Introduction
The main reason most "success books" fail is because the authors don't really know all the reasons behind their success. And sometimes their only major success is getting their "success books" published!

This report does not deal with the reasonably well-known success principles. I believe it covers much more powerful underlying success principles. But you be the judge of that.

Before reading this report, it may be a good idea to study #TL04C: THE ULTIMATE SUCCESS SECRET!

Success Formulas
If you get a job in some long-established, viable company it's relatively easy to succeed. Over the years the company's founders and workers have developed formulas for doing things that work. The details have been worked out. When you join such a company you are told in one way or another how to do things. You may be given a job description. Through existing paperwork, computer systems, and asking questions you discover the details. In such a set-up it's relatively easy to succeed because the company has viable products and services, trained personnel, an established customer base, a good or reasonable reputation, and procedures or formulas that work for doing things.

If you were to start your own business as a hairdresser it would be more difficult to succeed. Suppose you've worked as a hairdresser so you know the details of cutting hair. However, you don't know all the details of creating and running a business successfully. Nevertheless, many people have successfully created hairdressing businesses. They used certain formulas to determine what to do and what not to do. You can discover these formulas and even improve them. But it's more difficult to succeed because you don't have a boss who knows the formulas and can tell you exactly what to do.

Now if you were to start a new kind of business - like Federal Express - it's even more difficult to succeed. You're trying to do something which nobody has done before. You have to invent the details from scratch and make them work. The formulas for success need to be developed. You can't copy them from someone else.

To walk from A to Z you need to put one foot in front of the other as many times as necessary to cover the distance. You simply take one step at a time until you arrive at Z. It's very simple because all the steps are the same - assuming the path from A to Z is straight, level, and uniform. The formula is simply: take the next step. To succeed all you have to do is take the next step.

In the job described above it's relatively easy to determine the next step. In starting a hairdressing business it's more difficult. In creating Federal Express it's vastly more difficult.

Most people fail because they don't take the next step. When you're just walking it's easy to determine your next step: just move the other foot forward. But when you have a more difficult task, it's not always so easy to figure out the next step. Maybe that's why most people fail: by not taking the next step. I hope this report will help you figure out and take your next step.

Two principles are particularly important for achieving ultimate success:
1. Distinguishing between what you can control and what you can't.
2. Being willing to do whatever it takes to succeed.

John Rappoport's Power X writings are also very important to achieving ultimate success.

Three Levels of Success
I distinguish between ordinary success, spectacular success, and ultimate success. Ordinary success could be getting and keeping a job and earning a decent income. Though for some ambitious people, working their whole career for a boss would be a failure.

Federal Express is an example of a spectacular success. Not only is it a large, worldwide, profitable business, it also provides a service that makes business generally more efficient worldwide.

Ultimate success could include such advances as:

• Finding a cure for the disease of coercion or "government";
• Developing methods to supply energy at one hundredth the current cost;
• The conquest of matter to the extent that we can build machines that can manufacture whatever we want;
• The conquest of death, achieving physical or biological immortality;
• The conquest of space, enabling us to do things like: Build homes in space; "Buildform" planets like Mars or Venus so we can live on them; Colonize other planets.

There is no clear line of demarcation between my three levels of success. You can decide for yourself what you regard as ordinary, spectacular, and ultimate success. And, of course, you can define your own levels of success.

Whatever level of success you want to attain, the most basic formula you need to apply is: TAKE THE NEXT STEP! One way to find out the next step you need to take is to apply the "non-existence formula" given in the Report #TL80A: Creativity Report #1:

1. Humility: accept that you don't have all the answers.
2. Identify a communication line (find a means to communicate).
3. Obtain a map, a recipe, or a set of instructions.
4. Make yourself known.
5. Discover what is needed and wanted.
6. Do, produce, and/or present it.
7. Discover what is not needed or wanted.
8. Do not do, produce, or present that.
9. Make an inventory of the assets, knowledge, tools, and skills you can utilize to produce what is needed and wanted.
10. Find out how you can apply available assets, knowledge, tools, and skills to produce what is needed and wanted.
11. Be willing to do things you don't usually do in order to produce what is needed and wanted.
12. Question the entire activity, project, or business.

One of the most powerful success books I know of is The Cynergetics Sixty-Minute Success/Wealth Guidebook published by Applied Cynergetics, 1308 Broad St., San Luis Obispo, CA 93401. I don't know of a more powerful guide for selecting your next step.

Three Paradigms
A "paradigm" is a set of assumptions that determines how you view things. There are three basic paradigms concerning human nature:

• The evil/good paradigm: People are basically evil and were born evil. By some means we need to become good. Criminals are evil and need to be rehabilitated so they become good.
• The ignorance/knowledge paradigm: People are ignorant or knowledgeable. We do harm out of ignorance. Education is the solution.
• The immature/mature paradigm: We need to grow up, which is a continuous, never-ending process spanning many elements (described later). We are immature as individuals and as society. We fail due to immaturity. Education and knowledge are often insufficient for more than ordinary success.

As far as I know, the immature/mature paradigm was first formulated in the book The Mature Mind by H.A. Overstreet, published in 1949. The author thought that his "maturity concept" would revolutionize society. Let me introduce the maturity concept through a quotation from the above book:

"All children, Diderot once observed, are essentially criminal. It is merely our good luck that their physical powers are still too limited to permit them to carry out their destructiveness.

Had he lived today, Diderot might have expanded his remark. He might have said that all childish minds are dangerous, but particularly when those minds are housed in adult bodies; for then they have the power to put their immaturities fully and disastrously into effect.

The forms that adult childishness can take are almost infinite in number. They exist not merely in those unfortunates who have to be confined to institutions, but in countless thousands of men and women who look adult, are taken to be adult, and are granted the full prerogatives of adulthood.

In these grown-up child-minds, the immaturities are almost invariably disguised from the individuals themselves. Also they are usually disguised from those who share their life - largely because these others display similar immaturities themselves. The immaturities, moreover, are disguised from society at large, since that society has as yet developed no constant habit of appraising adult behaviors as immature or mature."

Some assumptions of the maturity concept follow:

• Failure Due to Immaturity. Overstreet quotes G.B. Chisholm:
  "So far in the history of the world there have never been enough mature people in the right places... The only real threat to man ... is man himself... the difficulty man has with himself is that he cannot use his highly developed intellect effectively because of his neurotic fears, his prejudices, his fanaticisms, his unreasoning hates, and equally unreasoning devotions; in fact, his failure to reach emotional maturity, or mental health."
• Psychological Age. Our psychological age may be different from our chronological age. The adult who throws temper tantrums may psychologically be an infant - and use force or violence destructively as a result of temper tantrums. Hitler may have been a psychological infant.
• Arrested Development. Traumatic childhood incidents may have stopped our development in some aspect of life. Anyone who at any point in life stops developing and maturing suffers arrested development.
• Conditioned Response. We tend to develop automatic, unconscious habits or behavior patterns like Pavlov's dog that salivates at the ring of the bell.
• Aptitude Uniqueness. Everyone has unique strengths. To mature we have to develop these strengths - and never stop doing so. We each have to bring our unique powers to realization and continue to expand them.
• Adult Capacity to Learn. We have the capacity and potential to continue learning forever. To ever stop learning is immature.

There is much more to the maturity concept and I recommend that you get hold of H.A. Overstreet's The Mature Mind from a used-book store or a freedomry and study it.

Gurdjieff's Attempt to Wake Us Up
George I. Gurdjieff regarded our "ordinary awake state" as in fact being a "state of being asleep" - a condition of being hypnotized. In our "ordinary awake state" we in fact walk around like machines, robots, or zombies. Gurdjieff chose as his life-mission the "harmonious development of man." For an introduction to Gurdjieff's ideas I recommend Colin Wilson's book The War Against Sleep in which he writes:

"Everyday consciousness is limited by 'mechanicalness', 'the robot.' We become so accustomed to the repetitive routine of everyday life that we end by being bound hand and foot by habit, like a fly wrapped in spider-web. Yet no one, even the laziest, is really happy with this state of affairs, for we recognize that it robs us of a certain intensity, a feeling of being fully alive. We need security; but it tends to conflict with that desire to be 'wide awake.' This is more often associated with insecurity. Sartre, for exampled, remarked that he never felt so alive as when he was in the French Resistance, and was likely to be arrested and shot at any moment."

Another introduction to Gurdjieff is the book Gurdjieff: Making a New World by John G. Bennett. He quotes Gurdjieff: "Man is a machine. He is asleep. He can do nothing. He can control nothing. Everything controls him." In his book The Harmonious Circle, James Webb writes:

"But by Gurdjieff's own account, the chief result of his close acquaintance with political intrigue was to... fill him with horror at the ease with which ordinary people allowed themselves to be led by the nose. Partly in reaction against the violence he had seen and partly as a result of conversations with "various revolutionists" he had met in Italy, Switzerland, and the Caucasus, Gurdjieff decided that he "must discover, at all costs, some manner or means for destroying in people the predilection for suggestibility which causes them to fall easily under the influence of 'mass-hypnosis.'""

Gurdjieff's contention that we are asleep is echoed by Erich Fromm as quoted by Stephen R. Covey in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People:

"Today we come across an individual who behaves like an automaton, who does not know or understand himself, and the only person that he knows is the person that he is supposed to be, whose meaningless chatter has replaced communicative speech, whose synthetic smile has replaced genuine laughter, and whose sense of dull despair has taken the place of genuine pain. Two statements may be said concerning this individual. One is that he suffers from defects of spontaneity and individuality which may seem to be incurable. At the same time it may be said of him he does not differ essentially from the millions of the rest of us who walk upon this earth."

Gurdjieff's life was devoted to waking us up. He successively established several institutes to deliver his teachings. They all failed. I surmise that Gurdjieff lacked organizational, management, and marketing skills. Nevertheless, dozens of books have been written about Gurdjieff, his work, and his followers, and there are Gurdjieff groups all over the world.

