Disrupting The Conspiracy Of Silence
“Our lives begin to end, the moment that we become silent about things that matter” —-Martin Luther King, Jr.
Choose wisely, oh mankind, the painful secrets that we must keep, if we choose to silently suffer, we will not awaken, but instead die anxious, lonely and asleep —- Elisha Scott
What is our cultural conspiracy of silence? The conspiracy of silence is an agreement, either formal or tacit, between two or more parties not to discuss some matter nor to reveal any information concerning it, especially in order to avoid blame, embarrassment, or other discomfort. It also points to the promises that we keep that we may have never made consciously, and which become the strongest supporting pillars.
- What value is there to our life and to our story, if we refuse to tell the world about it?
- What is the value of our love, if it is never shared with all others?
- What is the value of our vocal abilities, if we neglect or refuse to use them?
- What is the value of our speaking, if we perceive that few care to listen to us?
According to the famous introduction to the movie “Alien”
, “IN SPACE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM.”
Those presently living on Earth are part of an economic, family, and religious system that not only cannot or will not hear our screams, but are also causal agents behind much of the suffering that inspires our agonized cries. Our unwillingness to speak, or to reveal our deepest, most true self revolves around issues of a compromised sense of safety and emotional security, which are exacerbated by trauma, shame, and denial, and by an often times oppressive, life devaluing surrounding culture.
I started building a narrative around my life at a fairly late stage developing a unique and rarely communicated perspective. My insight is derived from my personal involvement with toxic masculinity, toxic religion, and toxic capitalism, as well as our human capacity for healing from those wounds, and to be spiritually transformed. These topics are challenging to recognize and address, due to thousands of years of cultural normalization of unacceptable attitudes and behavior, and a conspiracy of silence maintained to preserve and protect the status quo.
Personal and/or cultural toxicities tend to stay ignored, overlooked, or even denied by those with little time for insight, introspection, or interest in other people’s points of view on these troubling issues. Healing is not an option for many suffering people, who tend to ignore personal responsibility for their problems, at their own peril.
Toxic men have their gun in one hand, their penis in the other hand, and no room for a bible, let alone understanding of its real message.
This book”is non-fiction, and is not good reading for anybody seeking to escape and to be entertained. Some of the writings are spiritually, philosophically and intellectually challenging in their nature, often soaring to heights rarely approached by words, or descending the depths into the darkest recesses of the human mind. I have included a cross section of my thoughts and feelings, as this is also a work of self revelation, and I have no shame in doing so.
A Master Teacher once spoke to me, and said
“No teacher shall effect your salvation, you must work it out for yourself“”
This book represents my personal work towards that ultimate end.
Over the years, I have become deeply disturbed by the developments within our shared world, within my individual consciousness, and the points of connection between self and other, through language, religion, and philosophy, that have created oppression, repression, and personal and social disease. Starting within myself, I have seen how a lifetime of oppression, and repression, had brought about a series of near fatal illnesses, physiological as well as spiritual. I saw how a dark force, common to all of humanity, lived, moved, and had its being unintentionally enshrined within my own heart and soul. I also saw how the medical, economic, religious, cultural, political, and spiritual traditions had failed to honor and provide for my most fundamental, innermost needs of being valued for my basic essence, and to have my voice listened to often enough by those who have that capacity of the Heart.
Virtually all men have experienced oppression, repression, and personal and social disease at some point in their lives, and we have been both the victims, and the conscious and unconscious perpetrators, of this broken behavior. We have all attempted to manage our symptoms in our own unique, yet all too often broken and dysfunctional ways. I have wanted to help myself, my father and several of my male friends, to develop greater insight into these issues over the years, but I did not find an interest consistently expressed in exploring these issues with me. But my deceased friend Marty Crouch did begin to show great interest in my Facebook posts beginning late in 2016, and this opened the door to a different level of sharing between the two of us.
