An attempt to design formulas to thwart potential violence, if ever one can truly predict human behavior and interaction (who could have predicted a Barack Obama or a Sonia Sotomayor), is the prevention strategy put forth here. The more conscious humanity becomes about the root causes of violent behaviors, the more the opportunities for change, developing prevention strategies, making informed choices and altering actions. It is my honor and privilege to be associated with organizations, groups and individuals who are educating themselves into a different way of life as reflected in my Facebook connections. These are the hope for the future.
So how could anyone with a clear mind and heart perpetrate a violent act or hatred against an innocent child? Jung and Freud would suggest that the malice comes from a reactionary response, a reflex, of the dark shadow side of the psyche that is retaliating about something deep, unconscious and painful. Some of the culprits include ignorance, repetitive behavior over generations, subliminal messaging from various mediums, individuals reacting to childhood emotional, mental, physical and spiritual trauma, external unnatural stimuli and societies that accept violence as the norm. Instead of delayed response and gratification to external stimuli, individuals ‘react’ in instinctual ways representing the modeling in their lives. Several studies on these matters will be citied in the hopes that integration of this knowledge, some of which has been around for decades, will be incorporated into the global psyche. Because of the humane standards imposed in modern psychological testing after the 1970’s, none of these tests can be replicated due to the traumatic nature of the testing situations. However, the results are telling.
Science has proven the validity of some ancient texts. The bible says that humanity suffers from ‘the sins of the parents to the third and fourth generations’. Not only is our health, physical traits, and genes inherited, but so also is our behavior. A remarkable longitudinal study that demonstrate a clear representation of this theory can be found in the Nord-Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT1 & 2 &3) conducted by the Norwegian University of Science & Technology. It is a unique database of personal and family medical histories collected during three intensive studies from 1984-2008. The large amount of information collected from each participant, and the large number of participants in a wide age range covering an entire county’s population, make HUNT one of the largest health studies ever performed. Although it was primarily designed to cover four sub-studies, i.e. on hypertension, diabetes, lung diseases and quality of life, it turned out to be much, much more with regards to genetic inheritance over generations. In short, the nature of the ecological environment and the health of grandparents and great grandparents have a direct effect on the health and well-being of offspring generations later although it may not surface for two generations or more.
INFLUENCE ON THE UNBORN FETUS AND NEWLY BORN INFANT
There is great concern for the child in the womb and the inhumanity imposed on the unborn and newly born child. The very fact that mothers have lost the instinct to ‘feel’ the fertilized egg in the womb within days of fertilization is incomprehensible. A client was 5 MONTHS with child before she ever suspected she was pregnant! Indigenous women ‘know’ right after impregnation. That modern women need external implements, products and results is a testament to the separation of mind, body, emotion and spirit. With that, how can any pregnant mother take care of the growing infant when she is disconnected from herself?
The benefits of natural birth are boundless. Ronnie Falcoa, a midwife, describes the baby’s Golden Minute as first 90 seconds of birth when the baby receives oxygen and iron from the umbilical cord. “At the moment of birth, about 2/3 of the baby’s blood (the fetal circulation) is in the baby. The remaining third is still in the umbilical cord and placenta. During the third stage of labor, which lasts from the delivery of the baby to the delivery of the placenta, the cord actively pumps iron-rich, oxygen-rich, and stem-cell-rich blood into the baby.” Immediate cord clamping is an active medical intervention with unproven benefit. Even the WHO no longer recommends immediate cord clamping. This added to the senses being stimulated by the smell of mother’s skin, the taste from her nipples/milk, the sound of her soothing voice and sight of her face (the first thing a child recognizes) are all the bonding prerequisites to form the building blocks for a balanced, healthy life. The normal hormones during an unmedicated birth bond a newborn to their mother and imprint on the newborn the information about which species they are part of, with the benefit of reducing intra-species violence so that at birth, a baby learns to recognize their own “kind”. It may be the roots of kindness and the sense of BLONGING.
