Who Needs Light? is a prescription for what ails "the general suffering public" in our families and communities throughout the world's philosophically Cartesian cultures where thought is seen as more valuable than emotion. Beginning with infant brain development, the author identifies startlingly familiar influences of Darkness from a new point of view-that of the difference between Head People and Heart People. The book includes a guide which defines the characteristics and habits of Abusive Personality Types. In lay terms, it shows how to identify and avoid these archetypal "Children of Darkness" wherever one might find them. Dr. May uses case studies, meditative exercises, original poetry, science and oral history to lead us stepbystep through the oppressive forces of materialism, selfcenteredness and authoritarian religions which have shaped our presentday civilization. Her final vision is one of hope and radical spiritual evolution.
WHO NEEDS LIGHT?
By Kathryn E. MayAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Kathryn E. May, PsyD
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4685-0701-0Contents
THE SNAKE...................................................................................................5TABLE OF CONTENTS...........................................................................................9ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.............................................................................................13INTRODUCTION................................................................................................17PART I: BECOMING A SELF: THE WAR WITHIN.....................................................................21Chapter One_A NEW-BORN LIGHT................................................................................25Chapter Two_THE ROOT OF OUR MISERY..........................................................................40PART II: LIFE IN THE CULTURE OF UNHAPPINESS.................................................................61Chapter Three_A SUFFERING SOUL..............................................................................65Chapter Four_HOW A SIT-DOWN STRIKE BECOMES A WAY OF LIFE....................................................76Chapter Five_A TEACHING GUIDE FOR THE ADULT CHILD: HOW TO TRAIN YOUR ABUSIVE PARENT.........................88PART III: THE DEVELOPING MIND...............................................................................97Chapter Six_ENCODING THE CHILD..............................................................................99Chapter Seven_FEELING LIKE A CHILD..........................................................................108Chapter Eight_LEARNING TO BE BLIND..........................................................................121Chapter Nine_WHAT YOU SEE IS NOT WHAT YOU GET...............................................................134Chapter Ten_CLAIMING YOUR BODY, PUTTING DOWN ROOTS..........................................................148Chapter Eleven_THE FORKED PATH..............................................................................158PART IV: DANGEROUS LIAISONS.................................................................................165Chapter Twelve_THE MOTHER OF ALL ADDICTIONS.................................................................168Chapter Thirteen_KILLING MARIA..............................................................................184Chapter Fourteen_CHILDREN of DARKNESS.......................................................................194Chapter Fifteen.............................................................................................232Chapter Sixteen_TO BE OR NOT TO BE..........................................................................238Chapter Seventeen_LESSONS WE LEARN IN A REALLY BAD RELATIONSHIP.............................................257PART V: THE LOVE WARS: TAKING CHILDHOOD INTO RELATIONSHIPS..................................................265Chapter Eighteen_LOVESICKNESS...............................................................................268Chapter Nineteen_THE GOODNESS AND MERCY TRAP................................................................274Chapter Twenty_HOW TO RAISE AN ABUSER.......................................................................288Chapter Twenty-One_PLAYING ON THE DARK SIDE.................................................................303PART VI: ABUSIVE INSTITUTIONS...............................................................................309Chapter Twenty-Two_HOW SCHOOLS, POLITICS, SCIENCE, RELIGION AND DESCARTES LED US ASTRAY.....................312Chapter Twenty-Three_AYN RAND AND MACHIAVELLI: APOLOGISTS FOR GREED AND POWER...............................336Chapter Twenty-Four_VIOLENCE IN THE STREETS.................................................................356Chapter Twenty-Five_THE CHRIST WE NEVER KNEW................................................................372PART VII: TRANSCENDING THE PAST.............................................................................379Chapter Twenty-Six_START A PEACE MOVEMENT...................................................................380Chapter Twenty-Seven_HOW CAN I GET OVER IT?.................................................................392Chapter Twenty-Eight_LEARNING FORGIVENESS...................................................................416Chapter Twenty-Nine_ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE....................................................................426Chapter Thirty_LEAD WITH AN OPEN HEART......................................................................429Chapter Thirty-One_AWAKENING................................................................................442Chapter Thirty-Two_EARTH AS MOTHER..........................................................................466Chapter Thirty-Three_CREATING A NEW SOCIETY.................................................................485BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................493
Chapter One
A NEW-BORN LIGHT From the swales in the dales of the Yorkshire trails To the swamps of the Southern bayou, The voice of disdain rings out in my brain, "Dim your light, Child. We deny you."
