I AM is THE WAY THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE

Copyright © Colin James Hamer 2004

Dear Melanie,

Thank you for accompanying me to the recent CARJ SouthWest (Catholic Association for Racial Justice) meeting in Rosary House, Heavitree, where, as you noticed, Sam Magne, in line with the Plymouth Diocese's commitment to promote and embrace the values of racial equality and to affirm them in Parish and Diocesan life, skilfully translated each of our various individual proposals and suggestions into that particular brand of Catholic-speak which is one of the current in-house jargons of those who, unlike your good self, share the Roman Catholic Faith I am, as you know, proud to profess.

I suspect you will agree with me that, without questioning any of its many excellences and short- and medium-term benefits, Sam's method of working - and so, implicitly, of encouraging us all to work, is, taking that long-term view which the task demands and requires, fundamentally upside down and inside out, like many other things in our shared Alice in Wonderland, this 21st-century topsy-turvy world where Justice is very much needed - and, as you reminded us, Peace, too, PAX, the Benedictines call it, the fruit of Saint Benedict's Masterly dhamma - the Way - doctrina virtutumque, I+N One Word: Highest Yoga Tantra.

First, therefore, as promised, I here list thirty feasible forms of personal sharing:

• 1. THE TRIBE - a spontaneous and stable type of human group.
• 2. THE COMMUNE - a small grouping of 3 to 150 persons holding some goods in common.
• 3. THE EXTENDED FAMILY - a quasi-tribal life-style developed on a basis of family links.
• 4. THE HAMLET - 20 to 300 persons whose lives involve lots of mutual contact and mutual understanding, but not necessarily either agreement or friendship.
• 5. THE SPIRITUAL COMMUNITY - ruled neither by convention nor caprice but by the universal cosmic laws - uncover, recover, discover, and so a group committed to the highest levels of attunement and achievement.
• 6. PARADISE HAVENS - enchanting locations where the life-style of both long- and short-stay guests combine the facilities of the Club Méditerrané with authentic spiritual values.
• 7. THE MONASTERY - a community of monks accepting a specific rule of life, to harmonise physical, intellectual and spiritual levels of human endeavour in funcion of a shared aim. THE CONVENT is a similarly organised community of nuns.
• 8. REVELATION COMMUNES - Monasteries or convents endeavouring to revitalise their spirit by stressing the Biblical, Quranic, Vedic or other primary source of inspiration, at the same time opening themselves up to give to and receive from the world around them.
• 9. NEW GENERATION VILLAGES - groups of young people from elsewhere associating themselves with the old people in run-down villages abandoned by local members of the younger generation; the aim is to create a new community by grafting the generations together.
• 10. THE UNDERSTANDING - any sort of informal contract between two or more persons, such as living together without religious or civil marriage, or else being another person's guru, disciple, growth facilitator, co-counsellor, etc.
• 11. THE SHARED INTEREST GROUP - any group owing its unity to some shared activity.
• 12. A COOPERATIVE - a group organized to buy and sell goods at relatively low prices, especially those produced domestically, by individual craftspersons, by small firms, by villages, communes or groups of differently advantaged persons in countries in process of development.
• 13. THE COUNTRY RETREAT - a farmhouse run by several families and some associates who are celibate.
• 14. A NETWORK - a link-up of groups in one or several countries around the world.
• 15. THE CONSTELLATION - a special sort of network, so organized that members can transfer easily and regularly for agreed periods from one group location to another.
• 16. THE CLUSTER - the emergence within any larger group of a smaller, more intimate group.
• 17. THE SECT - a group, whether or not living a common life, committed to a shared ideology.
• 18. THE URBAN COMMUNITY HOUSE - a block of houses or flats whose inhabitants live as some sort of community.
• 19. THE COMMUNITY CLOSE - replacing private gardens or allotments by one large shared park.
• 20. STREETS IN THE COUNTRYSIDE - planning that results in all front-doors opening on to a street, while all back-doors lead direct to the open country and woodlands.
• 21. COUNTRY IN THE TOWN - transforming part of a large town into a quasi-country village.
• 22. JEWEL CASES - small unfurnished holdings set in parkland, as in Vigo Village (Kent).
• 23. CASTLE KEEP - dividing a castle into community dwellings.
• 24. ISLAND LIFE - community living on a specially selected island.
• 25. LIFE AFLOAT - life on a boat.
• 26. A HOUSING ESTATE - can be the focus of a new developing community.
• 27. WRITERS' LINK-UP - an exchange of letters between persons otherwise rather isolated.
• 28. ELECTRONIC LINK-UP - keeping in contact by telephone, CB radio, telex, satellite, the Internet, etc.
• 29. NEWSLETTERS - private magazines giving news of subscribers to each other.
• 30. ENCOUNTER OASES - a chance to revitalise one's appreciation of community - and possibly of spiritual values, too, by living intensely for one or more weeks in a special spot - such as, e.g., Skyros Island or Findhorn.

