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So You'd Like To... De-virus Your Mind

This guide is based on my review of Richard Brodie's book Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme.

I first flicked through a copy of Virus of the Mind in a secondhand bookshop in Flagstaff, Arizona. At that stage the part that caught my attention was the chapter on disinfection and particularly the piece entitled "zen and the art of devirusing". Here Richard Brodie states, "if you switch off your internal dialogue, you've made the first big step towards freeing yourself of the tyranny of mind viruses." The technique he suggests is a simple meditation, thought watching.

Psychosynthesis & Belief Structures

More recently, I was reminded of this book when I began a course of study in Psychosynthesis. One of the key concepts our tutor talked about was Belief Structures. Belief structures and memes are for all intents and purposes the same thing. Our course involved looking at where we gained many of our beliefs, including a project entitled 'Family of Origin' where the main aim is to trace beliefs (memes) and traits through our parents and grand-parents, along with our siblings.

Psychosynthesis itself (as a psychotherapy) works heavily on breaking down belief structures, and allowing an individual to recreate new beliefs which are more appropriate for their needs. There are numerous books on Psychosynthesis. A good foundation is to read Psychosynthesis: A Collection of Basic Writings by Roberto Assagioli who was the founder of Psychosynthesis. Piero Ferrucci was a student of Assagioli and provides more insights into Psychosynthesis in his book What We May Be: Techniques for Psychological and Spiritual Growth Through Psychosynthesis.

An important concept in Psychosynthesis is the sub-personality. Each sub-personality has a core belief (meme). Therefore, work with sub-personalities is work with memes, although not always directly. It can however lead to discovery of the core belief (meme), when and how it came about, which parent it was programmed by (as often our main beliefs come from parent's and parent figures in early childhood). For books on sub-personalities, consider the following: Discover Your Subpersonalities: Our Inner World and the People in It and Subpersonalities: The People Inside Us by John Rowan.

Speed Reading & the Teachings of Don Juan

Two other, seemingly unrelated, schools of thought come to mind. One is speed reading; the Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics system (Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics-6 Cass) suggests the only way to increase your speed significantly is to stop repeating the words in your head. The second is Carlos Castaneda, who talks of "stopping the world" in his book The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. More on the technique is given in Victor Sanchez's book The Teachings of Don Carlos : Practical Applications of the Works of Carlos Castaneda where techniques for "Stopping Inner Dialogue" are given.

Summary

So it is with this background in mind I discovered a copy of Virus of the Mind in the Public Library and decided to read it. I consider it well worth a read for anyone interested in the subject of memes, as well as anyone interested in fields such as Psychosynthesis (or Psychotherapy in general), psychology, or self-development.

This book is a thought-provoking read, which may indeed lead to a decision to be less thought-provoked by the mind viruses spread by marketing companies, the mass media, and politicians.

However, I do believe (to add one of my own 'memes' to the melting pot) that to get to the core of devirusing one's Self then plenty of work needs to be done with such techniques as dialoguing, sub-personality work, and looking at belief structures and how, why and where they developed. It is strongly recommended that a guide be found to embark on this process, if for no other reason than to have an objective witness to your process who has been through similar experiences and process themselves.

So, read this book, turn off that inner dialogue, and tune in to your intuition!

Other books on Psychosynthesis

Other books by Carlos Castaneda which talk about 'Stopping the World'

Other Resources

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