If there is a new mind; there must be an old mind.

NM 21: Old Mind

In the Beginning ...

¶ nm883» Why do people sometimes get recurring thoughts which they can't seem to control? Why are people unreasonably afraid of some things? Why do we sometimes in bitter arguments say offensive things that we do not really mean? Why do people sometimes unreasonably criticize other people? Sure sometimes in our conversations we talk about some positive aspects of people. We say, "Sally is sure good looking, but do you know that she . . ." If we do say something good about a person we always seem to quickly add something negative. Mankind's thoughts are often negative in this age. And from these negative thoughts come the confusion and misbehavior we see everywhere.

¶ nm884» We live in the age of contrary minds. Suicide, depression, recurring thoughts, loneliness, fear, extreme hostility, and other problems are mental problems, or that is, problems belonging to the mind. People go to psychologists in an attempt to straighten out their mental problems. We live in an age with immense problems that are caused by negative thoughts. In this paper we are going to show you where these problems come from.

White Bear

¶ nm885» As a child, the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevski:

"once challenged his younger brother to remain standing in a corner until he could stop thinking of a white bear. In this homespun experiment, the child learned something important about the human mind: We do not so much control our thoughts as we are controlled by thoughts that we don't want to think.

Indeed, just about all mental illnesses - obsessions, compulsions, depressions, phobias, anxiety reactions, post-traumatic stress disorders, self-control problems such as addiction and eating disorders, schizophrenia and other psychoses - along with just plain everyday emotional distress - are marked by problems in the area of mental control.

There is a paradox here, too; namely, the more effort that one expends not to think something, oftentimes the more difficult it is to expel it from our consciousness." ("Honey of an approach to problems of the mind," review by Richard Restak of the book: White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts: Suppression, Obsession, and the Psychology of Mental Control, by Daniel M. Wegner, found in Washington Times, July 17, 1989, p. E9)

As Dostoyevski said, "we do not so much control our thoughts as we are controlled by thoughts that we don't want to think." There are many thoughts each day that flash into the mind. Sometimes they stick there and we cannot rid our mind of them. These thoughts are similar to trying not to think of white bears. But even harmless thoughts can lead to trouble in some people's minds if they dwell on it too long or if the thought becomes an obsession.

Negative Flash-thought

¶ nm886» We need to know something about flash-thoughts, especially negative ones. A flash-thought is a message that comes into our mind in a split second. A negative flash-thought is a misdirected one that may result in behavior that hurts or harms. Let's examine some examples of negative flash-thoughts.

¶ nm887» Have you ever looked at an item in a store and a thought flashed through your mind of putting that thing in your pocket, or of picturing the item in your mind breaking into a thousand pieces? How many times have you been eating when a thought flashed into your mind of you choking on the food? A common type of negative flash-thought is the kind you get almost every time you are up high and you look down. The flash-thought you get is of yourself falling down, or being pushed down, or of pushing the one next to you down. Of course you don't jump off and you don't push your friend off because you do have control of your mind and you don't want the flash-thought to actually happen. But why do you or I have these flash-thoughts or ones like them? If we are actually in FULL control of our minds, why do we get these thoughts?

Lying

¶ nm888» Other negative flash-thoughts have to do with lying. When people get into certain situations a lie immediately flashes into their mind instead of the truth. Often when people are confronted by the truth they rationalize the truth away. In other words, they lie. When confronted by the truth instead of agreeing with the truth they lie. The reason is because a lie is flashed to their brain and, without thinking or analyzing the flash-thought, they merely repeat the lie which was flashed into their brain. All this is very subtle. The next time you lie ask yourself why you told that lie. Think back at the very instant you spoke. Did you or did you not merely repeat the lie that flashed into you mind? Ask yourself why in that situation and others like it that you seem to repeat the lie that flashes into your mind instead of telling the truth. Why does a lie flash into your mind? Why not the truth? Why doesn't the truth flash into our minds? Again I repeat all this is very subtle. Some of you will say you always tell the truth, you never lie.

