Notes on The Paradigm Conspiracy by Denise Breton and Christopher Largent

Paradigm: The word "paradigm" was originally one of those obscure ac

ademic terms that has undergone many changes of meaning over the centuries. The
classical Greeks used it to refer to an original archetype or ideal. Later it ca
me to refer to a grammatical term. In the early 1960s Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) wr
ote a ground breaking book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in which he
showed that science does not progress in an orderly fashion from lesser to grea
ter truth, but rather remains fixated on a particular dogma or explanation - a p
aradigm - which is only overthrown with great difficulty and a new paradigm esta
blished. Thus the Copernican system (the sun at the center of the universe) over
threw the Ptolemaic (the earth at the center) one, and Newtonian physics was rep
laced by Relativity and Quantum Physics. Science thus consists of periods of con
servativism ("Normal" Science) punctuated by periods of "Revolutionary" Science.

Paradigm Shift: When anomalies or inconsistencies arise within a giv

en paradigm and present problems that we are unable to solve within a given para
digm, our view of reality must change, as must the way we perceive, think, and v
alue the world. We must take on new assumptions and expectations that will trans
form our theories, traditions, rules, and standards of practice. We must create
a new paradigm in which we are able to solve the unsolvable problems of the old
paradigm.
Paradigm Addiction: What occurs when a paradigm and its most ardent
supporters are addicted to the paradigm to the point where they lose the realiza
tion that they are even in a paradigm at all? Ardent paradigm supporters have eq
uated paradigm survival with their own personal survival, and will manipulate an
d control a society in order to prevent any social or cultural advancement out o
f the existing paradigm, ignoring or suppressing public knowledge of anomalies,
equating perception of anomalies to "personal abnormality" in order to intimidat
e populations to remain within the status quo control paradigm. Addiction to a p
aradigm results in either paradigm death or death of those who maintain the para
digm.

Paradigm Power
We’re concerned about where the culture is going, and what we can all
do to change its course. As we see it, our main power lies with philosophy and t
he force of paradigm shifts. Shifting our mindset doesn’t cost money, it’s democrati
c (we can all do it), it goes to the crux of problems, it’s nonviolent, it’s effecti
ve, it’s not stoppable from without, and it’s our greatest power, though largely unt
apped.
 The Problem
We see a pervasive mindset of control and domination permeating our
cultural institutions, a mindset driven by the fear of anarchy. If someone—some au
thority or power over us—doesn’t control us, society will fall into chaos, or so we’re
to believe.
But who controls the controllers? What kind of order do those in pos
itions of power have in mind? Is power-over an order that works—i.e., that creates
social harmony and makes us happy? Or does it create wars, blind obedience, inn
er deadness, Littleton, Colorado nightmares, injustices, epidemic substance and
process addictions, economic exploitation, cynicism, chronic stress, and unhappi
ness?
It doesn’t make sense, for example, that we control children morning t
o night with rewards and punishments and then wonder why they grow up selfish ma
nipulators: “What’s in it for me?” or “Just don’t get caught!” That’s how child-rearing and
hooling methods trained all of us to think. And if people grow up obsessed with
gaining power over others—the chance to be in the one-up position and to control w
ho’s rewarded and who’s punished—where’s the surprise? This is the logical extension of
our cultural paradigm.
In other words, is our culture built on a paradigm that’s working for
us as well as we need it to? Is our consensus philosophy shaping our institution
s to serve us, or are we becoming servants to systems that warp our minds, consu
me our energies, and turn us into people we never wanted to be? When more and mo
re of us find ourselves asking such core questions, it’s time to start rethinking
things from the ground up. It’s time to reclaim our powers.
The Global Crisis of Addictions
Caught in deadly processes. Recovery: it’s not just for “addicts” anymore.
It’s not even just for persons, not when addictive processes permeate every socia
l system we’ve got, from schools to churches to workplaces to governments.
The World Is Managed Through Addiction-Based Dynamics
We’re up to our ears in addict-making processes, and we can’t take two s
teps out of bed without running into them.
Substance addictions. Substance addictions—alcohol, drugs, nicotine, f
ood, caffeine—are just the surface, the outward and visible ways addictive process
es come get us. And they do get us. Drugs (legal and illegal), alcohol, and toba
cco constitute the world’s biggest economic empire. Only the weapons industry riva
ls it. It seems we can’t afford not to be substance-dependent; our economies certa
inly are.
Process Addictions
Next in the line of killers are process addictions, the ones societ
y applauds : addiction to working, winning, high-stress, fast-track jobs, perfec
tionism, relationships, making money, spending and debting, gaining power, getti
ng fame or notoriety, living out family dramas, or—brace yourself—shopping. Sex can
be another process addiction, but it’s not one society looks kindly on, however mu
ch advertising promotes insatiable and manipulative sex as the solution to life’s
challenges. Gambling is another old addiction, coming back now with a vengeance
with all the state lotteries, especially among young people.
Even the most lauded activities—religion, science, academic inquiry, a
nd government service—may take on classic addictive patterns. Religion turns into
obsession. Science turns into dogma, as if collecting enough facts will make up
for a narrow worldview. Academic inquiry becomes an in-your-head addiction—quibbli
ng esoterica with rabid acrimony, fiddling while Rome burns. As for government s
ervice, it’s power addiction from the bureaucrats who throw around their paper-pus
hing weight to the big-timers who become brokers for corporate conglomerates.
Process addictions are every bit as deadly, because they underlie su
bstance addictions—as well as just about every social and global ill we’ve got. They’r
e the invisible killers, the ones we don’t suspect, but the ones that made million
aire Ivan Boesky raid savings and loans to become a billionaire, leaving in his
wake thousands who saw their life-savings disappear. As Boesky was later to admi
t, “It’s a sickness I have in the face of which I am helpless.” Nor was Boesky alone i
n his sickness. Since the ’80s, we’ve witnessed an army of greed-addicted corporate
raiders, who made the jobs and pension funds of millions vanish overnight.
Process addictions aren’t limited to movers and shakers, though. Ordin
ary folks following the right diet and taking the right exercise are dropping de
ad at age thirty-five from workaholism, relationship addiction, anxiety, and str
ess. If all these substance and process addictions don’t afflict us, they nonethel
ess affect us. While addictions to drugs, food, alcohol, sex, or work hit us one
by one, addictions to money, control, divisiveness, status, and official-think
oppress us together. We can’t have power-addicts running the world and not experie
nce the consequences. Even when we try to claim it’s business or government as usu
al, we find ourselves suffering from global plagues made invisible by their fami
liarity.
But a familiar plague is no less deadly. As Anne Wilson Schaef point
s out, a deadly virus is a deadly virus, even if the entire population has it. A
lcoholics Anonymous holds that addiction is a “progressive, fatal disease.” Schaef b
elieves—and we agree—that this is true, no matter what form the addiction takes. Our
lungs may give out from tar and nicotine, or our hearts may give out from stres
s. We may die from the greed that destroys the environment or from a nuclear cha
in reaction set off by a someone’s power play. Addiction—substance or process, acted
out privately or on the world stage—is a fatal illness that we ignore at our peri
l. Not that this is news. We can’t read the papers or watch TV without wondering:
What on earth is going on? We have the knowledge and technology. We have the res
ources, human and natural. We even have the desire. Why can’t our social, economic
, and environmental problems be solved? Why do we live from crisis to crisis?
Addict-making systems. Neither substance nor process addictions are
limited to one race, sex, economic class, region, or occupation. Rich and poor,
conservative and liberal, male and female, Hispanic, European, African, Asian, a
nd Native Americans share the same disease.
When something so deadly cuts across society, we have to look at wha
t we share: our social systems. In her 1987 ground-breaking book, When Society B
ecomes an Addict, Schaef suggests family dynamics, school rules, workplace polic
ies and practices, corporate hierarchies, government workings, media messages, a
s well as cultural and religious belief-structures all operate in ways that set
us up to behave addictively. In fact, society itself, Schaef writes, “is an addict
ive system.”
That’s a strong statement, yet the more we understand addiction, the m
ore it seems like an understatement. Award-winning teacher John Taylor Gatto, fo
r instance, pulls no punches about the messages schools send through their struc
ture: “I began to realize that the bells and the confinement, the crazy sequences,
the age-segregation, the lack of privacy, the constant surveillance, and all th
e rest of the national curriculum of schooling were designed exactly as if someo
ne had set out to prevent children from learning how to think and act, to coax t
hem into addiction and dependent behavior.”
In When Money is the Drug, counselor and writer Donna Boundy sketche
s a similarly addict-making picture for corporations. The level of thinking-dist
ortion that takes over people in these systems is astonishing.
The Paradigm Conspiracy
What’s going on? Why are systems betraying their service to us? Instea
d of performing their rightful functions of educating (schools), nurturing (fami
lies), promoting public good (governments), managing the shared household (busin
esses), and inspiring us to find and fulfill our life’s purpose (religious institu
tions), they’re abusing us and turning us into people we never wanted to be. Why?
Enter “paradigms.” Back in 1962—so long ago John Kennedy was still alive—his
torian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn gave an analysis of how systems ch
ange (or don’t) in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, that rocked
the intellectual world. He wasn’t talking about addictive systems but about the sy
stem of scientific research, which has its own brand of obsessive-compulsive beh
avior.

