You Have More Freedom Than You Are Using!

My book
Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia is available at Amazon and Powells.

Bless your appetite. May it be voracious and unapologetic.

Much respect for your buried needs and secret yearnings. May they flow into plain view for you to embrace and celebrate.

Congratulations for your willingness to name the unspeakable truths and acknowledge the embarrassing fears. May you be willing to rebel against your self-image for the sake of gaining access to deeper reserves of power and competence.





You came into this world as a radiant bundle of exuberant riddles. You slipped into this dimension as a shimmering burst of spiral hallelujahs. You splashed into this realm as a lush explosion of ecstatic gratitude. And it is your birthright to fulfill those promises.

I'm not pandering to your egotism when I tell you these things. When I urge you to "Be yourself," I don't mean you should be the self that is greedy to win every argument and stockpile a heap of garish treasures and believe in the absolute truth of every hostile, paranoid thought your monkey mind comes up with.

When I say, "Be yourself," I mean the self that says "Thank you!" to the wild irises and the windy rain and the people who grow your food. I mean the rebel creator who's longing to make this entire planet your precious home and protected sanctuary. I mean the dissident bodhisattva who is joyfully struggling to germinate the seeds of divine love that are packed inside every moment.

When I say, "Be yourself," I mean the spiritual freedom fighter who is bustling and finagling and conspiring to relieve your fellow messiahs of their suffering as you shower them with rowdy blessings.




Change yourself in the way you want everyone else to change

Love your enemies in case your friends turn out to be jerks

Avoid thinking about winning the lottery while making love

Brainwash yourself before someone nasty beats you to it

Confess big secrets to people who aren't very interested

Write a love letter to your evil twin during a lunar eclipse

Fool the tricky red beasts guarding the Wheels of Time

Locate the master codex and add erudite graffiti to it

Sell celebrity sperm on the home shopping channel

Dream up wilder, wetter, more interesting problems

Change your name every day for a thousand days

Kill the apocalypse and annihilate Armageddon

Exaggerate your flaws till they turn into virtues

Brag about what you can't do and don't have

Get a vanity license plate that reads KZMYAZ

Bow down to the greatest mystery you know

Make fun of people who make fun of people

See how far you can spit a mouthful of beer

Pick blackberries naked in the pouring rain

Scare yourself with how beautiful you are

Simulate global warming into your pants

Stage a slow-motion water balloon fight

Pretend your wounds are exotic tattoos

Sing anarchist lullabies to lesbian trees

Plunge butcher knives into accordions

Commit a crime that breaks no laws

Sip the tears of someone you love

Build a plush orphanage in Minsk

Feel sorry for a devious lawyer

Rebel against your horoscope

Give yourself another chance

Write your autohagiography

Play games with no rules

Teach animals to dance

Trick your nightmares

Relax and go deeper

Dream like stones

Mock your fears

Drink the sun

Fuck gravity

Sing love

Be mojo

Do jigs

Ask id





"You have more freedom than you are using," says artist Dan Attoe.

I hope that taunt gets under your skin and riles you up. Maybe it will motivate you to lay claim to all the potential spaciousness and independence and leeway that are just lying around going to waste.





Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.


Here's a motto worth trying: "I refuse to dehumanize anyone, even those who dehumanize me." Aside from the ripples of delight that sends through the collective unconscious, it provides a great selfish benefit. Feeling even low levels of contempt and disdain tends to shut down your intuition, so if you instead practice being tolerant of people who are intolerant of you, you may find yourself getting smarter.

P.S. What would it be like to promote what you love at least as much as you bash what you hate?

+

Activist and author Naomi Klein tells a story about the time she traveled to Australia at the request of Aboriginal elders. They wanted her to know about their struggle to prevent white people from dumping radioactive wastes on their land.

Her hosts brought her to their beloved wilderness, where they camped under the stars. They showed her "secret sources of fresh water, plants used for bush medicines, hidden eucalyptus-lined rivers where the kangaroos come to drink."

After three days, Klein grew restless. When were they going to get down to business? "Before you can fight," she was told, "you have to know what you are fighting for."





To achieve what the Zen Buddhists call "beginner's mind," you dispense with all preconceptions and enter each situation as if seeing it for the first time.

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities," wrote Shunryu Suzuki in his book "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind," "but in the expert's there are few."

As much as I love beginner's mind, though, I advocate an additional discipline: cultivating a beginner's heart. That means approaching every encounter imbued with a freshly invoked wave of love that is as pure as if you're feeling it for the first time.





Uh-oh. Mercury is retrograde. You know what that means: garbled phone calls, fouled-up travel plans, missed deadlines, embarrassing slips of the tongue. Right? Wrong!

It makes me sad when the sacred art of astrology is turned into just another excuse to be superstitious. Using half-baked horoscopy to justify self-fulfilling prophecies is astrology abuse in the extreme.

Sorry to get so riled up. I'm a little sensitive about this. I truly love astrology's power to enhance our willpower, and it bugs me when it's ignorantly invoked to accomplish the very opposite.

Mercury does not mean communication snafus are inevitable. Rather, it tells you this is a propitious time to refine the ways you exchange information . . . and to concentrate harder on saying what you mean and meaning what you say . . . and to meditate on how to improve the ways you connect yourself to the people and resources you need and like.

