Quest Magazine

Printed in the Fall 2014 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Boyd, Tim."President's Diary" Quest 102.4 (Fall 2014): pg. 154-155.

Here is an understatement for you: it has been a busy time since my last diary. Although it was just a few weeks ago (I'm writing this in mid-July), April seems a lifetime away. Toward the end of the month was the time to count the votes in the election for the international president of the TS—April 27 to be exact. The way the process works is that each national Section sends out the ballots to its members, receives them back, counts them, and sends the results on to the international headquarters at Adyar. On the given day for the close of the voting, the results received from the sections around the world are tallied up. At Adyar they count all of the votes from those bodies within the TS that do not have enough members or lodges to be full sections, along with the few lodges and members associated directly with Adyar. Then they add them all up and announce the result by e-mail to the candidates and all of the TS bodies around the world.

On April 27 at 4:55 p.m., India time, I got the e-mail announcing that I had been elected the eighth international president of the TS. I had arrived in Chennai, India, the day before in anticipation of the results. By 6 p.m. I was in a taxi pulling up to the headquarters building at Adyar. Because I had not announced my travel to India, my presence at the headquarters so shortly after the declaration of the results came as a surprise to both the election committee and the executive committee, who had gathered to confirm the results. The members of the two committees and I sat down for some short conversation and to arrange the details for a formal inauguration ceremony. We decided that White Lotus Day, May 8, would be the occasion for the inauguration, and that a gathering to introduce myself to Adyar staff and volunteers, and the local press, would be held the next day.

After that, things shifted into high gear. I remained at Adyar for the next three and a half weeks, coming into the office daily and trying to get up to speed on the multilayered business, history, people, and traditions of our international headquarters. Every day, often several times a day, members and people from the Chennai community would stop by the office to introduce themselves and share some piece of history or relationship specific to them.

Congratulatory e-mail streamed in from around the world. At first I tried to answer each one individually. Quickly I realized that this was a losing battle and decided that my well-wishers were generous people and would understand both my appreciation and the overwhelming level of mail I was receiving. So, to all of you who sent your good wishes, thank you for your kind thoughts.

The inauguration ceremony was held in the main hall at Adyar and was attended by a couple of hundred people. It was a brief, simple recognition of the change. The results were announced; I was introduced; some words were said by the international vice-president; then I delivered my inaugural address (reprinted International President's Inaugural Address). After that there was a beautiful ceremony in which all of the people lined up to place flower petals at the foot of a white marble statue of HPB and Olcott that stands in the main hall. Then it was photo time. A number of the people attending had brought traditional scarves and garlands to place around my neck. By the time it was all over I had quite a collection.

On May 12, while I was still at Adyar, the results of the American Section's elections were announced with a similar result—me as president.

Later in the month of May I left India and flew directly to Miami for the Florida Federation's convention. I had not been to Florida in several years and was looking forward to reconnecting with my many TS friends in the area. Nori Rao, a coworker and friend of many years, is currently president of the federation. A year in advance she had invited me to participate. Also presenting were our national secretary, David Bruce, and national speaker, author, and good friend Terry Hunt. Terry has the advantage of being bilingual (in Spanish and English), which has made it possible for him to travel and lecture both in the U.S. and throughout Latin America.

A little over 100 people attended over the course of the weekend. On Sunday I had a chance to meet with our local Spanish-speaking members. Close to forty people came for that meeting. My part was translated by Nori. My association with the very active Spanish lodges in the area goes back about twenty-five years, to the days when RenéRevert was alive and active. One of the special moments for me came in a phone conversation with René's wife, Christina. I had not seen her since his passing. It was a deeply satisfying and emotional moment for both of us.

I returned to Olcott on May 20. Walking in the front door, I was greeted with a surprise welcome from our staff and volunteers. The floor entering the lobby was covered in rose petals, and as I walked in, more petals were raining down from the balcony. Everyone had gathered in the lobby to wish me well. It felt good to be home.

Prayers of the Religions at the IATF Congress

Within a few days we had swung into action preparing for the Inter-American Theosophical Federation Congress. More than seventy people from countries throughout the Americas attended. The places represented were Cuba, Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Puerto Rico, Scotland, the U.S., Colombia, Dominican Republic, Canada, Honduras, Mexico, and Costa Rica. The theme for the congress was "Theosophy as Service."

I have described the event as "super-high energy." There was everything from spiritual upliftment to intellectual stimulation to the emotional and physical expression of poetry and dance. There was something for the entire human being. During the course of the congress new officers were elected. Outgoing president Ligia Montiel, from Costa Rica, was replaced by Isis Resende, from Brazil. By virtue of being the president of the TSA I am one of the members of the IATF board. From my observations and participation in the meetings, I can say that it is a healthy organization with good people running it.

Two days after the end of the IATF my wife, Lily, and I were on a plane again, this time headed for Italy and the 100th annual convention of the Italian Section. The Section is actually 102 years old, but was unable to conduct two conventions because of World War II.