Maslow's Self-Actualization Psychology
Abraham H. Maslow's psychology of self-actualization, as described in his book The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, could be regarded as a maturity psychology. Before Maslow, most psychologists studied "abnormal" people to find out what was wrong with them and to develop the methods to fix or heal them. Maslow studied the most advanced individuals he could find in order to determine what was different or unique about them. He talked in terms of "merely healthy individuals" and "transcenders." Maslow wrote:

"I have a very strong sense of being in the middle of a historical wave. One hundred and fifty years from now, what will the historians say about this age? What was really important? What was going? What was finished? My belief is that much of what makes the headlines is finished, and the "growing tip" of mankind is what is now growing and will flourish in a hundred or two hundred years, if we manage to endure. Historians will be talking about this movement as the sweep of history, that here, as Whitehead pointed out, when you get a new model, a new paradigm, a new way of perceiving, new definitions of the old words, words which now mean something else, suddenly, you have an illumination, an insight. You can see things in a different way."

Maslow is generally regarded as the father of "humanistic psychology" or "third-force psychology" - the "first force" being Freudian analysis, and the "second force" Skinnerian behaviorism. Of the psychologies I've examined Maslow's comes closest to reflecting my "expanded maturity concept." For an excellent overview of Maslow's psychology I recommend the book New Pathways in Psychology by Colin Wilson.

The Expanded Maturity Concept
Overstreet talked about mental, emotional, and social maturity. His maturity concept may have failed to make a major impact in the world because it was too narrowly defined. The concept was not sufficiently developed to succeed! Though Overstreet wrote:

"[A] mature truth told to immature minds ceases, in those minds, to be that same mature truth. Immature minds take from it only what immature minds can assimilate. In the end, even though they may give it lip-service and may raise institutions in its name, they turn the mature truth into an applied immaturity."

I have expanded Overstreet's too limited maturity concept into my Expanded Maturity Concept, which includes many more elements. We each need to become more mature in most or all of the "elements of maturity" I identify.

Elements of Maturity

• Self-Love. We need to continuously increase our love of self. How to do this is covered in Report #TL04A: The Most Fundamental Human Problem.
• Knowledge. A week ago, when having to wait half an hour, I browsed through a used-book store. I regularly do this. You never know what "earth-shattering" book was written 50, 100, 200, or 3,000 years ago. I've discovered several such books during the past 25 years. H.A. Overstreet's The Mature Mind is an example.

The We-Don't-Have-All-The-Answers Perspective
Many individuals and groups have attempted to bring about spectacular or ultimate human success on a global scale. In every society there are probably people who are dissatisfied and who want to improve society. I'm one of these. For many years I've been looking for the "keys" to do this.

Suppose there are a hundred "keys" (or elements) to ultimate success - a hundred things that need to be achieved for ultimate success to become reality. I propose the following ratios:

1. The "average person" knows one of the keys.
2. The typical ultimate success activist - Lao Tzu (Chinese philosopher), Buddha (founder of Buddhism), Aristotle (Greek philosopher), Christ (founder of Christianity), Nietzsche (German philosopher), Freud (founder of psychoanalysis), Gurdjieff (proponent of self-observation), Gandhi (Indian leader), Fuller (inventor and author of Utopia or Oblivion and many other books), Korzybski (founder of General Semantics), Maslow (pioneer of self-actualization psychology), Hubbard (founder of Scientology), Rand (founder of Objectivism), Popper (philosopher and author of Objective Knowledge and other books), Wenger (intelligence-increase expert), Erhard (founder of est), Emery (founder of Actualizations), Deming (father of the quality revolution in Japan), Wallace (founder of Neo-Tech), Esfandiary (author of such books as Optimism One, Up-Wingers, and Telespheres), etc - knows ten of the keys.
3. In order to bring about ultimate success a hundred keys need to be known, integrated, and implemented - or, critical levels of maturity need to be attained in respect of a hundred keys.

I have no idea how accurate my ratios are. But I expect they are in the right ballpark. (And this is not an attempt to demean any of the above individuals or their movements. In my opinion, they have all made great contributions to greater maturity in the world. Some of them may even be 20-key or 50-key people.)

What typically has been happening is that the average one-key person makes contact with the ten-key activist or movement. The one-key person thinks the ten-key activist or movement has all the answers and is what he or she has been looking for all along. The one-key person then becomes a convert to learn the ten keys to ultimate human success. The ten-key activist or movement tells the convert that they have all the keys and there is no need to look further. Unfortunately the ten-key activist or movement is 90% ignorant of the keys necessary to bring about ultimate success. So, ultimate success never occurs. I suggest this has been the general history of attempts to bring about ultimate success.

A further problem is that it is very difficult for the ten-key activist who poses as a 100-key know-it-all to personally develop and mature and to handle the remaining unhandled problems and unwanted conditions in his or her personal life.

My answer to the dilemma is the "we-don't-have-all-the-answers" perspective. Maybe I can create a network that uses this perspective as a foundation. Maybe I can connect together a diversity of ten-key activists in a network such that the 90% ignorance factor can be reduced. Crudely stated, suppose I can find ten ten-key activists and it so happens that each ten-key activist knows ten different keys. Together these ten activists will then know all hundred keys necessary for ultimate human success.

Of course, in practice it won't be this easy or simple. Some of the ten-key activists will know keys that overlap those of others. There will be some keys unknown to all ten activists. Some will refuse to even consider some of the keys. Nevertheless, such a network should increase the chances of bringing about ultimate success. This network is called Build Freedom.

The subject of knowledge is covered in more detail in Report #TL03: How to Improve Your Information. The subject of education is covered in my book Wake Up America! The Dynamics of Human Power. The most important thing to realize about knowledge is that we can't get very far through education - much more is necessary.

Recognizing Masters.
At the same time, it's necessary to realize that there are people who are masters in their fields. It's important to learn from these people their best knowledge, expertise, and wisdom, and to apply it. W. Edwards Deming was the "master of quality." During World War II he was recognized by a few Americans. After the war he was ignored. So he went to Japan where he was recognized. Deming's management and quality principles revolutionized Japanese industry and were a major factor in Japan's "economic miracle."

A few days ago a Build Freedom Distributor told me that Jay Abraham was a business and marketing master. He gave me a number to call. I called and within a few days received some of Jay's materials. I quickly recognized that Jay is indeed a master. I will be learning a lot more from Jay. If you're in business and/or marketing, and you don't know about Jay, call this number for information: 1-800-395-8290. The information I've just given to you could be worth thousands or even millions to you.

So always be on the lookout for masters whose best knowledge, expertise, and wisdom you can apply to multiply your success.

• Emotional Control. This is an example of an element or factor where much more than knowledge or education is necessary. It's covered in detail in Report #TL12: How to Achieve Emotional Control.
• Intelligence Increase. To progress towards maturity we may have to increase our intelligence. Most of us can increase our intelligence dramatically. How to do this is covered in Report #TL11: How to Increase Your Intelligence.
• Thinking skills. Intelligence can be regarded as the capacity or potential to think effectively. Your intelligence, no matter how high, does not guarantee that you will think effectively. Increasing your intelligence can be futile if you don't also master specific thinking skills. Some thinking skills are covered in Reports #TL11: How to Increase Your Intelligence, #TL50A: Semantic Rigidity, Flexibility, and Freedom, and #TL80A: Creativity Report #1. Many more reports on thinking skills will be written.
• Consciousness. Many models of the development of consciousness have been suggested. The one I like best is my "bicameral model" which distinguishes three major levels:
1. Bicameral stage 1 (pre-conscious)
2. Bicameral stage 2 (proto-conscious)
3. Stage 3 (conscious).

Stage 1 is characterized by the kind of inner voices and visions experienced by schizophrenics. The essence of stage 1 is obedience. Stage 2 is characterized by automatic thoughts and emotions, and little critical self-awareness. The essence of stage 2 is "I'm right; you're wrong." Stage 3 is characterized by concentrated, continuous, critical self-observation in order to improve mental functioning. The essence of stage 3 is producing results.

Many human institutions (governments, churches, corporations, families) are rooted in stage 1 and 2. In society, generally, a shift is occurring towards stage 3. But as people become more conscious they need to think for themselves. They no longer operate on automatic obedience to "authorities" who tell them what's "right and wrong." But they haven't learned the thinking skills to think for themselves. This is a major factor behind the seeming "breakdown of society." A longer-term perspective is that we're going through a turbulent transition.

The subject of how to become more conscious is covered in Report #TL10: How to Achieve and Increase Personal Power.

• Discover and Develop Your Essence.
  One of Gurdjieff's fundamental distinctions is the difference between "personality" and "essence." In The War Against Sleep, Colin Wilson writes:

"When a baby is born, it has only 'essence,' its essential response to the world. At the age of six or seven the child begins to develop 'personality' - that is, to become aware of itself as a person among other people - in response to other people. And when this happens, says Gurdjieff, 'essence' often ceases to grow altogether; personality takes over. Some people who appear to have a powerful and vital personality are really empty inside; their essence ceased to develop as a child."

There is a "real you" which is independent of other people. The "real you" or essence is covered up and overshadowed by "your personality" which is an "artificial you" or a "fake you" created in order to seek acceptance from and approval by other people.

In his book Word Controlled Humans: A Brief History, John Harland writes about people who grew up in cold climates in isolation (little or no contact with other people), and thereby were stimulated to think about how they related to the entire universe. In contrast, in warm climates with denser populations there is much more contact with other people and children are subjected severely to group control. Harland writes:

"This essential being of an individual in direct relation to the universe I will call "soul." Some who submit to group control are well aware that by so doing they are giving up their souls. Others have become such total zombis - the walking dead, subject to control by a will outside themselves - that they are conscious of nothing but the game that dominates all else on this fork of the road; they are no longer aware that anything "counts" if it is outside the human game. All have lost their souls as individuals."

Harland writes about two "forks" in human development. The first fork is that of individual sovereignty or self-ownership, living out of one's essence. The second fork is that of group sovereignty or slavery, living out of a fake personality forged as a reaction to group control.

To discover and develop your essence, the first step is to discover that you are a free and sovereign individual. This is covered in Report #TL05: How to Discover Your Freedom.

