Happy Valentine’s Day!

In dialogue, one of the five points of fate practice, truthfulness includes what the Greeks called parrhesia, translated as “frankness” or “candor.” Michel Foucault offers some insights into parrhesia:

To begin with, what is the general meaning of the word parrhesia? Etymologically, parrhesiazesthai means “to say everything”—from pan (“everything”) and rhema (“that which is said”). The one who uses parrhesia, the parrhesiastes, is someone who says everything he has in mind: he does not hide anything, but opens his heart and mind completely to other people through his discourse. In parrhesia, the speaker is supposed to give a complete and exact account of what he has in mind so that the audience is able to comprehend exactly what the speaker thinks. The word parrhesia then, refers to a type of relationship between the speaker and what he says. For in parrhesia, the speaker makes it manifestly clear and obvious that what he says is his own opinion. And he does this by avoiding any kind of rhetorical form which would veil what he thinks. Instead, the parrhesiastes uses the most direct words and forms of expression he can find. Whereas rhetoric provides the speaker with technical devices to help him prevail upon the minds of his audience (regardless of the rhetorician’s own opinion concerning what he says), in parrhesia, the parrhesiastes acts on other people’s mind by showing them as directly as possible what he actually believes.

The most valuable of Foucalt’s points on parrhesia is its relation to self-care:

In the writings of Plato, Socrates appears in the role of the parrhesiastes. Although the word “parrhesia” appears several times in Plato, he never uses the word parrhesiastes—a word which only appears later as part of the Greek vocabulary. And yet the role of Socrates is typically a parrhesiastic one, for he constantly confronts Athenians in the street and, as noted in the Apology, points out the truth to them, bidding them to care for wisdom, truth, and the perfection of their souls. And in the Alcibiades Major, Socrates assumes a parrhesiastic role in the dialogue. For whereas Alcibiades friends and lovers all flatter him in their attempt to obtain his favors, Socrates risks provoking Alcibiades anger when he leads him to this idea: that before Alcibiades will be able to accomplish what he is so set on achieving, viz., to become the first among the Athenians to rule Athens and become more powerful than the King of Persia, before he will be able to take care of Athens, he must first learn to take care of himself. Philosophical parrhesia is thus associated with the theme of the care of oneself.


It may not be apparent at first look how frankness and self-care imply each other, but a practical example or two will make it obvious. Imagine a man in a corporate job he despises, but depends on for his income. Each day, he goes to his office, resigned to put in another eight hours while secretly longing to start a small business of his own, or take up some artistic direction that calls him but also intimidates him for the lack of security it promises. Let’s say that this man is called in to his superior’s office for a performance evaluation, during which he is asked point blank: “Are you happy working here? Where do you see yourself in five years?” and so on. Now, it should be clear that we are not in a position to dictate to this hypothetical individual what constitutes self-care. Perhaps it lies in staying on a bit longer, perhaps not. But we can surely say what constitutes truthfulness in this situation, and remember that we are examining here the idea that truthfulness and self-care stand in intimate relation with each other. Our man can lie for the sake of the evaluation, to keep his job and his income, and so on. In other words, he can be untruthful for a good reason, and no one is ever untruthful without one. Or he can be truthful, which will cast him into a fate that becomes far less predictable. He may be fired on the spot for his confession. On the other hand, his supervisor may be so impressed by his honesty that he gives him free reign, or even is moved by the man’s courage to share a denied dream of his own. In any case, it is one thing to say nothing for a time; another to dissemble when asked a direct question, the truthful answer to which we know only too well. What we are suggesting here is that the best outcome lies in the hands of candor, no matter how it may appear. We may even speculate that when it is time for a truth to come to light, the forces of chaos arrange for someone to ask us the revealing question. At such moments especially, the gods are watching and listening.

We are not denying by this example that it may be in the man’s interest to stay on the job for a time, but ultimately, he will remain set against his better fate as long as he is willing to deny, postpone, or misrepresent the truth. This truth is not his doing. It is written in his nature by the hands that created him. He wants what he wants, and cannot want otherwise. So are we given to ourselves, and must work out our relation to who we already are, so that we may become most fully who we are meant to be.

