THE MORE things change, the more they remain the same' is an old adage that applies to many human activities.

But it certainly applies to the activities of human societal power. Its outer circumstances and formats change over time, but its inner workings remain remarkably the same.

One of the inner factors that remains the same consists of the ever on-going distinctions between the powerful and the powerless that prevail through time and circumstances.

• Thus, one may talk of ancient or modern civilizations and empires, and even of the forthcoming "globalization process," and still be talking of the powerful versus the powerless.

Two other factors also remain the same: (1) the general lack of interest in the nature of the powerless, i.e., why the powerless ARE powerless; and (2) the enormous fascination with the powerful, and with possibilities of becoming powerful.

• This fascination is extremely prevalent, and is shared by the powerless and the powerful, the latter of which are fascinated with themselves and have little interest in the powerless.
• Indeed, there is more fascination with the dramatics of power and achieving powerfulness than with the principal mandate of our species -- survival into the future, the prospect of which by now has become something of an unpredictable gamble.

There is another significant factor that needs to be taken into account, although it might at first seem quite distant from the problems of power.

• This has to do with the enormous amount of discovered data, information, and knowledge that is avoided, forbidden, made taboo, swept under carpets, or simply trashed.

Brain researchers often say that we use only ten to fifteen percent of our brains. It's also quite possible to think that we use only ten to fifteen percent of discovered knowledge.

• One may ask what these two somewhat unexplainable discrepancies have to do with power. Well, its entirely possible that we know only ten to fifteen percent about the nature of power, and that we utilize only ten to fifteen percent of our innate powers.
• Why a species equipped to function at higher percentages of everything should remain confined to ten percept performance is an awesome situation to meditate on.

Most information sources regarding power seem to end up giving two basic impressions about it:

1. That it is more or less straightforward and easy to understand -- IF one has the intelligent wherewithal to do so; and
2. That what is seen as power in both the individual and societal realms reflects some kind of natural order -- and which automatically establishes the legitimacy of the differences between the powerless, the relatively powerful, and the powerful.

It would be a great mental and emotional relief if the two impressions did reflect the basic nature of power. But they do not – and cannot if the word "human" is prefixed to the term "power.''

The two impressions are possible only if power is seen as one-dimensional – i.e., seen either from the bottom up, so to speak, and/or from the top down.

• But, as is well known, anyone who manages to think outside of the one-dimensional aspects of power soon becomes aware that power has very many dimensions. And, indeed, in many pre-modern cultures, it was often said that power has a thousand faces.

Whether discussed as being multi-dimensional or as having multiple faces, the inescapable meaning is that power, in its intrinsic nature, is complex.

• This in turn means that any real examination of power will be fraught with problems having to do with uncertainty.
• And indeed, if ever there was a realm of human activity totally encumbered by uncertainties, the realm of power activity clearly tops the list.

Societal power is considered a very precious commodity, perhaps the most precious. Access to it is therefore a matter of ultra-intense competition. In turn, easy access to the competition itself must be guarded in order to limit the numbers of possible competitors.

There is only one really efficient way to guard against access to power, and that is to conceal, prohibit, and secretize all real knowledge about it.

• It is unbelievable to think that real knowledge about the nature and workings of power is unavailable. But the ultra-precious commodity has been with us throughout history.
• Thus, various long-term ways and means have been engineered to keep the majority dumbed-down about the nature of power so that it can be more efficiently sequestered in the hands of the few.

The long-term result is that most do not comprehend very much about power. But most do appreciate two well-known facts about it:

1. That power is what individuals can bump up against as they proceed through their lives; and
2. That power is also what, literally speaking, can thump across individuals attempting to proceed through their lives.

There is a basic fact that those aspiring to empowerment must face, sooner or later: societal power is almost always more powerful than the individual, even more powerful than groups of them.

• Thus, in seeking empowerment, individuals WILL bump up against a variety of real-life societal situations already structured to control and delimit too much empowerment by too many.
• Unless the aspirant understands something of what will be bumped up against along those societal lines, it is probable that not much will happen except a grinding of gears. Therefore the first mandate for achieving empowerment is to become cognizant of those societal factors and forces already geared to preventing it on a very large scale.

In view of this unavoidable mandate, this first volume of SECRETS OF POWER is confined to twenty-eight chapters.

• Each discusses some SOCIETAL aspect of power and depowerment, and all of which, in real-life feed-back, can defeat and even trash individual attempts at empowerment.
• At the end of each chapter are some suggested items to observe in real life Out There, or some suggested exercises that might help increase awareness along those lines.
• One seldom gets anywhere unless there is some kind of map to follow.

Ingo Swann (1933-2013)

Photo by Dr. Elmar Gruber

Few of us get to be the originators of anything unique, much less something so revolutionary that it just might change the entire world. Yet that is the case with Ingo Douglas Swann, who passed away from the effects of a stroke on the 31st of January, 2013 at the age of 79. Ingo was born in Telluride, Colorado on September 14, 1933, and was both sensitive and intuitive almost from his first awareness. He experienced an out-of-body state at 2 years of age in which, though fully anesthetized during a tonsillectomy, he was able to observe and later report accurate details of the procedure. That event initiated an ongoing series of out-of-body and clairvoyant experiences that he quickly learned not to share with any but his maternal grandmother, who herself had a sensitivity for such things.

Ingo took his education at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah, earning a double degree in art and biology. He served a three-year enlistment in the US Army, much of it in Korea in an administrative position with the 8th Army. During this time he became bridge partner and friends with Madame Syngman Rhee, the Austrian-born wife of South Korea's first president, and played an important behind-the-scenes role in preventing a major international incident, for which he received a letter of commendation.

Out of the Army and transplanted to New York City in the early 1960s to begin his art career, Ingo supported himself for 12 years as an employee in the Secretariat of the United Nations in various roles. While nurturing his fledgling art career, he made the acquaintance of many of the literati and intellectuals in New York social circles of the day, including people such as artist Andy Warhol, whose parties Ingo attended just a few blocks from his own residence in the Bowery.

Some of these connections led him to the world of experimental parapsychology which was enjoying a heyday in the Manhattan of the mid-to-late 1960s and early 1970s. Gertrude Schmeidler of the City College of New York, with whom Ingo worked on psychokinesis research, and Karlis Osis, of the American Society for Psychical Research, with whom he became involved in out-of-body perceptual work were two of the more prominently active parapsychologists at the time. In 1971 Ingo proposed a new parapsychology research protocol that involved participants in trying to "observe" locations or settings separated from them by either distance or shielding under fully-blind conditions. He named this protocol "remote viewing," and it served as the kernel around which all of the discipline of remote viewing and its various aspects ultimately formed.

Cleve Backster, a leading pioneer in polygraph and "lie-detector" development was also engaged in the forward edge of consciousness research, and Ingo became affiliated with this researcher as well. The connection with Backster soon led to a defining moment in Ingo's career. After coming across a communication sent to Backster by Dr. Harold E. "Hal" Puthoff proposing an experiment based on Backster's "Primary Perception" theories, Ingo volunteered himself to participate in the research.

Puthoff invited Ingo to the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in Menlo Park, California. On June 6, 1972 the two of them performed a watershed experiment in the basement of the Varian Physics Building on the Stanford University campus. With no previous access to a large-scale magnetometer being used for fundamental physics research, Ingo was able to both mentally influence the output of the heavily-shielded device and to correctly clairvoyantly sketch the relationships of elements in the internal mechanism.

Word of this success eventually reached the Central Intelligence Agency's Office of Technical Services, and Puthoff was shortly visited by representatives of the CIA, who further tested Ingo's abilities and offered a preliminary $50,000 contract to explore both the psychokinesis (PK) and the new-found remote viewing phenomena. This was the beginning of a 23-year involvement of the US Government in remote viewing research and applications. In 1976 Ingo directly involved his good offices in recruiting nuclear physicist Ed May who would one day come to head the SRI effort.

Though other remote viewers were recruited and, where necessary, taught or trained, Ingo remained a central figure in the program, suggesting new research directions and participating in thousands of remote viewing trials, both research-oriented and for practical applications. Starting in the late 1970s and continuing through the first half of the following decade, Hal Puthoff and Ingo focused on isolating and identifying the underlying principles and, eventually, developing a system to convey to naive subjects the techniques and competencies of successful, well-experienced remote viewers.

This research ultimately culminated in what is known today as "controlled remote viewing" (CRV - originally called "coordinate remote viewing"). The process progresses through six "stages," beginning from general mental contact with the target and subsequently guiding the viewer's consciousness up through increasingly detailed target access. CRV proved successful in developing remote viewing capabilities in naive subjects, and in 1982 was first offered to the Army to further develop the military remote viewing program already underway.

Due to changes in Army politics, the SRI training contract was completed at the end of 1984, and never renewed. The military program officially moved on from the Army to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the end of January, 1986. The CRV methodology was used extensively and successfully during the following years of the program. Ingo continued to be associated and participate with SRI until 1989, when he declared his retirement from parapsychology research.

There followed two decades of fruitful writing and painting, where Ingo authored several popular books, articles, and content for his own comprehensive website, biomindsuperpowers.com. Ingo was a popular, sought-after speaker who, nonetheless limited his speaking engagements. The International Remote Viewing Association was fortunate to have him speak at three of its conferences, plus an additional one it co-sponsored with the Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

After his retirement, Ingo occasionally dipped his toe back briefly into active parapsychology research. He worked chiefly with Dr. Michael Persinger at Laurentian University in a set of fruitful experiments attempting to identify correlations between remote viewing functioning and brain activation.
But mortality beckoned. Ingo overcame a bout with mouth cancer, and then in December 2003, he suffered a serious fall on the icy New York City streets, shattering his femur. Hospitalized for over two weeks, he was nursed through a long and difficult recovery process by his sister Murleen and his friend Bob Durant. But from that point on his health remained somewhat fragile, though he still engaged in discussions and occasional lectures, as well as appearances at several of the conferences of the International Remote Viewing Association, of which he was always the honored guest.

Appropriately, at the time of his passing Ingo was well along in organizing and producing a book of his marvelous artwork, a final legacy to bestow on the world. We have hopes that this book will eventually be made available for us all to appreciate and enjoy.

Now, just a few days after his passing, Ingo Swann is already sorely missed. Our planet is, indeed, emptier without him in it. But what he left behind will contribute to the developing of higher levels of human consciousness for many years to come - indeed, likely forever.

Paul H. Smith
February 5, 2013

Since 1970, Ingo Swann has worked with over 38 cutting-edge researchers in the fields of parapsychology and cognitive perception, with an additional 14 projects governed by nondisclosure agreements.

His early 1970-1972 work with parapsychology researchers based in New York produced results that attracted international attention and acclaim. By 1973, with thousands of experimental trials counted up, he was broadly noted as parapsychology’s most tested “guinea-pig.”

However, he is best known for his long-term association with Dr. H. E. Puthoff at Stanford Research Institute (SRI). This work (between 1972 and 1988 in the field of remote viewing) achieved high luminosity because of sponsorship by U.S. intelligence and military Through these years, hundreds of thousands of experimental trials contributed to increases of knowledge that had not been attained elsewhere.

After his retirement in 1989 from such big-time research, Swann continued intermittent work with advanced researchers in the fields of multidimensional mental imagery, perception, and refined brainwave studies.

Swann’s 32-years of work is unified by four principal factors

1. His original and continuing focus was not on parapsychology models alone, but included the larger fields of extraordinary awareness and perception faculties. He understands these faculties to be naturally existing and always available within the human and which, at the species biomind level, transcend cultural and societal boundaries.
2. He has always been an advocate of a much-needed multidisciplinary approach to problems of human awareness thresholds and the delicate mental expertise that can be discovered about them.
3. He has basically viewed the phenomena of clairvoyance, telepathy, psychokinesis and remote viewing from the overall and bigger humankind level, rather than from the smaller personal, individual, or soci-specializing levels.
4. since faculties for expanded awareness and perception exist as a full part of the human biomind at the species level, he has always considered it necessary to research, discover, and remedy social and cultural factors that prevent their nurturing and development.