Tim Boyd in Italy with Renato Mazzonetto

The convention was held in northern Italy in the city of Vicenza. The location was a lovely country club and spa outside of the center of town. More than 100 members gathered from all over the mainland and Sicily. There were also a few from Switzerland and France. Ricardo Lindeman, from Brazil, was also one of the invited presenters. I had just left Ricardo a few days earlier in Wheaton, where he had also presented.

The meetings were highly participatory, involving groups from all around the country in sharing new ideas and effective group practices. Again I received an overwhelming welcome from the members. In an unexpected turn of events, I was even adorned with another ceremonial scarf. This time it was given by Renato Mazzanetto, a TS Italy member and longtime student of the Karmapa, the head of the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. The scarf had been blessed by the Karmapa himself. The attention that was shown to us by hosts Antonio Girardi (president of the TS in Italy), Patrizia Calvi (longtime official in countless capacities and a boundless source of energy), and the entire Vicenza team was heart-warming and inspiring.

While there, in addition to speaking at the convention, on one evening I spoke at the Vicenza Lodge, which is also the TS Italy headquarters.

Tim Boyd with Vicenza Lodge president Enrico Stagni

From Vicenza it was on to Venice, where I met with and spoke at the Venice TS Lodge. We also allowed for some leisure time to tour and visit the city. It is truly one of the remarkable cities on earth for its wealth of artistic and architectural beauty. 

Next month (August) I go to Paris, Holland, and back to Adyar. One of the remarkable aspects of all this travel is that, except for the Adyar portion, all of it was scheduled before anyone had any idea that there would be an international election. Life is funny that way.

Tim Boyd

Printed in the Fall 2014 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Smoley, Richard. "From the Editor's Desk" Quest  102.4 (Fall 2014): pg. 122.

Sometimes it seems to me that there is a sort of membrane surrounding the human mind. This membrane makes us see the world in a distorted way. It leads us to view ourselves as isolated and fragmented beings and to view others as competitors, enemies, or possibly victims. We feel as if we exist only to take advantage or to be taken advantage of.

Paul Levy's disturbing article on page 146 of this issue gives a name to this psychic membrane: wetiko. The word "wetiko," taken from a Native American language, may sound funny to you. What is wetiko? It is a pathological need for excess, for selfish gratification. It is (to use Levy's metaphor) a kind of psychic virus that makes people indifferent to, and contemptuous of, the feelings and needs of their fellow humans. Because it is so persuasive, it often goes unnoticed.

The most ambitious literary treatment of this theme appears in Doris Lessing's 1979 novel Shikasta, which is half science fiction tale and half fable.

In this novel, beings from a benevolent world in the system of the star Canopus create a colony of creatures on a small planet, which they name "Rohanda" or "the fruitful." For ages the beings on this planet live in harmony, sustained by benign "astral currents" transmitted from Canopus. But an unforeseen cosmic realignment breaks the connection between Canopus and Rohanda, leading to a deficit of the "substance-of-we-feeling" in Rohanda's inhabitants. They become subject to a degenerative disease that makes individuals put themselves ahead of others. The result is war and destruction. The Canopeans try to fix things, but their attempts are thwarted by the influence of another, evil planet. Eventually the Canopeans change the name of Rohanda: they call it "Shikasta," meaning "the broken." Only after a holocaust that wipes out almost all of the human race are the few survivors able to start fresh.

Lessing makes it clear that the history of Shikasta is the history of humanity from the start of recorded time. The madness reaches its climax in the twentieth century, and the final holocaust is a third World War that, she suggests, is coming in the near future.

I remember the effect this book had on me the first time I read it. Not only did it sound plausible, but for a day or so I found it impossible to believe that the situation of the human race had come about in any other way.

So you can call it wetiko, or you can call it a deficit of "the substance-of-we-feeling," or you can give it any of its other innumerable names: the yetzer ha-ra ("the evil impulse") of the Kabbalists, the ego as understood by some Eastern traditions, or even the Devil, if you can set aside the Halloween character that conventional Christianity has made of him. Whatever you want to call this psychic disease, and however it originated, the problems that face us today will not be resolved until it is cured.

Most people may agree with what I have said so far. But somehow it is always the others, always them, who are at fault. The world would be a lovely and peaceful and wonderful place if not for them. On this everyone is in accord. They only differ about who these them are.

In the United States today, there are several large blocks of people who are united by their hatred of particular versions of them. This hatred is enormously useful, although not to the people who possess it. It's useful to any number of powerful interests who manipulate the hatred of them.

You could stop here and direct your wrath against these powerful interests. Many do. But then you just have another version of them.

"If only it were all so simple!" wrote Alexander Solzhenitsyn. "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"

You can easily see wetiko, the absence of we-feeling, in them. It is a much trickier project to see it in yourself and to root it out. But there is no alternative. Let me turn again to Doris Lessing: "To outwit their enemies, Shikastans must love each other, help each other, and never take each other's goods or substance."

