-=== Psybernet Digest ===- Volume 1 Number 2 5 February, 1995 @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@@ @@@@@ @ @@ @@@@@@ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@@ @@@@@ @ @ @ @@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@ @ @@@@@ @@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@@ @ @@@@ @ @@@ @@@@@@ @@@ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@ @ @@@ @@@@@@ @@@ @ C O N T E N T S. 1:-Introduction --- The Psybernet Digest 2:-Main Feature --- A Solitary Voice 3:-Psybernet News --- The latest 4:-Editorial --- Money is OK --- WL 5:-Psybernet Library Update --- A summary 6:-From the Psybernet BBS --- Serious, Moving & memorable 7:-Resources in Psyberspace --- Related lists, 'zines, places 8:-Psybernet BBS & Echo --- The current description @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @ 1:-Introduction @ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ --- The Psybernet Digest --- Psybernet Digest is published as an online magazine by Psybernet Limited it is produced by Walter Logeman. The contents are largely drawn from the Psybernet BBS, Christchurch, New Zealand. Subscriptions to the Psybernet Digest can be obtained by contacting Walter Logeman, see contact points in item 8:-Psybernet BBS & Echo. They can be obtained by file request from the Psybernet BBS. Contributions to the Digest are welcome and will be included at the discretion of the Editor. What is this 'zine about? The exploration of psyberspace, the soul of cyberspace. For more details see the description of the Psybernet BBS & Echo below. == Acknowledgments == Thanks to all those who have contributed to the BBS and this Digest. == Copyright == This Psybernet Digest may be reproduced in its present form for non profit use. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @ 2:-Main Feature @ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ A solitary voice ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Psybernet has experienced major changes in the last six months. It has been a period of silence and darkness. I cannot tell yet if Psybernet will pull through this. After a year or more of intense psychological work on the BBS there were some fallings out that have left the BBS almost dormant. I have persisted with a slow steady flow of messages -- I have selected some here which are all in some way on the theme of SOUL. They follow as the main feature of this second Psybernet Digest. Here are the excerpts from messages ----------------------------------------------------------- Area: psybernet_echo From : Walter Logeman To : All ----------------------------------------------------------- Date : Sep 15 '94, 01:24 Subj : Does the psyche evolve? People have always told stories, made dramas, sung songs. Ordinary life is lived and then reenacted & retold in the evenings. Stories around the fire, create a sphere of connection through experiencing and sharing the meanings, feelings, the history and values of life. That is our soul. as we use new technology, words, clay tablets, paper, printing, and now this medium we still tell our stories in the night -- the screens are our fire. and what has this done for the soul or psyche? each new form of human expression connects us in a new way, allows a new slant to be revealed. the layers of mediums is changing the texture of the soul. Walter ----------------------------------------------------------- Date : Sep 17 '94, 01:07 Subj : History Hello all! It is strange to think that as people come into this place on the net, or even here on the BBS that they don't know about the history of the discussions and relationships here, of the struggles and the joys. This Echo/Mailing List has a history. While there is a record in its entirety on the BBS, of every word written in this List/Echo, that is not its history. The e-mail is all there in its raw state in one big file -- perhaps boring that way, irrelevant. This message as you read it now fresh on your screen is the edge of the list that is growing into the future. Here it is alive. Archived lists are dead. The history still has to be written. A historian would have a perfect record of the email, but the history would be something else again. A retelling with meaning, with insight of hindsight. With a prodding into the lives behind the words -- that would be compelling reading. The off-line life and the on-line correspondence. That is the subject for some strong tales. What was really going on as I chatted non-stop about the then non-existent Psybernet to Kate on our 6 day tramp in the Wangapeka in the summer of 1992-93? A historian might also reveal while some of the people who came here left, leaving such an absence, such emptiness. The space, a wound in the life of this Echo. A raw wound, full of pain, and not yet healing. Walter ----------------------------------------------------------- Date : Sep 18 '94, 11:43 Subj : Events & the Soul All! Events and the Soul [snip] The _record_ of our correspondence is not its _history_. The record is of events, but the story that could be written would reflect the soul. [snip] My main point ... was that events are of a primary nature, that they are the determinant of our soulful life, of our imaginal world. With a flair of living on the edge of paradox -- the response would be something of the order of: Your very idea is inherent in a particular branch of the tree of ideas. Or: what is the