P.S. (Well and truly Sunday, 16 October, 1994 by now)
Michael: Please don't go just yet.[a]
Bivalia:[b] I am still with you, my friend, as I always am.
Michael: That continued much longer than I expected under its own
momentum. But now, as I finish up, I am feeling a bit let down, and - well,
you mentioned mindfucking a couple of times, in that elegant way you have. [c]
Maybe this is my scepticism, and even embarrassment at so much personal
navel-gazing: but I can't help getting the awkward feeling that the writing of
this document has been a form of self-indulgent mindfucking, just giving way
to wish-fulfilment fantasies.
Bivalia: Well, I think what you just said was mindfucking, if not
wish-fulfilment. I suppose it's possible all the discussion was mindfucking,
although I don't think so. I wouldn't have done it if I thought so, as that sort
of thing doesn't interest me.
But remember: I said there's nothing wrong with mindfucking (and I'm
beginning to feel a bit sorry I used that term, and didn't expect it to be taken
up repeatedly like this). I don't happen to find it either helpful or
interesting. If you do, do it by all means.
I presume you found this writing helpful, and more than passingly, or else
you wouldn't have stayed up all night to do it. Whether that's because it isn't
mindfucking after all, or it is and in spite of that you are finding it useful, I
don't know. It doesn't even matter. Perhaps, as your moods change, you will
even change your mind about how to regard this. But whatever you call it,
there's nothing wrong with it; after all it's not hurting anyone, and it is an
attempt to sort out your life; or at the very least, it is enjoyable.
Michael: I cringe to think what certain other people I know would think
if they read this.
Bivalia: That's their business, not yours. They have the perfect right to
think what they like if they read this; and you have an equally perfect right to
ignore their opinions utterly. If it bothers you, don't show this text to them.
Michael: That's not the point.
Bivalia: It is the entire point. They think what they like, and you think
what you like. What could be easier?
Michael: I mean, I have the uncomfortable feeling they may be right, even
if in fact I don't show it to them.
Bivalia: If you don't show it to them, and don't ask their opinion, you are
simply guessing what their opinion would be.
Michael: Well, an educated, informed guess in many instances.
Bivalia: No matter. It doesn't matter even if you know they are right,
which you don't with complete certainty. It is not their business to interfere
with what you choose to write - only their own private opinions about it are
their business; and if they exercise their right to think it ridiculous, that is
no concern of yours - or shouldn't be. And if the opinion you're projecting onto
them is what you believe, then once again it doesn't matter whether or
not they concur with you.
Michael: I think you're being obtuse. I think you know what I mean.
Bivalia: I see the point you're making, but it just doesn't matter. What
law is there in the universe that says you shouldn't write about yourself,
channel your Higher Self, or anything else of similar nature? No humans have
told you not to do it (or if they have, they haven't given a good reason why you
should obey them on that), and certainly the Masters haven't raised their fingers
and said "Tut-tut". To the contrary, they have been most loving and supportive.
Nor has God struck you down with a thunderbolt.
Doing this writing harms no-one, and there are no absolute laws of physics
or chemistry that make it impossible physically for you to do it. I simply see
no other obstacles to your doing it if you want to, which you obviously have
wanted to. I just don't see where the problem is. You are giving way to a form
of peer pressure, something I am glad to see is not a serious problem with you,
but it is nevertheless a form of that: having doubts about what you're doing
because you don't know anyone else who's doing it, or because you think (or even
know) that certain people disapprove of what you're doing, rather than because
those doubts arise from your own mind or feelings for reasons you yourself care
about.
Michael: Well, another thing is that towards the end I went back and
added substantial bits after the main text was complete. I probably expanded
the text by about 2 pages after I had already written our final farewells.
And later still I added another 5 pages, and made a couple of minor
modifications to this postscript, which included adding this very sentence to
it. All these later alterations helped me feel maybe it was all just a great
big wank.