People long for the End Times. Admittedly it's tempting to believe that a supernatural savior will appear in the skies, reward the good, punish the evil, and bring the scales of justice into balance. But more and more we are coming to understand that that is a hopeless fantasy and that if we are to have any saviors, they will have to be ourselves. It is a sobering realization—but also a thrilling one.

Richard Smoley

Printed in the Fall 2014 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Levy, Paul."Dispelling Wetiko: Breaking the Curse of Evil" Quest 102.4 (Fall 2014): pg. 146-151.

 By Paul Levy

We as a species are in the midst of a massive psychic epidemic that has been brewing in the cauldron of humanity from the beginning of time. This psychospiritual disease of the soul—which Native Americans have called wetiko—can be thought of as the bug in the system. It informs and animates the madness that is playing itself out in our lives, both individually and collectively, on the world stage.

Native American mythologies portray the mythical figure of wetiko as a cannibalistic spirit who embodies greed and excess and can possess human beings. The wetiko was once a human being, but its greed and selfishness have transformed it into a predatory monster. Thus in indigenous mythology, indulgent, self-destructive habits are thought to be inspired by wetiko. In the Native American view, those who have become wetikos are individuals who have "lost their wits," a phrase that connotes not only being out of one's right mind, but also not knowing what one is doing (acting "unwittingly"). Native Americans have often portrayed the wetiko as having a frigid, icy heart, devoid of mercy. Like cannibals, those taken over by wetiko consume the life force of others—human and nonhuman—for private purpose or profit, and do so without giving back anything of real value from their own lives.

The Ojibwa word for wetiko, windigo or weendigo, seems to have been derived from ween dagoh, which means "solely for self," or from weenin igooh, which means "excess." According to Native American lore, the wetiko monster can only prey on human beings who, like itself, have indulged in excess. Thus human beings' propensity for excess makes them vulnerable to possession by, and transformation into, a wetiko.

Like a werewolf, the wetiko is sometimes portrayed as a shape-shifter who can even appear disguised as a good spirit. In the indigenous legends, whenever the wetiko eats another person, it grows larger in proportion to the meal it has just eaten, so that it can never be full or satisfied. Buddhism portrays a similar figure, the hungry ghost, who, with its pinhole mouth, constricted neck, and huge, unfilled stomach, can never satisfy its insatiable cravings. At the collective level, this perverse inner process is mirrored by the insane consumer society in which we live, a culture that continually fans the flames of never-ending desires, conditioning us to always want more.

Just as viruses or malware infect a computer and program it to self-destruct, wetiko programs the human biocomputer to think and behave in self-destructive ways. Covertly operating through the unconscious blind spots in the human psyche, wetiko renders people oblivious to their own madness, compelling them to act against their own best interests. People under its thrall can, like someone in the throes of an addiction or in a state of trauma, unwittingly create the very problem they are trying to resolve, clinging desperately to the thing that is torturing and destroying them.

People taken over by wetiko are suffering from an autoimmune disease of the psyche. In autoimmune deficiency syndrome, the immune system of the organism perversely attacks the very life it is trying to protect. In trying to live, it destroys life, ultimately destroying even itself. In the same way, once wetiko has insinuated itself into a living entity, it acts like a perverted antibody, treating the wholesome parts of the system as cancerous tumors to be exterminated.

This problem is being collectively acted out on the world stage. Humans are destroying the biosphere of the planet upon which we all depend for our survival. Wetiko is at the bottom of the seemingly never-ending destruction we are wreaking on this biosphere. One example is the destruction of the Amazonian rain­forest, the lungs of the planet. Another example is the terminator seeds that are genetically engineered not to reproduce a second generation, forcing farmers to buy new seeds and making life impossible for many poor farmers. If the planet were seen as an organism, and people seen as cells in this organism, it would be as if these cells had become cancerous or parasitic and had turned on the healthy cells, destroying the very organism of which they themselves were a part. Our species appears to be enacting a mass ritual suicide on a global scale.

By whatever name we call it, wetiko is undoubtedly one of the most important discoveries in human history. Indicating the supreme importance of developing knowledge about how this predator of the mind operates, don Juan from the Carlos Castaneda books refers to it as "the topic of topics." (He doesn't use the name "wetiko," however, but calls it "the flyer.")

This cancer of the soul manages our perceptions by stealth and subterfuge so as to act itself out through us while hiding itself from being seen. Wetiko bedazzles consciousness in such a way that we become blind to the underlying viewpoint through which we are giving meaning to our experience. Wetiko is a form of psychic blindness that fancies itself to be sighted.

