Whoops - I meant to say Alexander, not Ian.
I can remember one of our earliest exchanges where you gave me the advice that it’s more helpful to look for the differences between spirituality and actualism than the similarities. That advice went a long way in clearing things up but I’ve never looked closely at the literature surrounding out-from-control as I consider that to be beyond me at this point. The recent discussions have been causing me to take a closer look.
I think there’s a temptation to try to understand where the two “schools” overlap as they both deal with matters of consciousness. But the end results are so drastically different that it makes no sense to take advice from a path that leads to undesired results. I often wonder about the spiritualist’s use of naivety & innocence, as they often emphasize these qualities. But this seems to gets translated to a ‘sexual innocence’ where abstinence is recommended. It was always odd to me they never addressed the desire and objectification driving the behavior. (As well as it still seemingly present in them). I guess in the end it doesn’t conflict with their Truth, and thus there’s no reason to fundamentally change.
There’s more I’d like to say but it’s a challenge to put it together coherently.
Were you no longer out-from-control for those 3 days? I guess I wonder if being out-from-control played a part in you getting swept into the emotions of the event - with no boundaries or limitations to control how you should feel. No loyalty to Richard or the image of yourself that had been a practicing actualist.
Or alternatively, with the diminishment of naivety & presence of fearful feelings, did the out-from-control different way of being cease only to be restarted at the end of the 3 days?
Or a 3rd option? 