POWER IS A DRUG

More than a hundred years ago historian Baron John Acton coined the phrase “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The feeling of power has a similar effect on the brain to cocaine by increasing the levels of testosterone and its by-product 3-androstanediol in both men and women. This in turn works on the brain’s reward circuits by raising levels of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens, which can be very addictive. Cocaine acts in a similar way, which can have varied effects from increasing alertness, confidence, energy, sense of well-being and euphoria. Power has almost identical effects to cocaine and too much of it can produce excess dopamine leading to more negative effects such as arrogance, impatience, anxiety, paranoia, restlessness and the drive to achieve dominance through competitive exclusion.

Animals low down in the dominance scale have lower levels of dopamine in key brain areas, but if they are promoted to a higher position, then their dopamine levels rise accordingly. This makes them more aggressive, sexually assertive, and power hungry. On the other hand demotion in a hierarchy lowers dopamine levels, increases stress hormones and reduces cognitive function. Being pumped up on a power high makes people more alert and smarter because dopamine improves the functioning of the frontal lobes. Power addiction, or sadomasochism  (submissiveness and dominance) has similar effects on same reward circuits of the brain as cocaine. Thus just like drugs we can build up a tolerance to power, which can easily lead to an escalation of power addiction. This may account for the outlandish behavior of certain petty tyrants and politicians. And when power addicts gang up together and feed each other’s self-aggrandizement and power-lust all hell can break loose, especially if they are exploiting the little guy to support their habit, and if there are no curbs on their bullying and buffoonery.

The Borg is presovereign, Hindbrain, hivemind, The Machine, Master/Slave. It is the preilluminated, preinitiated pupal human that is killing the planet and collapsing the purity of the evolutionary force. It is a delusion and a fabrication, because the whole HUman is already here although grossly repressed and retarded by the process of de-evolution associated with institutionalized mental defectiveness or denial of Spirit. No matter how much I write on it, it will always be misunderstood, because it is a "perspective" effect, found mostly in the beginning through neti neti...this is not it, this is not it. For we don’t know Spirit until we experience alchemical transformation through kundalini awakening. That is, suffering shows us where the Golden Rule of sovereignty for all is not being upheld. Simply avoiding choice is not self-determination. The transpersonal stages extend from the time of spiritual alchemical awakening—that is, from the time at which spirituality awakens as the primary dimension of life and is always implicit in life.

The sovereign realizer uses empowerment (cosmic connection) for the good of all. The presovereign uses power against the self or others in an attempt to gain comfort, security or advantage. Thus the presovereign's form of power is in fact powerlessness no matter how overblown its appearance. Using the dopamine circuits for the gnostic or Muse directed vocation is what Barbara Marx Hubbard called Suprasex. This is the ultimate exaltation and redemption of a human life, but few reach it because they settle for the more base forms of power-lust associated with Maslow's primary needs. In the sovereignty series we study dopamine and how to expedite the prefrontal lobes, so we can overcome the short-circuiting and rise to the realization of our true life's work and the self-actualization of our unique being.

The old mammalian brain, or limbic system, is concerned with emotions and instincts, feeding, fighting, fleeing, and sexual behaviour.  As the "triune brain theory" originator Paul MacLean observes, the emotional system is rigged to find everything either "agreeable or disagreeable."  Survival depends on avoidance of pain and repetition of pleasure, guided by various emotions (fear, joy, rage, pleasure and pain etc) that stimulate behavioral responses to salient phenomena. The limbic system helps to determine the valence (feeling) and salience (validity, attention) of experience, as well as unpredictability and creative behaviour. MacLean proposed that dogmatism, superstition and paranoia are to be found in the Limbic system along with the tendency of thinking to be subordinate to feeling, and to rationalize drives and desires.  Thus the primal mammalian brain of the limbic system tends to hijack the pilot seat of our value judgements, instead of the more advanced, rational neocortex which is "the mother of invention and father of abstract thought."  The emotional brain decides whether our higher brain has a "good" idea or not, and whether it feels true and right or worthy of attention.

Power-with is relationship consciously directed by the neocortex, while power-over (sado) or power-under (masochistic) are instigated primarily by the limbic system, and the neocortical intelligence is subsumed into the service of the old mammalian brain. In general this more primitive relationship to power is the standard operating mode in our current species evolution. And it will continue to be so until the Golden Rule, love and sovereignty are the guiding principles of HUman life. Because they have not consciously arisen (disembedded) from the old mammalian brain circuits presovereigns are unconsciously still involved in power manipulation, either by power-over (sado) or power-under (masochistic) maneuvers. Ultimately power-over and power-under end up being powerless because they are not “power-with, or Phi.” This is why the Golden Rule, love and sovereignty are the guiding and protecting principles of HUman life.

The presovereign is infantile, and the sovereign is mature or aspiring to become mature. It depends how many brain circuits are in operation during any thought, emotion, act, deed or behavior. In dreams it is very easy to distinguish higher transpersonal dreams from the more mundane popcorn entertaining dreams. The difference between the Hind and the Fore is one of frequency vibration...one could even say "braids" of consciousness involved. It is virtually impossible to get someone to act or be from the higher modes if they have not been initiated and developed in those modes. Presovereign's default to the only power they know...manipulation, seduction, dependency, bribery, threat, exclusion, comparison, jealousy, ridicule and criticism. If you notice underlying whatever cocktail of power-abuse they use it is always a shaky, ill-defined personality, because Borg machinations are always the result of the lack of a sovereign core self. It is the caged prisoner in others that attempts to cage us as well. It is dangerous to want the acceptance or respect of a presovereign, for we must remain free from the vortex of their will no matter how flattering their overenthusiastic praise.