If humans are capable of compassion, empathy and kindness, how then could infants first experiences into this world be so violent: birthed in harsh lightening and noisy surroundings (violating the senses), quickly whisked from mother (abandonment), harshly severed from life giving nourishment of the umbilical cord by having it brutally cut instead of allowing it to fall off (Golden Minute), giving the child a bottle that is full of formula sugars to addict it for life instead of mother’s breast which gives it immunities for life (immunities vs. addiction), use forceps to extract it forcefully from the safe, secure environment of the womb (physical, emotional trauma), slap it on the bottom to awaken it from its drug induced stupor so mother could not feel any discomfort during birth, inject its eyes with burning liquids at the moment of birth and, last but not least, subject vital parts to circumcision. From the moment of arrival, humanity is born into violence and abuse which is accepted as ‘normal’. Beget the ‘broken spirit’.
CIRCUMCISION
Then, there is circumcision for both boys (Western cultures) and girls (in middle-Eastern and African cultures). Could this procedure have something to do with entering the stage of puberty and sexuality with the violence against sexual organs in infancy?
BOYS
• About 117 boys die each year in the United States as a result of their circumcision, most from infections or blood loss.
• The current U.S. circumcision rate is steadily declining. In 2009 it was 54.5%, and in 2010 it was 32%. That’s a huge drop from 56% in 2006 and 65% in 2002.
• Most physicians do not have their sons circumcised. Why not, if circumcision is medically advisable? Since most have performed the surgery as part of their training, they are the ones who should know more about its consequences than anyone else.
• Physicians are biased toward circumcision. Circumcised doctors are 5 times more likely to recommend circumcision to patients.
• Contrary to frequent claims, infants do feel pain as intensely as adults, and very possibly even more.
• Circumcision regularly removes a shocking 3/4 of the penis’ sensitivity through the removal of the ridged band, foreskin “lips,” and most often the entire frenulum.
• Anesthesia is used in only 45% of circumcisions; the type of anesthetic varies. The most effective method does not eliminate all pain, and the most common type used, a topical creme, does almost nothing to reduce it. In fact, a major clinical test of the various types of anesthetics, on actual infants, was halted for humane reasons because of the intense pain.
• As adults, men circumcised in infancy are almost 5 times more likely to be diagnosed with erectile dysfunction (ED).
• Circumcised men and boys are 60% more likely to suffer from alexithymia, a psychological trait disorder which causes difficulty in identifying and expressing one’s emotions, which can lead to difficulties in sustaining relationships.
• The complication rate for circumcision varies from 3—6 percent to as high as 55 percent.
• Meatal stenosis (narrowing of the urinary opening) is found in 20% of circumcised boys. The average male will have more health problems from being circumcised than from being left alone.
• Circumcision has never been proven to be effective in either reducing or treating cervical cancer, penile cancer, urinary tract infections, or sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS.
• Not one medical association in America, or anywhere else in the world, recommends infant circumcision; some even recommend against it. At no time in its 75 years has the American Academy of Pediatrics ever recommended infant circumcision
GIRLS
This practice came to light recently in the US when immigrants were pleading with physicians to continue the religious practice from their country of origin. Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) is a traditional practice with severe health consequences for girls and women. It occurs mainly in countries along a belt stretching from Senegal in West Africa to Somalia in East Africa and to Yemen in the Middle East, but it is also practiced in some parts of South-East Asia and immigrant communities in the US and Europe. The procedure is generally carried out on girls between the ages of 4 and 14; it is also done to infants, women who are about to be married and, sometimes, to women who are pregnant with their first child or who have just given birth. It is often performed by traditional practitioners, including midwives and barbers, without anesthesia, using scissors, razor blades or broken glass. It is estimated that more than 130 million girls and women alive today have undergone. The World Health Organization (WHO) groups FGM/C into four types:
1. Excision of the prepuce [the fold of skin surrounding the clitoris], with or without excision
of part or the entire clitoris.
2. Excision of the clitoris with partial or total excision of the labia minora [the smaller inner
folds of the vulva].
