Virtuism -- Philosophy and the Aesthetics of Virtue

This is the first formal publication in over 20 years on Virtuism. The earliest mentions of Virtuism were published in the New York art magazine, Artitude, and also in one of the Seattle-based Red Sky Poetry Theater's colllective book publishing events. Everyone brought their page to be bound into the book and the book was created.

The author issued various self-created magazines and other documents, as well as ran a popular

website since 1994. His "Virtuist Manifesto" was named as one of the top ten manifestoes by

the curator of alt.usenet.manifestoes. For those that do not know, artist create manifestoes more
than politicians. It's a beautiful way to make a statement, much like the way Martin Luther
nailed his ideas in those documents on the Wittenberg door.
Here is the first page from our website on Virtuism.

Virtuism -- Philosophy and the Aesthetics of Virtue

Virtuism is about the aesthetics of human virtue, how virtuous acts produce in us the same experience as great works of art. Witnessing or creating a virtuous act produces the aesthetic experience. The giving of the good feeling of the aesthetic or "art" experience gives evidence that life has a higher meaning. The book "Virtuism -- Philosophy and the Aesthetics of Virtue" discusses other philosophical implications of this relationship.

This book explores how the universe acts in a way that is essentially "virtuous" towards us, in the long run, if we make an effort to act virtuous in it. The author started calling this philosophy Emotive Virtuism a few years ago because the idea of the emotional impact of human virtue played into philosophical questions very strongly. The author wanted to distance himself from the appearance of creating a simplistic philosophy because of the post-modernist critiques of narratives.

Virtuism started out as aesthetic theory and then moved into reflections about other areas of philosophy. The author did not purposefully intend to create an "ism" because he has a somewhat post-modernist idea about being wary of new narratives. The author states: "Since people are starting to use the word "virtuism" (found out by my doing a search on Google) with no connection to my writings (much like the alteration of the word "Surrealism" having nothing to do with Breton, the founder's, writings), I figured I had better formalize it the way I originally intended. because I have a certain idea about the philosophy of Virtuism."

Read our Press Release.

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"Like Tristan Tzara's Dada Manifestos and Andre Breton's Surrealist Manifestos, philosopher/artist Robert Pearson delivers a unique defining work for his Virtuism philosophy. Virtue is giving to others without expecting anything in return, acting from character, from who you are, not how you feel. I am a virtuist and am proud to consider myself a part of Pearson's Virtuism art movement. This book is a work of virtue and deserves a place of honor next to Tzara and Breton on my bookcase and yours too!" Billy Lamont -- http://www.billylamont.com/

The Experience of Hallucinations in Religious Practice

This book deals with a subject that is becoming more and more popular.

It seems the topic of hallucinations became a little more popular with the advent
of the 1960's but it was never looked at in a sophisticated manner by the
average person who read and talked about such books by Carlos Castanada,
Timothy Leary or Terrance McKenna. The fact of the matter is that people
are of two different attitudes on an important subject. Some people thing that
drugs give spiritual experiences, and some people do not. It's clear all the trouble
that are around drugs, and the fact is, even if we legalized them, there wouldn't be
an end to these major problems. Drugs do cause addiction by the very nature
of them lulling the nervous system into a "spoiled state" (the way a pampered child
is spoiled).

All great spiritual teachers said that drugs should not be used. Patanjali, in his
Yoga Sutras merely stated that drugs could produce experiences or powers, but
this must be translated in the right way. It is like saying that fire can burn.

Although this book tries to have academic standards in a certain way, by its use of philosophical logic that the author learned in part from studying computer programming in college, it does
come down from the academic chair long enough to be direct in its statements. One has to
actually read the text to know the tone of the work. It uses an interfaith dialog, and doesn't use such expressions as "All true spiritual leaders say that..." but does try to state what
is usually taught on the areas of hallucinations, which can be described as those
experiences that counterfeit real spiritual experience.

Authentic spiritual experiences are taught by most spiritual leaders as coming from
a state of reward for acts of virtue that are for the most part done for others, but sometimes
they come from when "the Spirit" sees we are doing something good for ourselves.
These states are such as states of extreme bliss, dreams which foretell the future,
feelings of being comforted by God when we are hurt, and very uncanny answers to
prayer, that prove the existence of a higher force because they don't just change one's
state of consciousness, they change the events in one's life, in the real world.