Children look up to the adults who raise them. It does not matter whether those adults are kind, honest and forthright, or whether they are mean, vicious abusers. A young child will hold a parent in awe, without judgment, even when the parent's actions may cause the child physical or emotional pain. A child simply tries to get along, to survive, and will do whatever necessary to accomplish it. Since their powers of analytic thinking do not begin to develop until after age six, children will simply do their best to make sense of their environment with the limited knowledge and brain power they possess. These childhood beginnings also determine the cultural lens through which they will later view the world. It is vital to understand the early beginnings which shaped our personalities when we view our later emotions and actions.
The Case Against Children
Every child comes into the world wanting to be accepted and welcomed. However, in the Western world, we have imposed an implicit philosophy which goes something like this: Children are unruly, selfish, destructive little creatures who must be disciplined, controlled, corrected and punished if they are ever to be acceptably civilized. If your parents don't do it, then your teachers will. Overlaying this authoritarian attitude toward children is an increasingly libertarian attitude toward adult behavior. This sometimes spills over into extreme indulgence toward children's needs. (Perhaps we can bribe this hopelessly unruly kid into behaving.) Thus, the average child is likely to be whip-lashed during a regular day between punitive and authoritarian discipline at school or in the neighborhood, and excessive indulgence in toys, technical devices, food treats and pampering at home. The contradiction is dizzying to children.
Our most intolerant attitudes toward children seem to have evolved from an amalgam of some of the most conservative and harsh elements which each of us brought with us from our own childhoods Perhaps these moralistic and controlling attitudes inspired the current American pendulum swing to physical overindulgence and pampering. Of course there are exceptions, glowing examples of creative and inspired parenting and teaching, but sadly, a large number of Americans tend to look at children with attitudes on a scale from subtle disapproval to outright dislike. Meanwhile, rude and aggressive children whose loud public conversations seem to consist of only seven dirty words (as defined by comedian George Carlin) fuel the notion that this generation is truly going to the dogs. I believe it is the conflicting, shifting lessons which have left them lost, rudderless and disturbed.
Let's look at some common childrearing techniques. One study found that the average toddler is subjected to some kind of negative command nine times every hour. Imagine: "Stop that! Don't do that! Don't touch that! Be quiet! Sit down! That's not nice! Don't! You can't have that! No!" Is it any wonder they are anxious, jumpy and stressed out?
This practice would plant the seed of self-doubt and self-hatred in even the most obedient and well-loved child. In spite of the psychological damage it wreaks, the philosophy dictating a controlling, crime-and-punishment approach to human development is maintained in the public school systems and in many families as if it were law, even though there has never been any real evidence that it's appropriate or effective in the long run.
The hypothesis that children are naturally unruly and in dire need of molding could easily be proven wrong. Logic requires that we need just one example of a culture where children are not disobedient and have never been punished or severely criticized. There are such cultures. For example, Inge Bolin, an anthropologist, spent time with a small tribe in the Peruvian Andes where harmony and friendliness were the everyday norm, where community cooperation and fun were shared by everyone, including the children. These people were dumbfounded when Bolin described our American society where children are frequently disrespectful toward their parents and others. They could not comprehend why any child would do such a thing. There is no word in their language for "disobedience." In their culture there was no serious crime, everyone helped each other, and it was simply expected that the children would be valuable and contributing members as well. If they were asked to do something, of course they would do it, because that's just what everyone did. Why wouldn't they? Everyone's survival and well-being depended on it.
Bolin and many others before her have demonstrated the fallacy of our disciplinary approach and its polar opposite, massive indulgence, but we have remained mostly lodged in our traditional ways. Pandering to a child's every whim springs from the same fundamental philosophy as the crime and punishment approach, which is: They are useless, defective, lazy, and the most effective way to control them is through rewards rather than punishment. Thus, we reward them without the expectation that they will accomplish anything meaningful. The resulting mix of entitlement, shame and self-doubt has crippled generations of good and able individuals. Proponents of the crime and punishment approach will argue that shame and self-doubt encourage lawful behavior and more manageable citizens. This is true, in the short run. It has been used throughout the ages by despots (including parents) who wished to exercise absolute control over others. It has also historically led to rebellion and revolution.
