The Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1771) contain an empirical, objective, and experimental investigation of the spiritual world. They are therefore the beginning of a new science which might be called “theistic science” which is based on the acknowledgement of the Writings as the source of Divinely given scientific revelations. Spiritual psychology would be a branch of theistic science, along with other disciplines such as biological theology and spiritual geography (see End Note 1). Spiritual psychology receives its content solely from the Writings since it is the only revelation of the Second Coming and contains an inexhaustible source of scientific information about the spiritual world.

Spiritual psychology ties in with contemporary psychology where the two overlap, namely in the area of mental development, and consequently, all external behavior that is controlled by mental processes. The mental world overlaps with the spiritual world. They are the same. This is because the mind is in the spiritual world and the same spiritual laws apply to both. The mind is a spiritual collection of organs, made of spiritual substances, and arranged in multiple levels of operation. For instance, the physical organ of the heart corresponds and reflects the spiritual organ of the will which gives us the ability to be motivated and struggle to achieve goals by means of feelings, loves, and affections. Similarly, the physical organ of the lungs corresponds and reflects the spiritual organ of the understanding which gives the ability to process cognitions, solve problems, and think rationally. Mental development is therefore nothing else than the growth of the spiritual organs of the mind. A young child has immature affective states and cognitive operations since the organs of the will and understanding are undeveloped. An adult has a fully developed external mind, but not yet an interior mind. The development of moral understanding and rational loves is the outer manifestation of the interior mind being opened more and more. The interior mind is the highest portion of the natural mind which has three levels: corporeal, sensuous, and rational.

Above the natural mind, is the spiritual mind, which itself has levels that correspond to the three Heavens: natural-spiritual, spiritual, and celestial. The human mind is therefore an organic construction that parallels the spiritual world exactly. Therefore, Swedenborg’s observational access to the spiritual world and his detailed description of it, constitute a rich source of knowledge for spiritual psychology. Now the human race has available new knowledge about the mind and its development and operation.

Conjunction with the Lord is a reciprocal conjunction, that is, that the Lord is in man and man in the Lord. (...) The conjunction of the Lord and man is reciprocal; and because it is reciprocal it necessarily follows, that man ought to conjoin himself to the Lord, in order that the Lord may conjoin himself to man; and that otherwise conjunction is not effected, but withdrawal and a consequent separation, yet not on the Lord's part, but on man's part. (TCR 371)

It is clear from the Writings that regeneration is necessary for salvation and heavenly life. Further, we are taught that regeneration is not automatic or spontaneous, but requires our active cooperation. Without this active cooperation there is no regeneration, consequently no salvation. It is therefore crucial to know how we ought to cooperate with the Lord in our regeneration. Our research on the psychology of self-observation or self-witnessing provides useful behavioral techniques that can help the individual in cooperating in regeneration.

The Hawaii Generational Curriculum Project

We first started reading the Writings of Swedenborg in 1981. At that time we were both involved in teaching and research in social psychology. The research focused on developing behavioral techniques for mapping out and cataloguing the social settings in an individual’s external and internal environment. By 1981 we had a well-developed cataloguing system with various behavioral techniques to access them. For instance, for mapping out the external social environment of an individual, we had college students log their activities on a record sheet, minute by minute throughout the day, or as we used to say, “from bed back to bed.” We call this the “daily round.” Our students not only collected self-monitoring data but they wrote up reports in which they had to interpret the theoretical significance of the empirical observations. Our instruction created a controlled environment in which students were given points or a grade, for becoming researchers on themselves and publishing their reports.

In the beginning, the publication of student reports was quite modest, namely typed documents collected cumulatively over the semesters and arranged into a collection in our office called the Generational Curriculum of the Daily Round (see End Note 2). We also had mock conferences and poster conventions every semester with each generation of students. Our purpose was to create an instructional environment in which students see themselves as scientists and practice research production skills on themselves. Students were taught that they are the only source of objective information on their private mental world. All other information about what we think and what we feel is indirect and inferential. Only self-witnessing can be direct and observational, hence empirical. So we had to teach them a social theory and methodology for self-witnessing their daily lives. We gave them the idea of “professionalizing their self” by self-monitoring and self-modifying the skills of mental literacy, so that they can become the person they choose to be. Self-enhancement and consciousness raising depend on spiritual literacy skills, which consist of self-witnessing and self-modification in accordance with one’s doctrine of life.

In later years, the Internet was born, and we took advantage of the hypertext environment, moving from the typed collection of the Daily Round Archives to the new electronic platform of the Digital Library on the World Wide Web. Now our students took on the new role of published authors. Web search engines leveled the stakes. Now a novice can gain as much attention as an authority, with millions of people searching on the Web for articles on specific topics. Now our students were researchers and published authors. In our social psychology course we now had to incorporate teaching information and computer literacy, skills that the students found challenging to acquire, but very rewarding. The Web made it easy for students to access the earlier generations of student reports. This semester’s contingency is “Generation 18” and our current students are studying the reports of Generation 1 through 17. There are hundreds of reports now online (see End Note 2)

Components of the External and Interior Social Environment

Self-witnessing skills begin with creating a taxonomy, inventory, or catalog of the components of our social environment. The social environment is defined in terms of the occurrence of “situated behaviors,” a phrase which carries the twofold idea of individual behavior and social setting. All human behavior is situated because it is carried out in a social setting. No behavior exists outside or independently of a social setting. For instance, our food behaviors are conditioned by family and societal habits, and even when we eat alone in our kitchen at midnight in the dark, we still engage in social behavior because what is in our refrigerator or food closet, is lifestyle choice, which consists of learned habits and norms of eating. But in addition to this, our mental behavior is also situated behavior. The setting is not physical in the sense that we can think and feel similar things in different physical settings. I can think of my cats while I’m driving or when I am lying in bed in my bedroom. I can feel embarrassed when I think about something I said or did, whether a moment ago, or years ago.

There is therefore an independence of mental behaviors from physical settings, but not from social settings. The individual is physically within society, but society is within the individual, mentally. Our life of feeling and thinking would be impossible without social content. What do we think with? Words defined by the dictionary. How do we think? By means of rules of language and logic that we learn as children from others. How do we reason? By means of rules, values, and justifications we acquire from our interactions with others. Therefore private mental behavior is situated socially in a way similar to external public behavior. The daily round taxonomy of human behavior needs to be mapped out equally for private mental behavior as for public external behavior. The external and internal social environment is quite complex as shown by the list below:

A few components of the
external
social environment

A few components of the
internal
social environment

my talk with others

my connections

my family tree

my daily routine of activities

my role, duties, and responsibilities

my memberships and institutional connections

my belongings and assets

my interactions and transactions

my declarations

my reputation

who I hang out with and where

things I do together with someone

people who depend on me

people who love me

people with whom I’ve had a fight

people I’d like currently to meet

people whom I know who I see or think about only rarely

people on my invitation list

things I write down, lists I keep

the contents of my drawers and pockets

my nickname

family sayings

etc.

my talk with myself

the things I imagine

my interpretations of what’s going on

my sensations and feelings

my daydreams

my prayers and spiritual reflections

how I assess and evaluate things

my self concept

my routine concerns

things I notice or ignore

my ambitions

my fears

my preferences

making plans, rehearsing

things I cannot mention to someone

what I like to eat

my mood and energy level

what I can smell

my judgments

my aversions

my cravings

my secrets

my memories

how I reason with myself

etc.

Given the complexity of the human environment, the task of cataloguing and itemizing its numerous components is indeed a daunting one. We did expect that the external social environment would be normative and similar across individuals, distributed across sub-categories that allowed variation within uniform settings. People got up at similar times in the morning, went through similar motions in the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, garage, and highway, lunch, shopping, dinner, movie, date, television, bedroom, sleep. The daily language everyone used was English, the TV programs were the same, the songs and music, the aggressive driving, the newspaper, the lawnmower, etc. For the most part, the external social environment of the city overlaps the lives of individuals, providing a common, constant, and predictable pattern.

We were surprised however when we also found this same normative predictability in the internal social environment of the individual. There is an urban legend that our private interior environment is individual rather than social. People have the strong illusion that what they think and imagine in their private world of thinking and feeling, is individual and free, in comparison to the external environment of their body, which is public and social. What we discovered was that the interior environment is as socially organized and catalogued as the external environment. What people think, what they imagine, what they fantasize, what they are afraid of, and so on, are things they do in common with each other, unknowingly, despite it taking place in the private, unobservable world of the individual self. We even had to coin a new phrase, “standardized imaginings,“ to reflect the uniformity with which people functioned in their mental operations. Thinking and emoting was not something free and individual, but social and standardized within narrow limits of determination. This standardization and uniformity of the mental world is totally unsuspected and we were surprised. It was the first important fruit we obtained from our self-witnessing research.

Mental Literacy Skills

The names we gave to the various groupings and sub-groupings of the daily round environment constitute a novel social psychological theory of what an individual is, and how an individual behaves through the body and in the mind. Later in this article we discuss and give samples of the main techniques, which include the recording and analysis of one’s external social talk as well as keeping track of one’s private internal dialog. We use the term “self-witnessing” to describe this approach in general. Our theory is that self-witnessing is an effective method for self-objectivity. We also use the phrase “being an audience to yourself” which refers to the idea that you see yourself as others would see you. This is the definition of objectivity in social psychology. If we practice self-witnessing on the daily round we gain an objective view on ourselves. We are less vulnerable to illusions and a fantasy reputation of ourselves.

This objective self-knowledge constitutes an empirical baseline of our habits and traits, in the body and in the mind. Now we can use effective self-modification techniques to manage ourselves better, more rationally, more according to rational choice than family and neighborhood habits and scripts we happened to acquire in our socialization process. Thus we acquire a professionalized self. Our purpose was to teach these mental literacy skills to our students, to empower them to gain control over their lives. Polls and surveys indicate that the majority of individuals in our country experience on a daily basis a variety of powerful negative emotions, such as rage, hatred, anger, depression, cynicism, and the opposite of compassion and emotional intelligence.

Our self-witnessing research has uncovered an overwhelming burden of negativity that individuals labor under on a daily basis. Now we know from the Writings where this agony comes from, namely the cumulative inheritance of negativity and evil that is passed on from generation to generation. Why do we prefer behavior styles that are harmful? Why do we find it hard to remain balanced and rational? Why do we make others suffer? Why don’t we function at a higher moral level? Why can’t we be happy, contented, productive, peace loving people? The answer has been revealed in the Writings, namely that we are born sub-human natural animals with the apparatus and capacities to become truly human, which is called the angelic form. In order to achieve this higher potential of true humanity, we must change ourselves and acquire a new will and a new understanding.

We created an instructional atmosphere we called “Community Classroom” in which the students were scientists studying the self through self-witnessing techniques. We presented this approach as more objective and empirical than tests and experiments, which are artificial. The individual is the only observer of one’s mental life of thought and feeling. All other ways of getting information on our mental life is hypothetical and indirect, dependent on questions and tests regarding what we would do in such and such a situation. Even the external behavior of an individual is difficult to track, minute by minute, all day long. But self-reporting and self-monitoring are feasible activities for every ordinary person.

This was the state of our research and theory in 1981 when we were browsing through our university library one afternoon and came upon Swedenborg’s Writings in the Bible commentary section. That day we started reading the Writings and the idea came to both of us immediately that it was a Divine book, giving out the Divine Truth. From then on studying the Writings became an irresistible daily joy. About a year later we heard about the existence of the New Church community in Bryn Athyn. Obviously, the Writings changed our perspective on our field of social psychology and on the research we had been conducting on self-witnessing. One of the most astonishing of all the scientific revelations we encountered in the Writings is that we are not alone in our private world of the mind. We started talking about the “vertical community” that every individual belongs to, in addition to the horizontal community in our geographic location on earth. Another way of saying this is that we are born “dual citizens,” with a physical body in the natural world and a spirit-body in the spiritual world, and this is our mind. At the death of the physical body, the spirit-body awakens to full consciousness and continue life to eternity. Then the mind is in its own world and its own freedom indeed.

It is a great truth that man is governed by the Lord by means of spirits and angels. When evil spirits begin to rule, the angels labor to avert evils and falsities, and hence arises a combat. It is this combat of which the man is rendered sensible by perception, dictate, and conscience. By these, and also by temptations, a man might clearly see that spirits and angels are with him, were he not so deeply immersed in corporeal things as to believe nothing that is said about spirits and angels. Such persons, even if they were to feel these combats hundreds of times, would still say that they are imaginary, and the effect of a disordered mind. I have been permitted to feel such combats, and to have a vivid sense of them, thousands and thousands of times, and this almost constantly for several years, as well as to know who, what, and where they were that caused them, when they came, and when they departed; and I have conversed with them. (AC 227)

We Are Never Alone—The Vertical Community

The idea of the vertical community means that we are never alone. We have the illusion that our mental private world is individual, while our physical social world is interactive. But now the scientific fact has been revealed that the mental private world is also a social world in which we are surrounded by many others. For instance:

Man does not know that in respect to his mind he is in the midst of spirits, for the reason that the spirits with whom he is in company in the spiritual world, think and speak spiritually, while his own spirit thinks and speaks naturally so long as he is in the material body; and the natural man cannot understand or perceive spiritual thought and speech, nor the reverse.