Some people say that when Mercury is retrograde, as it is now until October 9, it's a bad time to begin anything new. During one such period two years ago, an acquaintance of mine decided to delay accepting a dream job offer as editor of a magazine. By the time Mercury returned to normal, the magazine had hired another applicant. I wish I'd have known, because I would have told her what I'll tell you: Some of America's biggest, most enduring Fortune 500 companies began when Mercury was retrograde, including Disney, Goodyear, and Boeing.

My deep skepticism about big corporations notwithstanding, the fact that their founders had great success in launching them during Mercury retrograde is a telling statement about Mercury retrograde.

In my understanding of astrology, there's no such thing as a bad astrological aspect. It's true that some may be more challenging than others, but every one of them presents an opportunity.

Having said that, I don't regard Mercury retrograde as being dauntingly challenging. If you fear and expect it to be, you may tend to be slightly more attractive to disruptive events. But then that's true about how every superstition works.

P.S. My general approach is to consider anomalous, one-of-a-kind cosmic events as more likely to be fraught with uncertainty and requiring special vigilance. But the Mercury Retrograde is reliable and predictable, always coming three times a year.





The poet Muriel Rukeyser said the universe is composed of stories, not of atoms. The physicist Werner Heisenberg declared that the universe is made of music, not of matter.

And we believe that if you habitually expose yourself to toxic stories and music, you could wind up living in the wrong universe, where it's impossible to become the gorgeous genius you were born to be.

That's why we implore you to nourish yourself with delicious, nutritious tales and tunes that inspire you to exercise your willpower for your highest good.


- Listen to the above rap.





UNCONDITIONAL, by Jennifer Welwood

Willing to experience aloneness,
I discover connection everywhere;
Turning to face my fear,
I meet the warrior who lives within;
Opening to my loss,
I gain the embrace of the universe;
Surrendering into emptiness,
I find fullness without end.

Each condition I flee from pursues me.
Each condition I welcome transforms me
And becomes itself transformed
Into its radiant jewel?like essence.
I bow to the one who has made it so,
Who has crafted this Master Game;
To play it is pure delight,
To honor its form -- true devotion.

- by psychotherapist Jennifer Welwood





1. Expect nothing, but ask for everything.

2. Gently but gleefully smash an unnecessary personal taboo.

3. Jump for joy and click your heels together in a building that has always felt oppressive.

4. Buck tradition with wit and compassion, not wrath and cynicism.

5. Refuse to occupy the old, worn-out niches, especially the ones you have trapped yourself in for the sake of peace and harmony.

6. Carry two gifts with you at all times in case you run into any fresh beauties who aren't lost in their own heads.





"I tell you the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people." - Vincent van Gogh

"Everything I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything exists, only because I love." - Leo Tolstoy

"Until you have loved, you cannot become yourself." - Emily Dickinson

"Love imperfectly. Be a love idiot. Let yourself forget any love ideal." - Sark

"For one human being to love another is the most difficult task. It is the work for which all other work is mere preparation." - Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated by Stephen Mitchell

"If you do not love too much, you do not love enough." - Blaise Pascal

"Love is everything it's cracked up to be. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more." - Erica Jong

"Fall in love over and over again every day. Love your family, your neighbors, your enemies, and yourself. And don't stop with humans. Love animals, plants, stones, even galaxies." - Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

"To love is to tilt with the lightning, two bodies routed by a single honey's sweet."
- Pablo Neruda

"The most vital right is the right to love and be loved." - Emma Goldman





The Beauty and Truth Lab researchers' sunny dispositions are made possible in part by the mantra, "I don't know." It's an unparalleled source of power, a declaration of independence from the pressure to have an opinion about every single subject.

It's fun to say. Try it: "I don't know."

Let go of the drive to have it all figured out: "I don't know."

Proclaim the only truth you can be totally sure of: "I don't know."

Empty your mind and lift your heart: "I don't know."

Use it as a battle cry, a joyous affirmation of your oneness with the Great Mystery: "I don't know."




Do you have an unconscious belief that the forces of evil are loud, vigorous, and strong, while good is quiet, gentle, and passive? Gather evidence that contradicts this irrational prejudice.

Are you secretly suspicious of joy because you think it's inevitably rooted in wishful thinking and a willful ignorance about the true nature of reality? Expose these suspicions as superstitions that aren't grounded in any objective data you can actually prove.

Do you fear that when you're in the presence of love and beauty you tend to become softheaded, whereas you're likely to feel smart and powerful when you're sneering at the ugliness around you? As an antidote, for a given amount of time, say a week or a month or a year, act as if the following hypothesis were true: that you're more likely to grow smarter when you're in the presence of love and beauty.




"Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it."
- Helen Keller

"Sit quietly and listen with only one purpose: to allow the other person to express himself and find relief from his suffering."
- Thich Nhat Hạnh





Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.


REVERSAL WISDOM

So it turns out that the "blemish" is actually essential to the beauty. The "deviation" is at the core of the strength. The "wrong turn" was crucial to you getting you back on the path with heart.





BLESSINGS COME IN MANY GUISES

Pronoia doesn't promise uninterrupted progress forever. It's not a slick commercial for a perfect summer day that never ends.

Grace emerges in the ebb and flow, not just the flow.

The waning reveals a different kind of blessing than the waxing.

But whether it's our time to ferment in the valley of shadows or rise up singing in the sun-splashed meadow,
fresh power to transform ourselves is always on the way.

Our suffering won't last, nor will our triumph.

Without fail, life will deliver the creative energy we need
to change into the new thing we must become.

Read the rest.





