Letters to the editor

This page is available for readers to throw brickbats or bouquets, to sound off on any subject that has provoked their ire or promoted their admiration, and generally to share with the rest of us.

There is no shortage of space!

(A response to letter posted in issue No. 18 - see below to refresh your memory)

Far be it from me to suggest that the present-day ‘Thomas Ingoldsby Esq’ has totally missed the central theme of the writing of mine you published on Regret, which was that there is a way to deal with this negative feeling for oneself without the use of therapists . The meaning of the word ‘regret’ - to remember with distress or longing - comes, according to my sources, from the Old French regreter ‘to long after, bewail or lament someone’s death’ and can be compared with the Old English graetan ‘to weep’. Only when we handle the distress can we move on without weeping.

It is said ‘To err is human, to forgive divine.’ By dealing with regret on a daily basis we live in the present and in forgiving or pardoning ourselves, can transmute the feeling to one of creativity. In this way it is possible to begin to create a world of our own- and to take responsibility for that creation - which is as close to the original template (a single vibration) as each of us is capable. Granted this generates worlds of many sounds which I presume is what the writer intended to convey in his use of the word multiverse.

Finally, I confess I am intrigued as to why ‘Mr Ingoldsby’ should wish to conceal his identity behind a nom-de- plume belonging to the past. I wonder if he is a ‘fine ecclesiast’ or a ‘worthy knight’. Perhaps he simply has a hidden agenda?

Pamela J. Ball graciously responds to my letter concerning her article in Issue 18 of Nurturing Potential.

One sentence stood out in that article, which I reproduce here to save readers the trouble of searching for it.

"Once you have uncovered your motive, or hidden agenda, then you can look to the past to uncover where this arises from, and deal with it. When you are able to let go of the bad feeling, you will be able to adjust your behaviour accordingly."

Now, as when I wrote previously, I assert that there really is no need to uncover so called hidden agendas, motives, the past, to uncover anything, before dealing with major decisions concerning one's life, including any experience that we may interpret as 'regret'.

Benjamin Libet is a very good neuropysiologist. In a number of experiments he discovered that a personal awareness of any choice that we make comes about 1/2 second later than a 'readiness potential' that appears in our brain's wave.

When he asked people to deliberately raise their hands an experimenter looking at an EEG machine already knows that they would do so.

But when Libet asked that "even after you know that you're willing to raise your hand, see if you can stop yourself", people found that they could stop their hand from raising.

Once again the decision to inhibit the raising of the hand was recorded on the EEG machine, prior to the individual being aware of creating the inhibition.

In other words, we decide half a second prior to knowing what we think we are choosing to decide.

In this sense all decisions, and therefore actions, are unconscious and any free will that we appear to wield is illusory, even though we very much experience it as real.

This really is not surprising. Most of life is like that. When I look from my window and see a profusion of colours, it is not truly because the lush shrubbery of my garden is multicolored. Rather science asserts the shrubs in the garden absorb various waves of the spectrum and the light that remains is interpreted within my neurology as coloured.

My dog does not see these colours because she has a different neurophysiology, rather than because she's wrong!

The world then is 'as it is' rather than 'as it appears' to either my dog, or to me.

If unconsciousness has hidden agendas, motives and knowledge of the past, it is this same unconsciousness that ultimately responds to requests to change. As the true agent of change why confuse the matter with discussions of agendas, motives, and stories of the past, especially as these are just that, simply stories?

Yes something happened in an apparent past, but as time seems to pass so the story changes. If there ever was an objective past, an objective motive or an objective agenda, then no amount of 'probing' will find it.

Like the colours in my garden these stories of past motives and agendas will rarely be 'as it was', and never 'as it is'.

"Well", you might retort, "Even if I accept that I have no free will, and therefore there is nothing in my past actions that must be forgiven, or pardoned, surely that does not negate the validity of the process suggested by Pamela Ball? An investigation into apparent agendas, motives and past may be the fastest way to enable the unconscious to transmute my negative regret into creativity?"

According to Edward De Bono the real purpose of thinking is to abolish thinking. The human brain may be understood as a self-organizing information system, which allows incoming information to organize itself into routine patterns.

The result is that many things that we routinely do become increasingly complex as further bits and pieces are added in a chaotic manner.

Anyone who has made a serious study of writings on psychoanalysis, humanistic psychology, medicine, or the religions will recognise this.

And the fact that a great deal has been written such topics that suggests that looking at the past, uncovering motives, or finding hidden agendas is 'the way' to produce creative change does not make it the sole way, nor necessarily the most efficient, nor dare I suggest even true?

Daniel Stern has conducted extensive research into the treatment of mothers with difficulties of attachment to their children.

In all the studies insight promoting 'therapy' proved no more effective, than simply coaching the mother in how to approach and be with the child.

No insight, looking at patterns from the past, examining hidden agendas, or motives was necessary to help these women feel and be better parents.

Being better parents was a powerful antidote to having regrets about past experiences both as children, and as parents.

I maintain that the key to Pamela Ball's approach is the 'letting go of bad feeling'.

Harvard Medical Researchers write of this method: "An outstanding technique for its simplicity, efficiency, absence of questionable concepts and rapidity of observable results."

I have no argument with Pamela J. Ball, I simply wish to highlight the problems inherent in that troublesome sentence she wrote without detracting from my statement by instead focussing attention upon myself.