This is why spirits cannot be seen. But when the spirit of man is in company with spirits in their world, he is also in spiritual thought and speech with them, because his mind is interiorly spiritual but exteriorly natural; therefore by means of his interiors he communicates with spirits, while by means of his exteriors he communicates with men. By such communication man has a perception of things, and thinks about them analytically. If it were not for such communication, man would have no more thought or other thought than a beast, and if all connection with spirits were taken away from him, he would instantly die. (TCR 475)

Our thoughts and feelings are therefore social events, interactive exchanges that the Writings call communication with spirits and being in company with spirits. The very modus operandi, or operation system of the mind, is a consequence of the character of the spirits that we are with, moment by moment, in our thinking and feeling. There is a simple but powerful relation between our negative thoughts or emotions and the character of the spirits that communicate with our mind. The spirit societies constitute our vertical community to which we belong and into which we are locked. Change in our feelings and thoughts is possible only with rearranging the spiritual societies with which we are communicating. Every thought or feeling is either from heaven or from hell. And the Writings specify that rational thoughts and compassionate feelings can only come from heaven, while negative thoughts and emotions can only come from hell. Self-witnessing is a good tool to use when we want to know when in the course of the day we are communicating with heaven and when with hell.

Self-Witnessing Of The Threefold Self: Affective, Cognitive, Sensorimotor

As is a person's life in general therefore, so is his life in every individual part, indeed in the smallest individual parts of his motives and intentions - that is, of his will - and in the smallest individual parts of his thinking; so that not the least part of an idea can exist in which the same life is not present.

Take someone who is arrogant: arrogance is present in every individual endeavor of his will and in every individual idea of his thought. With someone who is avaricious avarice is in a similar way present, as is hatred with one who hates the neighbour. Or take someone who is stupid: stupidity is present in every individual part of his will and also of his thought, as is insanity with one who is insane. Such being the nature of man, his character is recognized in the next life from one single idea of his thought. (AC 1040)

In other words our general behavior is created out of particular details. Another way of saying this is that our macro-behaviors are made of our micro-behaviors. Also, every act of thinking is motivated just as every act of doing. The motive enters into every micro-behavior or else the behavior would not occur. A particular thought would not occur were it not motivated by some intention, affection, or goal. The expressions in the Writings such as “someone who is arrogant” or “someone who is avaricious” or “someone who is stupid” refer to specific mental states that every individual experiences. Pogo psychology says that we have found the enemy, and it is us. We are the ones falling into states of arrogance, avarice, stupidity. Spiritually, “arrogance” signifies the “love of self and cupidities” (AC 623). “Avarice” signifies “to acknowledge and believe nothing” (AC 303). “Stupid” signifies “the corporeal sensual separated from the rational” (AE 923).

Man's interiors are distinguished into degrees, and in each degree the interiors are terminated, and by termination are separated from the degree next below; it is thus from the inmost to the outermost. (AC 5145)

Regeneration is to be understood as a psychobiological process of the mind. The mind is a spiritual organ, not natural, because it is constructed out of spiritual substances from the spiritual Sun. The essence of these substances is Divine Truth within which is Divine Love. Clearly, then, the mind is a rational construction because it is constructed out of truth. The substance of truth is a spiritual substance, immortal and permanent. The spiritual fibers that constitute the organ of the mind are laid down and coiled in particular directions. In this mode the mind is able to function as a receptor organ for spiritual truths flowing in from the Lord through heaven.

Spiritual growth consists of two steps in sequence. The first step is to let go of the evil affections in the external mind. The second step is to compel yourself to will what is good from what you know is true. What is true refers to what the Writings teach. These principles of good and true are called the Doctrine of the Church in the mind. In other words, we study the Writings and formulate Doctrine in our understanding. This Doctrine teaches how we should will and think.

Since willing and thinking is made of thousands of particular items every hour and day, you can see that we must be able to monitor our willing and thinking sequences all day long to make sure that they agree with the Doctrine we have in our understanding of the Writings. There is no general way of being regenerated, by confessing, by repenting of all our sins during prayer, by giving charity or doing good to others. These things may be helpful and desirable but they do not accomplish regeneration. The only thing that will accomplish it is to become aware of the particular items in our willing and thinking, judging them in the light of our Doctrine, and desisting from doing and thinking them because they are sins against the Lord and they prevent our spiritual mind from being opened. The Lord opens our spiritual mind to the extent that we are willing to clean out the external mind as-of self.

A man's evils are in his thoughts and intentions (NJHD 164)

A man who examines himself for the purpose of practicing repentance, should explore his thoughts, and the intentions of his will; and there he ought to examine what he would do, if he were at liberty; that is, if he were not afraid of the laws, and the loss of reputation, honor, and gain. A man's evils are in his thoughts and intentions; and the evils which he does with the body are all from thence. Those persons who do not explore the evils of their thoughts and of their will cannot practice repentance; for afterwards they think and will just as they did before; and yet willing evils means doing them. This is meant by self-examination. (NJHD 164)

Self-examination is therefore a process of self-monitoring. This involves monitoring and note-keeping of our mental life in daily tasks and interactions with others. Each exercise involves keeping track in the three “domains” or organs of the mind: affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor.

Affective Organ (will):

What feelings do I have in this situation? Or: What do I feel like doing right now?

Cognitive Organ :(understanding):

What thoughts do I have right now? Or: What are the words and sentences I’m thinking right now?

Sensorimotor Organ (acting out and sensations):

What sensations am I experiencing right now? And: What is my body doing and how does it appear to others—my face, my hands, my position, my rhythm, my voice, my breathing, etc.

Keeping cumulative notes in a journal or diary is recommended. Dictating notes with a voice recorder is very useful. Part of the self-witnessing discipline is to review or analyze the data collected over many samples of one’s interactions and behaviors and to evaluate them as indicators of one’s dedication and progress in self-change. The “small” choices regarding our lifestyle—are we noisy neighbors or aggressive drivers, etc.—carry equal weight or greater weight than the large things of our biography—degrees, income, awards, recognition, important achievements. The little things carry more weight because they are far more numerous given that they are the constituents of the larger things. And the more frequently we perform non-charitable acts, thoughts, or feelings, the more they fix our character habits, and the less we can change.

One area we assigned for exploration by our students is the media entertainment content they enjoy on TV, comics, novels, and music. The individual’s mind becomes filled and absorbed when routinely enjoying and tacitly accepting vulgarities, profanities and the lavish portrayal of lusts and violence. Monitoring our exposure and involvement with these things allows us to turn away and to turn back, and so regain an innocence that teaches us to feel shocked at these rehearsals and dramatic portrayals of evil. Similarly, we can examine to what extent we allow ourselves to repeat and enjoy songs with lyrics that are profane and glorify disorderly things.

Our students used a form to keep track of what they were watching and what they were exposing their mind to on a daily basis. They summarized the content of the program, they isolated bad behaviors such as abuse against women, corruption of children, bending of ethics, leveling of values, bad driving, and other forms of negativity. It is interesting to note that students invariably state their surprise that they take in so much negativity without ordinarily giving it a second thought. Another assignment involved the analysis of lyrics, especially to isolate the implied meanings and presuppositions, and how these may shape one’s attitudes and habits of thinking (see End Note 2).

Those who have conscience do not swear in vain (AC 2842.)

Self-Witnessing As A Spiritual Discipline

It is the rational in fact that coordinates everything in the natural, and in accordance with that coordination fittingly regards the things that are there. Indeed the rational is like a higher faculty of seeing which, when it looks at facts belonging to the natural man, is like someone looking down on to a plain below him. (AC 3283)

The rational self can monitor what the sensuous and corporeal self is thinking or willing. Anyone can perform self-witnessing or self-monitoring of the thoughts and the intended outcomes we desire with our affections. The stream of thinking of the sensuous self is automatic and proceeds spontaneously as we cope with the moment by moment demands of living and doing. We can examine this spontaneous stream by directing our focus on it in a metanoid stance, looking down upon the stream of thinking like on a plain below, or like a river when standing on a bridge and seeing the flotsam go by below. In this way we inform ourselves of the content and quality of our thinking and willing all day long. Willing is an act. Thinking is an act. We are responsible for all our acts. Therefore we are responsible for our willing and thinking acts, each one of them, thousands of them by the hour, every day. We are nothing but the cumulative collection of those acts. Such as these acts are, such are we, when we arrive in the afterlife.

Our consciousness, or life orientation, is such as the content is of our willing and thinking hour by hour all day long. This content can originate solely from the sensuous and corporeal self, in which case the willing and thinking is purely natural, having no spiritual dimension that we can appropriate. Or, the content of our willing and thinking can be based on the rational self , which is conscience and doctrine.

The man who has the interiors of his mind open can see the evils and falsities that are with him, for these are below the spiritual mind. On the other hand, the man with whom the interiors have not been opened is unable to see his evils and falsities, because he is not above them but in them. (HH 532)

To the extent that we function in our daily tasks from the interior activity of charity, to that extent our physical and mental disciplines will have become spiritual. The focus therefore needs to be on how the inside world of charity in the will, can be within the outside world of thinking and action. As we perform our routine acts outwardly, what is happening inwardly to our external or lower mind?

What are we enjoying or hating about what’s going on?

What are we thinking that we do not show?

It’s a rational question we may ask ourselves: “I know it is required that I cooperate with the Lord in my regeneration (AE 911[17]); Now then, how do I know when I’m cooperating?” The discipline of self-witnessing becomes a religious discipline under such a motivation. Within such a motivation the Lord infuses interior rational truths that cannot come into our awareness from the natural mind and the outside world.

The Writings reveal that it’s common for people to arrive into the afterlife not knowing who they are, that is, what affections and ideas are in their subconscious mind. For instance, husbands do not at first recognize their wives in the afterlife while wives always recognize their husbands (xx). This is because men are less aware of what fills their subconscious while wives have an inner perception of their husbands subconscious mind (CL 166). But it’s otherwise with men who prepare themselves appropriately for conjugial love since they strive by discipline to uncover their subconscious resistance to the conjugial, and subdue it.

What is in our subconscious? The Lord says: “innumerable things” of evil!

There are innumerable things in every evil. In man's sight every evil appears as one single thing. This is the case with hatred and revenge, theft and fraud, adultery and whoredom, arrogance and high-mindedness, and with every other evil; and it is not known that in every evil there are innumerable things, exceeding in number the fibers and vessels in a man's body. (...)

Hence it follows that all these in their order must be restored and changed by the Lord in order that the man may be reformed; and this cannot be effected unless by the Divine Providence of the Lord, step by step from the earliest period of man's life to the last. (DP 296)

Since there are innumerable things in every one of our evil affections it is clear that we must rely on the Lord to clear them and remove them from us. The very least we can do is to keep track of the major ones in the major categories as we become conscious of them through self-witnessing. You can see that a general type of confession and self-examination once or twice a year or month, is not going to be effective in knowing and removing our particular evils. Monitoring our willing and thinking hour by hour every day is necessary for us to become aware of our general evils. And when we shun our general evils, the Lord is able to remove the innumerable evils that are attached to every general evil.

For example, there are innumerable evils attached to being overweight from overeating and under-exercising. We must take charge of it in our willing and thinking, day by day, so as to shun the evil delights that cause us to overeat and under-exercise. To the extent that we struggle under this yoke, trying to subdue and control ourselves, to that extent the Lord can remove the innumerable evils that are attached to this general one.

The same goes for all our daily habits and routines that are from evil affections, such as our anger, impatience, swearing and cussing, adulterous thoughts, enjoyments of vulgar entertainment, our bending the rules of honesty and fairness to our favor, our neglect of duties and promises, and many such things. These are the things in which are hidden from our consciousness the innumerable evils that are spiritual fibers tying us to the hells and that are broken by the Lord to the extent we do our share and cooperate in the general evils of which we can become conscious through systematic self-witnessing.

All these forms of lusts must be changed one by one; and the man himself, who with respect to his spirit appears as a human monster or devil, must be changed to become like a beautiful angel (DP 296).

Regeneration is a gradual and piecemeal process. Detesting one evil doesn’t make us detest another, especially when the other is hidden in our subconscious because we do not monitor and find it.