The evolutionary urge IS Eros or Amore, or Love...and so when relationship is engaged at the mere limbic brain and material level this tends to suspend growth and the relationship is addictive, codependent, unconscious, and focused on mutual infantile masturbation. Since the evolutionary urge, Eros, Amore, or Love is only realized at the transcendent sovereign level, we see that equity and sovereignty is essential to healthy human relationship...and indeed only HUmans are really capable of relationship in which the Golden Rule is realized. Once we reach the sound barrier to where mutual sovereignty becomes the great attractor force of society...we will finally pull away from being an eminently suicidal species. The evolutionary force cannot be denied without endless suffering and wasted lives. The joy of living a human life is the great quest to explore the depth of being HUman.

The I/Thou rift is fundamentally healed through spiritual empowerment and the moral adjustment from prefrontal lobe ignition that is the basis of adherence to the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule is synonymous with spirituality, thus it is obvious that whatever the religions of the world are engaged in it is not spirituality. Power-over and power-under is a failure to become fully human, and to be hanging out in the twilight zone of the centaur, half beast/half human. If we are able to make conscious and transcend our own dominant and submissive relationship to ourselves and truly love ourself into wholeness...only then are we empowered enough to love thy neighbor as thyself. Loving other as oneself is a "radiant" or sufficiency condition, while misuse of power arises from "sucking" or deficiency conditions of all types. An inferiority complex is underlying all drives for being top dog. While a superiority complex underlies all immobilizations for being bottom dog.

Other than mere random unpredictability, only spiritual initiation and development is truly transcendent of conditions through being able to hold-with the tension of opposites, ambiguity, not knowing and the ineffable complexity of reading and knowing our experience of the world. When the stress-factor and brute-power nature of the culture at large doesn't allow or permit the higher prefrontal lobe development of its citizens then we have conditions of spiritual retardation and misuse of power that perpetuate the primitive Borg culture for thousands of years...with the subtle mechanisms for dehumanization getting more and more insidious and malevolent as the centuries go by. The worst aspect of this unreality is the pandering, suppressing, demoralizing, lying, muzzling, enabling and compliance with the machinations of social decay...for it is the continuation of spiritual dishonesty that keeps us alienated from our soul and allows for the primitive delinquency and distress of Homo sapiens to precede unabated.

“Truthful, heartfelt communication is usually troubling and confusing to the presovereign other, who may react very badly and lash out. But this can be a chance for the other to open up to wisdom, usually not at that time, but perhaps later on. Avoidance or no wordly communication at all would actually be preferable to perpetuating the illusions of the presovereign via nice but non-truthful communication made in the interests of keeping the relationship "smoothed over" and comfortable. You might question in these cases if a true relationship has been realized at all. Certainly the prospective sovereign has regressed towards infantilism and disempowerment any time he or she compromises for such purposes. All the best rawfoods and spiritual practices in themselves are unlikely to compensate for engaging in such compromises habitually - they are more likely to merely mitigate ongoing damage somewhat.” Paul Reynolds

This is the problem with communication or coexistence between memes. How one uses power vs. empowerment is related to the stage of realization or development of the Spiral Dynamics. The lower down in the Spiral the more hostile and outlaw (or essentially childish) is one's use of power, because the self/other dichotomy is rigged at the animal level with either competing or exploiting (using). Obviously mere rivalry and utility is not going to make for a harmonious relationship as it is directly counter to sovereignty, creativity, autonomy, and higher executive functioning and decision making. That is the lower meme's use of power is dehumanizing. This is a problem in the real world, for you may find that most potential relationships and work places operate at the presovereign, disempowering meme levels. What this means is that to survive within the current culture is to submit to ongoing brain damage, heart damage, hormone deficiency and general wear and tear on body, mind and soul by stress damage. 

Having to establish a self-care practice that mitigates the damage done by the presovereign use of toxic power is a full time job in itself. Thus before we are swallowed whole by the Borg maelstrom, we must attempt to save our life by finding a means of livelihood in which primitive use of power is absent. That is we must truly grow up from our own dysfunctional childhood, AND the dysfunctional childhood of the culture at large in order to preserve our humanity and our health. Technological, genetic, behavioral, cultural "noise" creates an environmental dissonance from which pulling together a coherent mind, body and soul becomes virtually impossible. So basically we must fast from our past, and fast from the entirety of Borg culture in order to come back into organic-cosmic alignment enough to be true to our sovereign Self. If we are not true to our sovereign core, then we are forever off track and lost to the true meaning and purpose of our existence. Sovereignty is essential to thrival. Sovereign executive functioning is not only essential to thrival it is also the survival imperative of the human species. Without sovereignty we are not HUman.

“The more real you, get the more unreal the world gets.” ~ John Lennon

“WARNING: The Post-Larval Must Be Very Cautious in Communicating with Larval humans.” http://deoxy.org/8brains.htm

The Three Faces of the Mind: Developing Your Mental, Emotional, and Behavioural Intelligences, Elaine de Beauport.  www.motley-focus.com/crossing.html

David R. Hawkins, “Reality, Spirituality and Modern Man”

Robert Anton Wilson's "Prometheus Rising" 

Robert Greene's "The 48 Laws of Power"