All of these factors were incorporated into the fifteen year research project at Stanford Research Institute, and helped produce development of various important but hitherto unknown aspects of remote viewing. The project also researched and leaned heavily on hundreds of published papers and information drawn from scientific sources outside the boundaries of parapsychology focus.

In a socio-cultural sense, Swann’s overall 30-odd years of work roughly covers two periods of mainstream intolerance-tolerance ratios. Always and only working with accredited scientists, his work between 1970-1985 took place within a long established milleu of extreme scientific and mainstream intolerance to human faculties of expanded and refined perception.

Since 1985, this intolerance has ameliorated considerably, largely due to advancing discoveries about the impressive extent of biological receptors of the human body-mind, many of which account for extraordinary human sensing faculties.

Continuing discovery confirming the remarkable nature of the human genome has also clearly established that the genetic basis for those faculties is present in most individuals, although remaining socially non-nurtured and undeveloped. As of 2000, however, extreme intolerance against scientific development of telepathy remains abundantly active.

In summing up his three decades of work and research, Swann holds that human sensing-perceptive systems are, in their total and probable scope, extraordinary and remarkable, and that they are composed not only of known factors, but also of potentials not yet identified and studied. But human sensing-perceptive systems are complex, especially when expanded and developed into higher-stage functioning.

In the face of these glorious systems, simplistic, insular, and dogmatic approaches are seldom Useful either with regard to understanding them or specially with regard to developing them.

Therefore, increasing amounts of inter-disciplinary information need to be drawn from any source possible and organized into the larger picture of all that is involved.

A partial archive of many factors involved can be found in his website http://www.biolmindsuperpowers.com

A PARTIAL LISTING OF RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTS IN WHICH INGO SWANN HAS PARTICIPATED:

• 1971: Began active participation in parapsychological laboratory work.
• 1971: Research with Clive Backster, New York (plant consciousness and psychokinetic effects of small samples of graphite).
• 1971: Research with Dr. Gertrude Schmeidler, City College of New York (psychokinetic effects upon continuously recorded temperature) .
• 1971-1972: Research with Dr. Karlis Osis, The American Society for psychical Research, New York (out-of-body consciousness and perceptions).
• 1972: Research with Dr. C. Silfen, The American Society for Psychical Research, New York (temporal and spatial perception of remote viewing potentials).
• 1972: Research with Dr. H. E. Puthoff, Stanford Research Institute (psychokinetic perturbation of a superconductor-shielded Josephson effect magnetometer).
• 1973: Research with Dr. H. E. Puthoff, R. Targ and H. Sherman, Stanford Research Institute (experimental psychic probe of the planet Jupiter in attempting to identify distance measurement of consciousness).
• 1973: Research with Dr. W. Harman, Stanford Research Institute (experimental prophetic correlations, an experimental efforct at world-wide predictive trend analysis correlated with adept/inept dimension alternative future histories).
• 1974 – 1988: With Dr. H. E. Puthoff, Stanford Research Institute, continuous in depth reaearch funded by government clients (CIA, DIA, DOD, Army Intelligence). The operative nature and directions of this long-term research activity were classified in 1975 by the participating sponsors, and remain classified of the year 2001.
• 1974: Research with A. Twitchell, Dr. J. Mitchell, Dr. J. Wingate, and Dr. G. Schmeidler, Society for Psychical Research (precognition, an attempt to ascertain consciousness variables in. predictive ability)
• 1974: Research with Dr. G. Schmeidler, Dr. S. Krippner, and Dr. ,J. Mitchell, New York (an experimental remote viewing probe of a distant planet Mercury).
• 1975: Research with Dr. R. Miller, Atlanta, Georgia (psychokinetic effects in a diffusion cloud chamber).
• 1975: Research with Dr M. Vogel, San Jose, California (psychokinetic effects on electrical reactions of a plant).
• 1975: Research with Dr. E. May and C. Honorton, Maimonide Medical Center, New York (a dynamic PK experiment with Ingo Swann).
• 1975: Research with Dr. J. Vallee, Dr. A. Hastings, and Dr. G. Askevold, Institute for the Future, Palo Alto, California (cross-country remote viewing experiments utilizing computer conferencing).
• 1976: Research with Dr. w. Roll and G. Solfin, Psychical Research Foundation, Durham, M.C. (long-distance remote hearing experiments).
• 1976: Research with Dr. S. Krippner, and J. Mitchell, and H, Sherman (cross-country remote viewing of the planet Mars).
• 1977: Research with Dr. C. Tart, University of California at Davies (direct clairvoyant viewing of internal state of an ESP learning machine).
• 1974-1979: A special interest in utilizing audio-visual methods for presenting psychical and consciousness phenomena, including artistic: expressioning. Produced five slide shows in association with J. Turchuk:

1. Cosmic Art.
2. The remote viewing probes of H. Sherman and I. Swann of the planets Jupiter and Mercury.
3. The beauties of Kirlian and laser light photography demonstrating mental interference patterns.
4. Parapsychology in art.
5. Death – a Concept Reborn; clinical death and recovery experiences.

• 1989: Retired from active government research and from public appearances.
• 1989: Research with Dr. Elmer Greem in the Voluntary Controls Program at The Menninger Foundation, Topeka, Kansas; Physical Fields and States of Consciousness: Consciousness, Body Electricity, and Psycho-physical Learning, and Anomalous Electrostatic Phenomena in Exceptional Subjects.
• 1990 onward: Began occasional research with Dr. Gerald Epstein involving volitional control of mental image management, accessing subconscious imagery, decoding information on content of biomind imagery, and entering into trans dimensional imagery.
• 1998: Research with the Laurentian University Neuroscience Research Group, Dr. M.A. Persinger, Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology, and Dr W. Roll. This research consisted of a full MRI of head and brain; complete neuro-psychological, cognitive, and personality assessments; near-infrared and Glial Matrix functions associated with remote viewing; electroencephalographic correlates; study of possible mechanisms for long distance mental imaging; neuro physiological process enhancement by experimentally generated complex magnetic fields. Novel equipment (the “Octopus”) detecting brainwave activity above high beta.
• Year 2000: Second research sequence with Dr. M.A. Persingar and D.r W. Roll at Laurentian University ln Sudbury, Canada. The research included extensive EEG analysis of brainwave frequencies between 40-60 cycles per second during clairvoyant, telepathic, and remote viewing tests. Specific frequencies were found to be consistently active during repeated testing. Experiments with novel equipment designed to apply selected brainwave frequencies outside the skull showed that certain frequencies enhanced para-sensory perceptions by several magnitudes.

Many of the research papers and documents that involved Ingo can be downloaded and viewed [HERE].

The closest to the actual training methods Ingo created & handed over to the U.S. military can be downloaded here: 1985 CRV in house training manual & notes – Author; Tom McNear.

NOTE: Each of the following sources reveals some explicit or implicit element that can be recognized as being integral to societal power structures, especially those that are pyramidal in format. Most of the sources contain good bibliographies which help extend larger panoramic overviews of societal powerdom. Sources referring to human powers at the species and individual levels will be provided in volumes II and III.

Adler, Mortimer J., INTELLECT-MIND OVER MATTER. (Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, 1990).

Anderson, Jack, PEACE, WAR, AND POLITICS: AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT. (Forge, New York, 1999).

Bennett, James T. & Thomas J. DiLorenzo, OFFICIAL LIES: HOW WASHINGTON MISLEADS US. (Groom Books, Alexandria, Virginia, 1992).

Bennis, Warren, ON BECOMING A LEADER. (Addison-Wesley Publishing, New York, 1989).

Boorstin, Daniel J. HIDDEN HISTORY: EXPLORING OUR SECRET PAST. (Harper & Row, New York, 1987).

Butler, E. A., THE BIG BUCK AND THE NEW BUSINESS BREED. (Macmillan, New York, 1972).

Carrere D'Encausse, Helene, THE RUSSIAN SYNDROME: ONE THOUSAND YEARS OF POLITICAL MURDER. (Holmes & Meier, New York, 1992).

Cetron, Marvin & Owen Davies, CRYSTAL GLOBE: THE HAVES AND THE HAVE-NOTS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER. (St. Martin's, New York, 1991).

Cousins, Norman, THE PATHOLOGY OF POWER. (W. W. Norton, New York, 1987).

Dulles, Allen, THE CRAFT OF INTELLIGENCE. (Harper & Row, New York, 1963).

Ewen, Stuart, PRI A SOCIAL HISTORY OF SPIN. (Basic Books, New York, 1996).

FitzGibbon, Constantine, SECRET INTELLIGENCE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. (Stein & Day, New York, 1977).

Friedman, Thomas L., THE LEXUS AND THE OLIVE TREE: UNDERSTANDING GLOBALIZATION. (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, New York, 1999).

Galbraith, John Kenneth, THE ANATOMY OF POWER. (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1983).

Garan, D. G., OUR SCIENCES RULED BY HUMAN PREJUDICE: HUMANLY NECESSARY CAUSAL BLINDNESS PERSISTING EVEN IN SCIENCES. (Philosophical Library, New York, 1987).

Green, Robert & Joost Elffers, THE 48 LAWS OF POWER. (Viking, New York, 1998).

Herodotus, HISTORIES. (Wordsworth Editions, London, 1996).

Hilts, Philip J., BEHAVIOR MOD. (Harper's Magazine Press, New York, 1974).

Horkheimer, Max & Samuel H. Flowerman (Eds.), THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY. (Science Editions, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1964).

Horowitz, Irving Louis, THE DECOMPOSITION OF SOCIOLOGY. (Oxford University Press, New York, 1993).

Keith, Jim (Ed.), SECRET ANBD SUPPRESSED: BANNED IDEAS & HIDDEN HISTORY. (Feral House, Portland, Oregon, 1993).

Kohn, Alfie, NO CONTEST - THE CASE AGAINST COMPETITION. (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1986).

Lawrence, James, RAJ: THE MAKING AND UNMAKING OF BRITISH INDIA. (St. Martin's, New York, 1997).

Lebedoff, David, THE NEW ELITE - THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY. (Franklin Watts, New York, 1981).

Lichter, Robert S., Stanley Rothman & Linda S. Lichter, THE MEDIA ELITE: AMERICA'S NEW POWERBROKERS. (Adler & Adler, Bethesda, Maryland, 1986).

Maclay, George & Humphry Knipe, THE DOMINANT MAN: THE PECKING ORDER IN HUMAN SOCIETY. (Delacorte Press, New York, 1972).

Mann, John, CHANGING HUMAN BEHAVIOR: THE FIRST COMPREHENSIVE ACCOUNT OF MODERN ALTERATION AND ENHANCEMENT OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR. (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1965).

Mills, c. Wright, THE POWER ELITE. (Oxford University Press, New York, 1956).

-- POWER, POLITICS AND PEOPLE. (Ballantine Books, New York, 1963).

Mitroff, Ian I. & Warren Bennis, THE UNREALITY INDUSTRY: THE DELIBERATE MANUFACTURING OF FALSEHOOD AND WHAT IT IS DOING TO OUR LIVES. (Carol Publishing Group, New York, 1989).

Nisbet, Robert, THE MAKING OF MODERN SOCIETY. (New York University Press, New York, 1986).

Penrose, Roger, SHADOWS OF THE MIND: A SEARCH FOR THE MISSING SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. (Oxford University Press, New York, 1994).

Peters, Charles & John Rothchild, INSIDE THE SYSTEM. (Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973).

Poggi, Gianfranco, THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODERN STATE: A SOCIOLOGICAL INTRODUCTION. (Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1978).

Scheflin, Alan W. & Edward M. Opton, Jr., THE MIND MANIPULATORS. (Paddington Press, New York, 1978).

Sennet, Richard: THE FALL OF PUBLIC MAN: ON THE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF CAPITALISM. (Vintage Books, Random House, New York, 1976).

Shattuck, Roger, FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE: FROM PROMETHEUS TO PORNOGRAPHY. (St. Martin's, New York, 1996).

