Prostaglandins-and-Morality
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Prostaglandins and Morality
by Richard Rose
Biochemistry may have produced facts that will affect our morality...and may conclusively damn the guesswork and direction of perhaps half a century of psychiatry and sociology. Fritz Peters and B. F. Skinner undoubtedly have theories in jeopardy.
There may also be an intelligence manifesting in Nature that is superior to and negative to a prevalent immoral and un-Natural system of psychological opinion. That psychological opinion is a wild tangent from the pseudo-magical "normal curve theories" of the nineteen-twenties and thirties. Of course actions can be classified by graphs and geometric curves. But the data must be well-defined. The normal curve had nothing to do with finding the correct or Natural behavior of man. Men "naturally" do things which are demonstrably un-Natural.
A statistical curve shows only that which is happening...not that which is decreed by Nature, or, that which for some other reason, is supposed to happen. The early days of Psychology were not scientific. They did not have Biochemistry for a basis. In fact the psychologists of the thirties, based their fledgling science, or scientific pose, on an unexplored materialistic concept, namely that man was receptive and reactive flesh, that existed only as an accident. That which they did not see they did not believe. In the great haste to acquire status, funding and fabulous fees, they led legislators to believe that this "accidental man" needed to be conditioned and programmed...and planned instead of being allowed to disturb the "peace-loving" and phlegmatic masses of the population who dreamed of endless paradisiacal pajama-parties.
Not only did the legislators endow them and fund them, they incorporated them into the judicial and executive systems. They became authorities of the court like the parrots of early Russian-communist courts. If the parrot bit you, you were damned. But it did not bite you if you concealed something in your hand that it liked. When the courts gave permission allowing two parrots in cases hinging upon sanity (one parrot for each side) it was found that each parrot bit the hand of the cause that did not feed him.
When the unscientific masses saw this, they began to have their doubts about Psychiatry itself.
About the time that the decline of behavioristic psychology began, Zasz came out with a desperate psychological edict, -- that his colleagues were grossly mistaken. Mental illness did not exist. If the mind did not exist, -- how could mental deterioration exist? A good lie should appear to be consistent. Mental illness was a criminal mask which was used by malingerers. And perhaps criminals. Back to bedlam, Belleview and the Bastille, icepacks, icepicks, firehoses and flagellation, to challenge public apathy by inciting public sadism.
Instead of damning malingering as a ploy or crime, Zasz should have "discovered" it as a national epidemic which required the formation of a federal department to be chaired by a Psychiatrist elected by the Psychiatrists' union. This would of course require that all behaviorists be repudiated and that the "normal curve" would no longer define sanity...the repudiation of the "normal curve theory" would be necessary because it would be discovered that there is about seventy five percent of our population who would be found to be malingerers. Malingerers are the people who are fed up with a political system that encourages weaklings, creates a gigantic police force of sadists, criminals and industrial rejects, which is designed and creates a mafia-type internal revenue that has every member of society cowering in silence or racing with manic disregard, hoping that their speed makes them invisible. Malingerers who are also people whose families or businesses were crushed by finding themselves between Bureaucratic entities on a collision course with each other.
Behaviorism was a shill-game. It was caused by the invasion of merchants disguised as psychologists. These merchants were a class of people who placed business acumen above morals.
Morality was previously fostered by religious institutions. When the new shill-game invaded the universities, it attacked the previous belief-systems by posing as a new kingdom, of and for the people, promising to bring forth scientific truths for prosecuting the rebellious, and clever excuses for those who would be scholastically or politically promoted. In the seventies, young people with bachelor degrees in psychology were rejected and openly ridiculed if they were not both liberal and behavioristic.
Religion lost its right to protect a moral system, because it became amoral, power-dominated, and was in many respects, not much more than a shill-game itself. For centuries, the human race fed and protected spiritual systems which built great Basilicas, Pyramids and Potalas which were supposed to be universities for endless study of things supernatural and things which might better define the human being and his destiny.