A wicked man from himself continually leads himself more and more deeply into his evils. It is said, from himself, because all evil is from man, for man turns good that originates from the Lord into evil, as was said above. The real reason why the wicked man immerses himself more deeply in evil is that as he wills and commits evil he advances into infernal societies more and more interiorly and also more and more deeply. Hence also the delight of evil increases, and so occupies his thoughts that at last he feels nothing more pleasant. He who has advanced more interiorly and deeply into infernal societies becomes as if he were bound with chains. So long as he lives in the world, however, he does not feel his chains, for they are as if made from soft wool or from fine threads of silk, and he loves them as they give him pleasure; but after death, instead of being soft they become hard, and instead of being pleasant they become galling. (DP 296:[3])

Who is the “wicked man” spoken of here? It is us, every individual, before being reformed and regenerated. In that state we tend to lead ourselves more and more deeply into our evil affections, loving them more and more, feeling them delightful and pleasant like nothing else, by which we are tied more and more to the hells.

At first we think about our evil affections, turning them over in our mind as we consider whether we should do them or not. If we give in and do them, we advance more deeply into associations with the infernals. Then, if we continue to will them despite our conscience, we “plunge ourselves to a depth from which we can be led out only by actual repentance” (DP 296)

Evils in the external, man cannot be removed by the lord except through man's instrumentality (DP 114)

An article in the July 2002 issue of New Church Life by Rev. Erik Sandstrom examines the question of how “we tackle our spiritual life or regeneration” (p. 284). His short answer is, “By finding our hereditary evils!” (p. 284). He cites AC 4317 which makes the following points:

(1) Every individual is born with hereditary evil which lies in the will. These evils in the will are the source of falsities in our mind, the two always going together.

(2) The carrier of this hereditary evil is the “very inward form” of the will, which is the source of all our motives, interests, and delights.

(4) We inherit the love of self in the will so that we love others less than ourselves, and only when they “honor” us or agree with us.

(5) When we arrive in the afterlife it becomes manifest that we love self alone, and others only to the extent that they honor us or agree with us. Otherwise we hate them and desire to cheat them, to dominate them, to abuse them, or to destroy them. These hatreds are hidden from our conscious awareness while we are still tied to the physical body. And yet everyone is able to become aware of them by self-monitoring their thoughts and feelings.

Knowing that we are all this way may motivate us to monitor our willing and thinking all day long, so that we may become aware of our actual evils in operation. We must witness ourselves in order to discover when and where we wish for something bad to happen to someone, or when we feel envious of someone’s good fortune, and how we use our imagination to delight ourselves with denigrating others and ignoring their expectations, needs, or requests to us.

In regeneration we cooperate as-of self with the Lord by choosing to reject a particular evil that delights us or fulfills our needs. This is what makes it possible: our choosing to reject it. Whatever we do in freedom is done from love and therefore it is a higher rational love that makes us reject lower evil loves. As a result, in the afterlife, we arrive with a mind filled with rational loves, within which we can live as a heaven, because the Lord’s good and truth flows in from within these rational loves.

We are privately confessing to the Lord our sins against Him, by self-monitoring our willing and thinking all day long for the sake of our regeneration. It is the Lord who manages the timing and content of our awareness and insight into our sins or evils. If we started telling Him about them, it would be pretending that He doesn’t know them, or that He is not in charge of managing them. This would be a foolish pretense. What the Lord wants us to do is to monitor the evil affections and delights, and their false thoughts and attitudes. He brings them to our conscious awareness to the extent that we are willing to desist from them because they are sins against Him. He keeps out of our awareness those evils we are not ready to give up willingly.

It’s very important to have a scientific or medical perspective on regeneration, for this knowledge helps us to cooperate more with the Lord. The slow down is not on the Lord’s side. He would go more rapidly. But we are holding Him back like a toddler at a street crossing—you end up picking up the child and carrying it across. But the Lord cannot pick us up and carry us to heaven, or else He would, do not doubt that! So He has revealed to us in a scientific way what the process entails and how we are to cooperate for maximum pace. For instance, He has revealed that He cannot remove sins clinging to us by our love, so He wants us to voluntarily desist from them and to detest them. Then He can remove them.

Without Self-Witnessing Our Evils, They Cannot Be Removed

Regeneration involves freely rejecting our evils even though they delight us tremendously. It is not possible to reject our own evils by the group or collectively, as just discussed. It is only possible to reject them one by one. Therefore if we don’t make lists, how are we going to keep track of them so we may reject them? This is a practical issue. If we run a department store without an inventory, can we succeed? We must identify something before we can sell it or reject it. Therefore we should use the method of making lists and inventories of our evils and falsities just as we make lists of things to do on a busy day.

No one can shun that of which he is ignorant. (...) Evils cannot be removed unless they appear. (DP 278)

The Lord cannot remove our evils in secret or unconsciously. Removal of evils is a conscious and cooperative process, more like lifting a heavy furniture by two men, than surgery performed while being put to sleep by drugs. This is what’s meant by the expression “unless they appear.” To continue the quote:

This does not mean that man is to do evils in order that they may appear, but that he is to examine himself, not his actions only, but also his thoughts, and what he would do if he were not afraid of the laws and disgrace; especially what evils he holds in his spirit to be allowable and does not regard as sins; for these he still commits. (DP 278)

The cooperative process is between the Lord and the individual. First, we ought to “examine ourselves.” It is specified that the self-examination focus must be threefold: (a) our feelings or motives in the will; (b) our thoughts and beliefs; and (c) our public acts as regulated by society (“the laws and disgrace”). In other words, we are commanded to examine our minute by minute willing, thinking, and acting out.

What are these particular types of evils? The evils we “do not regard as sins.” For example, we may have long standing habits of thinking about others in a derogatory way. We never bring this out to the surface and would not want others to know about it. We see it as merely an inward habit that we won’t allow to have overt consequences. Just a kind of quirk—we might think. But this is fooling ourselves. We should use the definition of the Word for it, not our own, namely, “evils he holds in his spirit to be allowable and does not regard as sins.”

In order that man may examine himself an understanding has been given him, and this separate from the will, that he may know, understand and acknowledge what is good and what is evil; and also that he may see the quality of his will, or what it is he loves and desires. In order that he may see this his understanding has been furnished with higher and lower thought, or interior and exterior thought, to enable him to see from higher or interior thought what his will is doing in the lower or exterior thought. This he sees as a man sees his face in a mirror; and when he sees it and knows what sin is, he is able, if he implores the help of the Lord, not to will it, but to shun it and afterwards to act against it; if not wholeheartedly, still he can exercise constraint upon it by combat, and at length turn away from it and hate it. (DP 278)

Here the Lord is revealing the method He has provided for the human race to be regenerated for a life in heaven. From being born infernal, every individual can be regenerated into an angel by the time one passes on. The higher thought can see the lower thought “as a man sees his face in a mirror.” The lower self, called the external man, is filled with evils from its inherited ties to the hells. It cannot regenerate itself for to the lower self, whatever feels good is good. Pleasure rules and the proof is always in the pudding.

When he sees it and knows what sin is, he is able, if he implores the help of the Lord, not to will it, but to shun it and afterwards to act against it; if not wholeheartedly, still he can exercise constraint upon it by combat, and at length turn away from it and hate it. (DP 278)

(a) with self-monitoring from the higher to the lower, “he sees it.”

(b) from knowledge of the Letter of the Writings, he “knows what sin is.”

(d) after being able to shun it, he gains the power “to act against it.”

(e) by acting against it, “he can exercise constraint upon it by combat” from conscience

(f) by repeating these steps many times, we “at length turn away from it and hate it.”

Now, and not before, he first perceives and also feels that evil is evil and that good is good. This then is what is involved in examining oneself, seeing one's evils and recognizing them, confessing them and afterwards desisting from them. (DP 278)

Metanoid Self-Witnessing Or Being An Audience To Yourself

A man's mind is his spirit (DP 296)

To focus on the thousands of acts of willing and thinking every day, means to monitor and keep track of them. Note that normal social life does not require this kind of self-knowing. Society requires that we know things outside of ourselves, like the history of our country, or the multiplication table, or how to read instructions and write messages. But there is no social, legal, or professional requirement that we monitor our feelings, motives, thoughts, and interior dialog with ourselves. Once in awhile, if we get called on the witness stand, we might have to report on some of our willing and thinking. We are asked, Why did you do this? Or, What did you decide then? Or, Were you in love with her at that time? Etc. It is required by law that we answer honestly, but knowing the answer is not a requirement. In that case we reply, “I don’t remember,” and the court accepts it. But the court does hold us responsible for knowing things outside of ourselves, such as, Did you see him or not? and, Were you ever contacted by this person, etc.

And yet, for our eternal fate in the afterlife, this external knowledge is not at all crucial, and will only last us as long as we are connected to the physical body, while the usefulness of the interior knowledge will last us to eternity. Clearly, the interior knowledge is immeasurably more important than the external knowledge, and yet, prior to our reformation, everyone favors the external knowledge, and pursues it, hardly paying attention to the far more crucial interior knowledge, which is knowledge about the character of our willing and the content of our thinking all day long.

The knowledge of a thing must come first in order that there may be a perception of it. (AC 5649)

Having practiced the self-witnessing discipline for more than three decades we are able to say various things about it that may be useful to others (see End Note 3 and 4). A most amazing discovery was the existence of “sudden memory” by which refers to the stream of thought that is our actual mental life in the natural mind. This stream of thought is the outward form of our affections. The quality of our affections is the result of the particular spiritual societies with which we are in contact as the sequence of thoughts proceeds. When we perform self-witnessing we are able to “tune in” to the stream of thought while carrying out one’s routine tasks all day long. This is not like meditation or deep reflection which are activities that occur when we stop our tasks and sit doing nothing, thus disengaged from the surrounding pace of events.

The stream of thinking accompanies every act and is a characteristic of human life. Every person is able to tune in and listen to it or become aware of it. What is amazing is that the instant one tries to reflect on what was snatched from the stream, it is mostly gone. One cannot remember what it was. It’s quite unsettling. How do we get hold of it or some of it, long enough so we can examine it in greater detail? You may be familiar with this experience when, upon awakening, you are still affectively filled by the sphere of your vivid dream, but the instant you try to reflect on what it is so you can put it in words, it remains unavailable to the conscious mind, staying just out of its reach—like the “tip-of-the-tongue” phenomenon when you’re trying to think of a name or word you know but can’t quite think of it.

Psychology teaches that there are two types of memory: short term and long term. The first lasts for several seconds—like the phone number we look up and then dial. If we wait more than a few seconds to dial it, we have to look it up again. We move things from short term to long term memory by repetition and rehearsal with the motive to recall it later. So you can memorize things in this way and place them permanently in your long term memory where you can recall it when you want to. Sudden memory seems to work for a second or two and then it’s gone. This is why we call it “sudden” memory—suddenly come and suddenly gone. This is the reality of our stream of consciousness under normal conditions. But self-witnessing skills allow you to snatch things from sudden memory and put them into short term, then long term memory where the record of the thoughts can be analyzed and evaluated.

We discovered that trying to think in words and sentences slows down the stream of consciousness so that it’s easier to become aware of what it is. This is somewhat like giving a “blow by blow” description to an imaginary tape recorder of what one is thinking. It seems to slow the stream down for awhile, enough so that one’s short term memory retains more of it and one is able to get a fix on what the topic is and its direction. In short term memory we can be aware and evaluate, and put anything we want into long term memory by mentally rehearsing or making a physical record of it. In this way the mental discipline of self-witnessing pays off because it gives conscious access to one’s normal everyday affections.

Daily self-witnessing practice enables us to exert rational and religious control over our interior dialog, daydreams, and emotional reactions to things moment by moment all day long. It reveals attitudes and interests. One can exert control by consciously choosing to stop or interrupt a particular line of thinking and feeling. We use the expression “self-regulatory sentences” for instructions we can give ourselves to control the stream of thinking: e.g., “Stop it. Why are you wasting time thinking these useless things?” Or: “That’s not a nice thing to think.” Or: “How low can I get to be so fascinated by that sort of thing?” Etc. This gives people greater conscious control over their mental life allowing them to clean out the mental pollution that reigns in it from heredity and culture. It is not possible for humans to do anything without the accompanying thinking stream. By controlling this, we control a portion of our natural mind. Control of the lower natural mind by the higher natural mind; more particularly, control of the corporeal and sensual mind by the more interior rational mind. The Writings teach that this is the genuine human or celestial mind. This process is inhibited and destroyed when we do not remove the mental pollution by our own daily efforts, as-of-self but looking to the Lord for strength. It is the Lord who performs the regeneration, but He can do this only to the extent that we cooperate as-of self by means of daily conscious effort.

The celestial regions have walls and guards that keep out mental pollution from wandering strangers and evil spirits so that these lower things cannot enter that lofty region of human consciousness. Therefore we need to erect such walls and establish guards in our mind to prevent unholy things from entering and lodging there. Our culture of entertainment and social cynicism specializes in manufacturing large quantities of polluted ideas, pictures, and situations. Without vigilance exercised every hour of our waking time our mind gets inundated by mental pollutants, poisons, viruses, and all sorts of unpleasant, sleazy, scortatory, and idiotic suggestions. The mind is weighted down by them, even sinking into the corporeal.

