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Summary by TK

Jan Cox Talk 142, Jan 24, 1985, runtime 1:50

  [Consciousness as biochemical reaction in the brain and nervous system. Without the 5 senses there is no consciousness . The inputs from "out there" become biochemical changes in the brain. One of the functions of the brain is consciousness as a biochemical process of alteration. No "events out there" can exist unless and until converted to an "internal" biochemical alteration/activity.]
  [We are almost absolutely random: an accidentally produced configuration of molecular structure. Thus all lateral expansion is a stabilization of randomness. "How can you trust an accident?" i.e. when can you trust yourself?]
  [The difference between externally produced bizarre behavior as forgivable by Life, while internally produced behavior is unforgivable. Yet there is no real difference, it's all the same. e.g., manslaughter vs. premeditated murder.]
  [Only two types of reaction produced by external influence: Action or thinking of action (TOA) (one very limited--Blue Circuit--exception: vague feeling or mood about these two).  Thinking of action types are at the highest level of Life's nervous system. Notice that the organism never thinks about thinking. Memories are not memory of thinking but memory of action. Blue Circuit is the closest thing that the Red Circuit has to a voice. Action deepens even the appearance of such feeling function.]
  [New classification of the internal voices: only two types of voices--public and private. Public voice--normally Yellow Circuit based: head, audible, overt. Private voice--normally Blue Circuit based: muttering, "sotto voce", heart voice, internal. All conflict based on these 2 voices; private voice conflicts with the public voice. Private voice tends to be related more to reactive behavior, recoiling mode. Red Circuit bricklayer says to visiting mother-in-law: "You old bat, are you back already?" College professor Yellow Circuit driven says: (graciously) "Nice to see you again Mother." while private voice mutters and complains "Drat! Hope she doesn't stay long." Private voice speaks for public voice more in red/blue circuit types while public voice chimes in guilt counterpoint of: "Why do you say things like that, and hurt people?”]
  [Primary fueling of public voice in Red Circuit- and Blue Circuit-types comes from the Blue Circuit.  Secondary fueling comes from Yellow Circuit.  Primary fueling of the public voice in Yellow Circuit-types comes from the Yellow Circuit while secondary fueling comes from the Blue Circuit.  Primary for the private voice is Blue Circuit in both types.  Red Circuit has no voice, but influences through the Blue Circuit which is the closest thing to it for the Red Circuit]
  [Must attempt to coalesce the two voices into one. This is a form of lateral expansion. You could then trust yourself. Not worry about what you're going to say or do next. Stabilize an otherwise random structure. Only one voice speaks for you, not two.]
  [Public voice is audible (civilized, polite, external utterances) but even when not overtly audible it speaks internally in an audible, more convincing and definitive way compared to private more diffused and less articulate voice. Great profit in stopping the internal public voice--e.g. don't let it proclaim, "I think I'll stop drinking coffee tomorrow!" i.e. don't tell yourself what you're going to do.]
  [Sing out what the private voice can't say. Everybody must learn to sing. Remember you can sing what can't be otherwise said.]
  [TASK: take 2-45 min. walks while continually observing the 2 voices. Remember that consciousness is an instantaneous, immediate biochemical reaction. Molecular alterations.

Transcript

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE VOICES?   YOU MUST THINK I'M CRAZY

Document:  142,  January, 24, 1985
Copyright (c) Jan M. Cox, 1985           

     First, a couple of appropos-of-nothing-in-particular remarks.  Part of the trick of doing what I do, being able to turn This into a transmittable form, is that no one told me any of this.  If someone had told me about This, in words, or if I had read about it in a book, do you see how simple it would be?  One other thing, for everything I say, regardless of what it is, there is an equal area of which I do not speak.

     I am going to push on a bit further into areas I have previously mentioned.  They are connected with each other, although one sounds as though it is more scientific, and the other more psychological in nature.  And I'm taking them both in a different direction from previous discussions.

