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            %TRANSCENDING TABOOS AGAINST REFLECTION 860810

     Participants  in  a taboo can  not  safely  ask  each
other's help in transcending,  escaping, the prison of the
collusion  which  maintains the taboo;  for it is they who
maintain the collusive game of mutual self deception which
does violence to  truth.   They can not be open and honest
with  each other.   In fear of being open and honest  with
each   other  they  can  not  be  open  and  honest   with
themselves,   they can not reflect clearly upon what it is
that they are doing.

     To maintain a collusive game of mutual self deception
participants   must   maintain  a  taboo   against   clear
reflection.    Participants must not be  permitted to  see
clearly how they are doing violence  to  truth in any way,
for that would threaten the  collusion which gives all the
meaning there is to their lives.   Doing violence to truth
undermines the possibility of finding meaning if life with
integrity,  so all meaning must be found through games  of
mutual    self    deception   which   require    intensive
concentration.

     Truth   is   inherently   whole;    with   integrity.
Participants in collusions do violence to the wholeness of
truth and so the whole of truth,   to  its integrity.   To
maintain their  games  of  mutual self deception colluders
must  not permit themselves to  reflect upon the integrity
of  truth,   for  such reflection will reveal to  them  th
violence they  have done to truth,  expose their collusive
games of self deception,  and so destroy  the only meaning
they  have  left in life.   They sacrificed all  the  non-
collusive  meanings  of  life  in  creating  the collusive
disintegrative meanings  of   their  games  of mutual self
deception.

     Only a miracle provides the way out of the prison  of
the    taboos   against   honest   reflection   upon   the
disintegrative meanings of  the collusive games of  mutual
self  deception  which people play.   To participate it is
impossible  to envision the way out with  equanimity;   it
looks  like  going crazy to them.   Yet it is illogical to
believe that the best meaning in life is  to be  found  in
activities  which are  as disintegrative  as  are games of
mutual self deception,  even  when viewed from inside  the
prison  bars of a collusion.   The miracle can be realized
by considering the advantages  of integration as  compared
to the advantages  of disintegration on a broad scale. The
way  out is the way  of seeking to promote integration  in
order to promote both personal and communal integrity.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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