¶ nm889» What is a lie? To tell the truth is to tell it like it is. To tell a lie is to tell it like it is not. Some of us may tell a lie out of ignorance. We merely repeat something we heard thinking we are telling the truth, but in fact we are lying because we are repeating a falsehood through ignorance. Another kind of lie is the lie of exaggeration. We stretch the truth in our exaggerations. We exaggerate about our importance, our appearance, our wealth, our righteousness, our honesty, our love-making, our knowledge, and so forth. Some walk around with the air of importance as if they were really something when they are not. This is lying. Some fat people look in the mirror and don't see the fat. This is lying. Some beautiful people look into the mirror and see or exaggerate some "flaw" and think of themselves as ugly. This is lying. Some go to church every week and put on an air of righteousness when all week they were anything but righteous. This is lying. Some think, or say, "I'm a very honest person; I always tell the truth even when it hurts," while in the very next minute they exaggerate about themselves or falsely play the meek person. This is lying. Some think they are God's gift to the opposite sex while in reality they are quite average. This is lying. Some repeat "knowledge" they were indoctrinated with in school as if this "knowledge" was quite the thing when in fact it is knowledge of someone's own imagination. This is lying. Lying is what most people do best. Yet most can't see the lies because the lies are so much a part of people in this age. But the strange thing about people's lying is that they hardly ever get flash-thoughts about the truth. The first thoughts in "tight" situations are lies. Why doesn't the truth first flash into our minds? Why the subtle flash-thoughts of exaggeration and falsehood? Why?

¶ nm890» Who Teaches Us To Lie? Did our parents and teachers teach us to lie? Think about this. Normal parents teach us to tell the truth - to never lie. Yet children and adults become expert liars. While parents teach their children to tell the truth, are there voices in the dark of the night whispering lying methods in our children's ears? Think about this. There are sophisticated methods of lying. Children seem to know or learn them very expertly. We can for hours teach them important subjects in which they will never become experts, but not so with lying.

Morbid Thoughts

¶ nm891» Some people have morbid flash-thoughts every time they see a knife. These people look at a knife and in an instant a morbid flash-thought comes into their mind of throwing that knife, or of aggressively killing someone with that knife, or of someone putting that knife into them. I know many have had flash-thoughts of killing someone. At the very least they have had the momentary wish or hope of the death of someone they hate. We live in an age of misdirected aggression and violence. And in our thoughts are flashes of us killing or harming others. In some fits of rage these flash-thoughts of killing others can even be of killing our friends and our lovers. WHY do we get these flash-thoughts?

¶ nm892» Now some of you will deny that you have ever had thoughts of killing others or of hurting others. But it is a certain thing that most, if not all, have had thoughts of killing others or torturing others, especially at times when we are very angry at someone. Certainly we will quickly try to put these thoughts out of our minds because we know that killing people is wrong. And sure we will not want to admit this to others, for we wish to keep these and other morbid thoughts secret. Most of us think of our self in a good light. There are very few people who go around truly believing that they are bad, or have bad thoughts.

¶ nm893» Sometimes during war those in power carry out morbid thoughts that in normal times they would never do. They do this because they are committing these acts against the "enemy," and because they have the power to kill others during wartime. During wars, or in the cases of those who lose their minds, we see the fulfilling of the morbid thoughts that almost all of us have. I am saying that you and I and our neighbors have had, and still do have at times, flashes of morbid thoughts. WHY? Are we in full control of our minds? If we are in full control then why do we have these morbid thoughts? Surely we do not agree with these thoughts. So why do we have them?