Obviously, that listing may be far from complete, and others may wish to suggest some additions. Meanwhile, it may help if we also refresh our memory of, say, these forty-five possible advantages of what I have called "living communion in developmment" - for me, the very essence of authentic communication, in other words, true koinonia:

• 1. Filling the void between private family and public life.
• 2. Strengthening an otherwise marginalized family life.
• 3. Forming new relationships.
• 4. Improving communications between all the many aspects of one's own personal-as-well-as-public self.
• 5. Freedom from sterile isolation.
• 6. More frequent and more spontaneous human contacts with improved mutual understanding.
• 7. The guarantee of friendly surroundings, even in the face of death.
• 8. Freedom, equality and sisterhood (brotherhood) - not as an aggressive ideal but as spontaneous experience.
• 9. Plenty of companions for children to play with.
• 10. Parents have more time for their children.
• 11. Discipline is healthier, easier, more effective.
• 12. From an early age boys and girls develop habits of unselfishness and service.
• 13. This setting enhances the qualities of education possible.
• 14. Personal effort is encouraged and sustained by those around us.
• 15. Opportunities for creativity are multiplied.
• 16. The religious sense finds its natural awakening.
• 17. Baby-sitters are no longer a problem.
• 18. Each child in some sense belongs to everybody, and the population problem finds its proper natural solution.
• 19. The cost of living is three or even six times less that it would be in the town outside.
• 20. Food is healthy and wholesome.
• 21. Each is less a spectator, more a participant in communion.
• 22. Job satisfaction grows.
• 23. Personal identity is more assured.
• 24. There is no need to compensate elsewhere.
• 25. Dull routine is less of a problem.
• 26. New contacts become more interesting and fruitful.
• 27. Horizons are wider, with less narrow-minded specialization and a more rounded education.
• 28. Freedom from the drawbacks of the consumer society.
• 29. Materially less individual affluence - but much spiritual profit.
• 30. Matter and spirit are better balanced.
• 31. No pollution.
• 32. No over-crowing, traffic-jams or stampedes.
• 33. No professional criminals.
• 34. The good of one is the good of all.
• 35. More free time.
• 36. Others help us make the most of ourselves - as we uncover, receover, discover in the magic mirror of society.
• 37. Full and open discussion of issues, instead of rigid control or arbitrary decisions.
• 38. Full disclosure of all relevant information to all concerned.
• 39. Only 4 hours work a day devoted to basic survival needs - less waste of human resources.
• 40. The ideal mix: work that is worthwhile and activity that absorbs.
• 41. Less artificial packaged entertainment and more real living.
• 42. A chance to move on to new forms of friendship as and when your psychic development so suggests.
• 43. Bulk-buying of everything from loaves and fishes to yachts and castles saves money.
• 44. A global link-up of kindred communities makes the whole world home.
• 45. Work can be done by telex and remote control or via satellite and the Internet, etc…… Until all live and feel I+N One.

WWW.THENEITHNETWORK.CO.UK
WWW.BEAUTYTRUEGOOD.CO.UK
WWW.HAGARQIM.NDO.CO.UK

Although the contents of all the above mentioned websites change often, their arrangement and structure being also subject to frequent review and modification, a systems approach remains always of cardinal importance.

In particular, I would again draw to your attention the highly significant and mutually complementary teachings of Stafford Beer and Marco Todeschini about cybernetics and management, structural sin, viable systems, etc.

While acknowledging their difficulty, I especially recommend Professor Stafford Beer's Decision and Control - The meaning of Operational Research and Management Cybernetics (John Wiley & Sons, 1966), Cybernetics and Management, 2nd edition (English Universities Press, 1967) - parts of which presuppose some familiarity with non-elementary mathematics; Brain of the Firm - The managerial cybernetics of organization, 2nd edition with four additional chapters (John Wiley & Sons: paperback 1994, reprinted 1995) together with the companion volume: The Heart of Enterprise - The managerial cybernetics of organization (John Wiley & Sons, 1994, reprinted 2000), and most especially his imaginatively original but, I still feel, eminently practical Platform for Change (John Wiley & Sons, 1975).

In A Platform for Change (1975) Stafford Beer, who died in August 2002, refers to some helpful photographs and a chart that his publishers had printed inside that book's dust jacket. Several public library copies are nowadays without that jacket and the book itself appears to be out of print. This scanned images of my own copy of that chart and the accompanying photographs are imperfect but may, I hope, convey at least some impression of what the originals were like -.