Strong, Roy, ART AND POWER: RENAISSANCE FESTIVALS 1450 - 1650. (University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1984).

Sun-tzu, THE ART OF WAR (Trans. by Ralph D. Sawyer). (Barnes & Noble, New York, 1994).

Suvorov, Vikton, INSIDE THE SOVIET ARMY. (Panther Books, London, 1982).

Weatherford, Jack, THE HISTORY OF MONEY: FROM SANDSTONE TO CYBERSPACE. (Crown, New York, 1997).

West, Nigel, GAMES OF INTELLIGENCE: THE CLASSIFIED CONFLICT OF INTERNATIONAL ESPIONAGE REVEALED. (Crown Publishers, New York, 1989).

Wieman, Henry Nelson, THE DIRECTIVE IN HISTORY. (Beacon Press, Boston, 1949).

Winn, Denise, THE MANIPULATED MIND: BRAINWASHING, CONDITIONING AND INDOCTRINATION. (The Octagon Press, London, 1983).

Wise, David & Thomas R. Ross, THE INVISIBLE GOVERNMENT. (Random House, New York, 1964).

Zweig, Michael, THE WORKING CLASS: AMERICA'S BEST KEPT SECRET. (Cornell University Press, Ithica, New York, 2000).

For more information about the author, visit https://ingoswann.com/

TO PLACE ORDERS FOR THIS BOOK

1 888 453-4046 (Toll Free)

SECRETS OF POWER

Volume I: INDIVIDUAL EMPOWERMENT VS THE SOCIETAL PANORAMA OF POWER AND DEPOWERMENT

Copyright 2000 by Ingo Swann.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording means or otherwise without prior written permission of the author.

Published in the United States by Ingo Swann Books, P.O. Box 2875 Rapid City, South Dakota 57709-2875

Telephone numbers for placing orders for this book:

(888) 453-4046 (USA, Canada) (Toll Free) (605) 341-5660 (Foreign) (605) 341-0020 (Fax)

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 0-9667674-2-X

To Kiss Earth Good-bye

Cosmic Art (Editor)

Star Fire (Fiction)

Natural ESP: A Layman's Guide to Unlocking

the Extra Sensory Power of Your Mind

Everybody's Guide to Natural ESP

Your Nostradamus Factor: Accessing Your Innate

Ability to See into the Future

Purple Fables (Quartet)

Figure 1 Full Size

ONE OF the first things that can be observed and learned about power is that its workings are vast and enormously complex. The workings might therefore be compared to a labyrinth, constructed so as to be not only full of intricate passageways and blind alleys, but also containing secret doors as well as cleverly designed pitfalls and booby-traps.

• In that labyrinth, one can expect to find accuracy and inaccuracies, inadvertent and deliberate misinformation. One will also find an extensive variety of stratagems, ingenious devices, and episodic expediencies that usually go along with the "games" of power seekers and holders.

SIMPLIFYING AND VERIFYING ELEMENTS OF THE COMPLEXITY

The mix of the foregoing characteristics of powerdom makes it difficult to trust anything that is written about it.

• In order to off-set this difficulty, I have elected to devote each chapter to specific situational aspects of power so that readers can observe or verify them in the open field of human activities.

It is very important to keep this verification potential in mind, because learning to observe and identify aspects of power is certainly a fundamental key regarding empowerment.

The personal verification potential is also important because large population segments have been socially conditioned to think of power only in given ways.

• This conditioning factor is openly discussed in competent books about power structures – for example, in John Kenneth Galbraith's THE ANATOMY OF POWER (1983).
• Additionally, most people think about power from within the contexts of their personal realities, which may be governed not only by societal conditioning but by the limits of their experience and by flaws of knowledge.

SUBDIVIDING THE PANORAMA OF POWER

As complex and as extensive it is, the elements and factors of the entire panorama of power can be broken down, or subdivided, into numerous and increasingly complex categories.

In the first instance, however, power can be subdivided into three general categories as:

1. Power at the societal levels;
2. Power at the individual level; and
3. Power in relationship to intangible energetic phenomena that transcend the societal and the individual contexts.

The components of the first two of these categories are easily visible, but the elements of the third are more difficult to identify.

• Taken altogether, phenomena of the three categories are quite extensive. So it would be difficult to combine discussion into a single volume without truncating, or downsizing, each of them. And so I have decided to consider each of them more extensively via separate volumes.

A second way of categorizing elements and factors of power is to distinguish between the powerful and the powerless. This constitutes the conventional approach to the "anatomy" of power.

That conventional approach, however, exclusively focuses only on the powerful and the anatomy of their power structures.

• Thus, the general idea conveyed via the conventional approach is that power majorly concerns the powerful, with the powerless being considered as more or less inconsequential.

However, this volume especially focuses on empowerment, as contrasted to power. Thus, the issues involved must incorporate extensive discussion of the powerless – and whose existence is more dynamically meaningful than can usually be imagined.

THE OVERRIDING IMPORTANCE OF SOCIETAL POWER

I fully realize that many readers would principally be interested in self-empowerment at the individual level.

• However, and as is broadly understood, societal and individual power are frequently in conflict, largely because power at the individual level is conditioned and harnessed so as to serve not only societal power, but the power elites who govern them.
• The scope of the ways and means of this conditioning and harnessing is, simply put, quite awesome and, all things considered, quite efficient.
• As far as I have been able to determine, no book on self-empowerment comes anywhere near identifying and addressing the awesome societal elements involved, many of which are designed to suppress, thwart, or prevent individual self-empowerment.

It is one thing for a relatively powerless individual to wish for more self-empowerment. But such wishing can be thwarted if the individual is uninformed about the societal mechanisms designed to make wide-spread individual empowerment as complicated and as fruitless as possible.

There can be no doubt that efforts at self-empowerment must take place within societal contexts which contain ways and means to disarm empowerment, an activity that is a central objective of all power games. At the societal level, those ways and means have a long, but quite hidden history, and many of the methods involved have become not only institutionalized but secreted.

HIDDEN AND SECRET ASPECTS OF POWER

Whatever is deliberately "hidden" regarding power equates to some kind of secrecy.

• And, as most realize, the wheels of power turn not only on the clever and covert manipulation of information and influences, but on a wide variety of secrets that are negotiated behind the scenes of public awareness.

To one degree or another, various versions of secrets of power have been deployed on behalf of all societal power structures everywhere, in all times, and in all cultures.

• This clearly indicates that both the secrets and their deployment are generic to our species, and that such taken altogether and across time and cultures constitutes a class of activities with general characteristics.

It is not therefore necessary to single out various power institutions past or present in order to accuse them of wheeling and dealing in behind-the-scenes power stratagems or tactics.

• It is more important to bring the generic hidden aspects of power into visibility, so that those who have empowering interests might gain whatever they can either in theory or by identifying or observing each aspect discussed.

THERE IS TOO MUCH POWERLESSNESS

The reader deserves to know why I have decided to compile these three volumes.

That reason, simply put, is that there is too much powerlessness everywhere, not only within the realms of the "official" powerless, but even among the powerful who often find themselves caught up in circumstances, trends, and affairs beyond their control, authority, or influence.

This is exceedingly strange for a species exceedingly rich in powers of all kinds.

Too much powerlessness, especially if artificially engineered by societal measures, really does equate to a profound waste of human potentials, and even of human life itself.

TWO NECESSARY TERMS

As has often been pointed up by linguists and semanticists, topics can be discussed only by utilizing the nomenclature a language contains.

• Most languages contain a number of words than can be used to discuss power. But in the case of English, two important terms are missing, and which are important to the contexts of power everywhere.

DEPOWERMENT

The first of these is DEPOWERMENT, which is not found in dictionaries. Depower can be understood as the direct opposite of empower, a term that is found in dictionaries, and which basically means "to enable, to increase in power."

DEPOWER thus means to disable or to reduce from power, to deprive it of capacity or strength, to make incapable or ineffective, or to cut it back or down to negligible importance.

• Empowerment and depowerment are terms indicating active change-of-state processes of some kind, and so they should not be confused with powerful and powerless which refer to states or static conditions.

GROK

The second missing term is GROK, coined by Robert A. Heinlein in his famous science fiction novel, STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, first published in 1969.

This terms refers to grasping, or synthesizing, the larger or overall meaning, nature, or essence of something via an apparent mixture of empathy, intuition, and, sometimes, telepathy.

• This activity does not necessarily imply a kind of extrasensory perception, but more refers to those cognizing abilities associated with the holistic and more speedy functions of the right hemisphere of the brain.

Groking is in contrast to understanding, the latter of which is usually achieved via the slower and more laborious linear functions of the left hemisphere. Groking reveals the sum of the lined-up parts, which is not revealed by the parts themselves.

While the processes of groking and understanding do contrast, they are not mutually exclusive, and can work in tandem. It can be pointed up, though, that one can learn to understand information by sequentially lining it up, but perhaps fail to make a groking synthesis of the sequence.

• As a familiar example of this, one can prepare food by following how-to recipes laid out in sequence, and this, of course, is a linear left-hemisphere process. Without the recipe, however, food stuffs may remain a mystery.
• Those who grok food stuffs can produce delectable delights without reading how-to recipes.
• Power of course includes both understanding and groking. But as with cooks, one probably should put one's money on the grokers.

Figure 2 Full Size

Societal power that incorporates large masses of individuals is achieved and held in place by the few not only by preponderant control of wealth and resources, but by control of information and knowledge that would activate empowerment among the masses of individuals. A "web of secrets" that especially cloaks power and empowerment knowledge must therefore be brought into existence and maintained. The anticipated result of the "web" is that ignorance, social conditioning, and stupidity can better be managed in favor of the powerful few.

THE COMPLEXITY of power and powerdom can be pictured in various ways: as a convoluted network; as a gigantic puzzle most of whose pieces are hard to find; or as an intricate labyrinth filled with fake doors, dead ends, and clever booby-traps.

THE USUAL FORMAT OF POWER STRUCTURES

This complexity makes it difficult to decide where to begin discussion and examination of what, in conventional terms, is sometimes referred to as the "anatomy" of power.

• The anatomy of power can be, and indeed has been, mapped by a number of intrepid investigators. Their efforts reveal that power consists of some kind of hierarchical format whose structure contains orders or ranks, each subordinate to the one above.
• It thus appears that power is a formatted arrangement of control, authority, and influence into a graded series ranging from the few powerful down to and including the many powerless.
• If the formatted arrangement is all there is to power, then the case is more or less closed – and all one needs to do is learn how to negotiate one's way among this or that power structure.

BEHIND THE CONVENTIONAL POWER STRUCTURE

However, deeper and more extensive examinations reveal that the anatomy (which is ardently accepted in conventional terms) is actually akin to the proverbial iceberg, only one-fifth of which is visible while the other four-fifths are hidden underneath the water.

Most people, even those tending toward intellectual idiocy, sense that the workings of power are composed not only of its visible factors, but also of factors hidden behind the scenes that are difficult to identify.

One factor is quite certain, however. Although the conventional concepts regarding power do reveal a great deal about its ever-changing vicissitudes, those concepts are also entirely inadequate with regard to many fundamental issues.

• The principle reason for this is that the conventional concepts are NOT based in the probable totality of human powers themselves.
• Instead, the conventional concepts are based within manufactured societal and sociological constructions, the contexts of which are set up to establish who is and who is not to have power.

In other words, the societal constructions set the margins between the powerful and the powerless, with the powerful thereafter maintaining those margins, and sometimes doing so with strength and enthusiasm that can be ruthless.

THE VISIBLE ANATOMY OF POWER AS SOCIETAL ARTIFICE

However, it can be seen that every societal construction is nothing more than some kind of sociological artifice - i.e., "an artful stratagem, or an ingenious device or expedient" designed to incorporate individuals into some kind of sociological power structure.

And indeed, the well-known conventional definition of power as "control, authority, and influence over others" is closely linked to the definition of artifice – in that the control is almost always gained by "artful stratagems, or via ingenious devices or expedients."