After a century of two the slow-moving minds of humanity realized that they were being fed "bulls" and edicts instead of revelations; and realized that the vigor and vitality of their religions were directed toward politics outwardly, and inwardly toward regimentation and social classification or rank. Today the Potala has become a tourist attraction, and the Basilicas that remain are infested with homosexuality and politics. The rituals have been adjusted in an attempt to guess the whims of some nebulous zeitgeist, and the altars have been reversed so that the service of the clergy must be directed to the mundane, and the services must be "shared" or communal. And the bewildered, sincere searchers for God must become malingerers.
The Jesuitic Church-Militant has become the Church-Sycophant. The Church-Suffering has become the Church-Orgiastic. And we may become pessimistic about the debacle brought about by the victories of materialism. It would seem that we are entering another dark age, in regard to philosophic enquiry.
The discovery of prostaglandins will not prove any theological concepts, but its discovery will elevate to a scientific level, the study of equality of differences between the sexes and even more importantly it will point to the need for sexual conservation for both males and females. We may read into the one-sided superior production of prostaglandins by males, the notice that men have more to lose by sexual excesses or promiscuity.
Prostaglandins are not the only discovery-catalyst that will open up new frontiers of hope for the philosopher and mystic. Serotonin and other neurotransmitters have been discovered which act individually and in compounds with other enzymes and gland secretions to produce still other mental catalysts.
Colin Wilson (Man's Latent Powers) states that there is a relation between serotonin and Factor "X", which is his symbol for deliberate human expansion of mental powers. It was found that LSD destroys the serotonin molecule, so that we had beautiful dreams but no mental power. A true mystic will always reject the dream catalyst for the mystical power, because the power element is like a mental, diagnostic arm to use in exploration and to render the intuition more valid.
It was the intuition, which up until the discovery of prostaglandins, was the only source of great psychic convictions which were announced by the highly inspired, but picked up by the lesser intuitions to a point where mankind in large masses submitted to moral codes or laws. These moral codes were in some cases strongly reinforced by some corroboration in Nature. In other words people who lived by some moral codes were not as likely to spread venereal diseases, and they witnessed the corroboration in nature, when the people who had erotic sexual practices were wiped out by plagues or ridden with abnormalities.
Jaqua, in his paper on prostaglandins, indicates that women produce less prostaglandins than men, but that they have "receptor cells" in the vagina with which they capture and absorb prostaglandins from the male. If this is a function of Nature which is necessary for the female to receive enough anti-schizophrenia, anti-psychosis, anti-anorexia nervosa medicine to maintain some sort of immunity, -- then the distaff side would have more patience (if they cannot afford respect) for the males who spread their largess about with a sort of idiot's delight.
We presume that religion is a barometer, if not a custodian of morality. Morality is always rooted in health and survival. It is the written and unwritten code of human social compatibility. We become conscious of a need to respect the likes and dislikes of our fellowmen. Religion, which pretends to be a medium with the Divine, too, often has origins which are, like morality, rooted in health and survival. In the Old Testament we find prescriptions for diet (things that must not be eaten), and sexual prohibitions which would manifestly improve tribal survival. We have the history of Sodom and Gomorrah, which implies that homosexuality was destroyed by a celestial force. Whether there was or was not a celestial force involved, does not matter. The importance to this reference rests in the fact that it was given credence by its perpetual publication and interpretation throughout the centuries.
The Mohammedan code calls for the execution of homosexuals and lesser deviates...adulterers. I find it hard to believe that Mohammed was ordered by God to enact such laws. I find it easier to believe that Mohammed was a wise and observing ruler. A nation without reproduction may diminish and grow effeminate. Caesar blamed effeminacy (homosexuality?) for the diminishing power of the Roman Empire.
Nearly every major religion takes a more subtle and less defined step toward sexual continence. The Christian religion has its priests and alchemists. The Mohammedans have their Sufis and saints. In India we have the sannyassis and the science of the kundalini. The idea of sexual continence was not a momentary fad with these groups, -- nor was it a compulsory law of conduct. It was a universal understanding by religious people that the celibates were the giants or (the hundred percenters) of any spiritual direction.