The same author's already mentioned Brain of the Firm (Classic Beer) includes a comprehensive and detailed explanation of what his "platform for change" is, and of how it works - clarifying specifically that the entire focus is on facilitating more effective individual and shared personal decisions, and NOT in any sense seeking to replace them by "computers", as some people have wrongly imagined. Copies of this newly printed to order are currently available in the U.K. at £67.20p plus £2.75p postage and packing, e.g., from amazon.co.uk.

See also David Whittaker's Stafford Beer: A Personal Memoir, which includes an interview with Brian Eno (2003).

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin taught that "all that ascends eventually converges," and that "the greater the unity, the greater the differentiation." Stafford Beer similarly denies any incompatibility between centralized authority and local initiative. Neither author was acquainted with Marco Todeschini's and Vittorio Hess's and my own significiantly relevant complementary research into superhomoeostasis and cybernetic typology. Nevertheless, I sincerely believe, no political leader may safely ignore Stafford Beer's contributions to higher management studies; they are applicable in every domain. (Beer might describe such books as the WORLDWATCH INSTITUTE's Vital Signs 2003-2004 - the trends that are shaping our future, London: Earthscan Publications Ltd., 2002, as fascinatingly irrelevant - with, one suspects, good reason, since Absolutum obsoletum - even though insight is, unlike concepts and systems, essentially free from the constraints suggested by Gödel's theorem.

In connection with my just mentioned Seven Rules for the Guidance of Genius", unbeknown to him, Stafford Beer it was who first formulated my own new Rule 8: Think before you think…, which is nowhere mentioned in any already publicly available edition of Todeschini's and my above mentioned systematic study of the advantages of cybernetic superhomoeostasis, which is, I suspect, what Stafford Beer really meant by 'Team Syntegrity'.

The eight principal segments within Stafford Beer's suggested bibliographical circle are: Physical, Philosophical, Biological, Psychological, Socio-Economic, Aesthetic, Mathematical & System-Theoretic. Ever resistant to facile categorisations, he specified that all names on his map or model reading-list refer only to the particular books I have indicated below. Clearly, however, knowledge is in hearts and minds, not on shelves:

CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER, Notes on the Synthesis of Form (Harvard U.P., 1966).
R.L. ACKOFF & F. E. EMERY, On Purposeful Systems (Aldin-Atherton, N.Y., 1972).
W. ROSS ASHBY, An Introduction to Cybernetics (Chapman and Hall, 1956).
GREGORY BATESON, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Ballantine Books, N.Y., 1972).
STAFFORD BEER, Brain of the Firm (Allen Lane, 1972).
LUDWIG VON BERTALANNFY, General Systems Theory (George Braziller, N.Y., 1968).
N. BOURBAKI, Éléments de Mathématique, Théorie des Ensembles Fascicule de Résultats (Herman, Paris, 1958).
WALTER BUCKLEY, Modern Systems Research for the Behavioural Scientist (Aldine, Chicago, 1968).
TSU CHUANG, Inner Chapters (Wildwood House, London, 1974).
C. WEST CHURCHMAN, The Systems Approach (Delacote Press, N.Y., 1968).
K. J. W. CRAIK, The Nature of Explanation (C.U.P., 1952).
NICHOLAS GEORGESCU-RŒGEN, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (Harvard U.P., 1971).
P. GLANSDORFF & I. PRIGOGINE, Thermodynamics, Theory of Structure, Stability and Fluctuations (Wiley International, 1978).
VIKTOR M. GLUSHKOV, Introduction to Cybernetics (Academic Press, 1966).
R.L. GOODSTEIN, Recursive Number Theory (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1957).
WERNER HEISENBERG, Physics and Philosophy (George Allen & Unwin, 1959).
J. CHRISTOPHER JONES, Design Methods (Wiley, 1970.
GEORGE J. KLIR, An Approach to General Systems Theory (Von Nostrand, 1969).
W.S. McCULLOCH, Embodiments of Mind (M.I.T. Press, 1965).
MACHIAVELLI, The Prince (Penguin edition, 1970).
RAMON MARGALEF, Perspectives in Ecological Theory (University of Chicago, 1968).
HUMBERTO MATURANA & FRANCISCO VARELA, Autopoietic Systems (Harvard monograph pending publication).
J.G. MILLER, Living Systems (McGraw-Hill, 1978).
V.L. PARSEGIAN, The Cybernetic World (Doubleday, 1972).
GORDON PASK, The Cybernetics of Human Learning and Performance (Hutchinson Education, 1975).
WILLIAM T. POWERS, Behaviour - The Control of Perception (Aldine, Chicago, 1973).
ROY A. RAPPAPORT, Pigs for the Ancestors (Yale U.P., 1967).
NICOLAS RASHEVSKY, Mathematical Principles in Biology (Charles C. Thomas, Illinois, 1961).
DONALD A. SCHON, Beyond the Stable State (Random House, N.Y., 1971).
CLAUDE E. SHANNON & WARREN WEAVER, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (University of Illinois Press, 1962).
G. SOMMERHOFF, Analytical Biology (O.U.P., 1950).
G. SPENCER-BROWN, Laws of Form (Allen & Unwin, 1969).
RUSSELL L. ACKOFF, editor, Systems and Management Annual 1974 (Petrocelli Books, N.Y., 1974).
C. WEST CHURCHMAN, editor, Systems and Management Annual 1975.
RENÉ THOM, Stabilité Structurelle et Morphogénèse (W.A. Benjamin, 1972).
D'ARCY THOMPSON, On Growth and Form (C.U.P., 1942).
FRANCISE. J. VARELA, A Calculus for Self-Reference, Int. J. General Systems, 1975, Vol.2, pp.5-24 (Gordon and Breach).
GEOFFREY VICKERS, Freedom in a Rocking Boat (Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1970).
C.H. WADDINGTON, Tools for Thought (Paladin, 1977) - Ref. 1 on map.
C. H. WADDINGTON, The Strategy of the Genes (Allen & Unwin, 1957) - Ref. 2 on map.
HERMANN WEYL, Symmetry (Princeton U.P., 1952).
LANCELOT LAW WHYTE, Internal Factors in Evolution (Tavistock Publications, 1965).
NORBERT WIENERCybernetics, 2nd edition (M.I.T. and John Wiley, 1961).