Introducing the term “paradigm,” Kuhn said that scientists operate from
mental models—paradigms—that shape everything they think, feel, and do. How scientis
ts perceive and interpret experience is shaped by their internal structure of be
liefs and concepts—their paradigm. If something is wrong, the paradigm is the plac
e to look to find out why.
To raise paradigm issues is to reflect on the ideas or concepts we’re
using as our map of reality—our world view, life perspective, philosophy, or menta
l model. Whatever we call it, it’s powerful stuff. To look at our paradigm is to l
ook at the blueprint we’re using to build our worlds.
How do paradigms start? They usually begin with some exemplary model—“Ne
wtonian science” or “Einsteinian relativity”—that weaves together theories, standards, a
nd methods in a way that makes better sense than anything else. To share a parad
igm is to share a commitment to rules that define how a scientist acts and react
s. No part of scientific activity is outside the reach of the paradigm’s influence
. It’s as if scientists’ energies get poured through the paradigm’s mold, and whatever
comes out is stamped by that all-encompassing model.
In the decades since, Kuhn’s paradigm-concept has been applied to ever
y discipline, from the arts to business. And rightly so. We experience our lives
the way we do because of the paradigms we carry around. In computer terms, para
digms function like the central operating system of consciousness—the supra-progra
m that transforms undefined perceptions into something we call our experience. T
hey give us the mental tools to make sense of life and survive in it. We may not
be able to summarize our paradigm in ten words or less, but our every thought i
s paradigm connected, even paradigm created.
Development Within A Paradigm
Given the power of paradigms, two kinds of development follow. The f
irst occurs within the paradigm’s framework. The second chucks the paradigm and fo
rges a new one.
“Normal science,” as Kuhn calls it, is the first kind of development. Pr
actitioners operate within their mental model and pursue its implications to the
nth degree. Working inside the prevailing paradigm is the secure, accepted, and
well-rewarded way to do science.
In fact, the paradigm gets so comfortable that scientists forget tha
t it’s there; it becomes functionally invisible. They way they see things is just
the way things are. For them, there is no paradigm between their ideas and reali
ty. Applied to life, the normal-science phase is business as usual, families as
usual, politics, churches, schools, and professions as usual. When we’re ticking a
way within a paradigm’s framework, the norm is well defined, and we conform. Copin
g skills mean finding ways to fit into the norm, whether it’s healthy or not. In f
act, “healthy” is whatever the paradigm says it is. Becoming healthy means adjusting
to the paradigm’s definition.
Paradigm Shifts
The revolutionary development comes when the paradigm reaches a cris
is. It doesn’t solve problems the way it once did. Anomalies—things that the paradig
m can’t explain—start accumulating. Paradigm-health starts making us sick. More and
more, the paradigm doesn’t work. That’s when scientists are challenged to shift para
digms by moving into a phase Kuhn calls “extraordinary science.” But, “extraordinary
science” isn’t easy. In language suited to academia, Kuhn describes how scientists
freak out. Everything they ever learned is called into question. During the revo
lutions in physics early in this century, even Einstein, no slouch in forward-th
inking, wrote, “It was as if the ground had been pulled out from under one, with n
o firm foundation to be seen anywhere, upon which one could have built.”
The more the paradigm fails to do its job, the more old-paradigm sci
entists try to make it work. The paradigm is ripe for a revolution, but because
they’ve forgotten that they even have a paradigm, scientists conclude instead that
their world is falling apart. Solutions—alternative ways of doing science—don’t exist
. As far as they’re concerned, they’ve explored all the possibilities, and the only
options they see don’t help. They’re too paradigm-bound to notice that they’re stumbli
ng over the limits of their own models.

The Paradigm: Cause of Soul-Abusive Systems

“Extraordinary science” describes the situation we face today. We’re not e
xperiencing paradigm-norms as healthy, either personally or globally. The bluepr
int for our families, schools, businesses, and governments isn’t working. It’s causi
ng our shared social systems to function abusively and to make us sick as a resu
lt. Happy people and healthy systems don’t turn addictive, life-destroying substan
ces into the biggest growth industry on the planet.
We’d think changing a paradigm that’s not working would be easy, but it’s
not. As Kuhn observed, the paradigm-cause of crises remains invisible to old-par
adigm practitioners. We don’t need a new paradigm, they believe, we just need to m
ake the one we have work better. Nothing is wrong with our social systems, since
that would call the underlying paradigm into question. Instead, when things don’t
work, something must be wrong with us. “Blame certain people and label them as th
e troublemakers. We need more discipline, more restraints,” old-paradigm experts a
dvise us, “more tests and tougher grading systems, more hard-nosed business-manage
ment practices, more God-fearing, sex-repressing piety, and more laws with stric
ter enforcement.”
In other words, according to the prevailing paradigm, coming down ha
rd on people isn’t abuse. It’s how we create healthy families, schools, businesses,
governments, and churches, because it rids us of the sinful, ignorant, or otherw
ise unruly souls that muck up the social machinery. If things don’t work, the solu
tion is to take away more rights, stifle more creativity, intimidate more people
, build more prisons, and bring back the death penalty. More fear keeps people
in line.