• Only the very naive, lost in the illusions of idealism, will think that societal power does not incorporate ingenious devices and expedients. Most realize that societal power utterly drips with such.
• But many do not realize the extent of the dripping – and which, in accord with the infamous trickle-down theory, ultimately trickles down into the lowest echelons of the powerless.

SOCIETAL POWER ARTIFICE vs THE TOTALITY OF HUMAN POWERS

The structured power artifices do not at all reflect the entirety of human powers per se, but only the particular format of how control, authority, and influence over others is set up and then maintained for as long as possible.

This kind of thing sets up the distinction and well-known disparity between societal power systems and the relatively powerless individuals incorporated within them, the latter of which sometimes feel that their own powers are constrained and truncated by the devices and agendas of the power systems.

• Attempts to view and understand this disparity from within the ranks of the powerless usually don't get very far, because it seems quite difficult to comprehend why societal power systems would WANT to constrain and truncate powers at the individual level.

But viewed from the "top" of the power systems, it will logically be concluded that:

1. Control, authority, and influence over others literally means not only control, authority, and influence over the physicality of the subservient populations, but
2. Also over their minds, beliefs, emotions, education, intelligence, and any potential powers that might chance to emerge within the powerless individual levels.

There is an exact reason for (1) and (2) above, which will be discussed in the next chapter. It is first necessary to examine the contexts of the two major concepts of power, because they are in direct conflict with each other.

THE "ESSENTIAL" AND THE "AUTHORITARIAN" DEFINITIONS OF POWER

A central difficulty regarding enlarging one's comprehension of power relates to the conventional idea that the definition of power is "control, authority, and influence over others."

However, that definition is more aptly suited to the meaning of authoritarianism – which is defined as "relating to or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or in an elite; also, relating to or favoring submission to authority."

This author must hasten to point up that this linking of societal power to authoritarianism enjoys rather great precedence. After all, the term "authority" IS found in the accepted definitions of societal power. And those several authors, who have elaborated upon the anatomy of power, unambiguously refer to those who are subservient to authority.

Admittedly, there are various degrees and arrangements of authoritarianism, just as there are various degrees and arrangements of power elites. But if power is defined and accepted as control and influence over others, then the "others" are "subservient" in some sense at least.

• The fact is that the conventional concept of power as control and influence over others is only a societal artifice set up and managed so as to incorporate the subservience of the "others."

In contrast to the authoritarian definitions of power are what can be called the "essential" definitions of it.

In most dictionaries, these are given as "ability to act; to cause or produce an effect; mental efficacy; a source or means of producing motive and transformational energy."

• For clarity and ease of reference, these essential definitions can be thought of as causative ones – as contrasted to the authoritarian ones which, by definition, are controlling ones.

If the distinctions between controlling and causative powers are meditated upon as calmly as possible, it can almost immediately be seen that the causative and the controlling definitions of power are in conflict. The most simple reason is because controlling powers would wish, or would find it necessary, to control causative powers at the random individual level.

It is certainly true that invested societal power structures can cause things to happen.

• But causative powers belong more principally to our species as a whole. Those powers download into each and every specimen of our species, even into those many who find themselves powerless in the face of societal controlling powers.

As will be copiously discussed in the text, the essential, or causative definitions of power outlined just above are more or less the antithesis of authoritarian control, authority, and influence.

• The more exact reason is that authoritarian control can act to suppress and defeat the phenomena associated with the emergence of the essential activities of power at the individual levels.

DICTIONARY DEFINITIONS OF POWER

Most modern dictionaries give first status to the authoritarian definitions of power, and second status to the essential definitions.

However, the Oxford dictionary of the English language reveals that the essential definition of "to cause to act" was first utilized about 1305.

The essential definition as "a particularly strong faculty of body or mind, of vigor, vitality, and energy". appeared about 1440.

The two somewhat authoritarian concepts of power as "personal or social ascendancy," and "controlling political or economic ascendancy or influence" did not emerge until about 1535.

In any event, in today's parlance there are two highly contrasting definitions of power. Both are mentioned, but the authoritarian one is given first, the essential ones given second.

• This first and second place arrangement doubtlessly serves to impress that controlling powers are more important than the essential ones – the latter of which (as will be intricately discussed in the chapters ahead) MUST be of some implicit worry to those who wish to have possession of control and influence over others.

THE POWER OF SOCIETAL ARTIFICES vs ESSENTIAL POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL

Thus far, then, the complex topic of power breaks neatly into two parts – the power of societal artifices, and the powers of the individual. These two kinds of power are not altogether the same thing.

A number of books on the subject of self-empowerment have appeared over time, and some contain very helpful information. But most of them are deficient with regard to one very important context: they give hardly any hint of what the individual is up against.

• As a brief explanation, it can be said that it is true that one is born into physical and mental life, and that one is born equipped with a vast spectrum of innate powers. But one is also born into the environment of an existing power structure wielding control, authority, and influence.

For the most part, one is born into those power environments as a mere statistical unit having very little right to freely and fully develop innate powers in ways that do not accord with those power environments. Indeed, and as will be seen ahead, such environmental power structures, as societal artifices, wield enormous control and influence with regard to attempts for achieving self-empowerment.

THE BASIC PROBLEM OF SELF-EMPOWERMENT

Therefore, with regard to self-empowerment, one will not be attempting self-empowerment per se, but will be attempting it WITHIN a societal artifice which has established ingenious devices and expediencies to truncate too much self-empowerment.

If one is not at least somewhat cognizant of those societal devices and expediencies, one's self-empowerment efforts may end up being like a dismal, failure-prone war fought in unmapped territory where the societal devices have all the advantages.

If the foregoing seems harsh, just take a good look at the enormous number of the powerless throughout the world. Yet, our species existed here long before the societal power artifices that are controlled by the relatively few powerful.

• And, indeed, if our species was not a power species to begin with, there would be little need to erect power artifices to control power in the first place.

In any event, it is now necessary to move into the next chapter in order to examine the enormous disparity between the powerful and the powerless – and to point up at least one logical reason for the disparity.

Figure 3 Full Size

MOST BOOKS that map the conventional anatomy of power direct copious attention to the powerful, but hardly any attention at all to the powerless – except to refer to them as the controlled, the influenced, the obediently subservient, and so forth.

Because of this, it is possible to find out a good deal about power via the power structures of the powerful.

• But beyond that, it is really quite difficult to find out anything about the powerless, except that they are incorporated into the lower echelons of power structures where they are ranked as having relatively low or no power status at all.

In a general way, this is as much to say that the powerless exist because they ARE powerless, after which no further comment is necessary.

The above observations describe a rather fixed concept that seems to be taken as natural by the powerful as well as the powerless. The arrangement between them is thought of simply as the way things always have been, are, and always will be.

The whole of this can be diagrammed as the traditional power structure pyramid. The traditional power pyramid is usually shown in the neat format of an equilateral triangle, and it is this that gives the impression not only of balance throughout, but that the powerless are, in some way, an accepted benefiting part of the power pyramid.

A more real assessment of the total populations involved cannot result in the neat equilateral format.

• So, with an eye on empowerment potentials, it seems necessary to establish the approximate real proportional differences between the powerful and the powerless, and then to point up a factor that is not found clearly mentioned in any book about power.

THE VAST PROPORTIONAL DISPARITY BETWEEN THE POWERLESS AND THE POWERFUL

Roughly speaking, the relatively powerful comprise about 10 percent or less of the total population, while the relatively powerless make up the remaining 90 percent or more.

• This obviously cannot be neatly configured as an equilateral triangle. Perhaps the smaller power part of the population pyramid can be represented by an equilateral pyramid.
• But the fuller, disproportional powerless population really needs to be represented by a vastly bigger and OBLATE design.

The less than 10 percent of the powerful can be further subdivided by considering the visible and the invisible power elite, the latter few of which are known to operate behind the scenes.

• Of course, the exceedingly great attention paid to the powerful makes it seem that their proportional population is much larger than it actually is.

If the whole of our human species is considered, and if the vast proportional disparity is to be considered as real, then it seems that our species naturally produces the vast populations who are not meant to be powerful.

• This, of course, is ridiculous in the extreme, if only because an allegedly intelligent species that produces over 90 percent of naturally powerless populations could not survive very well if at all.

Thus, it can easily be considered that the 90 to 10 percent disproportional relationship is little more than a societal artifice that is given artificial reality by various ways and means.

THE NEEDED STATUS QUO RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE POWERFUL AND THE SUBSERVIENT POWERLESS

A significant question that is never posed is that if the powerless did not exist, then who or what would the powerful have power over?

• Thus, there is a real and a necessarily large lopsided dynamic status quo relationship between the powerless and the powerful.

There is every historical indication that the powerful are cognizant of this necessary status quo relationship, and that overt and covert ways and means are designed to perpetuate it at the general societal levels.

• In bygone centuries, this status quo was trenchantly assured by establishing class systems. There were the minority powerful and the majority powerless, between which there was no upward mobility. This was assured by denying literacy to the lowest class orders.
• Simply put, people were born into a class, and there they stayed, regardless.

Historians explain this as a necessary method to ensure possession and inheritance of property and wealth.

• But in fact it also served the secondary, but equally obvious, purpose as a necessary method of limiting access to societal power as well as serving to perpetuate the powerless classes so that the powerful could have power over them.

By far and large, it is this needed status quo relationship that, in part, makes examinations of power so complicated, or at least renders such examinations into a puzzle whose pieces are very hard to locate.

Further, the perpetuation of the needed status quo relationship between the very few powerful and the very many powerless is itself a quite complicated affair, largely because it must be managed in macro and micro ways that prevent the collective powerless from becoming all that cognizant of it.

And in this sense, the necessary existence of the direct relationship between the societal powerful and the societal powerless probably qualifies as the first secret of power.

• It is not really a secret, of course, and it is usually understood by the subservient masses incorporated into a given societal power artifice.

POWER IS NOT JUST POWER

In the light of the foregoing, it can be said that power is not just power. Rather, power over others can come into existence only in juxtaposition to the powerless, or at least with regard to something else.

What is amusing about all of this concerns the official definitions of societal authoritarian power.

• As already established these are usually given as "control, authority, and influence over others," but the nature of the "others" is never identified. And for an apparently good reason.

If the nature of the "others," was openly and frankly identified, it would be perfectly legitimate to define power as control and influence over and among the powerless.

This definition would, of course, more efficiently reflect the necessary relationship between the few powerful and the very many powerless.

THE POWERLESS DO NOT GENERALLY THINK OF THEMSELVES AS POWERLESS

As it is, though, the topic of power is full of beastly glitches, and via the above it is possible to encounter one of them right away.

• In general, the powerless seldom relish the idea of thinking of themselves as such – largely because the concept of being powerless is somewhat demoralizing and cannot easily be thought of as constituting anything like a cognitive comfort zone.

And it is indeed possible to evade the implicit issues here because power and powerlessness are always relative to each other.

• Almost everyone has some kind of power, if only in their own local universe and their own reality sets.

But evading the implicit issues has another problematical quality that comes to light if and when one wishes to become more generally powerful than one actually is.

• In modern times, if individuals complain or grumble about not having enough power, they will quickly be told by one and all that the reasons reside in their own psychological realms: i.e., no self-confidence, not enough drive, problems with relationships, etc., and that these need to be corrected at the individual level.

These inadequacies perhaps have something to do with whatever is involved. But there is a larger reason why the powerless don't have much power. And the reason has something to do with the necessary relationship between the powerful and the powerless.

If the powerful need large reserves of the powerless in order to have power over them, it would be quite necessary to condition powerlessness into the masses via social and educational artifices. And so the fault of powerlessness might not exclusively be one's own, but one of programming from external sources.

Perfectly legitimate books detailing the conventional anatomy of power do emphasize the importance of social conditioning so as to ensure at least subservience, if not complete powerlessness.