JORGE BARRIENTOS & RAUL ESPEJO, "A Cybernetic Model for the Management of the Industrial Sector" in National Research Institute of Chile, Review Number 4, in Spanish (June 1973).
STAFFORD BEER, "A Technique for Standardizing Massed Batteries of Control Charts" and "The Productivity Index in Active Service" in Applied Statistics, Vol. 2, No. 3, 1953 and Vol. 4, No. 1, 1955; Cybernetics and Management (E.U.P., 1959); Decision and Control (John Wiley, 1966); "Cybernetics of National Development", inaugural lecture for the Zaheer Science Foundation (New Delhi: December 1974).
LAURENCE BIRNS, The End of Chilean Democracy (New York: Seabury Press, 1973).
G. U. BONSIEPE, Teoría y Prctica del Diseño Industrial (Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili, 1975) - Italian translation: Teoria e Practica del Disgeno Industriale (Fentrinelli, 1975).
RAUL ESPEJO, "Cybernetic Praxis in Government - The Management of Industry in Chile 1970-1973" in Journal of Cybernetics, Vol. 10, No. 3.
P. J. HARRISON & C. R. STEVENS, "A Bayesian Approach to Short-term Forecasting" in Operational Research Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 4, December 1971.
HUMBERTO R. MATURANA & FRANCISCO J. VARELA, Autopoiesis and Cognition (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1980).
HERMANN SCHWEMBER, "Project Cybersyn: An Experience with New Tools for Management in Chile" in Computer Assisted Policy Analysis (Basel: Birkhauser Verlag, 1977; Ed. Bossel).
US GOVERNMENT, United States and Chile during the Allende Years, 1970-1973 (Hearings before the Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Washington: House of Representatives, 1975).

A few thoughts about dialogue in general and, more specifically, a survey of "dialogue" in the teaching of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, which was originally published in the Clergy Review, are also available on the Internet. The same is true of the complete text of my Salesian University approved 1968 published extract from my revised thesis on the philosophy of Gilbert Ryle as well as that of the much longer thesis I defended publicly in Rome at Easter 1966

More recently, while we were chatting about some of the old books currently available at second-hand bookshops in Dulverton and Honiton, you brought up the issues of rebirth, reincarnation and resurrection in both a Gnostic and Christian perspective, and that with specific reference to Origen. I take it you are already familiar with the extract from Origen's own On Prayer which features on pages 794-96 of volume III of the Divine Office? It is the second reading appointed for the Office of Readings for the last Sunday of the Year, i.e., for the feast of Christ the King. I'm not sure whether a special translation was commissioned for this English edition, or whether it was taken from the 1968 Penguin Classics book: Early Christian Writings, edited by Maxwell Staniforth. In any case, it is well worth your re-reading and pondering it now!