This paradigm touches every part of our lives—but invisibly. We don’t re

alize that the paradigm is there, which means we don’t recognize its role in creat
ing our social institutions. As long as the paradigm remains hidden, we don’t see
what’s causing system-wide suffering, which means we can’t stop it.
The paradigm of control and power-over. What kind of paradigm requir
es that we blame individuals, intimidate, and punish them in order to keep our s
ocial systems “healthy”? Like a complex tapestry, the paradigm has many threads, but
the overall pattern has to do with control: Who has power over whom, and how is
a power-over relation maintained? Riane Eisler, in her pioneering work, The Cha
lice and the Blade, calls this the “dominator model,” contrasting it with “the partner
ship way.” Domination is the paradigm’s driving issue, and for a reason: in this wor
ld view, top-down control is necessary for social order.
According to the power-over model—what we refer to as the control para
digm—if somebody doesn’t control us, our social systems will fall into chaos. Archae
ologist John Romer notes, for instance, that the Roman Emperor Diocletian, in an
attempt to hold “a ramshackle empire” together, “made a state where animals, land and
people were all tightly organized and controlled.ӃLike Diocletian, authorities of
today believe that nothing would work if we each did our own thing. To have orde
r, we must do what the authorities tell us to do.
Soul: the big threat
Now come the threads: to be controlled, we have to be unplugged from
competing sources of control. The major threat to external control is our inter
nal guidance system—our souls.
“Soul” refers to our deep presence. It’s our inner connectedness to whate
ver we take to be Being, God, the One, the whole, or the ground of creation (to
paraphrase theologian Paul Tillich). Physician Larry Dossey describes the soul a
s “some aspect of ourselves that is infinite, beyond the limits of space and time.”
It’s our direct link to reality.
This whole-connected core is the source of our talents and the wells
pring of creativity. It’s also what gives us the conviction that our lives have me
aning. When we live from our souls, we feel alive and vital, and we take serious
ly the idea that we’re here for a purpose.
To us, our souls are our best friends and most trusted guides. But t
o the control paradigm, they’re the enemy—what has to be removed in order for extern
al control to work. Only when we’re sufficiently disconnected from our inner compa
ss will we follow outer demands.
“Get rid of the troublemakers.” For fear of chaos, social systems adopt
the control paradigm and run with it. Through all sorts of institutionalized pol
icies, we get the message that we’re unacceptable as we are, but that if we surren
der ourselves to the social system (the family, school, business, profession, or
religion), we’ll become acceptable. Our souls are sloppy and unmanageable trouble
makers; they clog the system’s efficient workings, and we’re better off without them
.
This isn’t reality talking; it’s a paradigm—an old one. Maybe sometime i
n the dim, dark recesses of human evolution a control-based paradigm may have se
rved the species—we’re skeptical about that—but it’s not serving us now. The more power-
over systems zap our inner lives, the less social order we have. It’s a paradigm i
n crisis, and it’s creating neither personal nor global health.
Two paradigm conspiracies. As long as the paradigm remains invisible
, we’re stuck. The prevailing model stymies change. Every time we try to move in a
new direction, the old paradigm kicks in and intimidates us into doing the same
old, soul-diminishing stuff.
 That’s the first paradigm conspiracy, the one that blocks our best eff
orts to confront crises and change.
But one paradigm conspiracy deserves another—the leap into “extraordinar
y-science.” True, paradigm shifts are full of uncertainties, trials and errors, hi
ccups and false starts, not to mention soul-searching forays into the unknown. W
e never know if we’ve come up with the “right” paradigm—or even if there is such a thing
. In extraordinary science, we let everything go into flux. Yet nothing conspire
s to change our world so completely as doing precisely that.
The most conspiratorial part of a paradigm shift is that it lies wit
hin the power of each of us to do it. Paradigms aren’t Godzilla monsters; they’re id
eas. Their power comes from our shared commitment to them. The minute one person
starts to explore alternative models, the paradigm no longer holds the same pow
er.
As Marilyn Ferguson explained in The Aquarian Conspiracy, the word ‘co
nspiracy’ comes from ‘conspirare,’ which means ‘to breathe together.’ A new cultural parad
igm begins with each person stepping out of the old and daring to breathe someth
ing new. The “movers and shakers” are powerless to prevent a paradigm shift, once we
together breathe a paradigm-revolution into being.
Walking the Truth vs. Sleepwalking
We are not walking the full truth of who we are because we re "sleep
walking", unconscious of our immense abilities. Instead, we ve come to believe t
hat those abilities don t exist for us. Even people educated at the best schools
in this system experience education as indoctrination. The advantage for power-
over institutions is obvious. People no longer indulge in big-picture thought. C
ontrol paradigm systems want the human brain to be an obedient machine, not a mi
nd.
The Control Paradigm Posing as a "Philosophy"
The dumbing down - becoming less than who we are - brings us face to
face with one of the control paradigm s most powerful devices for achieving con
trol. The control paradigm presents itself as a "philosophy", as if it s innocen
tly telling us what s what. It even insists that its mechanistic, materialistic,
control-measured picture of reality depicts the "real world" and tells us how t
o be practical in the world of facts and things, dogs eating dogs and sharks eat
ing whatever. The more our reality can be reduced to objects, this "philosophy"
tells us, and the less we trouble ourselves with ideas, values and other intangi
bles, the more we understand the "realities" of the control universe.
Adopting this philosophy as "the most practical way to maximize our
personal sphere of control", we don t notice that we re made controllable in the
process. To "buy into" the "philosophy" is to become controllable by its "value
s" of external rewards and suggested into a view of ourselves that is not true t
o our nature and potential as True Human Beings. But, the control paradigm isn t
philosophy. It doesn t encourage free thought or dialogue. It doesn t develop o
ur minds or souls. It doesn t invite inquiry into its core assumptions, strategi
es, responses and goals. Instead, it functions as a mind-control trance.
The control paradigm comes across as "the one way" to experience rea
lity, and it doesn t make room for alternative perspectives. To do so would go a
gainst the control agenda. As a result, the control paradigm in truth has little
in common with philosophy and much in common with propaganda and mind control m
ethods - trance inducers, the kind Hitler was skilled at using.
 Trance Guises
In order to work, mind control methods must be hidden or pass as som
ething seen as socially acceptable. The trick to a manipulative trance - as oppo
sed to a therapeutic one - is that it remains unnoticed. The trance-inducers nee
d a good guise. Conditioning and manipulation of others are always weapons and
instruments in the hands of those in power, even if these weapons are disguised
with the terms "education" and "therapeutic treatment". The control paradigm use
s all of the above, but ultimately posing as a "philosophy" is its greatest cove
r. Posing as a "philosophy" lends the control paradigm an "air of authority". If
we recognized mind-control methods, saw through their disguises, and named them
as such, they would lose their effectiveness.
Anatomy of a Trance
Selective focus that by-passes the critical faculty. A trance state
is when our minds voluntary choose to bypass their critical faculty and focus se
lectively, with consciousness fixated and focused to a relatively narrow frame o
f attention rather than being diffused over a broad area.
Suggestibility
Humans can be highly suggestible, which allows the by-passing of the
critical faculty. It is a matter of record how subtle cues and suggestions can
influence and even control people s minds and behavior. But "I m not in trance!"
- Hypnosis is in fact not so much a "state" but a process of selective focusing
that we choose to engage in, since many of the characteristics of the trance pr
ocess apply to other processes of consciousness as well. In fact, when people ar
e in a trance "state", many swear they re not. They have no sense of altered con
sciousness when responding to suggestion and do not believe themselves to be in
trance.
Trance as a Tool of Oppression - The Dark Side of Trance
The very power of the trance suggests its potential as a tool of opp
ression - for making us less than who we are.
Although there are positive uses for hypnosis, negative trance condi
tioning is very different. The mind-control uses of the trance process are thous
ands of years old and permeate control-paradigm institutions. Let s take a look
how two master oppressors, Hitler and Eichmann, used the process in the concentr
ation camps:
Eliminating the critical faculty - Prisoners were taken from their h
omes, deprived of all possessions, stripped naked, shaved head to toe, and mass
showered. They were treated as if they were sub-human. The impact of this was th
at all the assumptions they had ever made no longer applied. Inmates went into s
hock and their ability to think was shut down. The critical faculty was gone.
Narrowed focus on survival - The brutality of camp life made prisone
rs think only on the barest survival level. Every thought focused on how to stay
warm, get food and avoid the wrath of the guards. Thinking became highly select
ive. No one could form any reliable strategies.
Normal emotions were removed and camp emotions implanted - Given the
shock of the experience, emotions shut down, including the emotions of disgust,
horror and pity. Apathy took over - the inability to care about anything. The p
risoners gave up their normal ways of responding. Instead, new responses were im
planted ("suggested") - the desire to save one s life, not to antagonize the gua
rds, to submerge into the crowd, even to do "favors" for the guards in order to
gain a "favored position". The responses that the guards wanted from the prisone
rs were unquestioning obedience, abject submission, and lack of personal will ex
cept for what the guards permitted. Suggestions were also implanted to the effec
t that human beings had no intrinsic worth, only extrinsic usefulness to authori
ties.
Aware of the trance or not? - Those who bought the trance didn t las
t long. Those who allowed their inner hold on their moral and spiritual selves t
o subside eventually fell victim to the camp s degenerating influences, and thei
r bodies soon followed suit. The trance of dehumanization overcame them without
their conscious awareness or resistance.
Coming out of the Trance to Walk Our Truth
Philosophy - Reawakening our critical faculties Prayer or mediation
- Letting our minds roam the big picture
Correcting dehumanizing suggestions
De-suggesting cultural influences. We decide not to give dehumanizin
g trances our assent or energies. The man who stood in front of the army tank in
Tianenman Square in China was not in a control paradigm, fear and submission tr
ance. His no-trance response apparently broke the trance of the driver of the ta
nk. Another example is when the Berlin Wall came down. The wall symbolized a pol
itical control paradigm trance for almost 50 years, Once the control paradigm tr
ance broke, the wall came down almost overnight.
Expanding awareness - Once we re awake, we re awake, and we have cho
ices: trance or no trance. Of course, waking up from the control-paradigm trance
is not what society encourages.

Closed-System Models Don t Work for Human Society

Preserving the "Norm"
Single individuals don t create a society-wide climate where dialogu
e has no place. That s the desire of the Control Paradigm, and it uses an effect
ive device for doing it. The Control Paradigm designs social structures to funct
ion as closed systems. The rules, policies and structures of closed systems have
one purpose - to exclude input - outside, non-controllable factors - that could
initiate system change. The first response to any problem is to "return things
to the way they were". Closed social systems are not intentionally "evil" - they
are simply designed to maintain the status quo. Maintaining a pre-determined or
der is their mandate, which closed systems carry out through strict rules of con
trol. As long as new energies can be either neutralized or made to conform, thin
gs continue on as before. The lines of power are preserved, and control is assum
ed.
Controlling the Variables - The People

Closed systems work to offset variables. That s how they maintain eq

uilibrium. In closed social systems, personal differences are the variables, and
roles are the way to offset them. For example, because nothing is more variable
in marriages than spouses, or in families than children, in schools than teache
rs and students, in businesses than employees, in religions than spiritual seeke
rs, or in society than citizens, closed social systems devise countless techniqu
es for steering us back to role-governed equilibrium, called "family harmony", "
family values", "school discipline", "business as usual", "religious devotion",
or "social order". The most effective technique for doing this gets people to in
ternalize roles and act them out without question. People are manipulated to mel
d with the roles, until they are the roles.
Given that dialogue is really about thinking and questioning, it is
no wonder that its not generally welcome in closed social systems. It undermines
a powerful tool of control: a control device that reduces our "unpredictable" n
ature to predictable boxes and persuades us that the boxes are who we are and th
at "we are nothing" without them.
The Control Paradigms "Claim to Legitimacy"
The aim of closed social systems isn t to shut us down, although tha
t s the effect. Closed systems may behave like the evil Empire in Star Wars, but
those "in charge" honestly believe that "society would collapse" without their
order-reinforcing, power-concentrating, control-preserving responses. That is wh
y dictatorships often follow social upheaval; the "chaos" of transition is used
to justify closed-system methods. The greater the apparent "chaos", the more "ab
solute rule" can be "justified". Current closed social systems welcome, and may
even create an appearance of "chaos", because according to their belief is "vali
dates" their "authority", and that "crack-down" methods "must be necessary".
The Reason Closed Social Systems Don t Work
Responding to the need for balance in society doesn t work using clo
sed-system thought patterns, because the current systems:
Maintenance of a toxic order: First, if the system equilibrium is al
ready toxic, it gets reinforced. Bad "norms" are simply perpetuated, since close
d systems "run on automatic". They don t have the power of discernment. They don
t evaluate systems in light of personal needs, human evolution or planetary hea
lth. Their one mandate is to "preserve the established order", even if that "ord
er" is toxic for the people and planet.
Put systems above people: Achieving "social order" through closed-sy
stem methods put systems above people - system needs over personal needs. System
s come first. That s the message we hear in social systems, namely, preserving s
ystems is more important than nurturing people. Closed systems say to people, "Y
ou are part of us, therefore we own you. Who you are is incidental. You must per
form the roles we assign you in the ways we require. We won t allow you to devia
te. If you changed, we d have to change, and that we won t allow. Our social or
der would collapse". Putting the rigid structure of social systems first costs
all of us. People get "chewed up" by systems. The idea of "sacrificing ourselves
for the greater good" may be a laudable idea if the greater is good. But, what
if it isn t?
Control is Abuse: Closed social systems don t work because they keep
order through control - force, punishment, and other power-over methods of enfo
rcement. But, can social harmony be forced? Is top-down control the way to achie
ve "social order"? Threats and intimidation cannot be the fabric of healthy soci
al systems. They do too much violence to our inner lives, costing us our freedom
. How healthy can our social system be if the people are psychological wreaks? W
hen we are deprived of out essential powers as free, creative beings, our social
systems reflect our emptiness. When do we get in return for "submission"? Not s
ecurity. Being one-down in a control hierarchy isn t a secure place. When people
get deprived of freedom and security while at the same time they are bound by c
ontrol systems, they behave like caged animals. Intelligent beings don t do well
in cages.
 The Nature of Reality isn t closed: Another reason closed social sys
tems don t bring social order is that reality itself isn t a closed system. The
old scientific belief systems such as closed-entropy energy systems, also used t
o reinforce closed-system social control patterns, are rapidly becoming transpar
ently false as scientific research has shown over the last few decades. No matte
r how much closed systems try to control variables and shut out change, reality
won t be shut out. We can t make our social units into "islands of no-change", b
ecause the greater reality (the context on which our systems depend) is dynamic.