Below is the first page from the website for our book.

The Experience of Hallucinations in Religious Practice

"The Experience of Hallucinations in Religious Practice" by R.S. Pearson is the one of the first books to help distinguish what is a spiritual experience and what may be merely a type of dream phenomena or hallucination. The author discusses how much religious and so-called esoteric experience takes place in the state of consciousness within the brain that is similar to the dream state in human beings. This book is written by someone who has a religious perspective, yet it is non-denomenational and not offensive to those of any faith. It is not written in a technical style, yet still provides challenging material.

Today, a large percentage of religious thought encourages people to have extra-sensory experiences. Medical science has also proven both the value of religious faith in some people via statistical studies, and also the fact that some religious experiences fall into the same category as hallucinations or dreams. Because of the many popular celebrity psychics, some of whom even talk to the dead on TV, many come to believe that whatever you experience is what you imagine it to be. But for one who was taught by many different religious teachers, and did a detailed study of religious literature, Pearson felt it necessary to write about the other side of the picture. "Like the great religions teach, many are going to have to learn by personal experience that it's often best to not believe in these experiences," Pearson says. "The problem is, that there are psychological studies that show the longer that you hallucinate, the more your IQ can decrease."

The author believes that today's spiritual climate is often dangerous, because there isn't much sophistication in understanding what people can often experience when they open themselves up to spiritual practices. Most of the traditional religious leaders, whether they be Christians, Jews, Islamic, Zen Buddhist monks, or yogis, teach not to make much of so-called paranormal experiences. Such experiences have traditionally been said to be possibly dangerous. However, to some of today's modern writers, these experiences become the most important part of their spirituality.

The author has done some charitable work among the homeless of Seattle and he recognizes that many of the homeless are mentally ill and are experiencing hallucinations. "Most likely the homeless who are hallucinating are believing that they are having religious experiences. Often they already feel condemned by God because they hallucinate God condemning them." He realizes that since there was no book written when he was younger on this subject, that a book like his that takes both a religious and psychological perspective fills an important need. He says, that, on the contrary, only books were written encouraging people to hallucinate.

Pearson states, "I tried to write this book for the biggest audience possible. I state clearly up front that I am not a trained psychologist or psychiatrist. Some proofreaders were expecting me to write an academic book that referenced every statement, but many readers are intimidated by such books. I wrote a book that will inform most people's understanding of psychology but one which has no technical medical information from brain science, so as to not intimidate people in the reading process."

Although witten from a spiritual perspective, the author has tried to remove his own specific personal beliefs from this book to create an interfaith work.

The book is currently for sale on Amazon.com, Alibris.com, or by special order at Barnes and Noble.

Hyperreligiosity: Identifying and Overcoming Patterns of Religious Dysfunction

This is one of the books we are most proud of.

It covers a topic that is of great importance today and must be addressed intelligently.
Hyperreligiosity does not just lead to terrorism, it has lead to every other kind of
disturbance that wears a religious face, even in our own neighborhoods today.
My writing takes an approach using psychology, philosophy and theology and
using the mode of "public intellectual" -- I believe the reason why the U.S. is
in such bad shape is that we are afraid to educate those in society who need us
in that way. Academics often don't want to "get dirtied" by having to deal with
those outside their classrooms. This must change -- we must interface with
our community at every level.

Hyperreligiosity: Identifying and Overcoming Patterns of Religious Dysfunction

There is a timely nature of this work, as religious extremism is in the news every night. The author's hope is that the ideas in this book will become assimilated so that people drawn to acting out in religious extremism will have other perspectives to consider.

This book is instrumental for understanding why people join destructive cults. This book bridges the gap between psychological understanding and the spiritual drive. Each one done separately is usually disregarded by the audience drawn more to the other. That is, people writing on a secular psychological level do not always take into account historically important spiritual goals. But the most dangerous situation is when people with a religious drive are not instructed on the dangers of what can happen to people who are very religious and have some imbalances. This book describes how these imbalances manifest and how they can be overcome.