Another example: Imagine two lovers who, having awakened from the lovely dream of courtship, are now standing face to face with their own and each other’s issues. This, of course, is where two people learn what sort of love they really have, even whether what they have is love at all—since we may get close to each other for many reasons that have nothing to do with love. In each of these two, a daimon lives and speaks the truth. One aspect of this truth is the “yes” and “no” of our nature. In other words, some things will be, in truth, acceptable; others, not. The “yes” and “no” of us, like our likes and dislikes,” are given, not subject to our will. We may wish we did not love someone we love deeply for all the pain it causes us, or wish we did love someone toward whom we feel nothing of the “divine madness,” as Socrates calls it. In either case, our will stands by helpless while the gods play out our character and our story, for they have written both, leaving to us the fundamental choice between humility and hubris, willingness and willfulness, truthfulness and invention. We are saying here, in expanding on the point made by Foucault, that the best that these lovers can do, for themselves, each other, and their union, is to honor their daimon and be frank with each other, saying “yes” when that is the truth, and “no” when it is not. So much damage is inflicted in romantic unions by one person or the other or both failing to practice parrhesia when the crucial moment comes, because in abandoning parrhesia, they abandon self-care, and this choice, while no doubt serving certain short-term interests, is unsustainable.

What would happen in our lives if we took up parrhesia as a direction for living—if we resolved always to tell the truth as an expression of self-care? One thing that would happen is we would extricate ourselves immediately from the suffering of those who are not yet on their own side. And how can we befriend the gods, life, and fate if we haven’t befriended ourselves?

The excerpts cited above are from Discourse and Truth: The Problematization of Parrhesia, six lectures given by Michel Foucault at the University of California at Berkeley, Oct-Nov. 1983. Complete and original recordings of these lectures by Foucault are available in the UC Berkeley Michel Foucault Audio Archive.

Technorati Tags:Fate Project, Fate, Greeks, Philosophy, Socrates

I just got back from teaching in my hometown, NYC. Here's a taste of what happened there.

There’s an old theological riddle that goes like this: If God has absolute foreknowledge, then how can there be free will? Put another way, if God, knowing all, knows how I will choose in a given situation, then how can I choose otherwise? The idea of absolute foreknowledge seems to preclude any option to choose otherwise, since doing so would make God wrong, and God can’t be wrong about these things if His alleged foreknowledge is absolute. This is really the classical problem of determinism vs. free will, which informs the most important developments of modern philosophy in the form of the search to understand causality—”causality” being another word for determinism, for causes operate mechanically and with necessity, such that each cause produces a unique effect, and cannot do otherwise. Theoretically, if one knew all of the elements that were wrapped into the first cause—say, the Big Bang—then one could predict with certainty every development that has followed, from the formation of the stars to the color shirt one will pick out to wear next Thursday.

This may explain why many of us are so turned off by the idea of fate: we equate fate with determinism, and it seems to obliterate any freedom of the will. This is, however, a simplistic notion of fate that misses what’s beautiful about it. In the fate model, we hold that free will and fate are complementary. Rather than being at war with each other, they operate hand in hand, such that the choices we make become the instruments through which our fate is cast and, at some point, sealed. One of the implications of this collaboration is that the idea of absolute foreknowledge goes out the window, or at least the “absolute” part does, for there is a larger sense in which our choices are more or less predictable, especially on the path of hubris. To illustrate: Suppose one is driving along on the highway, and suddenly notices another car speeding up until it is directly behind and far too close for safety. Perhaps the tailgater is in a hurry due to some emergency; then again, maybe it’s just a case of surging testosterone that, having nowhere to go for the moment, finds an outlet in the gas pedal. Now, if one asserts oneself against this unsafe situation, one might speed up to create some distance, at which point, let’s say, the car behind accelerates to close up the distance. This is an apt metaphor capturing what often happens when we attempt to solve a problem through our will—namely, we find conditions matching our willfulness move for move. Now, let’s say that the driver in the lead car knows about fate practice, and opts to take the path of willingness. Accepting the situation for what it is, meeting it in willingness, he recognizes that he has the power to change the status quo simply by slowing down and pulling over so the car behind him can the right of way and pass him safely. Where willfulness will fail or even backfire, he knows, willingness will save the day. As he slows down, the car behind closes even more, and so on, but before our fate practitioner can pull over, the driver behind him, frustrated by having to slow down, swerves around him and off, down the endless road, and the danger that willfulness would have escalated has been nicely neutralized by a moment of non-resistance.