Reality is ever-shifting. It sweeps through our systems and impels c

hange whether the system controllers like it or not. Two shining examples of clo
sed systems, the Soviet Union and Communist China, tried to create "perfectly co
ntrolled, closed societies". It didn t work. Their determination to establish cl
osed-system control exacted a terrible price from their people. Individuality, f
reedom and creativity "had to be crushed". That s the reason closed social syste
ms don t work.
The Spiritual Evolution of Society Won t Be Put Off: Human beings ar
e every bit as dynamic as reality because we are made up of reality, and we are
constantly evolving in response to it. In contrast to Westernized control-orient
ed systems, including the systems "exported" to China, ancient Asian spiritual t
raditions defined humans as profoundly open systems, involved in constant self-t
ransformation. Just as social systems can t ultimately ignore the dynamics of re
ality, so too they cannot ultimately ignore our dynamics. No matter how hard clo
sed systems try to fit us into "boxed", we don t fit. The more systems negate th
is quality, the more we react as if we re under siege. Our personal reality as b
eings-in-progress fights back, whether through conflict, addiction, social actio
n ,recovery, spiritual awakening - or some combination thereof. Nor is this bad
news. If social systems could make us into static units of conformity, what sort
of societies would we create?
The Awareness Gap: Another reason closed social systems don t work a
s a model for social order is that closed systems operate blind to the people in
them. Social order is not built on an awareness of what people think and feel,
but on ignoring human needs and imposing system demands. That is why closed syst
ems are typically out-of-touch with the real thoughts, feelings, and abilities o
f their members: they shut the door on this information. It s not deemed "releva
nt" to "maintaining order".
Too many tragedies, too little order: In the end, closed-system cont
rol doesn t work because it creates more tragedies than order. Dysfunctional pat
terns destroy. For example, the general approach to "health care" is a business.
If health is a business, which demands its existence in perpetuity, than there
can by definition be no health in society. The pattern also involves "killing di
sease" while at the same time ignoring what it takes to create health. National
ill-health is just one example of closed-system tragedies. The Western political
systems are another example.
Breaking Through Paradigm Defenses
We pay a heavy price for filtering reality as we do. When paradigm f
ilters obscure our inner self to create an "outer self" that does the coping, th
e gap left inside grows into a chasm. The trouble intensifies when we identify w
ith our paradigm filters. We begin to believe that to expose our filters is to e
xpose ourselves, and worse, we begin to believe that to lose our filters is to l
ose ourselves, and that having "filters" is how we have survived. We fuse with t
hem and believe that they re all we ve got.
Acceptable Paradigm Cloaking Devices - Paradigm Protective Dynamics
 The best way to make our paradigm "armor" invulnerable is to make it
invisible. What can t be detected by the population can t be shot down. When in
visible, our paradigms avoid the risk of attack. We hide our paradigm s filterin
g processes under acceptable cloaking devices - and many such covers will do the
trick.
Staying Within A Group
One way to make paradigm filters invisible is to surround ourselves
with people who share our set. We align ourselves with groups who take the same
paradigm for granted. Surrounded by people whose filters are familiar, ours blen
d in. Paradigm filters stay invisible, and we ask "What filters?" and "What para
digm?" Everyone shares the same agenda of keeping the paradigm filters unchanged
. When paradigm issues do manage to surface, it s to reinforce how "successful"
and "right" the group s paradigm is. The official lines get repeated and the cat
chphrases echoed. Those who question the paradigm and don t speak its "language"
are out.
It is because of this that cliques permeate paradigm-rigid societies
, with each group accusing the other of being "cultish". Paradigm dynamics, or d
ogmatics of each group resemble what goes on in mainline churches, corporations,
schools, universities, governments, labor unions and non-profit organizations.
The strategy of keeping filters invisible under the cover of a group-shared para
digm turns out not to be considered aberrational behavior, but the "required nor
m".
When Groups Support Growth - There are groups that support growth an
d evolution, and group-shared paradigms can be useful if they are exploring thes
e areas involving full potential. Working with people of like mind takes us forw
ard by leaps and bounds. As we work with others in this way, developments emerge
greater than any one person could produce. Whether group involvement supports "
filter evolution" or "filter fixedness", therefore, is a matter of paradigm deve
lopment.
Compartmentalization of Paradigm Filters
Mechanism: Another way to keep paradigms invisible is to split our l
ives into compartments and to design paradigm filters for each "box". When we ar
e convinced to split our perceptive world into separate pieces, we protect the p
aradigm filters we use for each piece. In a fixed area, certain paradigm filters
don t apply, and we don t mix them with filters we use for a different box. Tha
t way, we never have to ask how it all adds up; it just doesn t, and no one expe
cts it to add up.
Social Result: Lack of Consistency. We don t ask whether the values
we use at work are the values we d like our children to live at home. If we adhe
re to one religion or belief, we don t want to hear about the views of another.
By putting walls between our filters, we protect our overall filter arrangement.
We avoid filter comparisons which would inevitably bring our paradigm out into
the open and subject it to revision. Some of the greatest leaps in knowledge and
art - cultural paradigms - occurred when two or more societies interacted. Cont
rol paradigm isolation of societies prevents these leaps. Box-category thinking,
valuable as it is for producing specialized knowledge, prevents this type of ex
change. It forbids us even to attempt to integrate our filters with wider contex
ts - a process which paradigm evolution demands. "There s no overall paradigm",
we tell ourselves, which means our cultural paradigm stays "offstage", invisible
.
Openness and Objectivity Issues
Another way to keep paradigm filters hidden is to "appear to be filt
er-free", as if "we have no paradigm, no filters, and no covers for them either.
For decades, scientists and social engineers hid filters behind claims of objec
tivity, pretending to be "unbiased observers". Claiming to be "open" and "skepti
cal", while rigidly adhering to paradigm dynamics, are other ways of hiding para
digms we re not keen to question. Sometimes, claiming to be "open" is used as a
strategy to make us appear paradigm-free, which guarantees that neither we nor a
nyone else has a chance to look at our filters. By appearing to be "big-minded",
we keep our paradigm close to the chest and off limits.
Use of Covers to Block Paradigm Awareness
If we are to evolve, we need to know what paradigm we re using, so w
e can change it. Defensive covers block this awareness. How far are people willi
ng to go to protect their paradigm? History shows that people will kill to prote
ct what they "believe" to be the case. Changing paradigms, ways of thinking and
perceiving the universe based on new information, can be scary for some people.
No wonder the strategies for keeping paradigms in place are more developed than
strategies for changing them.
Use of Social Taboos to Block Paradigm Awareness
One of the most potent paradigm cloaking devices individuals and soc
ieties have is the taboo. A taboo prevents the questions we dare not raise, the
things we dare not do, and the ways we dare not think. When members of a society
obey taboos, they pretend that aspects of their lives do not exist. Problems ar
e not problems, and obvious sources of trouble remain off-limits for discussion,
and people are manipulated into not speaking of them. People let the social sys
tem throw walls of silence around them, so the system is not threatened by heari
ng the truth about what we re experiencing. Most current social systems on the p
lanet are maintained in a status quo state in this way.
Taboos About Sex - The actual function of the taboo on sexual matter
s in Western countries, which paradoxically exists at the same time as the maint
enance of a strong focus on sexual matters, is to supplement and increase the fo
cus on sexual matters in society. The same principles holds for gender-specific
taboos, which also have the function of suppressing different factors relating t
o wholeness of being and expression. Many of these taboos have the function of i
ntroducing the socially complicating factors of "guilt" and "shame", and are als
o included in some religious paradigms.
Taboos About Feelings - There is also another taboo which exists tha
t makes feelings off-limits in some social system. People are programming "to be
in control" of emotions. Even the words "emotion" and "emotional" are cast in n
egative connotations, and are often used to discredit a persons viewpoint. In fa
ct, the process of socially programming the factoring-out of emotions is highly
convenient for control paradigm systems, because if we cut ourselves off from ho
w we feel under a situation of domination, we tend to "tolerate" it more readily
, and we are programmed to disregard the pain when we witness control-system abu
se to others. Control system abuse is seen on television 24 hours a day and term
ed "entertainment", which goes to show how deeply some paradigm elements are bur
ied. Another phenomenon that arises is that the control paradigm feeds people wi
th rationalizations, judgments and the ultimate ultimatum: "Things must be done
this way or chaos will follow".