Wetiko subversively turns our genius for reality creation against us so that we become bewitched by the projective tendencies of our own mind. People afflicted with wetiko react to their own projections in the world as if they objectively exist and are separate from themselves, delusionally thinking that they have nothing to do with creating that to which they are reacting. Over time this activity of endlessly reacting to and becoming conditioned by one's own energy tends to generate insane behavior, which can manifest internally or in the world at large. As if under a spell, we become entranced by our own intrinsic gifts and talents for dreaming up our world, unknowingly hypnotizing ourselves with our God-given power to creatively call forth reality so that it boomerangs against us, undermining our potential for evolution.

Though the origin of wetiko is within the psyche, at a certain point it develops enough momentum to become self-generating, attaining a seeming autonomy, like the Frankenstein monster. This pathological fragment can subsume the wholesome parts of the psyche into itself such that they become its slaves. As this process continues, wetiko gains sovereignty over the psyche, like the legendary tiger, which, when restored to life out of its bones, devours the magician who resurrected it. It then holds its creator in its thrall, and she is unable to escape from the hell of her own making. The person so afflicted has created her own sci-fi nightmare, with herself in the starring role.

Wetiko 2 by Liana Buszka, www.lianabuszka.com

To the extent we are unconsciously possessed by the spirit of wetiko, it is as if a psychic tapeworm or parasite has taken over our brains and tricked us, its host, into thinking we are feeding and empowering ourselves while we are actually nourishing the parasite. Noting our almost unlimited capacity for self-deception, psychiatrist R.D. Laing writes that we have "tricked ourselves out of our own mind" (Laing, 73). People are particularly susceptible to the spell of today's masters of deception when they are out of touch with the living and self-authenticating reality of their own experience. Not sufficiently knowing the nature of their own minds, they are overly susceptible to taking on others' perspectives, falling prey to the prevailing groupthink of the herd and to the wetiko parasite. When we are taken over by more powerful psychic forces, we don't know that we are possessed by something other than ourselves, which is precisely the way the wetiko bug wants it.

Wetiko can also subliminally insinuate thought-forms and beliefs into our minds which, when unconsciously enacted, feed the virus and ultimately kill its host. Wetiko covets the creative imagination that it lacks. As a result, if we don't use the divine gift of our creative imagination in the service of life, wetiko will use our imagination against us, with deadly consequences. The wetiko predator is in competition with us for a share of our own mind, wanting to sit in our seat. Instead of sovereign beings who consciously create with our thoughts, we will then be unconsciously created by them, as the wetiko pathogen literally thinks in our place.

If we are not aware of wetiko's covert operations within us, it is as if an alien, metaphysical "other" has colonized our minds and set up a seemingly autonomous regime, a "shadow government" within the psyche (outwardly reflected by the "shadow government" in the world), so that we become oppressed within the domain of our own being. The wetiko virus paralyzes the ego into an immobilized, powerless state, in which the life force and energetic potential are vampirically drained away. Zombielike, we are pushed around like figures on a chessboard, played and manipulated like marionettes on a string. We are held in check by these impersonal, intangible forces, which, unbeknownst to us, are gaming us from a hidden position within our own unillumined psyches. As compared to existing "by virtue" of something, the wetiko bug can only exist by the "lack of virtue" of our own obscured and unexamined minds.

As this rogue, split-off part incorporates itself within the psyche, it "dictates" to the ego, tricking it into believing that it is directing itself. We are allowed our seeming freedom and the ability to live our "normal" lives, as long as these do not challenge or threaten the deeper agenda of these sinister forces to centralize power and control. This internal process is manifesting externally in the creeping tendency towards fascism in the global body politic.

Shape-shifting so as to cloak itself in our form, this mercurial predator gets under our skin and "puts us on" as a disguise, impersonating us as it fools us into buying into its false version of who we are. Falling prey to its artificial yet uncanny intelligence, we become unreal to ourselves. Bamboozled and hoodwinked by this imposter, we mime ourselves, becoming false duplicates of our original, true selves. When we are taken over by the wetiko spirit, we can subjectively experience ourselves as being most ourselves, while ironically being most estranged from ourselves. This is a simultaneous state of fusion and dissociation, as the parts of the psyche that have split off from consciousness overwhelm and take over the whole through its unconscious blind spots. No longer belonging to or possessing ourselves, we then identify with who we are not while forgetting who we actually are. In so doing, we have effectively lost our souls.

The psychiatrist C.G. Jung refers to wetiko by the name Antimimos, which he describes as "the imitator and evil principle" (Jung, 371). Antimimos refers to a type of deception that could be thought of as countermimicry. This antimimon pneuma—the "counterfeit spirit," as it is called in the Gnostic Apocryphon of John (Robinson, 120), imitates something (in this case, ourselves) but with the intention of making the copy serve a purpose counter to that of the original. Antimimos is a maleficent force which tries to seduce us so as to lead us astray; it effects an inversion of value, transforming truth to falsehood and falsehood to truth, leading us to forgetfulness. When we fall for the ruse of this snake oil salesman of the spirit, we become disoriented, losing our sense of spiritual vocation, our mission in life, even our very selves. Writer and poet Max Pulver has said that "the antimimon pneuma is the origin and cause of all the evils besetting the human soul." The revered Gnostic text Pistis Sophia says that the antimimon pneuma has affixed itself to humanity like an illness (Campbell, 254; cf. Mead, 247ff.).

