Background
The research project's origin dates back to the
mid-1970s when Neil Mastellone embarked on a
personal journey of deep introspection and
self-reflection. That experience, which
continued for almost eight years, led him to the
understanding that the bulk of his personal pain and
negative circumstances, essentially, were
self-induced; the result of his own wrong choices
and selfish control. That realization has
appeared true for every individual he interacted
closely with during the next thirty years.
A Joint-Effort
In 1979, Neil
met Jean who became his friend and clairvoyant
research assistant. Jean, since an early age,
has had a remarkable ability to accurately "read"
(in unusual detail) relevant psychological content
stored in a person's aura and subconscious as
"memory." Her contributions to this project have
been significant. Over the years, she
has generated and recorded over 1200 clairvoyant
psychological readings. Her readings are
in-depth case study profiles that explore a
wide-range of problems including a host of mental,
emotional, behavioral, and sexual dysfunctions.
Hitting the Road
In 1986, Neil
and Jean began to travel extensively with two
project-related objectives in mind. To visit
public and college libraries in the Northeast and
Southern U.S., searching the book stacks for
philosophical, psychological, sociological, and
religious explanations of the cause of negative
human behavior. Secondly, to meet individuals with
whom Neil might interact with on a one-on-one
basis, freely sharing insights and findings, and
listening to their life experience accounts in the
hopes of discovering new truths and gaining greater
understanding about negative experience.
Chance Encounters
As years went by,
Neil came to spend time and interact deeply with
hundreds of individuals, couples, and families.
They freely received information and candidly shared
intimate details of their own problems, and
experiences. To help insure objectivity, Neil,
at the outset, had decided not to charge money for
his time, insights, or advice. This made
unusually long, intense, in-depth interactions
possible, and resulted in unusually open expressions
and exchanges.
Chance encounters would start
out casually with a simple hello on a hiking trail,
in a library, on a checkout line, in a park, getting
the car washed, on a handball court, or having a
beer in a bar. For many, the interactions were
short-lived and remained casual and relatively
superficial. However, for some (actually for
many), the interactions were personal, serious,
intense, long, and lasted
weeks, months, or more.
Neil and a new
"friend" would walk, sit, and talk sometimes for
six, eight, ten, or more consecutive hours in a
single day. With some friends, it went like
that every day for one, two, or, three weeks in a
row. A few friends did this with him for a
couple of months, took-off, then, returned six months
later and resumed for a few more weeks or months
before leaving again. Neil remained open to
interacting in this way, willing to drop all
semblance of a personal routine for the next twelve
years. He was gathering valuable
information.
His motto during
this period became "Follow the Willingness."
As long as a friend was willing to be sincere, and
willing to keep digging deep, revealing personal
negative facts and personal negative aspects that
needed change, he would stay with the process.
It never ceased to amaze him how many random new
acquaintances were at a point of personal crisis at
the time of the first meeting.
Most new
friends, at least at the outset, were not very open
or honest. Nevertheless, after seeing that
Neil was sincerely caring about them and their pain,
had no hidden agendas, and, was freely offering
time, perspectives, and advice that they could use
to substantially improve their lives, many became
brutally candid about past negative experiences and
personal wrong choices.
Credentials
Neil is not a trained therapist and he did not act
or work
like one. He was not a passive, nonjudgmental
listener and did not accept people's statements on
face value. He cared and knew that lies,
illusions, rationalizations, justification,
avoidance, and denial always made things harder and
more painful. He constantly challenged friends
about inconsistencies, vagueness, and anything else
that rang to him as being a possible area of
avoidance, exaggeration, a lie, or concealment.
He regularly challenged choices that he viewed as
being obviously selfish, unloving, dishonest, and
irresponsible.
He knew that such choices were
hurting the individual, and anyone with whom he or
she had touched or was currently interacting
closely. Neil would ask probing questions, and
encourage the measurement and evaluation of past and
present choices (in the light of what the person
knew was truly right, actually true, genuinely
loving, and lovingly responsible). Since
his rent did not depend on these interactions, he
could afford to be objective and confrontational and
risk a person
ending the contact.
No-Fault Living
He kept
bumping into individuals who seemed driven to do
things that they insisted they had no control over.
He knew these people were choosing to make most of
their wrong choices subconsciously, and were
consciously and irresponsibly denying that they were
orchestrating their own destructive urges and acts.