Science Taboos - Many of the social control taboos in our society ha

ve in fact been inherited from science - what s "real" and what is not, what we
can "talk about intelligently" and what is considered "superstitious" or "pseudo
-science". In general, the rule is this - "if you can measure something, manipul
ate it, predict its function and then replicate it (control the outcome of exper
iments on it) - "it s scientific and real; if not, it s imagination or illusion.
" People are programmed to accept this approach to science because it reinforces
the idea of control over the environment. Unfortunately, this strategy reduces
the idea of "knowledge" down to a matter of "control". We are led to believe tha
t "knowing something" means being able to "control" it -- which is the control-p
aradigm epistemology. We are led to grant science this "authority" and we are pr
ogrammed not to question it, even if it stands in the face of mountains of obser
ved (but not reproducible, and therefore "anecdotal") evidence.
Science Taboos - The Wider Impact
Defining knowledge in terms of control raises questions. What kind o
f "control" does science give us? Control paradigm science inevitably disregards
wider contexts, because wider contexts aren t easily "controlled". To "gain con
trol", scientists "eliminate variables" and "constrict the field". In fact, scie
ntists learn early in their programmed training to think in narrowly focused way
s and to disregard broader contexts, thus, the most defensible Ph.D. thesis is t
he most specialized one. A result of this process is that using narrowed control
thought processes, we find ourselves faced with wider-context problems. For exa
mple, we are stuck with nuclear waste with a half-life of 500,000 years and clou
ds of acid rain that kill forests. If the same money went into researching new e
volutionary technologies, as the impression was given to the public in the early
1970 s that it "would be", we wouldn t have the problems we have today. But, a
public programmed to think along the same lines has simply ignored this simple i
dea.
Science Taboos - Ethics and Values
A very important point to make is that the taboos that insulate cont
rol-science from its impact on society also hide its values. The directions that
science and technology take involve decisions based on values - control values.
Nonetheless, taboos place science above ethics. In other words, control-science
taboos hide its decision-making process and the values that guide them. These v
alues and decisions affect the course of science. The fact that some scientific
research gets screened out while other research receives both funding and public
ation is attributed to "the natural course of scientific development", as if the
re is no paradigm-based filtering going on. In fact, "there s a whole lot of fil
tering going on". Various "experts" dominate each field of "inquiry" and also do
minate the direction and "limits" of research. They give their "positions" at "c
onferences", where "reputations" may be "made" or "broken", and they edit the jo
urnals. Even more telling is the funding of research by industry. There is an un
spoken but real incentive to present projects that support the agenda of work be
ing done in various industries. Combinations of industrial, academic, and politi
cal interests influence, and even control, what should otherwise be open scienti
fic research, in many cases research that could potentially save lives. The canc
er and AIDS industries are good examples.
Science Taboos - "Accepted Practices"
Control-science decisions affect not only the direction of research
but how that knowledge is applied. As long as some practice is labeled "scientif
ic", people are programmed to be hesitant to ask whether it s wise or cruel. The
status of "accepted scientific opinion" is often enough to put a theory, along
with its applications, "beyond moral question". A good example would be the pain
ful tests and surgery conducted on babies without anesthesia. Another would be t
hat if you cut someone s body part off while walking down the street, you d go t
o jail. But if an obstetrician does it, without anesthesia, he gets paid for it.
No consistency in this society. It sends a real message to baby boys about the
world they re entering. Female circumcision and genital mutilation, permitted in
some societies, sends an equally meaningful message to young girls.
 Science Taboos - Philosophy and Consciousness
Consciousness, certainly infant consciousness, is meant to have no p
lace in the official "world view of science, and taboos keep it that way. Taboo
s hide how control-paradigm science affect our overall philosophy. Because of ta
boos, people don t ask whether control science is adequate for understanding the
universe. By making all non-controllable aspects of life off-limits - outside t
he "domain" of "scientific inquiry" - the taboos of science make sure that the g
eneral population ignores many realities, but most of all the subject of conscio
usness itself. The dominant paradigm of knowledge places consciousness research
generally off-limits. Intuition, inner realities, synchronicity, spiritual seeki
ng, the quest for meaning, healing, personal and social transformation, near-dea
th experiences, out-of-body travel, and symbolic systems associated with things
like these, are termed by control-science to be "hokum" and "non-sense". Never m
ind that most of these things are a vivid part of reality for a significant part
of the population. No "self-respecting" scientist would be caught dead investig
ating them.
One of the most powerful ways taboos shut down open inquiry is to ri
dicule those who step outside official scientific opinion. If something doesn t
fit control-paradigm science, the phenomenon is dismissed as "non-existent", and
the people who persist in violating the taboos of silence are dismissed as "cra
ckpots". The subject of alien interaction with the planet is a good example.
Defensive Routines
Defensive routines are entrenched habits people use to protect thems
elves from the embarrassment and threat that comes with the exposure of thought
patterns they wish to hide that underlie views and opinions. The perceived "thre
at from exposing thought processes", or the programming which creates this dysfu
nctional process, starts early in life and is steadily reinforced in the "educat
ional" system. Everyone can recall the stigma at having the "wrong answer" in sc
hool.
Defensive routines also block transformation, since they block acces
s to the basic paradigm filters. As a result defensive routines block learning a
nd expanded experience.
Defensive routines also block communication. When one person seeks t
o hide the paradigm upon which thought is based, very often the other person doe
s it too. Defensive routines are contagious. Defensive routines are also "self-s
ealing". Not only do they hide paradigms, but they hide their own existence as w
ell. To hide the paradigm and be psychologically "correct", people fall back on
the "openness" cover, where people want to "seem" open an candid, so they work h
ard at appearing that way.

