Cassiopaean Sandbox
Romantic Fiction, Reality Shaping and The Work
Thread starter Laura
iamthatis
The Living Force
FOTCM Member
On the theme of historical accuracy, I was just listening to the Corbett Report video The Markets are Rigged. Apparently Nathan Rothschild managed to get early news of Wellington's victory at Waterloo, and made bank on it. It struck me that there was a living, breathing Rothschild prowling around London in the same time period of many of these novels. Sure will be something to see his forebears challenged to a duel by some honourable interplanetary bodies.
This modern era of central bank-dominated markets, however, is only the latest version of a game that is as old as the markets themselves. At base it’s a con game where the rich and powerful employ a raft of confidence men to lure suckers into the latest market mania. In this game, the “suckers” are the general public who are left holding the bag as the market bubble bursts while the “smart money” swoops in to buy up the leftover assets at pennies on the dollar.
The game was being played as far back as 1814, when a uniformed man posing as the aide-de-camp of Lord Cathcart landed in Dover spreading the false rumour that Napoleon had been killed by a detachment of Cossacks. When the rumours reached London later that day, three men dressed up as French officers in white Bourbon cockades were parading across Blackfriars bridge proclaiming the end of the Napoleonic empire and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. By the time the British government officially dispelled the rumour later that afternoon, an elaborate fraud had already played out in the London stock markets. The rumour had kicked off a buying frenzy and the perpetrators of what is now known as The Great Fraud of Cowley—the ones who had started the rumours and hired the actors to help spread them—had already sold 1.1 million pounds worth of government stock into the market peak.
Another bit of market manipulation centering around Napoleon’s military fortunes played out again the next year, in 1815. Nathan Rothschild of the infamous Rothschild banking dynasty used the smuggling network that he and his brothers had built to funnel gold and silver to Wellington’s army to get news of Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo back to London 24 hours before the official word reached the British government. Although a fancified version of the story involving homing pigeons and Nathan’s acting abilities at the stock exchange are easily dismissed as anti-Semitic slurs by the mainstream press, even the official Rothschild Archive treatment of the incident admits that Nathan Rothschild did receive early warning of Wellington’s victory and he did profit from that foreknowledge in the stock market. Historian Niall Ferguson has written on the subject in detail in his authorized biography of the Rothschilds and even the BBC published a story in 1998 outlining how the conspiracy functioned and how the brothers communicated in secret by writing their letters in the Judendeutsch script they had learned in their childhood in the Frankfurt Jewish ghetto.
The stock market con game isn’t just an historical relic, though. Those with advance knowledge of world events continue to profit from their insider information, sometimes in the most macabre way imaginable.
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I would like to relate something that happened while I was reading Kerrigan Byrne's The Highwayman on the train yesterday. Just when I was reading how badly the main character treated his wife during sex a man sitting directly behind me hit his seat very hard. I was already keeping my ears open while reading because he had been making some noises which I thought were odd. I was travelling via Amsterdam where there had been some stabbings and shootings in recent days, so I was alert.
I turned to look at him, his face was contorted and he had his eyes closed, and although I felt slightly apprehensive, I decided to get up and find the train conductor to whom I reported the incident. The train conductor didn't look very happy himself and gave me the impression that he didn't want to know , but he did remove the passenger from his seat who then said: I am not going to prison!
Afterwards the railway employee thanked me for sharing and explained that the passenger in question was in pain, but couldn't get any help for his issues. After talking to this passenger both seemed transformed in a way, apparently, the passenger was on his best behaviour afterwards and the train conductor acted in a decisive, but humane manner. I was impressed. I thought it was pretty cool that he reported back to me, I thanked him for his efforts and when I got off the train he was singing!
So, perhaps this particular romance novel showed me how to act with compassion (I could clearly feel compassion for this passenger), and take care of myself at the same time. I don't know, just wanted to throw it out here.
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nicklebleu
I had a bit of an epiphany yesterday, although I feel I struggle a bit explaining it. So this may sound a bit confused ...
It relates to commitment vs love. In my view the two were directly connected. But I have realized that this is not so, or rather not in the way I thought they were. In fact I never had much problems to commit to a relationship, once I had made the decision to enter into one. Commitment as in “let’s make it work”, ”you are my prime interest around which I organize my life”, emotional support etc. However, I may have been ‘in love’ with my partner, but to truly let myself love her (and to express it this way) was an entirely different kettle of fish. I was always holding something back, keeping myself veiled, so as to not bring myself into a position, where I would say “I love you” and the other then might reject me. So out of fear from rejection, I would just always keep a foot outside the door, so that when things became difficult, I could shift my weight onto this foot and getting ready to run.