THE THREE HIDDEN PARTS OF POWER OVER OTHERS

If the foregoing is considered, the topic OF and the phenomena of power easily break apart into three fundamental parts having the following priority:

1. The necessary existence of the powerless;
2. The needed lopsided relationship between the powerless and the powerful; and
3. The powerful who surface from among the powerless and who thereafter must maintain the needed lopsided relationship.

The above three power parts suggest that the powerless must exist before the powerful can surface among them, to exert control and influence over the masses they have emerged from.

• If this would be the case, then very few of the powerful would actually try to empower the masses, because doing so would default (2) above.
• But this is almost the same as saying that the powers of our species that could unfold among the vast populations are artificially contained by hidden societal mechanisms.

Figure 4 Full Size

AT FIRST take, any effort to establish a functional link between power and our human species might seem uninteresting and quite distant from the subject of power itself.

• And indeed, if one is thinking only in terms of power it is probably not necessary to make that link. But if one is thinking in terms of empowerment, then it is clear that empowerment involves a change of state from some kind of powerlessness into a state characterized by manifestations of more power.

THE DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN SOURCES AND MANIFESTATIONS OF POWER

One of the ultimate issues regarding empowerment has to do with where power comes from in the first place.

• With respect to that issue, it is important to point up that there are meaningful distinctions between (1) where power comes from, and (2) what power is.
• The foregoing also distinguishes between (1) sources of power, and (2) manifestations of power.

If one spends a lot of time surveying the literature about power, it is quite clear that most assume that manifestations of power are the same as sources of it.

But the term MANIFEST refers to whatever is "readily perceived by the senses, especially by the sight;" or to whatever is "easily understood or recognized by the mind."

• MANIFESTATION refers to "something made evident, obvious, or certain by appearing, showing, or displaying."

• SOURCE, however, refers to "the point of origin; a generative force; a cause; to rise up or spring forth."

Thus, if there is no point of origin for something, then there will be no manifestations of it.

• So, if there are no sources for power, then there will not be any manifestations of it.

As will become very clear, the foregoing discussion regarding sources and manifestations of power is absolutely super-loaded with implications having to do with groking not only the phenomena of empowerment but the phenomena of depowerment as well.

OUR SPECIES ERECTS POWER STRUCTURES

It is quite clear that people can gain access to positions of power within given power structures.

• Thus, it is usual for individuals to think and talk about power within the contexts of their own local environments, where elements of the power structures impinge on them and condition their reality packages.

The general result of this is that those who want to climb societal or organizational power ladders within the power structures most likely see those structures as sources of power regarding manifestations of control, authority, and influence over others.

• And so it is possible to think that this upward power mobility, as it were, consists of empowerment sequences. But this kind of thing is better described not as empowerment but as accessing into and playing power games within already established power structures.

At this point, it is reasonable to wonder from where and why power structures come into existence.

• One plausible explanation hinges on the fact that scientists and philosophers accept the idea that our species is a social one and therefore erects structured societies.

SOCIETY is majorly defined as "an enduring and cooperating social group whose members have developed organized patterns of relationships through interaction with one another."

• "Developed organized patterns" of course refers not only to local, or smaller, social scenarios, but also to the larger contexts of societal structuring.

There is no disagreement among scientists, philosophers, or sociologists that wherever people congregate for any length of time, they set about erecting, or formatting, social structures.

• Indeed, this kind of thing is openly, and even proudly, acknowledged as a human species trait or as a species-wide characteristic. And this is exactly the same as saying that our species manifests societal structures.

However, what is NOT usually discussed, at least not in any clear-cut way, is that all societies erect power structures within their "developed organized patterns," and these power structures assume central control of whatever else the social structure consists of.

It is really quite fair to consider that if developing the elements of structured socialization is actually a species thing, then the developing of power structures is also a species thing. Indeed, where a social structure comes into existence, a power structure becomes formatted within it.

Thus, if it is possible to consider where power basically comes from, one will eventually have to conclude that it consists of important and strong elements within the human species as a whole, or within the general profile of the human species taken altogether.

Those important and strong elements download into each individual of the species, after which (1) the individuals express them if they can, and (2) also collectively design and set up power structures that can come to house large societies and even vast civilizations.

If one pursues this line of thinking, one can eventually encounter a number of cultural and knowledge oddities, the sum of which adds up to a surprising absence of considerations in this regard.

This is to say that although the topic of POWER obviously constitutes a very important element of our species as a whole, that element is hardly ever mentioned in philosophic or scientific descriptions of our species.

GIVING IDENTITY TO OUR SPECIES

The scientific classification of life forms did not begin until the mid-1600s, after which a species became identified by life forms that had common characteristics, and whose male and female specimens could mate and produce progeny.

• In zoology and botany, the formal definition of SPECIES was established as "A group or class of animals or plants (usually constituting a subdivision of a genus) having certain common and permanent characteristics which clearly distinguish it from other groups."

Our species was eventually given the Latin names of HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS. This name can be translated in a number of ways. Some options are:

• Man (male & female) who thinks and knows that he does;
• Man who knows and knows that he knows;
• Man who has memory-intelligence and knows that he has.

In other words, intelligence – not power – was somehow considered as our species most distinguishing attribute.

But there is a rather enormous glitch in the above.

While it is certainly true that intelligence and power have some relationship with each other, it is also true that power can design ways and means to modulate and also suppress intelligence on behalf of this or that societal power structure.

This is what is meant by those authors who, attempting to describe the anatomy of power, refer to "social conditioning" of the masses which results in subordinating the vastly larger populations to the will of others.

Indeed, it is quite understandable that "conditioned power" refers to the educational persuasion of what the individual, in the social context, has been brought to believe is inherently correct.

Once this is achieved, in the societal context, submission to the authority of others reflects the accepted view of what the individual should believe, think, and do REGARDLESS of any intelligence that might be housed in the individual.

In any event, even though power and intelligence do have various kinds of relationships, they are not the same thing. It can always be seen that manifestations of power constitute a more central situation to our species than intelligence does. It can also be discovered that power only tolerates intelligence to the degree that the latter is not troublesome to it.

We of course need to think of our species as having intelligence, and probably as having creativity, too. But at our species level and immediately superior, as it were, to intelligence and creativity, is the consideration of Man who has and can make power, and knows it.

As it really is, then, our species literally drips with power, far more than it drips with intelligence or even creativity.

• And indeed, if the definition of power is accepted as control, authority, and influence over others, then that would naturally include the same with regard to the intelligence and creativity levels of those others.

OUR SPECIES ENDOWED WITH POWERS

In the biological and zoological sciences, it is assumed, as a dominant and unquestionable paradigm, that a species is basically designed for basic physical survival of itself within given environments.

But if this would be the case regarding the human species, then that species would not need the extraordinary line-up of additional endowments, powers, faculties, and abilities it is widely known to possess. (It is worthwhile pointing up one such power – the power of discovering and accumulating knowledge and THEN the power of access and jurisdiction over it.)

This is the same as saying that our species is remarkably over-endowed with regard to mere survival – indeed so over-endowed that there is an enormous scientific and philosophic gap between it and all other known species inhabiting this planet.

Our species is known to have powers and abilities it doesn't use, a good part of which fall into the category known as powers of mind – but which could more correctly be referred to as power of powers.

It is perhaps a bit awkward to suggest that our species is a species having the power of powers.

Even so, it is our species that resolutely goes about erecting power structures of all kinds and shapes, the most basic and obvious purpose of which is to have control, authority, and influence over powers.

• In any event, a species bereft of powers and power-making probably would not have an identifiable need to do any such thing.

Figure 5 Full Size

THERE ARE any number of ways of picturing the designs, or lay-outs, of societal power structures, and it is the function of this chapter to at least cast a brief glance at some of them.

• Doing so will increase the dimensions of awareness among those who are interested in empowerment, and also be helpful in reversing subtle depowerment realities at work in most of those structures.

THE POWER PYRAMID DESIGN

As we have seen, power structures in modern times usually are pictured as having the shape of equilateral pyramids. The pyramids are then subdivided, showing the powerful few at the apex, the powerless masses at the broad bottom, with gradients of power between those two categories.

This, of course, is a neat way of picturing in that it can be groked all at once. As it stands, there is nothing wrong with this pyramidal presentation – with two rather subtle exceptions.

First, the powerful themselves endorse this pyramidal presentation, since it establishes sequential gradients of order while at the same time letting everyone know that this is how it is. The pyramidal format also gives the subtle but explicit impression that access to power merely requires a vertical assent to the "top."

Second, and even more subtle, empowerment in the pyramidal format is to be understood AS that vertical assent and nothing else, and specifically so within the existing power structure and what it stands for.

• In other words, notions of empowerment, and routes to it, are confined within the power structure, and this makes it possible and entirely probable that the top power echelons determine who is to ascend or not.
• This particular power-structure design seems to present a fair and even hopeful description of power, implying, as it does, that those among the powerless ranks who can manage to do so CAN make the power-ladder ascent and possibly arrive at least in the vicinity of the powerful "top."

It is thus that the pyramidal design for a power structure, even if objectionable in many respects, exerts a somewhat hypnotic allure over the masses incorporated within it.

What is not expressly visible in the power pyramid design is a significant factor pointed up earlier.

• This factor consists of the simple reality that the powerful NEED the presence of the powerless in order to have something to have power over, and this specifically in terms of control, authority, and influence.

Thus, ways and means must be discovered and implemented to keep the majority of the powerless as powerless as possible.

• In that sense, if the powerless became aware of those ways and means, then significant numbers of the powerless would object to them. So those ways and means must at least be as invisibly subtle as possible, and even quite secret if necessary.
• As will be dissected in Part Two, the power-structure design is more intricate than can ever be fully groked by simply picturing power as a neat pyramid.

THREE OTHER HELPFUL WAYS OF PICTURING POWER STRUCTURES

As already discussed in chapter 1, power structures can be pictured as intricate and confusing labyrinths.

• It is proper to bear in mind the labyrinthine nature of power, largely because numbers of labyrinths will be found inside all power pyramidal designs.

Another reason has to do with the fact that power structures are rife with cleverly and deliberately engineered misinformation and disinformation activities. These activities are designed to be labyrinthine in character so as to mislead and confuse general cognitive awareness of what is really going on.

• Everyone more or less understands this, of course, and so the engineering of such isn't actually too much of a secret. However, the activities within power structures that produce misinformation and disinformation are usually secretized.

Another way of picturing power structures is one that was fashionable in the late nineteenth and throughout the twentieth centuries.

Power can be pictured as a gigantic octopus having many more than eight "arms." This image often appeared in the media, and was used to portray the powerful, their elite, and their offices in the act of grasping manifold elements, especially economic ones, that would reinforce their power status.

• In slightly different formats, this image has had a long basis in history – in that power was often pictured as having a thousand faces, arms, tentacles, currents of control, manifold secrets, and manipulating objectives.

And, as has already been discussed, one of the most functional ways of picturing power structures has to do with the proverbial iceberg, one-fifth of which is visible above the water in which it floats, while the other four-fifths are hidden in the water beneath the one-fifth.

THE GREAT ANTIQUITY OF POWER MACHINATIONS AND PROBLEMS

In its official definition, human history begins with the advent of some form of writing which makes it possible to recover a chronological record of significant past events. Anything that might have happened prior to that is officially referred to as pre-history or as prehistorical.

• Writing is so closely associated with literacy that the two are considered the same thing.

As is so far known, the first literate civilization consisted of the Sumerians of the Near East and who, at some point around 3000 B.C., developed a type of writing now known as cuneiform script. And so the historical period begins at about that date and place.

• However, it is generally accepted that our species either emerged or appeared about 35,000 years ago. In that sense our species is referred to as Cro-Magnon Man, this name being taken from a location in France where evidence of a Cro-Magnon settlement was first discovered.

The so-called pre-historical period thus ranges from about 35,000 years ago up to the advent of writing at about 3,000 B.C., at which time human history begins.

• This division is really quite silly, largely because throughout the long pre-historical period, Cro-Magnon Man possessed visual and three-dimensional arts. Many artifacts remaining from those arts can be carbon-dated, and they can reveal a chronology, albeit one not considered historical.

