B influences and WTF influences

I recently responded to a blog post over at One Cosmos that had a brief mention of Boris Mouravieff and his theory of A and B influences. This is something that, when explained simply, made a wonderful take-away when I first saw it. Basically, A influences are those that relate to our life as a smart ape; B influences are those that relate to our being as an eternal spirit.

I have not yet actually bought Mouravieff's books. The reason for this is that even the most glowing reviews tend to cheerfully agree that his thoughts are pretty far outside what most people think of as sanity.

Of course, that is partly the point. Because most people are heavily dominated by A influences, anything that cannot be eaten or mated with is already pretty close to the border of their world. Music and some art is generally accepted, but from there on things get dicey. Religion is OK as long as it does not rock the boat and does not go too far beyond "let's be nice to nice people and hope that we can be apes in our next life too."

So those who want to build a castle keep of the heart from gathered B influences have to fight against an enormous restraining force that tries to keep them within consensus reality. Unfortunately, this struggle is necessary. Unfortunately, the restraining force is also necessary, because it is what keeps ordinary people from going off the deep end. Basically it is the same force that keeps you safe from clinical insanity.

It follows from this that a large number of those who live outside the common ground of A, are actually not in the common ground of B, but floating around in the great void that surrounds them both. Thus my division into A influences, B influences and WTF influences, which are simply insanity with little or no value to either our life in the society of Really Great Apes, nor our life in the Fifth Dimension and above.

What makes this more problematic is that even the individuals who have broken through from A to B, tend to have various degree of WTF residue. And until one is extremely well settled into the B world, it can be hard to keep these apart, especially when they come from someone who has dramatically improved your life and given you some of the most valuable insights ever.

Mouravieff himself seems to have a lot of this, but it is pretty widespread. For instance, the man I usually refer to here as Blasphemous Tax-cutting Buddhist. He has written a large body of very enlightening stuff, most of it eminently practical and with a great positive overlight, like being taken upstairs and shown the rat maze from above. He also thinks he is a god from Venus. I still think I'll sort these claim in the WTF bin until further notice.

Of course, Jesus Christ and Vasudeva Krishna both claimed to be basically God as well, or at least that is the impression people got. And while it was none too well received at the time, a lot of people these days think it adds greatly to their appeal. On the other hand, almost everyone agree that they can't both be right.

Compared to this, the notion that Nancy Pelosi is possessed by demons seems ... almost mundane. Though I am pretty sure she would file that under WTF if she ever heard about it. For now, I'm trying to collect some obvious B influences and leave the rest to the experts.