The funny thing in all this is, that in many instances it was the woman who broke up - and in one of those I was totally devastated. Today I could well imagine, that maybe part of the ‘disenchantment’ from the side of my partner might well have been not letting my feelings of love flow freely, to not ‘open up’ - to just be me, and not to try to ’please’ or appease the partner, and to give her what I (double-capital I) thought she needed.
And in this respect, maybe love IS commitment, just another commitment, one that I previously hadn’t thought about - the commitment of “well, I love you, this is how I feel, and I am truly committed to this feeling, whether or not you feel the same, whether or not you reciprocate”. But to do this, one must feel that I am fundamentally lovable, and I didn’t really feel that this could be the case. Like in so many of the romance novels I have read in the last few months, one - and sometimes both simultaneously - feel that no-one in their right mind could possibly love them the way they are.
And in those relationship were the woman broke up, I actually did say “But I love you!”, but it seems to me that this was more like a ‘puppy love’, a dependency, a feeling rising out of the imminent loss, not a mature feeling of love towards a person, that in a sense is almost disconnected from her reaction to it.
And that would also have meant to let her go, if she was not prepared to share my feelings, even if it hurts - not whining like a puppy, but with grace.
I wonder if Mia Ryan might be a candidate for The List.
I am currently reading Lady Whisteldown Strikes Back, Mia Ryan being one of the authors of a chapter. Her story is pretty darn delightful so far - she has wit, humour, and tenderness to rival Anne Gracie.
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Adaryn
Laura said:
Re: the item in bold above: this appears to be more of an issue that I at first suspected. I would have thought that, in this day and time of extreme sexual "freedom", that what people needed was more a way to rein in and parameterize their physical relationships; to find a way of inhibiting what had been given too much freedom.
The above might apply to regular readers outside this forum. I don't think it applies to serious members of this forum, I mean those who take the material studied and discussed here seriously.
It seems to me (even before reading what has been shared on this thread) that a lot of members (even younger members) tend toward a more conservative mindset particularly when it comes to sexuality, so I don't think they'd need much reining in, if any.
Even older members who were taken in by the sexual revolution ideology in their youth have probably been disillusioned and realized a long time ago that too much sexual freedom was not a good thing.
And having experienced sexual freedom or having some experience in the matter (for ie, having had a string of relationships) doesn't mean one has any idea what a truly bonding and healthy relationship is.
From reading all the material on psychology, psychopathy, characteropathy, toxic relationships and all those traps (including love bite situations) people here would be extremely cautious and aware of the dangers of sex outside a committed long-term relationship, especially knowing how the exchange of energies during such interactions, if it's done with the "wrong" person, can affect one pretty severely and mess up with one's own energies for a long time.
Add to this the abuse and trauma a lot of people underwent as children, teens or even later, and it makes sense that many would tend towards an almost Victorian morality out of self-protection and fear, and be at first repelled or nonplussed by such scenes as we see in the books. They don't truly Know (they might know intellectually that it is possible, but they don't Know in terms of experiencing it) that it can be done out of love and concern for the well being of another.
Now, I had hesitated to bring up this next particular series because there are parts of it that are so dark that I worried about real triggering if a person had been abused, but maybe that is something that can be built up to? In the story of James and Madeline, there was psychological abuse that led to very confused physical expressions, but in the series I'm about to mention, there is definite, institutionalized abuse of a very horrific kind. And yet, despite the darkness, the characters manage to emerge with the help of a bearer of light. The stories are complex plots, more like action/adventure tales, and really engaging. But, the sexual scenes might be triggering because they describe persons who have been sexually abused as children finding their way toward more normal relationships. In some cases it is actually painful to read their struggles in this regard.
I believe a lot of people, even if they didn't experience 'full blown' or long term sexual abuse in this life, have some trauma/fear surrounding physical intimacy. It seems to me that it's quite common. It's not because people are seemingly sexually liberated that they don't have issues with intimacy and that it's something they enjoy doing (even if they pretend they do), in a "let's all make love it's fun and natural" hedonistic kind of way. A lot of people are highly inhibited/repressed and try to cope with trauma or fear (which sometimes are passed down by their ancestors) by being promiscuous, as shown by studies. I was reading this account from one of the 60's 'sex drugs and rock'n'roll' icon, Marianne Faithfull (whose mother and grandmother were raped by Red Army soldiers during WWII). It's a case in point.