     One area is related to what seems to be the eternal question of distinguishing between "in here" and "out there", between "what I am" and "what I can see", between "my psychological self" and "the environment", between what seems to be psychological and biological.  Using several maps and methods, you should begin to feel, beyond any theory, that something is ordinarily overlooked vis-a-vis the relationship between "what happens in me and what happens in life".  Religion and psychology both have to responded to such questions, yet, neither they nor anyone else, have come up with any satisfying explanations.

     The very thing that people think of as themselves, the heart of human individuality, that which seems to be "I", is simply a biochemical function of the brain.  It is time for most of you to catch a quick glimpse, that what religion, psychology, and the biological sciences have been trying to track down -- the elusive thing that seems to be consciousness -- is a biochemical function of the brain itself.  When someone says, "Joe said so and so and it made me angry," or, "The weather ruined my day," they assume they're talking about the environment.  They're reporting their reaction to something that occurred "out there".  But they are, in fact, talking about a biochemical activity, a literal change in the molecular structure of the brain.  Have you ever asked yourself, how do you know the environment?  How can you know the environment?  Perception of anything, be it consciousness, the humidity, the way someone spoke to you at the bank, or how so and so cut in front of you at the grocery check-out line, requires a biochemical change in the structure of the brain.  If you can't smell it, taste it, touch it, hear it, or see it, it does not exist, even if it's standing right next to you.  And it can only exist, that is, consciousness can only be aware of it's existence, whatever it may be, if a biochemical reaction occurs in the brain.

     Within the scientific community, those fooling around with brain activity, are just beginning to make such hypotheses.  The information has yet to become part of the collective consciousness of ordinary man, but the groundwork has been laid, and eventually it will be common knowledge.  Using run of the mill, scientific terminology, any time your attention is focused and you perceive something "out there", your perception has been turned into some kind of biochemical activity within you.  The molecules that form the brain tissue undergo an alteration each time your senses apprehend something in the environment.  If I stand up, if I move my arms or pace across the room, or if I alter the rhythm and pitch of my speech, you might say, "Sure, something has happened, you changed your vocal patterns and made a bunch of gestures." But the only way that you can have an awareness of this activity, is when the information is apprehended by the senses, producing a molecular change in your nervous system.

     If you happen to be driving along, and someone flies past in a big truck and hollers out, "Watch where you're going, you road hog," your feeling about this encounter is based upon one thing.  Your eyes see the gesture, your ears pick up the sound waves of his voice, and it all physically, literally creates a biochemical molecular change in the brain itself.  It initially sounds as though we're speaking of a "psychological" reaction to the truck driver's comments and gestures, "I was so mad I could have hit him. Some people act like they own the road."  As though the reaction is absolutely separate from the external event.  The event is not external.  We're beyond talking about some kind of psychological stimulus.  If you can perceive it "out there", it must take form "in here", it must produce a biochemical alteration in your nervous system to take form "in here", or it doesn't exist for you.

     If we could shoot freeze-frame photographs of the molecular structure of your nervous system just prior to your encounter with the truck driver and then continue to sequentially snap photos throughout the incident, you would see a distinct change.  We are not talking about psychological trauma, about vague, invisible input.  The input, the information, the event, the encounter, does not exist until it is turned into molecular activity.  You cannot be mad, you cannot be happy, you cannot feel compassion until whatever it is "out there" is converted into biochemical activity.  And that's it.

     Even if we say, each and every person is surrounded by an entire universe of potential psychological forces, all questions about, "Why am I the way I am?" are still absolutely moot.  It makes no difference, because a "psychological" force cannot become part of a man until it produces a biochemical change. The senses must turn that which seems to be outside forces into literal, physical biochemical activity.

     Consider what happens when you try to remember a piece of information -- someone's name, for instance.  You might say, "Yes, I know who you're talking about.  Give me a minute to think about it.  It's on the tip of my tongue."  You can catch glimpses of this happening in yourself.  It feels and sounds as though, "There is an 'I' inside of me and if you give me a second, I'll find a place to start the search, then something will trigger an associative pattern and I will be able to retrieve the information."  It's also related to the feeling in everyone that, "I will change.  I know I have a bad temper and I must do something about it.  From now on, I am going to..."  It sounds as though there is a "me", and then there's another "me", or a part of "me" who is bad tempered.  When you get down to the molecular level, there are no "me" molecules.  Likewise, there is no group of molecules whose function it is to identify that which is "not me".