What does this have to do with determinism—that theory defined by the unyielding and mechanistic operation of causal law? Well, if the scenario had gone in the direction of tragedy, which is to say if our driver had not taken the path of willingness, then the movements of the cars would have become far more predictable. A divine being looking down on the situation, could have predicted with a high probability of accuracy what would happen next. Now, that same divine being also could predict the events as they would unfold given the lead driver’s opting for humility. In other words, from a point of view once removed, it would be more or less predictable that the driver in the car behind would pull out and zoom ahead once the lead car began to slow down. Each scenario is predictable in its own terms, but what isn’t predictable, what isn’t determined, and what even a divine being could not predict with absolute certainty, is which path the lead driver would take, for this is a matter of character, and character, to a point, is freely chosen. The gods may see where we are headed, but even they are bound by our power, at any moment, to make a better choice, to release our will and bow, to abandon the lesser for the greater. In this way, determinism operates, but we are free to set into motion a new set of causes at any time, and this power we have to choose is what determines our fate.

The more excellently we live, the less predictable we become, even to ourselves, and the more capable of creative and surprising expressions and responses. It is not easy to give up willfulness. We may run into its walls many, many times and still cling stubbornly to its directives. We may even persist in its ways long after we understand, in principle, that willingness is the better choice, and we may become self-critical when we see ourselves giving in again and again to what we know falls far short of the best in us. At such times, perhaps we can find comfort in the idea that willfulness is an ancient calling; its circuitry runs deep in the old brain, and it takes some time to outgrow its credibility. But in a real sense, and paradoxically with the fate model, we are in the driver’s seat of our fate, for our life is not the effect of some cause set into motion 20 billion years ago, but more than anything else, the effect of our character, and the choices we make in how we show up.

Technorati Tags:Fate Project, Fate, Greeks, Philosophy, Socrates

For more than two months now we have been cooperating with Arizona authorities to help determine the cause of the tragic Sedona sweat lodge accident. We have worked to facilitate interviews involving the James Ray International employees and the authorities, and my representatives have also conducted a large number of interviews and collected a great deal of other information on their own. As this work continues now into the New Year, I believe it is time to share with you the information – two White Papers, along with supporting materials -- that my representatives have shared with Arizona authorities.

• White Paper No. 1


• White Paper No. 2

As always, we appreciate all the support that we’ve all received during this difficult situation and time.

Much love and respect,


James Arthur Ray
President/CEO
James Ray International, Inc.

On 19 October of last year, my father ended 94 years of life in this world and went on to the next. Then, a week ago, Jesse, the 32-year old daughter of a lifelong friend of mine, died after a protracted and gracefully courageous fight with cancer.

Have you known times when death seemed to be showing up more than usual—perhaps times when you yourself felt the raven’s wing passing over you in a sudden reminder of mortality? Such moments make clear that, despite our busyness and the countless things we take for granted in the normal conduct of our daily affairs, we are not in charge here, and as my friend David Bole, a Buddhist monk and gifted Chinese medical practitioner puts it, we never know which will come first, death or dinner.

There is an immediate creature reaction to the idea of death and departure from this life, a reaction marked by constriction and resistance, and of course, nothing could be more understandable. However difficult our life may be or become, something in us holds to it with unconditional loyalty, as though we know that, underneath it all, life is, as Neil Simon writes, “the best thing they’ve come up with.” Socrates tells us that, insofar as death is a mystery, in truth we don’t know enough to fear it, and he notes that it may be the greatest good that can happen to us (Phaedo). Even so, precisely because whatever life awaits us on the other side of the doorway of death is a mystery, our earthly life, here and now, is the one we know, and something in us, recognizing how precious it is, prompts us to cling to it at all costs.

One of the things that we learn along the way is that there is a time to let go of things. My family could not hold onto my father a minute longer than his allotted time. Jesse, so gentle and genuine and full of future took her leave of us at the appointed hour, leaving us shaking our heads and reminding ourselves that what sustained her each moment of her brief life here is no less up to the task now, and that there is nothing any more improbable about an afterlife than a life at all. We are not in charge; we did not create ourselves or the world—but something did. That something is beyond figuring out, but it is with us constantly, measuring our days. Simply pondering this simple truth can be enough to place our feet on the path of humility.

Yesterday, I learned that rescuers in Haiti, digging through the unyielding rubble of a collapsed building, found a 99-year-old woman beside an 18-month-old baby, both alive; apparently a section of the collapsed structure had lodged above them, protecting them from the falling concrete that otherwise would have crushed them. The image is startling—one so old beside one so young, both protected through a series of chaotic details from certain death, and why one person lives and another dies, why one is given nearly a hundred years while another is gone in a third as many, why this one succumbs while another overcomes—these are questions before which we can only bow, trusting that whatever arranged for our brief stay here “has us in its hands,” as Rilke writes, and appearances notwithstanding, “will not let us fall.”