The Gnostics ("the ones who know") also call this subversive parasite of the mind the "archons." Every wisdom tradition has its own way of symbolizing wetiko; indeed illuminating wetiko is what makes a wisdom tradition worthy of the name. Such traditions include Buddhism, Kabbalah, Hawaiian huna, mystical Islam, shamanism, and alchemy. It is helpful to find other lineages and traditions that illumine the wetiko disease in their own fashion. In this way our multiperspectival vision can enable us to see what no one particular map or model by itself can reveal.

Viruses like wetiko are all about copying themselves. But a virus can't replicate itself; it has to use some other vehicle as its means of reproduction. Just like a vampire, the wetiko virus has a thirst for the very thing it lacks—the mystical essence of life—the "blood" of our soul, our very life force. The "undead" vampiric wetiko virus is fundamentally "dead" matter taking on apparently living form; it is only in and through a living being that it acquires a kind of life. These psychic vampires are compelled to replicate themselves through us so that we can then pass on to others. In wetiko there is a code or logic which infects awareness much as the DNA in a virus passes into and infects a cell. Wetiko psychosis is highly contagious, spreading through the channel of our shared unconsciousness. But its vectors of infection do not travel like physical pathogens. This bug both reinforces and feeds off our unconscious blind spots, which is how it nonlocally propagates itself. The greatest danger that threatens humanity today is the possibility that millions of us can fall into the unconscious together, reinforcing one another's madness in such a way that we become unwittingly complicit in our own self-destruction.

The most horrifying part of falling under the wetiko virus is that it ultimately involves the assent of our own free will, as we willingly, though unknowingly, subscribe to our enslaved condition. This is to say that no one other than ourselves is ultimately responsible for our situaion. Though "relatively" real, and definitely needing to be dealt with at this level, from the ultimate, absolute point of view, the wetiko virus has no objective existence separate from our own minds. There is no entity outside ourselves who can steal our souls; the dreamed-up phenomenon of wetiko, which arises entirely within the sphere of the mind, tricks us into giving it away ourselves.

With wetiko disease, we are not being infected by a physical, objectively existing virus outside of ourselves, which is why there is in reality nothing outside of ourselves to be afraid of. The origin of the wetiko psychosis lies entirely within the human psyche. The fact that wetiko is the expression of something inside of us means that the cure for it is likewise within us as well. Though not objectively existing, the wetiko pathogen has a virtual reality such that it can potentially destroy our species. The fact that something that only exists as a function of ourselves can destroy us points us to the incredibly vast, invisible, yet mostly untapped creative power that is our birthright.

Wetiko is nonlocal in that it is an inner disease of the soul that expresses itself on the canvas of the outside world. Thus it is not constrained by the spurious subject/object dichotomy or the conventional laws of three-dimensional space and time. In fact one of wetiko's unique ploys is to take advantage of the fact that there is no actual boundary between the inner and the outer.Wetiko nonlocally informs and configures events in the world so as to synchronistically express itself, which is to say that just like in a dream, events in the outer world are symbolically reflecting a condition deep within the psyche of each of us. If we don't understand that our current world crisis has its roots within and is an expression of the human psyche, we are doomed to unconsciously repeat and recreate endless suffering and destruction in more and more amplified form, as if we are having a recurring nightmare. 

To the extent we are unaware of this virus of the mind, we are complicit in its propagation. Since it pervades the underlying field of consciousness, potentially all of us have wetiko. Every one of us subjectively experiences the wetiko virus in his or her own unique way, regardless of what concepts or words we use to describe the experience, or whether we believe in such things or not. If we see someone who seems to be taken over by wetiko, leading us to think they have the disease and we don't, we have fallen under the spell of the virus, because wetiko feeds on separation, polarization, and the fear of the other.

We start to become immune to wetiko when we develop the humility to realize that any one of us, at any moment, can potentially fall into our unconscious and unwittingly become an instrument for this virus to act itself out through us. Like a vampire, wetiko can't stand to be illumined, for in seeing how it covertly operates through our own consciousness, we take away its seeming autonomy and power over us while at the same time empowering ourselves.

The wetiko psychosis is a dreamed-up phenomenon, which is to say that we are all potentially participating in and actively cocreating the wetiko epidemic in each and every moment. Wetiko feeds on our policy of turning a blind eye to its operations; the less the wetiko virus is recognized, the more seemingly powerful and dangerous it becomes. Since the origin of wetiko is the human psyche, recognizing how this virus of the mind operates through our unawareness is the beginning of the cure. We normally think of illumination as seeing the light, but seeing the darkness is a form of illumination too. Wetiko is forcing us to pay attention to the fundamental role that the psyche plays in creating our experience of ourselves and of the world. Our shared future will be decided primarily by the changes that take place in the psyche of humanity, which is truly the world's pivot.