     Ordinary consciousness could certainly, via logical discourse, be led to agree that the body is part of a continuing biochemical process, taking in food/energy, transforming it, utilizing it as needed, then disposing of certain byproducts.  At the level of the basic food chain, it is a quite mechanical, biochemical process.  Just as the liver has certain specialized functions, so does the brain.  And one of its functions is consciousness.  The liver produces bile, the brain produces thought.  You cannot separate consciousness from the same biochemical activity that runs the liver.

     To speak of events "out there" precipitating psychological states "in me", is to ignore the fact that the internal state produced is the biochemical activity of the brain.  How is it that a hard event can turn into less than hard, nonphysical, psychological data and become part of a man's consciousness?  "Why am I the way I am?  Is it because of events that occurred during my childhood?"  There are no events until they are turned into molecular activity.  You cannot be conscious of anything, you cannot feel insulted, you can not experience pleasure, dissatisfaction, or curiosity, unless you have a nervous system with the sensate ability to turn events into internal biochemical activity.

     Although the past exists, it is irrelevant.  It makes no difference what you were before you met This Thing, nor how you came to be here.  That you ended up being you is based upon an absolute condition of biochemical randomness.  What is the chance a certain sperm from a certain man reached a certain egg at the proper time?  You wouldn't be you -- you wouldn't be the same biochemically, you wouldn't be sitting here listening to me now if, for example, your father had had two more drinks or if your mother had been jogging rather than eating fried fish just prior to your conception.  Based upon any number of random possibilities, the internal structure of your nervous system, the way you take in the external world and turn it into biochemical activity would be totally different.  Everything about you, your opinions, your reactions toward others, your entire spectrum of ordinary perception, would be totally, drastically different.

     Can you see that, in a sense, a large part of what we have been doing up until now, what I have been directing you to do, what I have referred to as lateral expansion, is an effort to stabilize this randomness?  I have asked, under what conditions, you can absolutely trust yourself.  How can anyone trust a random accident?  How can you depend upon a random occurrence?

     I want you to Neuralize that Life will tolerate strangeness in an individual only up to a certain point.  But it will absolutely forgive him once it is later proved that the behavior was totally beyond his control?  All kinds of horrendous behavior is forgiven on the basis that "it wasn't him doing it," on the basis that an external biochemical activity influenced him beyond his will.  Note however, that such forgiveness is not forthcoming when the strange behavior -- the disruption in biochemical activity -- is thought to arise solely from and within the person.

     Let's say an ordinarily dependable fellow, punctual, steady, and well-liked by his co-workers, comes in to work one day and starts picking fights.  He tells lewd jokes, pours water in peoples' laps, he shouts and curses and rambles and raves incoherently.  His co-workers tolerate it for a day or two, but then complaints pile up.  An investigation is made and it's discovered that his wife has been slipping LSD into his coffee for the past few mornings; unbeknown to him, of course.  External biochemical activity has been imposed upon him, influencing him beyond his will.  And he will be forgiven -- Life will forgive him -- as soon as it's discovered that his wife has been lacing his coffee.  But Life, hence men, will never forgive a man who acts upon a disruption in his own internal biochemical processes.  Burglars are not forgiven.  People found guilty of premeditated murder are not forgiven.  Society will put such a man away, provide him with medications and available remedies, and perhaps eventually proclaim him to be well again.  But Life will never forgive him for his actions.  It is as though Life holds him personally responsible for his deeds, for his unbalanced, unprofitable biochemical activity.