Lies, Secrets and Cover-ups - Trapped in Defense Mechanisms

By hiding the paradigm that lies at the root of problems, defensive
routines allow situations to get worse. They do not let concerns or confusions s
urface, even if these may be the key to a breakthrough. Instead of helping us de
al with realities, defensive covers divert energies into preserving masks and eg
o images. They force people to live a lie - not to be honest about what s happen
ing. As long as we participate in a control system. we are not at liberty to spe
ak openly about what we are experiencing. When taboos forbid us to speak the tru
th, our lives get "zippered shut with secrecy", leaving us vulnerable to secrecy
s chief weapon - propaganda. Everywhere people go they are lobbied into believi
ng the official line that justifies control-paradigm systems. People begin to th
ink "everything s fine, as long as we lock up and get rid of the bad people, k
ill them or drug them until they fit the norm . Then our system would work ".
But, our systems don t work, no matter how many people are drugged, subject to m
ind-control, lock up or kill. Instead, a chasm of silence comes between people a
nd system realities.
Dialoguing Our Way to Social Balance and Harmony
As a response to the control-paradigm world around us, dialogue send
s a liberating message. Dialogue is the real source of order in human societies.
It communicates openness, trust, mutual respect, adventure and shared explorati
on. It is a response that invites paradigm shift in precisely the direction we w
ant to make it, namely, toward soul-honoring interaction.
Discussion vs. Dialogue
David Bohm, the physicist, whose ideas on dialogue follow the Socrat
ic tradition, believed that dialogue is an art that s distinct from ordinary dis
cussion. Discussion works like ping-pong - opinions are tossed back and forth to
set whose views will win out. It s a competitive game of scoring points: one-up
, one-down, argument and rebuttal. But, discussion has its limits. In discussion
, our options are restricted to the starting point positions of each side. Discu
ssion is not designed to increase options, only to narrow options. Discussion op
erates on a win-lose model.
Dialogue, in contrast, has a different dynamic. It s purpose is not
to establish a "victor" or to prove a question, but to "love the truth" and purs
ue it. We let truth be what it is, whether it happens to fit our paradigm agenda
s or not. We let out pursuit of the truth spill over our current thought boundar
ies, drawing us into areas we have not considered before. How does a dialogue re
sponse do this? David Bohm mapped out three criteria - three rules of dialogue.
These rules cannot be imposed from without or faked. If inwardly we re stuck in
a one-up/one-down mode (a control paradigm response), we can try and create a di
alogue but it won t happen. The exercise lapses into ping-pong. Real dialogue gr
ows with soul connectedness. In paradigm terms, a dialogue response grows from s
oul connectedness assumptions and strategies. We simply love the truth and want
to explore it in the same spirit with others. Bohm said, "the purpose of dialogu
e is to go beyond any one individual s understanding. We are not trying to win i
n a dialogue. We all wind if we are doing it right."
Bohm s three criteria, listed below, will facilitate a dialogue resp
onse:
Suspending Our Paradigms - First, since truth is greater than our co
ncepts about it, loving the truth means loving truth more than any one perspecti
ve. Even the best paradigm falls short of reality, which is infinite and surpass
es our most advanced ideas. Both parties cannot respond in dialogue and be dogma
tic about their respective paradigms. In dialogue, we stay open to exploring our
ideas and perceptions from the ground up. Because reality is infinite, there is
always room for evolution. The first criterion for dialogue, then, is that part
icipants must "suspend their assumptions". This takes work, because most paradig
m assumptions lie in the shadows where we don t notice them. Dialogue begins as
we put our models on the table for consideration. A dialogue response doesn t tr
ash what we ve assumed so far. It simply keeps our options open, so we can disco
ver the reality lying beyond them. Huxley once said, "Sit down before fact like
a child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly whe
rever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing."
Honoring Each Other As Equals - Whereas the first criteria opens the
window, the second lets the breeze blow through. The second of Bohm s criteria
tackles the control paradigm s response directly, since the most common (and mos
t internalized) barrier to true dialogue is the one-up/one-down model of interac
tion. We can t have an open dialogue with people who have power over us or whom
we perceive as superiors. Bohm observed that "Hierarchy is antithetical to dialo
gue". Those in dialogue must treat each other as equal partners in the pursuit o
f truth, working as a team. Responding as colleagues, we support each other and
create a space that s safe for exploring the truth - where loving the truth is a
llowed. During the Challenger disasters in 1986, it was discovered that one of t
he factors involved was the unwillingness of upper management to listen to the c
oncerns of the engineers who felt that the program was being rushed and insuffic
ient testing time was allowed. Those in charge didn t want to listen to feedback
that didn t fit their agenda and used their superior status to block it. Natura
lly, the process of evolving awareness raises differences. Responding to each ot
her as equal partners does not mean we all must think alike. Differences enrich
the process. Instead of using differences to divide us, dialogue uses them to ex
pand the possibilities we re able to consider. According to Bohm, "In dialogue,
a group accesses a larger pool of common meaning which cannot be accessed indivi
dually. Individuals gain insights that could not be achieved individually. Defen
ding one paradigm or another isn t the focus in dialogue. Broadening our awarene
ss is the focus. The jockeying that goes on in hierarchies through win-lose disc
ussion becomes irrelevant.
A Genuine Spirit of Inquiry - Freeing ourselves from internalized ra
nking is easier said than done. That is why dialogue needs a third criterion. We
need to protect the dialogue atmosphere from our own histories of being shamed.
One way to do this is through a facilitator who "holds the context" of dialogue
and keeps the space safe for exploration and risk taking. Because dialogue requ
ires that we reveal our deepest and most "unofficial" thoughts, it makes us vuln
erable. Facilitators keep the factors of shaming, one-upsmanship and official-th
ink at bay. They support the shift from discussion to dialogue by affirming diff
erences and not letting participants become polarized in win-lose contests. With
a genuine spirit of inquiry, we don t care who said what or which direction the
dialogue takes. We are all on the same side in dialogue, pursuing a common ques
t for understanding.
One way of responding that supports a dialogue atmosphere balances a
dvocacy and inquiry. Advocacy presents a position, while inquiry explores it. Th
e more we each do both, the more our responses stay fluid, true to a dialogue co
ntext. When we advocate a paradigm perspective, for instance, we also open our t
hought processes to inquiry. We explain how we arrived at an assumption, strateg
y, response or goal, and why. We also keep the door open to rethinking our posit
ions from the ground up. We reflect on our own paradigm and invite others to do
the same. That way, we don t get stuck "defending one position". When others pre
sent a paradigm perspective, we not only inquire into their thought processes bu
t also state our assumptions about what they are saying and acknowledge them as
assumptions on our part. "What I m hearing you say is..." Our assumptions may be
preventing us from grasping what others truly mean. The real message often lies
behind the words and can by the opposite of what s spoken.
What s Normal or Possible for Consciousness?
Awareness of paradigms and the possibilities that emerge with changi
ng them carry enormous implications for how we understand consciousness. Are the
limits we experience in perception, learning, and knowing absolute, or are they
imposed by a paradigm-one that we can choose to have or not?
Psychic and paranormal experiences suggest that the limits imposed b
y materialist philosophy are not absolute. Even one case of powers that defy phy
sical limits proves what s possible, whether these possibilities are commonplace
in the current paradigm or not. By challenging paradigms that put our mental po
wers in straitjackets, we free ourselves to tap powers we ve barely begun to ima
gine.
Examples of mental powers defying so-called laws of matter abound. I
n addition to the volumes of literature on the subject, we ve encountered many c
ases that we find fascinating, and several come to mind:
One young woman from Laos, a student of ours, endured several years
of harrowing escapes to reach America with her family. She experienced this jour
ney between the ages of 7 and 9. Along the way, she and her family spent many mo
nths in concentration camps for refugees, where women and children were abused b
y soldiers. During this period of constant fear and trauma, she developed the ab
ility to leave her body at will to guard herself and her family, especially when
she was asleep. Years later as a college student, she was able to report everyt
hing that was said or done in her room or anywhere in the building while she was
sleeping. Hers is an interesting case of what is now widely known as out-of-bod
y experiences.
During the late seventies, a Swiss colleague of ours told of a littl
e girl in Zurich who was having trouble in school because her vision did not sto
p with walls. She couldn t see the blackboard because she was seeing through it
into the next room, where apparently things were more interesting. Her grades im
proved only when she was taught to make her vision stop with walls. The story wa
s carried in the Zurich newspapers. Perhaps Mr. Swann or someone else reading th
is knows more about this case.
Then of course there s research begun by Georgi Lozanov in Bulgaria
and reported by Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder in their books Superlearning
and SuperMemory. According to learning studies going on all over the globe, our
minds are capable of vastly more than we ever imagined. If we have human brains
, we re geniuses, and the only reason we re not experiencing our minds powers i
s that they ve been shut down by stress, negative programming, trauma, or mind-n
umbing boredom. Clearly, there s more going on with consciousness and our human
potential than the official paradigm acknowledges. Again, the fact that extraord
inary powers occur at all proves the possibility of powers that may be latent in
all of us.
Seeking Paradigms That Fit Us
Imagine, for instance, a paradigm that describes us as free beings,
moving in time, space, and matter through the powers of consciousness, unconstra
ined by demands for money and unconcerned by the quest for power or control. Ima
gine further a paradigm that honors us for who we are, that treats human beings-
as well as all beings-as treasures of the universe, and that therefore places a
priority on nurturing and developing our potential. In the current world where h
umans are "ownable", exploitable, controllable commodities-useful only insofar a
s they can either command or generate capital-such models seem utter fantasy.
According to spiritual teachings the world over, though, such models
more closely fit what they call "True Human Beings." Hindu philosophy, for inst
ance, takes our potential seriously enough to categorize liberation as the fourt
h basic desire of human beings, the one that naturally arises in us after we ve
grown weary of pursuing the desires for 1) pleasure, 2) success, and 3) duty.
Liberation is the liberation to be who we are in the big picture, no
t to be narrowed by models that aren t worthy of us. It s the freedom to live fr
om the inside out, to be guided by who we are in our essence, rather than to spe
nd our lives juggling family, social, financial, religious, or other cultural ex
pectations.
"Saving the Paradigm"
 If we don t experience ourselves or each other as free and great bei
ngs, it s not because we lack this potential but rather because the paradigm/coo
kie gadgets our cultures pour us through aren t equal to our essence. We come ou
t twisted, grasping, angry, and insatiable because we know we re more, yet the c
ultural paradigm has no room for us. The paradigm can t both acknowledge our inn
ate worth and treat us as objects to be subjugated-objects that must be coerced
into systems that violate our dignity and potential by their very structures.
Born into the culture, what choice do we have but to be subjugated?
Babies and children don t have options but to submit. So we adapt ourselves acco
rdingly. We conform to social systems by adopting the roles that go with them, n
arrowing ourselves to fit the cultural agenda. We become the competitive, insecu
re, obedient, brain dead, soul-disconnected creature that our social systems req
uire. If we didn t comply, there d be no place for social systems to hook into u
s and control our behavior, which the paradigm says they must do in order to ach
ieve social order.
But instead of social order, the paradigm generates violence and suf
fering-images of which we see everyday on the news and feelings of which we expe
rience as stress, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem or even self-hate. These
images and feelings say nothing about which alternative paradigms might better s
erve human beings or who we might be if we used less narrowing models. They simp
ly give us feedback about our cultural paradigm.
But paradigm oblivious, we don t interpret culture-wide pain as para
digm related. We don t trace personal and social suffering back to the cultural