• Programs in the Brain. We have all kinds of programs in our brains. A program is a set of instructions. For example, the set of instructions we use to drive a car. Programs can be conscious or subconscious. Some programs act like "curses." For example, someone may have decided at an early age that "nobody loves me." Subconsciously, then, this person tends to behave in such a way that the self-inflicted "curse" always comes true. It is very difficult through education or the acquisition of knowledge to do anything about such "curses." But you can reprogram your brain. To find out how I recommend the books by Shad Helmstetter: Choices, The Self-Talk Solution, and What to Say When You Talk to Your Self. Or write to The Self-Talk Institute, PO Box 5165, Scottsdale, AZ 85261. Or call 1-800-624-5846.

Education is virtually useless in doing anything about self-defeating programs in the brain. In addition to Helmstetter's self-talk techniques, I know of two very powerful "maturity technologies" for reprogramming the brain: (1) Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP); and (2) Idenics. For an introduction to NLP I recommend the book Using Your Brain - for a Change by Richard Bandler. For information on Idenics contact Survival Services International, 1670 Elkhart St, Aurora, CO 80012; 1-800-433-6427 (1-800-IDENICS).

• Attitudes. Certain attitudes - like optimism - are more conducive to success than others. F.M. Esfandiary, author of such books as Optimism One, Up-Wingers, and Telespheres, epitomizes the attitudes of ultimate success:

"I am thrown off by such common questions as: What is your nationality? Where do you live? What is your profession? Where do you study? Are you married or single or involved with someone? How old are you? Are you Right wing or Left?

These questions are irrelevant to my worlds. My responses invariably throw off my contemporaries.

I am Universal. I translive all over the planet. Learn via Unicom [universal communication]. Have many professions. Am involved with many people. Consider all children as mine also. Neither Right nor Left - I am Up.

I have no age. Am born and reborn every day. I intend to live forever. Barring an accident I probably will. I also want to help others live on indefinitely.

My philosophy: Optimism - Abundance - Universalism - Immortality."

See Attitude is Everything.

• Creativity. A certain attitude is central to being creative: Every problem or crisis is also an opportunity. The worse many things are, the bigger opportunities they represent. Specific creativity will be covered in the creativity reports, starting with Report #TL80A: Creativity Report #1.

The most powerful book I know of on creativity is The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz. I regard it as the single most valuable book in my freedomry of about 5,000 books. Its basic approach is covered in Report #10: How to Achieve and Increase Personal Power.

Innovation. Innovation is related to creativity. Particularly, it refers to the introduction of a new concept, product, process, or technology. Before Build Freedom, there have been only two kinds of freedom organizations: educational and territorial free country. Educational freedom organizations promote freedom by educating people. Territorial free country organizations generally attempt to create a free country on an island, natural or manmade.

Build Freedom is a new innovation. Our starting point is discovering and recognizing that we are free and sovereign by nature. We can simply declare a worldwide free country. Then we behave in accordance with our individual freedom and sovereignty as far as possible and practicable. We experience our freedom. We induce others to experience their freedom. We create voluntary alternatives that gradually replace unfree institutions.

It's a radicaly different approach - an innovation. There is a superb manual on the subject. It's called Innovation: The Attacker's Advantage by Richard N. Foster. Must reading for anyone interested in strategy.

• Responsibility. As Overstreet tells us, we are born irresponsible. Responsibility depends on making workable cognitive connections between events or situations and actions, and between actions and consequences. It works like this: We observe an event or situation. We analyze it. Based on our understanding of the event or situation, and on our experience of certain actions and their consequences, we calculate an action to take. We then observe the consequences of the action to determine if we have dealt effectively with the event or situation. There needs to be a cognitive link between the event or situation and the action we choose. And there needs to be a cognitive link between action and consequences.

Five kinds of understanding are involved: (1) understanding events and situations; (2) understanding actions; (3) understanding the connections between events or situations and actions; (4) understanding consequences; and (5) understanding the connections between actions and consequences.

The thinking skill of prediction is involved. The situation is... 'S.' I predict that if I take the action... 'A,' then the consequence will be... 'C.' If I take the action and fail to produce the predicted consequence, then I need to do some thinking about what to do next. I need to learn from the experience so I can do better next time. If I succeeded in producing the predicted consequence, I also have a few things to learn, like: "Why did it work?", "What principle did I apply?", and "Where else can I apply it?"

You might ask, "Why all this complexity? Why all this thinking? I mean, you just do what's obvious!" Well, the answer is that maybe practically all our individual and collective problems stem from our relative immaturity in consciously applying the above. You see, we have here a formula for doing the right thing. What if this formula is a concise summary of every success book ever written, including this entire report? Maybe it's a very powerful success formula...

Responsibility can be thought of as the ability to respond - doing the right thing. You boost your maturity by increasing your competence to do the right thing in the right way at the right time.

If you watch the TV gameshow Wheel of Fortune carefully over a period of time, you may notice from the strength with which certain players spin the wheel, where they look immediately after they've spun the wheel, and the position in which the wheel comes to rest, that those players almost certainly aim. Some of these players repeatedly hit or come close to the $2,500, $3,500, or $5,000 slots. You may notice that some players seem to use a strategy of spinning the wheel about a quarter to half a turn, seeking to avoid the "lose a turn" and "bankrupt" slots. You'll also notice some players who almost certainly don't aim. The players who aim attempt to form a cognitive link between action and result. Could it be that many people go through life like the Wheel of Fortune players who don't aim?

See also Responsibility.

• Communication. If you lived alone on a deserted island you would not need to communicate to succeed. But, that not being the case, you have to communicate to produce the results you want. In fact, you may spend several hours a day communicating. In general, you communicate because you want to produce certain results.

How often during a conversation do we only half-listen to what the other person is saying, while thinking about what we're going to say next? How often, after we said something, do we really observe our audience to determine if we achieved the desired result?

Why does survey after survey indicate that people's greatest fear is having to speak in public? Why is speaking to an audience of three friends so qualitatively different from addressing a group of 30 strangers? What might the 30 strangers discover about you that the three friends wouldn't? These issues are addressed in Report #TL04A: The Most Fundamental Human Problem.

I have developed a very powerful method for improving the effectiveness of communication. It's called the power-message principle and it's described in detail in Report #TL10: How to Achieve and Increase Personal Power.

Later in this report (the one you're reading now) I discuss something very important about voice quality and success...

Marketing is an aspect of communication. See Report #TL13: How to Sell Freedom for Profit, which includes a bibliography on selling and marketing. The best marketing book that I know of is What's the Big Idea? by George Lois.

• Relationships. I must confess that I'm a relatively immature beginner when it comes to conducting successful relationships. I've heard that the Japanese are very good at conducting relationships and that it's one of their major strengths. Keeping agreements is obviously crucial. When I've become more effective I'll tell you what I learned.

Nevertheless, I am succeeding in getting others to work with me. Before the formulation of Build Freedom I failed dismally at getting others to work with me. Now there are several people around the world who are very eager to work with me. I don't really know what this success is due to. The power of the Build Freedom vision must be an important factor. It could be that the most important factor in getting others to work with you is to formulate a vision of extraordinary power and communicate it to the right people. (Incidentally, Build Freedom is the culmination of ten years' work on attempts to formulate such visions.)

I also surmise that I may have attained critical levels of maturity in a critical number of these elements I'm describing now, and that this made possible a "quantum success leap" - described later in this report.

The subject of how to get others to work with you is further described in Report #TL10: How to Achieve and Increase Personal Power.

• Networking. The power of networking is extraordinary. I believe someone has calculated that in going from person to person knowing each other, anyone in the world can be reached in about seven steps. In other words, someone you know knows someone, who knows someone (repeat a few times), who knows anyone in the world you might want to contact.

All major religions and philosophies have spread through networking. Much of the power of MLM (multi-level marketing) is due to networking.

I know of two excellent books on networking: Wishcraft and Teamworks by Barabara Sher.

• Personal Power. Power can be described as the ability to act or to do work, the ability to wield influence, or as organized energy. Lord Acton said, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Stewart Emery (the first est trainer trained by Erhard, and who left est to start his own organization called Actualizations) said, "Weakness corrupts and absolute weakness corrupts absolutely."

Consider the possibility that powerful people are not corrupted by power but by their weaknesses (areas of low quality?). Furthermore, consider the consequences of weak individuals relinquishing their power to corrupt tyrants (in politics, religions, education, cults, bureaucracies, etc). Consider the possibility that in all such cases it is weakness that corrupts.

About 2,500 years ago Lao Tzu, author of the Tao Te Ching, said that the biggest problem in the world was that individuals experienced themselves as powerless and dependent. What if today this is still the biggest problem?

Through its products and services Build Freedom provides individuals with the means for self-empowerment. See Report #TL10: How to Achieve and Increase Personal Power.

Many people buy into leader and follower stereotypes. Leaders tend to be grossly overrated and followers severely underrated. These stereotypes, if accepted, can have a debilitating effect on personal power.

There's an important power principle I haven't mentioned before. I got it from the book Behold a Pale Horse by Milton William Cooper:

"What Mr. Rothschild discovered was the basic principle of power, influence, and control over people as applied to economics. That principle is "when you assume the appearance of power, people soon give it to you."" [emphasis added]

• Leadership. Until a few days ago I greatly overvalued the power and influence of leaders. That changed when I came across the book The Power of Followership by Robert Kelley. The dust jacket reads:

"For three thousand years, business has studied, worshipped, and spent billions in training and developing leaders. All this focused attention has led to a profound blindness about and misconception of so-called followers - the people of exceptional ability who know how to lead themselves. They are the people, says Robert Kelley, who actually contribute more than 80 percent to the success of any project, any organization, while leaders at best contribute only 20 percent."

[Finding this book illustrates three important success principles: (1) The most useful information is often that which is the most different from what you now believe; (2) Always be willing to consider the opposite of whatever you believe; and (3) Always be on the lookout for information that might fill an important gap in your knowledge, or change your thinking drastically in some area.]

In their book Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge, Bennis, Warren & Nanus formulate a general theory of leadership: A leader formulates an inspiring vision; communicates that vision effectively; generates trust in himself or herself, the vision, the organization; and regards the activity of leadership as a means for self-development. Frederick Mann could be regarded a a "great leader" for starting Build Freedom. Or, he could be regarded as a "great follower" who attempts to assemble, integrate, and implement the best ideas of others.