3. Excision of part or all of the external genitalia and stitching or narrowing of the vaginal opening (infibulation).
4. Unclassified, which includes pricking, piercing or incising of the clitoris and/or labia; stretching of the clitoris and/or labia; cauterization by burning of the clitoris and surrounding tissue; scraping of tissue surrounding the opening of the vagina (angurya cuts) or cutting of the vagina (gishiri cuts); introduction of corrosive substances or herbs into the vagina to cause bleeding or to tighten or narrow the vagina; and any other procedure that can be included in the definition of female genital mutilation.
There is no medical evidence that supports the practice. It is more likely to result in serious complications that would lead to urine retention, hemorrhaging, menstrual complications, infertility, loss of sexual pleasure, infection, severe pain and mental illness.
C-SECTION
There was an article published in Journal of the American Medical Association more than a decade ago that has been marginalized by media and professionals. In the uterus, a child develops twice the number of neurons it needs to sustain a healthy life. When the child moves through the birth canal naturally (without forceps assistance), HALF of those neurons are destroyed leaving the child with manageable numbers. Nature’s plan is always perfect.
HOWEVER, when a child is birthed by C-section, those neurons remain leaving the child overstimulated, oversensitive to external stimuli (such as autistic, ADD, sensitive to light, sound, noises, allergies, etc.). The number of C sections has multiplied over the last twenty years having begun as procedures to minimize health risks for moms and evolving into convenience factors for physicians (and parents).
The rate of cesarean section in the U.S. (and in many other developed nations)has been criticized by the World Health Organization (WHO), which suggests that the C-section rate should not rise above 15%. In the US in 2009, Cesareans accounted for 32.9% of all deliveries, up from 20.7% in 1996. Additionally, induced labor more than doubles the likelihood of a C-section. In my opinion, over-medicalization is responsible for the high rate of induction and C-section in the U.S. leading to the high rate of increased maternal mortality and the number of physical issues mothers have when the acupuncture meridian lines are severed during the process.
BROKEN SPIRIT 
In the opinion of this author, spiritual well-being usurps and predominates over all other lifelong influences. Children of physical, mental, sexual, emotional and substance abuse become spiritually broken in some form or another which, in turn, is passed along to their children and children’s children. In addition to genetic and environmental inheritance, this broken spirit is attached to an energy field. Even if a child does not exhibit the habits and behavior patterns of the parents such as alcohol consumption or drug addiction, for example, the characteristics of those addictive adult models becomes part of the child’s character, physiology and psyche through the inheritance of these energy fields. Can a broken spirit ever be mended?
SCIENCE AND SPIRITUAL ENERGY
Although many mainstream scientists dismiss the notion of an energy or spiritual field, some credentialed trailblazers have the courage to swim against the tide. In 1939, Semyon Kirlian, an electrical engineer, developed a collection of photographic techniques on conjectural energy fields or auras which captured the phenomenon of electrical coronal discharges. The ‘auras’ in the broken leaf experiments correlate to those of the broken spirit in individuals. In 2001, Dr. Konstantin Korotkov, Professor of Physics at St. Petersburg State Technical University in Russia introduced a technique to measure Gas Discharge Visualization or GDV in subtle energy fields. For decades, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, an English biochemist (Cambridge and Harvard), theorizes about morphogenesis, the name he gives to this field in which he has been for 20 years publishing papers. For thousands of years, the acupuncture meridians of oriental medicine (also called channels) have been accepted as the pathways through which the life-energy known as ‘qi’ flows into this field. After all of this, a physician in 1901, Duncan MacDougall discovered that at the moment of death, 21 grams is missing from the weight of the body. Something is the motivating force for ‘aliveness’. In summary, these scientists, and there are many more, conclude that these invisible fields transport patterns that carry information from one generation to the next. For lack of a better term, this would be the elusive spiritual energy. This field carries within it, generations upon generations of stored information, patterns and instructions which all inherit. What each individual does with this endowment is determined by choice, environment and a litany of other circumstances!
