The Mind Parasites

I’ve never embraced Colin Wilson’s philosophy of “existential optimism,” but I have devoured his work and feasted on his provocative and insightful ideas for many years. His work is a veritable garden of delights even if that delight comes in the form of horror. I’ve been re-reading his novel, The Mind Parasites (1967), a Lovecraftian-inspired work that embodies his aim of trying to create a “new type of novel.” What has become punctum[1] for me in this reading, is a feeling that the image of mind parasites is so apt as an image for thinking about our current political and cultural climate. Before I go into this directly, it will help to lay out some orienting observations.

We are aware of “virus” both in its biological and cyberlogical meanings and how both spread collectively. The word “virus” is Latin for “poison.” Virus is the most abundant life form, though its “living” status is more an “in-between” life form. Virus infection kills the host cell and can be quite lethal to the whole organism. The small pox virus brought to the Americas by Europeans killed more than 70% of the indigenous population. The Spanish Flu killed upward of 100 million people world-wide. Often there is little or no treatment for viral infections—particularly new ones. Security agencies are constantly looking for signs of virus, both biological and cyberlogical, that could be used as terrorist weapons.

A parasite works differently. The parasite takes up residence in a host and uses the host’s resources to satisfy the parasite’s survival needs. It does not work to kill the host, but to increase consumption of the host’s resources as well as changing the host’s behavior to secure the parasite’s ultimate aim—its propagation. The parasite conceals itself so that the host has little or no awareness of the parasite itself. The parasite is immune to efforts to treat it by treating the “symptoms” alone. The host can suffer in many ways: mental, emotional, and physiological. In a sense, the parasite “takes over” control of the host. While we know about parasites as living organisms, most are not aware of cyberlogical parasites. The best known example is the “bot,” which is a robotic script that takes up residence in one computer after another and begins its “feeding” off the host in various ways, often without any knowledge on the part of the computer user, as well as changing the behavior of the host systems.

Everyone who uses a computer connected to the internet is as risk. And like a parasite, the limits to which the parasite can grow in enabling is own ends to the detriment of the host (our computers and by extension almost every aspect of our life) are at present unbounded. The more everything becomes “smart” and “connected” the more we are at risk. To cite just one example from a recent report: “Bots are feasting on the economic bloodstream of the digital age.”[2] I believe it is useful to think of parasites in various forms: as biological, cyberlogical, and psychological entities.[3]

Using biological entities in cyberlogical and psychological space is a form of analogical research and a productive way of thinking (reasoning) “outside the box.”[4] We do this naturally in forming language metaphors. For example, we use the word “parasite” to speak of someone who “exploits others and gives nothing in return.” We might think of such behavior as the result of parasitic invasion. A parasitic invasion “takes over” and controls the behavior of the host. If we imagine that parasites can be spread in many ways (as are actual parasites), then we can imagine the spread of cultural, political and psychological mind parasites as an unsuspected form of control of human behavior.

With the ever increasing interaction of climate change processes in or entering in exponential phases, it is quite likely that biological parasites will become an evermore virulent phenomenon. With the increasing interaction of cyberlogical systems (the internet), which are also likely entering into exponential phases of penetration, it is quite likely that our interaction with cyber systems will become pervasive, ubiquitous and unpredictable. This would naturally include robotic systems of all types. And with the ever increasing exposure to psychological parasites of all kinds, we can expect increasing degrees of instability of traditional ways of functioning at all levels at both an individual and collective level.

The following questions, among others, I’ll take up in future posts on this topic are:

1.How do mind parasites spread? What purposes do they serve?

2. In addition to natural mind parasites, how are they engineered, and by whom (people,

            computers, robots, etc.)

3. Is everyone infected? Are there natural immunities? Is there any treatment for brain

            processes destroyed by mind parasites?

4. What characteristics “invite” or encourage mind parasite takeover?
5. What cognitive biases are a result of mind parasites?
6. When mind parasites take over, they likely destroy what we think of as the best human qualities and replace these qualities with parasitic qualities. This is how humans become parasites.
7. An insidious form of mind parasite is “money.” The danger of this is unreognized.

[1] Punctum is Roland Barthes’ term for the element in a photograph that attracts his psyche autonomously and makes the photograph “exist” for him. It is contrasted with stadium, which embodies the photographer’s intentionality. The value of this distinction has wide relevance. See Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1981.

[2] Kellerman, Tom. “BOTS: Cyber-Parasites.” World Bank Security Team, July 2004.

[3] I use the term “entities” deliberately to emphasize the sense of “foreign” life (of whatever form) along the lines that Jung intended when he wrote, “We would do well, therefore, to think of the creative process as a living thing implanted in the human psyche.” Jung, C. G. “On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry.” CW: The Spirit in Man, Art and Literature. Vol. 15, Para. 115. The question arises as to whether this sense of “implant” is different than parasite. This topic will be the subject of a future blog post.