paradigm and so set the stage for changing it. Instead, we save the paradigm by
believing that humans must be fatally flawed and we ourselves more than most. Ac
cepting the cultural paradigm that excludes what s most valuable about us, we vi
ew ourselves in the mirror that social systems give us: a mirror of externals. O
ur paradigm options go unexplored.
Life in a Paradigm Controlled by External Reward Systems
In a paradigm of externals, externals call the shots. Instead of all
owing us to be guided from the inside out (a formula for anarchy, the control pa
radigm claims), the paradigm controls our behavior through rewards and punishmen
ts. We come to think and act like Pavlov s dog, salivating over the next bonus,
a bigger kennel to call home, a fancier collar to sport, or a top dog position.
The paradigm isn t about developing our talents, abilities, or potential; it s a
bout making us controllable by giving or withholding external rewards.
To achieve this control, the paradigm grades each "thing" in a hiera
rchy of externals. The inner life means nothing compared to the outward characte
ristics indicated by our species, race, gender, age, status, group affiliation,
and income. If dogs possessed the wealth of Bill Gates, for instance, they would
n t suffer in medical experiments, just as people who have money don t work in s
weatshops or sell their children into slavery.
That s the problem with externals: they re fine until they become th
e means for enslavement, which unfortunately they do almost immediately. When a
paradigm puts external values first, consciousness dimensions are dismissed out
of hand. Small wonder that the potentials of our minds and hearts-and all the va
lues that go with them, e.g., meaning, compassion, justice, or wisdom-go undevel
oped. A control paradigm has neither use nor place for them.
Closed Social External Control-Based Paradigms Don t Like Discussin
g This
Naming paradigms and their power for good or ill isn t a new insight
; it s as old as philosophy. It is, however, an overlooked insight in an age tha
t can t seem to shake a materialistic, control-obsessed paradigm-and for good re
ason. Reflecting on paradigms is the stuff of change, and changing paradigms is
the most fundamental and powerful change we can make.
To a paradigm of control, that s not welcome. The sum total of our e
xperience contingent on something as invisible and changeable as a philosophy? C
hange by paradigm shifts, which anyone can make? Powers of perception and creati
vity that defy rigid material boundaries? Humans as beings of immense powers and
abilities? Once you let these cats out of the bag, there s no telling what mind
sets and institutions might be made obsolete.
Obsolete is precisely what established institutions of power and con
trol don t want to be. They learned from the fate of carriage and buggy whip man
ufacturers when cars came along. Established interests now make sure that questi
oning the neanderthal paradigm of burning things for energy triggers "War-of-the
-Worlds" panic about destabilizing the world economy. Even the call for improved
public transit systems borders on subversive.
Stiff challenges face a paradigm shift on the simple level of out-th
ere technology, frozen at a stage that Captain Picard sometimes finds among the
more primitive human civilizations he encounters. What challenges might we face
if we embark on a far deeper level of questioning-on redrawing the paradigms tha
t sort out who we are and why we re here?
Plenty. If the cultural paradigm s purpose is not to honor human pot
ential but rather to make it an obedient servant to existing social structures,
then nothing could be more threatening to the established order than a paradigm
shift regarding our self-conceptions. We fit into society as it is now only as l
ong as we don t remember that we re more and here for more.
Examples of Control Paradigm Lack of Interest in Developing Human P
otential
The agenda for traditional psychoanalytic therapy, for instance, isn
t to develop human potential; it s to keep people functional in established soc
ial structures, however miserable their lives may be and however abusive or wron
g-headed the social structures. "Well-adjusted" becomes a synonym for mental hea
lth.
But if someone is well-adjusted to being an SS officer in Nazi conce
ntration camps, is that person mentally healthy? In Fire In The Soul, psychoneur
oimmunologist Joan Borysenko writes of this narrow aim of therapy: "Sigmund Freu
d...believed that when a person was cured of neurosis the best outcome that coul
d be expected was return to an ordinary state of unhappiness. " (New York: Warn
er, 1993, p. 54)
Psychotherapy s official job is mopping up the mess that social syst
ems make of our lives by convincing us that the mess is our fault, our failing,
our screwiness. If we don t conform, adjust, fit in, and measure up, something m
ust be wrong with us. And psychotherapy has its truth: we may well be frozen in
grief or shock and not functioning at our best, but don t the social systems tha
t shape us deserve equal scrutiny, equal critical analysis?
Thankfully many therapists reject this paradigm and venture forth wi
th their clients on the forbidden territory of meaning and human potential as we
ll as of critiquing social structures, but it s no easy task persuading insuranc
e companies to come along. Control institutions pay insurance companies to pay h
ealth professionals to keep people in their place, serving the established order
.
 The Agenda for School Systems in a Control Paradigm
Nor are school systems committed to developing the more that we are.
Schools are an arm of social structures, whether religious, governmental, or ec
onomic. According to the paradigm-defined needs of those structures, tapping hum
an potential doesn t create enough Dilberts to ensure the "efficient" running of
corporate, governmental, religious, and educational hierarchies.
In this century, business interests have dictated the structure of s
chools. Henry Ford quickly noticed that creative genius and intuitive knowing ar
en t useful on factory lines. So he pioneered the "modern" school system that in
culcates values and skills appropriate for 20th century work life: being punctua
l, obeying orders, enduring hours, weeks, and years of boring, repetitive tasks,
not talking while working, not resting, keeping to the schedule at all costs. O
ur minds become casualties of industrialization.
Our souls end up casualties as well. Trusting our own judgment, thin
king for ourselves, adhering to our values, and having confidence in our innate
worth don t make us good foot soldiers for my-way-or-the-highway bosses. Only pe
ople with low self-esteem are sufficiently insecure to tolerate abusive work env
ironments. Insofar as we believe we don t deserve better, we adjust, becoming th
e kind of person that s required to "do the job."
Obligingly, school systems produce people with precisely the low sel
f-esteem that s needed for worker "flexibility." Fears of being wrong, of not ma
king the grade are fears confirmed for 90 percent of the population. That s the
percentage who are required not to get A s by the bell curve system, guaranteein
g that 90 percent of everyone coming out of school believe that they re incapabl
e of excellence. Schools mirror back to students the mass message that "you re j
ust not good enough, but if you do what you re told without question, you may ge
t better and be rewarded." That s a handy message to have installed in the psych
es of 90 percent of the population-handy for perpetuating corporate, religious,
governmental, and professional tyrannies, that is.
All this modern schooling goes against what we know about the human
mind and how we learn-and have known for decades. Studies in learning show that
we learn best when we re most relaxed, yet schools maximize stress through fear
of failure. Studies show that children learn most easily through cooperative lea
rning, yet schools impose a competitive model. Studies also indicate that studen
ts beliefs about their own learning abilities affect their performance-if they
believe they re good learners, they learn easily; if not, learning the simplest
things becomes difficult-yet schools systematically undermine students confiden
ce.
In these and many other ways, school systems perform virtual lobotom
ies on our psyches, producing graduates who ve long since lost their joy in lear
ning, who believe they must be right all the time and "know it all" or be condem
ned to outer darkness, and who experience post-traumatic stress symptoms at the
thought of having to learn new things on the job.
On Cultural Non-Commitment to Human Potential
Alice Miller, a champion of the potential we all possess from birth,
pulls no punches in her books-For Your Own Good in particular analyzes the soci
al, cultural agenda of shutting down our potential. As she explains, the traditi
onal rules of child-rearing passed down from generation to generation have nothi
ng to do with developing our potential, either emotionally, intuitively, psychol
ogically, or intellectually. Their one agenda is control: control the child as s
oon as possible by any means, whether it s by punishment, humiliation, intimidat
ion, beatings, grading, whatever it takes to break the child s will and autonomy
.
The justification for this agenda is that children raised any other
way won t fit into society when they grow up. According to this cultural paradig
m-expressed in the rules of child-rearing-learning to forget who we are and to b
ecome what others want and expect us to be is the most important survival skill.
Our potential as human beings is irrelevant, a side issue, compared to our abil
ity to conform.
Of course we re supposed to believe that social systems have our bes
t interests at heart and that obeying them is indeed "for our own good." If we c
onform properly, our potential will develop accordingly. But is this so? As we v
e seen, schools and therapy-two systems that you d think would be committed to d
eveloping human potential-have no such commitment. In what system or area of the
culture might such a commitment exist?
Governments are fully occupied with who has power over whom, who has
the biggest budget, where money can be found, who wins which election or vote,
etc. Developing the human potential of its citizenry is not a priority. If anyth
ing, it s not on the agenda at all. The insider s view that "the masses are asse
s" is music to ambitious politicians ears, who then believe it s their manifest
destiny to expand their personal power and become benevolent dictators. Dumb ma
sses are easy to manipulate with slogans and half-truths. For their purposes, th
e less human potential the better.
As much as we value spiritual teachings, we can t say that religious
organizations have much commitment to developing human potential either, though
granted there are exceptions. Adhering to fixed doctrines, building congregatio
ns, raising money, meddling in the personal affairs of members, running down sec
tarian competitors, and using fear and guilt to exact obedience and tithing keep
them busy enough.
Businesses and corporations certainly don t concern themselves with
human potential, even though they sometimes pay lip service to it in the hopes o
f making employees more "productive." The bottom line is the bottom line, and if
human potential comes up at all, it s considered a frill or luxury-"warm fuzzy
stuff" that doesn t count in the "real world" of business except to mollify disg
runtled workers or help them adjust to higher levels of stress.
Scanning the culture, we frankly can t find any system that s consis
tently committed to exploring human potential. If anything, our social systems r
egard human potential as an impediment, an annoying feature of human beings that
gums up the systems otherwise efficient workings. If people would just learn t
heir roles and stick to them, everything would work so much better.
If we didn t know the paradigm behind these systems, we may find thi
s lack of interest in human potential odd. Developing human potential seems cruc
ial to keeping human civilizations vital and evolving, up to speed with the chal
lenges that continually arise. Technology per se can t save us, since we re not
using the alternative technology we already have to remedy social and environmen
tal ills. What we lack is the the wisdom and foresight, the honesty, the sense o
f meaning, justice, integrity, and the good to manage human affairs well. These
aren t technology issues but paradigm ones. Wisdom and foresight are precisely t
he potentials that a paradigm geared to domination and control factors out of us
.
Making Some Changes
But no paradigm, even one that s used to having the last word, is th
e last word. The human spirit, being what it is, doesn t take kindly to soul-lob
otomies and develops all sorts of responses. One is to join the lobotomizing dom
inators: do it to others before any more can be done to you. Another is to adopt
roles and play along, to accept one s lobotomized lot in life.
Addictions make both responses easier. We can lay off 5,000 employee
s and numb the pain with a 15 million dollar bonus. Or we can take drugs to make
it through the day in our Dilbertesque cubicles. Either way, numbing ourselves
with addictions of process (money and power) or of substance (drugs and alcohol)
makes us forget the pain of living in a control paradigm culture.
By numbing us, addictions serve the established paradigm well: insof
ar as we forget pain, we don t confront its causes. Lobotomizing systems go unch
allenged, as long as we find ways to cope with being lobotomized.
That s why recovery from addictions begins with recognizing pain. Ac
knowledging what we feel in social systems is the first subversive step toward a
cultural paradigm shift. A paradigm of control through externals unravels when
we affirm the importance of what s going on within. When pain counts with us-whe
n we refuse to ignore it, "to put up and shut up"-the days are numbered for the
paradigm that s causing us pain.