¶ nm894» In The Washington Times, June 22, 1989, p. F4, Dr. Richard M. Restak, a neurologist and neuropsychiatrist, an author of "The Brain" and "The Mind," reviewed a book by Ronald Markman and Dominick Bosco, Alone with the Devil: Famous Cases of a Courtroom Psychiatrist, and in the review he writes:

"Most crimes - even grisly murders - are not committed by mentally ill people, but by people just like you and me." He quotes with approval a statement by Linda Kasabian, a member of the Charles Manson "family," found guilty of the Sharon Tate-LaBianca murders: "I believe that we all have a part of the Devil within us - it's just a matter of bringing it out." Dr. Markman admits, "We all do have a willingness - even an appetite - to kill within us. All it takes is the right combination of factors to raise it to the surface."

Weird Sexual Thoughts

¶ nm895» Sexual thoughts are a subject that many don't wish to speak about. Most if not all of us have had and still do have flash-thoughts concerning sex and things pertaining to sex. Some of these flash-thoughts are negative. Today some think it is "in" to speak about sexual fantasies. Books have been written lately on male and female sexual fantasies. Magazines print letters of people revealing their most intimate sexual fantasies. Most people have them.

¶ nm896» Now what are some negative sex thoughts that sometimes flash into our heads? There are the sadistic or masochistic sexual fantasies. There are the thoughts of seeing two members of the same sex make love to each other. There are thoughts of dressing in the opposite sex's clothes. There are thoughts of sexual self-exposure. (Nudity, in and of itself, is not wrong, but it may be the attitude of a male or a female exposing himself or herself that may be wrong, and it may be the place and context of the situation of the exposing that may be wrong or negative.) These negative sexual fantasies and others, start out as short flash-thoughts. Some people become attached to these flash-thoughts and soon dwell on them and even make love while thinking about them. Some go and do them in one form or another. Not all of us dwell on these sexual flash-thoughts, or go out and perform them, but the flashing of negative sex thoughts has entered our minds.

Flash-Thoughts Individualized and Universal

¶ nm897» The whole point I am trying to make is that there are thoughts that flash into our minds, and that these thoughts in this age are many times negative. Many of the above examples need to be individualized. We all have our own kinds of negative flash-thoughts. Some people have guilt flashes; they are always feeling guilty about something. If these people would make an attempt to closely examine their minds they will find that the beginning of each session of guilt was started by a flash-thought of guilt. Some people have flash-thoughts of pride which they dwell on until they bubble up with pride. Many people, during arguments, say things that they really don't mean or believe, but during the heated argument negative flash-thoughts creep into their brains, and before they know it they have uttered these thoughts. Actually most of us at some time have flash-thoughts concerning almost every subject we covered. But as individuals we specialize on certain flash-thoughts. Some specialize on sex. Some specialize on guilt. Some specialize on pride. Some specialize on lies, the "small" ones and large ones. Some specialize on delusion. Some specialize on morbid subjects. That is, each of us dwells on some of the many kinds of negative flash-thoughts that pop into our heads each day of our lives in this age, the old age.

¶ nm898» Some of you will say that you do not have these negative thoughts. But I disagree. You do have negative flash-thoughts. These thoughts sneak up on you while you are talking, sleeping, reading, making love, and so forth. In this age they are universal. Everyone has them in one form or another. 

In Control of Our Thoughts?

¶ nm899» Something very strange is going on in this age with our minds. We all have negative flash-thoughts. Many of these are so gross we never speak about them to other people because it would embarrass us. Because we don't communicate in this age our secret negative flash-thoughts to each other, we are unaware of the universality of these thoughts and the phenomenon of negative flash-thoughts. If we don't like our negative thoughts, why can't we get rid of them? Why can't we control these flash-thoughts? If they are a part of OUR minds, why can't we control them?

¶ nm900» Are we in FULL control of our minds? If I wish to move any part of my body, let's say my hand, I merely in my mind command my hand to move when and where I want it to. Only those who are physically or mentally ill can't control their physical actions. If I am in control of my body, why am I not in control of my thoughts? Why can't you or I fully control our thoughts? You say we are in full control of our minds. If we were in full control of our minds we would rid our minds of all falsehood, all guilt, all morbid thoughts, all strange fantasies, and so forth. The fact is we are not in FULL control of our thoughts or minds. The negative flash-thoughts that we want no part of are not from our physical minds. Our minds in a sense are being raped. Our minds are being misused in this age. But if we were in control of our minds, as we are in control of moving our hands, then we would rid ourselves of many of our mental thoughts and never allow many of those flash-thoughts to sneak into our minds. There is something strange going on in this age.