So far I haven't read a novel where one or the two protagonists have serious hangups wrt physical intimacy or where sexual trauma/abuse is dealt with realistically (for ie, I found Balogh's treatment of rape and its repercussions in Indiscreet eye-rolling and lame); so I've put Byrne's series on my reading list.
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Redrock12
Adaryn said:
Very insightful post @Adaryn. Yeah, I lived through that whole era with its free love and hedonistic lifestyle. In retrospect, my most meaningful relationships were with women where, for lack of a better term, could almost be considered platonic, and if I would have had my head screwed on straighter, a couple had the potential of being a healthy permanent relationship. The one-night stands usually left me feeling dirty the next day and never wanting to see her again. And, there was the one that resulted in a pregnancy followed by an unwanted marriage, with it's disastrous consequences.
I happen to have Indiscreet on my end table, so I'll give it a read.
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Jedi Council Member
I think "Victorian morality" is the realization one comes to when one observes that there is a lot of sex out there and none of it is worth anything, even having a negative value in a lot of cases. Acknowledgement of this fact does not make the urges go away, and can actually make them worse, and can be likened to an alcoholic who realizes he has a problem but his entire life is structured around getting that next drink, even if it leaves him penniless. Those who have studied some neuroscience and psychology of addiction arrive at the conclusion that this aspect of the machine is useless and must be short-circuited in order to keep one's life "on track." Why allow yourself to long for something that is merely a poison? If disruption of sexual complementarity and harmonization between humans so that they can't access a higher level of creative existence was a plan of 4D STS, I'd say it's been a resounding success.
The novels can be quite arousing and threaten to undo the work one has put in to overcome one's "alcoholism," and I've held the opinion for quite a while now that if you came here to experience love and elope with your soul mate you came to the wrong planet. This planet is a meat grinder and if you're clever enough to run the gauntlet and avoid getting shredded then you may get something out of it. Romantic love is not really part of the package; it doesn't exist here or is a luxury few can afford. While I think everyone should read a sampling of the novels and it's fun to dream of what may await in the next world in moderation, I found myself getting too "into" the sex scenes after being able to initially fight them off. I started looking at women differently; instead of being immediately dismissive of their sexual features, my gaze would linger. I was being put into a mate-seeking mode led by my sexual instincts, hoping I would stumble across my lady fair who saves me like they save the emotionally unavailable men who appear in the beginning of some of these stories. After a certain number of repetitions of this process I decided that "none of that is real" and my mind has kind of switched off from the whole project. While there were some stirrings within me on a couple of occasions, I've never really loved anyone and I don't expect that to change.
Nonetheless, I can't quite go back to the way I was, something has shifted in me which makes me a bit more amenable to experimentation, however I anticipate that to blow up in my face and remind me why I went "Victorian" in the first place if and when it occurs.
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mkrnhr
I think the "sex scenes" in these novels shouldn't be viewed as sex scenes divorced from the context of the romantic relationship and love of which they are part and expression of. That would be missing the big picture so to speak. It also doesn't matter if such things do happen to some in this lifetime, maybe and maybe not. If we can become at a deep level what these "romance fiction" convey and verbalize, that's the new reality that we would be shaping because reality is us and we bring it with us so to speak, not something external out there to go to. OSIT.
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Neil said:
I've never really loved anyone and I don't expect that to change.
This statement, is it only “romantic” love you’re referring to? Or love in general? Have you ever truly loved another? May be a parent, sibling, friend or any other person other than a partner.
I’ve learned that love is multi-faceted, comes in different flavors and appears in different disguises. However at its core it’s essentially all the same. You’ll know it by it’s “expansive” feeling.
I grew up in an environment devoid of love. Both of my parents aren’t bad people but they’re both incredibly broken. They were obsessed with their own selves to the point that I was invisible. Being a little weirdo didn’t help as I was rejected by others too. As a child I clearly didn’t understand any of this. I still loved them but without the returning love my ability to know what love truly entails was stunted. I didn’t know how to recognize it or how to nurture it.