On the other hand, there have always been leaders among us—Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, to name a few—who had faith in the ability of the common people to behave with compassion and fairness toward their fellow humans. I have taken that position in this book, with an eye to the greater good: I believe we would advance more rapidly as an evolving civilization if we learned to treat our children more kindly, and less indulgently.
There is an enlightened guide to how to raise a child to fulfill its true human potential. It is the story of Anastasia, written by Vladimir Megré. The third book of The Ringing Cedars series, called The Space of Love offers an entirely new perspective on how to raise a child with superior intelligence and spiritual awareness far beyond anything we have seen in our own children. It has been translated from the Russian, and is now available for all of us stunted Earthlings to savor and learn from. Once you have read the series, and you have gotten to know Anastasia and her life as a woman in partnership with Nature, your view of children, and your outlook on life will never be the same.
It is my belief that we are all here—each one of us—to live out a spiritual path, to evolve toward greater love and creativity, and to take actions to express those qualities. The challenges and obstacles of a difficult childhood offer us the opportunities to affirm our faith and develop greater resolve in the face of opposition, but the way through to free expression can be a difficult one. Many of us find it easier to achieve the sentiments of love, compassion and empathy than to act on those feelings. We have become paralyzed by fear, self-doubt and self-involvement. In this book, I offer examples of how the traumas and conflicts of childhood create deeply-rooted self-hatred. That self-hatred can create such feelings of alienation that many have abandoned any higher aspirations in favor of "looking out for Number One."
It takes determination to awaken to the truths of our own prejudices and misguided actions. It becomes easier if we work together, in our families and in our friendships, to grow toward the freedom which will encourage each of us to take our place as a force toward evolution and Light.
The barriers you meet, in yourself and in others around you, will serve to prove your mettle. It takes faith, and the strength of character which grows from faith, to hold fast to the qualities we think of as Light-actions: compassion, kindness, empathy, generosity, forgiveness, fairness, courage. You must first free yourself from the bonds of fear and uncertainty—the residue of having been raised amidst personal, cultural and historical cruelty. As Americans, we have also been raised with relative political freedom and material prosperity. This has freed most of us from the need to be preoccupied with the struggle for survival, although many of us still speak of "survival" when we are really talking about greater convenience or luxury. As a result of our material successes, we are now in the position as leaders of the planet to fulfill our path as a people by creating a new form of social contract, even if it means starting anew. We have done it before. The planet is changing, and humankind must change with it, or perish.
In the following chapter of this book, I will present a picture so that you can put yourself into it, look into your heart of hearts and absolve yourself of all the "crimes" of your childhood, whether they belong to you, your parents or elders, your schoolmates or siblings. You will never be truly happy and free as long as you still define yourself by what they thought, what they said, and how they felt about you. It doesn't matter. Once you are an adult, you begin anew, with your own intelligence, and the ability to decide what you choose to believe, how you choose to behave, and how you feel about yourself in your heart.
First, let's debunk some of these old myths about what children are really like.
The Truth about Children
1) Children are far more sensitive and aware of their surroundings than we generally give them credit for.
Moments after birth, infants begin scanning the environment for faces and voices. By three months of age, the child's sensory equipment is highly developed; vision and hearing are excellent, and they are able to pick up and respond to the emotional quality of the interactions between the adults in their environment. I have seen a six-month old infant repeatedly burst into tears when his parents, sitting nearby, expressed anger toward each other in restrained whispers. No matter how quietly they spoke, the infant picked up the emotional discord, and immediately screamed as if in pain. When an infant is faced with constant discord and abuse, as many children are, they will have to learn to dramatically turn down this sensitivity. They literally desensitize themselves in order to avoid living in a constant state of terror or screaming irritation. I believe this "numbing down" is the rule rather than the exception in our culture and possibly many others. As we become numb, we lose our ability to "read" the environment accurately and to sense incipient danger. By adulthood, few people are as accurate at sensing vibrational cues in the environment as children and many animals are.
