“…quite a lot of solitude.” – Agnes Martin

Most hermits we actually know about are not hermits absolutely.  For the memorable hermits list, I look to individuals who experience solitude deeply, report back and return to solitude, having discovered solitude’s value to them as a desired state. Those, like Agnes Martin, who speak of solitude as part of the creative process have a special [...]

Memorable Hermit Georgia O’Keeffe: “…No One to Satisfy Except Myself.”

Georgia O’Keeffe in Abiquiu, New Mexico, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, August 16, 1950

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The Lifetime Channel recently aired a made-for-TV movie entitled Georgia O’Keeffe starring Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons. In spite of excellent acting, the movie was a big disappointment to me* [see footnote], focusing primarily on O’Keeffe’s turbulent love affair with New York photographer Alfred Stieglitz (played by Irons), her ultimate marriage to him and her [...]

Unintentional Hermit Chuck Noland

Actor Tom Hanks created a truly Memorable Hermit  in the 2000 motion picture Cast Away. Hanks’ character, Fed-Ex manager Chuck Noland, is the only survivor of a plane crash and is forced to survive alone on a desert island for four years. His transition from a portly, time-obsessed urbanite to a tan, bearded, slightly-emaciated athlete is [...]

Memorable Hermit Sin Killer: Pragmatic Self Sufficiency Meets Clueless Self Indulgence

sinkiller

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I always have great empathy for natural reclusives who find themselves stranded outside their comfort zone and Larry McMurty’s  Sin Killer (2002) is a perfect example.  Trapper/Indian-fighter Jim Snow (nicknamed Sin Killer) relinquishes his solitude in the first of Larry McMurtry’s tetrology, the Berrybender Narratives; but Jim would have (and probably should have) kept to himself had his youthful lust and fire-and-brimstrone [...]

Can You Get Blog from a Hermit? Not for Awhile.

walkinwoods6x

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This blog is six months old today and this will be my last post for awhile. It is premature to conclude my blogging experiment altogether – I have more to learn about blogging and more to learn about myself as a blogger.  I have several more posts mentally drafted, several most memorable hermits to write [...]

Consciousness Calibration of Barack Hussein Obama?

My Inauguration Day post occurred just after my post about Dr. David R. Hawkins and applied kinesiology. This stimulated a number of  interesting search engine hits for how President Barack Obama rates on Dr. Hawkins’ Map of Consciousness.

My understanding is that Dr. Hawkins himself does not publicize his findings about contemporary political figures.  However, in theory, any person with integrity and some practice using applied kinesiology would come up with approximately the same result as Dr. Hawkins.

As I indicated in my post on Dr. Hawkins, I have played with applied kinesiology, but do not practice it routinely nor do I consider myself adept at its use. There’s a skeptic in me – the presumptive value of applied kinesiology muscle testing is subject to many interpretations.

Any one individual’s kinesiologic assessment of any other living person’s “rating” on the Map of Consciousness would be influenced by so many subjectivities that the value of the rating would be limited. This limitation would probably even apply to Dr. Hawkins’ assessments – which may be one reason he does not publicize his findings.

For what it’s worth (and it’s not worth much), when I played with the self-testing version of applied kinesiology to sleuth a rating for President Barack Obama, I tested consistently strong at level 500 and weak at 510.  Further testing narrowed my rating of President Barack Obama to 507.

Dr. Hawkins defines a consciousness calibration level in the 400′s as that of Reason. Level 500 is the level of Love (spiritual lovingness rather than just interpersonal love). As one’s consciousness level ascends, he maintains knowledge and access to any lower levels, but his understanding is enhanced by any higher level of consciousness he achieves. It should be noted that Dr. Hawkins also states in several of his books that some historical figures start out fairly high on the Map of Consciousness early in life and subsequently, due to circumstances or choices, rank considerably lower later in their lives. Ascension apparently requires some vigilance for all of us.

Quoting Dr. David R. Hawkins in Transcending the Levels of Consciousness (2005):

“Reason and logic (i.e., science) are of great value within their appropriate paradigm. By level 500, via spiritual alignment, subjectivity also progressively becomes a major focus of experience that emphasizes the values of forgiveness, mercy, love, and devotion. It adds a different understanding to meaning and value that thereby influences the selection of options and choices as perceived by the intellect...

“The transition from the consciousness level of the 400s to the level of the 500s is a paradigm jump from the mental realm of linear symbols to nonlinear subjectivity. The mind is satisfied with the acquisition of knowledge but then discovers that alone it is insufficient to bring about transformation…”

Level 507 would be a great calibration for any world leader.  But you’ll have to include my subjectivities when contemplating the accuracy of my findings. In spite of being a skeptic about the interpretive accuracy of applied kinesiology, I’m a fan of Dr. Hawkins’ spiritual writing in general. I’m a also fan and supporter of Barack Obama.

It’s always wise to consider the source of information you find on the internet.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Comments on this post are closed. In spite of super-qualifying my lack of expertise as a “calibrator of consciousness”  in the body of this post, I quickly tired of reviewing political rants by those who disagree with my findings.

To commentors who did not get their unkind remarks about President Obama posted here, I have this advice:  Start your own blog (it’s easy really).  Blog-from-a-Hermit-Dot-Com is a not-for-profit, personal blog. As such, I have no obligation to provide a forum here for anyone’s political view other than my own. Furthermore, getting nasty (whether through comments or via e-mail) only demonstrates your lack of genuine understanding of the concepts of non-judgment and non-duality.  If you like David Hawkins’ work, return to it and study a little harder.

Memorable Hermit Dr. David R. Hawkins & Devotional Non-Duality

A colleague of nobel laureate Linus Pauling, Dr. David R. Hawkins became a spiritual teacher by way of a couple of near-death experiences; a very successful New York psychiatric practice; a temporary retreat into atheism; and at one point seven years in seclusion – not a bad combination for acquiring some pretty advanced spiritual wisdom. The [...]

A "Called" Writer: Memorable Hermit Thomas Merton

I will generally shy away from the consecrated Catholic hermits in this blog.  My exposure to and understanding of Catholicism is so limited that it hardly seems fair to mention even one.  But Catholic mystic Thomas Merton [1915-1968] wrote so eloquently about silence and solitude that he belongs on my list. Merton’s poems, essays and autobiography have a [...]

Memorable Hermit: Dirty Sally Fergus Played By Jeanette Nolan

Jeanette Nolan, age 32

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During one of his long programming phases, Griz routinely followed daytime reruns of the Gunsmoke TV series as background noise. I didn’t actually sit down and watch many episodes and there are a lot of episodes (635). The original series ran for 20 years before cancellation in 1975. Broadcast at one episode per day in reruns, that’s [...]

Anthony Hopkins as Memorable Hermit Dr. Ethan Powell

In the 1999 movie Instinct, Anthony Hopkins plays a renowned anthropologist, Dr. Ethan Powell, who “goes ape,” vanishing for more than a year to live alone with a band of mountain gorillas.  This may not qualify him as a hermit in the truest sense, but that’s the advantage of a personal blog – if I think he’s [...]