the next phase of the breakthrough: bird flu, imagination, and so much more

THE NEXT PHASE OF THE BREAKTHROUGH: BIRD FLU, IMAGINATION, AND SO MUCH MORE

JON RAPPOPORT www.nomorefakenews.com

NOVEMBER 23, 2005. Ever wonder why certain short stories or novels or fables seem so compelling, so real to you? Ever wonder why you feel you can touch the details of those stories as if you're touching solid objects in the real world?

This is one of the most important pieces I've written since I began this site five years ago. It's about how imagination works and what it can really do.

I begin with that giddy construct called bird flu. Well, if you hope to approach the sublime, it always pays to start with the ridiculous.

In previous articles, I have established that H5N1 bird flu is based on no science.

The main tests used for diagnosis (antibody and PCR) are insufficient to infer the existence of any true infection of any consequence within the human body.

Antibodies to H5N1 would, in fact, point to the health of the body. The PCR is constitutionally incapable of showing that a virus exists in large enough quantities in a human body to contribute to actual illness.

Therefore, even to agree with the present miniscule figure of 65 human deaths (worldwide, since 2003) from bird flu is traveling light years beyond the actual evidence.

Naturally, ominous warnings and predictions of an H5N1 human pandemic are then also based on nothing.

Hundreds and thousands of press articles may convince many people that a pandemic is on the horizon, but this is no more science than ads for Ford cars are proof that Fords are excellent-running vehicles.

What are we left with?

We are left with the imagining of human H5N1 disease. The sheer IMAGINING OF IT.

Am I about to say a pandemic could occur from the collective imagining of it? No, I'm not going there.

I'm simply pointing out that an H5N1 pandemic is a story that has been dreamed up.

In that sense and that sense alone, it exists.

In that sense, it is interesting.

When you imagine something that was not there before, you are entering unknown territory. One might say you are creating previously unknown territory.

This is, in fact, exactly what has happened with H5N1 bird flu. A story of an impending human pandemic has been imagined, and in the process a territory has been created that never existed before.

In exactly this way: a painter goes into his studio, sets a blank canvas against the wall, and makes a painting that never, in the long, long run of time, has existed before.

The current H5N1 story is unique. It has never existed before. It may remind you other tales, but IT is new.

"Kids, let me tell you about a disease that will happen. This is a story. I'll call it H5N1. I'm just making this story up, I'm adding details now and then, I'm adding more details to the details, and in the process I'm making up a space, a territory that never existed before. That's where this story exists. In a unique space I'm calling into being."

An interesting thing happens when you imagine a story and its concomitant territory.

You see new details spring to life.

The story and the space take on a life of their own.

"Yes, well, the H5N1 is so dangerous because it causes a gross shut down of the immune system."

Or: "H5N1 forces the immune system to work beyond its normal range, and then such an enormous inflammatory response occurs, the embattled lungs can no longer function."

Or: "H5N1 initiates a chemical cascade during which the body ends up attacking itself."

BECAUSE THESE DETAILS SPRING TO LIFE FROM THE BASIC IMAGINING OF THE STORY, THEY CARRY COMPELLING POWER.

THAT'S THE WAY IT IS, EXACTLY, WITH ALL INVENTED STORIES.

Pick up a novel by Dostoevsky or a short story by Turgenev. As each new detail of action or setting comes through to you, your belief in the created territory of the story intensifies.

That is the effect of imagination on the audience (and on the spinner of the tale).

"Hmm, yes, H5N1 starts a cascade of body chemicals, and the result is that the body begins viewing itself as an enemy, an invader. Yes. That rings true. That makes sense. The body attacks itself. Why didn't I think of that?"

THE MORE PURE AND REMOVED FROM FACT THE INVENTION IS, THE MORE THE DETAILS OF THE INVENTION ENGENDER BELIEF AND CONSENSUS.

Read that last sentence again, and write it in fire.

"Once upon a time, there was an elf named Shavel who lived in the woods."

Detail after detail then emerges, and with each new "fact," the overall story gains momentum and vividness.

All the more so, because it started from nothing.

ALL THE MORE SO, BECAUSE IT STARTED FROM NOTHING.

If you understand what I am saying in this article, you understand a great deal about why imagined stories can have such power, and you also understand why the H5N1 pandemic tale is so convincing to so many people.

Whether one is writing a novel or presenting a future epidemic without foundation, the principles are the same.

At this very moment, the clarity with which I'm seeing this is the result of a great deal of research on the imagination---and more specifically, research on how to get people to enter, with great focus, the unknown territory of the imagination.

How to get people to work in that territory for prolonged periods of time.

The result of such repeated journeys is momentous. For one thing, the capacity to see the physical world increases in leaps and bounds. There is seeing the world around you, and then there is SEEING the world around you. The world is much more malleable than we ordinarily suppose. Much more alive and present and malleable and much more filled with personality. Even so-called inanimate objects have, in their own way, distinct personalities.

I've begun working with individuals on this...the unknown territory of the imagination. The work sessions are not of a consulting or descriptive nature. They are much more up close than that. Through dialogue in the moment, the person makes true journeys into this space, this territory.

The person experiences what it is like to live in imagination.

A process begins. Memory, perception, and imagination meet, collide, and work together to tear away veils of dullness with which we have surrounded ourselves.

You could say, accurately, that this work immediately puts one into the realm of the paranormal.

Over the last 45 years, I've done research with this aim. I've found various approximations, but now the direct and stripped-down method is much more far-reaching.

Nutrition plays a role in this as well. Certain nutritional strategies (different for each person) help initiate the energy necessary to wring the most out of each voyage into the unknown territory.

The long-range goal? The same as the goal set by the original Tibetan teachers: to be able to imagine and create without limit; to be able to manifest realities; to be able, as a matter of choice, to exist purely and completely immersed in the present moment, with all that has to offer; to be able to exit and enter this space-time continuum...

I'm currently working one-on-one with individuals, and I've also set up a situation in which I can teach the method itself to those who want to become practitioners.

This work fits perfectly under the title of Education. When you take apart the Latin roots of that word, you are left with the concept of "leading out of." Leading out of the student what is obviously already there. Drawing out what is already there but has not been noticed.

If you want to make inquiries: rappoportjon@hotmail.com