2) Children know they are weak and helpless, compared to adults.
They do not think they are "the boss," or that they are in charge of their families or communities. Their powers of observation do allow them to experience adults as huge, looming over them, and capable of wondrous activities which they, the children, have no ability to perform (like driving a car, reading a book, or using money). Regardless of their admirably active imaginations, normal children do not assume they really are Superman, unless they are repeatedly and specifically encouraged to believe so by the adults around them. Therefore, it is not necessary to "show them who's boss." Their own survival instincts allow them to perceive where their food comes from, and who provides shelter. They learn very early who they "belong" to. Like Konrad Lorenz's geese who imprinted on the first lab assistant they saw, and followed him ever after, they will cling tightly to the one or two adults (in our nuclear family structured culture) who provide for their sustenance.
3) Children tend to look up to and bond with the adults that care for them.
It is part of the child's mental equipment at birth to form an attachment to those who feed them. None of us is exempt from this innate predisposition to search the faces we meet, and to listen for the all-important voice of the mother who will ensure our survival. We are all primed to love our parents, to look to them for safety and reassurance, and to be fed, emotionally and physically, by those closest to us.
4) Children want to please their parents.
Their survival depends on it. They constantly check in with their caretaker to make sure they are being watched over, and that their actions meet with approval. Toddlers at play offer an especially vivid example of this tendency. They are able to toddle off to explore the world for a short time, but will return to lean against their mother's knee, or climb into her arms for "refueling" from time to time. Thus, children demonstrate their need and their recognition that the mother (or other primary caregiver) is, to them, "The Source."
5) Children are easily frightened.
Because of their limited experience and knowledge, much of what children come across is new and incomprehensible. They need an adult guide to hold them close, and as they get older, to hold their hand and to explain the mysteries of the world, step by step. A reassuring and steady presence creates a secure foundation for life, especially if that person teaches the child a deep sense of faith in a benevolent Higher Power. If the child feels frightened, she will search the faces of the adults around her for reassurance and comfort, and will seek physical contact to allay her fears, even if it is the parent she is afraid of.
6) Whatever our parents do, however they treat us, we come to experience as "love," and as "relationship."
If a child has a parent who is cruel, abusive and neglectful, the child will conclude that they are unlovable and defective, not that there is something wrong with their parent. There are a few notable exceptions to this unconditional love state of childhood, like children who perform deliberately cruel acts, but they usually occur when the child is either pushed to the brink of insanity by the family and community's cruelty, or one or both of the parents is secretly fueling a rebellion. It is our inclination as human children to take the blame for whatever happens in our relationships with our elders. Perhaps this has provided the evolutionary benefit of protecting the older generation from the rage of their sometimes patricidal offspring, thereby insuring the survival of the species. Nevertheless, in dysfunctional families, this tendency to let parents off the hook leads to a never ending downward spiral of self-blame and resentment which is then focused on each succeeding generation. As the inmates I worked with told me repeatedly: "My mother beat me every day with a knotted clothesline (coat hanger, extension cord), but she never did it without a reason. My mother was a saint for putting up with me." More likely, these were the childrearing techniques the mother experienced herself.
7) The less we are given by our caretakers in the way of stability, reassurance, and acknowledgment, the harder it is to leave home.
We need the warmth, acceptance and ongoing experience of looking deeply into the eyes of a human who looks back with kindness and recognition. This intimate connection allows us to develop and strengthen the inner structure of a self among other selves, a sense of kinship. Loving treatment creates a bond between the child and his caregiver. Even more importantly, looking deeply into the eyes of an appreciative and interested parent allows the child to bond with himself. By absorbing the sense of goodness he sees in the parent's look, the child begins building a picture of life which includes his own competence and his ability to contribute to society, first the society of his small family, then that of his community. The conviction, "I count," allows the child to reach out, and to expect his contribution to be welcomed. Without this, the child will be reluctant to even try to make his way in what he experiences as a cold, cruel world.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from WHO NEEDS LIGHT?by Kathryn E. May Copyright © 2011 by Kathryn E. May, PsyD. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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