GRATITUDE FESTS

Consider the possibility of celebrating regular Gratitude Fests. During these orgies of appreciation, you could confer praise and respect on the creatures, both human and otherwise, that have played seminal roles in inspiring you to become yourself.

Who teaches and helps you? Who sees you for who you really are? Who nudges you in the direction of your fuller destiny and awakens you to your signature truths? Who loves you brilliantly?

(P.S. Cultivating gratitude primes your power to experience ecstasy.)





GO WITH WHAT FLOW?

When they say "Go with the flow," what "flow" are they talking about? Do they mean the flow of your early childhood conditioning? The flow of your friends' opinions? The latest cultural trends? Your immediate instinctual needs?

When they say "Go with the flow," are they urging you to keep doing what's easiest to do and what will win you the most ego points, even if it keeps you from being true to your soul's code?

Consider the possibility that there are many flows to go with, but only one of them is correct for you. Do you know which one? Maybe it's the one flowing in an underground cavern, far from the maddening crowd.





SPIRIT IN ALL THINGS

Yua is a term the Yupik people of Alaska use for the spirit that inhabits all things, both animate and inanimate. A rock, for instance, has as much yua as a caribou, spruce tree, or human being, and therefore merits the same measure of compassion.

If a Yupiit goes out for a hike and spies a chunk of wood lying on a frozen river bank, she might pick it up and put it in a new position, allowing its previously hidden side to get fresh air and sun. In this way, she would bestow a blessing on the wood's yua.

(Source: Earl Shorris, "The Last Word," Harper's,)





DAFFY DUCK SAYS

"That makes no sense, and so do I."
- Daffy Duck





MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:

200 coal plants announced to retire since 2010 in U.S. That's almost 40% of the country's coal plants.

India Virtually Eliminates Tetanus as a Killer.


At the World's First Empathy Museum,

Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.


LOVE COMING YOUR WAY

Have you ever been loved? I bet you have been loved so much and so deeply that you have become blas? about the enormity of the grace it confers.

So let me remind you: To be loved is a privilege and prize equivalent to being born. If you're smart, you pause regularly to bask in the astonishing knowledge that there are many people out there who care for you and want you to thrive and hold you in their thoughts with fondness.

Animals, too: You have been the recipient of their boundless affection. The spirits of allies who've left this world continue to send their tender regards, as well.

Do you "believe" in angels and other divine beings? Whether or not you do, I can assure you that there are hordes of them beaming their uncanny consecrations your way. You are awash in torrents of love.

As tremendous a gift it is to get love, giving love is an equal boon. Many scientific studies demonstrate that whenever you bestow blessings on other people, you bless yourself. Expressing practical compassion not only strengthens your immune system and bolsters your health, but also promotes self-esteem, enhances longevity, and stimulates tranquility and even euphoria.

As the scientists say, we humans are hardwired to benefit from altruism. (Read more about the subject.)

What's your position on making love? Do you regard it as one of the nicer fringe benefits of being alive? Or are you more inclined to see it as a central proof of the primal magnanimity of the universe? I'm more aligned with the latter view.

Imagine yourself in the fluidic blaze of that intimate spectacle right now. Savor the fantasy of entwining bodies and hearts and minds with an appealing partner who has the power to enchant you. What better way do you know of to dwell in sacred space while immersed in your body's delight? To commune with the Divine Wow while having fun? To tap into your own deeper knowing while at the same time gazing into the mysterious light of a fellow creature?




Firgun is a Hebrew word that means the act of sharing in or even contributing to someone else's pleasure or fortune, with a purely generous heart and without jealousy; or of sharing credit fairly.

(Here's Wikipedia's entry on firgun.)

Mudita is word from Sanskrit and Pali that means sympathetic or unselfish joy, or joy in the good fortune of others.

(More info.)

(Still more info.)





See a photo of me doing Reverse Panhandling. This the time I stood at an exit ramp in San Rafael and offered passing motorists free money.





Mythologist Michael Meade says that the essential nature of every human soul is gifted, noble, and wounded.

I agree. Cynics who exaggerate how messed-up we all are, ignoring our beauty, are just as unrealistic as naive optimists.

But because the cynics have a disproportionately potent influence on the zeitgeist, they make it harder for us to evaluate our problems with a wise and balanced perspective. Many of us feel cursed by the apparent incurability of our wounds, while others, rebelling against the curse, underestimate how wounded they are.

Mead says: "Those who think they are not wounded in ways that need conscious attention and careful healing are usually the most wounded of all."

Your task -- and your talent -- is to make realistic appraisals of your wounds.





Revolutionizing the art of rebellion.

1. Experiment with uppity, mischievous optimism.

2. Invoke insurrectionary levels of wildly interesting generosity.

3. Indulge in an insolent refusal to be chronically fearful.

4. Pursue a cheeky ambition to be as wide-awake as a dissident trickster messiah.

5. Bring reckless levels of creative intelligence to all expressions of love.





Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.

YOUR FIVE MOST ECSTATIC MOMENTS

I invite you to write down brief descriptions of the five most pleasurable moments you've ever experienced in your life. Let your imagination dwell lovingly on these memories for, say, 20 minutes. And keep them close to the surface of your awareness in the next three days.

If you ever catch yourself slipping into a negative train of thought, interrupt it immediately and compel yourself to fantasize about those Big Five Ecstatic Moments.





YOU MAY BE A MAGICIAN

When many people think of a magician, they picture a stage performer who pulls rabbits out of top hats, does card tricks, and makes things disappear.