According to Kelley, we suffer from a "leadership myth" in that leaders tend to be grossly overrated, worshipped, and idolized; and a "followership myth" in that followers tend to be ignored, undervalued, and denigrated. History has always been written as if the leader did everything and nobody else did anything. "King so and so built a great pyramid" - he probably never lifted even one stone. "General Patton won a great battle" - he probably didn't fire a single shot. "Gandhi defeated the British Empire" - his followers probably contributed more than 90% of the effort. Kelley writes:

"Most people think of Jefferson's writing of the Declaration of Independence as a leadership feat. But in reality Jefferson was a follower when he wrote it. As the "junior" member of the committee, he was assigned the task by the committee chairs, John Adams and Ben Franklin. Nobody outside of the Continental Congress, except a few friends, knew that Jefferson had written the Declaration. The fact did not appear in an American newspaper until eight years later in 1784. As a follower, Jefferson lived through all the bell ringing and speechmaking with little public recognition or personal commendation in the press."

[If you further research the authorship of the Declaration, you may discover that it was more likely written by Thomas Paine - refer to the book Thomas Paine, Author of the Declaration of Independence by Joseph Lewis. This is further covered in an excellent book available from Build Freedom: A Personal Declaration of Independence: To Complete the American Revolution by Paine's Torch.]

In the Build Freedom network structure, the distinction between leader and follower gradually disappears. In a network we are all peers.

The great disparity between the apparent power of the leader and that of the follower in hierarchical structures is partially due to the hierarchy itself, and partially due to the immaturity of the followers. As we mature we become less comfortable at the bottom or in the middle of hierarchies. As we mature and become more conscious, we learn to think for ourselves and we become more capable of leading ourselves. In Build Freedom everyone becomes a leader.

But I haven't even come close to doing justice to the importance of The Power of Followership by Robert Kelley. Whether you're in a "leader" or a "follower" position, Kelley's book is must reading and can help you increase your personal power phenomenally.

The book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey contains some very powerful principles and practices of self-management.

• Organization and management. I recommend the following books:
• The Deming Management Method by Mary Walton;
• Dr. Deming: The American Who Taught the Japanese about Quality by Rafael Aguayo;
• The Greatest Management Principle in the World by Michael LeBoeuf, Ph.D.;
• The Man Who Discovered Quality by Andrea Gabor.

The elements of organization and management are further covered in Reports #TL30A: The Power in the Details and #TL30B: The Missing Function, and additional reports to be written.

• Setting Goals. The most powerful and effective way to set goals that I know of is to make choices for the future. In a sense it is the creation of the future in the mind in the present. The choices generate a creative tension between the future and the present. The creative tension acts like a magnet which draws the present into the chosen future. You set it up so the path of least resistance leads from the present to the realization of the choices you've made. How to do this described in the book The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz.

• Health and fitness. Important elements of maturity, covered in Report #TL09: How to Achieve Superhealth.

• Quality. The idea of increasing quality in the world was inspired by Philip B. Crosby's book Quality is Free. He was largely responsible for initiating a "quality revolution" in ITT, beginning in 1967. If a quality revolution can be created in a large corporation, maybe we can use that as a model for creating a quality revolution in the world at large. If enough individuals increase the quality of their lives the result will be a higher quality world.

Crosby defines quality as "conformance to requirements." Each individual can define a set of ideal personal life requirements, covering areas such as self-esteem, health, fitness, relationships, sex, career, influence, finances, freedom, happiness, etc. Insofar as your actual life circumstances conform to your requirements, you have created a quality life. To increase the quality of your life, you improve aspects of your life, as necessary, so they approach or reach your ideal requirements. As you advance, you would probably also raise some of your requirements.

At a more profound level, our emphasis on quality was inspired by Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the second half of which is devoted to the Question: What is quality? Is quality what you like? Or is it what the "authorities" like? Can quality be defined? Can anyone know quality? Is quality what is beautiful? Is esthetics (a branch of philosophy) an attempt to define quality? Does the worth or value of something reflect its quality? Is quality part of matter, part of mind, or outside both mind and matter? Do different people see quality differently? If so, why? Can two or more people agree on quality? If not, why not?

About 2,500 years ago Lao Tzu, a Chinese philosopher, wrote the Tao Te Ching. "Tao" is translated as "the way." Pirsig speculates by substituting "quality" for "tao." Could quality be another word for "the way" we've been looking for?

Actually, a quality revolution has already been brought about in the major companies of a whole country, namely Japan. Two Americans played pivotal roles: W. Edwards Deming and Joseph M. Juran. Deming is the better known and could be described as "the father of the Japanese Quality Revolution." Deming's definition of quality is essentially "continuous improvement in all areas in all respects." The Japanese use one word to encapsulate this concept - KAIZEN.

If a quality revolution could occur in the main businesses of an entire country, then it should be possible to bring about a quality revolution in more countries and in wider aspects in addition to business - GLOBAL KAIZEN.

In his book 'Lila' Pirsig explores quality further -- see MOQ.org.

• Semantics. In his book Word Controlled Humans: A Brief History, John Harland writes:
  

  "THE FORK IN THE ROAD
  Words can be used to tell others what an individual perceives; they can also be used to override perception, condition or destroy thought, and control humans. When the first trails were being made in the expanding growth of conscious ideas, there was a fork in the road of possibilities. The majority of humans turned off in a direction that has now been made into a broad highway. Nature's method of making individual perception a major factor affecting survival was the way rejected; acceptance of the individual by a word-conditioned group was made the dominant requirement affecting the individual's survival. As I see it, the fork we have taken can lead only to human extinction or biological regression; the other could have led to a further evolutionary advance. I want to contrast the two directions, recommend the other fork, and set forth a procedure for getting over to it." [emphasis added]

Words are tools. Like with many tools (using the word in a wide sense), we have a basic choice: either we control them, or they control us. The first choice is that of the sovereign individual. The second is that of the slave. Words are also used to brainwash slaves into believing they are "free."

If you operate on the basis that a word-created group masquerading as "government" owns "your" life - they can draft you into their army and kill you in their war - then you're a slave. If you believe this group owns "your" body - they dictate what you may or may not put into "your" body - then you are a slave. If you believe this group owns "your" mind - they force you into their "schools" for brainwashing - then you are a slave. If you believe this group has the right to "your" property - taxes, eminent domain, confiscation - then you are a slave.

Territorial gangsters are individuals who use force, fraud, violence, and threat of violence to claim "jurisdiction" (so-called) over a territory and the people who happen to be there, and to live like parasites or cannibals off the production of their victims. The primary weapon these territorial gangsters use to control, dominate, and suck you dry is not the gun; it's the word. First they brainwash you into believing that their fancy titles - "King," "Queen," "President," "Authority," etc. - give them a (magical) status so they can lord it over you. Then they brainwash you that because of their (magical) status, their word is also special and magical and is "the law" (so-called). If you believe them you become their slave.

When territorial gangsters want you, your life, your mind, your body, or your property, they don't at first come at you with a gun; they send you words on paper. The word is their primary weapon. They only send a policeman with a gun if you repeatedly ignore or disobey their word. If you want to escape their slavery you have to reject their words. If you continue to subject yourself to their words you will remain a slave.

The primary power of the territorial gangster is the word. I don't care how much mental effort you have to put into grasping this, but you have to do it. John Harland's book Word Controlled Humans is described as follows:

"The processes that turn individual humans into monstrous group organisms is the significant aspect of history on which this book focuses. "Civil" and "religious" groups, growing into powers by destruction of individual souls and control of individual will, receive the same examination - with no glorified generalities glossing over the horror that sharp focus reveals.

Concerned primarily with the word conditioning that now dominates America and Europe, this work highlights the need to first remove the obstructions from our own eyes - before trying to correct the faults of others. The history and current practices in our own conditioning are examined from a new perspective. No issues are dodged...

This is a book for those who want to be individuals. There is none of the usual summing up that "we, as a group" should take some vague corrective action. Instead, a clear possibility for individuals to take effective action is spelled out in precise detail."
[Write to Sovereign Press, 326 Harris Rd, Rochester, WA 98579.]

You also need to read Robert J. Ringer's Restoring The American Dream, Chapter 8: "Keeping It All in Place." I don't care how many times you have read this chapter, but if you want to cease being a slave you have to grasp how you've been enslaved by words - including the words "government" and "country." You have to understand that political tyrannies are kept in place primarily by words and only secondarily by guns. And you have to invest the mental effort to find out which words and why.

Semantics is further covered in Report #TL50A: Semantic Rigidity, Flexibility, and Freedom, and subsequent reports to be written. Also relevant to the element of semantics are Reports #TL06: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, #TL07: The Constitution of No Authority, and #TL07A: Gulliver's Travels and Alice in Wonderland.

The book Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins has a very informative chapter on the power of words.

In my opinion, the biggest leap forward in the growth of human maturity will occur when individuals become aware of how their minds have been enslaved by the words of territorial gangsters and how these words are used to, "override perception, condition or destroy thought, and control humans." See #TL07A: The Anatomy of Slavespeak.

• Individual Sovereignty. The Build Freedom Code reflects individual sovereignty - see Report #TL01: Behold! - Build Freedom. Individual sovereignty is further discussed in Report #TL04: How to Find Out Who You Are.

What do you think are the implications of individual sovereignty? Could this be the "ONE BASIC TRUTH?" Could it even mean that, from a functional point of view, every individual could or should regard himself or herself as the center of the universe? What will happen to political institutions when a critical mass of individuals discover that they are individually sovereign?

If you haven't yet discovered that you are a sovereign, individual, does this mean that you are automatically the slave of something outself yourself - by your own choice, even if unwitting - or simply by default?

What are the psychological implications of being a sovereign individual?

• Freedom. Many freedom-lovers learn a few things about freedom. At some point they decide that their view of freedom is "absolute truth." They form or join a group of likeminded freedom-lovers with the purpose to convert the world to their view of freedom. A mature approach to freedom is that there will always be more to learn about freedom. To regard any view of freedom as the "final word," is to arrest your development in this vital maturity element at that point. Maybe it's necessary to continuously free yourself from your own view of freedom! See Reports #TL05: How to Discover Your Freedom and #TL05A: The nature of Freedom.
• Philosophy. Philosophy needs to to be re-evaluated, re-integrated, and reformulated by free sovereign individuals who are sophisticated in semantics.

