The purpose of this article is to provide a light hearted “bridging method” for those raised in religion. Ideally, everyone who comes across Actualism would remember a PCE, or immediately have one, and everything makes sense from there. This isn’t the case, especially for those heavily conditioned by religion.
Contrary to popular belief, religion isn’t primarily about the spiritual world. It is primarily about rules and control.
Because of this, experiences of a spiritual nature are seldom the focus of religion. The focus, more often than not, is on being a good person according to the particular religion.
Rules, commandments, creeds, rituals and culture are the order of the day in religion.
The “big two” religious traditions, the abrahamic (Christianity, Islam, Judaism), and the vedic (Hinduism, Buddhism) and the ancient animist religions underlying them, are infamous for the sledgehammer/ overkill approach to conditioning children; to wit, Do what we say or burn in hell (or some variety of similar horrendous punishment).
To otherwise free one’s ability to explore and experience actualism, to uncover one’s innate naivete and curiosity, one is up against a lifetime of the exact opposite; serious consequences of “stepping out of line” and doctrines of absolute faith about what life is all about and the terrifying injunctions if one fails to believe and act as commanded.
The following is a “tongue in cheek” set of rules with the purpose of leveraging the conditioning instilled in a “religious believer” towards freeing oneself from it’s grip.
Rule 1.
Make a commitment, as solid as giving your life to Christ, if not even more so, to this statement;
“I am committed to feeling good, each moment again, for the rest of my life, come what may”
Handy hint: start with a very “low bar” for feeling good. Just a regular “I am good, Larry, how are you?” level is fine. If this doesn’t exist in your life, then change your life and circumstances until it does.
Rule 2.
Buy yourself a journal. Or get an app for writing. Get a voice recorder app on your phone. Start a journal on this forum.
Open the journal, and voice recorder, and start working out what is in the way of feeling good right now, in this moment. Post relevant things for others to read an comment on. You will be amazed at the different thoughts and realisations that happen just by interacting with others regularly.
Go for a walk. Enjoy a swim, but each moment there is only ever Rule 1 playing in your mind.
Start in your thinking. Notice the feelings mixed into the two primary ways feeling beings think;
Fantasy and Rumination.
Rule 3.
Enjoy your success. Remember it. If you did it once, you can do it again. Just like converting to a religion, that commitment is already done. Never doubt it because you feel bad. Feeling bad is par for the course until one gets the hang of it.
Rule 4
Learn how to “neither express or repress” feelings other than Felicity. The purpose of this is to expose the blind instinctual being ‘you’ are, and to gain the habituation of what one can do when noticing that one is not feeling good.
Rule 5
Read the AFT daily, as if the world depends on your success.
Rule 6
Take every opportunity to have as much fun as possible whilst not harming others.
Rule 7
Look after yourself. It’s all over when you are dead, so stay as healthy as possible.
Rule 8
To be advised. The author is still trying to master these. I anticipate there will be ten rules, you know, for reasons. 