"If your servants offend you, or give themselves airs,
Rebuke them -- but mildly -- don't kick them down stairs!
To 'Poor Richard's' homely old proverb attend,
'If you want matters well managed, Go!-- if not, Send!'
A servant's too often a negligent elf;
-- If it's business of consequence, DO IT YOURSELF!"

[Following on from our previous main theme of Coincidence and Synchronicity is this letter from Kevin, who has contributed articles to Nurturing Potential on the subject of Asperger's Syndrome. Kevin's website is at http://www.angelfire.com/amiga/aut/links.html]

I read that you are considering having letters on coincidences in your next
issue? Would this set of peculiar events count as coincidences?

On Saturday 24th October 1992, for some strange reason, I wrote on a piece of paper at home "Neil Oliver: Born 5th July 1967 Died 29th March 2030. Cause of Death - Heart attack at age 62". Mr Oliver was a friend of my dad's late youngest brother. I then wrote a spoof obituary about Neil Oliver and wrote about his death in that he was found dead, sprawled across the landing in the afternoon by his wife, having suddenly suffered a massive heart attack and was rushed to hospital but died there later. My dad saw it and said "I saw your article about Mr Oliver, it will be alright if it comes true won't it?". I put Neil Oliver's funeral to be on Friday 5th April 2030 and my now late uncle to be among the Pall Bearers in St Helen's Church.

I thought little about it for years. In early 1994 I wrote another daft spoof about Mr Oliver having a massive heart attack in the Mansfield Road Working Men's Club on Sunday 7th November 1993 aged 26, 4 months after his 26th birthday. Why I had this feelings about him I don't know. I don't dislike him or anything. However, in September 1994 I learned that his dad, Jack Oliver, had a minor heart attack in Mansfield Road club on Sunday 15th May 1994, 4 months after his 56th birthday.

On the afternoon of Wednesday 22nd March 2000, my uncle was on his day off work. There were 9 of them in my dad's family and he was the youngest. It was 16 days before his 36th birthday. At around 1.50pm he called at one's of the neighbour's house and asked for an indigestion tablet as he felt woozy and had indigestion. He took a couple and was seen going back in just before 1.55pm. A relation called at 6pm and found him sprawled across the landing and he wasn't breathing. An ambulance was called and he said he had been dead some time and it was estimated he had died between 2pm and 3pm. For some reason, I started to feel that something bad had happened from 2pm onwards and I didn't know why. This persisted all day. This also happened on his brother's birthday. The autopsy revealed he had suffered a massive heart attack due to having an abnormally small heart valve from when he was born, which no-one knew about.

On Wednesday 29th March 2000 his funeral was held. Neil Oliver was one of the pall bearer's in that church and the wake was held at the Mansfield Road Working Men's club.

On Thursday 12th April 2001, three months after his 63rd birthday, Jack Oliver (Who suffered his first minor heart attack in May 1994) was walking up the street. I put his son to die 3 months before his 63rd birthday, had a massive heart attack. He collapsed and was rushed to Hospital but died there.

That is not the only weird coincidence that I have noticed with my family. My dad's dad was born on Thursday 20th January 1921 but my mum's parents married on Monday 20th January 1936. My mum's dad died on Wednesday 31st October 1973 and my dad's mum Wednesday 27th October 1976.

There is also a list of weird coincidences with serial killers. Ian Brady was born in Glasgow under a Capricorn Moon and lived there until 1954 when he came to Manchester. Fred West was also born under a Capricorn Moon and lived in Glasgow from November 1962 to December 1965. Peter Sutcliffe was fired from a job on West's birthday (29th September 1975) and was arrested on Brady's 43rd birthday (2nd January 1981). He was jailed on his last victim's 21st birthday (22nd May 1981). West hanged himself on 1st January 1995, also under a Capricorn Moon, at around the time Brady was born, on a Sunday, and the day before Brady's birthday.

The comedian and actor Leslie Crowther visited Headway House at Frenchay in Bristol for people with Head injuries on Wednesday 16th September 1992, according to his autobiography the "Bonus of Laughter". He came home very moved by what he had seen there. 17 days later, on Saturday 3rd October 1992 he was involved in a serious car crash when he feel asleep on the motorway driving back from an allied carpet store opening in Birmingham, his car hit the central reservation on the M5 near Cheltenham, overturned numerous times and landed on the banking. He later developed two blood clots to his brain and had a long spell in Frenchay Hospital and used Headway house himself.

The then leader of the Labour Party, John Smith, visited St Bartholomew's Hospital in London on Thursday 28th April 1994 as the Tories were trying to shut down some wards there. He was fighting to keep them open. He met Professor Mike Besser there and was shown around the Hospital by him. Two weeks later, on Thursday 12th May 1994, he had a massive heart attack and was rushed to exactly the same Hospital. Professor Mike Besser tried to save his life but failed and he died in exactly the same Hospital.

In his last film before he fell of an Horse and ended up a quadraplegic, Christopher Reeve played a policeman who had been paralyzed from the waist down in the film "Above Suspicion". He visited a spinal injuries ward, seven weeks before the accident and said "God it is frightening to see what these people have to face. I am just glad it isn't me. One slip or fall and your life is changed forever".

I also did a sponsored swim to raise money for people with Autism and the National Autistic Society on April Fool's Day 1995, when I didn't know I had Asperger's Syndrome myself at the time. I said I was grateful for who I was and that I didn't have to live with a condition such as that. Or so I thought on April Fool's Day 1995....