Other folks, more mystically inclined, visualize a wizard who uses incantatory spells to command spirits and attain occult power.

There is a third kind of magician. It's anyone who aspires to control her own thoughts, ceaselessly shepherding her psychic energy in a direction that will serve her highest values. For this kind of wonderworker, magic is the art of creating desirable practical changes.




YOUR MOST IMPORTANT DESIRE

I invite you to write the following on a piece of red paper and keep it under your pillow. "I, [put your name here], do solemnly swear on this day [put date here] that I will devote myself for a period of seven days to learning my most important desire. No other thought will be more uppermost in my mind. No other concern will divert me from tracking down every clue that might assist me in my drive to ascertain the one experience in this world that deserves my brilliant passion above all others."




If you're not feeling amazed, maybe you're not seeing wildly enough

+

"If you are a poet, you will see that there is a cloud in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper."

?Thich Nhat Hanh, "Peace Is Every Step"





"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." That's the opening sentence of Charles Dickens' bestselling novel "A Tale of Two Cities." The author was describing the period of the French Revolution in the late 18th century, but he could just as well have been talking about our time -- or any other time, for that matter.

Of course many modern cynics reject the idea that our era could in any way be construed to be the best of times. They obsess on the idea that ours is the worst of all the worst times that have ever been.
Here's my request: Even if you are one of those cynics, be rebellious and come up with three reasons why this is the best of times. Send to Truthrooster@gmail.com.

If you like, you may balance your testimony with a litany of why this is the worst of times.





MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:

Study Shows Mindful Meditation Helps Reduce Racial Bias.

The Most Generous Bride on Earth: Couple Feeds 4,000 Syrian Refugees on Their Wedding Day. This luminous Turkish newlywed spent her wedding day running a bread line for thousands of starving Syrian refugees.

American Geochemist Clair Patterson helped reduce lead levels within the blood of Americans by approximately 80% by the late 90s, after spending decades of fighting the industrial use of lead.





If you'd ever like to make a contribution to me via Paypal, here's where to do it.





Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.


YOUR ADDICTION

Your addiction is obstructing you from your destiny, and yet it's also your ally.

What?! How can both be true?

On the downside, your addiction diverts your energy from a deeper desire that it superficially resembles. For instance, if you're an alcoholic, your urge to get loaded may be an inferior substitute for and a poor imitation of your buried longing to commune with spirit.

On the upside, your addiction is your ally, because it dares you to get strong and smart enough to wrestle free of its grip; it pushes you to summon the uncanny willpower necessary to defeat the darkness within you that saps your ability to follow the path with heart.

(P.S. Don't tell me you have no addictions. Each of us is addicted to some sensation, feeling, thought, or action, if not to an actual substance.)





SHADOW BLESSINGS

Life is a vast and intricate conspiracy guaranteed to keep you well-supplied with blessings. What kind of blessings? A gorgeous physique, perfect marriage, luxurious home, high status, and $10 million? Maybe.

But it's just as likely that the blessings will be interesting surprises, dizzying adventures, gifts you hardly know what to do with, & conundrums that dare you to get smarter.

Novelist William Vollman referred to these types of blessings when he said that "the most important and enjoyable thing in life is grappling with a complicated, tricky problem that you don't know how to solve."

Sculptor Henry Moore had a similar idea. He said, "The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is -- it must be something you cannot possibly do."

So in other words, pronoia does not guarantee that you will forevermore be free of all difficult experiences . . . .

Read or hear the rest of this.





If you'd like to see a recent photo of me with my extra special good buddy and a big bowl of peaches, go here.





"Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way." - Alan Watts





LOVE TIPS

Hypothesis: The exciting qualities that attract you to someone in the first place may make you half-crazy if you go on to develop a long-term relationship.

That doesn't mean you should avoid seeking connections with intriguing people who captivate your imagination. It does suggest you should have no illusions about what you are getting yourself into.

It also implies you should cultivate a sense of humor about how the things that rouse our most intense love and passion often bring us the greatest tests and trials.





Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.

I invite you to say any or all of the following lines out loud:

I love everything about me

I love my uncanny beauty and my bewildering pain

I love my hungry soul and my wounded longing

I love my flaws, my fears, and my scary frontiers

I will never forsake, betray, or deceive myself

I will always adore, forgive, and believe in myself

I will never refuse, abandon, or scorn myself

I will always amuse, delight, and redeem myself


To read the rest of this piece, go here.





Here's an excerpt of a letter I wrote to America's richest woman, Oprah Winfrey.

"Dear Oprah," I began. "Please buy up all the Pizza Huts and convert them into a network of Menstrual Huts. Create 10,000 or 100,000 local neighborhood sanctuaries where women can retreat while they're in the throes of their monthly appointment with dying and purification -- or any time they need a break from the tyranny of the clock.

"Let the men come, too. They need sabbaticals. We're all desperate for a regular chance to drop out of the crazy-making grind, to find respite from civilizations' crimes against the rhythms of sleep and love and play.

"Men may actually need the Menstrual Huts even more than women. They mistakenly imagine that they can drive themselves on and on and on. Their poor bodies don't have a built-in menstrual mechanism to cyclically slow them down. And so they mostly never stop to peer into the heart of their own darkness. Which is why so many of them tend to find evil everywhere else except in themselves, and fight it everywhere else except in themselves.

"Just a theory to consider: If men got a chance to have periodic breakdowns and negotiate in a safe place with the toxic feelings that just naturally build up inside everyone over time, maybe they wouldn't wreak so much havoc out in the world. Maybe Menstrual Huts would save the world."