The most important result to be achieved is the formulation of a set of values - as mature as possible - and the development of the means to effectively disseminate these values. Here is my crude beginning:

1. Individual sovereignty. The life of the individual is the greatest value.
2. Self-ownership. Individuals own their lives, minds, and bodies.
3. Property ownership. Individuals own the fruit of their labor and other property.
4. Freedom of choice, voluntary association, and voluntary exchange. Anyone can do anything that doesn't harm another or their property.
5. Keep agreements. My word is my bond.

The Build Freedom Code (see Report #TL01: Behold! - Build Freedom) is based on such a set of values. The first four items above can be condensed as: Respect others, their property, and their choices.

This is the beginning of the branch of philosophy called Ethics - the values that result in harmonious interaction. We also need to examine Epistemology (how we know), Ontology (what exists), and Cosmology (the nature of the universe and its creatures). Semantics could be regarded as a branch of epistemology. Build Freedomn philosophy will be developed in a series of reports, starting with Report #TL70A: The Values of Build Freedom.

• Psychology. We need "Build Freedom Maturity Centers" where the most effective techniques such as Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Idenics can be taught and applied. People need to learn the most effective techniques for intelligence increase. People need to learn thinking skills and emotional mastery. Anthony Robbins, author of Unlimited Power and Awaken the Giant Within, has created a substantial and profitable business marketing success techniques, all of which could also be called "maturity techniques." His business can be used as a model for launching "Build Freedom Maturity Centers."
• Economics. We need sound free-market alternatives to political monopoly currencies and banking. We need the kind of attitude towards money suggested by Douglas Casey in his book Crisis Investing for the Rest of the Nineties. We need to bring about a huge shift of resources from the public and private sectors into the real, true, or pure free market - commonly called the "underground economy" or the "black market." We need to learn to operate in the free market while avoiding the territorial gangsters.

Many of us have programs in the brain about money that hold us back. My book Wake Up America! The Dynamics of Human Power has a section on mastering money.

To achieve ultimate success, we need healthy attitudes toward money. Let me quote Douglas Casey:

• "Attitudes toward money are a psychological watershed that reflect on every aspect of life."
• "... [M]oney as a moral good, representing all the good things in life you want to have, do, and provide for others."
• "Insofar as you spend the days of your life working for it, money represents concentrated life."

The subject of financial well-being is covered in more detail in Report #TL13A: The Millionaire's Secret. See also How to Overcome "Economic Correctness."

• Politics. Politics is probably the element in which most people are most immature. I propose a simple yardstick for maturity in politics: the extent of institutionalized coercion. I describe coercion as the initiation of force, fraud or violence by some against others, without the consent of the recipients; the use of force or threat to overwhelm the will of another. Coercion is essentially the use of brute force. As Mao said, political power comes from the barrel of a gun. By this measure, the highest degree of political maturity in America was achieved in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence. Since then it's all been downhill.

Practically every law passed in America increases the degree of institutionalized coercion, and is a downhill step towards immaturity. Consider the possibility that the more coercive or violent the political system becomes, the more immature, corrupt, and criminal the people it draws into its positions of power. The more laws that are passed, the more actions become defined as "crimes," sometimes irrespective of whether these actions are harmful or not. Also, the more laws that are passed, the more harmful acts by government immaturity agents against innocent victims are "legalized."

As the political system becomes more coercive, violent, and immature, the "crime rate" rises. Apart from more and more harmful actions being defined as "crimes," the coercion and violence of government begets more coercion and violence in society generally.

The Build Freedomn solution to this mighty problem - or great opportunity! - is suggested in the following reports: #TL03: How to Improve Your Information, #TL04: How to Find Out Who You Are, #TL05: How to Discover Your Freedom, #TL06: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, #TL07: The Constitution of No Authority, #TL07A: The Anatomy of Slavespeak, #TL08: U.S. Federal Jurisdiction, #TL16: Tax Education for Everyone, #TL16A: The Best Kept Secrets of the IRS, #TL16B: Sample Correspondence to Beat the IRS, #TL16C: U.S. Tax Abatement Services, #TL16D: The Most Powerful Income-Protection Ammo, #TL17: What's Wrong with the U.S. and Other Countries, and #TL17A: Dismantling the U.S. Federal Reserve System; and my books The Economic Rape of America: What You Can Do About It and Wake Up America! The Dynamics of Human Power.

The following is extracted from The Arizona Republic, of January 7, 1994, under the heading: "OUTRAGEOUS DECEPTION - Radiation secrets":

"Babies, retarded children, pregnant women and sick men were turned into guinea pigs by their own government.
How could this have happened?
How could this have happened here?
Not in Nazi Germany.
Here.

Here in the nation built on respect for individual rights. Here in a country governed by a Constitution carefully crafted to protect the governed from the excesses of government.

Is this the land of the mad scientist and the home of the dupe? Is this the kind of place where retarded boys are fed radioactive milk by researchers who cynically refer to them as the "science club"? Where pregnant women are injected with radioactive iron courtesy of a federal grant? Where newborns are given radioactive iodine in an effort to find a test for thyroid disease? Where laboratory walls are impregnated with radioactive cobalt and cesium so the effects can be measured on unwitting cancer patients?

In a 1950 memo, one of the researchers said critics might find "a little of the Buchenwald touch" if they knew of the radiation experiments on an unwitting population. Radiation biologist Joseph G. Hamilton urged the Atomic Energy Commission "for both political and scientific reasons to secure what data can be obtained by using large monkeys."

The U.S. government used its citizens instead."

If you study the AIDS exposé in Report #TL09A: AIDS - Bad Science or Hoax?, you might come to the conclusion that what governments are doing in respect of AIDS is mass genocide.

In Behold a Pale Horse Milton William Cooper quotes a "secret document":

"The primary reason why the individual citizens of a country create a political structure is a subconscious wish or desire to perpetuate their own dependency relationship of childhood. Simply put, they want a human god to eliminate all risk from their life, pat them on the head, kiss their bruises, put a chicken on every dinner table, clothe their bodies, tuck them into bed at night, and tell them everything will be allright when they wake up in the morning.

This public demand is incredible, so the human god, the politician, meets incredibility with incredibility by promising the world and delivering nothing. So who is the bigger liar? The public? Or the "godfather"?

This public behavior is surrender born of fear, laziness, and expediency. It is the basis of the welfare state as a strategic weapon, useful against a disgusting public."

Correction: Government doesn't deliver nothing; it delivers DEATH...

"There are still peoples and herds somewhere, but not with us, my brothers: here there are states.
The state? What is that? Well then! Now open your ears, for now I shall speak to you of the death of peoples.
The state is the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies, too; and this lie creeps from its mouth; 'I, the state, am the people.'
It is a lie! It was creators who created peoples and hung a faith and a love over them: thus they served life.
It is destroyers who set snares for many and call it the state: they hang a sword and a hundred desires over them.
Where a people still exists, there the people do not understand the state and hate it as the evil eye and sin against custom and law.
I offer you this sign: every people speaks its own language of good and evil: its neighbor does not understand this language. It invented this language for itself in custom and law.
But the state lies in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it says, it lies - and whatever it has, it has stolen.
Everything about it is false; it bites with stolen teeth. Even its belly is false.
Confusion of the language of good and evil; I offer you this sign of the state. Truly, this sign indicates the will to death! Truly, it beckons to the preachers of death!
Many too many are born: the state was invented for the superfluous!
Just see how it lures them, the many-too-many! How it devours them, and chews them, and re-chews them!
... It would like to range heroes and honorable men about it, this new idol! It likes to sun itself in the sunshine of good consciences - this cold monster!
It will give you everything if you worship it, this new idol: thus it buys for itself the luster of your virtues and the glance of your proud eyes.
It wants to use you to lure the many-too-many. Yes, a cunning device of Hell has here been devised, a horse of death jingling with the trappings of divine honors!
Yes, a death for many has here been devised that glorifies itself as life: truly a heart-felt service to all preachers of death!
I call it the state where everyone, good and bad, is a poison-drinker: the state where everyone, good and bad, loses himself: the state where universal slow suicide is called - life."
- Friedrich Nietzsche, 1884

• Religion. According to Overstreet, about 15 centuries ago there was a great religious controversy. The chief spokesman for one side was Augustine, who claimed that humans inherited evil. The main proponent for the other side was Pelagius, who held that evil was not inherited. Augustine won and Pelagius was declared a heretic. Hence the doctrine that humans are basically evil.

Consider that this doctrine might be a psychologically crippling and debilitating brain program or "curse." According to Overstreet, Jesus of Nazareth tried to induce his followers into greater maturity: "Here was a mature man's declaration that the way for a human being to save himself is that of his growing into the fullness of his powers - and into knowledge that the greatest of these powers is love."

According to John Harland's Word Controlled Humans, about a hundred years before the Declaration of Independence a great advance in religious maturity occurred:

"... Roger Williams... declared that every individual's view about the universal creative intelligence was a matter of conscience. He proclaimed that no one could have any position of "authority" over what another "should" believe. He established the first Baptist church within the area that was later to be designated the United States.

Each individual Baptist church was conceived as being composed simply of those with like beliefs who voluntarily came together; the church had no "authority" over its individual members; the pastor of each had no "authority"; he was chosen and/or "ordained" by those who wanted him to conduct the services; there was no infant baptism; membership in the church was a voluntary decision of those old enough to think for themselves and make their own decisions. This would become the non-Catholic church that was chosen by the greatest number of people in what would be called the United States... "

In boosting one's religious maturity I suggest that one should consider the opposite of every argument. To expose oneself to a wide range of arguments and to open one's mind to new information, I propose the following reading list: The Bible by various authors, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes, The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors or Christianity before Christ by Kersey Graves, Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzsche, The Jesus Hoax by Phyllis Graham, and Atheism: The Case Against God by George H. Smith. See also The Other Side of Religion.

• Biological or physical immortality. In my opinion, death is the ultimate failure; biological or physical immortality, the ultimate success.