The Writings warn those who make such mental pollution their abode in this life, for in the afterlife they are captured and tortured by those who have these same polluted things in them. And the omnipotence of a loving God cannot deliver them from this miserable lot for to remove them from it would leave nothing behind for any life by them (AC 5854[3]). Best therefore that we be diligent and sincere in our efforts at self-witnessing while there is still time and opportunity.

Have you listened in on yourself lately? We cannot trust the reputation or opinion we have of ourselves, for this is subjective, biased, and self-serving. The check mark we place on self-rating scales are inflated or deflated in accordance with our vanities: How good am I? How often do I get mad? Am I ever unkind or gross? What kind of mistakes do I make? How happy are the people around me with my conduct? Etc. To answer such questions objectively and accurately we must witness our life.

To react to what we observe is to make an evaluation of our willing and thinking. This evaluation is from a rational level, looking down, while the stream of thinking we are observing, is from a sensuous or corporeal level. An analogy might be standing on a bridge and looking down on the flow of a semi-transparent river and inspecting its contents—stones, fish, plants, debris. These things represent the content of our mind—knowledges, truths, and falsifications of truths. The flow of the river is the sequencing of the thoughts, their reasoning and coherence.

THAT CRUEL SPIRITS AND ADULTERERS LOVE NOTHING MORE THAN FILTH AND EXCREMENTS.

(((((I have spoken) previously of this [fact] that to such spirits, filth and excrements are very pleasant, so that they prefer the pleasantness of beholding such things to all other pleasantnesses, and not only filth and excrements, but also foul, loathsome, and horrid intestines of animals, to that degree, that when they act through man they snatch away all his interior sense, as also [his] sight, to such things, because they, are delighted therewith.

This also was shown me by manifest experience; when I walked in the street, they carried away my eyes to all such things; wherever there was filth, excrement and intestines, thither they directed my eyes, although I was ignorant where were such things in the street, because not observed by me. Still they saw these, whilst I was wholly unobservant, and thither directed my eyes, either to [my] side, or about [my] feet, or near and farther from thence; and the did not turn my eyes to anything else. (SE 2843)

Monitor your eyes as you walk on the street or as you read a magazine or watch TV. The eyes respond to our interest, to our affections, to what we find delightful. As your eyes roam they settle on this or that object, body part, detail. The eyes are quick. You have to catch yourself and become conscious of where they settle for how long, and where they keep coming back to. These eye movements will reveal interests and delights that we do not wish to publicize because they are filthy and scortatory, as the passage above describes. As Swedenborg walked in the street, the spirits with him “carried away my eyes to all such things; wherever there was filth, excrement and intestines, thither they directed my eyes, although I was ignorant where were such things in the street, because not observed by me.” Monitoring our eyes will reveal to us what filthy things are of interest to us form heredity. These filthy interests are not our own affections, they are the affections of the filthy spirits. But we are tied to those spirits by heredity and the filth remains with us unless consciously removed.

Since spirits take possession in that way of all that forms a person's thought and will, and angels take possession of what is even more interior, so that he is joined very closely to them, the person cannot avoid the perception and sensation that he himself is the one who thinks and wills. . (AC 6193)

Our inherited connections with evils spirits cause our minds to be filled with blasphemous thoughts and curiosities.

Anyone who is governed by bodily and worldly love, and not at the same time by spiritual or by celestial love, does not have any but evil spirits with him, even when external holiness exists with him. Good spirits cannot in any way be present with such a person, for they perceive in an instant the kind of love which governs a person. There is a sphere emanating from the interior parts of him which the spirits perceive as plainly as man by his sense of smell perceives offensive and foul odors floating around him in the air. (AC 4311)

Macro-Behaviors Are Regenerated By Means Of Micro-Behaviors

All acts we do occur in a sequence and a setting. For example, we awake at dawn, drive to the beach, drive back, fix and eat breakfast, and clean up the kitchen. This is a morning routine that takes up a small portion of every day. Note that in order to describe it we use expressions that refer to macro-behaviors, or behavior units that are fairly general, like “driving to the beach” or “cleaning up the kitchen.” You can see that each detail mentioned, has sub-components that are not mention. For instance, we spend about one hour at the beach walk, which is a unit ob behavior composed of multiple sub-routines. One for instance, has to do with saying good morning to the other beach walkers. This has many details to be described since it varies with each stranger we say good morning to. We could write a book on the many details about how we transact this complex event that takes one and a half seconds-- saying “Good morning.”

An hour long beach walk is an event packed with details of sub-events. For example, admiring the sunrise—which varies every morning, listening to waves—which varies with the specific place or the weather, watching the frigate birds high in the sky looking for favorable air currents, and numerous other things, like the dogs, the fisherman who gives the dogs treats, each dog responding to it in its own way, and the things Diane picks up whether it’s a broken piece of glass, or a wounded bird she needs to drive it to the oceanic institute where they take care of them.

When we get to describing even more specific behavioral detail, we enter the micro-behavior world. Most people do not describe things at this level for it would be too boring and even meaningless, thus interfering with normal communication. For example:

I could describe what I do with my cell phone, not wanting to leave it in the car, fearing another break in as we had twice before. When I enter the car I place the tiny little phone on the tray, then when I arrive at the beach, I pick it up and put in my right back pocket. I have my wallet in my left back pocket. I have my keys in my left side pocket. I avoid putting the cell phone with the keys for it makes a noise as I walk. Etc. Etc. Who could stand endlessly discussing such details on our daily round of routines? So we don’t. And even each of these sub-details has sub-sub-details, like how I put the phone in my back pocket as I exit the car. My back pocket seals with a Velcro strip so I have to manage to open the flap held tight by the Velcro, as I hold the cell phone in the hand. This takes some practice to do effectively.

And then there are finer details to each of these little movements, as when I have a cut healing on my finger and try to avoid opening the wound by putting pressure on it at a certain angle. In each of these micro-behavior details there is a threefold stepwise execution. First, I have a motive, like protecting my cut finger from being injured as I open the Velcro flap. Second, I have a thought, like monitoring the angle of pressure on the cut on my finger and judging at which point I should no longer put pressure. Third, I have a sensorimotor execution of the hand rotation, the right amount of force exerted, and precise finger movements.

The spiritual importance of micro-descriptions of behavior is that every microbehavior, no matter how small in the overall sequence, is an outcome of a specific motive. No microbehavior can occur without a motive. From the Writings we know that all the heavens form a one, and all the hells form a one. Therefore all our motives and affections form a one. This is why the Writings speak of our ruling love. The ruling love rules all the other loves that are under its subordination. If there is selfishness or stupidity in our mind at any particular time, then every sub-routine and microbehavior we perform has this selfishness or stupidity in it. The motive driving our macrobehavior enters into every microbehavior of which it is constituted. And the motive always belongs to the will, supported by the thought. You can see then that willing and thinking is performed in numerous sequence of micro-behaviors built into macro-behaviors.

Self-modification of macro-behaviors is achieved in two steps. First, there must be a general motive or goal, such as going to the beach at dawn. All the sub-behaviors and their micro-behaviors depend on this one macro-behavior motive. The morning one of us decides to sleep in, all the micro-behaviors at the beach do not occur. In regeneration, the motivation to modify macro-behaviors must therefore come first. For example, I may decide that it is my citizen’s duty to pick up sharp pieces of glasses I see as I walk, so as to prevent injury to those who walk barefoot. In the past I did not do this. Now I’m motivated to be a better beach citizen and to stop acting with indifference towards the danger. This begins my regeneration effort with regard to this one area. It starts with a macro-motivation.

Now I need to struggle to regenerate all the micro-behaviors. For example, I see something a few feet away that might be a piece of glass. I should go over there and examine it, but I don’t want to break my aerobic pace, so I keep walking. I feel bothered. Now I can continue to walk or I can turn back. I’m in a struggle. And so on. You can see that the micro-behaviors confront the actual issues involved in carrying out the macro-behavior. Motives are set within motives in a complex hierarchy and we cannot regenerate the macro-behavior unless we tackle and modify the lower issues attendant to the micro-behaviors.

Metanoid self-witnessing is a mental literacy skill that allows us to monitor and evaluate the moment by moment stream of willing and thinking that constitutes an hour or a minute of our daily round of behaviors at the macro and micro levels of operation. The Writings speak of this metanoid or double focus in connection with self-examination, repentance, and regeneration (e.g., DP 114).

[A person] can from wisdom above view the love that is below, and in this way can view his thoughts, intentions, affections, and therefore the evils and falsities as well as the goods and truths of his life and doctrine; and without a knowledge and acknowledgment of these in himself he cannot be reformed. (DP 16)

Without self-examination, recognition, acknowledgment, confession and rejection of sins, thus without repentance, there is no forgiveness of them, thus no salvation, but eternal condemnation (DP 114)

IV. EVILS IN THE EXTERNAL, MAN CANNOT BE REMOVED BY THE LORD EXCEPT THROUGH MAN'S INSTRUMENTALITY

It is only religion which renews and regenerates a person. Religion is allotted the highest place in the human mind, and sees below it the social matters which concern the world. Religion too climbs up through these as the pure sap rises in a tree to its top, and from that lofty position it has a view of natural matters, just as someone on a tower or a mountain has a view of the plains beneath. (TCR 601)

The will inclines from birth towards evils, even to those which are enormous; hence, unless it were restrained by means of the understanding, a man would rush into acts of wickedness, indeed, from his inherent savage nature, he would destroy and slaughter, for the sake of himself, all who do not favor and indulge him. (ISB 14)

From these and many other passages in the Writings we acquire the idea that constant self-witnessing is a method that allows us to carry out the cooperation with the Lord that He commands us to perform because it is necessary for our regeneration. When you begin self-witnessing one striking aspect of it is to become conscious of the macro and micro-integration of human willing and thinking. For example, I think about taking in the car for servicing. This is a macro-topic in my day’s schedule, to be integrated with many other macro-topics like sending email to someone, grooming the cat, shopping for groceries, reading the Writings, vacuuming the pool, and so on. Every macro-topic is kept in place by priorities of motives or affections in the will. But every macro-topic is constructed of an integrated series of micro-topics, each of these being maintained by a hierarchy of sub-motives, affections, and preferences in the will.

For example, vacuuming the pool is made of sub-tasks (1) getting the pole from its place behind the plants without injuring the plants; (2) taking off the brush attached to it and affixing the hose nuzzle extension on wheels; (3) curling or snaking the long hose into the water to fill it with water and empty it of air; and at least a dozen other sub-tasks. Each sub-task has a series or hierarchy of affections that determine the style, rate, and effectiveness of my willing, thinking, and acting out the movements of hands, head, and body. Each sub-task offers plenty of opportunity for inherited and acquired evils to break out and take over, producing errors, ineffectiveness, damage, injuries, anger, egocentric affectational styles, neglect, laziness, carelessness, and many others.

Self-witnessing reveals the astounding complexity of the ordinary behaviors we perform mentally and physically. Every micro-act or detail is managed by the Lord through good and evil spirits with which He connects us, moment by moment as we perform our willing prompted by affections, our thinking prompted by knowledge and beliefs, and our sensory and motor activities that are prompted by our mental activities. But self-witnessing in itself is not a spiritual or religious activity. What makes it spiritual is the motive we have in doing it. A spiritual motive for self-witnessing makes it into a spiritual or religious discipline. From the Writings we have the commandment to know our willing and thinking so that we may evaluate each mental act in the light of Doctrine in our mind from the Writings. This is the spiritual motive for self-witnessing in the New Church mind. It is a Divine Commandment. We are given this commandment for our sake. We are taught that regeneration is by the Lord but limited by the individual. The Lord gives us the spiritual freedom not to regenerate! But to enter heaven, we must regenerate. And the process of our cooperation involves the micro-details of the micro-sub-tasks of the endless stream of ordinary acts in our willing and thinking all day long.