Marty and I, and our wives, and one other couple shared a friendship group for twenty-five years together, and we also shared a book club experience together for the last four years., Marty and I were quite friendly with each other, yet rarely spoke at great length or depth, or showed extraordinary interest in developing a deeper friendship apart from our wives. I noted how his wife organized and dominated his life over the years that I had known him, and how she would all too often speak for him, or even verbally run over him in group meetings. It was common knowledge that when his wife was present, Marty would not consistently reveal himself and his own story, and he would instead defer to Eddy through his silence. My own experience of Eddy was that she was usually quite willing to listen to what I had to say initially, but if I paused, or drew a breath, she would often fill the empty space with herself, rather than wait for me and whatever message I might be trying to deliver, and all further communication would end between us.
This brings me to January 11th of 2017, when I had my first ‘seizure’. I awoke at 2:45 in the morning, and went into my office and sat down. Suddenly, I lost all ability to move, and to even think, though I remained quite aware during this approximately one minute process. It was then that I became aware of a “black mass”, almost the size of a golf ball, in the left portion of the brain area of my inner field of body awareness. This was the first time that I had awareness of the energy field of my body since July of 1987. I became quite concerned by this whole experience, though I kept it to myself initially. Every subsequent time I looked internally, I could still see the dark mass. The next month, I had yet another seizure, this time much milder, and in a public setting, while playing cards at a mutual friend’s home.
I did not talk about the seizures, or the black mass, initially, because I thought that I might be losing my mind. I later began talking about it with my wife, and some friends, and it was theorized that it might be related to something spiritual or psychic in nature. But I came to know it as “death”, at least in a spiritual sense. I saw that there was no negotiating with it. Prayers, meditations, affirmations, reading, talking with others, nothing seemed to have any impact on the dark mass. I knew that some sort of spiritual death was coming my way, and I felt little need to discuss it with a doctor, though I did tell my family physician that I feared that my own death might precede my father’s, when I took my disabled father to see her on January 17th of 2017..
On March 5, 2017 our friend Marty also suffered a seizure and was hospitalized at OHSU. Marty had been in a four-year recovery phase from malignant melanoma, a process first diagnosed in late 2012. He appeared to have been successfully treated with Interleuken II therapy, a powerful immunotherapy regimen. Now, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and Sharon and I visited him two days prior to its surgical removal. Mr. M and I talked about our seizures, and I was struck by the similarity of his seizures with my own. I told Mr. M that my perception was that Death was making itself known to me, through the dark mass that I could “see” in my own energy field. I hoped that Mr M’s mass did not indicate a death for him. Yet, this was to begin the era of “death terrors” for my dear friend Marty, and I was to experience my own peculiar version of the terror, as well.
That next day, Wednesday, at noon, I had another episode of such intensity, and duration, that I dared not even attempt to get up from the couch. I had previously arose from the couch, and briefly lost consciousness, so I was “all shook up”, yet I still had no desire to get a doctor involved. Sharon came home later that afternoon from her creative writing class, and found me quite compromised. She listened to my story, and accepted my decision not to seek further medical attention, since this was perceived as a spiritual crisis, while she offered her own love and care. She monitored my blood pressure, and when she noted when my breathing became shallow, to offer me a paper bag to breathe into, lest I sink into a “panic attack”. Each time I tried to get off the couch, I became quite dizzy. I continued feeling quite physically subdued, and some sort of anxiety reaction was also happening with my body/mind. I was also losing my ability to talk. It took all of the power that I could muster to force words out. It was reminiscent of a time 31 years before, when for two days I had an event that prevented me from speaking during my trip through the underworld..
The present time, I actually felt like my consciousness was trying to escape, and it took all of my resources just to hold it together. I characterized this present event to my wife Sharon as “losing my mind”, while having an almost neurotoxic component to it. I did not want anything to do with another neurological exam, having been through that horror several years before, when I had experienced excruciating headaches. I tried to go about my “normal” activities, while being grateful that I did not have to provide care for my disabled father, whose care that week was taken over by others.