Then something amazing happened. On a whim I left the whole world I knew, my studies in science, my family and moved to Taiwan to teach. Everyone thought I was crazy. I had never had an interest in children but I just needed to get away from an incredibly unfulfilling reality. I embarked on the adventure of a lifetime, not because of the travel but the journey of learning who I was and learning to love. I have so many students who come from troubled homes, just like me. It’s actually very rare to come across a child who is balanced and truly loved. I had to learn patience, how to really listen and sacrifice, of my time and energy. I learned to give without expecting something in return. In truth I learned about love. I love these children even though they’re not mine. Once I tapped into this love that was always within me but I’d kept hidden my entire teaching experience changed. In truth I had changed.
This revelation affected my relationship with my mum. As a young adult I became aware of her as manipulative, I realized how her drug and alcohol addiction had affected me. So I rejected her, I put in place strict boundaries and I felt really angry. Then in my thirties I started to do a lot of inner work and realized that no one is perfect, we are all broken to a degree by our parents/society and they too are “victims” of this. I had the most amazing epiphany about my mum and I saw her in an entire new light. Compassion flooded into me and my chest expanded with unconditional love, stronger than any love I’ve ever felt. Now any time I think of her I feel this love and cherish it. I have yet to experience this with my father, which is more complicated but I endeavor to work on it.
Then with my partner, I feel love. However the definition of it has changed. It’s an ever evolving experience. He keeps his emotions quite close to his chest, his love language isn’t verbal. Which has caused us a lot of problems but we’re always trying to work things out. There are lessons for each of us in this relationship. It’s not straight out of a romance novel but it’s something that could evolve closer to one through work. I’ve experienced glimpses from the romance novels. Neither of us have ever been overly sexual but when it does happen, 90% has been similar to a scene from a romance novel. So I personally don’t think those scenes are completely ridiculous. To us sex isn’t the core of our relationship, partnership is. When sex does happen it’s become more intense overtime. It’s really not just a physical pleasure seeking experience, which in of itself is great but there is something else happening and for me can be really overwhelming, like there is “too much” internal energy that I can’t control and I become incredibly emotional. Difficult to explain. Hopefully this wasn’t too much info.
So back to the origin of this reply. If I hadn’t taken the plunge into an unknown adventure I’d probably never learned what love is. Growing your “being” takes courage, embracing love takes courage.
Love can manifest through anyone, not just a sexual partner.
Love can be experienced through truly understanding what compassion, patience, gratitude, acceptance, trust is and many more. All of these are love in a different manifestation. Learning about these manifestations of love takes practice, like exercising a muscle. We live in a STS reality, we’ve been programmed to do the opposite, to restrict these manifestations of love. Your being can not develop if they’re restricted, meaning your capacity for knowledge will be restricted and possible access to higher states of being/density.
How can one possibly expect to skip these lessons and still graduate?
Maybe for many people sexual/physical love is the gateway to learning about love. There is nothing morally wrong with learning about love through a balanced sexual relationship. There is nothing morally wrong about sex. If one thinks this then there is something more to learn about oneself, what caused this distortion to manifest?
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hlat
You sound like you're afraid of getting hurt in the process of finding love.
For the characters, they didn't get happily ever after on page 1. They had to put in a lot of work on themselves, and try to do the right thing for the other person. Are you willing to put in the work on yourself, instead of shutting off the possibility of love for yourself and most other people? Isn't your attitude somewhat arrogant and egotistical, to determine in advance for other people that romantic love is not part of the package? There are forum members who have found romantic love right now, so it's not impossible or a fairytale from a long time ago in a far away land. It's already reality for some, and maybe this can help make it a reality for more.
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Mililea
After a certain number of repetitions of this process I decided that "none of that is real" and my mind has kind of switched off from the whole project. While there were some stirrings within me on a couple of occasions, I've never really loved anyone and I don't expect that to change.
When I read your lines, I was a little sad, because experiencing love can also be really beautiful. And as some have mentioned, there can be a real union during sex in the context of love. I think you just can't compare it 1:1 with our romance novels. The time in which the protagonists lived was simply a completely different one. Who would get married so quickly today? And with so many arranged marriages, it was just something very, very special if you had the privilege / luck to love your partner as well. I don't think there's anything wrong with sex, as long as it's about giving. Don't give up and keep reading, maybe you'll figure out where it comes from that you don't believe in love. I had many failed attempts, but without them I would not be the person I am today. Trust me, it IS worth it.
Your post made me think of this little story:
The perfect heart ♥️
One day a young man stood in the middle of town and declared that he had the most beautiful heart in the whole valley. A large crowd gathered and they all admired his heart because it was perfect. There was not a spot or flaw in it. Yes, they all agreed with him, it really was the most beautiful heart they had ever seen. The young man was very proud and bragged even louder about his beautiful heart.