DELAYED RESPONSE OR GRATIFICATION
The Stanford Marshmallow Experiment was a 1972 study conducted on young children to measure deferred gratification conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel of Stanford University. A marshmallow was offered to each child. If the child could resist eating the marshmallow, he was promised two instead of one. The scientists analyzed how long each child resisted the temptation of eating the marshmallow and interpreted the results to mean that greater self-control (as measured by ability to delay gratification) resulted in adulthood success. The initial studies were expanded in 2001 to include longitudinal evaluation which determined that it was the methodologies young children acquired that were the actual keys to success- like distracting themselves with something else, singing, or performing other tasks that took their minds away from the experiment. Delayed gratification is linked to developing tools, skills and personal techniques for coping with life situations in order to control or eliminate stress, frustration, reactionary responses, anger and rage. As the study demonstrates, these skills are evident at preverbal stages.
There is a generational pattern of victimhood that evolves from children to adulthood to becoming a parent and onward continuing and/or magnifying certain behaviors. Many individuals who verbally, mentally, physically and spiritually assault children lack the ability to ‘delay’ response and think clearly about the situation. Some are responding from modeling behavior during childhood inflicting pain as if this were the natural, accepted behavior. Others strike as a means to ally their own pain and anger onto the vulnerable, weak and defenseless as if this would alleviate the agony. For the most part, these instances have nothing to do with the situation at hand but rather trigger some incident, emotion or memory from the past that becomes present such as a word or phrase or an action.
There are many techniques that retrain this instinctual response into a conscious action. Rolling Thunder, a Lakota Sioux chief, said to wait three days before reacting when angry. After three days, the situation can be viewed from a new perspective. The Institute of HeartMath in Boulder Creek, California retrains and educates individuals to Freeze Frame, a technique to stop and transform the moment into something positive and palatable. EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, developed by Francine Shapiro for rape victims and veterans suffering from PTSD, transform painful memories into more neutral thoughts. Although many techniques are available to ‘delay’ responses, few are aware or knowledgeable about them, including therapists and educators.
<SCHOOL ENVIRONMENTS
Yet, the most appropriate environment, other than the home, for exercising delayed response is in the classroom. Instead of taking the time to mentor children in these techniques, the child is referred to the principal, to detention, timeout or to resolving issues in the school yard. None of these imparts a lifelong skill but rather just the opposite. Because of many modeling behaviors at home, the school has the opportunity to be the societal training agent. However, due to time constraints to teach to SOL’s or legislated subject matter for the purpose of testing, there is no time to teach basic life skills like delayed gratification, communication and coping.
A fundamental technique which I have used for dispute resolution with preschool children and up is to sit them in a chair facing each other with rules: no touching, shouting or foul language; stay seated; direct the conversation to each other; no teacher interference only oversight; shake hands when the dispute is resolved to each other’s satisfaction. The conversation moves through various stages, sometimes to ‘my father is bigger than yours’ and eventually, the children forget why they were upset in the first place and the dispute is resolved BY THEM with no adult intervention. After years of speaking the truth to the person with whom the grievance is directed and then feeling heard, these individuals develop the tools and courage for direct communication in resolving grievances while disarming the angry feelings that emerge. Would there be bullies if children learned to communicate their deepest feelings though a healthy medium? Would these frustrated children grow up to be abusers themselves?
HOME ENVIRONMENTS
Children need freedom with a fence around it. In this modern, affluent society, delayed gratification and response is superseded by guilt, indulgence and allowing children every want and desire from parents. Parenting guilt comes from a variety of factors, some subliminal while others is overt. These include: mothers going to work during the formative years leaving infants and children to strangers; single parents trying to make up for broken homes; wanting to keep up with the Jones in the latest technology or toys, just to name a few. Children learn to manipulate these insecurities through various behaviors- temper tantrums, wining, constant badgering, pouting or withdrawal- among the possibilities. All of these incidences are teaching and learning moments for children who grow up to become adults unable to delay, discriminate, discern and display appropriate emotions.