image that is presenting itself to you, what archetypal forces are at play? Or: what is an event other than a subjective report of one? Events are imaginal. I feel confident to ride the paradox more forcefully, to insist on rooting the imaginal in the material: What childhood or current events lead you to dismissing the vital influence of events on your beliefs and imagination. What is happening that you won't face? How are life events influencing what you write? I am seeing that this discussion is a classical one in the history of psychotherapy. Freud went through a phase where he attributed neurosis to childhood sexual abuse. He renounced this, claiming that these stories of abuse were not memories but unconscious wishes -- ie the oedipal complex. There are those, who say he got it right the first time! There are those who claim that the move from the literal into the imaginal was the birth of depth psychology. I think these positions are BOTH right! This is why I feel like a wolfman, upholding both the gods (the imaginal) and humans (events). I am vulnerable to attack from those who would call that a minimising of the abuse, a collusion even. And I could be accused of remaining on the social level, of being a social worker and not a psychotherapist, not attending to the soul. Both accusations are 180 degrees off the mark! There are soulevents, eventimaginings, life is art, art is life. _Being here in cyberspace is of that order._ Walter ----------------------------------------------------------- Date : Sep 22 '94, 19:39 Subj : Transference Transference A wonderfully evocative word which echoes into the depths of the tombs on psychoanalysis, in and out of those Victorian consulting rooms. The term for an invisible sticky treacle that exists between therapist and client, mixed with another type of syrup, counter-transference. What is it really? When a client feels something in relation to the therapist that really belongs elsewhere, such as on a parent. When a therapist feels something towards a client that belongs elsewhere, such as their spouse. Amazing really, it is a sort of mistaken emotion, we have a propensity to feel things and then attach the feelings to people (and perhaps animals or objects) which are not the thing to which the feeling actually belongs. It is often unconscious, we don't know we do this, or we only half know, it comes to us as an aha! and we then know we did it all along. The envy I feel of a colleague is related to envy of a brother, aha! Perhaps that is not transference as the term usually applies to therapy, but it is all the same thing. Do you feel the sand shift as you apply this concept to relationships in this medium? Walter ----------------------------------------------------------- Date : Oct 18 '94, 20:37 Subj : Shrinks in Love Hello All I saw the review in Wired with the title above of a book called: Avodah Offit 'Virtual Love' A Novel Simon & Schuster 1994 New York. I could not resist it. Shrinks doing email! I am into about the first 50 pages but loving it. Some familiar themes: > If you were my patient, what I would say now > is "M-hm." But compared to that soft sound > the written version seems desolately inadequate. (However I bet she'd never use the wonderful words: desolately inadequate in her consulting room!) From a file she did not send (at least by page 50) > I don't know how to respond to your letters. They > are so angry, so open, they make me want to break > through my normal restraints [as a supervisor] > and write about myself in the same way. From the little of this sort of work I have done in this way this is very familiar. Walter ----------------------------------------------------------- Date : Jan 10 '95, 15:30 Subj : Thin Fragile Connections Hello All, I'm back after 10 days in the bush with Kate. How solid to do that. To walk eat sleep together for those days. To be close to each other and to the weather. We do that so well Kate and I, we connect with each other and with the earth, the bush, the terrain. I am back here at work in my office. Connections here are thinner. They are for a fee, for a purpose. The work here is separate from the world. The stories I hear about peoples' ventures with children, spouses, families and projects are not to do with the children, spouses, families and projects. They are to do with the psyche of the client. I listen to the echos of the world in the depth of the soul. Fragile connections here in the Psybernet Echo are thinner than the ones in my office. Ascii is not the reason, more the uncertainty inherent in the medium. Who am I relating to right now? One person I am thinking of is Dan. He is not subscribed to the Echo or the Mailing list. He has just sent me by snail mail an interesting article on virtual communities and life in cyberspace. I am frustrated that this mail will not reach him electronically. Perhaps I will write some more about the paper he sent me and send it as a snail mail outpost of the Echo. [snip] Happy new year! Warm wishes, Walter ----------------------------------------------------------- Date : Jan 20 '95, 13:00 Subj : _Sunday Whiteman_ I am reading: Clarke, Lindsay _Sunday Whiteman_ Picador 1991 London A wonderful novel. I will say some things about psychotherapy, and perhaps psybernet -- in the background is the inspiration from the novel. I think of Jung and Freud. Westerners, who invented (or popularised and developed) the