     You should find this curious.  It is not mystical.  It's simply the way things are.  As long as it appears that this unacceptable biochemical activity, read as "behavior", is externally based, then as soon as the outside influence is removed, the entire episode can be forgotten.  "Well, it wasn't your fault.  Actually, with all that stuff happening to you, I'm surprised you didn't act stranger than you did.  Let's go get a cup of coffee." All is forgiven.  However, you need to begin to See for yourself that there is no difference between so-called externally and internally based biochemical conditions, between "out there" and "in here", although on a very ordinary level of existence, there appears to be a very specific difference.

     Neuralize that which seems to be the process of talking to one's self as a biochemical process.  "I've got a bad temper.  I know that.  Sometimes I can control it and sometimes I can't.  But some people push me too far and it's not my fault.  Yet I'll admit, there have been times when I flew off the handle and I was probably just misinterpreting what someone said to me."  Note that this chatter falls into the two categories I just mentioned:  an externally based, forgivable behavior, or an internally based, unforgivable area, when there is no such distinction.  Consciousness is not a vague psychological reaction to something "out there".  Anything "out there", anything in the environment, anything that appears to be external to a man, literally does not exist until it is turned into biochemical activity via the senses.  Remember, there is an equivalent amount that I am not telling you.

     There are two forms of reaction possible to Man.  You can either take action or you can think about taking action.  You will See that what appears to be quite different types of people are biochemical reactions which result in the individual either taking action or thinking about action.  As long as you are alive there is continual alteration, molecular activity within the biochemical structure of the brain, resulting in two possible responses.  In other words, if you're conscious, you're either acting or thinking about acting.  By the way, talking is acting.  You should, of course, know by now that both are necessary.

     From one particular view point, those who think about acting are at the highest level of Life's nervous system.  They are the inventors, and planners.  People do not develop new computer systems by going out to the shed with nails and a hammer, saying, "Well, I'll see what I can come up with."  They sit down and think about it.  But note, if anything is to be done, there must be those who undertake the physical activity necessary to actually build the new computer.

     Man acts or thinks about action, but he never thinks about thinking.  You are misled by your molecules, if you think you can think about thinking.  The only thing you can think about is action.  You can be sitting in a dark closet with cotton stuffed in your ears.  You're not acting, but if you're conscious, you're thinking about action.  You're thinking about what you're going to do when you get out of the closet.  You're thinking about what you did yesterday, or what might happen tomorrow.  Memory is not filled with thinking of thinking memories, it is filled with the memory of action.  Your first response to such a statement is "that can't be true", but it is true.  This organism either acts or thinks about acting.  And thinking about action includes future as well as past action.  A man does not think about what he will think or has thought.  The best you can do is to attempt to think about the kind of action involved in trying to think.

     Here's a little something I'm going to throw in.  The Blue Circuit can almost have feelings about thoughts of action.  Furthermore, the Blue Circuit is the closest thing the Red Circuit has to a voice.  And action dampens this voice.  Why does a 3 mile run miraculously cure your case of the blues?  The Blue Circuit, the emotions, almost has the ability to speak.  And when you hear its voice is when you're in a good blue funk.  But what happens to the voice when you switch from thinking about action to actually acting?

     People with a core molecular base in the Red Circuit, the laborers and bricklayers of the world, generally have no patience with other people's psychological ills.  Let's say that bricklayer Bill's cousin Charlie is having a nervous breakdown.  Bill's attitude is, "You know what's wrong with that man?  He won't work. He's never kept a job more than 3 months in all the years I've known him.  All he does is sit around and write poetry.  He's a dreamer.  If I could get that good-for-nothing out there laying bricks, he wouldn't be in a mental hospital.  He'd be too tired to have, whatever you call it, a neurosis.  He wouldn't have the energy for it."  Those whose primary molecular reaction is to act find those who are primarily based in thinking of action, along with their related apparent voices and moods, to be nonsensical.

     In a certain never understood sense, the bricklayer is correct.  If we could pluck Charlie out of his own molecular reaction patterns and make him lay bricks every day, that is, make him act rather than think of action, his biochemical structure would undergo a drastic change.  It would, in fact, cure him.  But do you understand that it would cure him of his habitual, biochemically patterned activity.  It would cure him of his own nervous system.  He would no longer be Charlie.  Of course, that's not the way things work.  This does not happen in Life -- nor can it.  To wit:  psychologists still make a very good living and mental hospitals will always be full.  True nervous system change will always remain the sole domain of This.