Wetiko can only be seen when we begin to realize the dreamlike nature of our universe, step out of the viewpoint of the separate self, and recognize the deeper underlying field of which we are all expressions, in which we are all contained, and through which we are all interconnected. The energetic expression of this realization, and the dissolver of wetiko par excellence, is compassion.

Similarly, the greatest protection against becoming affected or possessed by wetiko is to be in touch with our intrinsic wholeness, which is to be "self-possessed"—in possession of the part of ourselves that is not possessable, which is the Self, the wholeness of our being. Being in touch with our true nature acts as a sacred amulet or talisman, shielding and protecting us from wetiko's pernicious effects. We defeat evil not by fighting against it (in which case, by playing its game, we've already lost) but by getting in touch with the part of us that is invulnerable to its effects. Grasping the multifaceted ways that the wetiko virus distorts the psyche enables us to discover and experience the part of ourselves that is incorruptible, which is the place from which we can bring real and lasting change to our world. It is as though the evil of the wetiko virus is itself the instrument of a higher intelligence designed to connect us to a sacred, creative source within ourselves. Testers of humanity, these nonlocal vampiric forces are guardians of the threshold of our conscious evolution.

Thus, although it is the source of humanity's inhumanity to itself, wetiko is at the same time the greatest catalytic force of evolution ever known (as well as not known) to humanity, as it is the impetus for us to awaken to the dreamlike nature of the universe. While a typical virus mutates so as to become resistant to our attempts to heal from it, the mercurial wetiko virus forces us to mutate—and evolve—relative to it. In a paradoxical sense, we don't cure wetiko; wetiko cures us. How amazing—the very thing that is potentially destroying us is at the same time waking us up! Wetiko is a true conjunction of opposites: it is at the same time the deadliest poison and the most healing medicine. Will wetiko kill us? Or will it awaken us? Everything depends upon our recognizing what it is revealing to us. The prognosis for the wetiko epidemic depends upon how we dream it.

Sources

Campbell, Joseph, ed. Spiritual Disciplines: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, vol. 4. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.
Jung, C.G. Psychology and Alchemy. Translated by R.F.C. Hull. 2d ed. Princeton: Princeton/Bollingen, 1968.
Laing, R.D. The Politics of Experience. New York: Pantheon, 1971.
Mead, G.R.S. The Pistis Sophia: A Gnostic Miscellany. Rev. ed. London: J.M. Watkins, 1921.
Robinson, James M., ed. The Nag Hammadi Library. 3d ed. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1992.

Paul Levy is a wounded healer in private practice, assisting others who are also awakening to the dreamlike nature of reality. He is the author of Dispelling Wetiko: Breaking the Curse of Evil (North Atlantic Books, 2013) and The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis (2006).

Printed in the Fall 2014 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Elsinger, Nance. "Surviving the End Times" Quest; 102.4 (Fall 2014): pg. 143-145.

The obituary of long-time Theosophist Roger Elsinger was published in the Summer 2013 issue of Quest.

He and his partner, Nance, met through Theosophy. Some Quest readers were at their May 1989 wedding by the lily ponds in the courtyard of the Krotona Institute of Theosophy in Ojai, California. By that time, Rog had joined Nance in working with Joy Mills at the Krotona School. Drawn together by questing minds and hearts, the couple shared a Theosophical worldview that enabled them to navigate the ups and downs of an emerging relationship.

In this article, Nance shares her experience of end times in a marriage.

While the period from Roger's diagnosis to his death was only one month, the "end times" began fourteen years earlier, in the winter of 1998. Rog and I missed a turn in the road and went flying over an embankment. Instantly, our lives as we knew them changed.

Our new pickup truck—driven less than a hundred miles before it was totaled—lasted long enough to drive us through some forbidden door, into some dream world about end times. That shiny blue pick-up dropped us down thirty feet into a bank of pure, fluffy snow covering the impenetrable black icy ground. Here in this silent underworld the unconscious assumption that maybe we could escape the inevitable cracked.

Physically, we did survive. For three months while I recovered from our auto accident in a spinal brace, Rog nursed me back to health. But even after I had healed, the thought that our lives could end so quickly stayed with us. Something inside of each of us shifted. We realized that we needed to prepare for the end times.

Rog and I sorted and assembled the legal documents to prepare for our deaths so we could get on with living as before. We set up a revocable trust, wrote wills, and signed the necessary legal papers. Each of us drafted funeral plans, inventoried our possessions, and determined our successions. Years later, after our move to Albuquerque, we bought pottery burial urns and arranged for our cremations.

