Saturday, 26 September, 1998
Michael: Well, Bivalia, here I am again. It's really Sunday, by an hour
or so; but in dating these sessions, I count a day from getting up to going to
bed, not from midnight to midnight.
Bivalia:[a] Good to see you again. I'm not concerned about how you count the
days. Your perhaps excessive honesty is all that prompted that justification of
the way you do things.
Michael: But I'm afraid I have to tell you that this daily routine is
already getting more strained.
Bivalia: You are the one judging it as that, not I.
Michael: Yes, but it has a bearing on how constructive this is, and even
on whether I am likely to continue.
Bivalia: That is a decision you have to make.
Michael: I'm sorry to go on about it, but nothing else to say is coming
to me.
Bivalia: Let's go on and talk it through, if that's what you wish to do.
Michael: I find it difficult to believe that I am really channelling you,
that you even exist at all, that I'm not just making it all up. I have to say
it's beginning to seem like a great big wank.
Bivalia: A great big wank?
Michael: Sort of like spiritual masturbation, if you know what I mean.
Bivalia: I know what you mean. I presume that is meant to be a
putting-down of yourself for doing this. But it is you, not I, who uses the
concept of masturbation (of whatever type, literal or figurative) as an
unfavourable metaphor. I would have no criticism whatsoever of you if you had
come to me and told me you had physically masturbated, and would say that's fine
if you feel like doing it. So it's hardly going to cut me to pieces if you
describe our sessions as a spiritual wank.
Bivalia: There, that's a more healthy response to it. Just laugh about
it. A spiritual wank just might stimulate something you find more useful, so go
ahead and pull yourself silly spiritually, if it helps.
Michael: [LAUGHS.] You can be very coarse at times, Bivalia.
Bivalia: Anything it takes to prod you out of your self-criticism, which
does not accomplish anything you want to accomplish.
But, if our sessions at times seem like a wank, perhaps you should re-read
some of those sessions you said you especially value, when you were just
absolutely full of some of the wonderful spiritual ideas you wanted to discuss
with me. Perhaps that will put things into perspective, because I don't think
you would consider those a wank, would you?
Michael: No, I guess not. It's when I feel we're merely going through
the motions, and it's not real and genuine, that I'm likely to feel that.
Bivalia: Keep the sessions very short, if you feel like that, and don't
like it. No-one but you has decided to do already about three-quarters of a page.
But at times it might be better to just work through it, rather than avoid
it, even if you don't always feel good about it. But if it is a wank, does it
matter? Perhaps the purpose of a good wank is to stimulate yourself, and that is
no bad thing if you are at a low point.
Michael: I can't believe you're talking like this.
Bivalia: You have a negative view of sex, do you? You must, to take
exception to my use of it as a metaphor.
Michael: Perhaps I do a bit; not seriously, I don't think. It just
disorients me to hear a spirit being like you using it as a spiritual metaphor.
Bivalia: There is nothing wrong with doing that. Sex can be just as
spiritual as anything else in your world. Anyway, it was you who first mentioned
masturbation (or wanking); I just developed the idea further.
You shouldn't be shocked at that. I know you live in a society that has
ambivalent attitudes to sex, partly fostered by some of your churches; but I
would caution you against blindly and unthinkingly following that consensus
reality. You must always subject such general attitudes to a careful
examination, to see if they serve you well, or whether they correspond to truth
as you see it. If they don't, you should throw them out unceremoniously, no
matter how much they may be sacred cows to other people.
Michael: I guess you're right. I don't think I buy seriously into the
consensus reality with regard to sex, but perhaps I do have bits of negative
attitudes to it here and there. But it doesn't worry me too much, and I don't
believe it is affecting my life significantly.
Bivalia: I'm glad to hear that.
Michael: Anyway, I think I must already start to wind down. I can't
think of anything important to discuss now, and, even if I could, it would be
a very bad time to embark on a long discussion now, because I have to get up
early to play the organ at Frank's church.
Bivalia: Yes, The Church of Antioch.
Michael: Yes. I don't remember (without checking on our earlier
sessions) whether I've told you anything about this before, but I play there
once a month, but don't feel completely committed to that path, because of
what I see as the rigidity of their view that they possess the truth more than
other paths. And also the very harsh, almost ruthless attitude to human pain
they attribute to karma, the angels, and the spiritual hierarchy generally.
Bivalia: Well, I agree with you on all that. As I said with regard to the
other thing, what they're doing is fine; but I don't agree with the way they
imply that their system of belief is The Truth, and any other systems of belief
are plain wrong to the extent that they disagree with their own.
But I don't really see that you want to get into that in depth now.
Michael: No; just trying to make conversation.
By the way, I notice the daily sessions of the type you asked me to try
are getting shorter and shorter. The computer file the second day was about
10,000 characters shorter than the first day, and today it's about 5,000
shorter again, which just underlines what I said before about it getting to be
more and more of a strain to have daily sessions.
Bivalia: It doesn't worry me in the slightest if our sessions get shorter
each day. If that trend continues, reducing the sessions each day by half the
size of the previous reduction, we won't get any lower than about 3,000
characters, no matter how long that goes, because 10,000 plus 5,000 plus 2,500
plus 1,250, and so on, converges on 20,000 as a limit, even if taken to
infinity, and 23,000 characters (the size of our first daily session) minus
20,000 is 3,000. [b] But if the reductions get a bit bigger, we should
eventually get close to zero within a few days, and after that it will be
interesting to see what it's like to have a negative number of words pass
between us. Perhaps we'll turn inside-out as a consequence, or the universe
will wink out of existence, or time will start running backwards!
Michael: You can be wacky at times.
Bivalia: I'm treating it with the levity it deserves. You worry too much.
Michael: Maybe. However, I'm starting to worry about the time, so I'm
going to say good-night now.
Bivalia: Good-night then, Michael.
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