GENETICS AND NEUROPHYSIOLOGY
Modern science, especially the neurosciences and geneticists, focus on the neurological aspects of the brain or the type and number of genes humans possess. Although the manipulation of genes and brain waves through electronic, chemical, magnetic and other means might result in short term results, it is imperative that humans develop the sense of security/safety and the social skills which naturally transform brain, behavior and genetics taking the entire body of cells, molecules and functions along for the ride. The intrusion of external means to transform behavior does not create a lifelong skill nor does it necessarily change a behavior.
Take neuroscientist, James Fallon, at the University of California, who for his entire career, studies the psychopathic brain. Dr. Fallon decided to study his family genetics whose history included several psychopaths and murderers (genetically linked to Lizzy Bordon). Fallon conducted PET scans of family members, including himself of the orbital cortex (which puts the brakes on the amygdala and is involved with aggression and appetites- rage, violence, eating, sex, drinking). Fallon also tested each family member’s DNA for the 12 genes that are associated with violence and aggression and zeroed in on the MAO-A gene (monoamine oxidase A). This gene, which has been the target of considerable research, is also known as the “warrior gene” because it regulates serotonin in the brain. Serotonin affects mood — like Prozac — and many scientists believe that if individuals have a certain version of the warrior gene, the brain won’t respond to the calming effects of serotonin. Fallon, a productive member of society, had both the genetic and neurological components to be a psychopath and killer. The magic ingredient for his healthy, well-adjusted life, according to the doctor, is that Fallon had a supportive loving childhood. No matter what conclusive evidence is uncovered regarding genes, brain and/or physiology, the effects of home environments plays a critical role in the development of everyone, most especially potential killers and abusers. .
WARS= GENERATIONAL VIOLENCE
Humanity has been at war, according to the oldest written records, for millennium. If one looks at the generations and generations of assaults perpetrated on innocent children (and women), some things become clear and obvious. Wars perpetuate PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) trauma, mostly to adult males, raped women or children (like the innocent boys and girls from Catholic priests over the centuries in Magdalene Houses and houses of worship), child soldiers as well as the communities or nations that have lost entire villages or witnessed killings (like the traumatized children at Sandy Hook, Columbine and other school shootings or the murders of King and RFK). SHOCK produces traumatic memories, emotional battle scars and psychological damage that become imprinted on the psyche like the ink on a sheet of paper, which may or may not be regurgitated as a never ending recording in the mind. This accounts for locational memory recall (where you were and what you were doing when you heard the shocking news) like those who experienced JFK’s death or 911. With each successive generation of traumatized individuals who are ill equipped with the coping skills, mental resourcefulness or the spiritual wherewithal to adjust to every situation of instant, explosive rage, the aptitude for healthy response and recovery over evolution becomes less and less viable. In turn, generation after generations of innocent children become the targets and recipients of some internal combustion engine that perpetrates century after century of violent behavior.
In other words, if your great-great-great-grandfather participated in a war and imposed his rage against his son, and in turn his son did the same and on and on, a behavior pattern, endemic to the family, although subliminal, becomes a reality. And family members have no idea why they behave the way they do because they are merely instinctually reacting and modeling the behaviors taught to them over generations, especially if those progeny live under the same roof or community. The patterns set up are like a groove in a vinyl LP record, where the needle is stuck playing the same recording over and over until someone moves the needle. Only with conscious effort can these patterns be altered, shifted and redesigned into something more positive.
So the violence of wars long past in history becomes familiar, condoned and accepted just because everyone else is doing it or because it is reinforced in the media and everywhere in the environment. War becomes the means to resolve conflict both at home, in communities and in the world. Society condones such behavior by the very fact that it is constantly the source of focus in the home, in the news, in the movies, in video games, in print and on the streets. Familiarity, as sad as it seems, reinforces a behavior. So when an individual responds to a situation, the familiar seems safe although in reality, it is self-destructive, socially destructive and globally destructive. And generations of children become the recipients.