[4] For emphasizing the value of analogical research, I am indebted to Dr. Mils Hills, of the Northampton Business School in the UK. His paper, “A New Perspective on the Achievement of Psychological Effects from Cyber Warfare Payloads: The Analogy of Parasitic Manipulation of Host Behavior” (Journal of Law & Cyber Warfare, Vol. 1, Winter 2012, Issue 1, p. 209-217) has proven invaluable to me.

An epidemic of dream deprivation: Unrecognized health hazard of sleep loss

Most everyone is aware of the dangers of sleep deprivation. A natural consequence of sleep deprivation is dream deprivation. However, since so little attention is paid to dreams among sleep researchers and the general population, the mental and physical health consequences of dream deprivation have received scant attention. I have harped on this for a long time but now there is some major attention being paid to this issue. Rubin Naiman, Ph.D., a sleep and dream specialist at the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, has published a major review of the available literature. His article is entitled, “Dreamless: the silent epidemic of REM sleep loss.” This paper is part of a volume devoted to “Unlocking the Unconscious: exploring the Undiscovered Self,” published by the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Naiman concludes that dream loss is an unrecognized health hazard having major effects on physical illness, depression, and the debilitation of consciousness. I’m hopeful that this major study will escalate research into this woefully untended problem that effects physical and mental health world-wide.

Here's the link: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170929093254.htm

Homed

The dream was clear:
Find where dreams are homed.
I know my journals have been home
to my dreams over the years.
But the journals are not lost,
or misplaced, or in need of finding.
What then?
Do dreams have homes like us?
Some not yet, some just born, some toddlers, some
unruly adolescents, some mature, some elderly
some already dying, some dead. If so,
What then?
Do dreams leave home and journey to us?
Come visiting as uncertain guests?
To find their home means we must travel.
Who among us will take that trip and how?
What then?

NOTEWORTHY                                                                 Number 2 — September 16, 2017

For sustained inventiveness and sheer genius, it is hard to beat China Miéville’s 2010 novel, Kraken: An Anatomy[1]. Based on old Norse legends, Tennyson’s famous poem (“The Kraken”), John Wyndam’s[2]  novel, The Kraken Wakes, and other such sources, it is a useful work in relation to my dream (see “Lamentation in Three Parts” at http://ralockhart.com/WP/?p=133) that speaks to a final Ragnarök Here is a sample: And after? Nothing. Not a phoenix age, not a kingdom of ash, not a new Eden. This time, for the first time, in a way that no threatened end had ushered in before, there was no post-after. (p.272).

A good follow-up study to Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, is Joshua Green’s Devils Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency.[3]

I’ve been immersed in the book based on the exhibit of Miró’s paintings during the period from 1917-1934.[4] I was prompted in this direction by an article decrying the loss of unsupervised play in children. It is the unsupervised play that is crucial to the development of the imagination. Many of the spearheads of the development of modern art may be thought of as adolescents rebelling against the parents (representational art): manifestos, intentional destruction, and all manner of such and it worked! A new form of art was born. But Miró went at it differently. He went backward into childhood and recaptured an extraordinary sense of play. This I think may become more and more necessary in the times ahead as paradoxical as that may seem. The exhibit was called, La Naissance du Monde. The Birth of the World.

Next month will see the publication of the first of three volumes in a new series entitled, Jung’s Red Book for Our Time: Searching for Soul Under Postmodern Conditions. The series is edited by Murray Stein and Thomas Arzt and published by Chiron Publications. My essay, entitled “Appassionato for the Imagination,” will be in this first volume. The title came to me in a dream. For a description of the volume and the list of essay titles and contributors, go to http://chironpublications.com/shop/jungs-red-book-time-searching-soul-postmodern-conditions-vol-1/

Numerous studies reveal that reading and particularly, reading fiction, has a powerful effect on the brain producing remarkable increases in cognitive function, emotional intelligence, and empathy. One of the scary things about technological “progress,” is that as more and more children become addicted to “smart” phones, it is not making the children smarter. Recent studies are showing that one-quarter of American children do not learn to read by the time they are teens and the smartphone addiction becomes more intense. Watch for headlines about the increasing mental health problems of teens stemming from being tethered to technology. What can possibly be done about this?

[1] MiéVille, China. Kraken: An Anatomy. New York: Ballantine Books, 010.

[2] John Wyndham was Jung’s favorite fiction author.

[3] Green, Joshua. Devils Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency. New York: Penguin Press, 2017.

[4] Miró, Joan 1917-1934. London: Paul Holberton Publishing, 2004.

The man lying in the bushes was not asleep. He was laughing.
He'd had a dream he said, of a pelican with a bow tie.
"I'd call him Reginald, if I were you. And I'd get yourself a bow tie."
He answered: "Can't say as I've ever seen one of my kind in a bow tie."

The shirtless tatooted man was not laughing, but walking fast,
prodded by a security man shouting "keep walking!"
and poking shirtless in the back with stiffened fingers.
"He needs a pelican with a bow tie, " I said as I walked past.

The poker's partner stepped in front of me, stopping me.
"What's your name, sir?" he asked, as if the habit itself was bored.
"Owl Man," I said without delay, pointing to the owl on my tee.
"Let's see your ID, sir!" "I don't carry ID on my morning walk."