In any event, with the emergence of the great Sumerian and associated civilizations, one can find a factor which modern historians do not emphasize too much.

• That factor is this: With the emergence of the historical period linked to the emergence of writing, it is dramatically found that the civilizations involved are already great, and ALREADY have developed and perfected what can easily be recognized as enormous power structures.

This can only mean that our species became preoccupied with the designing of power structures during the long prehistorical period, and did so without writing and the particular kind of literacy associated with it.

• This somewhat means that the designing, developing, implementing, and the maintenance of a human species power structure is not completely dependent on writing and the particular kind of literacy associated with it.
• This is the same as suggesting that writing/literacy is not the key or central ingredient to formatting a power structure.

There are very few human elements that can equally and thus consistently transcend and link the very long prehistorical and the rather short historical periods of our species.

• But certainly the factor of secrecy is one of those elements, largely because secrecy can be conducted behind the scenes of writing and literacy, and even in their total absence.
• And indeed, it is quite probable that writing and literacy can be secretly managed on behalf of this or that power structure.

THE NATURE OF SECRECY

The nature of secrecy is, of course, to keep something hidden from others, and the modern definitions can altogether be groked accordingly.

1. Something kept hidden or unexplained;
2. Something kept from the knowledge of others or shared only confidentially with a few;
3. Something constructed so as to elude observation or detection;
4. Something revealed only to the initiated;
5. Working with hidden aims or methods;
6. Remote from human frequentation or notice;
7. Something kept unexplained;
8. Something hidden, but taken to be a specific or a key to a desired end;
9. Something done or achieved without attracting attention;
10. Action or behavior done with stealth, artful deception, or with skillful avoidance of detection and in violation of usage, law, authority, or established knowledge;
11. The habit or practice of keeping secrets, or maintaining privacy and concealment.

The foregoing definitions are, of course, modern and consist of contemporary understanding as to what comprises the whole of secrecy.

• It is usually dangerous to project contemporary understandings backward in time – the process is called anachronistic application – and superimpose them on by-gone peoples, societies, and civilizations, thereby arriving at a sometimes gross misinterpretation of the past.

However, projecting the contemporary definitions of SECRECY back into the past, even into the very distant past, probably is not too much an anachronistic application.

Indeed, it seems quite likely that our species, either as Homo sapiens sapiens, or as Cro-Magnon Man, understood elements of secrecy from the get-go 35,000 years ago, and also groked that secrecy was opportune for designing power structures.

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Figure 6 Full Size

MANY INDIVIDUALS want to discover ways and means that might lead to some kind of empowerment.

• But if they have very little comprehension of the vast and enduring societal panorama of power, then their empowerment efforts might end up resembling a candle undergoing meltdown until the flame extinguishes.

There are two principle reasons, which can be thought of as barriers to gaining empowerment.

• The first barrier consists of the easily recognizable fact that power is considered extremely precious by the powerful, and so gaining access to it is made as difficult and as complicated as possible.

The second barrier can also be easily recognized, IF one somehow chances to notice its existence.

• It is never mentioned by those examining the anatomy of power, and it is never identified and talked about even by those advocating ways and means of empowerment.

Simply put, there are no socially endorsed power schools in which the general public might educationally enroll in order to learn about the nature of power, its manifold elements, and its workings among the populations in general.

As has already been discussed from different perspectives, the activities and problems of power have been present within our species from time immemorial – so much so that like life and death themselves, power can be thought of as one of the major implacable facts of human existence.

It is not altogether out of order to suggest that wherever humans are or wherever they go, they transport with them not only the human power principle in general, but especially those activities and problems of the kind of power specifically defined as control, authority, and influence over others.

As also discussed earlier, the "others" have to be present in order to have power over them. So wherever humans go they will transport with them the techniques of ensuring the presence of the "others."

• Logically speaking, in terms of empowerment and depowerment, the others need to be kept in conditions of depowerment, so as to not become empowered enough to become troublesome to the powerful.
• So techniques rigged to guarantee their depowered existence range from brute force to elegant and subtle conditioning that can produce what is called "co-operative obedience or submission."

SOCIETAL TECHNIQUES AIMED AT PREVENTING WIDE-SPREAD EMPOWERMENT

In modern times, the whole of the techniques is also sometimes referred to as social engineering. Such engineering always has two faces or two sides; the visible or obvious one; and the invisible or not obvious one.

It can be said, without too much error, that most people naturally focus on what is visible, or at least upon what they can perceive.

• Thus, it is possible (and logical) to suppose that societal techniques to prevent too much empowerment must contain some kind of expertise that influences perception not only toward the visible aspects of power, but also away from its invisible aspects.

The major societal power dynamics of the modern period do not differ all that much from earlier historical ones. This is to say that while power contexts might change in the historical sense, the essential power structures remain much the same, especially with regard to their visible and invisible faces.

• If the above holds water, then it is reasonable to expect that modern books about power will focus only on examinations of its visible aspects.
• This focus on the obvious aspects tends to establish what power IS in ways that are both explicit and implicit, with the result that both adherents and detractors of societal power support or attack the visible aspects.
• Even those among the powerless seeking some kind of empowerment conceptualize the routes to empowerment in ways that are consistent with the visible aspects.

Having said this much about the visible and invisible aspects of power, it is now necessary to point up what might qualify as the "top dog" invisible aspect of power and societal power structures.

MODERN KNOWLEDGE BY-PASSES IN-DEPTH INFORMATION ABOUT POWER

This top-dog invisible aspect is slightly complicated, so it is necessary to erect some kind of reality basis for it. Thus, it is first necessary to indicate a singular and important fundamental premise supporting the idea of the Modern Age.

• This fundamental premise had to do with the objective amassing of knowledge based in organized study and scientific categorizing achieved against the background of the formal techniques of reasoning (i.e., the techniques of logic.)
• LOGIC itself is defined as the science that studies the formal principles of reasoning.

Thus, in the short time-span of about 25 modernist years, there appeared:

TECHNOLOGY - defined as applied science.

BIOLOGY - the science that studies living organisms and vital processes.

BOTANY - a scientific branch of biology dealing with plant life.

ZOOLOGY - a scientific branch of biology concerned with the animal kingdom and its members as individuals and classes of them, and with animal life.

PSYCHOLOGY - the science that studies mind and behavior.

SOCIOLOGY - the science that studies society, social institutions, and social relationships.

The modern age also eventually developed SEXOLOGY – the study of sex or of the interactions of the sexes, especially among human beings.

The suffix LOGY is taken to mean the organized study and the science of something. And so in keeping with its foundational premise, the modern period produced the several OLOGIES mentioned above.

THE ABSENCE OF THE SCIENCE OF POWEROLOGY

However, among its gigantic amassing of all kinds of organized knowledge, the modernist period DID NOT establish and develop anything akin to POWEROLOGY – and which, if it existed, would refer to the organized study of power, its science, and the applications of that science.

The crucial reasons for the absence of powerology are not hard to grok.

If power might be thought of as the most important thing in the world, then obtaining it will also be one of the most competitive enterprises in that world.

• If that is so, it must follow that how to get power must become shrouded not only in confusions, but in secrecy, and which secrecy needs increasingly to be refined into various deeper and deeper operative levels.

If THAT is so, then logically speaking there must somehow exist an organized study, a science, and an applied technology regarding ways and means to defeat the arising of powerology (and empowerment), and to eradicate whatever might somehow get it started.

THE ABSENCE OF POWER SCHOOLS

This is clearly to say that IF educational powerology is persona non grata within the panorama of societal power structures, then it should of course be taken for granted that anything resembling power schools will never see the light of day.

To repeat for clarity, there are no societally endorsed public educational courses that might be called Power Studies 101 whose curricula would teach students HOW TO understand and gain control, authority, and influence over others.

Of course, such studies would also have to include important information that distinguishes between visible and invisible aspects of power as well as information about functionable methods not only regarding empowerment, but also workable techniques regarding depowerment.

Indeed, and by necessity, the powerology curriculum would obviously have to include important information regarding methods of depowerment, in order to ensure the continuing presence of "others" to have power over.

It can easily be established, with rather convincing obviousness, that power schools do not exist – at least of the kind that are open to the public.

That this aspect of power is not noticed in a large-scale way is quite remarkable. However, one explanation might be that those who examine and write about the anatomy of power are so conditioned to and fixated on its visible aspects that they cannot espy ANY of its invisible ones.

In any event, if there is a monolithic societal absence of power schools, then by extension there would also have to be an important absence of power studies within other meaningful socializing activities, such as philosophy.

THE ABSENCE OF PHILOSOPHICAL POWER STUDIES

The issues and circumstances of power should have taken on extreme philosophical importance ages ago, for the question might well be asked: How can human societies consider themselves philosophically without figuring out the central meanings and importance that power has?

The three major activities of PHILOSOPHY are:

1. The pursuit of wisdom;
2. A search for truth through logical reasoning rather than factual observation; and
3. An analysis of the grounds of and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs.

If these activities are connected up with power and power-making, then any actual and real pursuit of wisdom has immediately to be jettisoned.

• The reasons for this are plentiful. But certainly one of them, as almost everyone already groks, is that any real pursuit of wisdom will surely be inconvenient to the pursuit of power, and which pursuit is not notable for wisdom questing.

With regard to the second activity of philosophy, a search for truth through logical reasoning can often be in conflict with a search for power based on factual observations – for example, those of factual force, cunning, deceit, and social conditioning.

• And surely the goals of power with regard to control, authority, and influence over others HAS to be ascertained via factual observation rather than by logical reasoning.

With the third activity, there has probably been no societal power structure that would relish and endorse an analysis of either the grounds or the fundamental beliefs concerning power – unless such analysis proved favorable to it.

• Human history is full of narratives about many past philosophers who undertook such analysis which turned out unfavorable, and those philosophers swiftly met with bad ends.

So, philosophers decidedly belong among the "others" that the powerful have control, authority, and influence over. And indeed, it would be logical that the workings of power structures must obtain control and authority over anything that is mind-influencing – such as philosophy.

It is thus that philosophy, in its purest and ideal sense, must not only be of perpetual, but of serious concern to power structures – with the result that smart philosophers have long understood that frank philosophical discussions of power as such are not only taboo but can be dangerous.

And so there is almost a complete absence of philosophical studies regarding power. And what does exist along such lines usually does not constitute a study based in logical reasoning, but merely a note about the visible aspects of power.

For example, in 1967, Macmillian, Inc., a major publisher to be sure, brought out THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY, a tremendous work many years in preparation. It consisted of eight volumes, altogether amounting to just over 2,120 oversized pages. Every conceivable philosophical topic and philosopher was given lengthy write-ups in it.

In this comprehensive compilation, the topic of POWER could not be avoided altogether. So the entry for it consists of only two and a half pages, the short length of which is surely indecent for a topic which is otherwise of such enormous importance.

The entry tells not much more than a street-wise individual will already know about power. It more or less concluded that:

• "To possess power or to be powerful is, then, to have a generalized potentiality for getting one's own way, or for bringing about changes (at least some of which are intended) in other peoples' actions."

Well, what has been quoted above surely reflects what the powerful WISH to be openly known and accepted about power, and the compilers of the encyclopedia did their duty.

THE SOCIETAL FATE OF POWER STUDIES, POWEROLOGY, AND POWER PSYCHOLOGY

If, from the perspective of invested power structures, there are to be no power schools, then it generally must follow that there is to be no knowledge of power either – at least of the kind made openly available to the powerless who might empower themselves thereby. These, then, are required to be socially conditioned so as to conform and exist within the design and needs of this or that power structure.

But it also must follow that any significant empowerment activities that somehow get going, and which are intended for mass consumption, must swiftly be deconstructed.

There are many horror stories having to do with the deconstruction of such fated empowerment efforts. But one of those efforts is quite significant, precisely because it directly involved making the powerless more powerful.