STANFORD STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES ON BEHAVIOR
In the 1970’s, the possible impact of situational variables on human behavior was conducted by Philip Zimbardo in The Stanford Prison Experiment where regular students were in the roles of prisoners and prison guards. The question the researchers asked was how participants would react when placed in a simulated prison environment. “Suppose you had only kids who were normally healthy, psychologically and physically, and they knew they would be going into a prison-like environment and that some of their civil rights would be sacrificed. Would those good people put in that bad, evil place—would their goodness triumph?” Zimbardo explained in one interview.While the study was originally slated to last two weeks, it had to be halted after just six days because the (student) guards became abusive and the (student) prisoners began to show signs of extreme stress and anxiety. This study, and others like it, demonstrates that no matter how good, moral, religious or principled an individual might espouse, placed in certain environmental conditions, ABUSE- physical, mental, emotional even sexual- has the fertile ground to emerge. In some measure (again, not condoning) this describes Jewish atrocities, violence to women and children by soldiers or groups, gang violence, etc. Group psyche can be a viable entity superseding even transcending the moral fiber of the individual members of the group.
OBSERVATIONS OF CLIENTS
Over the years, clients consuming, ingesting and addicted to alcohol, prescription and non-prescriptive drugs are conspicuous. In light of the fact that these substances are called ‘spirits’, the animation or ‘spirit’ of these individuals is either absent, sublimated or so minimal, only a flicker remains. There is a lack of passion, enthusiasm and spark in their eyes, gait and demeanor appearing numb, apathetic and lost. Although deep emotions are festering under the surface, the ability to work through traumatic issues is impeded because access to painful memories is sublimated through the drugs. Rather than an emotional endeavor, where the root of pain resides, therapy becomes an intellectual pursuit. It is impossible to reprogram, transform behaviors when the client is in an emotional stupor. So the pointless pursuit of mental health is waste of time, energy and money when any drugs are present as the third entity in the room. However, in asking clients to refrain from drugs during therapy, when the filters are lifted and the inhibitions released, repressed emotions come raging forward all at once. The sublimated, suffocated spirit releases with fervor. It is a delicate process to enable individuals who have suppressed the pains and scars of a lifetime to slowly, gently and patiently in an environment of love, compassion, patience and security, to come to the surface. Techniques like EMDR, acupuncture, massage and other alternative modalities enable these to surface with less intensity.
VIOLENCE + INSTINCTUAL BEHAVIOR+ GROUP PSYCHE+ SUBSTANCE ABUSE=
ALCOHOL
To this formula add alcohol: The Egyptians, Native Americans and indigenous cultures consumed alcohol from fermented grains, potatoes and the like. The fermentation process alone in these ancient times is wanting for eliminating harmful bacteria. While some fermentation is excellent for the digestive tract like sauerkraut or pickles, others form bacteria that are harmful. For example, some social scientists have surmised that the cause of the hysteria during the Salem Witch movement may have been partially induced from ergot (LSD) poisoning, a fungus that grows on rye. Human poisoning due to the consumption of rye bread made from ergot-infected grain was common in Europe in the Middle Ages. Linking fermented grains and alcohol to induce mass hysteria, violence and insanity is a viable one. But what is the effect on individuals?
Minus the fungus, everyone responds differently to alcohol depending on many factors like weight, body chemistry, mental status, etc. Today, a standard drink contains 10 grams of alcohol and 17.5 million are alcoholics. Alcohol impairs judgment. It affects the brain 5 minutes after consumption. Short term effects create the potential for anti-social behavior like inhibition, (acts a person would normally avoid or find repulsive might be pursued), balance and coordination, speech clarity, emotional stability, impaired vision, induced apathy and loss of memory, which are all precursors for the possibility of violent action that might be festering under surface consciousness. The long term effects of physical instability, which include high blood pressure, liver disease, sexual impotence and loss of drive, reduced fertility, sleeping difficulties (a precursor to mental instability) and loss of memory provide the environment for long term mental distress. Tolerance and dependence builds over each successive generation so that consumption becomes s way of life.