Psychologists can't agree on the spelling of the mental illness known as hyperreligiosity. It can either be spelled as, "hyper-religiousity," "hyper-religiosity," "hyperreligiosity," or "hyperreligiousity," and each spelling is used in google by doctors. Hyperreligiosity is at the root of the need to join destructive cults and blinds people to the goals of true spirituality. This book examines the root causes of why a person can believe that a small group can be the only one to have the answer to the greatest questions on earth.

Hyperreligiosity is the ill-fitting grasp of the role of religion and God in one's life. It is the disability that can lead to killing in the name of God, or isolation from others in the name of religion. One often sees reports in the news about people who have done various criminal acts because they believe they were guided by God to do so. The tone of this work is at once both psychological and spiritual. The author himself had hyperreligious traits but went on to live a normal life, graduating from a secular university and starting, and maintaining for over twelve years, a software company. He uses basic language that draws on psychology to construct an analysis of the problem that takes into account the many positive aspects of religion.

Click here to read the press release.

See the author's CV here.

Please see the work on The Experience of Hallucinations in Religious Practice for a similar book by the same author and for more information that pertains to the style of this book.

Here is the introduction from the book: "Hyperreligiosity: Identifying and Overcoming Patterns of Religious Dysfunction."

I must state first of all that I am not a psychiatrist and this work falls under the realm of "anecdotal evidence." Anecdotal evidence is nonetheless known to be very important in medical science. In no way should a person who was diagnosed as hyperreligious by a psychiatrist or psychologist look at this work as being a substitute for adequate psychiatric or psychological help. I believe it is fitting that someone who was once diagnosed as hyperreligious should write a book on this subject rather than someone with no religious belief. A person who has no religious belief cannot understand the gray areas where the religious person makes certain important actions, which may be seen as sacrifices, for the benefit of their belief structure.

Hyperreligiosity is the ill-fitting grasp of the role of religion and God in one's life. It is the disability that can lead to killing in the name of God, or isolation from others in the name of religion. Hyperreligiosity happens most often when one thinks that they know the mind of God, and that one can know all the ways of God. The bible is one of the scriptures of the major world religions that clearly states this is impossible. There are psychological reasons why a person with hyperreligiosity needs to have the assurance that they know the complete mind of God. This book will explore some of them and some possible ways out of the dysfunctions of hyperreligiosity.

This is a very difficult work to write because religion often does great things for people that cannot be easily measured by society. There has been a duality occurring in some therapeutic communities of those who might be termed "hyperreligious" by some psychiatrists and therapists and those who have spent many years in therapy and do not fall under this judgment. Psychiatry often admits it can't cure people. The very nature of being a part of the community of a local church on a weekly basis, year after year, is a consistent social achievement beyond some people's reach. Socializing with the same group of people on a regular basis is often more than what some who resort to psychiatry alone can say they have done.

It is hard writing a book on hyperreligiosity when you yourself know that you have aspects of it. The worse thing for the hyperreligious is to feel that they are somehow causing another person to be less religious. Instead, in solving the problem of hyperreligiosity in a person, one opens that person up for true religion, or better, true spirituality. At times, in discussing one's hyperreligiosity, one may seem like one is trying to sound like a saint. But when one sees the problems associated with it, the listener begins to perceive that this is not the case. One begins to wonder how good of a life this is that we have chosen.

This book is in no way an attempt to help people become less religious or spirituality-centered in their thinking. In fact, it is the opposite, an attempt to empower spiritual people away from the disempowering ideas found along the spiritual path. The word "hyperreligious" seems like it might seem to mean "very religious" or "ultra spiritual" in the way that we picture the qualities of a superhero. Hyperreligiosity can happen when the outer form that true spirituality flows through becomes distorted to the extent that it becomes the sole focus. Instead of people being more loving, helpful to others, and filled with what they experience as God's nature to help them in their life, they become suspicious, isolated, and full of an untrue image of God that they can mold to their personal desires.

