I took a long, strange, seat-of-the-britches path to becoming a comprehensivist. Brian O’Leary also did, and in his final book, he discussed what he called the Four Cultures of the Phoenix, which was also a college class that he taught late in his life. It was related to free energy efforts.
Brian’s four cultures were:
1. Truth Seekers;
2. Deep Ecologists;
3. Pragmatists;
4. Spiritualists.
I am going to expand on Brian’s cultures a little. His original Truth Seekers only included those of a conspiracist bent, but I think that anybody who seeks truth outside of mainstream assumptions is a truth seeker, such as Ed Herman. Brian’s Pragmatists originally only included “progressive” activists who engage politicians and think only within mainstream parameters, but I am also applying it to free-energy inventors and activists who try to work within our societal framework, and who bang on Wall Street’s, Washington D.C.’s, or the standard NGOs’ doors, thinking that they will make progress in that way, but the opposite often happens when it is not an act of futility. Brian stated that free-energy inventors have a pragmatic bent, and it comes out in those behaviors, so my revision is minor.
In the ideal world, everybody is a truth seeker, but that is not the case today. My Easter Bunny question in auditing class was a truth-seeking beginner’s question, but it was the question that nobody really wanted to hear. Scientists and scholars are theoretically truth seekers, but as Chomsky pointed out in the years after he went public with his political stance, most intellectuals fail in that task. Herman and Howard Zinn were truth seekers of the highest order, as are many of a vanishing species: the investigative journalist. Even conspiracists are truth seekers in their own way (and were Brian’s original truth seekers), however deluded most of them are. All ideologies can attract truth seekers, but honest seekers will always be disappointed.
Brian’s deep ecologists are also called environmentalists. Brian, like the rest of us, soon found that nearly all environmentalists treat free energy like the enemy. All free energy newcomers think that environmentalists would be natural allies, only to be shocked at the hostile reception that they receive. Most environmentalists’ reactions reflect an addiction to their scarcity-based frames of reference (from which virtually all humans suffer), while others were phony to begin with, on the elite payroll to appear to be concerned about the environment as long as the “solutions” served elite interests above all.
Brian’s pragmatists are the “do something” people – i.e., free-energy inventors and entrepreneurs such as Dennis, and activists who pound on doors, on the free energy issue and others. Dennis is the Indiana Jones of Free Energy, but nobody else ever came close to his level of the game. Nearly all free-energy inventors are trying to become rich and famous, and free energy entrepreneurs are almost all going for the big capitalist kill, seeking to become trillionaires from free energy.
Brian’s spiritualists are those who had their mystical awakenings, rejected the dogmas of all organized religions, and consider physical reality to be just one tiny part of Creation. Brian included scientists who investigate the paranormal, and Brian renamed the group “Consciousness Researchers and New Scientists.” Brian and I explored those realms. They see that materialism is the religion of the Fourth Epoch and that materialists pretend it is not a religion. Materialism’s inquisitorial foot soldiers have been blinded by their fanaticism, for those who are not on the elite payroll in some way, to enforce the establishment’s framework.
Brian’s point about those cultures is that while truth seekers, deep ecologists, and pragmatists can play important roles, their perspectives are all limited in one way or another. Only spiritualists can see the big picture and provide the ballast for a successful free energy effort. I have long written that my jury is still kind of out on whether people need to have mystical awakenings to be useful for a task such as mine, but Brian was probably right: unless people have had mystical awakenings, their awareness is too narrow to really help much.
Brian’s opinion was that a melding of the Four Cultures of the Phoenix, led by the spiritualists, was the only path with promise, as it would focus on combined positive intention, seeking the goal and refusing to get caught up in elite manipulations, retail politics, self-seeking, and other self-defeating distractions. In the end, that is what I am really attempting, to unite those Four Cultures and focus on the task at hand, which is bringing free energy to public awareness and public use. My work is essentially Fuller for the 21st century. The greatest triumph of the global elite and the social managers is making the Fifth Epoch unimaginable. I am trying to change that.
You wrote "Brian’s spiritualists are those who had their mystical awakenings, rejected the dogmas of all organized religions, and consider physical reality to be just one tiny part of Creation."
I have not had any mystical awakening, but yet I have learned to reject the dogmas of all organized religions. I also consider physical reality to be "just one tiny part of Creation."
I studied and practiced Christianity as a way of life for 30 years until I came to understand that the highest and most powerful men in my particular group were more interested in their own personal power and positions within this group, and often acted just as professional politicians do in their so-called careers. I initially became interested in this group because the first few of their writings that I read gave me the impression that they were definitely seeking the truth in all matters. I think this impression is what all of us who become obsessed with anything to through early in our cult careers regardless of what is this cult's main belief. Obsession works the same way in all human minds, but there are more than enough different cultish groups to find room for all 8.3 billion of us if we so choose. If one's newly acquired cult group can maintain its desire to seek Biblical truth (or whatever type of truth it is that attracts the new cult victim), then it must obviously also be able to maintain that same desire in all other areas of human activity. Or so I reasoned. 30 years later I removed myself silently from this group, did not attempt to make it "more perfect" in any way, and began reading and learning about many subjects that formerly were forbidden by my particular cult group because they were "doctrines of demons", or something like that. Whatever disagreed with the top leader was of the Devil. The Jim Jones debacle in Guiana in 1978 helped greatly to loosen up my ability to think non-group thoughts, but it still took me until 1996 before I become totally undone by the changes initiated by the new, younger leaders after the original top guy died.
I have read through the personal statements of hundreds of others who have had mystical experiences on the Near Death Experience website (https://www.nderf.org/Archives/exceptional.html). I continue reading new stories every month as they are posted there. Even though I have not had my own similar experience and mystical awakening, yet I believe what I read on this web site and what I read in Wade's writings. I am not seeking to have such an experience because I think I am learning enough without this experience. I am 80 years old now, and am content to have my first mystical experience right after I die. I have come to believe that the most important thing for any human to do is to learn lessons on how to live peacefully with all other people, not to learn about any particular intellectual discipline, and not to fear death but rather to welcome it as just another part of our learning lessons on life.