Examples From The Daily Round Archives

the Ten Commandments, the starting-point of reformation (TCR 582)

Category 3A Logging Activities (Time, Duration, Place, Participants, Occasion, Nature of Activity)

(i) 4:12 P.M. "(ii) 3 min. (iii) in our parking stall (iv) me and my daughters; (v) unloading the groceries from the car; (vi) carrying groceries upstairs, checking the mailbox, putting grocery bag on the kitchen floor, telling the kids to hurry up"

(i) 4:l5 P.M. "(ii) 13 min.; (iii) at home; (iv) me and my daughters; (v) putting away the groceries: (vi) taking groceries out of the bags and telling children to put them away and start doing their home-work, use the bathroom, then Sit down in the parlor"

(i) 4:28 P.M. "(ii) 2 min; (iii) at home: (iv) me; (v) in my bedroom; (vi) changing my clothes, combing my hair, and putting NY clothes away"

(i) 4:30 P.M. "(ii) 32 min; (iii) at home1 in the parlor: (iv) me and my daughters; (v) helping children to do their homework; (vi) lying down on the couch, talking to the children, listening to the stereo"

(i) 5:02 P.M. "(ii) 1 hour, 7 min; (iii) at home, in the parlor; (iv) me and my daughters; (v) lying on the couch; (vi) sleeping"

(i) 6:09 P.M. "(ii) 2 min,: (iii) at home on the couch; (iv) me and my daughters; (v) lying down on the couch: (vi) children wake me up and tell me to start cooking dinner--they're hungry, TV is on, and I start to sit up"

(i) 6:11 P.M. "(ii) 3 min,; (iii) at home, on the couch; (iv) me and my daughters; (v) discussing what to eat for dinner; (vi) .sitting down and smoking a cigarette"

Category 3E1.4 Situated Sensations and Feelings, Microdescriptions of Sensory Observations, Retinal Sensations

I am leaving the theater after watching a matinee feature: as I walk out of the theater_,my eyes suddenly squint at the glare of the sun; the muscles around my eye tighten_.My pupils experience and sharp but momentary pain; as I become accustom to the glare of the sun. The muscles around my eye begin to relax, I open my eyes to its normal position; the pain in my pupils gradually diminish towards the back of my head₁there is a slight throbbing in my eyes but it quickly diminishes; my vision is now normal and comfortable.

Category 3E1.7 Situated Sensations and Feelings, Microdescriptions of Sensory Observations, Smells and Odors

I preheat the oven before roasting the duck; as I prepare the duck there is a faint odor in the kitchen; I sniff at the duck, then at my hands; the smell doesn¹t seem to be the duck or my hands; I start sniffing at the pot of vegetables on the stove; its not the vegetables; I take many short sniffs and several long ones; smells like something burning; I hear some sizzling and smoke coming out of the oven; my entire body is now tense; I rush to open the oven; smoke is coming out of it but there is not-thing in there that would burn; I grab a potholder and quickly open the broiler, beneath the oven; there it is_,the drippings from the steak we had two days ago sizzling on the rack; I begin to relax; I remove the rack and place it in the sink; my body begins to relax; the smell of steak slowly leaves the air; I continue to prepare the duck.

Category 3B4 Situated Interior Dialogue, Reviewing-Making Plans and Lists

I'm driving home and thinking to myself what should I do first when I get home? First, I'll wash the clothes then clean the house while the clothes are in the washer and dryer; then I'll start to prepare dinner, no I better not, I think I'll take a bath after I'm through cleaning house: then I'll take the clothes out of the dryer fold them before starting dinner, that way I won^'t have to interrupt my cooking to pick up the clothes and fold them; after dinner I'll rest for about half an before I start studying; I wonder if I should call Rita and ask her if she would like to go to the library me tonight, no, I better not, otherwise we might end up in the bar having a few drinks and I won^'t get a chance to study; let^'s see_,first wash clothes, then shower, then cook dinner, relax for a little while, then study--sounds good, I think to myself, yeah, that^'s what I'll do tonight.

Category 3B6 Situated Interior Dialogue, Rehearsals and Practicings

I'm talking to Helen on the phone and she mentions Eddie called her and they talked for half an hour, I'm wondering if I should tell her that he called me the other night. no, I don't think I should, she might take it the wrong way. I'm wondering if I should say 'oh yeah, he called last night to see how every thing was going with me, he didn't say much, we only talked for about ten minutes or perhaps I should tell her that he had forgotten her number and that's why he called. No, maybe I should say, 'oh, that's nice, how is he doing?' and not mention to that he called me. Hmm, Nah, I don't think I should say anything at all about his call. Perhaps if he had wanted her to know that he called he would have told her himself... but he didn't... wonder why? On, well, forget it, it's not important anyway. I know, I'll just say that he called just to say hello and that he was doing fine...yeah, that's it, that's what I'll say.

Category 5A8.1 Regular Lists And Belongings, Inventories Of Ownership, Documents And Mementos, Official-Legal-Medical

My official legal documents include: birth certificate of self and children, marriage certificate_,divorce decree_, social-security card for self and kids_, legal ownership paper for my car, car insurance document, check book, HMSA medical card, drivers license, school tuition agreement papers for children's school, BEOC award letter and tuition waiver, medical statements, bank statements, transcript from U.H. and Leeward Community College, school receipts for children, telephone bill receipts, rent receipts, student identification card, rental agreement paper, student fee slip, high school diploma, an associates degree in art and, science from Leeward Community College.

Personal-Biographical: I am looking in my bedroom for my personal things as I do not leave them lying around the house_,here is a list of things that I've found on my book shelf which is 5' x 5':

1. A Bank of Hawaii statement in a blue envelope ,on my bookshelf_,it is there because I forgot to balance my check book for last month.

2. A karate trophy for most outstanding dated 1968 on the book shelf. It is as a bookend.

3. There are forty-one albums and two tapes: Sinatra (9), Herb Ellis (2), Al Green (1), Charlie Byrd (3), Don Ho (2), Matt Monroe (1), Dionne Warwick (4), Jerry Vale (1), The Beatles (1), Sergio Mendes (3), Simon and Garfunkel (1), Best of '66 (1). Doris Day (1). Peter and Gordon (1), New Vaudeville Band (1), This is Broadway (1), Follow the Sun Around the World (i), Johnny Rivers (1). Liz Damon and the orient Express (1), Barbra Streisand (1), Gladys Knight & the pips (1), Carol King (1), Olivia Newton-John (1), Nat King Cole (1), and a Vikki Carr and The Strauss Family tapes on the shelf.

4. There are thirty-three hardback books and one-hundred and twelve paperback books on the shelf ranging in subject matter from politics to sex.

5. There are fifteen manila folders containing notes, handouts, and exams from previous courses.

1. There are four folders, all black, which contain old notes from previous courses.

2. One faded, old Frisbee that my daughter found outside while playing.

3. There are two bottles of cutex, one is a base coat the other is called frosted pink, a bottle of cutex remover (half empty), a bottle of baby powder, one snoopy bank, white_,that my ex-husband gave me-there's no money in it, one old, metal fan that was a wedding gift, one large old yellow candle that a friend gave me, and four blank cassette cartridges all on the shelf.

4. On my dresser I find one bottle of apricot oil that I bought at a make up party, a ceramic dinosaur, that my daughter gave me last year for Christmas, a wedding pic of my brother and his wife, in a clear plastic cover, in a folding silver frame there's a picture of My mother and out dog, two pictures of my daughters when they were one and two years old, and picture of myself at Christmas time, 1967, a yellow scratch pad that has ^"fix car on Saturday" written on it, and & pencil holder with two pens in it on my dresser.

10. In my closet there is a box containing eight albums, two blue ones_,three red ones_,and three white ones. The white ones contain wedding pictures, high school photos of friends and family; the red and blue albums contain pictures of my children; there's a small white box containing all the negatives from all the photos.

11. There is one portable sewing machine in a green case, one old Singer sewing machine in a brown wooden cabinet, one green and yellow beach chair, one sewing table for the portable sewing machine, two shoe boxes containing a black pair of shoes and a white one, one pair of sandals next to them, beige in color, on the floor, and two sets of Scrabble, one tape deck, two file boxes, gray in color, and four evening purses-beige, black white, and off-white all on the shelf in the closet.

12. In a small, old shoe box on the shelf I find a brand new black shoe lace, small gold colored safety pins, a deck of Hanafuda cards, and an old combination lock that I once used for my locker in high school, I probably put them there so that I could find them easily but in fact I had completely forgotten about them.

Category 5B1.3 Routine Concerns: Selected Inventories, Privacy, From the Ears of Particular Others

I am standing outside of class and it is raining. My. girlfriend and I are talking about the course. She says that she has a hard time understanding the professor. I agree with her and mention that he is boring and doesn't seem to know how to communicate well with students, considering that that is what he teaches. Just then he walks in front of us and enters the room. I feel uneasy, I ask my friend if she thinks he overheard what I just said. She just shrugs. I think he did, but maybe he thought that she said it and not I. I don't know, I hope not."

Category 5B1.4.1 Routine Concerns, Selected Inventories, Privacy, From the Knowledge of Particular Others, Involving Your Activities

I am at home, opening my telephone bill for this month. John is sitting down beside me. I look at the bill and wonder if he is going to pay for his long distance call. He knows I don't have the money to pay for the whole bill by myself. I'm hoping that he asks to see the bill. No_,he doesn't ask. I don't want to mention it to him, he might think that I'm assuming he won't pay for it_.I'll just leave it on the dresser and hope that he is nosey enough to look at it himself and mention that he's going to pay for his half. I hope.

Category 5B1.4.2 Routine Concerns, Selected Inventories, Privacy, From the Knowledge of Particular Others, Involving Your Ideas

I am talking to my sister and she mentions that she doesn't want to have any more children because her husband is presently unemployed. She asks if I know of any sure method of birth control without having sterilization and taking the pill. I tell her that she should consult her physician and discuss the matter with her husband. I did not wish to pursue the matter as I know that it would only add to her confusion and a heated argument and hurt feelings might ensue. If she were not older than I, I would have told her that she should take the pill, which she is strongly against, The subject is then dropped and I ask her how she's doing in her present job.

Category 5C1.4 Noticing Observations, Visual Sightings, People in Public Places

Today, at Ala Moana shopping center, I saw Professor Z. He was wearing a printed red and white aloha shirt, white flared trousers, and white buck shoes.

Category 5C2.1.3 Noticing Observations, Relationship Events, Noticeables About People You Know (physical appearance, mood, etc.), Unmentionables Within the Relationship

Today I noticed Professor B wearing two different colored, different size rubber slippers. One was green and the other was brown. His pants are too short and his aloha shirt looks wrinkled, as if he didn't iron it. This is the umpteenth time I've seen him dress in such a manner.

Category 5D5 Description Of Transactions, Exchanging Information

While sitting outside of the classroom, I see a friend of mine approaching. She sits with me and we start to talk of school. She asks if I was accepted into the dental hygiene program. I say no I wasn't. I ask if she was, she says no. We then start to discuss the requirements for the program and how a person is selected into the program. She tells me that perhaps we should apply to the nursing program instead and proceeds to inform me of there requirements.

Category 5D6 Description Of Transactions, Making Arrangements

Faye called me tonight and invites me to have a drink with her at the bar tonight. I agree. She tells me if it would be alright if we meet in about one hour at Latin Villa. I say that that would be fine. I then call my neighbor and ask her if it would be possible for her to watch the kids for me tonight. She agrees.

Category 5D7 Description Of Transactions, Working Out a Problem

...them both to the cashier. Once its paid for, I take the package and leave the store_,I go downstairs and buy a drink for myself, feeling proud that for once I bought a gift ahead of time instead of waiting till the last minute. After finishing my soda_,I go to my car and leave.

Category 5K3 Non-Joint Activities, Mentioning a person to Someone

While talking to Carol on the telephone, we both mention a total of seven people; She mentioned four people, three from the store and her roommate. I mentioned John's name, Tom's and my sister's brother-in-law.

Category 5K4 Non Joint Activities, Avoiding a Person

After dropping off the kids at school, I came home to do some studying. Just as I park my car, I see my neighbor arriving home. I hurry out of my car and pretend not to see him. Just as I'm about to walk upstairs, he shouts "Hi Nan, how you doing? I smile at him and say alright but keep on walking...can¹t stop now or I'll be stuck for hours talking to him! He looks at me and I feel that he would like me to say something so that he can start rapping. I keep on walking, Making sure that I don't look back again.

God is unceasingly present, and continually striving and acting in man (TCR 74)

Teaching Self-Witnessing: Protection of Privacy Issues

Since we are teaching in a public State university there are ethical rules and expectations that govern every one of our instructional procedures. Protection of privacy issues in academic settings tend to be strictly enforced by state and federal guidelines and laws. For instance, a new federal guideline issued last year is that instructors are no longer allowed to post test results on wall lists outside the office, unless a coded number is used after assigning it to each student privately. We used to use the last four digits of the student’s social security number, but this is no longer appropriate we are told.

Our approach in teaching social psychology as a “community classroom” involved a lot of interaction between students, including teams working on a joint report, or students reading and analyzing the reports of other students. The subject matter also raised all sorts of privacy issues since students were writing reports about their self-witnessing—what they did, what they thought, what they felt like doing, what they complained about, what music they listened to and how they interpreted the lyrics, whom they tried to avoid and why, what they day dreamed about, and so on. The heart of the Generational Curriculum approach was that students would process, by reading and analysis, the work of prior generations as well as the work of the current generations. We had to find a way of doing this without running into privacy protection issues.