My letter to Oprah went on for two more pages, but you get the gist. She has not yet responded to my plea.

In the meantime, I suggest that anyone who's interested create their own local Moon Lodges and Menstrual Huts. Here's a list of self-inquiries that could help to guide the time in the sanctuary

1. What feelings and intuitions have you been trying to ignore lately?

2. Which parts of your life are overdue for death?

3. What messages has life been trying to convey to you but which you've chosen to ignore?

4. What red herrings, straw men, and scapegoats have you chased after obsessively in order to avoid dissolving your most well-rationalized delusions?

5. What unripe parts of yourself are you most ashamed or fearful of? How can you give those parts more ingenious love?

6. What parts of yourself have the least integrity and don't act in harmony with what you regard as your highest values? How can you bring them into alignment with your true desires?

7. Is it possible that in repressing things about yourself that you don't like, you have also disowned potentially strong and beautiful aspects of yourself? What are they?

8. Are those really flaws that are bugging you about the people whose destinies are entwined with yours, or just incompletely developed talents? Are those really flaws that are bugging you about yourself, or merely incompletely developed talents?

9. Some people try to deny their portion of the world's darkness and project it onto individuals or groups they dislike. Others acknowledge its power so readily that they allow themselves to be overwhelmed by it. We believe in taking an in-between position, accepting it as an unworked gift that can serve our liberation. Where do you stand?

10. It's easy to see fanaticism, rigidity, and intolerance in other people, but harder to acknowledge them in yourself. Do you dare?





People ask me what they should do now that Venus, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are all retrograde. Here's one possible answer: Stick to drinking low-fat water; avoid the high-fat H20 whenever possible. Likewise, inhale only the kind of oxygen that's low in cholesterol, and don't allow your eyes to take in fatty landscapes or other calorie-rich sights.





"You are the hidden God. Wake up in the dream. Read between the lies. To question is the answer. The frontline is everywhere. There are no innocent bystanders. Truth is a three-edged sword. Practice infinite tolerance except for intolerance. Achieve strength through joy. Embrace your shadow. Change is stability. Creation never ends. Everything is verb. The way in is the way out. All things fornicate all the time. The going is the goal. Today is the day!"

- Reverend Adrian Cain





A while back I sent my book The Televisionary Oracle to novelist Tom Robbins, and asked him if he would consider endorsing it. To my surprise, he replied. To my shock, he liked it a lot. He wrote this blurb for me: "I've seen the future of American literature and its name is Rob Brezsny"

The book he's talking about is here.





Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.

DAILY PRACTICE: Are you willing to push hard to get better, become smarter, grow your devotion to the truth, fuel your commitment to beauty, refine your emotional intelligence, hone your dreams, negotiate with your shadow, cure your ignorance, shed your pettiness, heighten your drive to look for the best in people, and soften your heart -- even as you always accept yourself for exactly who you are with all of your so-called imperfections, never demeaning the present by comparing it to an idealized past or future?

+

POSSIBLE REWARDS FOR BEING YOU: You will be able to claim the rewards promised you at the beginning of time?not just any old beauty, wisdom, goodness, love, freedom, and justice, but rather: exhilarating beauty that incites you to be true to yourself; crazy wisdom that immunizes you against the temptation to believe your ideals are ultimate truths; outrageous goodness that inspires you to experiment with irrepressible empathy; generous freedom that keeps you alert for opportunities to share your wealth; insurrectionary love that endlessly transforms you; and a lust for justice that's leavened with a knack for comedy, keeping you honest as you work humbly to liberate everyone in the world from ignorance and suffering.





Many of us have a superficial notion of the nature of healing, writes Peter Kingsley in his book "In the Dark Places of Wisdom." We think that "healing is what makes us comfortable and eases the pain."

But the truth is, "what we want to be healed of is often what will heal us if we can stand the discomfort and the pain."

I invite you to experiment with this theme. See if you can stave off your urge for ease as you marinate longer in the aching confusion.

"If we really face our sadness," says Kingsley, "we find it speaks with the voice of our deepest longing. And if we face it a little longer we find that it teaches us the way to attain what we long for."





"Dear Rob: I sure don't like so much God stuff mixed into my horoscopes. Can you cut it out, please? I understand it's common for the desperate masses to believe in an Ultra Being, but you? Pul-lease. You're smarter than that. I just can't abide all the 'Divine Wow' and 'Cackling Goddess' nonsense that you dispense; it doesn't jibe with the practical, sensible, unsuperstitious, non-mushy world that I hold dear -- and that I see represented mostly accurately in your horoscopes. -Sally Skeptic."

Dear Sally: I can't accommodate you. You will have to keep dealing with the cognitive dissonance that arises from reading the oracles of a "smart" person who also has an intimate relationship with You-Know-Who.

Just so you're clear about how I perceive the Living Intelligent Consciousness That Pervades Every Cubic Inch of the Universe: It is the interplay of the Supernal Hermaphrodites: the Divine Wow mistakenly called "God" and the Blooming HaHa mistakenly called "Goddess."

More precisely, it is the Torrential and Torturous Ecstasy spawned anew every nanosecond by the glide of the Divine Wow's virile eternity against the Blooming HaHa's voluptuous infinity. It is the Cosmic Fuck that recreates the universe again and again in every nanosecond.