Other-Mind

¶ nm901» There is another mind in this age besides the physical one. What am I saying?: "There is another mind." I am saying that those negative flash-thoughts that have entered my mind and have entered your mind are not a part of our physical minds? The other-mind is a negative mind, a gross mind, a lying mind, a mind playing games in our minds.

¶ nm902» Rush. When people get pleasure from thoughts of a twisted nature, they are feeling the pleasure from the other-mind inside of them. Do you think a masochist's thoughts come from his own mind? A masochist's gets pleasure from being humiliated or physically pained. This way of getting pleasure is from the other-mind. This pleasure often times manifests itself as a "rush." Every person is capable of having a "rush." A "rush" is a phenomenon of the mind. A rich lady who steals some small item in a store may have a rush when she does it. A rapist may feel a rush when he rapes. A mass killer may feel a rush in his mad and senseless murders. A couple having some form of kinky sex has a rush when they do it even though others may not think of it as "kinky." Not all rushes are wrong, but for sure a rapist's rush is wrong. A "rush" is comparable to the feeling you get over an exciting event, you blood flushes and your heart beat rate increases. This "rush" is the strong opium that stimulates a mass killer, a rapist, a homosexual, a child-molester to continue in his madness. This rush gives a form of pleasure to things that ought not to be pleasurable. This kind of rush comes from the other-mind.

¶ nm903» What is this other-mind? This other-mind is not physical; it is spiritual. That is, the other-mind is a mental phenomenon that does not belong to our physical body, but is a spiritual power in our minds. Something that is spiritual is something that is not easily detectable by sight, touch, smell, or by our other senses. But the spiritual is detectable mentally by many. Some of you believe in the spiritual. If you think of yourself as Christian, you believe in evil spirits and good spirits or angels. Some of you interested in the occult believe in the spiritual dimension also although your perception of the spiritual is not like the Christians. In the New Testament of the Bible it speaks of demons doing harm to people. In the Old Testament it speaks of lying spirits. Some of you from other religions or backgrounds also believe in the spiritual or invisible world. Almost all peoples in history have had their beliefs about the spiritual world. Even those who do not believe in the spiritual believe nevertheless in invisible forces that they call by such names as gravity, black holes, protons, etc. In the psyche of man there is knowledge of a spiritual dimension which is evil and affects mankind in various ways.

¶ nm904» These demons, these evil lying spirits, these things of the spiritual dimension are the other-mind. These evil spirits or angels or invisible things are the other-mind that is inside our physical minds feeding us with negative thoughts. These negative thoughts come first to us in a flash-thought. Some of us are caught off guard by this invasion of our minds, and because we don't understand it, we sometimes think that these flash-thoughts belong to us. From these flash-thoughts many of us begin to dwell on these thoughts until they become a part of our life. Some are so captured by these thoughts and dwell on these negative thoughts so much that they are in a sense possessed by these thoughts. In another sense one might say some are possessed by the other-mind within them. The best explanation for crazy people is that they are possessed by the spiritual other-mind. When we look at a crazy person we are in a sense looking at the other-mind that has gotten control of that person, either because the person has some biological weakness and/or because the other-mind has extra power.