Our first strategy turned out to be a mistake. We consulted the oral history project on campus since they collected taped interviews of people speaking about their lives in much detail. Their procedure was to ask each taped person to sign a copyright release form or a permissions form, so that the library could then make the materials available to the public. We decided to follow their procedure and asked each student whether they wanted to sign a release form giving us permission to collect their reports into the Daily Round Archives. This was to be a strictly voluntary decision and no stigma was attached to anyone not signing the form, in which case the reports were turned over to them at the end of the semester. Interestingly, we never had more than five percent of the students opting out by simply not signing the form. Ninety-five percent of the students every generation decided to donate their reports to the Daily Round Archives Generational Curriculum Collection.

But this procedure was discontinued by request of the university authorities. Our problem was that we failed to realize the real issue. It was not so much violation of privacy due to the content of the student reports. It was the form that we used which was a copyright release of the reports each student authored. We should not have asked them to release their copyright. And there was no need to do this. We stopped using the release form, and returned the reports to the students at the end of the semester. Then we asked who wants to donate their reports to the Generational Curriculum Collection. They could pick which reports to donate, or they could alter the reports before handing them back, by removing their name or any pages. Using this new procedure, about eighty-five percent of the students handed their reports back. Of those who handed the reports back, about ten percent removed their name. So it was important to have a procedure where students took the initiative to dispose of their reports in any way they wanted.

With the advent of the Internet in 1995 we had a marvelous opportunity to move our Generational Curriculum Collection to the Web. From now on, there was no need to ask students for release forms or for donating their reports to the Generational Curriculum archives. Instead, we hit on a better idea. Let them publish their work! Once it is published, the public has a right to read them, and so do the other students. Further, publishing their reports turned them into real authors and scientists, not just student researchers. They now had a sense that they were serving the whole world wide web with valuable information they collected on themselves. It also made the work of prior generations instantly accessible to the click of a mouse. We were fortunate to be able to use the internet facilities of our college server. This semester we are working with Generation 18 (see End Note 4).

An important aspect of this procedure is that each student uploads or publishes their own reports. It is not done by the instructor or a lab assistant. The procedures involves the students inspecting their report online once they’ve done the uploading to the Web server of our school. In this way they have full awareness that they are publishing their work to a public world wide medium. Once uploaded students can make corrections at any time since the Web server remains continuously accessible by modem. It is typical for a student to upload the same report several times since they edit and improve it in the light of the instructor’s comments and the comments of other students.

We have found over the years that students react very favorably to reading the work of prior generations. All reports students write require that students read, analyze, and summarize various portions of the Generational Curriculum. This serves them for orientation to the work they will carry out during the semester, and gives them a sense of integration that is not possible otherwise. For instance, this semester, the fact that students can see that they are Generation 18, provides a continuity that has both cognitive and affective importance to them. Affectively, they express a tremendous sense of relief that they are not alone in this process, especially the aspects that trouble them, such as the advanced computer literacy skills they have to acquire along with doing the extensive work for the assigned research reports.

The written instructions we give tend to be very detailed, with each section and sub-section specified for content and format. One of the sub-sections of every report is “Advice to Future Generations.” In this section, future students can relate affectively to the past by identifying with the problems and solutions past generations offer. It also gives the students writing the report, a sense of belonging to a generational learning culture, tied to the past and to the future. Students discuss their fears and anxieties in the course, especially concerning technical computer problems, and this seems to reassure them tremendously. A common statement you’ll find in their reports is: “I was glad to find out I was not the only one who felt this way.”

Cognitively, the Generational Curriculum reports has allowed us to cumulate progress and quality from generation to generation. There is a distinct facilitation effect for students to be able to read the reports of other students on the same task, and not only once, but for several generations. We kept our reports similar over the years, although we change things slightly from semester to semester, both for the sake of improvement, and also to challenge students to go beyond the prior generations. You can explore the instructions available online for every generation (see End Note 2).

It has been our practice to allow students choices in which reports they want to work on. Almost all students, about 95 percent, are content in following the currently designated reports for that semester, but there may be one or two students during some semesters who request that they do a different report. We have several alternatives ready, with instructions online, and some of these are more traditional term papers, not directly related to self-witnessing. In this way, anyone who feels uncomfortable with this or that topic, may opt out. Having all the alternatives ready online, along with the designated instructions, helps eliminate any stigma that might be felt by a student for doing something different.

Grading and Assessment Approaches

Our written instructions make grading criteria explicit. Reports are not graded for content about the self-witnessing data. It’s useful to make this clear to them so they have no anxieties or concerns about the content of the observations they make about their feeling, thinking, and acting. The instructions try it to make it clear that the grading has to do with how thoroughly and creatively they follow the instructions. Since the instructions are quite detailed, it takes academic discipline and creative thinking in order to fulfill the instructions. This is what gets graded. For example, this semester Generation 18 is doing a bibliography report on information literacy. The first section is a review of the prior generations on this topic. The second report deals with their self-witnessing while using Web search engines for finding the materials for their bibliography. So the two reports are integrated. The self-witnessing portion instructs them to use a Form that we supply online. This Form prompts them to monitor their mood, their emotions, and their reasoning during the search tasks, keeping track of reactions to finding something or not finding something. After collecting this data on themselves for several weeks, students are instructed to tabulate and analyze the trends they could find in their reactions and thoughts cumulatively over the weeks of Web searching.

Students are given to understand that the content of their self-witnessing is not being evaluated or assessed. For example, the task for Generations 16 was called “Instructions for Report 2--Emotional Spin Cycle--Data Collection and Analysis” (available here: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy15/g15reports-instructions.html ). Students were given four zones of their daily round to witness:

Zone 1 (negative red) = Feeling rage-anger coupled with impaired thinking leading to aggressive behavior

Zone 2 (negative blue) = Feeling depression coupled with pessimistic thinking leading to self-destructive behavior

Zone 3 (positive blue) = Feeling self-mastery and self-satisfaction coupled with optimistic thinking leading to self-enhancing behavior

Zone 4 (positive red) = Feeling resolve with compassion coupled with emotionally intelligent thinking leading to supportive and constructive behavior

The purpose of this data collection exercise is to give you the opportunity to learn how to control your daily emotional spin cycle by going through three steps known as the Threestep Method—AWM:

Step 1: I ACKNOWLEDGE that I need to gain better control over my negative spin cycle.

Step 2: I WITNESS my threefold self in the negative spin cycle settings through objective self-monitoring or self-observation methods of data collection.

Step 3: I MODIFY my spin cycle in one selected area, and then I start again with another area.

In order to be practical we need to restrict self-witnessing observations to a few samples each day for several days. One good approach might be to decide you're going to sample your emotional spin cycle three times a day--morning, afternoon, and evening. This kind of spread allows you to collect a better or more representative sample of your emotional lifestyle habits. In this way you can benefit more from the exercise and your self-modification attempts could be more successful.

WEEK 1: Sampling and differentiating

Select one intense feeling that stands out in your mind that you've experienced this morning [this afternoon, this evening] and describe it, as well as the thinking and doing that went with it:

q what was the actual feeling like, what was the sequence experienced

q what thoughts were in your mind that accompanied the feeling, or occurred right after

q what sensations and actions went with that feeling (and thinking)

Of course this means writing the observation down as soon as possible after it happens. If it's not practical for you to write it down immediately after, at least you can rehearse in your mind how you're going to describe it a little later, as soon as you can. Be sure to remember the details: the time, the place, the feeling and its intensity, the thinking and its sequence, the doing. The doing also includes your appearance to others since we are responsible for what shows and how we act in front of others. So try to remember what your body was doing and sensing (face, stomach, fingers, breathing, and tone of voice). The doing also includes the saying, if you spoke words out loud and what they were and what they probably sounded like to others present.

It's best to use a diary book or equivalent so you can page through and see if you haven't forgotten something. Be sure to have times, date, and place clearly marked for each sample you report.

In addition to the three descriptions mentioned above regarding feeling, thinking, and doing, you need to collect Global Ratings once at the end of each day:

_____ 1) What was my strongest stress point today: (1=very weak; 10=extreme)

_____ 2) What was my strongest level of satisfaction with myself today: (1=very weak; 10=extreme)

_____ 3) What was my best level of effectiveness or productivity today: (1=very weak; 10=extreme)

_____ 4) What was my best level of coping successfully with my feelings today: (1=very ineffectual; 10=extremely effective)

_____ 5) What is your current level of hope for the future: (1=little hope or brightness; 10=extremely hopeful and bright)

_____ 6) What was the worst level of negativity or selfishness of some other people around you (1=almost no negativity or selfishness observed; 10=extremely strong negative or selfish behavior observed)

By collecting these 6 numbers at the end of each day you will be able to use a global assessment comparison between week 1 and week 2. (Note: one per day is the minimum required, but you get extra points for doing more since this may be more accurate.)

About the Records Sheets:

Describe the record keeping you did, how accurate they are, and any problems or concerns that need to be mentioned.

Give one or two illustrations of the data you collected on the records sheet (insert this in your report 2).

Put all your record sheets into a separate file called records.html and link to it, inviting the reader to inspect them before continuing to read. Be sure you place a link back to your report 2 so people can get back there after inspecting your records file.

About the Bridge Technique:

Describe how you applied the bridge technique as an intervention.

How does such a technique supposed to work?

How effective was it?

Did its effectiveness vary on different days or with different activities?

What kind of resistance did you yourself put up when trying to apply the bridge technique? Be specific using actual examples from your records.

What are the origins of these weaknesses, strengths, and resistances?

How would you teach this technique to a friend or family member?

Who would be successful at it and who would not?

What prevents people from using this technique to reach happiness and perfection?

What limitations does it have?

An Interpretation and Discussion Section should cover these topics:

Give a brief summary of the overall pattern of results you obtained. Provide psychological explanations of the forces at play in those situations in so far as you can identify them from your data. You can also bring in explanatory concepts from your other courses or textbooks. Be sure to reference all your sources.

What have you learned about your threefold self by doing this project? Discuss all three behavioral domains of the threefold self--affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor

How did the four options diagram and vocabulary lists in the general instructions help you understand yourself better? Is this something you can use forever? Will you continue using this technique after the course is over? Would it make a big difference in your life whether you continued using this technique or not?

What characteristics such as strengths and weaknesses did you discover about yourself as a result of this project?

Would this technique be useful to: friends, parents, coworkers, children?

Should this approach be taught in schools and at the workplace?

Comment on the emotional spin cycle shown by Generation16 students in their Forum Discussions located at: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy16/forum-copy-g15.html

Here is a paragraph from a student’s report located at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409as2002/fitu_papu/report2.html

The design I used to collect my data was the journals I’ve been writing in past couple of weeks. I didn’t include Sunday. Sunday is more of a day I spend with God. In my journals, I self-monitored myself on the addiction I had on watching pornography. I’ve said in the beginning that watching pornography was my old habit from my teens. Each day I self-monitored myself by recording the level of sexual urge, stress, depression, and happiness from zero=none to five=extreme. This helped to find out what’s causing me to continue watching pornography. The ratings I then received were useful to track down the influence of watching pornography. They were thus useful to help me to understand myself. My journals were based on my relationship with God.

The logic behind the baseline-intervention approach was that I was going around a circle. I didn’t choose to stay in the positive but to spin from the positive to the negative. For example, I would tell myself one day that I would never watch pornography anymore. The next day I did it again.

This is one of my journals I wrote about this just to give a good illustration of the point I’m trying to make:

Dear Journal, 04-10-2002

It would’ve been a beautiful day if it weren’t for that mindless incident that I put myself into. You see this is something I’ve been struggling all my life to overcome. But it seems like it is a part of me. I know God can help me, but I have to do my part in that way His way for me will come to pass. Unfortunately, my soul doesn’t stand it if I don’t give in. How many times I’ve promised myself that I’m going to put a stop to this? I love God so much that I just don’t want Him to be upset of me, particularly on this sin I temporarily commit. Other than that, school is becoming a great deal for me. Same principle: I reap what I sow. If I’m faithful in little things, I will certainly be faithful in big things. I cannot move on to the big things if I am not faithful in the small things. This is my lesson. Thank You Father. Bye…

Discussion

In this project, I learned that my threefold self (feeling, thinking, and acting out) were compatible with each other. One day I would "feel" sexually aroused that affected my thinking and eventually acting out. Another day would be my "thinking" that affected my feeling and eventually acting out. It seemed when one domain started dwelling on pornography, the rest went with it. Because it was an addiction to me, an emotional roller-coastal ride was likely to occur.

The four options vocabulary really helped me to explain my emotional spin cycle. Knowing them, I started to realize myself better in a way that I had never thought before. Stress, for example, was always a feeling that I didn't know I had after watching pornography. I noticed it when I started to have pessimistic thinking about myself that my relationships with my friends and family were destroyed by stress.