Origen emphasises that "the kingdom of sin cannot co-exist with the kingdom of G-d" - hence, political compromise is never the answer! "There is no partnership between righteousness and iniquity." Origen's personal vibrancy and optimism are also noteworthy: the establishing and flourishing of Christ's kingdom "can happen in each one of us," and it can happen "now." He says that not once, but twice - "We may live even now amid the blessings of rebirth and resurrection."

Having already read the articles on "Metempsychosis" and on "Origenism" in Rivington's 2nd 1872 edition of John Henry Blunt's Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology, as well as well as that on the "Origenists" in John Murray's 1852 6th revised and augmented edition of Walter Farquhar Hook's Church Dictionary, not to mention what you know of Joan D'Arcy Cooper's clear and most helpful writings on related questions, I am confident you will easily appreciate that the Second Council of Constantinople's quarrel was never one with Origen himself…

From what you told me the other day I gather that it may take us rather longer to arrive at any genuine agreement about the relationship between G-d's universally effective power and individual personal freedom in praxis. This is certainly an issue well worth exploring, and I am pleased you have your own copy of Timothy McDermott's translation of what he (or his publisher - Oxford University Press, 1993) rather misleadingly called: Thomas Aquinas - Selected Philosophical Writings; Thomas was ever the theologian. Anyhow, the pages we have to discuss are pages 297-305 (first half of Passage 33 [a not insignificant number] "Is G-d at Work in Nature and in Will?").

McDermott has included a translation of only 7 of what were originally at least 16 preliminary objections in Article Seven, and you will, of course, bear in mind that these are not Aquinas's objections, but those of persons opposed to what, for him, is the true Teaching (Doctrina) or Food for the Soul (Verbum Dei). The kernel of his position-statement begins on page 302, line 3; it is summarised in the first complete paragraph (that just before the middle of the page) on page 304.

Many persons otherwise in broad agreement with Aquinas's explanation of these matters, while claiming they fully accept all four of his reasons for holding that G-d is everywhere and ever at work in Nature and in Will, mistakenly interpret his accompaning admission that this is all "without excluding the activity of nature or of free will" in such a way as effectively to undermine all that Thomas has been trying to clarify.

Such persons are especially likely to misinterpret McDermott's version of part of Aquinas's reply (on page 305) to objection 13. "The will is said to be mistress of its own action, not as if a primary cause was excluded, but because the primary cause doesn't act in our wills as it does in nature, determining us to one course of action. That determination of the action is left in the power of reason and will…

Don't overlook this part of Aquinas's reply (p. 304) to objection 3 - "G-d and nature are hierarchically related…" It follows from this that, far from being absent from the free human being's specific act of choosing this rather than that, G-d is more intimately part and parcel of such a self-determining act, since it is hierarchically closer to the mystery of Divine Being…

Saint Paul knew this, and the Church expresses the same truth in a Sunday Prayer: "O G-d who supremely display your power by showing mercy" - enabling the previously-a-sinner, in other words, freely to renounce sin and turn inwardly to G-d I+N the centre of his heart.…

Dear Sam and the group,

… I promised to look at how Exeter Cathedral deals with race-relation problems. A whole side-chapel is permanently set aside for "Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation", originally an initiative of the ecumenical World Council of Churches. There is a fivefold screen devoted to Amnesty International which, as well as stating that the arms race is out of control and mapping the extent of the death penalty worldwide, has posters on the real needs of refugees.
There is a leaflet produced by the ecumenical Social Responsibility Department, Exeter Board for Christian Care. This leaflet calls for a great deal, including more openness between people of different faiths and cultures. It cites psalm 24: "The world belongs to God, the Earth and all its people.
The recent refugee week produced a display bringing out a parallel between the wartime treatment of evacuees and the present ostracising of refugees. There is a good cartoon, too.

All inclusion logically implies exclusion. Giving to family, country or church means not giving to something outside that group. It's when the boundaries to that group become impermeable and unyielding that problems arise. 'Loyalty' to a group can so easily move from comfortable inclusiveness to actively pushing away those outside it. The deep-seated archetypes of 'friend and foe', 'us and them', beloved by Mr Bush, are activated in both humans and higher animals. Enhanced allegiance of friend against foe strengthens the group, be it race, family, or war effort, and anchors the individual's sense of identity to something outside himself. Weak individuals find this a refuge.
Even a racial justice group can ride high on a warm sense of inclusion and superiority. It is much harder to look at the needs and insecurities of the race hater in a loving way. His needs can't be addressed on a national level with a leaflet.

I was really warmed by the welcome you gave me at the last meeting, even though I may come from a slightly different Christian path - no 'them' and 'us' there.
Thank you.

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