Suddenly, an old man appeared in front of the crowd and said, "Well, your heart is not nearly as beautiful as mine." The crowd and the young man looked at the old man's heart.
It was beating strong, but it was full of scars, it had places where pieces had been removed and replaced with others. But they didn't fit properly and there were some frayed corners...To be exact, in some places there were deep furrows where whole pieces were missing. People stared at him and thought: How can he say his heart is more beautiful?
The young man looked at the old man's heart, saw its condition and laughed: "You must be joking," he said, "comparing your heart with mine. Mine is perfect and yours is a mess of scars and tears."
"Yes," said the old man, "yours looks perfect, but I would never trade places with you. Each scar represents a person to whom I have given my love. I tear out a piece of my heart and hand it to them, and often they give me a piece of their heart that fits into the empty space in my heart. But because the pieces don't fit exactly, I have some rough edges that I cherish because they remind me of the love we shared. Sometimes I have also given a piece of my heart without the other person giving me back a piece of their heart. These are the empty furrows. Giving love sometimes means taking a risk. Even though these furrows are painful, they remain open and they too remind me of the love I have for these people. I hope that one day they will return and fill the space. Do you now realize what true beauty is?"
The young man stood silently with tears streaming down his cheeks.
He walked up to the old man, reached for his perfect young and beautiful heart, and tore out a piece. He offered it to the old man with trembling hands. The old man accepted the offer, placed it in his heart. He then took a piece of his old scarred heart and filled the wound in the young man's heart with it. It was not a perfect fit as it had some frayed edges.
The young man looked at his heart, no longer perfect, but more beautiful than ever, as he felt the old man's love flow into his heart. They embraced and walked away, side by side.
Yes, and I think we should be careful too with glorifying the "victorian morality" too much. The thing is, such a morality can protect us from making stupid mistakes, but it can also make us hurt or even traumatize others, make us reject the perfect match once he/she shows up, or end otherwise good, committed relationships.
Perhaps it helps thinking about it in terms of Paul's/Ashworth's idea of "the Law" as a childminder: a "victorian morality" keeps one safe to some degree, and sadly, even that childminder is almost entirely missing these days. But a childminder can only do so much, because:
1) People will rebel against it eventually or lapse, no matter how zealous they are, and/or
2) Again, will apply "the Law" wrongly and in the wrong situations, causing harm to others
As we know, each situation is different, and almost no rules are entirely accurate for all situations. And this applies to sex as well. At some point, we should develop enough "inner light" to judge in each situation if/how we should engage in romantic/sexual relationships. Until that happens, our best bet IMO is to not rush things and talk to people we trust about it to get feedback, i.e. networking.
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Prolly be a good exercise to keep lust on a leash - but there isn't really any will developed unless it's triggered. I'm thinking along the lines of Castaneda's idea of finding a petty tyrant. I reckon a tyrant can be one's own drives and not something or someone external to self. Thing is that even though the topic in question is romantic love, there are examples in the stories where characters abandoned themselves to lust but timing and context were important. Lust doesn't always have to be a bad thing esp. if both partners are OK with it as some examples have shown and of no detriment to the relationship. A whole different matter than either buffering or avoiding the triggers instead of working with the internal friction of keeping a leash on it while being triggered and developing the will to choose how to act in the heat of the moment rather than mostly being totally mechanical, helpless and at the whim of the drive.
Jones said:
Prolly be a good exercise to keep lust on a leash
This statement, are you referring to someone who is single or to those in a committed loving relationship?
Also is it possible to confuse what you feel as “lust” but in truth it’s passion? Or are they both “bad”?
Surely if two people are in a committed loving relationship then it isn’t necessary to put “passion” on a leash.
Maybe I don’t really know the difference between lust and passion. I don’t percieve passion for my love as something that needs to be “leashed”.
Though I do understand if you’re referring to someone who is single, I can see how lust could lead to problems. I’ve never personally felt “lust” when I was single so maybe this is why I feel confused about this statement.
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There are nuances in the definitions of lust and passion that distinguish one from the other.
Edited to add: I'm on my phone at the moment and accidently hit reply before I was finished.
Basically lust is more STS than passion and is more about pleasure for the self is how I'm reading it. There are examples in the novels where characters do lose awareness of their partners and where the sex is more one sided. However there's usually a baxk story to it and the other partner is aware and accepting of it at the time. Though lust is not the usual pattern of their sexual relationship. I hope I'm making sense!
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