A type of hyperreligiosity can also happen when political groups use religious beliefs as a dividing line in the exercise of power, as a way to build sides so that other aims can be achieved. Hence political leaders in the past have called on the demon that is hyperreligiosity to awaken in the people so that war could be more easily approved. When hyperreligiousity does not exist in a person, there usually has to be very, very strong reasons to justify war to a human being, especially one that concerns oneself with religious thinking.

Hyperreligiosity produces painful results in the way other mental illnesses produce painful results. It is the mental illness that seems officially sanctioned by God to the person who has it. It can be difficult reading this subject matter if you have been afflicted by hyperreligiosity in any way. One may begin to feel anger, even negativity. Temporarily, this state can be a better place to be. It is taking the chance at maturing as an adult, instead being caught up in acting out the biblical admonition of being "like little children" to not just God in heaven, but to everyone, in every circumstance.

If there is a better understanding of hyperreligiosity, many of the problems of the world can be further solved. But for a religious person to even admit the term "hyperreligiosity" is a valid term, is itself difficult. People talk about the changes that need to take place as changes in the heart, but religious texts such as the bible, do not limit it in such a way. There needs to be a growth of wisdom, a growth of intellectual understanding of truth, for the world to change. Understanding that religious action is not always fruitful is a part of that knowledge and in fact much of the bible itself discusses this.

My disclaimer to this book is that if a person's religion brings them to a state of being that one becomes like a Mother Teresa or an Albert Schweitzer, and truly helps many other people, that is wonderful. I would never make an argument against that type of behavior, only encourage it. I believe it is such individuals that caused the evolution of humanity throughout time.

This work examines not so much how religion works miraculously in some people's lives, but instead focuses on when it works disastrously in others. I would be just as happy to write about religion's virtues because I strongly believe in religion and its ability to produce all the virtues. I noticed that there is not much written on this subject of religious mental illness by people who still uphold religious beliefs. I am in no way trying to make people "less religious" who have hyperreligiosity. Making Mother Teresa less religious probably would have also made her less helpful to the starving people of India. The aim is to find a way to free what religion actually is about and to know what is the form of mental illness and societal dysfunction that hides in a religious costume. The result will be freeing those with sincere religious desires to become more active in following the true spiritual life. There will be no limit to the time or money commitment such a life may have, but it will be free from the psychological shackles that this book describes.

The hyperreligious notion of God can be a frightening one. It is a God that holds good things from people, and who demands that people live for religion, instead having one's own life improved by religion. Some might think that their hyperreligiosity is justified by the biblical command to love God with all one's heart, all one's mind and all one's strength. This book explores dysfunctional faith, that is, why a person can't love God with all their heart or all their mind or all their strength. If a person really loves God with all their mind, they may begin to see that the reason why they are not like other people isn't necessarily because they are more spiritual, but may be because they were more abused by others and created defense mechanisms against this abuse.

Religious texts themselves have a balance written in them that helps prevent a person from developing hyperreligiosity. The gospels mention how Jesus taught us to not judge each other. Inherent in hyperreligiosity is the need of eliminating in others certain types of value and to only see certain values as existing in themselves. It is like the way the psychotic who may have come from a situation in which their value was threatened, creates a magical world by delusion of grandeur in which they now have great value to others. The hyperreligious has become threatened in their world and disempowered by people, and so they develop the need to devalue others and create value in themselves by their religious practice. But such can never be the basis of the spirituality God tells us He wants in the scriptures. Religion does teach us that God hears and answers our prayers, gives us strength, and the like. The hyperreligious get stuck in this mode of trying to live in this life of favor, and to do so they must judge others in their mind as unworthy, especially when they have been abused by others.

One can use this book as a part of one's spiritual arsenal when or if religion becomes a painful and hindering thing in one's life. It can be a note in one's song but not one's whole song.

Selections from "Hyperreligiosity: Identifying and Overcoming Patterns of Religious Dysfunction."