The strength of this project was that I was able to cope with the addiction by the use of the Word of God (Bible). Even though I was always not successful at using it, the surrendering of my will to God and His Word made it possible. The weakness I discovered about myself was giving in so easily to the temptation once it hit me. Especially during the time the sexual urge was at the peak. That I could not handle, unknowing that submitting myself to the will of God could bring strength to resist it.

I will continue to use this technique even when the course is over. The understanding of the Four Options Diagram is the information I will carry on in my life to better understand my emotional spin cycle. It will totally make a different in my life as I continue to use it because it will change my life. The use of the bridge technique is a success to me. Without it, I would not understand the crossing of the negative to the positive and to stay in the positive.

This is useful to anybody who is in need of coping with whatever problem. "We are our own enemies" is a quote I use because I believe every problem starts from us. So in order for us to cope with a problem, we have to examine ourselves daily. Look into the activities we normally do in regular basis and be attentive to the words we say so we can understand ourselves better so we can have something to apply the bridge technique. Friends, parents, coworkers, children, etc. are the people that can use this technique.

We happened to pick the first report in the directory, and then noticed it has an unusual topic and focus. About ten percent of the people in our classes tend to have a strong self-consciousness about their religion and show this involvement in their reports. Here are some samples from another student’s report on the same topic (it is posted on the Web at: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409as2002/molyneaux/report2.html

Previous to meeting Dr. Leon James, I had not thought of myself to exist in three domains of behavior. I considered myself composite of the three domains, not separable or changeable. Examining myself through the three domains of behavior makes it possible for observations to be made and changes to occur. At first this seemed impossible, but with self observation and modification I was able to examine and record how my three domains of behavior function. I also was able to recognize stimulants that set my threefold self through the negative spin cycle. By addressing these stimulants I was able to modify my behavioral routines through cognitive appraisal. I found this to be extremely useful, because negative thoughts often plague my mind as a result of hurt feelings. These toxic thoughts would provoke and justify acts of destructive behavior not only against myself but also towards others. Once I figured out how to change my habits of thinking I was able to change my habits of behaving.

While observing our three fold self in the red options and blue options we were to keep records in a journal or on a tape recorder. The observation took place three days in a row. The next week was the intervention week, we did the same recording of our three fold self but also implemented the bridge technique. After we experimented and recorded we were able to see changes in the spin cycle by using the Baseline Intervention Approach, I was able to compare changes in my three fold self in the emotional spin cycle by comparing the data from the intervention week to that of the base line week. By gathering data and comparing the two weeks I will be able to see any improvements or changes in my options for the emotional spin cycle.

Examples of Blue Bridge Prompts I applied from the instructions:

** question your assumptions that lead to negative conclusions

** tell yourself you're catastrophizing in an irrational way

** tell yourself "Stop it!" when you witness yourself ruminating compulsively

** do a scenario analysis of the situation, writing down all the versions

** reject the idea that the worst is going to happen

** do a re-appraisal of the situation and find some good things about it

** go over in your mind what others have said to you

Examples of Red Bridge Prompts I applied from the instructions:

** order yourself to stop

** question your cold logic or negative conclusion by qualifying it, saying to yourself: "Not necessarily" or "Maybe, maybe not" etc. which help weaken the intensity of your negative persuasion

** make yourself think of relevant counter-information you've been ignoring so far

** restore balance by reminding yourself to think of both sides of the issue

** remind yourself that retaliation hurts people including yourself and it's not good

** remind yourself that all people have an inherent right to be treated with decency

** remind yourself that aggressive behavior won't bring you what you want

** consciously reject any fantasies of revenge as uncivilized and beneath you

** reject violence as ineffective in bringing about your goal

** reaffirm the human responsibility you bear to be fair and forgiving

This is a sample of my baseline week observations; negative red.

10:00 a.m. I am fuming right now, my Hawaiian teacher handed back papers and it was not a grand experience. She circled one misspelled word and commented that "by 202 I should know how to spell this". The thing was that it was a typo, a stupid error. I make those in English all the time, it was an accident. How dare her treat me like I am a child. I think she likes to single me out and pick on me. I could feel my face tighten, I knew I had a shitty look on my face. My anger was written all over my face and I wanted her to know I am upset. She reminded me of that dreaded kindergarten teacher you see in cartoons and I examined how bad she looked in the dress she was wearing, and her clothes were so out dated. It is like she thinks it is funny to see me struggle, she gives me no mercy. I was jealous of how she treated some of the other students, she seemed to be more patient and kind. She just laughed at me, I felt like a dog that could only do stupid tricks. Right now I am very tense. As class was over I stood up, glared at her and stamped out. She did not see my stare, I felt very disappointed. I felt like slamming the door so it shattered.

This is a sample of my baseline week observations; negative blues.

8:45 a.m. I have just arrived at school, I looked in the rearview mirror to do one last make-up check. "God I look terrible today" this was my expression as I looked in the mirror. I'm feeling so incompetent and foolish right now. I do not want to walk across campus because I am afraid people will be looking at me and think my butt is really huge. Tension is high, walking with a confrontational attitude.

This is a sample of my intervention week observations; positive blues.

10:00 a.m. Okay, I am getting up right now and I am looking in the mirror, I see myself and start to focus in on my appearance. Okay Korey STOP it! I will not allow myself to think those horrid thoughts about my body. I thought about how my boyfriend tells me how cute I am and how much he loves me just the way I am. This helped and I relaxed a bit, I did not feel so helpless. Decided today to start exercising and eat better, it can only help.

These are just a few samples of my observation recordings, if you are interested in seeing the rest of my observation Click Here!

Discussion:

Although the bridge technique was very useful it was not always possible to do. Because of my socialized habits of thinking, I often returned to my previous negative thinking. In order to change I need to be able to assess if my thinking routines and practice implementing the bridge. Due to my learned nature to be defensive and protect my self in conflict I struggle with in my thinking. Until I can change these habits, I will continue to activate schemas that may be unrealistic and irrational. Once I am able to adapt my thinking response to be emotionally intelligent, optimistic and realistic, I will be able to behave in self enhancing and supportive ways.

I am currently trying to teach this technique to my boyfriend, who has some serious problems with aggression.

Incidentally, both of these students have chosen to put their names on the Web reports.

The behaviors that the students’ self-witnessing data contain are never assessed. Whether the students were successful in their self-modification experiment is not assessed. For the purpose of the report this makes no difference. The area they pick to report on is not assessed or prescribed. Instructions specify the four zones of self-witnessing as a general theory applicable to every individual. Within each zone, the students pick their own topics they want to report on. The first student above chose to report on his involvement with pornography, but he could have picked food behavior, sports, television, roommates, the workplace, etc., as other students have done.

We make sure that students realize that the grading of their reports has nothing to do with their having this type or that type of reactions or feelings during the self-witnessing. And this becomes pretty obvious to them as they look at prior generation reports and become familiar with the instructions. Further, they remain their own authors, they write what they want, and they keep out whatever they want. There is no sense of coercion in reporting this or that, since the content is not what’s being addressed in the evaluation. Everyone has reactions and thoughts, and these are not graded or assessed in any way. Here is an example of the wording we have for stating our grading criteria:

(1) How closely and effectively does the overall report follow all instructions? Does the report go beyond the minimum instructions? Does it introduce new features that enhance the report?

(2) How much depth or substance does the report have? How skillfully and effectively is it conceptualized? How coherent is its presentation? How much effort does the report show in terms of data collection, write-up, formatting, and presentation?

(3) How effective is the appearance of the report? Is it easy to scroll across the report and know where one is? Is there too much text crowding on the screen? Is the background clear or does it make it more difficult to see the letters? Is the font effective or too weak?

(4) Are there Tables or Charts in the report? Were the data analyzed appropriately? Are the results explained coherently? Does the interpretation of the result involve psychological theory from other courses?

A Few Passages in the Writings Concerning Self-witnessing and Regeneration

Spiritual freedom is from the love of eternal life. Into this love and its delight no one comes but the man who thinks that evils are sins, and consequently does not will them, and at the same time looks to the Lord. As soon as a man does so, he is in this freedom; for no one has the power not to will evils because they are sins and so to refrain from doing them, unless from a more interior or higher freedom which is from a more interior or higher love. At first this freedom does not appear to be freedom, and yet it is; and later it does so appear, when the man acts from freedom itself according to reason itself, in thinking, willing, speaking and doing what is good and true. This freedom increases as natural freedom decreases and becomes subservient; and it conjoins itself with rational freedom which it purifies. [7] Everyone may come into this freedom provided he is willing to think that there is an eternal life, and that the temporary delight and bliss of a life in time are but as a fleeting shadow compared with the never-ending delight and bliss of a life in eternity. This a man can think if he wishes, because he has rationality and liberty, and because the Lord, from whom these two faculties are derived, continually gives him the ability to do so. (DP 73)

From infancy to childhood, and sometimes on into early youth, a person is absorbing forms of goodness and truth received from parents and teachers, for during those years he learns about those forms of goodness and truth and believes them with simplicity - his state of innocence enabling this to happen. It inserts those forms of goodness and truth into his memory; yet it lodges them only on the edge of it since the innocence of infancy and childhood is not an internal innocence which has an influence on the rational, only an external one which has an influence solely on the exterior natural, 2306, 3183, 3494, 4563, 4797. When however the person grows older, when he starts to think for himself and not, as previously, simply in the way his parents or teachers do, he brings back to mind and so to speak chews over what he has learned and believed before, and then he either endorses it, has doubts about it, or refuses to accept it. If he endorses it, this is an indication that he is governed by good, but if he refuses to accept it, that is an indication that he is governed by evil. If however he has doubts about what he has learned and believed before, it is an indication that he will move subsequently either into an affirmative attitude of mind or else into a negative one. (AC 5135)

It is the same with all things that belong to man's very life, as with those which relate to his understanding, and those which relate to his will. These also follow in order from interior to exterior things. Exterior things are memory-knowledges with their pleasant feelings; and outermost things are those of the senses, which communicate with the world by the sight, the hearing, the taste, the smell, and the touch. (AC 9216)

The interior can perceive what takes place in the exterior, or what is the same, that the higher can see what is in the lower; but not the reverse. Moreover they who have conscience can do this and are accustomed to do it, for when anything contrary to the truth of conscience flows into the thought, or into the endeavor of the will, they not only perceive it, but also find fault with it; and it even grieves them to be of such a character. (AC 1914)

[2] What the interior man is, scarcely anyone knows, and it must therefore be briefly stated. The interior man is intermediate between the internal and the external man. By the interior man the internal man communicates with the external; without this medium, no communication at all is possible. The celestial is distinct from the natural, and still more from the corporeal, and unless there is a medium by which there is communication, the celestial cannot operate at all into the natural, and still less into the corporeal. It is the interior man which is called the rational man; and this man, because it is intermediate, communicates with the internal man, where there is good itself and truth itself; and it also communicates with the exterior man, where there are evil and falsity. By means of the communication with the internal man, a man can think of celestial and spiritual things, or can look upward, which beasts cannot do. By means of the communication with the exterior man, a man can think of worldly and corporeal things, or can look downward; in this differing little from the beasts, which have in like manner an idea of earthly things. In a word, the interior or middle man is the rational man himself, who is spiritual or celestial when he looks upward, but animal when he looks downward.

[3] It is well known that a man can know that he speaks in one way while thinking in another, and that he does one thing while willing another; and that there exist simulation and deceit; also that there is reason, or the rational; and that this is something interior, because it can dissent; and also that with one who is to be regenerated there is something interior which combats with that which is exterior. This that is interior, and that thinks and wills differently from the exterior, and that combats, is the interior man. In this interior man there is conscience with the spiritual man, and perception with the celestial. This interior man, conjoined with the Divine internal man that was in the Lord, is what is here called "Abram the Hebrew." (AC 1702)

Appendix A: The Daily Round Archives Classification Scheme (DRA)

I. MAJOR CLASSIFICATION LEVEL

Zone 1: Biographic Record (White)

Zone 2: Tribe (Yellow)

Zone 3: Role (Green)

Zone 4: Psychohistory (Blue)

Zone 5: Territoriality (Brown)

Zone 6: Appearance (Black)

[Note: For explanations about the color code see End Note 4.]