The biggest obstacle to immortality is government - which is institutionalized death.

• Transcendence. Abraham Maslow is best-known for his famous "hierarchy of needs." His 'The Farther Reaches of Human Nature' is "must reading" for all maturity boosters, particularly the chapters:
  • Self-Actualizing and Beyond
  • Notes on Being-Psychology
  • Various Meanings of Transcendence

  To get an overview of Maslow's psychology, see

  • Abraham Maslow
  • Abraham Maslow Reader
  • Maslow Nidus
  • Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
  • Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
  • Notes on Abraham Maslow
  • Self-Actualization

Why the Expanded Maturity Concept is so Powerful
The analogy of the motor car illustrates the power of the expanded maturity concept. A modern motor car contains hundreds of parts and subassemblies performing many functions. Certain elements (for example, pistons) are vital. In their absence the car won't run at all. For a car to run, a large number of functions need to be performed by many elements. For the car to run properly, function-performance needs to meet certain standards; furthermore, many functions need to be integrated (for example, sparkplugs need to spark and valves need to open and close at the right times). Any number of functions or elements, if missing, would prevent the car from running. Nevertheless, a car can run even with bad plugs, dirty oil, and bald tires - but how well and for how long?

The development of the motor car could also serve as an analogy for the growth of maturity. Early cars had relatively few elements and functions and performed poorly by modern-day standards. As the car became more sophisticated, more elements and functions were incorporated and functions were better integrated, leading to improved performance. In the most modern cars, computer functions have been added to improve function-integration. From the hindsight of the modern car it's easy to see the missing elements or functions in the Model-T Ford. From a "Model-T-perspective" it is difficult to envisage the elements and functions that need to be added to transform the Model-T into a modern car.

An individual (as well as a car) can be regarded as a hierarchy or network of integrated elements and functions. From today's perspective it's easy to see what elements or functions in the primitive stone-age caveman were further developed in order to bring about the modern human. From the perspective of a hypothetical future highly mature person it would be easy to see what elements or functions had to be further developed in the "modern human" of a few centuries ago. That hypothetical future highly mature person might regard today's "modern human" as a primitive savage!

By surveying a very wide range of the best suggestions of our most advanced thinkers (past and present) it's possible to come up with a list of elements where we need to boost our maturity. By applying our imagination and other mental faculties, we further expand our list. This is essentially how the Model-T developed (or matured) into the modern car.

The power of the expanded maturity concept comes from the incessant, intense, and never-ending focus on finding ALL the elements where maturity needs to be boosted. All other success approaches I know of are partial and usually lead to failure, sometimes to ordinary or partial success, and very seldom to spectacular success.

Other Elements
There are other areas of life where maturity needs to be boosted, such as Science, Technology, Ecology, Agriculture, Architecture, etc. The methods suggested in this report can be applied in all these areas.

What's Missing?
This is a request to all readers. What do I need to change or add to make this report more powerful and effective?

Priorities

1. The first priority for those who wish to boost maturity is to boost their own maturity.
2. The second priority is to learn how to assist others to boost their own maturity.
3. The third priority is to assist others to boost their own maturity.
4. The fourth priority is to induce others to assist others to boost their own maturity.

How You Boost Your Maturity
The basic way you boost your maturity is by observing the consequences of your actions and learning from them. A basic formula is involved:

1. Observe and analyze a situation.
2. Act.
3. Observe the consequences.
4. Formulate a rule of thumb or heuristic: "If under conditions 'C' I perform action 'A' then the result 'R' occurs 'P' percent of the time" - for example, "When I'm tired at night I go to sleep; and if I sleep for seven hours, I wake up in the morning feeling refreshed 95% of the time."
5. Further test and refine the heuristic by repeating steps 1-3 and using consequences or results as feedback.
6. Formulate general rules of thumb or heuristics about the nature and behavior of physical reality and, most important, heuristics about human nature and behavior.

Much of what is generally known as "common sense" can be described as heuristics that were developed by applying steps 1-6 above, for example, "If you kick a stone you hurt your foot."

You can boost your maturity considerably by learning from others. Because of writing and other forms of recording information and communication, many experiences of others are available to you. To avail yourself of this store of knowledge you need to open your mind to new information.

Unfortunately much of what is written, and communicated by other means, is fallacious or immature. There is a need to sift the wheat from the chaff, to find the pearls in the puddle. To boost your maturity you may need to develop strategies that enable you to identify the most useful information - see Report #TL03: How to Improve Your Information.

Another method you can use to boost your maturity is to find a wise mentor who serves as a provider of practical wisdom. You can also establish a buddy relationship and assist one another. You can go further and establish a network of people, each of whom informs the others when they come across useful information that is not generally known.

"Heuristic" Defined
Heuristics play a central role in my formula for boosting maturity. A heuristic is a rule of thumb, a method or procedure based on common sense, a general principle that that is roughly correct. The word "heuristic" comes from the Latin heuristicus and Greek heuriskein meaning to discover. It is akin to the Old Irish word fuar meaning I found. A heuristic is a self-educating technique using feedback to improve performance. The basic formula for boosting maturity - steps 1-6 above, is an example of a heuristic procedure.

Another definition of heuristic is cognitive link between action and result. We mail out thousands of sales letters every week. From experience we've learnt that a particular sales letter to a particular kind of mailing list yields a 2% response. On average, if we mail to 100 people, two will buy. "2%" is a cognitive link between action (mailing) and result (orders). It's a rule of thumb or a heuristic.

Boosting Your Maturity Involves Change
To boost your maturity you need to change. Consider the following classification of human behavior:

1. Belief, thought, understanding.
2. Feelings and emotions.
3. Actions.

In yourself, which of these three can you change most easily? Over which do you have most control? In my opinion, you can change your actions much more easily than your beliefs, thoughts, and emotions. This leads to a fundamental heuristic:

There is also a contradictory heuristic:

In moving on to the second priority: learning how to assist others to boost their maturity, consider again the classification of human behavior:

1. Belief, thought, understanding.
2. Feelings and emotions.
3. Actions.

You may think that in order to change the behavior of others, all you have to do is to provide them with facts, scientific evidence, logical explanations, and rational formulas so they will understand and change. This approach is based on the fallacious assumption that it is easier to change beliefs and emotions than actions. If you find it easier to change your own actions compared to your beliefs and emotions, then how can you expect it to be otherwise for others? This leads to another heuristic:

The Eight Basic Immaturity Heuristics

1. We tend to believe too readily.
2. Generally, we strive to understand only what we have first chosen to believe.
3. We tend to use logic to justify our beliefs rather than to change our beliefs.
4. We have a profound ability to refuse to understand what we choose not to believe.
5. We have strong emotional and intuitive drives to understand whatever we choose to believe.
6. In general, logic has nothing to do with understanding, until after we first choose to believe.
7. We have strong emotional and intuitive drives to cling to our beliefs.
8. Generally, we will either blind ourselves to the consequences of our actions, or we will blame others or factors external to ourselves.

[Acknowledgment: The above heuristics were partly derived from material provided by Clear Purpose Management, Inc. of Englewood, Colorado.]

Most of the undesirable results or consequences in the world - war, inflation, depression, crime, unemployment, poverty, famine, homelessness, drug addiction, fraud, government, terrorism, pollution, corruption, bank failures, etc. - can be ascribed to the above eight heuristics.

Build Freedom is organized to achieve the above.

Quantum Success Jumps
I speculate that if certain conditions of maturity are satisfied an individual's general success level takes a qualitative leap. The general success level of those who do not experience this quantum jump tends to remain static or tends to decline.

I further speculate that, loosely speaking, three such quantum success jumps could occur: (1) from pre-success to ordinary success; (2) from ordinary to spectacular success; and (3) from spectacular success to ultimate success.

The three levels of success: ordinary, spectacular, and ultimate are analogous to a car with three gears and a stick shift. Ordinary success is like first gear; spectacular success like second gear; and ultimate success like third or top gear. Pre-success is like neutral. A quantum success jump is analogous to shifting gears.

Moreover, I speculate that these quantum success jumps occur when we reach a critical level of maturity in a critical number of elements. Let me illustrate from my own experience: For about ten years I've been working actively on trying to spread my ideas. Until about eighteen months I failed dismally in getting others to buy my ideas. Then I started Free America! Institute and self-published The Economic Rape of America: What You Can Do About It and people started paying me for my ideas. This was a quantum jump from pre-success to ordinary success. Eight months ago, together with two friends, I started Build Freedom. Suddenly 50 people a week or more, from several countries, started sending me money for my ideas. Many have become Distributors of my ideas. Many have sent rave letters praising my ideas. This was a quantum jump from ordinary success to spectacular success. I speculate that each quantum success jump occurred when I reached critical levels of maturity in a critical number of elements.

Blind Spots, Quality, and Success
Some time ago I came across a book by Dr. Morton Cooper, Change Your Voice; Change Your Life. On looking through it I quickly realized that voice quality is a major element of success. Yet I have hated "my voice" all my life.

What's interesting about this is that I've been involved in self-improvement and self-actualization activities for 25 years. Nobody ever said to me, "Listen, you have to do something about developing your natural voice."

Dr. Cooper describes success as "becoming the best person you can possibly be." Success has to do with achieving goals, performing tasks that satisfy requirements, being healthy, happy, loving, rich, famous, etc. - according to your own criteria. Success and voice quality are related.

In the area of voice quality I've suffered from a blind spot all my life. A blind spot is an area where you don't see. It is a "nothing" which is by nature invisible to you. The term "blind spot" itself suffers from "blind spottedness." It doesn't include "deaf spot." Regarding my voice, I have actually suffered from a "deaf spot."

Very few people know that for optimum health they can use the sense of smell, for naturally occurring nutrients, to select the food their bodies need most at any particular time (see Report #TL09: How to Achieve Superhealth). This indicates a further aspect of "blind spottedness." Consider the following:

      see - blind
     hear - deaf
    smell - ?

What is the missing word? Do you know? In the area of smell we have a "blind spot" we are so "blind" to, that we don't even know the word to describe it. Does any reader know the missing word?