"Why did you say that guy needed a pelican with a bow tie?"
"Because the homeless guy around the corner had a dream
of a pelican with a bow tie and he couldn't stop laughting.
Everyone needs a dream or at least something to imagine on."

"Well, Owl Man, your talk is crazy, but you do not seem crazy."
"We are at an edge, Security Man. What are you going to do?"
"Look, I gotta help my partner deal with a situation. You can go."
"Thank you. But don't forget the pelican. Don't forget the bow tie."

---
My morning walks are for treating my balance problems.

But they offer so much more when I pay attention,

don't divert my eyes, don't fear saying unexpected things.

The tiny squirrel does a tippy-toe scurry across the road

just missing being flattened by the unseen auto

the driver unaware she nearly pancaked the latest incarnation of *’s curiosity

She doesn’t know that *’s embodiment is not a one-time thing

limited only to a human and man at that and long ago

*’s curiosity is restless and seeks incarnation

over and over in other and other

There, in that homeless one, in that fallen leaf, in your left shoe

how about a little more reverence then for the untended

you never know when *’s curiosity will incarnate

may never learn, the secret of love is curiosity

? There is a very good article on “Freudianism” centered on arch-critic Frederick Crew’s new book (New Yorker Aug. 28, 2017, p. 75-82), entitled, Freud: The Making of An Illusion. New York: Metropolitan Boos, 2017. In the New Yorker’s A Critic at Large section, Louis Menand’s critique is entitled, “The Stone Guest: Can Sigmund Freud ever be killed.”

? By far the most illuminating work on the radical right/libertarian plans for the takeover of the United States is Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America. New York: Viking, 2017. This book makes visible what is mostly hidden, hidden on purpose and by design. Once you read this book, you will be able to see what is happening in our country and why things are developing the way they are. This is essential reading as is Professor MacClean’s earlier book, Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan.

? Paco and I are working on the second volume of Dreams, Bones & the Future. It will be subtitled, “Queries & Speculations.” We hope to be finished in the fall. Watch for excerpts soon.

? Rose-Lynn Fisher is an artist, writer and photographer whose latest work is photographing tears through optical magnification to create an extraordinary and fascinating look at human emotions as pictured in the microscopic landscape of tears. If you want a break from the craziness of today’s news, look at The Topography of Tears. New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2017.

? The 1981 film My Dinner with Andre with Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn is one of my favorite films. I watch it from time to time and see how prescient so much of the conversation was. Now I have spent time with Wallace Shawn’s new book, Night Thoughts (Chicago: Hay market Books, 2017). It’s a short book, but long on implications for considering possibilities amid the rubble of our time.

? Did you know? In Brown vs. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public education was unconstitutional. This not only sparked the civil rights movement, but energized the southern states to find innumerable ways to block this decision from changing what the states considered was their “rightful way of life.” This “fight” is still going on. In 1959, Prince Edward County in Virginia, padlocked all public schools, and used public funds for whites only education. For five years, black children had no public education. The backbone of racism and inequality is alive and well in many parts of the country. One of the purposes of “originalism” in court appointments, and particularly to the Supreme Court is to revitalize the original aspects of the Constitution that permitted (without naming) the fact of slavery. If originalism gains a clear majority, watch for civil rights cases, such as Brown vs. Board of Education, to be nullified.

? The anti-science stance of the current government will escalate dramatically as it is a part of the deeper and broader embrace of anti-truth. “Climate change” as a phrase has been outlawed in all government connected and government supported activities. The basic idea here is that “the truth is not what is, but what we say it is.” At some point, reality is going to bite hard.

THE ROAD TO RUIN

The Road to Ruin has never been called
the Road to Ruin, always, always something else.
In the language of reverse speak the sign's
arrows point to Greatness, Best, Number One.
Always, always, the Road to Ruin is littered
with the throwaways, the cast-offs:
humans that are different
the powerless and the havenots
truth and its children
values and their kin
culture and creativity
love
At some point it will hit you and you will turn
around and go back and begin to recover all
that has been thrown away.

It can be too late sooner than you think.

THE CROW’S APPOINTMENT

Crow waddles in, refuses the couch,
hops atop the stolid oak desk.
“A bit unusual,” I’d say.
Not at all, I’m always black.
“No wish for white then?”
None at all. Black is best you know.
“You seem ok with being a crow and being black.
What’s your problem then?”
No problem. But I’ve had what you hue mans call a dream.
“Well, then, tell me the dream.”
You mean for free?
“Well, then, what’s your fee?”
Three thousand of your US dollars per dream.
“That’s insane!”
So, as a hue man, what would you pay for a crow dream?
“The whole idea of paying for a dream is absurd!”
Hmmm. Insane. Absurd. The rule of three requires a third.
“Let me think. How about harebrained.”
You got something against hares? No feathers, I admit.
“We will have to continue this next time. Your hour is up.”
But it’s only been thirteen minutes.
“Economics. We’re on the thirteen-minute hour now.”
Insane! Absurd! Harebrained!