The vast majority of the friends he interacted with
had long ago consciously distanced themselves from
their more meaningful negative choices, feelings,
and memories. Convincing the individuals that
they were always in full control of their inner
experience, relevant memories, thoughts, feelings,
actions, and reactions was usually a frustrating
uphill process.
Forward progress was
often impeded by commonly accepted psychiatric and
psychological theories and concepts that blatantly
or subtly supported the notion that "a person isn't
fully responsible for what he or she intends,
thinks, feels or does." When challenged about their
irresponsible stance, many friends (especially those
who had spent long periods in conventional therapy)
had a ready supply of "good" and "medically
supported" reasons why their negative behavior was
not their fault or under their control.
The "Balance Scale"
Early along the way, Neil developed what he called
his "mental balance scale." It was a valuable
and regularly used interaction tool and
guide.
Here is how he used
his scale: once it became
obvious that a new encounter was not going to remain
casual, Neil would " tune-into" and attempt to
sense and experience the level and weight of his new
friend's personal pain (something everyone is
capable of doing).
Next, he would mentally place his
evaluation on one side of the scale; the weight of
that pain level sensing often tipped the person's
"scale" considerably. He had discovered
earlier that the extent of a person's emotional pain
was equal to the extent or intensity of his or her
selfish reaction and control that the individual had
been indulging in. He also knew that selfish
reactions were destructive responses to wrong
choices of a significant person in the individual's
life. In addition, also, that that significant
other (the main object of reaction) almost
invariably would turn out to be an extremely
selfish, controlling, unloving, abusive mother or
father.
One-on-One
During the early phases of a typical interactive
relationship, Neil would encourage honest expression
and endeavor to learn from his new friend negative
facts and negative past experiences that would
account for the amount pain and reaction he was
sensing. He would urge his friend to keep
expressing about negative personal choices and
experiences, mentally placing these facts and
experiences on the other side of the person's scale.
The expressing continued until the negative
experiences and reactions matched or nearly matched
the level of pain and reaction he kept sensing in
the friend. All through this phase, during
which Neil would ask the friend to tell his or her
life story--sometimes two or three different
times--listening and questions and challenging and
urging. Neil vowed to stay with the
exploratory process as long as his friend remained
open, honest and willing to be responsible for his
or her choices.
Getting On Track
The truth is that during most interactions, Neil
mostly challenged his friends about choices they had
made that they knew and, eventually, acknowledged as
not right.
Once a friend became willing to
recount about substantial negative facts of his past
experience, and accepted responsibility for the
negative role that he or she had played in his or
her negative past experiences, the person took a
huge step toward understanding, healing, and
positive change. Being willing to acknowledge
in detail the truth of their selfish reactions,
(specifically to whom and why they were reacting so
intensely, and how precisely how they had reacted),
several friends placed themselves on a road leading
to the end of long-term destructive and abusive
behaviors. That trip started with one
determined conscious right choice, but it required
consistent reaffirming choices every step of the way
for them to get out of the deep hole they had dug
themselves. Those willing to make such choices
changed themselves in substantial ways.
Many
stopped abusing drugs or alcohol, or, gave up
dangerous and destructive promiscuous or homosexual
activity. Unfortunately, most friends never
chose to go that far. The overwhelming majority chose
to prematurely eject themselves, ending both the
exploration process and the personal contact.
Blood Ties
When push came
to shove, in the face of hard right choices, most
friends backed-down and wouldn't stand-up for what
they knew was right mainly because the choice
usually meant risking a long-term family
connection. No matter how abusive, negative, or
dishonest relationships might have been, family
loyalty was frequently placed first over rightness
(to all in the family's detriment). However,
not always family loyalty or fear stopped a friend
from moving in an obviously positive and right
direction.
Many of Neil's friends, who were
making impressive strides, stopped suddenly and
reversed direction when it came to a choice that
translated into an unselfish giving to someone close
who had hurt them. They deemed the recipient
"undeserving." Doing what is right, giving to,
and expressing love to those close who had hurt us
in the past, is one of the biggest challenges facing
every selfish person. Equally difficult challenges
are being willing to be wrong when we are wrong, and
ending our selfish control.
Jean's Important Role
It was obvious
that exposing friends to core-level subconscious
truths about themselves would be of little benefit
as long as they were still suppressing, repressing,
avoiding, and denying.