We put our death collection in a black travel bag in plain view so our adult children would know where to find it. We updated our trust several times as we ruminated about small details over the years. Every day we looked at that black bag on its special hook by the door—dusting, polishing, and straightening it—until it became a presence.

The black valise became a conversation starter, something focal like a cross on the wall, but free from all secular taboos, so that an unwary guest could ask, "Are you planning a trip?"Which of course gave us the opportunity to reflect on that trip a bit more. It was clear every time we looked at that bag, more questions arose that had nothing to do with paperwork.

Ostensibly, the process of packing our black bag was all about taking care of business so we could get back to traveling life's path together as before. By making our intentions as clear as possible, we wanted to protect each other and our families from as much of the emotional chaos that can happen at the end of life as we could.

But to our surprise, something else happened. The black bag attended to the superficial uncertainties about our deaths so that we could reflect on deeper mysteries independently. It was here, in our opposite explorations, that Rog and I found our worlds alight again with color.

Before I continue, some background may be helpful. When Rog arrived at the TS in Ojai, he was searching for truth. After years of education, Rog began his adult life as a parish priest only to become disenchanted with the Catholic institution. He went on to marry and father a child. When he and his first wife divorced, Rog felt driven to discover life on his terms rather than those dictated by the Catholic tradition. He traveled and explored, meeting new people, experiencing other cultures, and connecting with those who were exploring spirituality beyond fundamentalism.

When I met Rog I was leading an independent, busy life. Divorced for many years with three nearly adult children, I had enjoyed a successful career creating the first statewide clearinghouse for oral history holdings. In 1984, needing change and expansion, I set out alone driving from Denver. Reaching Ojai, I discovered Theosophy and moved within two months. The next fall, I became a student at the Krotona School and then was hired by the director, Joy Mills, to help national and international students strengthen their group work.

Rog and I could not have been more different. Working together in the school, we saw each other teach. Rog's style was to tell students what he had discovered and believed to be true, while mine was to draw out what the student already knew. We learned from each other and allowed our relationship to grow and nurture our best qualities. We knew that we had to be together.

Our differences were stark. Rog actively made things happen while I kept tradition and the peace. He left situations when they stopped working for him, while I stayed until I had something else in place. Rog enjoyed and protected his alone time; he didn't see value in discussing his feelings or emotions; his approach was primarily cerebral. His family was not close; they had few rituals and communicated infrequently. Holidays in my family, on the other hand, were joyfully celebrated with cards, gifts, and phone calls. My relatives enjoy being together, and news is shared on a regular basis no matter how far apart we are.

While Rog had plenty of psychological baggage related to his Catholic upbringing, I was weighed down with material trappings. When I moved to Ojai, I had a truck full of furniture, collected during my previous marriage. Rog moved to Ojai in a Volkswagen bus containing all his possessions; several boxes of books, some tools, and a few clothes. Frequent moves were not unusual for Rog, while moving to Ojai was my first move out of Colorado, my childhood home and the place where I raised my children. My attitude was that you kept what you might need, just in case, while Rog believed you kept only what you used and you can always get what you need when you need it. Rog was appalled by watching my process in deciding what to keep when my parents' home was dismantled after their deaths in 1999. Sentimental items didn't resonate with him.

For nine years, we worked for the good of the other and our relationship and let our personal desires fall by the wayside. We compromised and found a middle way between our habitual ways of being. Rog experienced the pleasures of a celebration, and I learned the value of alone time. Our marriage made us more flexible, patient, and loving. I became more adventuresome—even taking flying lessons. I became less interested in gaining approval (even his!). I realized there is no "right"way to do things and to perceive the world; everyone is different, and that is truly the beauty of this world. We both mellowed and softened.

After surviving the accident, the pattern shifted. Instead of merging our ideas and establishing a middle ground that worked for both of us, our paths of discovery diverged. While we happily shared the same home base and met at the end of each day to swap stories, our individual souls again became restless to connect to something beyond.

For those remaining years when the black bag was looming, Rog sought his truth in the distant cosmos. He went back in time to the material origins of our universe. As a volunteer for the New Mexico Museum of Natural History, his special expertise was Mars, the red planet. Rog was mapping the surface of Mars using data from the Mars Rover expedition to visualize the surface coordinates. Rog had been working with a Washington, D.C. software company to create the necessary tools to contour the topography of Mars. In addition, he produced regular videos on the Rover's progress as part of the Mars exhibit. Just days before his cancer diagnosis, Rog continued his daily bicycle ride to the museum's space science department.

By coincidence (and HPB would say there is no such thing), Rog had all three of his main astrological houses in Aries. Swirling together in a constellation of meaning were Mars, Ares, war, fire in the belly, and, not surprisingly, the liver. While I cannot know exactly how all these pieces fit together, I know that there were battles within him that he struggled to resolve all his life. But I do know that before Roger died, he had, as he conveyed in this letter to friends and family, found peace.