1)

A truly religious person has a different value system than a non-religious person. A non-religious person often has a materialistic value system of having the needs of physical security needs met first and foremost. This is also largely satisfied through accumulation of the tokens of status. That is, one not only needs a car, one needs a fairly recent model car to feel secure in having their transportation needs met. The hyperreligious can accumulate lacks in their life as a shield that protects them from feeling the emptiness that an unprepared life in that materialistic perspective will give one. Not even caring at all about those materialistic concerns helps them avoid feeling the pain that comes from seeing how they may have very little. Some accumulate these lacks and then use religion as a justification which protects them from feeling inferior to other people. The emptiness one might feel is instead filled by their religious emotions. The non-prepared nature they often live their life with is the ground from which an active prayer life can blossom. Some people have a stronger attitude of comparison and competitiveness with others. The hyperreligious person reasons that someone who is close to and being used by God cannot be made to feel inferior. This is definitely true in many cases, but just because someone says this or feels it on occasion doesn't mean that one is always free from it or other manifestations of it. The fact that they do not care about lacks in their life can also be a way of devaluing things like marriage and money which can be things that help make life more comfortable and complete. But in reality the hyperreligious can become double-minded: they may at times devalue money and marriage yet also complain to God that they have neither. This happens because like any mental illness, the person who is affected is not a perfect model of consistency.

2)

The idea of grace being a progressive understanding, not being under a set of religious laws, but through the love of God and accepting his love being in part the fulfillment of the laws, is a sophisticated thought, something which should be easy for people of modern times to understand, but it is often not the case. That this may not be the case is easy to understand. The hyperreligious do exist in all world religious systems, including the new cults, in which people become so dysfunctional to the point of even committing mass suicide. The benefit of humility comes into play in this perspective: God, not having the parts or limitations of a man, would be wholly beyond the power of a man to understand, since man is limited in experience and mental capability and functionality. Hence knowing the exact and personal ideas from God becomes more and more dysfunctional, and away from the commonly accepted tenants of religion.

3)

The obsessions and intrusive thoughts some have are not psychodynamically "interested" in the thought type itself but are instead in the general destruction of the self-image of the person, of the creation of the Thanatos state, the death impulse. The unconscious wish of a Darwinistic view of life, of a competitive society, is to destroy certain types so that others feel more built up. The inner reaction of some is obsessions and intrusive thoughts which try to create an excuse for not being allowed the human privilege for just being a human, for having one's needs met, as in the ability to feel all value that a human being deserves for just being a human being. When we realize deeply that humans are created in the image of God then we can experience this elevated value in all human beings. The experience and value of just being a human being is denied the hyperreligious and obsessional, sometimes to themselves and often to others. One can't feel the value in being a human being, one has to be chosen, or "super spiritual" in some imagined way. The obsessional can see their own real failings (just like anyone else's real failings), and point their finger at this evidence to justify why they can't feel at one with the privilege of having value. Value becomes tied up in the obsessional defense. Great artists who are obsessional can never feel their artwork is good enough because nothing they do will ever be good enough precisely because it is done by them. It is interesting to see that other's opinions of their value do not sink in; this has the direct proof and evidence of the "reflexive complex," that of denying the value of themselves is merely the mirror image of another moment in their life when they deny the value of others. Many famous artists still hate themselves and commit suicide even when society deems their work to be of great value! One can see in this not just a denial of their own worth, but the worth of society as well.

4)

The task is to fight the projections that form in the mind. The "angels" and "God" are sometimes probably neither angels nor God, if anything at times the two would more closely fall under the heading of "demonic." Hallucinations about God, angels, the dead or the telepathic often mask egodystonic behavior beneath the core of this activity. They hinder that which is more real, full of truth, that which never destroys, makes homeless, or suicidal. These voices or projections, this unknown factor that is really the Superego of the hyperreligious, does not have the best wishes of their object in mind. Only the Ego, which can successfully deal with the guilt attacks of the Superego, can overcome and make one's true needs met. It may be the Ego which understands that the esoteric goal, the Gnostic pursuit of secret wisdom, is often more a play on the charade of human myth than something likely to give one the psychological freedom and normality one seeks. It can be the healing Ego that seeks the wisdom and religion of the common person, those who are the functional backbone of society.