Thursday came, and I had not improved much. It also was the day that Marty’s tumor was being removed. I had dual concerns, for Marty, and for myself. I went about my limited daily activities as best I could, but I became quite conscious of my own fear and anxiety around Death, both of self, and of other. I continued to listen to the occasional taped “spiritual wisdom” tapes of some of my past teachers, hoping to hear something that might bring me comfort. Well, I listened to Jack Boland, a nationally renowned speaker and master of the recovery process. I owned a tape where he referred to me personally, said he knew me, probably better than I knew myself. He then stated that he wished pain, not peace of mind, to all who had not yet fulfilled their interior spiritual obligation to cleanse their hearts, as this is the great precursor to any lasting spiritual progress .
Those who understand this statement UNDERSTAND.
And here I thought that I had already performed that process! How wrong that I was. After yet another nearly sleepless night, I got up and sat in the family room, and awaited for Sharon to join me . My life’s message was bubbling up within me, and I felt a compulsion to share it with my world. Yet I also knew that there were few, if any, people presently in my life who had the time, or even the interest, in listening to what Spirit was trying to “pour through me”. As I lay out on the couch, feeling my own emotional/spiritual death about to overtake me, I cried out in despair to Sharon, to please share my message, since I didn’t believe that I had the capacity to deliver it in a way that others could hear, or understand.
Sharon looked at me with acceptance, love, and compassion. Sharon had been listening to my story for close to thirty years, and she had witnessed me sitting on my voice for most of that time. She then stated unequivocally that my message was my own, and must be spoken through me, or not at all. Even my tears, and begging, would not change her mind. I was in such pain and agony, that I knew that I could not go on with my life in any kind of healthy way as it was presently being expressed to the world. I had the experience of a lifetime of people experiencing me as less of a human being than I am, starting with my own diseased father, followed by a steady progression of angry, sometimes hateful, judgmental male and female power figures (with a few notable exceptions), and I did not know how to act or feel differently. My voice had been silenced by myself and others, even in many settings where spiritually aware, conscious people gathered to celebrate ‘connection’.
This loving act on her part by refusing to speak for me was instrumental in the recovery of my ability to speak and to write. I could not let myself die again emotionally and spiritually, so I asked my Spirit how to best deliver “my message”. A prayer from my past, first created from a dream in 1992, formed in my mind “Grandfather, Great Spirit, Thank You”. All of a sudden I was COMPELLED to write, and I did not stop the process until fifteen pages of a story poured through me. My Spirit chose the format of a parable, knowing that it would be discarded, without reading, by those who already believed that they knew me, or it might even be discarded if I recognized too much of myself coming through the story.. It took less than two days to write, and it was the first story I have ever written. And, the dark mass in my body of energy disappeared, coincidentally at about the same time that Marty’s tumor was surgically removed. To this day, I remain healed of that darkness, though I am often compelled to write, and to share with, the One who listens.
The process of writing a book has been a great challenge for me. First, I am new to writing, having written very little in my life until the fall of 2016. So I am learning a bit about writing, while also learning a lot about myself and my world through this process. What I have learned about my life is that much of my early life can be characterized by the hypnotism or mesmerizing of me through all traumatic influences that I experienced. Trauma’s most damaging impact upon a human being is its capacity to attenuate, or even block, normal emotional expression and interchange with others, Literally, unexpressed energy is stored within the body and mind, creating black holes of negative influence on healthy bodily function, and happy human interchange.
My “Spirit of Wholeness” gave to me a most amazing, profound dream in 1964, when I was eight years old. Up to that point in my life, I experienced nightmares almost continuously during sleep time, resulting in bed wetting and poor sleep patterns. There were several adult truths expressed through the dream, but the final message was that the darkness that I witnessed in my life had personal and collaborative causes, much of which was embedded within myself. The rest of my life, even up to the present moment, can be characterized by my wrestling match with that most important individual, and collective, truth.
Writing about trauma as a baby and as a pre-verbal human being eventually opened up Pandora’s box to my unexpressed anger, abandonment, betrayal, and loneliness issues. The unblocking of that energy caused a major life force movement, and brought fear and concern for my emotional health from my life partner, Sharon, during the two plus hours I had tapped into that suffering. Recently, I also rewrote the section of my life of the period 1986-1987, when I attempted suicide, and began my search for Truth. Pandora’s box opened up again, causing me to re-experience the traumatic emotions of that age including despair pain, loneliness and grief. I truly entered the “dark night of the soul”. 