II. SUBCLASSIFICATION LEVEL

Zone 1: Biographic Record

1a My Vita

Zone 2: Tribe

2a My Talk

2b Connections

2c Family Tree

Zone 3: Role

3a Logging Activities

3b Situated Interior Dialogue

3c Situated Standardized Imaginings

3d Situated Psychologizings

3e Situated Sensations And Feelings

3f Situated Feeling Arguments

3g Situated Fantasy-Daydream Episodes

3h The Elevated Register

3i Responsibilities and Duties

3j Social Memberships

Zone 4: Psychohistory

4a Situated Attributions

4b Situated Evaluations And Assessments

4c Situated Judgments

4d Interviewing The Self

Zone 5: Territoriality

5a Regular Lists And Belongings

5b Routine Concerns: Selected Inventories

5c Noticing Observations

5d Description Of Transactions

5e Transactional Strategies: Episodes When

5f Declarations

5g Slogans

5h Epithets

5i Hangouts And Group Activities

5j Reporting Joint Activities

5k Non-Joint Activities

Zone 6: Appearance

6a Interviewing Others

MICRO CLASSIFICATION LEVEL

Zone 1: Biographic Record

1A. My Vita

1A1 Current Status in Community

1A2 Background

1A3 Topic focus

1A4 Personal

1A4.1 Favorites

1A4.3 Fears

1A4.2 Ambitions

Zone 2: Tribe

2A My Talk

2A1 Analysis of Argument Logic

2A1.1 Schema of Argument Structure

2A1.2 Description of Operational Talking Procedures

2A1.3 Schema of Behavioral Strategies in Talk

2A2 Analysis of Relationship

2A2.1 Case History

2A2.2 Relationship Dynamics

2A2.3 Tabulation of Pair Types

2A2.4 Tabulation of Role Types

2A3 Analysis of Sequence

2A3.1 Schema for Move Embeddings

2A3.2 Tabulation of Adjacency Relations

2A4 Analysis of Setting

2A4. 1 Discourse Analysis

2A4. 2 Tabulation of Derivative Relations

2A4. 3 Tabulation of Implicit Meanings

2A4. 4 Tabulation of the Rhythm of Exchange

2A4. 5 Transactional Engineering through Talk

2A5 Analysis of Topic

2A5. 1 Breakdown of Topics Exchanged

2A5. 2 Topical Annotations

2A5. 3 Topical Chart of Transcript

2A5. 4 Topicalization Dynamics

2A6 Transcript Annotations

2A6.1 Explanations

2A6.2 Stage Directions

2B Connections

2B1 People I Live With

2B2 People Who Are My Immediate Family

2B3 People Who Are My Extended Family

2B4 People Who Are Acquaintances of the Family

2B5 People I Know From Work

2B6 People I Regularly Socialize With

2B7 People Who Have Provided Me with Professional Services

2B8 People Who's change in Financial Status Would Affect My Financial Status

2B9 People Who Are Non-Intimates and Non- Family whose Ill Health or Death Would Affect Me

2B10 People Whom I Might Ask for a Recommendation

2B11 People Who Influenced My Intellectual and Personal Maturity

2B12 People I Don't Know Personally But Whose Ideas Affect Me

2B13 People Who Have or Could Ask 'Me for a Reference

2B14 People I see Regularly for Service or Supplies

2B15 People I'd Like Currently to Meet

2B16 People I Know Whose Words I Quote or Stories I Tell

2B17 People Whom I Believe to be Admired by My Parents

2B18 People Whom I Know Who I See or Think About Only Rarely

2C Family Tree

Zone 3

3a Logging Activities

3A1 Time

3A2 Duration

3A3 Place

3A4 Participants

3A5 Occasion

3A6 Nature of Activity

3b Situated Interior Dialogue

3B1 Overlays of Comments to Self

3B2 Value Expressions

3B3 Preparing Schedules

3B4 Reviewing-Making Plans and Lists

3B5 Emotionalizing Episodes

3B6 Rehearsals and Practicings

3B7 Annotations, Memorizings, Editings

3B8 Unmentionables Within the Relationship

3c Situated Standardized Imaginings

3d Situated Psychologizings

3e Situated Sensations And Feelings

3E1 Microdescriptions of Sensory Observations

3E1 .1 Aches and Pains

3E1 .2 Stretchings and Exercise

3E1 .3 Blushing

3E1.4 Retinal Sensations ~ etc.

3E1.5 Appetite and Cooking

3E1.6 Energy Level

3E1.7 Smells and Odors

3f Situated Feeling Arguments

3F1 Figuring Out a Conflict

3F2 Making Resolutions

3g Situated Fantasy-Daydream Episodes

3G1 Elaboration of Dramatized Scenarios

3G2 Construction of Catharsis Stories

3G3 Re-contacting Nostalgic Memories

3G4 Working out Alternative Realities

3h The Elevated Register

3H1 Praying-Invocations

3H2 Altered States of Consciousness

3H3 Meditations-Reading of Scriptures

3H4 Poetic Expressions

3i Responsibilities and Duties

3j Social Memberships

Zone 4: Psychohistory

4a Situated Attributions

4b Situated Assessments/Evaluations

4c Situated Judgments

4d Interviewing Self

4D1 Who Am I

4D2 What Am I

4D3 How Am I

4D4 What Do I Look to You

Zone 5: Territoriality

5a Regular Lists And Belongings

5Al Invitations

5A2 Announcements

5A3 Subscriptions

5A3.1 Periodicals

5A3.2 Membership Dues

5A3.3 Contributions

5A4 Bills

5A5 Closets

5A6 Drawers

5A7 Objects

5A8 Documents and Mementos

5A8.1 Official-Legal-Medical

5A8.2 Personal/Biographical

5A8.2. 1 Prizes

5A8.2.2 Letters

5A8.2.3 Gifts

5A8.2.4 Albums

5A8.2.5 Souvenirs

5A9 Personal Effects: Selected Inventories

5A9.l Purse/Wallet

5A9.2 Car Glove Compartment

5A9.3 Your Own Drawer for Stuff

5A9.4 Clothes Closet

5b Routine Concerns: Selected Inventories

5B1 Privacy

5B1.1 From the EYES of Particular Others

5B1.2 From the NOSE of Particular Others

5B1.3 From the EARS of Particular Others

5B1.4 From the Knowledge of Particular Others

5B1.4.1 Involving Your Activities

5B1.4.1.1 Places

5B1.4.1.2 People

5B1.4.1.3 Purchases

5B1.4.1.4 Bills

5B1.4.2 Involving Your Ideas

5B1.4.2.1 Memories

5B1.4.2.2 Attitudes

5B1.4.2.3 Opinions

5B2 Information: Record Keeping

5B2.1 Schedules

5B2.2 Shopping Lists

5B2.3 Date and Address Books

5B2.4 Check/Bank Books

5B2.5 Biographical

5B2.5.1 Diary

5B2.5.2 Notes

5B2.5.3 Resolutions

5c Noticing Observations

5C1 Visual Sightings

5C.1.1 Physical State-Appearance of Things and Places

5C1.2 Change in Normalcy Signs

5C1.3 Weather

5C1.4 People in Public Places

5C2 Relationship Events

5C2.l Noticeables About People You Know

5C2.1.1 Physical Appearance

5C2.1.2 Mood

5C2.1.3 Unmentionables Within the Relationship

5C2.l.4 Disoccasioned Mentionables

5C3 Auditory Pickings-up

5C3.1 Overheard Snatches of Talk

5C3.2 Sounds, Noises

5d Description Of Transactions

5D1 Gossiping

5D2 Catching Up on News

5D3 Having an Argument

5D4 Joking

5D5 Exchanging Information

5D6 Making Arrangements

5D7 Working Out a Problem

5D8 Sharing Secrets/Confess ions

5D9 Routine Reviews/News of the Day

5e Transactional Strategies: Episodes When I:

5El Lied

5E2 Avoided

5E3 Persisted

5E4 Pursued

5E5 Insisted On

5f Declarations

5F1 Problems

5F2 Concerns

5F3 Secrets

5F4 Disoccasioned Topics

5F5 Superstitions

5g Slogans

5Gl About Appearance

5G2 About Health

5G3 About Diet

5G4 Folk Wisdom

5h Epithets

5H1 Pet Peeves (self and others)

5H2 Family Sayings

5H3 Nicknames (self and others

5H4 Personal (self and others)

5H5 Regularized References To:

5H5.l Time

5H5.2 Place

5H5.3 Events

5i Hangouts And Group Activities

5I1 Places

5I2 Circumstances of Crowding With

5I3 Activities with Others

5I4 Rights and Privileges

5I5 Reputations

5j Reporting Joint Activities

5J1 Doing Something With Dates, Appointments

5J2 Telephone Calls

5J3 Writing/Receiving Notes, Letters, Memos, Ads, etc.

5J4 Paying Bills

5k Non-Joint Activities

5K1 Doing a Task for Another Person

5K2 Buying a Gift for Another Person

5K3 Mentioning a Person to Someone

5K4 Avoiding a Person

5K5 Going to See/Looking for a Person

5K6 Having a Mental Exchange with Someone

Zone 6: Appearance

6a Interviewing Others

6A1 Who Am

6A2 What Am

6A3 How Am I

6A4 What Do I Look Like To You

End Notes

All articles listed are by Leon James except where otherwise noted. Each article on the Web has links to others, in a cumulative pattern. For a linked topical directory giving access to all articles, see the Swedenborg Theistic Science Glossary available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss.html

Note 1

Overcoming Objections to Swedenborg's Writings Through the Development of Scientific Dualism (1998). (Published in New Philosophy, 2001, v.CIV n.3 & 4 pp. 153-217.) Article available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/np98.html

Substantive Dualism: Swedenborg's Integration of Biological Theology and Rational Psychology (1985). Article available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/dualism.html

Spiritual Psychology (1985). Article available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/spirpsy.html

Theistic Science: An Introduction (1990). Article available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/theistic.html

See also: Dr. Ian Thompson’s related articles on his Web site at:

http://www.TheisticScience.org

Moses, Paul, and Swedenborg, or Ritual, Faith, and Theistic Science: The Three Phases of Religious Behavior (1999). Article available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/moses.html

Spiritual Geography--Part 1--Graphic Maps of Consciousness for Regeneration (1998). Article available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/geography.html

Note 2

Appendix A above, reproduces the DRA Classification Scheme.

Ethnography of an Academic Cyber-Community: The Hawaii Generational Curriculum Project (1985). A directory of links to articles and student reports, available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/gc/gcintro.html

The Class Home Page of the current semester (G18, Spring 2003) is available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy18/g18classhome.html

Introduction to the Community Classroom Generational Curriculum (1997). Article available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/gc/intro.html

The Development of the Daily Round Archives—DRA (1981). Article available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499f97/dtanioka/dra/dramast.html

See also Appendix A in the present article (above).

Social Psychology of the Generational Community Classroom (1979). Article available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/gc/spcc.html

Managing an Online Generational Learning Community (1997). Text of a talk, available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/gc/onlinetalk.html

Subject Index to the Daily Round Digital Library (1999). Index with links available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/gc/draindex.html

The Hawaii Online Daily Round Digital Library (1985). Links to articles and student reports, available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/gc/draintro.html

Traffic Psychology Self-Witnessing (1986). Student reports available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499f97/suzuki/dra/

Social Psychology: Studying Community-Building Forces (1979). Lecture Notes available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499f97/suzuki/james/cb1.html

Society’s Witnesses (1981). Our Social Psychology book is available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/society/hp.html

The Generational Curriculum Student Reports—Accessing Generations 1 through 18 (2003). Directory of links available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/gc/generations.html

Instructions for Studying Discourse in Talk: Topic, Argument, Setting, and Relationship (1977). Report available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/talk/talk1.html

Sample Song Analyses by Students (1981). Available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499s2000/mazza/file8.html

Directory of Our Articles Available on the Web:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/leonarticles.html

Note 3

A Man of the Field: Forming The New Church Mind in Today’s World. (Volume 1: Reformation: The Struggle Against Nonduality; Volume 2: Enlightenment : The Spiritual Sense of the Writings; Volume 3: Regeneration: Spiritual Disciplines For Daily Life; Volume 4: Uses: The New Church Mind In Old Age (in preparation) Available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nonduality.html

Note 4

Genes of Consciousness: Spiritual Genetics for Regeneration (1997). Available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/harmonizing4.htm

Spiritual Geography--Part 1--Graphic Maps of Consciousness for Regeneration (2000). Available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/geography.html

De Hemelsche Leer--Part 3--Methodological Tools for Extracting The Doctrine of the Church (xx). Available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/dhl3.html

Doctrine of the Wife for Husbands: A Spiritual Practice for Achieving Unity (1999). Available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/wife.html

Ethnographic Discourse Methodology (xx). Available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499s98/shintani/ethno1.html

Appendix to The Third Force in Language Teaching: A New Ethnomethodological Approach to Discourse Analysis and Instruction (1972). Available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/thirdforce/toc.html

Principles of Ethnosemantics and Its Relation to Ethnomethodology and Applied Psycholinguistics (1977). Available on the Web at:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/ethnos/estoc.html

+++++++++++++++

The Web address of this document is:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nc-self-witnessing.htm

For printing with original pagination:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nc-self-witnessing.doc