5)

A recurring fault is in thinking that by appeasing whatever it is that some believed was the voice of God, they were doing something of value. It is just like looking back over the history of child abuse. We seemed to be more religious fifty years ago, but behind the works there were many more children being physically, verbally, and sexually abused, further back still, alcoholics without a support network, and many others without help. The only help was creating this voice of solace, which some insight can show that it may sometimes turn sour in a person.

6)

One can postulate a grid of forces and characteristics in human life that fill the entire real needs in society. Some people have the bravery to construct skyscrapers. Some people have the nerve to open human bodies and perform surgery. Some need the sensitivity to construct beautiful music, and so on. There are many people who can't understand that the small traits in people that help make up these different psychologies in people do not make them less spiritual or benevolent, only different. The wisdom of the aphorism, "It takes all kinds of people to make a world," is often not understood by the hyperreligious because their psychology is set up to reward only people of a certain disposition.

7)

Under science and sophistication, as we became more empirical, we created television sets and sewed fingers back on. Science was always here right under our noses, but as a species it took us a long time to understand it. This is the way it is in each of our lives. If a person pushes themselves in the wrong way, they will end up believing a lie, and getting the results of that lie. This happens even if the lie seems "of the light" or "spiritual." If the hyperreligious will become more empirical and rational, their virtue will shine all the more.

8)

There is a type of distortion in cognition that happens to people where one begins to hear one's own inner speech as voices from the outside. When this hearing of voices occurs to some, the idea that there is a telepathic group of human "masters," which intimately watch over one, is often extremely dangerous to sanity when one begins to entertain such beings in one's mind. It is very easy to see why. Any created being is at potentially the same level of intelligence as oneself. It is more practical to believe in an eternal God which has no similarity to oneself as far as experience than to try and have an internal thought life that is peopled with other human beings. The hallucination process can do a certain amount with one God at one's disposal, but when it is free to hallucinate virtually any human being, spirit or even extraterrestrial, it can be disastrous to one's thought processes. The thought processes and the self are of such a complex nature that some compare them more to the work of orchestra than a solo instrument. The average human perspective, also favored by the major religions, is not to set up a "score" in the orchestral mind that can play a crazy tune.

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You can purchase the book here on Amazon.com

Greetings

I am the owner of Telical Books.

I have decided to start this blog to deal with the in's and out's
of a small publishing company.

There are many things to talk about. I said to a friend recently
that marketing is always the hardest thing. Completing a book
is tough for some people (well, maybe all people), getting it published
or publishing it yourself is one step harder, and then marketing
it is even harder. So, there are three difficult but not impossible
tasks I will discuss in this blog.

I figured I would just paste the front page of our website

in this first blog for now, so you don't have to click on a link.

The website url is www.telicalbooks.

We are happy to have just finished editing, "The Exhaustion of the Interaction of Words: Brainstorming with the ParaMind Brainstorming Program", the first full length book on the ParaMind Brainstorming Program. The book says that by creating computer-automated word combinations, many new ideas that can be expressed with language are created, including helpful, perhaps even revolutionary ideas. ParaMind Brainstorming software is a tool that automates these word interactions. The book delves into the possibilities that arise when these meaningful word interactions can be generated with the ease of the software.

"Motivated for the Cause", an interesting book comprised of poetry in paragraph format tied together with philisophical dialogue, will be available in September 2007. The combination of poetic verse and deep thoughts in this anti-novel is designed to be spiritually motivating and intellectually arousing. This is the first formal release of the anti-novels of R.S. Pearson. They have been published in limited editions, circulated in various sections via websites, but have remained underground in the realm of experimental fiction.

We've just announced the name of our third book in the trilogy, "Three Works on Spiritual Humility." The new book, "Grandiosity and the Empowerment of the Spiritual and Artistic" should be finished by the end of Summer 2007 and released shortly thereafter.

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Telical Books Publishing Inc. is an independent publishing company, printing books on spirituality, psychology, art, literature, computer-aided brainstorming, computer-generated writing, and other fascinating topics. Our company mission is to print the books that the large publishing companies have overlooked. We strive to take on issues in our books that help point towards solutions instead of only looking at the problems.

We are proud to publish unique works of non-fiction and fiction that explore the many facets of philosophy, art, religion, psychology and computer science.