The investigation of personal trauma, my response to it, and my search for truth is an exercise in compassion, understanding, and healing, and need not be maudlin in nature., My intention for this writing was not to bring harm to myself, but to bring a message to the world about the suffering that the world so casually creates, and then denies its own culpability. I wanted to give voice to the millions who already died, went insane, or have been imprisoned because of our shared disease of the spirit, and the collective conspiracy of silence around society’s and religion’s responsibility for it. My hope is to give a voice to the suffering of our world, while pointing in the direction towards where our healing might be found.
In July of 2021, after I finished the underworld chapter of 1986-1987, I took a long drive in my sports car. Typically, I find great joy and happiness through such a drive, but this time there was no such release. As I slowed down and began to end the drive about an hour from home, a dove changed direction, and flew to my car, and led me for about 20 seconds, until I stopped the car. I wondered what this experience meant, so I did an internet search. In spiritual circles, the dove leading me meant that my guiding spirit was still with me, forever leading me back onto the paths of peace and healing.
I cried for two minutes.
And, with the tears, I found forgiveness and compassion for myself.
What greater gift to self can there be?
This book may not be for the healthy, wealthy, and wise among us. It is designed, however, for those seeking to create their own unique bridge to our healing potential.
The search for truth continues. May you find what you are looking for.
There are times shells, or walls, are necessary, but more often we can rote the ourselves by being who we are. Neither hiding nor revealing ourselves will prevent our share of pain, but in being who we are, we get to be part of the Universal stream, not just a nut in a shell waiting to fall.–Mark Nepo
Speaking truth may exact a painful cost from the giver. Danny and I were neighbors from1968-1969. We both were, at times, exuberant and rambunctious lads, and enjoyed playing hard and having fun several times together, though we were not best friends. Danny’s father, Greg, and my father were to become acquainted, as well, and they both knew how to put an entertaining story together, and keep each other’s interest One afternoon Greg walked down the road to our house, and engaged my father in conversation. Greg had a serious , concerned look on his face. I hung around them a bit, overhearing bits and pieces of their exchanges while kicking my football through imaginary goal posts on our roof. Greg stated that he and his wife were getting divorced. Greg had caught his wife having an affair while he was out of town, which happened frequently for his employment. And, there was more than one instance of this behavior with other men. Greg called his wife a whore, a term I had not heard used before, though I knew what it might mean.
The next day, Danny and I happened to be exploring a vast field east of our homes. I casually mentioned that his father had come down to speak to my father the day before. Danny asked what I thought they might have talked about.
“Umm, Danny, your father said your mother is a whore, and that they are getting divorced”.
“That is not true! You take that back you bastard!”
Danny exclaimed in an anger I had not seen from a playmate before.
“Why would I take this back, Danny? This is from your dad! It ain’t going to change anything for you!”
I yelled back at him, a bit intense and now defensive. He then wrestled with me for a while. He was a little bigger than me, but we were almost equal in strength. After more wrestling around on the ground, he got me in a leg lock around my mid section, and squeezed me with all of the strength he could muster. “
Take that back, or I will squeeze you to death!”
It was a decidedly uncomfortable position to be in. I was trapped and helpless, and he was inhibiting my ability to breathe.
“Danny, what purpose is there for me to take your father’s statements back. Go talk to your dad, and leave me the fuck alone!”
“Take it back. Take it back! TAKE IT BACK!”
He then squeezed harder, like his life depended upon it.
“Jesus, Danny, I need to breathe! If this gets me out of your leg lock, then I take it back. “
He then released me. “
Go fuck yourself, and stay away from me!”
Exclaimed Danny I never hung out with him again. It can get painful trying to speak difficult truths to unwelcoming ears. Danny was to get into multiple skirmishes with the law, eventuating in his extended imprisonment, first in county jail, and then in the Oregon State penitentiary several years later.
Me?
I still can feel Danny’s legs squeezing the life out of me, when I feel obligated to tell the truth. The writing of book #8 is a true miracle for me, I had to overcome our culture’s conspiracy of silence and denial, its leg lock upon my soul, and my own internalization of its oppressive qualities.