Well, I'll tell you the missing word: "anosmic." Someone who suffers loss or impairment of the sense of smell is anosmic. The noun describing the condition is "anosmia." The person with the condition is called an "anosmatic." There is also a medical term that speficially describes the inability to smell food: "anosmia gustatoria."

Probably most of us aspiring maturity-boosters suffer from some blind spots...

And to become aware of our blind spots may be very difficult. As Butler Shaffer said, "We are unwilling to turn our mind back upon itself - like a mirror facing another mirror - and let it examine itself! That terrorizes the hell out of us, because to do so will call into question all the silly little games we have made up with which to amuse ourselves and, more importantly, will reveal to ourselves that all of the cherished values and institutions for which we have been willing to make our personal lives miserable, were nothing more than made up games!" (in a talk presented to the Albert Jay Nock Forum, Long Beach, CA on December 1, 1987).

Question Everything
It's possible that, rather than having to boost a large number of parts, factors, or elements of maturity to a critical level in order to make a quantum success jump, you merely have to develop or acquire a single ability that transforms you from an "immaturity cripple" into a "maturity-booster." If there is such a single ability I propose as the leading candidate: the willingness and ability to question everything.

Our sense organs can only perceive over limited ranges. Sounds occur that we cannot hear. Our senses may deceive us. Sometimes we see what we want to see. Professional magicians can deceive our senses with consummate ease. In addition, our sense perceptions are converted into mental images in our brains. These mental images may be further distortions of our perceptions. So, what about the concept of "truth?"

Let me repeat the eight basic immaturity heuristics:

1. We tend to believe too readily.
2. Generally, we strive to understand only what we have first chosen to believe.
3. We tend to use logic to justify our beliefs rather than to change our beliefs.
4. We have a profound ability to refuse to understand what we choose not to believe.
5. We have strong emotional and intuitive drives to understand whatever we choose to believe.
6. In general, logic has nothing to do with understanding, until after we first choose to believe.
7. We have strong emotional and intuitive drives to cling to our beliefs.
8. Generally, we will either blind ourselves to the consequences of our actions, or we will blame others or factors external to ourselves.

The Basic Speculations of Maturity Development
Originally I called the speculations below "axioms." But I decided to be more modest and humble. They could also be called Hypotheses or proposed axioms.

Speculation 1: Organismic Knowledge
Every conscious or potentially conscious human organism has a great deal of the knowledge and skills, or can locate, identify, and/or produce most of the knowledge and skills, necessary for its optimum maturity development.

Speculation 2: Minimum Intervention
Every human organism requires some external intervention for its maturity development. To maximize that development, the intervention needs to be reduced to the appropriate minimum. (Reason: so the individual learns competent, independent, internal examination, analysis, and evaluation.)

Speculation 3: Will to Power
Every human organism is genetically programmed to increase and extend its influence and control over itself, other organisms, and its environment. Every human organism is also genetically programmed to be a slave of "superior beings." Through the progressive development in the requisite maturity elements all or most human organisms can shift from slavery to mastery.

Speculation 4: Voluntary Cooperation
Conscious human organisms optimize their influence, control, and development through voluntary cooperation with other conscious or potentially conscious human organisms.

Speculation 5: Optimum Ingestion
(a) As determined by its long-term evolution and biological constitution, every human organism has specific (often unique) nutrient requirements. Practically all human organisms have the sensory means to determine their optimum ingestion in respect of naturally occurring nutrients.

(b) Because of the recency of the evolution of human consciousness, most human organisms have not yet developed the means to determine their optimum ingestion of information.

(c) Human organisms require external intervention to rediscover how to use their sensory means to determine their optimum nutrition. They also require external intervention to optimize their ingestion of information. In accordance with axioms 2 and 4, such intervention is most effective when based on voluntary cooperation and reduced to the appropriate minimum.

Speculation 6: Action Precedes Development
For optimum human maturity development it is necessary to provide human organisms with opportunities and incentives to take actions highly likely to produce beneficial results, including maturity development in some or all maturity elements. In accordance with axioms 2 and 4, such intervention is most effective when based on voluntary cooperation and reduced to the appropriate minimum.

Speculation 7: Heuristic Transference
A heuristic development axiom or principle that applies to one aspect of human development tends to apply to many other areas. Many heuristics learned in one area of human behavior can be usefully transferred and applied to other areas.

Speculation 8: Virtually Infinite Potential
Because of intelligence, consciousness, thinking skills, tool-using ability, information recording and transmission, and cooperation, human organisms can create and recreate themselves and their environments virtually without limit.

The Immaturity Cripple and the Maturity Booster
The difference between someone who has taken a quantum success jump and someone who hasn't, is that the general level of success of the maturity booster increases, while that of the immaturity cripple remains static or declines. The maturity booster tends to focus on particular areas (for example, some of the maturity elements) and takes deliberate actions to boost maturity in those areas.

The immaturity cripple may be blocked from further development by factors such as unjustified arrogance or pride; closed-mindedness; plain ignorance or stupidity; "paradigm paralysis" (inability to shift from one paradigm to another); blind spots; poverty; famine; intellectual isolation; "unreality addiction"; being a "true believer"; cultural, philosophical, religious, or political brainwashing; etc.

Some people get stuck by "conversion" into a particular branch, cult, or movement of philosophy, psychology, religion, or politics. They perceive this movement as "having all the answers." During their initial involvement with the movement (and possibly for several years) the "converted" may experience a marked increase in maturity in some aspects of life. A marginal utility heuristic may apply: after a while the benefit derived from being involved in the movement declines in comparison to the money, time, and effort invested in continuing in the movement. Eventually the "converted" may get stuck because of the limitations of whatever movement they are involved in, and derive no further development towards maturity. A sane strategy in this respect is to move from movement to movement, taking, using, and applying from each whatever you can to boost your maturity.

The Preponderance of Means over Ends
The more sophisticated we humans become, the more cumbersome are some of the means we develop to achieve our ends. For example, one of the ends or results most of us value highly is safety. So we develop military organizations to ensure our safety. In parts of the world millions are spent on the military while thousands starve to death. And many of us have suffered anxiety at the prospect of nuclear conflagration. The means tend to become more important than the ends: the preponderance of means over ends.

In much of human activity there is a tendency for people to get preoccupied with the means while losing sight of the ends. People eat and drink for for the short-lived pleasure of stimulation (and die of heart attacks, strokes, or cancer in their youth or prime), rather than for the enduring pleasure of superb health; eating becomes more important than health and survival. The car tends to become more important than the destination. We developed emotions and thoughts as means to guide our actions to produce the ends we want. But many of us become slaves to our emotions and thoughts. We develop institutions as means to produce the ends we want. Instead we tend to become slaves of institutions that often produce the opposite of what they're supposed to - like government. For example, government currency systems supposed to produce monetary stability, produce inflation instead.

The preponderance of means over ends is a common thread that runs through most immaturity. The antidote is the willingness and ability to question everything, particularly all the means we develop.

The Small-Step Progression Principle
Build Freedom is designed so that only small steps are necessary to achieve spectacular success. We only have to take small steps like: complete the next report, write letters, make phone calls, send out information packages, etc. This is the small step-progression principle. It is also designed so each step makes the next step easier.

We don't need a big backer or rich investor to proceed. (We started with a capital of about $250!) There are no big hurdles to overcome. We just need to take many little steps every day. As more and more people start supporting us, credibility and momentum grows - like a snowball running down an almost endless mountainside, and accelerating!

Boosting your own maturity could follow the same principle. Don't be overwhelmed by all the things this report suggests you need to do. Just take a few small steps every day in one or more of the maturity elements. If you'll continue doing this, you'll suddenly discover one day that you've taken a quantum success jump!

The small-step progression principle is closely related to reducing the tendency for the preponderance of means over ends.

The Wrong to Right Shift
In attempting to boost maturity it's very easy to fall into the "making wrong" trap. When you tell someone that he or she is immature in some respect, you are making that person wrong. Even when you say that what you think or do is mature, you may make the other person wrong by implication. By saying that your method is right you may imply that another's method is wrong. It often does not work to make people wrong or to be perceived as making them wrong.

However, the very suggestion that change is necessary tends to make people wrong. My saying that maturity needs to be boosted in the world automatically makes people wrong. How to resolve the dilemma? The very fact that someone agrees to work with me to boost maturity in the world means he or she accepts as a first priority to boost their own maturity. This opens the door for me to assist that person. We have an agreement to assist one another to help boost the maturity of each. The agreement could be limited to certain maturity elements. In respect of those elements we could operate out of a context of identifying rightness and building on that rightness.

To escape the "right-wrong" pitfall, Build Freedom says: "Try playing with my toys; you might like them." This is a general heuristic:

What's Right About Us Humans
It would be interesting to find out what percentage of people (a) have the urge to improve themselves, and (b) have the urge to improve society in general. If these percentages are significant, it would indicate that considerable energy is available for boosting maturity. I certainly have a strong urge to correct what's wrong. I suspect that most people who have an improvement urge think in terms of correcting what's wrong. In some respects, my efforts to improve myself have been spectacularly successful. On the other hand, my efforts to help others improve and society in general have only recently started showing a promise of success.

Now it seems that I need to learn to find out what's right about people and how to build on these rightnesses or strengths. What's right about us humans generally?

1. We have become the dominant species on earth because of our tool-using ability, intelligence, consciousness, reason, communication abilities, adaptability, and ability to change and control our environment.
2. We have mastered nature to the extent that in several parts of the world many of us live and travel in safety and comfort, without lacking any physical necessities of life.
3. Some of us know that because we control the energy that animates our bodies and minds, and because we are conscious, we are free to choose our actions. We can choose any action which we are physically capable of performing. Of course, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.
4. Every day practically all of us take actions that predictably produce the results or consequences we want. The reason we can choose and take actions that produce the results we want is that we have cognitive links between actions and consequences. These cognitive links can be expressed in the form of heuristics like, "If under conditions 'C' I perform action 'A' then the result 'R' occurs 'P' percent of the time."
5. Many of us perform multitudes of actions based on heuristics that work, producing the results we want. The very fact that we are alive demonstrates this.

