The work of the International School of Spiritual Psychology is rooted in the teachings of the Danish Spiritual Healer Bob Moore. Here, we extract parts of the book Conversations with Bob Moore, to share his insights on the difference
POLARITY: COMPLEMENTARY NATURAL POLARITY VERSUS OPPOSING MAN-MADE POLARITY.
You have spoken about the necessity to cease looking at things as good and bad, but what is polarity then? Can we speak about positive and negative in a neutral way, like we do when we speak about electricity? How does growth come about in the basic polarity which exists whenever two people communicate?
LET ME START with your last question: How does growth come about within a communication between people? It would seem to me, that you certainly can have some movement by a person expressing what he is feeling. He may express something, which he deeply feels, which therefore he may experience as positive. But he may express it in an emotional way, and the emotional part of the expression may hurt another person.
Now, we can look at this form both sides: If we express something which we deeply feel, then perhaps this could be expressed in a way which would not create hurt or offense. On the other hand: a person who feels hurt from what someone else says in contradiction to him, must look at his own responsibility. I mean, if we feel hurt because someone disagrees with us or says something which we don’t like, then we must look at whether there is an attraction within us to create what has been said. And if it so, if there is such an attraction within us, then we have to consider whether we are being used as a means of vocalising for a person who at that moment has no other means to grow except through using something external to vocalise his emotions or feelings. So if you are in this situation of someone criticising you or saying something that you don’t like, I think you must be prepared to accept that this is a way in which growth may be established in a movement of communication. If this can be looked on as a means of growing, the feeling of being hurt or adversely affected can be changed. So, when we look at negative and positive, I think it is extremely difficult to determine what we shall call ‘negative’ and what we shall call ‘positive’, because we can have a switch of activity, just like we see it between nerves and muscles in the body. Such a switch of activity can be necessary to create a movement, and I think placing labels of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ on it does not allow us to get beneath the surface of the situation.
As different from this I would consider contexts where people consciously set out to create conditions to produce response which they label as ‘negative’. This you can find, for example, in some encounter groups. I would place a large question mark there, as to what this really is, how effective it is and if it is not often just producing an emotional reaction related to the situation. I ask myself whether through this, the person involved is not entrapped in his own emotions, sometimes maybe into different or even deeper layers of them. So that people are not really helped into a state of growth, but are rather reacting to a situation in which there is quite a lot of manipulation. This is not allowing progress of release to take place, it is a polarisation of activity between people, which is not necessarily constructive.
Is this an example of what you call false polarity?
YES, YOU CAN call it a false or opposing man-made polarity, contrary to a complementary natural polarity from which creativity and growth can develop. But maybe I should give another example of what I mean with false polarity: The other day I was watching the Pope on television on one of his visits to a foreign country. He was standing there in front of thousands of people, talking about love and about morality. He was talking about the true state of being in contact with Christ, which was true love, and if you have true love then you should not do certain things outside of marriage; you should preserve family life.
Those are very fine words, but really, when you come down to earth, the problems of life are not handled at all. Very fine words are being used, but they are not giving people the means to appreciate their own lives, their own feelings, and so people are not being helped to find a constructive way towards growth. The Pope, being looked upon as infallible, is using his authority. The image of the Church is imprinted on all those people to pacify them, and maybe it will work for a while. But when the memory of his visit has vanished, then people have got to find other solutions.
I am saying this, not as a condemnation of the Catholic Church as such, I am saying it as a condemnation of authority. It seems to me, that the Pope has no concept of individuality. He has only a concept of mass authority. So when we come down to the basic facts, then there are a lot of things which are not functioning behind the words, and where these words may even create or enforce a split in peoples’ lives.
False Polarity again?
YES, MAN-MADE manipulation to create polarities, which are quite unreal in themselves. In my opinion problems like these need to be tackled in the world. I do not see how this can be done within institutionalised religious contexts, because they are very polarised in themselves. And even this is often covered up. So, in connection with this visit from the Pope, which I watched on TV, they had two persons talking together, a Catholic and a Protestant. It was so clear that their views were poles apart, and one asks oneself: well, why can’t they just accept that they have differences and leave it at that, instead of all this talk about unification and coming together? It is just covering up reality and what is needed.
Of course within religion you can find people who have faith, who have, through their particular religion, been able to find something of an essence. But such people are not drawn into the conflicts.
The conflicts which we have talked about so easily become a sidetrack to the real issues. The real issues are connected with human beings, should be connected with human beings and their relationship to life. The real issues are connected to peoples’ means to grow, to accept their own responsibility, to see their own connection to God and their own connection to expressing in life.
I am sure that if we did not have this pressure, be it from religion, be it from medicine, people could more easily find a means of growing, where individuals could accept other individuals and find the true level of feelings in themselves. And in saying that I’m not denying that in Christianity some people can find a genuine relationship to Christ and a genuine expression towards others. But what I have found is that such people are not interested in condemning others. They are prepared to accept other peoples’ views.
Coming back to positive and negative, it is very difficult to define what is positive and what is negative in life