Religious irrationality, anti-social and Earth destroying capitalist economic philosophy, and family traumatic engagement with each other is the leg lock around our capacity to speak the difficult truth, heal from the damaging effects of its oppression,, and move forward in a healed life.
True freedom is the path, and the goal, of all healthy life experience, and the only reason that I am still here.. . .
I have had a target on my back for much of my life, and I never understood why until later in adulthood. Like most everyone else on this planet, I have been subjected to the family and cultural forces of oppression and repression and crazy making communication and behavior. I have found that most people do NOT appreciate feedback about their errant behavior, and if I wanted to make more ‘friends” and be accepted by groups of damaged people I certainly would not offer to the world this book.
I would probably have written a vacuous book about
- four minute meditations for success, or a
- three easy step enlightenment techniques for transcendence in our spare time.
But that is NOT me. This book is NOT for people who want an easy life fix, or to stay grounded in their own unconsciousness, but instead for those who want to understand why they are not soaring upward into new dimensions of being and doing, for in the complete seeing, is the new being revealed.
This book, which is my only creative baby, may be greeted by readers with this same initial negative response as my grandmother had for Kodiak. Like my cousin Kodiak, this story is full of potential, and points to a healthy and happy state of being, once the “homeliness” is presented and acknowledged.
My search for Truth, with the subsequent delivery of my spiritual “baby” is nothing like anything that the reader has ever seen before. It will be difficult to assess its value and relevance, until it has “an opportunity to grow on the reader”, and whatever toxicity that the story stirs up is filtered out. The story will not have universal appeal, yet, to me, it is my only child, and as such it remains a “handsome baby boy”, full of life, love, and the potential for healing. And, this “handsome baby boy” is the story of my exploratory trips into my own “inner space”, where my mission to support personal and collective evolution continues to this day. Not only did humanity make it to the moon (why do moon landing deniers even exist?), each of us also has the potential to reach God, Truth, Love, Compassion, Healing, and Light, after we leave the launchpads of our own lives.
My goal in life was certainly not to become a diseased human being, attempt recovery from that disease, write a book about the process, and, establish myself as an authority on subject matter that makes me irrelevant to all who have no interest in healing or in my journey. Life is more about building a better state of consciousness, with enhancing the life-affirming qualities, and the cultivation of greater insight, than the books that get written, and the foes that get smitten..Literally, the words of my story are the vapor trails of my journey through the space and time, and no one should set out as a goal to just chase my trails, or anyone else’s, for that matter. We are all capable of making our own unique vapor trails on our journey to the higher dimensions of our life experience and its supporting consciousness, and we can develop the willingness to share those inspired words with others…
Through our resonance with the “wise ones” of our age, and of all ages, we may yet drum up sufficient support for a healing change in collective and individual consciousness, before our planet fails, and our civilization collapses upon itself.. . .
This book is comprised of 193,963 words, and is grouped into thirty two chapters. It has been written by a man who never had anything to say, or a desire to say it, until nearly dying in 1986.. It only took another three decades to finally put life experiences to words, after more brushes with DEATH.. Death is the final and greatest frontier, and motivator for the procrastinator.. Early death threatens everybody, including our planet Earth. It will be noted that on several occasions in this book, I will be speaking up for Mother Earth, as her voice has been drowned out by the American Capitalist concerns coupled with the pseudo-Christian religious beliefs and malpractice that dominates our time..
This life of mine has become a “Miracle Experiment”, in which I attempt to penetrate our cultural conspiracy of silence, the conspiracy that keeps mankind imbalanced and diseased, and prevents humanity from achieving its collective potential. Note that the title indicates that I am penetrating the “conspiracy of silence” rather than dispelling it, as the power of the collective experience still dominates human consciousness. My life was not lived in vain, however, for I am a part of a massive movement to heal the American soul. I will continue to write, and to speak out, until I am no more. The story that follows is my attempt to document relevant parts of the process, and to present them to the world
Speak not of evil, see no evil, hear no evil, HEAL NO EVIL
