Survival Groups

The Philosophy of the Survivalist Group
Awaken from the Sleep of Sheep.

Man, an unfinished creation. He is not fully Man, considered as a cosmically unique being whose intelligence and power of action mirror the energies of the source of life itself. On the contrary, man, as he is, is an automaton. Our thoughts, feelings, and deeds are little more than mechanical reactions to external and internal stimuli. In real terms, we cannot do anything. In and around us, everything “happens” without the participation of an authentic consciousness.

But human beings are ignorant of this state of affairs because of the pervasive and deeply internalized influence of media, culture and education, which engrave in us the illusion of autonomous conscious selves. In short, man is asleep. There is no authentic I am in his presence, but only a fractured egoism which masquerades as the authentic self, and whose machinations poorly imitate the normal human functions of thought, feeling, and will.

Many factors reinforce this sleep. Each of the reactions that proceed in one’s presence is accompanied by a deceptive sense of I—one of many I’s, each imagining itself to be the whole, and each buffered off from awareness of the others. Each of these many I’s represents a process whereby the subtle energy of consciousness is absorbed and degraded, a process that is termed “identification.”

Man identifies—that is, squanders his conscious energy, with every passing thought, impulse, and sensation. This state of affairs takes the form of a continuous self-deception and a continuous procession of egoistic emotions, such as anger, self-pity, sentimentality, and fear, which are of such a pervasively painful nature that we are constantly driven to ameliorate this condition through the endless pursuit of social recognition, sensory pleasure, or the vague and unrealizable goal of “happiness.”

There are a thousand things which prevent a man from awakening, which keep him in the power of his dreams. In order to act consciously with the intention of awakening, it is necessary to know the nature of the forces which keep man in a state of sleep.

First of all it must be realized that the sleep in which man exists is not normal but hypnotic sleep. Man is hypnotized and this hypnotic state is continually maintained and strengthened in him. One would think that there are forces for whom it is useful and profitable to keep man in a hypnotic state and prevent him from seeing the truth and understanding his position.

"There is an Eastern tale which speaks about a very rich magician who had a great many sheeple. But at the same time this tyrant was very mean. He did not want to hire shepherds, nor did he want to erect a fence about the pasture where his sheeple were grazing. The sheep consequently often wandered into the forest, fell into ravines, and so on, and above all they ran away, for they knew that the tyrant wanted their flesh and skins and this they did not like.

"At last the tyrant found a remedy. His media hypnotized his sheep and suggested to them first of all that they were immortal and that no harm was being done to them when they were skinned, that, on the contrary, it would be very good for them and even pleasant; secondly he suggested that the tyrant was a good master who loved his flock so much that he was ready to do anything in the world for them; and in the third place he suggested to them that if anything at all were going to happen to them it was not going to happen just then, at any rate not that day, and therefore they had no need to think about it.

Further the tyrant's media suggested to his sheep that they were not sheep at all; to some of them he suggested that they were lions, to others that they were eagles, to others that they were men, and to others that they were tyrants.

The tyrant's media taught them mental and physical masturbation utilizing imagery to "get off" into a world of dreams.

The tyrant's media taught them that there was a deserving master race, at the same time victim and tyrant, that the sheeple must fear and obey this dark master race as the tyrant's chosen people at the jeopardy of their freedom and lives.

"And after this all his cares and worries about the sheep came to an end. They never ran away again but quietly awaited the time when the tyrant would require their flesh and skins. "This tale is a very good illustration of man's position.

Alone an individual can do nothing.
Survival Groups are Life's Epitome

In survival group meetings students regularly come together to participate in a collective atmosphere that is meant to function as a principal means for the transformation of the individual state of consciousness. Although, with the help of more advanced survivalists, questions are shared and responded to in words, the fundamental support of the group is directed to the individual work of facing oneself and consciously recognizing one’s own inner lack of courage and self worth, until the appearance of a new quality of energy is possible. The more experienced survivalists, helping the group as part of their own search, strive to be sensitive not so much to the content of the exchange, but to the process of the developing energy and the mutual teaching that can take place under its influence. In their turn, more advanced survivalists just as urgently need to work in groups, and in this way a redefinition of the conventional image of the “leader” is inevitable. At each level of inner work, what has been understood must be individually and collectively re-examined and verified in the movement of a dynamic, living action, the action taken to survive and prevail.