Secrets of Power |
VOLUME I ♦ INDIVIDUAL EMPOWERMENT vs THE SOCIETAL PANORAMA OF POWER AND DEPOWERMENT
Volume I ♦ Introduction
Most books about power only deal with the societal formula of the few having power over the enormously larger powerless masses, and which is mistaken as the so-called “natural order of power.” But it is not well understood that this formula also requires social conditioning measures aimed at perpetuating the continuing depowerment of the powerless so that the powerful CAN have power over them. This in turn requires the societal suppression and secretizing of all knowledge about the superlative human powers known to exist in individuals of the human species, but which are socially forced into latency in most. It is broadly understood that power and secrecy go together, but the scope of the “web” of secrets surrounding the larger nature of human power(s) is surprising. As discussed in this Volume I of SECRETS OF POWER, empowerment is difficult if the larger panorama of societal power and depowerment are not more full understood. Any desire for more individual empowerment will soon encounter the question of WHAT to empower. There are many ways to consider this. One way is first to identify human power elements that are known to exist, but DO NOT receive societal nurturing, enhancement, training, scientific research, or philosophical interest. In-depth research will reveal at least five major categories of these power elements, one such category consisting of the aware powers innate in everyone of our species. The direct relationship between the spectrum of aware powers and increases of power is self-evident. The direct relationship between less or no awareness and less or no power is also self-evident. Most societal power structures do not encourage too much development of any aware and related powers, and, via societal programming of punishment, some structures force them into latency altogether. One basic reason is that too much awareness erodes the efficiency of walls of secrecy that support the elite of most power structures, whether large or small. Most are familiar with the awareness they have. But few are familiar with the awarenesses they don't have, but which anyway innately exist within their otherwise amazing information systems. Author's Note
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.
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.
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.
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.
Most information sources regarding power seem to end up giving two basic impressions about it:
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.
Whether discussed as being multi-dimensional or as having multiple faces, the inescapable meaning is that power, in its intrinsic nature, is complex.
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.
The long-term result is that most do not comprehend very much about power. But most do appreciate two well-known facts about it:
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.
In view of this unavoidable mandate, this first volume of SECRETS OF POWER is confined to twenty-eight chapters.
Volume I ♦ Table of Contents
Obituary [LINK]
Ingo Swann (1933-2013)
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. 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 THE RESEARCH WORK OF INGO SWANN – A 32-YEAR OVERVIEW [LINK]
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
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:
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.
Suggested Reading
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). Copyright
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 Also by Ingo Swann
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) VOLUME I - PART I ♦ STRATEGIC BACKGROUND VISTAS REGARDING EMPOWERMENT
Chapter 1 ♦ The Complex Labyrinth of Powerdom
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.
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.
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.
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:
The components of the first two of these categories are easily visible, but the elements of the third are more difficult to identify.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Chapter 2 ♦ Two Major Concepts of Power
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.
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.
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."
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.
But viewed from the "top" of the power systems, it will logically be concluded that:
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Chapter 3 ♦ The Hidden Status Quo Relationship Between the Powerless and the Powerful
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Historians explain this as a necessary method to ensure possession and inheritance of property and wealth.
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.
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.
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.
And it is indeed possible to evade the implicit issues here because power and powerlessness are always relative to each other.
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.
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:
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.
Chapter 4 ♦ Our Human Power Species
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.
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.
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."
Thus, if there is no point of origin for something, then there will be no 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.
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.
At this point, it is reasonable to wonder from where and why power structures come into existence.
SOCIETY is majorly defined as "an enduring and cooperating social group whose members have developed organized patterns of relationships through interaction with one another."
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
Chapter 5 ♦ The Role of Secrecy In Designing a Power Structure
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.
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.
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.
Thus, ways and means must be discovered and implemented to keep the majority of the powerless as powerless as possible.
THREE OTHER HELPFUL WAYS OF PICTURING POWER STRUCTURES As already discussed in chapter 1, power structures can be pictured as intricate and confusing labyrinths.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The foregoing definitions are, of course, modern and consist of contemporary understanding as to what comprises the whole of secrecy.
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.
TAB5_Magnis_augue_pellentesque_amet TAB6_Magnis_augue_pellentesque_amet TAB7_Magnis_augue_pellentesque_amet TAB8_Magnis_augue_pellentesque_amet VOLUME I - PART II ♦ THE SOCIETAL PANORAMA OF POWER
Chapter 6 ♦ Societal Power vs The Absence of Power Schools
MANY INDIVIDUALS want to discover ways and means that might lead to some kind of empowerment.
There are two principle reasons, which can be thought of as barriers to gaining empowerment.
The second barrier can also be easily recognized, IF one somehow chances to notice its existence.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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, 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:
If these activities are connected up with power and power-making, then any actual and real pursuit of wisdom has immediately to be jettisoned.
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.
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.
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:
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.
Adler might have understood inferiority complexes quite well, but he clearly did not understand the machinations of power structures.
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.
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 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.
Chapter 7 ♦ The Web of Secrets Preventing Access to Empowerment
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.
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:
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
THE ABSENCE OF POWER SCHOOLS As already reviewed, hardly anyone seems to recognize the ABSENCE of power schools.
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.
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.
Expanding one's awareness potentials certainly plays a crucial role with regard to empowerment and to power.
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.
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.
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:
The three items above more or less characterize the web of secrets that efficiently prevent access to empowerment.
Chapter 8 ♦ The Traditional Power Pyramid
OF ALL the possible designs for societal power structures, the shape of the structure as a pyramid has been most prevalent throughout history.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
The term INCORPORATE is defined as:
Technically speaking, then, the vast populations of the powerless cannot actually be incorporated into a power structure in order to form a consistent whole.
If the foregoing can be considered, then the conventional idea of the incorporative power structure feasibility breaks apart into two structures:
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.
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 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.
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.
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:
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 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.
This deciding includes:
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.
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.
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