In the days since my diagnosis I have experienced a calmness and centeredness such as religious faith had never provided. I have found a sense of place and process with the worldview of evolutionary cosmology such as I have searched for relentlessly in my seventy-seven years . . . And it is increasingly feeding my spirit daily with a sense of readiness for every present moment in this process of dying . . . a sense of contributing to the spreading of a new approach to this part of our process called living. I feel honored to enter this process consciously. I am finally learning how to live in the moment. Fear and hope have no place in this process. It is a readiness and willingness of an utterly deep knowingness that we are truly all in this together.

While Rog was going into outer space, I began a journey through inner space. Unlike Rog, with his objective approach, I went to subjective experience to find meaning. I kept a dream journal and learned the language of symbols and the soul's journey through Tarot. I took up painting—mapping the images that appeared in dreams using color, shape, and line. Through close friendships with a group of women, I learned about the power of community, trust, and listening.

Our private journeys prepared each of us for the news one sunny morning in early March of 2013. Our doctor delivered the diagnosis to us in our living room over speakerphone: "Roger, you have inoperable, irreversible liver cancer."I had always thought we would have more time together. While I cried, I saw Rog transform as calmness and clarity came over him and his spirit, opening to unexpected possibilities, readied itself for whatever might follow.

The black bag, once our captor, freed us to fully experience each remaining moment. Rog initiated a new volunteer into the Mars project so that the work he had been doing could continue. He composed reflections for those he was leaving. His initial reaction never wavered. Throughout his dying process Rog maintained his curiosity and serenity. Hospice entered our lives, and our community of family and friends gently joined us in trusting and celebrating his dying process. We managed the pain. His peaceful breathing slowed until it left him for good.

Once our carefully crafted rituals of passage had come and gone, things became very quiet in my world. It seemed as if I slept for nearly a year. In the depths of dreams, Rog and I met five times. In the first two dreams, Rog was in his office at home; he was sitting in his armchair in the dark. When I came into the room, he told me "I'm all right. I don't need anything. I am just fine."

In the third dream, he was excited about finding a good price, $7000, for a satellite dish he wanted installed on our roof. I did not know he needed such a dish for his museum work, but he assured me that it would benefit me too, because I could get better television reception. In the dream, I told him I wasn't happy to have him back alive if he was going to pretend that his desires were mine. I realized I could no longer afford him. When I woke up, I smiled at the image of seeking life at a distance. It was then that I knew I could stand my ground and focus on my earthly life.

The fourth dream took place on a cruise ship; I came to our cabin and found that Rog had packed up all my clothes and had taken them away. I was upset but knew he had only wanted to help. Then I saw that my purse was still there plus a carry-on bag that looked very full. There were also two hats and two pairs of gloves that I was trying to stuff into the carry-on bag when the loudspeaker announced we must leave the ship. As I woke up, I realized that my identification and money were in my purse and that the carry-on bag probably contained other items I might need. So even though it didn't appear so, I have everything I need to continue my journey.

The last dream also involved bags. I was on a large porch and I saw that all of Rog's suitcases were packed and rain was coming down. I went into the house and told Rog to bring in his bags as they were getting wet. He just looked at me, shook his head, and said, "I don't need them."It was at that moment that I realized that I must now move on alone. Through these dreams, I learned that my journey continues and I am free.

The end time for our relationship was a point on a spiral of meeting, growing, changing, and then releasing to begin again by sorting through who I was, have become, still am, and hope to be in the future. The cycle of this relationship, the effect of Rog's personality in creating a life together, has changed me. I have become more comfortable expressing myself to others because Rog honored and respected my views. I am more comfortable with asking for what I need and want without feeling I must justify my position. I look within myself more and more for guidance, not as concerned with people pleasing and everyone else's reactions. All of this I take forward now. I am profoundly grateful for the life that we had together.

Like all partners, Rog and I did our compromising in the creation of our very workable relationship. Rog was more comfortable in his mind than his body, so I let certain desires go dormant for a time. Right now I am socializing with friends, taking dancing lessons, golfing, bike riding, and savoring long walks. I move into my next stage with a greater appreciation for varied views, knowing that we are all stronger by exposure to different ways of seeing the world and making individual choices. I have a greater understanding of the woman that I am and the faith and intuition that have always been a large part of me.

After Rog died, I took the black bag off the hook, removed his documents, and put the bag away. For a time, the space remained empty. Now it is the place for my new, brighter, lighter, flowered cloth bag. This bag reminds me of the many miles I will travel as I continue my journey, alone again.

Nance Elsinger became a Life Member of the Theosophical Society in 1985. She worked at Krotona School of Theosophy until the fall of 1991. After moving to New Mexico, she continued her involvement in the TS by leading workshops at Krotona and Olcott and by participating in the Silver City, New Mexico study group as well as in a group now developing in Albuquerque.