Bivalia: Don't modify the text after it's written if it makes you feel like
that. It doesn't bother me. You're channelling me, and using the medium of
writing, which is a fairly flexible medium, especially when you are using a
word-processor which allows you to modify and add text with almost complete
freedom. When we converse, we accept the conventions of the medium, which,
amongst other things, are that you can revise to your heart's content, as long as
you don't distort the basic message you want to convey. Authors do this all the
time, far more than what you have done, which has been mostly spontaneous and
unchanged (about 22 pages of the now-27 pages written in one night and morning,
remember, typed at practically breakneck pace! - and the later pages, although
inserted, themselves just as spontaneous); any author who never revised would be
considered shoddy, if not unreliable. You are a good writer, and although you
have done little revision, what you have produced is certainly grammatical, and
seems good in content and organization.
I don't get things perfect the first time much more, if any more, than you
do. I'm quite happy to take advantage of your computer's ability to change text
easily to improve the way I've said something, and to add bits which help clarify
or amplify the overall message. Unlike speech, it's only the final result that
counts, not how you get there, which no-one else will ever know, and which you
will forget by this time next week (or would forget if you hadn't started this
postscript to nit-pick at the question).
I don't know what the problem is about making later alterations. Let's
assume you wouldn't be bothering to write this text if you didn't think there was
at least a reasonable chance of it being from me. If what you write to begin
with is from me, why shouldn't the later alterations be coming from me also in
exactly the same way?
Michael: I might be changing what purports to be your words with my own
mind though.
Bivalia: Oh, come on. If I'm not worried about that, why are you? Both
you and I know perfectly well that you are quite capable of recognizing when you
are changing it contrary to my intent, and when you are changing it merely to
more closely express my intent. You know that, because my intent is deep inside
you anyway. I'm your Higher Self, after all. If I am willing to trust your
honesty on this, surely you can trust yourself on the same point.
You amuse me when you talk like this. You've been typing so quickly and
continuously I don't think you would have had time to be so devious as
that, even if the inclination was within you, which I know it is not. I trust
you to write this properly. I don't care how many revisions you make; I really
don't care if you write the entire document inside-out or outside-in, if that
makes you feel better.
Michael: What about if I'm not deliberately changing what you say, but
doing it unconsciously: for instance, I don't like something you've said,
decide unconsciously to change it, go back and make the change, and fool
myself into thinking it came from you, but I simply didn't get it right the
first time?
Bivalia: Forget it. Take it from me, you don't deceive yourself
unconsciously as easily as that.
Michael: I guess so. You're a pretty persuasive arguer when you want to
be.
Bivalia: I've had thousands and thousands of years to practise.
Michael: You have a glib and instant answer to everything I say.
Bivalia: There'd be something wrong if I didn't: I've known you inside-out,
back-to-front, and top-to-bottom all your life - as long as you've had this
personality - longer.
Michael: Anyway, I must go now, and really mean it. I'm feeling rooted,
and I'm making spelling mistakes (which I always do when I am getting tired -
it's infallible), and the willy-wagtails outside have long since started and
finished their singing (when I do a stint like this, it's always the beginning
of bird-songs that makes me realize how late it is getting) (no, it's not
already night again, just somewhere in the middle in the day, and the
willy-wagtails are having a rest, I suppose), and my mind is beginning to give
way, and my sentences are getting long and rambling, and my mind full of
cotton-wool, and I just need to rest. I probably said most of what I had to
say about the matters I wanted to discuss with you, and perhaps left out only
a few details I might have included. I might come back to those another time
if they seem important enough at the time, or I might even be a devil and
insert those bits into the text already standing, so that no-one will ever
know the difference and even I forget one day.
Bivalia: That's right, be a devil. I love you when you're a devil, and do
outrageous things; you're such a good devil at times. Being a devil cuts through
all the dross and frippery of life and cuts to the heart of matters, exposes the
things that really matter (to quote one of your honourable political leaders,
although in a different context).
Michael: Oh God, I don't think the phrase "the things that matter" will
ever be usable again without sounding corny. [d] See you.
Bivalia: I'll see you again, too.
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