Here's my place in that mystery: I aspire to locate myself in the crux of the flux of the Cosmic Fuck.





Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.


LOVE TIPS

Love thrives when neither partner takes things personally, so cultivate a devotion to forgiveness and divest yourself of the urge to blame.

Love is a game in which the rules keep changing, so be crafty and improvisational as you stay alert for each unexpected twist of fate.

Love enmeshes you in your partner's unique set of karmic complications, so make sure you're very interested in his or her problems.

Love is a laboratory where you can uncover secrets about yourself that have previously been hidden, so be ravenously curious.

Love is never a perfect match of totally compatible saints, so don't let sterile fantasies seduce you away from flawed but fecund realities.
Love is not a low-maintenance machine, so work hard on cultivating its unpredictable organic wonders.

Love is not a wholly-owned subsidiary of DreamWorks or Disney, so don't let your romantic story be infected by the entertainment industry's simplistic, sentimental myths about intimate relationships.





INVITATION TO LOVE THE RIDDLES

I invite you to study the brazen contradictions . . .

and draw inspiration from the crazy-making incongruities . . .

and marvel at the mysterious ambiguities . . .

and give your compassionate attention to the slippery paradoxes . . .

and say lusty prayers of gratitude for the contradictions, incongruities, ambiguities, and paradoxes that are making you so much wiser and deeper and kinder and cuter.





LET'S MAKE MORALITY FUN

Are you turned off by the authoritarian, libido-mistrusting perversity of the right-wing moral code, but equally reluctant to embrace the atheism embedded in the left wing's code of goodness?

Are you hungry for a value system rooted in beauty, love, pleasure, and liberation instead of order, control, politeness, and fear, but allergic to the sophistry of the New Age?

Are you apathetic toward the saccharine goodness evangelized by sentimental, superstitious fanatics, but equally bored by the intellectuals who worship at the empty-hearted shrine of scientific materialism?

It may be time for you to whip up your very own moral code. If you do, you might want to keep the following guidelines in mind:

1. A moral code becomes immoral unless it can thrive without a devil and enemy.

2. A moral code grows ugly unless it prescribes good-natured rebellion against automaton-like behavior offered in its support.

3. A moral code becomes murderous unless it's built on a love for the fact that EVERYTHING CHANGES ALL THE TIME, and unless it perpetually adjusts its reasons for being true.

4. A moral code will corrupt its users unless it ensures that their primary motivation for being good is because it's fun.

5. A moral code deadens the soul of everyone it touches unless it has a built-in sense of humor.





TYPES OF LOVE?

The ancient Greeks had a variety of names for different kinds of love. Here are some, according to Lindsay Swope in her review of Richard Idemon's book "Through the Looking Glass."

1. "Epithemia" is the basic need to touch and be touched. Our closest approximation is "horniness," though epithemia is not so much a sexual feeling as a sensual one.

2. "Philia" is friendship. It includes the need to admire and respect your friends as a reflection of yourself?like in high school, where you want to hang out with the cool kids because that means you're cool too.

3. "Eros" isn't sexual in the way we usually think, but is more about the emotional gratification that comes from merging souls.

4. "Agape" is a mature, utterly free expression of love that has no possessiveness. It means wanting the best for another person even if it doesn't advance your self-interest.

I invite you to coin some additional new words for other kinds of love.





"The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change," said psychologist Carl Rogers.





Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.


Attention, please. This is your ancestors speaking. We've been trying to reach you through your dreams and fantasies, but you haven't responded. That's why we've commandeered this space. So listen up. We'll make it brief. You're at a crossroads analogous to a dilemma that has baffled your biological line for six generations. We ask you now to master the turning point that none of us have ever figured out how to negotiate. Heal yourself and you heal all of us. We mean that literally. Start brainstorming, please.





How can we outwit and escape the numbing trance that everyday routine seems to foster? What can we do to stay alert to the subtle miracles and intriguing mysteries and numinous beauty that surround us on all sides?

Some possibilities:

1. Make it a daily practice to refresh the ways we perceive the world.

2. Scan regularly for opportunities to play and for creatures that like to play.

3. Assume that the entire world is a constantly changing source of oracular revelation that has meaning for us.

4. Experiment with what happens when we use empathy and intuition to imagine how animals and other people experience life.

5. Don't take things too seriously or too personally or too literally.

6. Expose ourselves regularly to provocative myths and intriguing symbols. Seek out stories that bend and twist our beliefs. Be open to exploring events and phenomena that elude rational explanation.

7. Regularly give our unconscious minds the message that we want to feel deeply.

8. Cultivate a willingness, eagerness, and receptivity to being surprised.

9. Others?





I invite you to experiment with the theme "Healthy Obsessions." Not "Melodramatic Compulsions" or "Exhausting Crazes" or "Manias That Make You Seem Interesting to Casual Bystanders," but "Healthy Obsessions."

To do it well, you will have to take really good care of yourself as you concentrate extravagantly on tasks that fill you with zeal. This may require you to rebel against the influences of role models, both in your actual life and in the movies you've seen, who act as if getting sick and imbalanced is an integral part of being true to one's genius.





Alice finds her way to Wonderland by falling down a rabbit hole. Dorothy rides to Oz on a tornado. In C. S. Lewis's "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," Lucy stumbles into the magical land of Narnia via a portal in the back of a large clothes cabinet.

In the sequels to all these adventures, however, the heroines must find different ways to access their exotic dreamlands. Alice slips through a mirror next time. Dorothy uses a Magic Belt. Lucy leaps into a painting of a schooner that becomes real.