Early in the twentieth century, various efforts grouped together as power psychology got going in Europe. One of the chief exponents was Alfred Adler (1870-1937) who founded the school of individual psychology

Adler was among the first to reject the Freudian emphasis upon sex. He maintained that all personality difficulties have their roots in feelings of inferiority (power-lessness) derived from physical, intellectual, or from conflict with the natural and social environment that restricts an individual's need for power and self-assertion.

In Adler's terms, feelings of inferiority (diminished power) were the opposites of feelings of superiority (enhanced power). Adler thus saw behavior disorders as over-compensation for power deficiencies and socio-environmental depowerment.

He founded the school of individual psychology in order to treat and cure individuals suffering from the inferiority complex manifested as diminished power, thereby restoring them to their natural powers of self-assertion. As might be imagined, Adler's school of power psychology got off to a brilliant start.

This kind of thing, of course, constitutes something akin to a nightmare among stalwart managers of power structures.

• Within those structures, the existence of diminished and enhanced power are not only of on-going fundamental relevance, but anyway are always delicately balanced even at the top of all power structures.
• Alder's goal of re-empowering the depowered thus required subtle deconstruction efforts that would achieve two effects: making him seem foolish in the eyes of his professional peer group, while at the same time tacitly warning that group against pursuing power studies that might lead toward empowerment techniques.

Adler might have understood inferiority complexes quite well, but he clearly did not understand the machinations of power structures.

• So, to make things worse for him and his mission of empowerment, in 1927 he produced a seminal book entitled UNDERSTANDING HUMAN NATURE.

Human nature had long been thought of as containing, among its other qualities, the famous or infamous Power Drive, elements of which presumably dwelled in everyone, just as human nature did.

• Adler's book came out just when the modern West was scientifically deconstructing the very existence of human nature as something which had any bearing on human fate and destiny.

Thus, in his book, Adler posited that the urge to power was a constituent of human nature itself. As such, power should be dissected to be better understood and managed.

• As might be imagined, such an effort, if it ever got underway, could have serious implications to any number of power structures.
• Indeed, discovering how to understand and manage power in an organized and presumable scientific fashion threatened to bring the rules and methods of power into fuller disclosure – something few really wanted because it might give undue advantage to just anyone.

As a result, both the workings of human nature and the pursuit of power psychology disappeared as such. Even so, and if a little dated by now, Adler's books are well worth reading by anyone grappling with the problems of empowerment.

Figure 7 Full Size

The societal pyramid of power is typically controlled by a tiny power elite not usually visible, a visible contingent of the powerful, and those who are assigned artificial power for management purposes. The structure gains depth-endurance by erecting necessary subsidiary institutions that are fused together only at the elite level. This permits the agendas set by the elite to be orchestrated through all areas of society, including the powerless levels. Usual diagrams of the power pyramid do not show that energy is sucked upward from the powerless worker and utilized on behalf of the elite agendas.

THE ELEVEN most obvious definitions of secrecy have been discussed in chapter 5. Via those definitions it can be supposed that the term secrecy represents the ways and means of hiding things from others.

• But in a larger picture, it seems that secrecy is not only a process of hiding things, but an aspect of collective human nature overall.

By way of explanation, if we can think that the "urge" to power is a species-wide aspect of human nature, then it is possible to place the "urge" to secrecy quite close to the power urge. Almost anyone can discover that power and secrecy are always found together or working in tandem.

It is important to point up this factual relationship, because conventional books that review the most obvious anatomy of power NEVER introduce the aspect of secrecy as part-and-parcel of power games always on-going within societal power structures.

THE CONCEPT OF A WEB

Taken from old Norse into English, the term WEB refers to weaving something so as to snare, entrap, or entangle.

Three of the major definitions of TANGLE are given as:

1. To unite or knit together in intricate confusion;
2. A complicated or confused state or condition;
3. A state of perplexity or complete bewilderment.

It is logical to think that if all the elements of power and empowerment stood revealed to everyone, it would then be difficult to format a power structure of any kind because everyone would more or less be equivalent.

• The obvious reason, as already discussed, is that power as control, authority, and influence over others requires the factual and extensive presence of those others who must be maintained in some unequivalent condition of depowerment.
• So, the elements of power and empowerment cannot be allowed to stand revealed to everyone, and instead must broadly be cast into a complicated or confused condition.
• A power structure can then be designed and formatted which does incorporate the relatively powerless and the powerless who are perplexed within webs of bewilderment, especially with regard to empowerment.

THE CLOSE LINKAGE OF SECRECY AND POWER

The reason for the close linkage of power and secrecy can now be seen as obvious, in that there is no supportable reason for secrecy unless it is used to deny information to others for the empowering benefits of those who instigate the denial.

• Power over others can, of course, be achieved by brute force, and there is no secret about that method.
• But power over others is also achieved by preventing the others from acquiring real information and knowledge about empowerment.
• If this is successful, then the others end up as dysfunctional and bewildered not only regarding a fuller understanding of power itself, but with respect to gaining empowering access to it.

The foregoing refers to affairs of power and power structures that are quite complicated. But to aid in beginning to sort through it, two principle kinds or uses of secrecy can be identified.

Most are familiar with the fact that power structures utilize secrecy to gain or obtain advantages with respect to other power structures, especially regarding militant, economic, and, sometimes, ideological goals.

• All those who are incorporated in the power structure, including the relatively powerless, will more or less tolerate and support that kind of secrecy. The other option is to perhaps be conquered by another combative power structure.
• But there is another principle use for secrecy, and it is one shared in common by almost all power structures.
• In terms of its total population, a power structure is roughly composed of a very small cadre of the powerful and a very large cadre over which the small cadre exert control, authority, and influence.

This very large cadre is often referred to as "the masses" of individuals incorporated in some subservient way into the power structure. But, and to emphasize, without the presence of the incorporated masses, the powerful would not have much to have power over.

There is thus a quite dynamic relationship not only between the relatively powerless and the confirmed powerful, but also between power and secrecy.

• Many sociologists have examined this dynamic relationship, but only within the contexts of the belief that the powerless are naturally powerless and so nothing further about them needs to be understood.
• It is rare to find any sociologist even hinting that the status of powerlessness among the masses must be maintained as such in order that the power structure remain complete.

There is a useful analogy via which the powerful can be pictured as the head and the powerless as the body. If the powerless suddenly abandon the head, then the head has nothing to be the head of.

DEPRIVING THE MASSES OF POWER KNOWLEDGE

Thus has emerged the central dual situation of power rulership throughout history having to do with the powerless masses.

1. The powerless masses must be kept content and non-combative with regard to the powerful, but in a mental state within which they are acceptive of the powerful, and
2. At the same time, the masses must also be deprived of all knowledge that has any relevance regarding how to become powerful.

This dual situation Is a problem because all individuals of our species are born with a mind that can organize information and figure things out.

• This is to say, if only in the generic sense, that all individuals are innately born with a large number of awareness and intelligence faculties. It would be obvious that the on-going existence of such faculties also poses an on-going problem for the managers of power structures.

If these innate faculties were to be nurtured and developed among the powerless masses, then the head of a power structure would be faced with all sorts of problems regarding whom to have power over. Indeed, dramatic revolutions can ensue if the masses become too dissatisfied with the assigned lot as the powerless.

In modern times, those who study and write about the anatomy of power do indicate that the masses within a given power structure must be made to undergo "social conditioning" so as to become "subservient to and acceptive" of the powerful.

• However, those investigating the anatomy of power do not penetrate very deeply into what "social conditioning" consists of, how it is instigated, or how it is managed.

There is a reason for this. If they are not exactly the same, social conditioning, behavior modification, and mind-control are at least depowerment siblings having many similar aspects and results.

Social conditioning can, of course, be imposed by abject and overt force, and history is full of such occasions.

• But that kind of conditioning usually leaves a residue of resentment, desires for revenge, and, ultimately, rebellion. It can cause quakes within any power structure and even pull down the powerful – who then are quite likely to be subjected to abject force such as assassination, beheading, and so forth.

Thus, use of overt force on behalf of establishing social conditioning has not proven very workable in the long run, largely because those targeted for the conditioning can recognize it for what it is.

• This leaves the option of achieving social conditioning via hidden and secret techniques so as to prevent and inhibit the conditioned from recognizing it for what it is.
• This type of activity becomes noticeable not by studying the obvious anatomy of power, but by examining the not-so-obvious anatomy of the powerless together with the ways and means of achieving and maintaining them as such.

THE MAJOR STRUCTURE OF DEPOWERMENT

Those seeking some kind of empowerment usually focus on what they imagine to be its seemingly obvious processes, and usually pay no attention to the processes of depowerment. However, depowerment processes can more factually account for the origins of their perceived powerlessness, and thus their feelings of inferiority.

Alfred Adler, whose empowerment efforts have already been discussed, clearly put one finger on the machinations of depowerment.

• He indicated that a principle source of feelings of inferiority, and thus of feelings of powerlessness, were to be found not exclusively within the individual.
• The more likely source had to do with societal environments that deconditioned empowerment not only among the masses, but even within given power structures as a whole.
• But with this, Adler touched only upon the concept of empowerment and re-empowerment, but not upon HOW societal conditioning toward endemic depowerment proceeds – and does so with an almost unparalleled and unexamined efficiency.

THE BEST KINDS OF DEPOWERMENT PROCESSES

We might assume that most individuals incorporated into a power structure would not want to undergo conditioning toward depowerment, and would probably fight against it if the conditioning became easily identifiable.

• Therefore, in order to achieve even a modicum of efficiency, the processes of such conditioning clearly require formats of secrecy that are not easily recognized as such, or even recognized as existing in the first place.
• Depowerment processes must not only be secret and subtle, but invisible as well. After all, most will not think to discover and recognize what is apparently not there to recognize.

THE ABSENCE OF POWER SCHOOLS

As already reviewed, hardly anyone seems to recognize the ABSENCE of power schools.

• In visible fact, however, attempts to establish what equate to power schools, such as Alfred Adler tried, are shot down and given odiferous reputations.
• Indeed, the absence of power school and power-enhancement curriculums is an unmistakable clue regarding the existence of a depowerment agenda of no mean proportions.

THE ABSENCE OF ENCYCLOPEDIAS REGARDING THE SCOPE OF HUMAN POWERS AND ABILITIES

But if absences of power schools might be identified, it can as well come to light that no encyclopedias have ever been compiled that list and describe the whole of known or suspected range of human powers and abilities.

The existence of this important vacuum is almost never identified, and so individuals have no real way of identifying their own powers and abilities.

This vacuum is exceedingly strange, especially with regard to modern scientific and psychological times.

During those times, concise and comprehensive encyclopedias of sea shells, slime molds, architectural edifices, of toys and antiques, and of and distant star systems have been produced.

• Extensive encyclopedias of psychiatric and psychological disorder have also been produced.

But no encyclopedias of human powers and abilities have seen the light of day.

THE ABSENCE OF STUDIES REGARDING THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF HUMAN AWARENESS

The nature of awareness, and its full scope, must constitute a key factor not only in respect to empowerment potentials, but also as a factor for basic survival.

• Indeed, those of minimal or deconditioned awareness are likely to become easy victims of just about any agenda or insidious activity.

Expanding one's awareness potentials certainly plays a crucial role with regard to empowerment and to power.

• Indeed, one has to become aware of something in order to even begin dealing with it. But there are no studies regarding awareness, much less studies regarding how to expand its fabulous spectrum.

THE ABSENCE OF STUDIES REGARDING INTUITION, TELEPATHY, AND FORESIGHT

The attributes of intuition, telepathy, and foresight are so visible among our species and in all cultures, so much so that most at least tacitly accept without question their real existence.

• It is true that many books about these three elements have appeared. But extensive and efficient studies of them have NEVER been officially sponsored by any invested societal power structure.
• The obvious reason concerns the real possibility that real knowledge and development suggestive of applied technology could come about.

Thus, any full magnification of those three attributes would not only have significant, but decidedly nightmarish implications regarding empowerment and invasions of secrecy webs.