     Although it sounds less scientific, less biological than some of my earlier descriptions, I'm directing your attention back to that ever present, always unnoticed, hence undescribed phenomenon, the voices.  Were I to ask, as I have many times, "Who hears voices?", any reasonable group of people would certainly deny it.  Rather, they would interpret the question as, "Who here is flaky?"  But the voices are at the very heart of what people take to be themselves.

     There are two different types of internal voices.  For the time being, I'll call them the Public and the Private voices.  Everyone hears both.  There is a third voice, which I am not going into, which would be the primal voice, the common voice of Life.  But for now I'll confine my description to the two continuously audible Public and Private voices.  I could call them the supra voice and sotto voice, respectively.  Or the head voice and the chest voice (or heart voice for you romantics); or the audible voice and the muttering voice.  Everyone has both.  And although they periodically fall into simultaneous agreement, the normal condition of biological consciousness is to have two distinct voices speaking.  Furthermore, each voice is fed primarily, by either the Yellow or the Blue Circuit.  As a rule, when you speak to someone else, you talk to them with two voices and they talk to you with two voices.  When you daydream two voices speak.  Generally, the Public voice does most of the talking, except in those rare cases when the two voices are in agreement.

     Since the beginning of recorded history or to say it another way, since the molecular structure of the brain developed to the point of activating the Yellow Circuit, the voices have existed in Man.  And he has always had a subtle awareness of their existence.  You can find this awareness reflected in everything from mythology to psychology.  The very first man to experience Yellow Circuit activation, (though it doesn't happen one individual at a time), would, at the moment of that activation, have thought, "Someone's talking to me."  Since that time everyone in some form has heard voices, the gods talking to him, devils talking, and today it's the subconscious talking.  It's all the same thing:  it's the Public and Private voices running continuously in everyone.

     From one perspective, these two voices are responsible for everything that seems to be conflict, including almost all kinds of self-condemnation.  You might be reading a good book or working on a project, and a friend walks in and says, "Hi, what's happening?"  You may respond civilly to him, but internally a voice mutters, "Oh no, not you.  Why don't you get out of here and leave me alone."  And on the heels of that voice comes another, "You should be ashamed, thinking such hostile thoughts about your best friend."  And all the time, you're smiling and saying, "Make yourself at home."  It is the Public voice that speaks loudest -- that takes the form of behavior, while the Private voice mutters in the background.

     At ordinary Line-level there are two voices talking in everyone.  Although the Private voice does not necessarily speak as clearly as it did in the example just given, you can learn to hear it quite clearly.  When it says, "Get out of here and leave me alone", while the Public voice is virtually dripping with honey, would that not indicate an internal conflict?  But it has nothing to do with subconscious motivations.  I'm taking you down in the depths of the circuitry now, to show you how simple and obvious it is.

     In terms of conflicts between people, what happens when you misunderstand someone, when one person claims to have said one thing and the other hears something entirely different?  Could it not be the Public voice of one speaking, while it is the Private voice of the other that hears?  Neuralize that with a very close friend, or your sexual partner, you seem to be able to talk without words.

     You can learn to See the biochemical activity of consciousness as a moving picture with its own audio track.  Now I want you to Neuralize the degree to which these images, whether visual or audible, are driven by a man's thought processes, or are they driven by the body or by some mode of feeling?

     Earlier I said, that these two voices can be fueled primarily by either the Blue or the Yellow Circuit.  It's a very crude way of describing it.  When I say Yellow Circuit, I'm talking about something alive, floating in four dimensions.  It is not a self-contained entity.  It is a central clearinghouse for information coming from all the circuits.  The Yellow Circuit can be divided into three interconnected parts.  The part, the phase which a man thinks of as the thinking process, is based upon the cross talk between all three circuits, primarily the Blue Circuit in its attempt to verbalize.  The Yellow Circuit must be activated for speech to be possible, and it is the Yellow Circuit that speaks for all the circuits.  A man can say, "My leg hurts," yet the Yellow Circuit would never know its leg was injured unless it had received the information from the Red Circuit. It's just one example of the cross-talk taking place between the three circuits.