New World Views Bring the Onset of New Worlds

From this springboard begins the journey of transformation by paradi
gm shift. It took us 360 pages to explore this process in The Paradigm Conspirac
y, so that s a pitch both for whoever is reading this to get a copy and for us t
o close this electronic essay.
We ll just say that when we re too tired to explain the book to some
one, we call it our revenge on the control paradigm, both for us and on behalf o
f our readers. But when we re feeling more peppy, we say that the book has a hap
py ending, or at least holds the promise of one. Refusing to be trapped by domin
ating institutions on one hand and on the other claiming our essence, who we are
in the big picture-what s called the "soul" until a better term comes along-we
foment revolution of the most constructive, effective, and powerful sort. Each o
f us in our own ways participates in creating new worldviews, which in turn crea
te new worlds within and without.
We thank you for taking the time to read our thoughts and reflection
s on this subject, and should you read our book, we hope you enjoy it. We don t
pretend to have the answers or to give the "correct" paradigm. Our best hope is
that the book gets the philosophical, paradigm-shifting juices going. That s qui
te enough for us. The rest we leave to the human potential emerging in all of us
.

Material Focus vs. Whole-System Focus

Focusing on Things and Materialism

Factor

Focusing on Whole Systems

Mechanistic model in which observer & observed are seen separate, unrelated and
not connected in any way except by virtue of physical perception in closed syste
m entropy universe.
Physics

Taking into account more than a decade of discoveries in quantum physics, and a
model in which observer participates on a quantum consciousness level in creatin
g reality as we experience it; takes into account discoveries in science which r
eveal that we live in an open system entropy universe which is expressed through
a definitive “holo-movement” - (Bohm), unfolding—enfolding
Control science based sychological system which perpetuates rigid outer roles, s
ocial dysfunctionality; who has the power in the hierarchy? Imposition of aut
horitarian concepts of emotional and mental health; Dictating the healing proces
s.

Understanding Mind and Behavior

Authentic self in dynamic relations; “learning organizations” (Senge); Honoring each

person’s inner living process (Schaef); Healing as exploring each person’s own proc
ess in the context of spiritual growth
Inevitable conflict, Might makes Right; Carrot-Stick systems for control;
Justice as reward & punishment;
Laws serve those in power

"Politics, Law and Justice"

Partnerships in evolving systems; Soul-expression instead of brute force; Develo

ping individual potential; "Justice" as each one doing what’s theirs to do; Laws s
erve the spectrum of human development on a temporary basis as they are replaced
by self-responsibility, conscious focus and evolutionary, growth-oriented inten
t, individually and as a civilization.
Authoritarian, domination-control institutions: “Leviathan” solutions; institutions
solve problems; the numbers game; institutions exist to preserve their own exist
ence.

Institutions

Philosophies (maps) make institutions what they are for better or worse; the pow
er of individuals to change institutions—to dance a new dance ; Institutions exist
on a temporary basis to solve problems, not to serve solutions.
Scarcity focus; economies are “out there,” bound by impersonal, iron laws; the game
of “Monopoly” is the model for infinite business expansion, trashing the environmen
t and the population in the process.

Economies

Knowledge & creativity; economies reflect us and the maps we use; we create our
economies as evolving aspects of society which contribute toward the evolution o
f both society and the planet as a whole; allows expansion of the idea of "econo
my" into other levels.
“superstition of materialism”
(Chopra), reductionism, value-free, fact-only view of knowledge, etc.

Reality Model

Spiritual/holographic models; integrated systems including ideas and the dynamic

s of consciousness itself.
Rethinking Assumptions, Strategies, Responses and Purposes
By Rethinking Our -

Material Mapping

Whole - System Mapping

Assumptions

Economic Reality
Scarcity: "unlimited desires" competing for "limited resources" Re: Monopoly Mod
el, Defunct Malthusian Model

Economic Reality
Know-how and Creativity: Managing creatively what we have and using order to off
set scarcity and evolve more efficient ways of doing things
Strategies

Economic Interaction
Maximizing Ownership of Things: Land, Labor, and Capital
What’s Different: Who owns What or Whom
Hoarding Matter
One-Sided Gain (Win-Lose)

Economic Interaction
Developing Systems of Exchange:
What’s common: Knowledge and Creativity
What’s different:
How we Develop and Use Knowledge
Exchanging differences
Mutual Benefit (Win-Win)
Responses

Regulatory Response Shaped by Belief in:

A Dark End: human nature as inevitably self-destructive, apocalyptic belief sys
tems,
a death-oriented cultural model
Self-interest as Selfishness

Competition, Bully Style

Domination of the many by the few; Suppression of knowledge, genocidal action

Regulatory Response Shaped by Belief in:

The spectrum of human nature— in process and evolution of awareness and capabiliti
es of the planet.
Self-Betterment, enlightened by our relation to the collective good and the spir
itual continuum of the universe.
Cooperation

Liberty as an Ideal to approximate through Inner and Spiritual Growth

Purposes

Goal for acting is:

To maximize control/ownership
of economies by :
Reducing them to fixed quantities of matter and Energy,
Controlling Information and Ignoring ideas and values
which turns economies into closed systems that run down and self destruct, prese
rving an elite social class of profiteers which deliberately restrict the evolut
ion of society and the planet for personal gain.
Goal for acting is:
To evolve economic systems of exchange by expanding them from :
Matter to Energy
Energy to Information
Information to Consciousness and Ideas
 which works as a method for breaking through limits & pursuing unlimited possib
ilities in how we manage our “household” individually and as a planet.
The Paradigm Web

The Paradigm Conspiracy

by Denise Breton and Christopher Largent
Paperback - 387 pages
1996 ISBN: 1-56838-208-1 (Paper) ISBN: 1-56838-106-9 (Cloth) $13.95
Reprint edition (May 1998) ISBN: 1568382081

Buy through Amazon.com or order through your local book chain

A True Prescription for Change

Well, as an individual I was the publisher of The Paradigm Conspiracy, a
nd it remains one of the proudest accomplishments of my professional career. The
Paradigm Conspiracy is a brilliant, powerful, and tremendously successful synth
esis of what is essentially "wrong" with our culture and its institutions. The a
uthors somehow are able to cast away the ephemera of intellectualism or agenda a
nd simply state what so many of us dared not speak: that there is something esse
ntially wrong here, and that it is only with a completely new vision, accepted w
ith courage, that the wrong can be made right. I am proud to have been one of th
e champions of this book during my tenure as publisher, and recommend all of Chr
is and Denise s books to every reader. Only, only through this type of understan
ding personally and culturally can our culture advance. Paradigm Conspiracy prov
ides both the understanding and the means for true transformation. Its reading i
s required of each of us.
Dan Odegard, July 29, 1999

Copyright © 1988-2011 Leading Edge International Research Group

Page Revised: November 10 2009