I was listening to the third alternative article last night in text-to-speech and the section where Richard describes the feelings to activate for the method jumped out at me:
If one deactivates the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on) with this freed-up affective energy, in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on), then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception).
So I thought I’d find the definitions of each to make as clear as possible the qualities to look for.
Felicitous:
pleasing and fortunate.
“the view was the room’s only felicitous feature”
Innocuous:
not harmful or offensive.
“it was an innocuous question”
Happy:
feeling or showing pleasure or contentment.
“Melissa came in looking happy and excited”
Delight:
great pleasure.
“the little girls squealed with delight”
Joie de vivre:
exuberant enjoyment of life.
“they seem to be filled with joie de vivre”
Bonhomie:
cheerful friendliness; geniality.
“he exuded good humor and bonhomie”
Friendly:
kind and pleasant.
“they were friendly to me”
Amiable:
having or displaying a friendly and pleasant manner.
“an amiable, unassuming fellow”
Sensuous:
Of, derived from, or affecting the senses aesthetically rather than sensually; readily affected by the senses, keenly responsive to the pleasures of sensation. (definition used on the AFT)
Delectation:
pleasure and delight.
“a box of chocolates for their delectation”
Enjoy:
take delight or pleasure in (an activity or occasion).
“Joe enjoys reading Icelandic family sagas”
Appreciate:
recognize the full worth of.
“she feels that he does not appreciate her”
Relish:
enjoy greatly.
“he was relishing his moment of glory”
Zest:
great enthusiasm and energy.
“they campaigned with zest and intelligence”
Gusto:
enjoyment or vigor in doing something; zest.
“she sang it with gusto”
Amazement:
a feeling of great surprise or wonder.
“she shook her head in amazement”
Marvel:
be filled with wonder or astonishment.
“she marveled at Jeffrey’s composure”
Wonder:
a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.
“he had stood in front of it, observing the intricacy of the ironwork with the wonder of a child”
Apperception:
When one first becomes aware of something there is a fleeting instant of pure perception of sensum, just before one affectively identifies with all the feeling memories associated with its qualia (the qualities pertaining to the properties of the form) and also before one cognitively recognises the percept (the mental product or result of perception), and this ‘raw sense-datum’ stage of sensational perception is a direct experience of the actual. Pure perception is at that instant where one converges one’s eyes or ears or nose or tongue or skin on the thing. It is that moment just before one focuses one’s feeling-memory on the object. It is the split-second just as one hedonically subjectifies it … which is just prior to clamping down on it viscerally and segregating it from pure, conscious existence. Pure perception takes place sensitively just before one starts feeling the percept – and thus thinking about it affectively – which takes place just before one’s feeling-fed mind says: ‘It’s a man’ or: ‘It’s a woman’ or: ‘It’s a steak-burger’ or: ‘It’s a tofu-burger’ … with all that is implied in this identification and the ramifications that stem from that. This fluid, soft-focused moment of bare awareness, which is not learned, has never been learned, and never will be learned, could be called an aesthetically sensual regardfulness or a consummate sensorial discernibleness or an exquisitely sensuous distinguishment … in a word: apperceptiveness. (via the AFT)
All definitions via google, which uses Oxford Languages.
I couldn’t help noticing how many definitions used the word pleasure:
Pleasure:
a feeling of happy satisfaction and enjoyment.
“she smiled with pleasure at being praised”
here is what Richard has to say about pleasure:
RESPONDENT: Or: With pleasure.
RICHARD: In which case you are sensibly enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive (whereas were the answer to be ‘with displeasure’, for instance, then you have something to investigate so as to find out why you are wasting the only moment you are ever alive in such a silly way).
So it seems that when it comes to using the method, Richard has no issue with engaging pleasure.
And Vineeto:
VINEETO: Yes, ‘to use bare awareness and not be caught by the emotions’ is absolutely essential for becoming actually free from the Human Condition. Emotions, feelings and beliefs (passionate convictions) are how one sees one’s instinctual passions in operation. They form the layer of our social conditioning which needs to be explored and removed – both for a happy and harmless life in Virtual Freedom and for an experiential understanding of the raw instinctual passions at our very core. And you probably have experienced the instant gratifications when a belief disappears, an emotion doesn’t turn up anymore, a snide remark from someone else falls flat and as being alive becomes gradually a play and a pleasure.
And Peter:
PETER: And the senses being free of churning feelings and emotions such as fear, guilt, comparison, love, duty, etc., are on full alert if you like. Fully here, firing on all cylinders, absolutely no limits to the amount of pleasure shared. To have found an equally sexual other-sex human is indeed remarkable.
RICHARD: To have as a companion someone who shares the identical goal in life to oneself is occasion enough in itself for celebration. Then to have the success after success that you have had throughout your time together, is proof indeed of the benevolence and wisdom of a life being well-lived. And as success after success multiplies exponentially, one experiences that the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom delivers the goods right here and now … not off into some indeterminate future. Plus the successes are repeatable – almost on demand – and thus satisfy the ‘scientific method’.
I am just amazed that this has never been discovered before.
Richard divides between affective and sensate pleasure:
" I thoroughly enjoy physical – sensual – pleasure and mutual pleasure is a delight. We ‘use’ each other by agreement … after all, our parts fit together so well … and so deliciously."
“The pleasure being referred to is, of course, affective pleasure (as in the pleasure/pain principle which spiritualism makes such a big thing about but never does eliminate and not sensate pleasure.)”
This article on Hedonism is especially revealing regarding pleasure:
" Richard : The perfection of this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space is so pleasurable that people who call me a hedonist are missing the mark … hedonism is nowhere near as pleasurable as this that is my on-going experiencing."