Jean's reports
contained key information that the person had been
consciously running from and rejecting most of his
or her life. Moreover, lacking a new
commitment to honesty, personal responsibility and
loving change, the data Jean generated proved to be
of little value. It usually went in one ear
and out the other.
By 1991, before Jean was
called in to help with a reading, a friend would
have to display substantial, confirmable honest
expression, plus, a sincere sustained effort at
balancing his personal scale. From then on,
Jean was not asked to participate or provide
clairvoyant input until a friend's scale had
balanced or was nearly balanced. Then, she was
asked to generate a reading, or several readings,
that were designed to unearth destructive
subconscious data that was underlying a major
pattern or problem the friend was struggling with.
The "Stage"
As the years went on,
the number of encounters mounted, as did the number
of Jean's readings. Neil and Jean became observers
of what seemed a "play of life" set on a stage in
which actor after actor would appear, tell his or
her story, identify key personal and family
negatives, to varying degrees make attempts at
positive change, then, usually abruptly exit--making
room for the next actor to appear.
Types of
friends seemed to show up in chunks or related
groups (i.e. one mentally ill type after another for
weeks at a time, then one substance abuser after
another, one homosexual after another, so on).
Concentrated periods of interaction with certain
dysfunctional types, allowed for common patterns and
common reactions to be identified. Challenging
facts and candid admissions kept piling up that
consistently shattered conventional and popular
psychiatric and psychological theories.
Unplanned interactions and resulting insights and
observations drew Neil and Jean into viewing a
variety of common negative behaviors up close.
People and their reports took the project down many
different negative roads. Eventually, however,
each of the roads led back to a common place of
origin: Selfish reaction to unloving, abusive
parents. At bottom, willfulness and selfish
control rooted in knowing defiance of what each
person knew was loving, true and right.
The Subjects (Friends/Co-Experimenters)
The ages, sex, and
socio-economic-educational levels varied, as did the
problems and modes of acting-out. Some friends
suffered obvious mental and emotional disorders.
Others had a drug, alcohol, violence, or legal
problem. Several were homeless and living way
out on the edge. Most friends, however, were
mainstream types with families, friends, jobs,
hobbies, and mortgages. A few held substantial
positions of responsibility and were well-financed.
Most were much more unstable than they first
appeared. A huge number had sexual problems;
either they were promiscuous, having had a multitude
of essentially dishonest encounters that lacked
genuine feeling or even the slightest degree of
intimacy, or, they had emotionally closed-down and
withdrawn from sex altogether.
Some friends
admitted to having been hospitalized for mental and
emotional disorders (a few were hospitalized more
than once). Others, by any reasonable person's
evaluation, were obviously displaying severe
dysfunctional symptoms, yet, had never sought, or
had received, professional diagnosis or treatment.
Many substance abusers and homosexuals fell into
this latter group. Actually, all of the
alcoholics, drug addicts, and gays, lesbians, and
bisexuals whom Neil came to interact deeply with,
were strikingly reactive and deceptively unstable.
All had showed a wide range of dysfunctional
symptoms and were enacting typical incest survivor
patterns and reactions. Most eventually
admitted to being incest survivors. Whether
extremely angry or fearful, functioning successfully
in society or unable to cope, their accounts of
early childhood and teenage feelings and experiences
seemed consistently and chillingly similar.
Most could keep their negative characteristics
hidden during the initial contacts, but, once Neil
began questioning and probing for the truth about
them and their experience, their true inner state
would start surfacing.
Life
Scripts
The “canned scripts” that most
friends used to tell Neil about
themselves, their key relationships,
and past experiences would not
do--not if Neil and they were to get
to the true source of their pain and
dysfunction. One of the early
interactive tasks involved
convincing a friend that the kind of
therapy he or she may have
experienced in the past, that is,
unobtrusive, passive,
non-judgmental, was essentially
designed (to the person's detriment)
to keep him or her in full control
of the truth-seeking,
truth-expression process.
The
legal system surrounding child
abuse, although designed to protect
children and insure that medical
professionals, social workers, and
teachers report signs of child
abuse, works to keep children from
freely expressing because many fear
that their parents may be arrested
and imprisoned without receiving
effective rehabilitation. []
Acknowledgements
Thanks to all of the friends
we met along the way who willingly shared intimate
details of their lives with us. Special thanks
to the relatives and old friends who lent financial
support to keep us and the research project going,
after personal funds were exhausted.
Neil and Jean
Mastellone