     You do understand, that all it takes is a slip of the scalpel, a certain well placed blow to the head, to sever the biochemical connection between the Yellow Circuit and the two lower circuits.  That's all it takes to transform you from man-the-cognizant being into man-a-physical body.  You could step on a rusty nail and "you" would never know it.  The information, literally, would not reach the Yellow Circuit.  Information is fed to the Yellow Circuit from all parts of the system.  Only the Yellow Circuit can talk, but the voice you hear may not be pure Yellow.  We are talking about a multi-tiered complex of cross-talk between all three circuits.  The higher you get in Life's nervous system, the more the Public voice is fueled primarily by the Yellow Circuit.  The Western World sits right at the cutting edge of Life's development.  To put it simply, this is the most civilized part of the world, it is the most developed part of Life's Yellow Circuit.  The voice you hear most often in this part of Life's body will be the Public voice.  Even if information comes primarily from the Blue Circuit, by the time it reaches the point of verbalization, it has been filtered through the Yellow Circuit.

     It is the Private voice that takes us closer to the Blue Circuit, and closer still to the Red Circuit.  The lower you go in the nervous system, the closer you are to the unrefined Primal Flow itself.  And the more distanced you are from that which can speak.  The Red Circuit has no tongue.  The Blue Circuit, situated as it is between the other two, partakes of the characteristics of both.  It is the battleground of the system's growth.  All of you have experienced the sensation of not being able to express your "feelings", "You are my dearest friend and words cannot express the way I feel about you."  It's almost a feeling of physical frustration, as if the Blue Circuit can almost speak.  Yet the words that come out of the mouth of the Yellow Circuit are invariably unsatisfying to the system.

     Let's layer the description of the two voices into the system's two possible responses of taking action or thinking about action.  Those whose primary reaction is to act, rather than think about acting, are motivated by the Private, lower voice.  Such people listen to the voice that is fed from the lower circuits.  Our archetypical bricklayer, for example, is liable to blurt out almost anything.  His wife says, "Oh honey, look, my mother is here."  And before he knows it, he says, "Good grief, that old bat?"  It's far more than a joke.  The Private voice is simply closer to the Primal Flow.  That is, it partakes more of the unrefined energies of lower levels. It is not the Red Circuit nor the Blue Circuit that actually speaks.  It is rather that the Private voice is generated from those areas where the cross-talk is heaviest.  The lower circuits cannot directly verbalize anything.  Anything that is going to be said, at any level of the system, must be mediated by the molecular activity of the brain.  Our Red Circuit man will hit someone and ask questions later.  He insults his mother-in-law and apologizes, then five minutes later he insults her again.  That is his systems' response to the sight of her.  Everything he does is action.  It is not thinking about action.

     On the other hand -- at the other end of the system -- the professor, the diplomat's first response lies in thinking of action.  The professor's wife might say, "My dear, I know how disturbing it is when my mother comes to visit.  I understand that and I don't blame you.  You didn't marry her, but since she is coming to town, I feel it incumbent upon me to invite her over."  And he responds, "I do understand.  Let me know when she arrives and I will be at the door to greet her."  It passes for sophistication, for being very civilized. Can you See, physically and biochemically, that those who are apparently more thoughtful, more civilized, are those who speak from their Public voice, the voice that is closer to the Yellow Circuit.  But in every human nervous system on this planet, from popes and presidents to ditch diggers and bricklayers, the voices are products of the same biochemical process.