PERPETUATING A STATE OF UNKNOWING REGARDING EMPOWERMENT

When the majority of people are kept in a state of unknowing, they are easier to influence, control, or dominate by the managers of power-structure systems.

The best way of defeating empowerment among the masses is to keep absent ANY knowledge that has real implications toward empowerment. And almost anything along those lines can be rendered invisible, or at least cast into confusion.

The whole of this process can be referred to as the web of secrets preventing access to empowerment. Those who aspire to some kind of empowerment might take more than just a passing interest in this deadly web and its secrets.

THE LONG HISTORY OF DEPOWERMENT BY SOCIETAL DESIGN

The societal prohibition against real and workable power-knowledge is so long-enduring, so long sustained, and so LOGICAL to power-holders, that it need not even be put into print as a directive. It is practically INTUITIVE among power-holders; it is unspoken, it is silent – and well maintained.

Just imagine, for example, that you are a power-holder of a high office or position.

• How would you like to see a thousands or millions of the powerless become awakened to their own empowerment – and turn their eyes toward your power position?
• What would you do in such a case?

In any event, there is no power structure that can afford to have even a small portion of our species become awaken to our species power faculties. Theoretically awakened, perhaps. But never dynamically awakened.

The best way to accomplish this negative power engineering in the long term is:

1. To permanently hide all effective knowledge concerning empowerment;
2. To permit, even encourage, the production of disinformation about empowerment which won't result in empowerment;
3. To make the issues of depowerment so completely invisible that the term itself is not linguistically present and is not therefore to be found in dictionaries.

The three items above more or less characterize the web of secrets that efficiently prevent access to empowerment.

Figure 8 Full Size

The human species has many powers some of which have been identified, while others remain undiscovered, perhaps deliberately so. The four powers described appear to be generic. They emerge in all cultural settings, and are thus easy to recognize.

OF ALL the possible designs for societal power structures, the shape of the structure as a pyramid has been most prevalent throughout history.

• Therefore, that design has long been accepted not only as traditional, but as inherently natural within our species as a whole. So, the pyramidal power structure is assumed to be emblematic and symbolic of power itself.

One of the subtle results of this is that writers seeking to reveal the anatomy of power end up assessing not the anatomy of power itself, but the anatomy of the conventional power pyramid.

• This is an important distinction to be made by those who can grok it, in that a societal power pyramid can house power, but the house is not power itself.
• Even so, societal power pyramids are quite real enough, and within the contexts of this book their anatomy needs to be examined.

SOCIAL CONDITIONING ON BEHALF OF A PYRAMIDAL POWER STRUCTURE

As we have seen, the concept of "social conditioning" is pointed up in conventional discussions of power, which also establish that it is generally achieved by two visible methods:

1. Affirmative rewards to those who agree to work on behalf of supporting the power structure;
2. Condign punishment of those who go against the power structure.

Condign punishment refers to punishment that is thought to be deserved and appropriate within the contexts of any given power structure. Examples of it range from mere social and professional condemnation to serious imprisonment or terminal execution.

• Such punishment of course is designed to rid power structures of real or imagined misfits. But in terms of social conditioning contexts, is it also quite helpful in demonstrating to the potentially obstreperous, and to everyone, what can happen if they step outside of social conditioning norms. It is a powerful tool.

But beyond mentioning that social conditioning is achieved by affirmative reward and condign punishment, none of the conventional assessments enter into extensive discussions regarding how wholesale depowerment is subtly achieved. So it is exceedingly difficult to discover the ways and means employed to achieve that particular kind of conditioning.

• As seen in the foregoing chapter, those processes need to be so entirely subtle that they are enmeshed in invisible, but nevertheless strong, webs of secrets.
• However, there is more to social conditioning than punishment and reward – such as subtle formats of general behavior modification and mind-control of the masses. In this sense, the traditional power pyramid needs to be examined afresh.

THE CONVENTIONAL CONCEPT OF THE POWER PYRAMID DESIGN

As briefly mentioned in chapter 3, the design of the conventional power pyramid is usually presented in the neat shape of an equilateral triangle.

• At the top of the power pyramid, called the Apex, will be found either an individual or a small elite group who exercise, demand, and receive obedience from the increasingly large strata beneath them.
• Descending from the apex toward the broad base of the pyramid, one will find what are commonly called citizens and workers.
• They, of course, owe allegiance and support to the apex occupants who are guiding or controlling their society, supposedly on behalf of the pyramid entire.

The "top dogs," as they are often referred to, are those few apex dwellers who exercise ultimate control, authority and influence throughout the entire pyramid collective.

• The underdogs consist of the increasingly larger masses beneath the apex who volunteer or are conditioned so as to respond to and be managed by the top dogs.

The chief VISIBLE vehicles for the conditioning of the underdogs consist of some kind of affirmative rewards together with examples of condign punishment when necessary or needed.

In this sense, the societal power pyramid can be seen as incorporating and enforcing the two most famous aspects of stimulus-response behaviorism – pain if in error, and reward if in agreement.

INVISIBLE ASPECTS OF THE CONVENTIONAL POWER PYRAMID

If the anatomy of the conventional power pyramid design is studied in depth, it turns out that certain, but exceedingly important and more complex, factors are conveniently smoothed over by casting the design into the neat shape of an equilateral triangle.

• This smoothing over more or less renders certain factors relatively invisible. As it is, though, if they are studied in depth, there is no societal power structure that can really be rendered as a neat equilateral pyramid.
• Power-holders within the pyramid are almost certainly aware of this, and so it is to be wondered why the idea of the balanced equilateral shape is publicly offered up in the first place.

One possible reason is that the neat shape presents an apparently complete, authoritative but exceedingly simplified visage of power which, on average, can be understood by the simple-minded and accepted by the naive.

• If so, then the neat shape, endorsed as accurate and valid by the powerful, and offered up to the public, serves some meaningful function in the social conditioning of the public. Indeed, the neat shape serves to occlude easy perception of various problems and inconsistencies always present in any societal power structure. These, then, remain invisible.

NUMERICAL POPULATIONS INCORPORATED INTO A SOCIETAL POWER STRUCTURE

Perhaps the first of such inconsistencies has to do with the actual numerical count of populations thought to be incorporated into the pyramidal schematic.

• This numerical count has briefly been alluded to in chapter 3, where it was indicated that the subservient and powerless masses conventionally seen as incorporated into the structure can be exceedingly greater than the small, even tiny, numerical powerful at the power apex.
• The numerical differences can be tremendous, as in the cases of those present-day nations in which the small cadre of the powerful exert control over massive populations of many hundreds of millions.
• It might be thought of as splitting hairs if one considers the difference between "incorporated into" and "controlled by."
• But if this difference is examined, it can be understood that the powerless masses are not actually incorporated into a power structure. They are merely controlled by it either by agreement or by force.

The term INCORPORATE is defined as:

1. To unite thoroughly with or work indistinguishably into something already existent; and
2. To blend or combine thoroughly to form a consistent whole.

Technically speaking, then, the vast populations of the powerless cannot actually be incorporated into a power structure in order to form a consistent whole.

• The reason is obvious enough. Doing so would erase the important distinctions between the powerless and the powerful.
• Furthermore, it can easily be verified that nowhere will the small cadres of the powerful wish, desire, or accept any such thing.
• In this sense, a power structure has a more limited definition which refers to the very small populations of the powerful themselves, who structure control over the enormously extensive powerless masses.

If the foregoing can be considered, then the conventional idea of the incorporative power structure feasibility breaks apart into two structures:

1. The controllers – the actual power structure of the small minority powerful; and
2. The controlees – the actual powerless structure of the enormous majority powerless.

The latter, of course, cannot be incorporated into the former. As already pointed up, permitting this would erase the important boundaries between the powerless and the powerful.

• Those who truly have power to determine which way things should or should not go "like" to keep their participating numbers as limited as possible.
• This is easily verifiable, and seems to have something to do as a whole with human nature and our species unshakeable idea: that it is feasible that one singular individual COULD rule the entire species, i.e., the known human world.

THE MULTIPLICITY OF POWER STRUCTURES WITHIN A POWER STRUCTURE

The idea that the entire nature of a power structure can be understood or groked as a neat equilateral pyramid definitely conceals the fact that a given power structure contains numerous power structures that are vitally dynamic – each of which seek dominance over all the others.

• In this case, if one of these is to achieve dominance, it IS necessary to somehow incorporate all the other contenders, or to eradicate them.
• The powerless are usually irrelevant in this, since what is involved is a power-trip-thing among the already powerful or the potentially powerful.

In reality, a power structure cannot be thought of as one singular structure. In actual terms, "a" power structure is a multiplex construction or ensemble made up of numerous power structures, all of which can, and often do, have their separate areas of control, authority, and influence.

The idea that these can be internalized or incorporated so as to seem a unified whole makes it difficult to identify from where the real control, authority, and influence of power actually emanates and downloads.

• In that sense, many conspiracy theorists build good cases for the existence of real controlling power always being behind-the-scenes of visibly perceived power.

POWER WITH REGARD TO MEANINGFUL AREAS OF ACTIVITY

To get more intimately into what is involved in the multiplexity, if power is defined as control, authority, and influence over others, it surely needs to be defined in an additional aspect: control, authority, and influence over meaningful areas of activity.

• Some of these areas of activity can easily be identified as military, economic, political, socio-cultural, educational, and last, but not the least, secret intelligence and "workings" typically associated with secrecy.

Within the neat pyramidal concept, these are often indicated as "arms" of power and the powerful. But in actual fact they either are, or can be, power structures in their own right. Each can also have covert or behind-the-scenes power of sometimes enormous magnitude.

All things considered, most consistently real power is probably closely associated with:

1. The very few of our species who hold economic and financial influences of some magnitude;
2. Providing they also possess or have covert access to significant intelligence networks; and as well
3. Are insulated in some productive fashion from the problems associated with that ephemeral factor called philosophical ethics.

Wealth is always associated with power, but wealth alone does not automatically grant access to societal power, an access which many who are not wealthy often achieve.

THE "ARM" OF POWER STRUCTURES INVESTED WITH THE POWERS OF EDUCATING THE MASSES

The point of all of the foregoing has been to dissect the conventional picture of a societal power structure, and to do so in a manner that more accurately distinguishes between the collective powerful entity and the collective powerless entity.

Each of these can be thought of as "civilizations" in their own right, with the minority powerful civilization controlling the massive powerless one.

• The central purpose of working toward identifying this distinction is that if the powerless are to be controlled, then they, as a recognizable collective entity, must somehow be made knowingly or unknowingly amenable to the control.
• Beyond the comical aspects of this, there is a serious societal element involved.

The best vehicle for implementing and maintaining control is the socio-cultural factor called education – and which, from the viewpoint of the really powerful, can be designed to consist of anything and everything except real knowledge regarding ways and means of empowerment.

• It is a given that a fairly high percentage of all people eagerly subscribe to and take advantage of societally approved education if it is made available to them.
• But behind-the-scenes of this enthusiasm, it is to be wondered who decides what societally approved education is to consist of.

This deciding includes:

• What textbooks are to be designed and published;
• How histories are to be written according to which slant;
• What is considered appropriate to philosophical, scientific, and sociological teachings;
• And, as well, what is to be educated toward and what is, so to speak, to be de-educated away from.

In his book, THE ANATOMY OF POWER, John Kenneth Galbraith all too briefly discusses the necessity of social conditioning with regard to educationally formatting the masses so as to establish among them a broad consensus acceptance of organized power structures.

• He observes that the conditioning has two faces, one having to do with what the masses need to be educated toward, and second, what they need to be educated away from. Beyond that observation, Galbraith then leaves it to the imagination of the reader what the two faces more deeply consist of.

Obviously, the social conditioning leads toward installing acceptance of power and the powerful – and leads away from installing knowledge about power and empowerment, and about depowerment as well.

• It is not too much to say, then, that societally approved educational formats will contain vacuums of knowledge regarding anything that explicitly or implicitly might have to do with empowerment and depowerment.

Ind