Me: This is about merging with knowledge rather than learning it in a linear manner. Have we had this ability before but evolved to lose that skill? In The Clan of the Cave Bear, the author writes about how ancient man had the capacity of having all knowledge and were guided and reminded to remember it and bring it forward for use. Has human evolution been all about losing touch with this skill, among others, with the spiritual world in general? I also wonder if our relationship to Source has also been diminishing in a similar way—that humans were more closely connected to each other and to the Source years ago. Maybe as we’ve gained more advance social structures and intellectual capabilities, we’ve lost these other connections. What do you think about that? Is this our destiny or do we have more possibilities than we realize in this area too?

Jamie: Erik was saying, “Yes, yes, yes, yes” all the way through. And the last part was, do we have more capabilities or possibilities that we know of?

Me: Mm hm.

Erik: Yes! Hopefully in this sense we’ll go backwards, and I don’t know why everybody thinks that backwards is the wrong fucking motion.

Me: I know.

Jamie giggles.

Erik: I mean, hell, look at the tides. They go in and out, motherfuckers!

Jamie and I laugh. Nervously.

Erik: So why is backwards wrong? It was only in we’d be underwater!

Me: Yeah.

I love my witty retorts.

Erik: The concept of us returning back to the mom and pop store—local growing, local thinking, paring down, less materials, more focus on the physical body, preventative healthcare, internal strength, doing what brings you joy. All of this is going to get us closer to the knowledge we used to have before civilization became the best and only focus that we believed us humans should have, right? Grow as a whole. But we weren’t really seeing it as a whole. We were seeing it as our immediate return. What was our investment if we stepped into it? It was a fucking reward system and the reward system isn’t working anymore. You know what? Parents—

Jamie (to Erik): Oh, no. Don’t. Don’t.

Me: Uh oh. (Pause) All right. Go ahead. Don’t get all politically correct like Jamie wants you to be.

Jamie wails in laughter.

Erik: The reward system doesn’t work with your kids.

Me: Uh uh. God no.

Erik: Put your fucking stickers away.

Me: It’s true. There’s this great book called Punished by Rewards”. Really, really good.

Jamie: Oh, wow.

Erik: Yeah, put that on the list to read for everyone, because we—

Jamie (frustrated): Trrrrrrrra la la. Sorry. Backing up.

Erik: The way that I see humans is that we learn better when we’re watching somebody else’s falls. It’s hard for us to learn from our own mistakes.

Me: Why is that?

Erik: Because we think we’ve done something wrong or it bruises our ego and we’ll start to manipulate what the lesson was—our interpretation of it—so that we feel better about ourselves. But we can watch somebody else’s falls and go, “Oh god, that was really painful to watch them do that.” Compassion comes in, the ability to see all perceptions and perspective. Cuz you know sometimes, like the old saying, “You can’t see the forest for the trees.” It’s the same, so if we get people to read this book about being punished by rewards, then they can see how they treat their friends or their kids or their co-workers or even themselves because this is how our fucking society has raised people. Even in the cartoons it’s good guy, bad guy, the cop and the villain. It’s just everywhere. It’s disgusting.

Too bad he doesn’t have a strong opinion about this.

Channeling Erik Web Workshop – Perception, Acceptance and Spiritual Flatulence