     Although everything is connected and everyone has a vital part to play, those whose molecular structure induces them to think of action reside in a higher place in Life's developing nervous system.  Their apparently predominant voice, in any given situation regardless of whether it's fed by Yellow or Blue Circuit energy, affects quite mechanically what seems to be such a person's degree of tolerance, patience, understanding, and their level of control.  Remember, we are talking about ordinary people's views of other ordinary people.  Neither is better nor worse than the other.  The professor's wife might say, "I know how he hates it when my mother comes to visit, and look at what a splendid man I have married.  I told him my mother was coming over and he put on a tie and jacket in order to greet her."  Visiting with his mother-in-law probably is as pleasurable to him as cutting out an ingrown toenail with a blow torch.  Look at him and then look at the bricklayer.  Although to an ordinary eye they're as different as night and day, each is dependent upon his randomly chosen, molecularly based biochemical makeup.

     You should be able to use this Map, to see that there is no particular place in the nervous system that houses psychological problems.  There is no trauma center.  There is no psyche.  Everything that seems to be a psychologically based problem is a byproduct of the biochemical structure of consciousness, which is, by its very definition, a random occurrence.  And this random occurrence is responsible for interpreting everything that happens "out there", in the environment, as well as for mediating all the organism's actions and responses.  This random occurrence is responsible for transforming hard events into molecular activity, into an "I", into this double-layered voice.  The conflict of the voices lies at the heart of every nervous system, of every person who is ordinarily conscious.  What I'm trying to get you to See is that it is not a psychologically produced ambivalence, but a physical reality.  It is consciousness in operation.  It's the eternal human battle between the godlike and the carnal, between the conscious and the subconscious motivations.  It is the reality behind such reflections.  The voices are a randomly assigned biochemical function of each man's nervous system.  Now forget about looking at other people.  You have to see that it all lies within your own nervous system.  You, the bricklayer and the professor, demons and gods existing in the same system, each making its own attempt to be heard.

     There are times when it is the Private voice that speaks loudest in one whose predominant voice is usually fed by Yellow Circuit energy.  It produces that most recognizable sensation of, "I wish I hadn't said that.  I don't know what came over me."  The professor, upon hearing of his mother-in-law's impending visits has always responded, "Oh, how nice," while his Private voice said, "Good grief."  Remember, I'm talking about biochemical changes.  I'm talking about molecular structure.  But once -- perhaps he was hot and tired, or he'd had a bad day at work -- and he blurts out, "Good grief!"  "What did you say?"  "Oh, I was thinking of something else."  He is left with the feeling of, "I can't believe I said that.  I wish I hadn't said that."  It is as if his Public and Private voices were, in that particular instance, fed in reverse order from what was normal for his system.  It happens all the time.  And he might reflect to himself, "This must have some kind of psychological significance because I've never said anything negative to my wife about her mother.  In fact, I thought I liked her."  People refer to it as a Freudian Slip, or, "I spoke without thinking." But again, it is a biochemical reality.  Through any number of random events capable of altering a man's molecular makeup, the Private voice can slip into the public arena.

     The Private voice talks as continuously as the Public voice.  Consciousness is a continual parade of voices. And though you hear one at a time, there's always another one talking.  It is the sotto voice, the Private voice.  It's almost nonverbal but it's there.  The fact that it's almost nonverbal is irrelevant because, with a little experience, you can hear what it's saying.  In fact, you already know what it's saying.  You know its intent.  You can attempt to flesh out this voice in words, but it will be vague, "I can't express in words the way I feel about you."  Or, "I just don't know why I said that, I can't explain it."  But it is as real as it can be.

     The Blue Circuit has almost no voice, and when you approach real Red Circuit emotion there is nothing to say.  You cannot write a love poem to lust, if we take lust as being a Red Circuit emotion, which it is. You can't really write anything about feelings.  The best that can be done with feelings is say something like, "My feelings about you are very strong, but I don't know how to put them into words."  No matter how literate you are, that is about the best you can do.  To say, "I can't tell you why, but I don't trust that person," is the Blue Circuit at its prime.  To say, "I know you wonder about what I see in her, and I can't explain it either, but I'll tell you right now, I'd do anything for that woman," is the Blue Circuit being as literate, sophisticated and verbal as it can be.