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It was fifteen years ago that a book I wrote, The Sunset Grill Chronicles, came out in hardback, and I’m pleased that the title is now available as an ebook in our Online Store. The premise of the work is simple—that truthful conversation between friends could be as revealing and as healing as cognitive therapy. The idea did not sit well with some therapists, you can imagine, but the fact is there are many forms of psychotherapy based on the principle that the truth sets us free, including logotherapy, reframing techniques, and reevaluation counseling to name a few. Indeed, breakthroughs occur in therapy when the client acknowledges some previously hidden or denied truth and accepts his or her share of responsibility for it. This is why it’s so important for the client to trust the therapist, and it is foregone understanding that no progress can be made until and unless the client is willing to be candid, even about difficult matters. In this sense, therapy seeks to contrive a sort of functional friendship, or at least friendliness as a necessary precondition of change for the better. My book was simply eliminating the middleman on the grounds that this spirit of friendliness and trust, supported by the willingness to be truthful coupled with someone else’s willingness to listen and respond honestly, held more of the healing power that moves through a psychotherapy session than the therapist’s formal training or experience. This practice of dialogue entered into with the aim of getting at the truth that sets free also shows up in the various Twelve-Step programs, where those struggling with addiction, considered a “disease of the will,” are encouraged to “talk to each other” and to “reason things out.” Fascinatingly from the point of view of the fate model, this practice is regarded as a powerful way to return to humility, which protects one from the destructive effects of wilfulness. As noted often in these posts, each point of practice comprises the others, and we can take part in dialogue only to the extent that we are willing to show up for and in the conversation, diligently examine and plainly state our true thoughts and feelings and listen mindfully when it is our turn to listen, and stay innocently open to the influence of some previously hidden or denied truth. As long as one is willing to bring these things, it isn’t hard to discover the transforming power of sitting down with a kindred spirit and taking up what Socrates called “the examined life.” Certainly, one has to sit down with the right person, which means someone similarly committed to the points of practice. Given this, however, the results can be life-changing, and can bring to light a new and better direction in an hour that months of therapy might miss. Technorati Tags:Fate Project, Fate, Greeks, Philosophy, Socrates

Welcome back to Musings, and happy 2010 to all.

This is, of course, that time of year when, charged with the sense of a fresh start, we declare our intentions to be better people in the form of resolutions. It is a new year, and we will shed those unwanted pounds, or finally quit smoking, or take some long neglected creative project down from the closet shelf where it collected dust all year, and so on. This is all well and good, this annual taking stock and rededication to excellence in whatever form speaks to us. Yet all too often, in these declarations, we forget that it is not through our will that excellence is wrought in our lives, but through a collaboration with the forces of chaos, forces that are not subject to our will but move through our lives nonetheless, shaping and determining outcomes.

One of the many ways that this autonomy of the gods makes itself known is through the fickleness of our will. We may resolve that we will start getting up at six in the morning to begin a new exercise regimen, and when we go to bed the night before, our will is fully on board with the project. Somehow, though, during the night while we lay sleeping, the temperature outside suddenly dropped. Perhaps we failed to adjust the heater, and at six o’clock, the room is so much colder than we had expected. The alarm goes off to call us to action, but now our will has changed. Our resolve now is to stay in bed another half hour, under the warm covers. We can always start exercising tomorrow, and so on. This is just one example of how what we call our will actually comprises many wills, often conflicting and subject to the whims of changing conditions. What we write on the tablet of our life with resolve one moment we cross out just as resolutely in the next.

I am not saying that our will is always fickle in this way, only that it is always subject to the greater will of the gods, such that in those cases where our resolve succeeds, it is, in a way that is rarely acknowledged, because the gods saw fit to spare us conditions in the face of which our will would have been overtaken by a contrary resolve. We are by our nature subject to changes of heart. In other words, it is less that we see our resolve through to victory than that victory is granted by the gods. The power of our will lies not in itself, but in grace, in the cooperation of forces that move with a will of their own beyond anything we can see or anticipate let alone control.

Does this mean that we shouldn’t make new year’s resolutions, that doing so is hubris? No. Setting out in what we know are better directions can be an expression of diligence. On the path of humility, however, we will not forget that the success of our resolutions depends not on our will but on the gods, and in this remembering, our resolutions take on the nature of a request. They become softer, a little less strident, as we allow them to be informed by our willingness. To be willing to be better, knowing that we live each moment by the grace of something greater, something mysterious, something that does not consult us in the unfolding of outcomes—this has little to do with the making of resolutions as it usually is understood, and it is the difference between these two that explains why so many resolutions come to nothing. The man or woman walking the path of humility understands that, while our failures are our own, our victories come as gifts before which we can only bow in gratitude.

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