Maturity Equals Quality of Heuristics
The above factors of rightness suggest an approach to develop greater maturity of human action generally:

1. Identify an area of life in which a person is particularly successful.
2. Get the person to express some of the heuristics he or she applies in this area.
3. Find out how the person learned and/or formulated the heuristic.
4. Get the person in touch with his or her ability to learn and formulate heuristics, or cognitive links between actions and consequences.
5. Get the person to realize that he or she has the ability to question some of his or her current beliefs or methods and can learn and formulate workable heuristics in any area of life.
6. Get the person to understand that there is a relationship between the quality of heuristics and the desirability of consequences or results. Workable or useful heuristics yield desirable results. Increasing quality of heuristics improves results.
7. Get the person to understand that results or consequences are the ultimate test of the quality of heuristics. Heuristics are means; results are ends. To assign value to the heuristics applied in any area of life where a person is not producing desirable results, would be an example of the preponderance of means over ends.

Through applying the above procedure we will learn a great deal about how to get people to consciously and responsibly create the heuristics they use to choose their actions. This will enable us to increase sanity, which can also be defined as the quality of heuristics.

Becoming a Maturity Booster
The decisive spread of greater maturity around the world could take the following form:

1. I decide to become a maturity booster: someone whose first priority is to boost personal maturity, whose second priority is to learn how to assist others to develop boost their personal maturity, whose third priority is to assist others to boost their personal maturity, and whose fourth priority is to induce others to assist others to boost their personal maturity.
2. I find one person who is willing to receive assistance from me in boosting their maturity. (This may be difficult. The general level of maturity in certain elements or factors of maturity (for example, politics) is so low that to most people a person who rates high maturity on these elements will be regarded as a "crazy, weird, eccentric, insane maniac!") I also need to be willing to receive assistance from this person in boosting my own maturity.
3. We establish a relationship that produces mutually increasing maturity. Because of our rising maturity we produce better results in life generally. Others notice this and become interested in joining the "rising maturity bandwagon." More mutually increasing maturity relationships are formed. More people improve the positive results they create generally.
4. I distribute this report and others. Some people write me responses, helping me boost my maturity and produce improved versions of this and other reports, manifesting higher levels of maturity.
5. Some people become maturity boosters in their own right. Some become integral centers in our expanding network of increasing maturity. Others decide that some of the ideas I espouse as "maturity" are simply "too far out." They launch maturity-boosting enterprises in competition to Build Freedom. May the most mature have the most spectacular success - so we can attain the quantum leap to ultimate success more quickly!

Humility
At this point, in accordance with the we-don't-have-all-the-answers perspective, we need to humbly consider the possibility that the expanded maturity concept, heuristics, and speculations represent only a small fraction of the "1,000 keys" necessary to significantly boost maturity. Any missing keys are "nothings" by nature, invisible to us who don't know (and don't know we don't know) about keys we have not yet conceived. Humility is almost certainly one of the keys.

Now we can step back and ask, "So, what is the function of Build Freedom?" Clearly, it is to bring about the explosive growth of the most positive results produced by the most potent maturity boosters in the world. Build Freedom needs to become a "meta-maturity-booster," so to speak. What might be the requirements for this to come about?

1. This and other Build Freedom reports need to be improved to the point that they will impress significant individual maturity boosters so they will want to cooperate and work with Build Freedom.
2. Build Freedom needs to develop marketable products and services and viable methods for marketing and distributing them.
3. Build Freedom personnel need to improve to the point where their personal lives reflect a high level of maturity in most or all respects.
4. Build Freedom needs to incorporate the most advanced organization technology to serve as a vanguard institution of service, quality, and maturity.
5. Build Freedom needs to disseminate a wide range of maturity-boosting information, breakthroughs, and new developments. Build Freedom's information needs to be mass-marketed.
6. Other media - computer networks, radio, and TV - need to be utilized for mass-marketing maturity-boosting information.
7. Build Freedom needs to deliver certain maturity-boosting services, for example, Win Wenger's intelligence-increasing methods.
8. Build Freedom needs to expand worldwide, providing products and services in all major languages.
9. Maturity-boosting products and services need to become available to the poorest and most disadvantaged people all over the world. (This needs to be done in a cost-effective and profitable manner.)
10. Political, legal, economic, monetary, education, health, and welfare systems that inhibit individual opportunity need to be ignored, improved, bypassed, eliminated, replaced, and/or transformed.

                        Man exists freely
            a) through the quality of his PERCEPTION
                 b) the strength of his IDENTITY
              /|\                   |
               |                   \|/
i) Each will attempt to        c) and the synthesis of
INTEGRATE the FEEDBACK         these into his anticipated
from this process into         and experienced COMPETENCE
mental matrices of                  |
developing COMPLEXITY               |
              /|\                  \|/
               |               d) He INVESTS this with
h) and through a dialectic     intensity and authenticity
achieve a HIGHER SYNERGY       in his human environment
              /|\                   |
               |                   \|/
g) He seeks to make a          e) by periodically
SELF-CONFIRMING,               SUSPENDING his
SELF-TRANSCENDING IMPACT       cognitive structures
upon the other(s)              and RISKING himself
              /|\                   |
               |                   \|/
               f) in trying to BRIDGE
              THE DISTANCE to other(s)

The expanded maturity concept - and Build Freedom as a whole - was developed essentially by following the above feedback loop. Publishing this report and asking for feedback to improve it is a further demonstration of the above loop. It is in fact a maturation loop. It is a powerful model.

Mass Marketing
The single most vital key to the success of Build Freedom is mass marketing technology. Two centuries ago, a philosopher like Voltaire could have a tremendous influence on millions of people. He wrote, published, and distributed pamphlets to a world hungry for his information. He didn't have much competition. It wasn't very difficult for him to achieve mass marketing. And mass marketing of ideas did play a crucial role in bringing about both the French and American revolutions...

Today, we live in a very different world in which we are bombarded with far more information than we can handle. The competition for attention is frightening. In order to achieve the mass-marketing of maturity development, the marketing effort itself needs to be at the appropriate maturity level to reach our best minds.

Orders of Difficulty
Suppose the order of difficulty of coming up with a good idea is one unit. The order of difficulty of developing the idea into a marketable product is of the order of 100 units. In other words, it's 100 times as easy to come up with a good idea as it is to develop the idea into a marketable product - or, out of every 100 good ideas, only one gets developed into a marketable product. And then, the difficulty of successfully marketing a product is of the order of 100 X 100 = 10,000 units. Furthermore, the difficulty of getting the idea conveyed by the product implemented, might be of the order of 100 X 100 X 100 = 1,000,000 units.

In other words it's a million times as easy to come up with a good idea, as it is to get that idea implemented - or, out of every million good ideas only one gets implemented. Also, to get one person to implement an idea, you might have to sell the product that conveys the idea to 100 people.

Spectacular and ultimate success depend partially on respecting these difficulties.

In Conclusion
The function of Build Freedom can be encapsulated in a heuristic formula:

POSTSCRIPT - Timothy Leary's Exo-Psychology and Neuropolitics
This report would be incomplete without reference to Timothy Leary. He has formulated an advanced theory of human maturation in his books Exo-Psychology and Neuropolitics. I quote from Exo-Psychology:

"Primitive psychology, in spite of its enormous, state-supported bureaucracy and its priesthood mystique, has produced no verifiable theory for explaining human behavior nor any methods for solving the classic problems of human society - crime, conflict, alienation, prejudice, stupidity, boredom, aggression, unhappiness, and philosophic ignorance about the meaning of life...

If we can imagine an anthropological report about homo sapiens written by extra-terrestrial scientists from a more advanced civilization, we can assume that humanity's inability to solve its psychological, social and ecological problems or to provide answers to basic cosmological questions (e.g. why are we here and where are we going?) would lead to the conclusion that homo sapiens is a species capable of very limited robot-activity and that Intelligent life has not yet evolved on this planet."

Leary postulates eight neural brain circuits we need to successively activate in order to mature. Below is my oversimplified and abbreviated version of the eight neurological circuits, as I interpret them:

1. Bio-Survival Circuit - Physical survival / safety / danger / pleasure / pain - Activated at birth;
2. Emotion-Locomotion Circuit - Freeze / fight / flight / territory - Activated when the child learns to crawl and walk;
3. Laryngeal-Manual Circuit - Speech / artifacts / primitive tools - Activated when the child begins to talk and manipulate artifacts;
4. Sexual-Domestication Circuit - Courting / mating / parenthood / stealth / agility / social conformity - Activated during adolescence when the sexual machinery turns on;
5. Neurosomatic Circuit - Body consciousness - Activated by certain hedonistic practices;
6. Neuro-Electric Circuit - Brain consciousness - Activated by deliberate, conscious, self-reprogramming of your brain;
7. Neurogenetic Circuit - DNA consciousness / biological immortality - Beyond my current understanding;
8. The Neuro-Atomic Circuit - Quantum consciousness - Beyond my current understanding.

According to Leary, homo sapiens as a society is stuck at circuit four. The robot-authoritarians of the fourth circuit will do anything to keep people at large from activating their higher circuits. I quote from Neuropolitics:

"Civilization, based upon erotic inhibition and sexual domestication, is psychopathologically dangerous, inevitably leading to the repression of women (it is always Eve who is to blame) and neurotic displacements of sexual charge into violent, coercive, often genocidal policies. Ashley Montague, the anthropologist, has commented ironically on the paradox: "all the civilized nations at war, all the savages at peace." It is no paradox. Repressed sex is the most violently explosive neurological blockage possible."

I wonder if the AIDS hoax - see Report #TL09A: AIDS - Bad Science or Hoax? - has anything to do with the unconscious determination of our robot-authoritarians to impose sexual repression at all costs. The AIDS hoax is perpetuated through mass brainwashing. (For an in-depth analysis of brainwashing techniques, see Report #TL20A: The Anatomy of Deep-Techniques.) According to Leary:

"Brainwashing is happening to all of us all of the time. Knowledge of brain function is our only protection against it. The solutions to our predicament are neurological. We must assume responsibility for our nervous systems. Our robothood can remain static if we endlessly repeat the imprints of infancy to adolescence, or it can be drastically altered by brainwashers without our consent, or we can take control of our nervous systems. If we don't assume this personal responsibility, somebody else will; if we do take over the control board, we can each be any person we want to be."

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