method of attending to the soul in hourly sessions for a fee. They developed too, training and the professional association, and criteria for membership. I see this as a rope, modern nylon rope to descend into the depths of the soul. Where previously we used myth, ritual, dance, chants, sacrifices, superstitions and religions, the stuff of life and soul itself -- we now have a nylon rope. Not that the methods of psychotherapy do not have their own mysteries and rituals and myths and so on, but there was a shift -- the separation, the sense of a scientific approach. We have in psychotherapy something of the enlightenment, of modernism, of male power (to speak metaphorically). This has mostly led to a psychological imperialism. Rarely do we descend that rope to admire the depths of the caves; mostly to plunder and bring back morsels to be used in the world above. That is our conception of healing. That is Jung's phrase 'psychological imperialism'. He struggled against it and his own intense enmeshment with the soul life does not make him an imperialist. No, that was not his 'fault'. Like so many, he was a running dog of the imperialists (ha!). He was a doctor. That innocent slip into a professional, social, economic mode meant that psychotherapy (he would have called it analysis) could happen. So we are in a dilemma. We use an anti soul structure to descend into the soul. We try to use something teachable, logical, ethical, methodological, clean and white, pure and strong -- to go into a dirty darkness, a place of madness of pain and horror and abuse. The mysteries and complexities pain and horror creep into the work, sneak up the rope as it were no matter how slowly we go. We call that transference, parallel process, therapeutic error. Soul complexity, including all the wars of the gods, their seductions and rapes, murders and intrigues, flood into our fragile organizations. We create codes of ethics and have agreements about confidentiality and contracts of one sort and another which we hold up like crosses in a nest of vampires. In this desperate struggle we could abandon the rope. Let go! Fall into the darkness. We could abandon the enlightenment. Give up the faith in our structures and organizations. Or we could do the opposite: Improve and improve and improve on our methods, our techniques. Make our organizations more ethical. Create a socialism where there is imperialism. Neither option is viable. We cannot go back into the naivety of the past. We cannot go forward with this endless refinement of structure. Nor can we stop either -- we will do both. We are lost. I am lost. I am ashamed of where I have come from and I do not have a clue where to go next. I cling to the rope and then I just let it slip. Then I am tangled in its mess, then I loose it for a while and feel lost. Thus as I flounder in the darkness I am part of it, afraid of it. This very venture into psyberspace is a god. This is its nature. It is part of the soul. --++-=<*>****>>>>>0<<<<<****<*>=-++-- @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @ 3:-Psybernet News @ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Item. Gateway to the internet The Psybernet BBS is running Mailgate, which means that the UUCP connection to Equinox is gated to the BBS. What that means is that the BBS can now have email and newsgroups and lists from the Internet available. BUT there are still some glitches. Software difficulties that mean it dies not yet work fully for the users. To legally provide to others Psybernet requires a different sub. to Equinox and it is quite expensive. Thus it will only be viable as the userbase of Psybernet increases and the venture becomes financially self sufficient. The part that is working well is the Psybernet Echo going into the Psybernet Mailing List. This looks like the most promising area of access to the venture. Item. The sad slow death of the THERAPIST Echo A project that is screaming out for attention is the resurrection of the THERAPIST Echo. It was run for a while by David Johns, but for reasons unknown it is died. The Echo was available only to professional therapists, this was its attraction but probably also its demise. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @ 4:-Editorial @ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ --- Money is OK --- In my work as a supervisor of psychotherapists I know that many have difficulty in setting and insisting on their fees. It is as if there is a force that we all brush with that says 'this should be free'. Psychotherapy is not possible without a fee. If there is no fee then it is something else. Cars by contrast are not expected to be free. In the world of cyberspace computers are like cars. People pay OK. When it comes to information there is a payment for the use of the wires BUT 'information' as I think Bruce Stirling said 'wants to be free.' And wonderfully it is! I delight in each day reading my favourite email places. I also am writing here with little prospect of a financial return, and that is fine. At some point the difficulty that Psybernet is having to create a professional identity, and to collect a fee, will need to be overcome. Just as the beginning therapist needs to overcome it if he or she is to make the transition into the profession. The main Psybernet project is to have psyber groups and psyber consulting activities prospering in cyberspace. The ones that we have had