¶ nm905» Other-Mind's Universality. Where the knowledge I am relating to you in this paper differs from other beliefs on demons or evil spirits or on the negative mind is that I am saying all of us have such an invisible mind within us in the old age. It is the other-mind that is putting negative flash-thoughts into our minds. This negative-invading mind belongs to the present age of confusion. This other-mind is the main cause of the confusion of this age. Beginning with the New Age, the old spiritual mind or spirit will be put out of us. This is a sure thing. It will happen. When this other-mind is put out of our minds, then peace will come to man. Man can't have peace of mind or peace between nations until this evil and destructive force is put out of our minds. The ONE who put this evil force in our minds will take it out. The Power that controls the cosmos is in full control. (see the God Papers)

¶ nm906» Now some when they hear of demons or evil think of only morbid things. And it would be unthinkable for these to admit publicly that they have such things in their minds. But if you understand the beginning of this paper you understand the great subtlety of the other-mind or of the demon of this age. Further, you must understand that when I speak of evil, I am speaking of actions that harm or confuse or wrong. Evil isn't just extreme things, it is also the subtle things and even the so-called "white lies."

¶ nm907» Almost every problem in human relations can be traced to the other-mind. There has been much research on transsexuals and homosexuals which indicate in most cases that there are no consistent biological or environmental causes for these behaviors. The other-mind is the cause. Most hardened criminals also have no consistent biological or environmental reasons for their behavior. The other-mind is the cause.

¶ nm908» Children. The sons and daughters who were brought up in caring homes by loving parents who somehow have turned to crime can also be explained by the phenomenon of the other-mind. Many people look on the children of this age as innocent little creatures. But those who have been around these little ones know that they can be cunning, selfish, lying, aggressive, violent, and so forth. Little children are much like the rest of us in this age. Some say it is because they see their parents doing wrong acts and thus are learning from their parents. This is true to a certain extent, but it is not the true answer.

¶ nm909» Children and 'No.' When our children are very young we notice that many times they are very interested in doing things we have told them not to do. We tell them no, and the "no" makes them want to do it even more. Now think about this. Do we teach our children to do what we want them not to do? Do we set them aside each day and tell them, "now Johnny, every time I tell you not to do something, you should do it anyway and take great pleasure in doing what I have told you not to do"? Of course not, we never teach our children to disobey us. We teach them to obey us and we even back it up with spankings on their bottoms. Yet they continue at times to disobey us, even after we spank them, and they, to judge by their facial expressions, take pleasure in disobeying us. Where do they learn this misbehavior? Who teaches them? The other-mind is the main cause of children's misbehavior. The other-mind, so to speak, talks in their ear urging them on their misbehavior episodes. Children left to themselves will become very selfish and cruel individuals because they have even less control over the negative thoughts than we do. In this age children must be taught self-control early in their life. That is, they must be taught how to cope with their inward negative thoughts. Parents who know about the other-mind are more able to understand their children and more able to help their children to grow into constructive and healthy individuals. Yet in some cases the other-mind is such a force in a child's mind that the parents will have a very difficult time with their child. In the new cosmos the other-mind will not affect us. But for now it is with us and does affect our behavior in this age.

¶ nm910» Source of Information. Now where did I get this information? Why do we have the other-mind in our physical minds? I will answer the first question next, then go on to answer the other question. Through various events in my life and much study I have come to the conclusion that the books more commonly called the Bible have the true explanation of life in its writings. Now some of you who may consider yourselves scientific or humanistic will disagree. And some of you of other religious back-grounds than Christian or Jewish will also disagree. I can only refer you to the "Bible Paper" [BP3] which is in the Beginning Papers, for some of the evidence on which I base my contention that the Bible is the source which God has given man to ascertain his Truth. I suppose some will even disagree that there is a God or Power which has created the cosmos. These are in essence saying that a non-intelligent cosmic soup created the universe. These few should examine the information contained in and referred to in the "Premise For Belief Paper" [BP5]. For those who do read on I will show them where in the Bible the other-mind is pictured, when the other-mind was put into man's mind, when this other-mind will be taken out of man, and what will become of these spiritual other-minds. Do continue reading.

Important: In order to understand better the following part you should study the: "Bible Paper" [BP3], "Premise For Belief Paper" [BP5], and the "Duality Paper" [BP4] as well as all the BeComingOne Papers.

IN THE BEGINNING . . .