     Consider the sensation of immediate distrust.  You've all, to some degree, met someone and had the sensation of, "I don't trust this person."  He might not say anything out of the ordinary.  He's pleasant enough, he has clean fingernails, and he's wearing a nice after-shave.  But you're still left with the feeling that, "There's something wrong with this guy.  I don't like him and I don't trust him.  And I can't tell you why I feel that way."  It is your molecules responding to his molecules.  Your own nervous system's molecular reaction to such an encapsulated event, whether it initiates a feeling of distrust or the sensation of immediate brotherhood, is a response to the other person's own biochemical activity.  I am suggesting to you most strongly, that threaded throughout all of these examples is the difference that exists between the Private and Public voices.  Which one of your voices is listening to which of his voices?

     Now Neuralize how you can use my description of the voices in your own efforts.  If you could willfully pull the Public and Private voice together, it would produce a form of lateral expansion.  It produces unnatural stability by expanding lateral consciousness, among all this randomness.  I asked you at the beginning how could you trust a random occurrence?  You can't.  At the ordinary level, you can't trust yourself.  It is only by producing a willful, unnatural stability within your own system that you become more than a pattern of randomly produced reactions.  It is only then, that you can trust yourself, because then you have no secrets from yourself.  It is only then, that you don't have to worry about what you're going to say next.  I'm not saying you'd know what you're going to say next, but you wouldn't have to worry about it. Because there would be only one voice speaking for you.

     Although the information is beginning to circulate in Life's body that there is no place in the brain which acts as the seat of consciousness; and that consciousness is a biochemical reaction, humanity as a whole is not yet capable of hearing it.  However, if I presented it today in a public arena, the reaction would be, "No, that's not true.  I understand the words you are using and if there were any validity to them, I would at least have had a glimmer of a suspicion that you are correct.  I know exactly what you are saying and it's just not true."  Ordinary consciousness will deny such a statement just as firmly as your forefathers did when a few explorers tentatively announced that, contrary to popular belief, the world was not flat.  The circumstances are similar today, even though the current level of molecular activity operates at a higher level within Life's nervous system.

     We are talking about biochemical activity.  That which a man calls consciousness is simply a molecular change in his own nervous system, producing his individual perceptions, opinions and reactions.  This biochemical activity is the very thing that says, "No.  I hear what you are saying, but it's not true."  However, the information is beginning to seep into consciousness at the ordinary level.  Of course, those who serve as Life's ordinary outlets for such information -- scientists and researchers -- don't understand it.  Nor can they see it within themselves.  For them, it's no more than a viable theory.  If you happened to talk to one of these researchers, if you asked him, "I read your paper about it.  Can it be true?"  He would respond, "I've studied all possible explanations and theories, and it's the only alternative that makes sense."  Then, if you grabbed him by the throat and said, "You really feel that all you are is a biochemical reaction?  Do you believe that you are a series of almost randomly produced molecular changes?"  He would have to respond, "Well, it makes a lot of sense.  But there has to be more to it."  And it is almost impossible for the organism to comprehend.  It's hard enough for you -- you think you can hear some of this, but it's almost gone the moment I stop talking.  And currently it is impossible.  It's almost impossible for Line-level consciousness to comprehend that perceptions, correct and incorrect opinions, prejudices and pleasures are no more than a continual series of molecular changes.

     Let me point out one more thing about the two voices.  Not only does the Public voice speak out loud, it also talks internally.  Though you might be saying nothing out loud, the two voices continue to speak, and one will be more audible.  Can you see a connection between this and my suggestion that you never tell yourself what you are going to do?  "Starting tomorrow, I am going on a diet.  No more candy, no more fries and no more snacking."  You don't even have to say it out loud; the Public voice can proclaim it in the privacy of your own brain.  And once it does proclaim it, it's no longer yours.  There is a kind of unsuspected strength, Real strength, in not letting that happen.  It's part of your effort to unnaturally stabilize your system, to become internally trustworthy.