to date have only been available to those who have paid a fee. That is the future for Psybernet -- to generate enough income to prosper. Thus a qualitative leap in attending to soul will be possible that has not been equalled since the days of Freud and Jung. And yet . . . what we do here in psyberspace is NOT for the money nor is it in any way a commercial thing. Just as in the psychotherapy world the mass market projects such as 'Forum' and 'Transformation' seminars, while clever, miss the essence of the soul. Good psychotherapists may do well financially, but they are not in it for the money. There is an unknown here for all that: this medium of digital writing may explode into god knows what. Who is to say that the 'Psybernet - the First Three Years' CD-ROM will not be on the NY Times best seller list of CD-ROMs? -- wl @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 5:-Psybernet Library Update @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ The Psyfiles.zip file is updated daily it is a list of all files in the Psybernet Main Library. This is the beginning of a data base of 'hand picked' material. The library is personal in that it has material that we and message about. That way the BBS has a 'meaningful' supply of information & you will get overwhelmed by too much data. All this is readily available to users of the Psybernet BBS. At present we are also working at making these files available over the internet. The best way at present tis to request things by email and well do our best. One thing we have is anything vaguely Psybernetic that has been published in wired. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 6:-From the Psybernet BBS --- Serious, Moving & memorable @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Date : Jan 30 '95, 00:29 Snt Loc From : Barry Kennedy To : All Subj : Thin Fragile Connections --------------------- Reading the Psybernet Echo archives leaves me with questions, answers, and images. Differing realities meet, some embrace, others do not. EDR relationships, VR relationships, and the effect of one on the other. People moving towards. People moving away. People watching but not responding, even to pleas or demands. `Rational' versus `irrational', and me wondering in the end which is which - as John Lennon said, probably quoting someone else, "Everything is the opposite of what it seems". Messages . . . letters . . . gifts, buds, jewels, dust. Messages lost. People lost. But Psybernet is robust, with vigour, dreams, and dedication. I sense new focus, or old focus restored. And new and wider connections. see ya ... We're from the government and we're here to help you --++-=<*>****>>>>>0<<<<<****<*>=-++-- A few snippets from Daniel: Distraction Distraction. I live for it. Its part of my generation I think. We are distracted and a good think too. We notice anything that catches our eyes and though depths might not always be explored a lot of surface is covered. And whilst we are talking dimensions the difference between travelling wide and travelling deep is only 90 degrees, and it depends on where you are looking from. Now is that deep or what! --++-=<*>****>>>>>0<<<<<****<*>=-++-- Threads and Holes Back to the spider web, it has many holes all through it. These are very interesting and important parts of the web. Sure if there were no holes flies would have less chance of flying right through the web but then again they wouldn't be so dumb as to fly straight into a spider fabric as a spider web - yes the holes are important and rather magic, hey they don't even exist in themselves. They are defined by the web. The threads that surround these holes create and define them. On this web those threads are these threads, our conversations, thoughts and connections, and they create these magical holes. Is it within these that heart exists? Soul? If so we will never reach it through these threads we weave but nevertheless we should not stop spinning because these are required for the holes to exist, threads are important too. --++-=<*>****>>>>>0<<<<<****<*>=-++-- A gem from the Pern: Area: youth Date : Nov 29 '94, 21:46 Snt Loc From : Rebecka Webber 3:770/270.0 To : All Subj : THE SYSTEM!! ------------------------ Hello all. As most of you know I am a 14 year old girl that goes to Hillmorton High school. I have been going to this school for 3 days off one school year (about 277 school days) now and I have, in my learning time, learnt that, the factorial button on your calculator times something by something or other, Shakespere was raving mad, or at least in the Elizabethin times every body was a subject to incest, Au is the chemical element for silver, plants are really just green looking machines with a very effective energy effecient system to keep them alive, humans are incredibly stupid and are going to kill the world, you must at least stretch for 15 minutes before any exercise holding each stretch for about 15 seconds, French is a stupid subject, You aren't aloud twink in the library in case it falls on the carpet and they have to buy new carpet, You are not aloud to wear any more than 2 earings in both ears and they must be sleepers, cubes always look different when you draw them according to the law of measurement and physics and all that shit!! I now know how to do algebra, NOT, and : is not just a type of colon it is actually the mathematical ratio sign. I have also learnt that all school children are subject the THE SYSTEM and are destined to be crushed. At first they con you into the fact that you are actually worth something and this school is really destined to make you something and this school is the one with a difference and is the one that treats you like an individual and cares for each student and their delicate mind, well this is what they tell you in the prospectus. But once you get there....oooooo. Yeah for the first couple of days they let you off "oh it's their first month we'll be kind" but after the first month SHIT do they make you work or what. You are no longer a 'special person' you are a number, another pathetic student who is destined to make trouble for everyone else, "No I'm sorry you may not be the only one in the science lab!" 