Of course the question immediately arises: why do the "hundred percenters" comprise less than one or two percent of the population? I think that the answer lies in the obstacles, internal (internal to the aspirant) and external or social. The latter carries with it the implication that Nature, as expressed by the masses in their reproductive service (to Nature), has designs for mankind that are more planned for reproduction than individual education about primary causes and revelations on ultimate destiny or absolute existence.
I think that the evidence which we have up to now, from biochemistry, religion and the laws of Nature with their limited flexibility give us some surprising answers to the questions about that which we can do without harm to our self, in regard to individual behavior, and that which man can, as an individual, become.
I think that the biochemists who isolated the neurotransmitters and prostaglandins are the first true alchemists. The evaluation of true alchemy claims that alchemy in its truest form is the transmutation of human energy into the sublimated gold of esoteric, or beyond mundane, knowledge. The blood of the lion and the gluten of the eagle, in the old prescriptions, were indicative of the male sex power, the importance of which was only known through the intuition of the early writers on alchemy.
But why the arcane symbolism? Why did there exist such small percentages of people with this intuition? Why did some religious leaders have to invent such items as sin, damnation, and a God whose good advice (such as on sexual restraint) had to come through the vocal cords of ventriloquists.
I maintain that Nature will not maintain or allow homosexuality, and that there is a built-in trigger in the human programming to create antibodies. These antibodies will not necessarily be a specific reagent. When science finds a cure for AIDS, a totally new agent will appear, even as AIDS came. But Nature will allow the bleeding of millions in wars, and it will promote perpetual programming to maintain the population of humans, animals and plants. None of which seemed to be important to Nature except for their efficient labors and deaths which serve a mysterious plan...or a celestial greenhouse.
On the other hand each individual yearns to be an individual. (This must be part of the programming also, else the programmer would have eliminated it in the same manner with which it attacked homosexuality through AIDS.) There must be a key to an escape door...some surcease from sorrow...to borrow a line from Poe. I am sure that there is.
This is the quest of the Holy Grail. The Philosopher's Stone. The ultimate Samadhi of the Yogis. The ultimate Satori of Zen. The Enlightenment of St. John of the Cross. Man number seven of Gurdjieff.
Let us get back to the small percentages...and the reasons for their smallness. First of all most people think that they are highly intelligent for choosing the natural path. In embracing it so completely their sensual pleasures dominate their intelligence, and their sorrows seal the door to any alternative. No one can, -- even if he dared to, convince the vegetator that it is no crime against Nature, to try to understand Nature.
Secondly all human potentials are pyramid in form. The primitives outnumber the precocious. The majority of the populace has an intellectual capacity inadequate for college entrance. The military recruiters can give you figures on that capacity. That is the base-line of the pyramid. They are instinctive. This is a name which Gurdjieff gave that category.
Far above that level are the intellectuals, -- masters of the slide-rule, scientific pioneers, and financial geniuses. But they have intellects which are limited to mundane symbols, and in the field of philosophy they can only argue for materialism.
On closer to the peak are the two percent who are intuitive enough to read and understand the very rare books on the subject. The Biblical wise virgins retain full cups. The light enables them to read true or Real literature. And Real literature reinforces Real purpose.
In other words, the readers of these lines are among the two percent, but less than half of them will act. Man is that which he does, not that which he reads. But in order to act Man must corroborate his intuitions by comparisons and criticisms. Books become mirrors...where there is no human to teach, or criticize.
What is this great corroboration? We learn that a mystic should never oppose Nature. Nature only seems to be inimical to spiritual search and discovery. Nature has left two doors open for spiritual realization. One is the door of death. This one we do not have to seek after. However it does not have the value of the second door, which is the Experience of death while living. The former understands only from his present point of reference, and this may limit capacity to understand a totally different dimension. The latter is able to witness his consciousness in another dimension, while being aware of his mundane point of reference.
The second door requires of the candidate that he (or she) avoids the hypnoses of life. Where there is no action, there is no penalty. Sensualism negates the intuition. The sensualist would not know the door if he saw it.