Moral of the story: The next time you seek passage into a magic interlude or alternate reality, the doorway may be unlike anything you've experienced before.





"Creativity is conceived as a reproductive act with a tangible result -- a child, a book, a monument -- that has a physical life going beyond the life of its producer. Creativity, however, can be intangible in the form of a good life, or a beautiful act, or in other virtues of the soul such as freedom and openness, style and tact, humor, kindness."
- James Hillman





MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:

Reading the news makes us feel like the world is falling apart: that we're on the verge of a total collapse. But in fact, we're living through what is, by objective metrics, the best time in human history. People have never lived longer, better, safer, or richer lives than they do now. Read more: http://tinyurl.com/o58aqcc

Here's a summary of the findings:

1. We're living longer than ever
2. Global GDP has surged.
3. Extreme poverty is in free fall.
4. Death from war are at historical lows.
5. Deaths from HIV/AISA are declining.
6. Many other diseases are declining.
7. The spread of democracy has made the world safer and freer.
8. More people than ever before have enough to eat.
9. Fewer mothers are dying in childbirth.
10. MThe child mortality rate is collapsing.
11. More kids than ever are going to school.

+

More good news:

About That Overpopulation Problem: Research suggests we may actually face a declining world population in the coming years.

Overcrowding? Nah ? the World?s Population May Actually Be Declining. The world's population isn't growing nearly as fast as it once did. In fact, experts say the number of humans could fall within our lifetimes.

The Rapid Slowdown of Population Growth.

+

In calling attention here to some of the surprisingly good news about the world, I of course don't mean to imply that paradise is at hand. My recognition of the underreported progress and miracles is not equivalent to an endorsement of evil-doers. And I trust that after reading these words you won't go numb to the suffering of others and stop agitating on their behalf.

Just the opposite: I hope that you will be energized by the signs of creeping benevolence and waxing intelligence. As you absorb the evidence that an aggressive strain of compassion is loose in the world, maybe you will conclude that activism actually works, and you'll be motivated to give yourself with confidence to the specific role you can play in manifesting the ultimate goal: to create a heaven on earth in which everyone alive is a healthy, free, self-actualized, spiritually enlightened millionaire dedicated to living sustainably.





Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia. The first is from the piece called "Subterranean Pronoia Therapy."

1. Declare amnesty for the part of you that you don't love very well. Forgive that poor sucker. Hold its hand and take it out to dinner and a movie. Tactfully offer it a chance to make amends for the dumb things it has done.

And then do a dramatic reading of this proclamation by the playwright Theodore Rubin: "I must learn to love the fool in me -- the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my fool."

2. The greatest gift you can give might be the gift that you yourself were never given. Give that gift.

The most valuable service you have to offer your fellow humans may be the service you have always wished were performed for you. Offer that service.

An experience that wounded you could move you to help people who've been similarly wounded. Heal yourself by healing others.

3. No matter how holy and good, everyone in the world has a portion of the world's sickness inside them. It's known by many names: neurosis, shadow, demon, devil. Many people try to deny that it inhabits them. Others acknowledge its power so readily that they allow themselves to be overwhelmed and distorted by it.

At the Beauty and Truth Lab, we take a position between those two positions. We accept the fact that the evil is part of us, but treat it with compassionate amusement and flexible vigilance. Our stance is partly that of loving parents and partly that of warriors.

Once you make a commitment to explore the mysteries of pronoia, your shadow will try to play tricks on you that it has never tried before. How will you respond? We recommend an aggressive, tender, improvisational approach. Be ready for anything. Avoid both blithe excesses of tolerance and grave fundamentalism.

4. Philosopher William James proposed that if our culture ever hoped to shed the deeply ingrained habit of going to war, we'd have to create a moral equivalent. It's not enough to preach the value of peace, he said. We have to find other ways to channel our aggressive instincts in order to accomplish what war does, like stimulate political unity and build civic virtue.

Astrology provides a complementary perspective. Each of us has the warrior energy of the planet Mars in our psychological makeup. We can't simply repress it, but must find a positive way to express it. How might you go about this project?

5. In his book *The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World,* psychologist James Hillman writes: "The question of evil refers primarily to the anaesthetized heart, the heart that has no reaction to what it faces, thereby turning the variegated sensuous face of the world into monotony, sameness, oneness."

What would you have to do in order to triumph over this kind of evil in yourself?

6. "The problem, if you love it, is as beautiful as the sunset," wrote J. Krishnamurti. "The obstacle is the path," says the Zen proverb. What frustrating puzzle do you love the best?





EXPLORE THE BIG PICTURE OF YOUR LIFE with my Expanded Audio Horoscopes for the Second Half of 2015 and beyond.

Who do you want to become? Where do you want to go and what do you want to do?

How can you exert your free will to create the adventures that will bring out the best in you, even as you find graceful ways to cooperate with the tides of destiny?

To listen to my IN-DEPTH, LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST for YOUR LIFE during the coming months, register and/or sign in here.

After you log in through the main page, click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2015."

The horoscopes cost $6 apiece. Discounts are available for multiple purchases.

They're available on your tablets and smart phones as well as your computers.

You can also listen to your short-term forecast for the coming week by clicking on "This week (July 7, 2015)."

What will be the story of your life in the second half of 2015 and beyond? How can you conspire with life to create the best possible future for yourself?