'Look I'm sorry but it has to be the same for everyone, We neeeed a note' followed by a mournful pathetic look that really means "dick, didn't you know that in the first place I should need to be telling you this!" We are not aloud to feel about anything but think, think, think, "WHY is the square root of 40 what ever it is, I no that formula doesn't work but think about it and tell me WHY." We don't have feeling we are zombies getting by, by rebelling because in the end it's the only way we know how to feel!! And then they deal with it by crushing us with detentions and taking out on OUR OWN TIME!! Well it sux and I'd just like to share that with all you guys. Thank you. Thank goodness I only have 4 days left. --- * Origin: Psybernet N.Z. +64-3-365-6876 V42b (3:770/270) @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 7:-Resources in Psyberspace --- Related lists, 'zines, places @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ +------------------------------------------------------------------+ |11@26@93 THE SHRINK LIST(tm) | | National@International List of Psychology | | and Addiction Oriented BBSes | | | | | | The SHRINK LIST(tm) is verified on a monthly basis by modem. It | | is compiled as a service of the CFPF BBS. Updates will be | | released as new boards are added. If you know of any other boards| | that would be appropriate for inclusion in this list, netmail me | | with the following and hardware information. * Copyright 1991, | | 1992, 1993 David Johns * | +------------------------------------------------------------------+ David Johns, Ph.D. Psychotherapist The Central Florida Psychology Forum BBS (Formerly Dr Shrink's Couch) 1:363@52.0@fidonet 2866 N. Powers Drive, Apt 159 Orlando, FL 32818 VOICE: (407)299-6386 --++-=<*>****>>>>>0<<<<<****<*>=-++-- @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 8:-Psybernet BBS & Echo --- The current description @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ -============- Introduction To Psybernet -============- Psybernet derives its name from Psyche and Cybernetics. Psyche is a Greek word for the soul and cybernetics is the art of information systems. The unconscious realms of the psyche, communication and relationships are all affected and evolving in cyberspace. Psybernet facilitates conscious experience and study of this process. Psybernet Echo & Mailing List -============- Topics include psychotherapy, the unconscious, the imagination, archetypes, dreams, myths and metaphors, personal identity. There is an emphasis on working psychologically within the medium of cyberspace. The Echo is available, by arrangement to BBSes. To join the Psybernet Mailing List, which is in a gateway with the Fidonet Psybernet Echo please send a message to: listserv@link.equinox.gen.nz in the body of the text write: SUBSCRIBE PSYBER-L The Psybernet Bulletin Board -============- The BBS is the home of The Psybernet Echo. Discussion related to the psyche, is the main focus of the BBS. This includes psychotherapy, groups, and the psyche as it manifests in email, or in echos or other electronic groups. Files on this theme are available to subscribers. More than a place to talk about these things, Psybernet BBS is where we practice psychological tele-computing. It is a home base, where a community of people interested in this process, can form. A Women's Conference is available to women users only. There are other specialist echos. File requests, use the name FILES, or send an e-mail. Subscription NZ $40 - basic NZ $70 - full. One month free access upon validation. Silver Xpress, Bluewave (soon) and QWK packets available for off-line readers. Psyber-groups and Psyber-consultancy -============- These services are being developed, & integral to Psybernet. Groups and private consultations form a niche where personal and intimate discussion takes place with the participation of an experienced guide. Groups are available on the BBS and gated to the Internet as private closed mailing lists. Fees for Psyber-groups and Consultancy vary according to the specific service. Training in these areas is available to suitable applicants. Enquire by netmail or e-mail. The architecture of these ventures is an essential theme of discussion in the Psybernet Echo. Psybernet Digest -============- Material from the BBS plus additional items make up this electronic magazine. Latest issue can be requested by email, or by Fidonet file request to the Psybernet BBS using the name ZINE. ------------------== Contact points ==-------------- Psybernet, Walter Logeman (Sysop) Bulletin Board: +64-3-365-6876 Fidonet: 3:770/270 Internet walter@link.equinox.gen.nz