Immigrants entering the United States during the great migration at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries flooded this continent with habitudes enculturated from abroad. Many countries drank alcohol because the water was filthy and unsafe but the cold climates, constant outdoor activity and agrarian lifestyle was physically challenging enabling the body to excrete the toxins. Although in this country, water purity and sanitation processes were perfected and clean water available to drink (and lifestyles became more sedentary and less strenuous), the engrained pattern of consuming alcohol as drink of choice (or later coke with cocaine), remained dominant with milk as secondary. These consumption behaviors continued and are encouraged by holidays, traditions, rites of passage, sports events, and daily meals.
As a child, my paternal grandmother encouraged us to have a small glass of homemade wine at meals not water. For many in the family, alcohol at meals was transformed into an addiction. Its continued use is detrimental to the liver whose cellular, genetic and physiological memory would become an inherited family trait. The propensity towards cravings of alcohol and sugar (or glucose) and interruption of hormonal stability are all results of the malfunctioning liver. So the pattern, begun during childhood, continues throughout adult life genetically transmitted to the unborn child the side effects of inherited behaviors and genes. Even if one becomes a teetotaler, glucose genetically inherited in the liver, drives one to crave sugars of all types. This example scratches the surface of the maladies from alcohol consumption over the millennium. It is the emotional characteristics that combine with the physical which provide the breeding ground for abuse.
More importantly, society, culture, politics and decision making are manipulated by those under the influence who have changed the course of history. The psychological phenomenon attributed to alcoholics are suicidal, bipolar, antisocial, inability to delay gratification, anxiety, depression, paranoia, rule breaking, defiance, aggression, inattention, impulsivity—and corresponds to ‘attention deficit and disruptive behavior disorders’ [ADHD], oppositional defiant disorder [ODD], and conduct disorder. Writers like Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Poe; King Edward III, Douglas Fairbanks, Isadora Duncan, Jim Thorpe, John L Sullivan; leaders like Ulysses S. Grant were all high functioning alcoholics that influenced history. Who could ever forget the international Communist Witch Hunt of Senator Joseph McCarthy, a full-blown alcoholic, who died from cirrhosis of the liver. During the Nixon administration, Senator John Tower was not accepted as Secretary of State because of his alcoholism under George Bush. John Adams drank beer for breakfast. And Presidents Franklin Pearce and James Buchanan were constantly under the influence. Even recovered alcoholics, like George W. Bush, still possess the behavioral characteristics of addiction (paranoia, impulsivity, aggression, rule breaking, etc.). Although the drinking may be terminated, the imprinted behaviors remain. .
DRUGS
Then drugs both prescription and otherwise:
Having studied indigenous cultures through archeology, personal experience and other points of scrutiny, it is clear that mind altering drugs have been condoned, utilized and even guided civilizations since recorded time. Just as my 12 year study on the effects of drugs on school shooters testifies to the mind altering conditions drug use conveys, the effects of natural drugs like peyote on ancient cultures has also been a factor of collapsed civilizations. What is remarkable is that no one has ever made a connection between the consumption of mind altering drugs of a culture or by its shamans, holy men or oracles and the decline and endemic antisocial behaviors of a collapsed civilization. Scholars discuss the bludgeoning’s of citizens by the South American societies like the Mayas, but does not in the same breathe, discuss the rampant use of mind altering drugs within the society. The Oracle of Delphi inhaled toxic gases to produce visions. Many cultures whose leaders have visions using cacao leaves or mushrooms guide their culture.
In modern times, a modest estimate is that 22 million use an illegal drug which does not include the abuses with pharmaceuticals. Influential history makers catalogue a wellspring of drug addicted individuals who have transformed history such as those influencing: GOVERNMENT: Ayn Rand, addicted to amphetamines, influenced Alan Greenspan; immortalized John F. Kennedy was addicted to pain killers; Adolf Hitler to methamphetamines & cocaine; Admiral Nelson to opium: PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR: Sigmund Freud was addicted to cocaine; COLLECTIVE PSYCHE: Lewis Carroll and Charles Dickens addicted to opium; Michael Jackson; Edgar Allan Poe, Florence Nightingale to opium, John Paul Getty, Jr. to cocaine. Judy Garland amphetamines, Timothy Leary LSD. The list goes on and on and on to the numbers of individuals who have influenced human history under the influence of drugs.These lists do not include those admittedly taking pot or the multitudes of foreign dignitaries, politicians, officials and artists who were drug addicted.