Whether or not you want to listen to my Big Picture audio reports for the rest of 2015 and beyond, you may be interested in reviewing the long-term horoscopes I wrote for you earlier this year.

To see them, go here.





Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.


Visualize yourself being able to recognize the raw truth about the people you care about. Imagine that you can see how they already embody the beauty their souls' codes have promised as well as how they still fall short of embodying that beauty.

Picture yourself being able to make them feel appreciated even as you inspire them to risk changes that will activate more of their souls' codes.





What are the three miracles
that are most likely
to happen to you?





"If everything seems under control," said auto racer Mario Andretti, "you're probably not moving fast enough."

I second that emotion. It applies to the entire human race, which is swirling through evolutionary tipping points at an accelerating speed.
But it's doubly apropos for you spiritual freedom fighters and renegade bodhisattvas, because you're the vanguard shock troops fighting to merge heaven with earth.

For your edification and amusement, I will add three corollaries to Andretti's wisdom:

1. If you're not pretty much always half-confused, most likely you're not thinking deeply enough.

2. If you're not feeling forever amazed, maybe you're not seeing wildly enough.

3. The truth is fluid, slippery, vagrant, scrambled, promiscuous, kaleidoscopic, and outrageously abundant.

How might you go about using these tricks to marinate yourself in a gentle state of ecstasy pretty much all the time?





"Malefic ecstasy" or "pestilent ecstasy" is the feeling of intense pleasure that some people get as they think about and dwell on and talk about negative events. It explains why they go into a rage whenever I present evidence that although the world may be a realm where much suffering occurs, it is also a paradise full of blessings. They don't want their malefic ecstasy to be diluted.

I'm with poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning: "Earth's crammed with heaven."

P.S. My spiritual teachers say that being alive on this planet is the highest honor and privilege. It's an invitation to work wonders and perform miracles that aren't possible in any nirvana, promised land, or afterlife.





I'd love to hear you riff on how it feels and what it's like for you to be the astrological sign that you are. Send your testimony to me at Truthrooster@gmail.com

Here are some examples: readers' thoughts on "How to Be a Sagittarius."

"Know how to have fun even when life sucks." -Mandy O.

"Embrace optimism for both its beauty and its tactical advantages." -Sam Austin, Staten Island.

"Paint a self-portrait with your nipples." -Marsha Coupe, Carmel, CA.

"Be a pompous ass, then laugh at yourself for being a pompous ass." -Peter Yates-Hodshon and Mare Hodshon-Yates, Tucson.

"Give names like 'Stinky' and 'Cubby' to your fears." -Joanne Helfrid, Upper Darby, PA.

"The best way to be like me, is not try to be like me at all, but to be true to yourself." -Catherine King, Greenfield, MA.

*

Here's an example of a Gemini who told me how she went about being the best Gemini he could possibly be:

"Be amazed with and in awe of yourself. And try to keep doing new things to justify your amazement and awe. Be like the Native American heyoka who rode his horse backward, wearing only an apron in a blizzard, with sweat running down his chest. Talk to yourself; people can join in if they want to. Have a large papier mach? ego; redecorate it often. Be like Grandmother Spider who created the world by imagining it. Be like Pygmalion and fall in love with your creation. Never imitate. Be a tricky, sticky tickler. No one will ever solve the Sphinx's precious riddle if she doesn't know the answer herself."
- Shimmering Elf




Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.


MAYBE IMAGINARY FRIENDS AREN'T ACTUALLY IMAGINARY

I have imaginary friends who help me. And yes, they sometimes even give me ideas for horoscopes. Are you OK with that? Among the many other perks my secret buddies provide, they show me where my phone and keys are when I've misplaced them -- a prime sign of their practical value.

What's your current status in regards to imaginary friends? Do you even have any? I invite you to seek them out and put them to work. In fact, I encourage you to do anything that might attract the input of undiscovered allies, behind-the-scenes collaborators, mysterious guidance, and divine assistance.

P.S. July 2 is Take Your Imaginary Friend to Work Day.





MAKING A HABIT OF WAKING UP

Many of us are essentially asleep, even as we walk around in broad daylight. We're so focused on the restless narratives and repetitive fantasies unfurling in our heads that we only dimly perceive the larger story raging in all of its chaotic beauty around us.

To have any hope of permanently breaking out of our fuzzy trance, we require regular shocks. A single jolt might cause us to briefly come to attention and see the miracle of creation for what it is, but once the red alert has passed, we relax back into our fixation on the dreamy tales our mind never stops telling us.

In the course of its conspiracy to shower us with blessings, life does its best to provide us with a steady flow of healing shocks. But because it tends to err on the side of tenderness, its prods may be too gentle, allowing us to ignore them. Gradually, life will up the ante, trying to find the right mix of toughness and love, as it encourages us to WAKE UP!

But our addiction to the phantasmagoria is tenacious. The stream-of-conscious narratives and ever-bubbling fantasies, even when they're racked with torment and terror, are perversely entertaining. And so we may avoid responding to the kind shocks for so long that life finally has to resort to stronger medicine. Then we might get sick or lose our job or muck up our closest relationship.

It doesn't have to be that way. We could cultivate in ourselves a sixth sense for the wake-up calls life sends us. We might develop a knack for responding with agile grace to the early, gentler ones so that we wouldn't have to be visited by the more stringent measures.

There's also another possibility: With hungry intent, we could seek out and hunt down invigorating jolts. We wouldn't wait to have our asses kicked, but would kick our own asses -- over and over again, with a creative ingenuity.