget about them to let them cook in the background. Then, when I was out walking or something, a solution would come to me. Nothing I ever tried to cultivate. Basically, I just learned to trust the answers that came from nowhere. My theory was that the nonverbal side of my brain was doing some kind of processing, and when the solution was ready, it shot across my corpus callosum and I became conscious of it. I’ve heard a lot of people say “I get my best ideas in the shower.” 🙂
learn > consciously forget > let them cook in the background > a solution would come to me
Yes, I’m familiar with this process! The more literal little or no subconscious all conscious all the time crowd tend to collapse into sleep after cramming their minds so full with what’s cooking in your subconscious until they are exhausted to wake in the morning with the solution.
Yes this stuff can be cultivated. I teach (which mostly means to make aware and suggest) metacognition to my 12 year old daughter and I’ll be teaching it to some South African orphan kids soon who’s subconscious are are almost as foreign to them as I am. And it’s even more fun to teach to those who have learned beginning meditation.
Imagine the equivalent of collaborative interactive CAD design happening in your mind with God as your teacher! This exists in the spiritual plane and oddly you do not have to provide any CAD logic to drive it, somehow the logic is magically provided to support your own creation. For example I imagined flying a helicopter and it was as if I was flying one! I suspect this is what Tesla tapped into.
Once a year I get to go skiing with a bunch of very bright aerospace people, scientists , physicists, mathematicians and sometimes an astronaut etc from JPL, MIT etc. I’m a flunky there, just one of the workers but it leads to some fascinatingly creative cocktail hour or jacuzzi discussions that marinate in my subconscious for the balance of the year. Wouldn’t it be great if the same could be done at Juilliard and the Culinary Institute etc, etc?