Historically, a variety of drugs were introduced into the mainstream and ‘normal’ circles of society through beverages (Coke), salons (opium) and finally through oral, injections and inhalants (heroin, cocaine, marijuana). One of the most influential drugs in history marketed for children was in 1849 called Mrs. Winslow’s soothing syrup which contained morphine sulphate, powdered opium, sodium carbonate and aqua ammonia. It wasn’t until 1940 that it was taken off the shelves after several generations of children became addicted, some of whom died. Then In 1897, chemists at the Bayer pharmaceutical company in Elberfeld, Germany, began experimenting with diacetylmorphine, or heroin. From 1898 through 1910, the Bayer Company sold heroine to the public. The substance was marketed and was put on supermarket shelves as a non-addictive morphine substitute and cough suppressant. In fact, the Bayer Heroin product was two times more potent than morphine itself and caused countless people to become addicted. The company continued to sell it for over ten years. Cocaine, first manufactured by Merck, was popular, too. Parke-Davis (which is now a subsidiary of Pfizer) advertised a ‘cocaine kit’ that it promised could ‘supply the place of food, make the coward brave, the silent eloquent and . . . render the sufferer insensitive to pain’. Late-nineteenth century advertisements for Cocaine Toothache Drops promised users (including children such as those depicted in the ads) an ‘instantaneous cure’. McCormick (the spice company) and others sold ‘paregoric’, a mixture of highly concentrated alcohol with opium, as a treatment for diarrhea, coughs, and pain, with instructions on the bottle for infants, children, and adults. Another medication called laudanum was similar, but with 25 times the opium. Heroin and opium were both marketed as asthma treatments, too. And, of course, cocaine was an ingredient in Coca-Cola from 1886 until 1900. Thus, the collective psyche and genetic makeup of humanity has been influenced by drugs over generations and thousands of years.
Is it any wonder that addiction is an issue? As history has been guided by individuals who were addicts of one form or another and examining the behavioral characteristics of addicts is it any wonder that after millennium of abuse, the ‘norm’ are 30 second sound bites, 15 minutes of fame, chopped up school days, instant gratification through sex, food, shopping, compartmentalized worldviews, citizens who do not question authority, right/wrong, good/bad, display extremes in behavior, child pornography, rampant child abuse, sex slavery of children, starving children, wealth in the hands of a few, emulation of sports, criminals and financial heroes instead of those who represent the best of human compassion. Pop culture songs, movies, the individual artists themselves condone the behaviors, which elevates the status.
WHAT TO DO TO TRANSFORM THE SPIRITUAL GENETIC PATTERN
Since much of the characteristics for the abuse of children have become endemic to society as ‘normal’ generation after generation, what are the solutions? How can the spiritual field of the planet be altered so much so that such atrocities towards children (children against children, adults against children, adults against adults) are reconstructed, transfigured, metamorphosed, transmuted and reconfigured into something ablaze, luminescent, radiant, effervescent, healthier, benevolent and reverent towards all living beings? Leading by example would be the first step. Guiding and teaching other, the next. Standing ground against corporations, governments and institutions that infringe on our rights to raise our children in the way we choose as best not strangers and outsiders. Because swimming against the tide is difficult, labor intensive, exhausting alone, individuals must come together as communities to develop support systems. It is time to work from the bottom up, in communities, families, not with a ‘fighting’ mentality or vocabulary (war against drugs, against cancer. etc.) but rather with a new vocabulary. A vocabulary that defines the mending of the broken spirit into one that alights, inspires and encourages defining a new spiritual field.
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