Sunday, August 18, 2013

Re: An interesting new autism theory

This post below from David Seagrave is in response to an article recently posted on the ELAS Google Group.  See here:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/05/11/a-radical-new-autism-theory.html
 
From David Seagrave
 
As a small boy I was convinced that I was a LUNATIC and that was greatly reinforced by the events in 1953 which I have described in detail,which are outside the scope of this Account I can recall how my photographic memory picked up trivial details even when I was aged 5 and living in Bideford (for instance coming across a seemingly empty shell on Westward Ho beach and finding a hermit crab inside it which squirmed and I was frightened of it) Then  such matters as the route numbers of buses Perhaps someone can check to find that Route 101 ran from Bideford to Barnstaple in 1945 ! It was as if my developing brain was a blank videotape which recorded things entirely at random if it had a shutter mechanism that took snaps as I travelled around and a few of these "mental  snapshots"  persist in my mind even now
 
With ageing these mental photographs fade and nowadays I have acquired a filtering mechanism for example I skim headlines but a few things stick easily such as reports of sex-abuse by Catholic priests I once had a photographic memory for junk facts about railways After diagnosis with AS I became aware how I BORE PEOPLE so I consciously willed myself to forget junk facts about anything When afterwards I met rail enthusiasts who rabbitted on about railway matters imperceptible to nearly everybody  else I saw myself as a CRASHING BORE  I found that this tendency crept into my knowledge of photography when junk facts about the subject crept into my short stories 
 
We are perhaps unable to judge the relevance of all this detailed input to everyday life It DOES come in useful for example in remembering the precise location of road hazards so I recall how when returning to Stafford after dark I would crawl past a crossroads with sign for DERRINGTON to look for a raised grating that nearly threw myself off my scooter and then weave past it at about twice walking pace THIS is Asperger strength !

I cannot explain  why EYES SCARE ME so intensely that I cannot bear to look at people even now and eye contact induces mental tremors utterly beyond the limits of language  So I have never learned enough about body language or facial expression to be an accurate judge of it Yet in today s portrait of Andrew Marr in the Herald I see a man whom I would describe as a Radiant Vessel of God - it conveys the image of God Revealed In All His Beauty gushing  forth from a courageous man who has conquered a stroke Andrew Marr has a timelessness in his face I can spot facial expressions of what I call degenerate people but I cannot define what it is about their faces which silently shouts that they are alcoholics or drug users   
 
Whenever I feel GUILTY I cannot bear to look at myself in a mirror Yet when the light is in the right face I see myself as a timeless Radiance and never more so than in my Mynydd Mawr portrait taken in 1982 when I was 40 years old with ample shock of hair
 
 There are many sensory inputs which disturb me in the same way I find that the type face now in use on Ryvita cartons is too frightening to look at I have ALWAYS felt that certain lettering is  frightening ,for I could read at the age of three by means of the contemporary advertisements for Oxo,Bovril & all in distinct type faces I perceived car and bus radiators as MOUTHS OF MALEVOLENT CREATURES
 
In "The High Road To Bickulphstow " I explore the language leakage with germs and Germans and how as a very small boy Alan confuses flies with aircraft This is a reconstruction of my own earliest perceptions of aircraft as malevolent beings .
 
I have written how I was scared at the sight of a burnt out Womens Institute on the way to primary school ,and an overturned car and particularly disturbed by photographs of railway accidents and air disasters in the contemporary newspapers where facts such as the location and type of aircraft stuck readily in my mind
 
My conviction of being a LUNATIC ,as a boy was in fact a precocious foreknowledge of my present panache as a writer where my characteristic style is to put myself into the shoes of my leading characters -including SCHOOLGIRLS and ELDERLY LADIES ! as i write through their voices as their streams of consciousness  in "the First Person Present Immediate " to convey often very tragic themes and above all the stories about Parfitt and Smethurst that lead to their deaths  and of course John Barming s streams of consciousness in both the Narrative (Welcome To Alloa ) and the Radio Dialogue 
(The Arnsbrae Litter Bin ) whilst I use the same technique in my most wicked story of all-perhaps unpublishable -I wo nt reveal the plot -who se title refers to me- 
 
WITH A LOUD CREAKING OF HIS ARTIFICIAL LEG   !

Friday, August 16, 2013

THE CULTIVATION OF HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS

I seek to explore how higher consciousness should be cultivated in the population as the principal goal for the advancement of Civilisation I was jolted into an appreciation of my own personal development on a bus ride where I saw young men oblivious to their whereabouts listening to music through tiny devices which plug into their ears whilst earlier on I had been taking notes about an essay – about Higher Consciousness !

I had proposed a kind of periodic table of personality types comparable to that of chemical elements with the important difference that with the RIGHT KIND OF EDUCATION which I call Divine Alchemy people can mutate from less developed personalities into those personality types which are analogous to the precious metals I am of course following PLATO s footsteps in classifying people but whereas Plato and others saw people as locked into roles or CASTES for life I would insist that a stimulating environment enabled people to TRANSMUTE THEMSELVES into those people who have Higher Consciousness

I was greatly offended by a free brochure advertising the “delights “ of activities in the Falkirk area which are pitched at a reading age of no higher than 14 I am absolutely totally alienated by “popular culture “ and the intellectual level of the Edinburgh Festival has apparently declined ,with fewer and fewer shows or exhibitions which appeal to me.Is it that I am now a silly old man ?looking back to the years of my prime with rose tinted glasses ?

I cannot be idle as the hourglass of my life runs low I have a compulsion to make a mark on each day by some form of creative activity So my home is crammed with so many things that I can scarcely move .As I am a bachelor I have NOBODY TO BE LOYAL TO and this depresses me no end I have worn glasses since age 9 but with that came a faculty to SEE BEYOND the common run of everyday life towards some ultimate destiny for each and everybody .That I insist is the ability to create works of abiding value which are quite unique I have coined the word ENDEOFACT to describe these works ,to signify “the manifestation of God within anybody “

I have explained Contributionist theology in several other essays I have to draw attention to that cardinal principle that humans Create themselves In The Image of God by pushing themselves to the limits of their powers and in doing so through creating entirely original works add to the sum of Meaning Whenever anybody appreciates any artwork this is GOD MANIFESTING ITSELF THROUGH ONE OF ITS NEURONS

Before Men evolved the world was sculpted by ice ages and continental drift Dinosaurs might conceivably evolved Higher Consciousness and established a civilisation where beings with our kind of written language would have created entirely original works of every kind from poetry and music to magnificent urban buildings

The earliest peoples passed through the Nant Francon Pass without asking why it was formed It was left to DARWIN to deduce how it was formed (so to the Dioramas of the Pass during the Ice Age and as it is now ,in London s Geological Museum ) No0w DARWIN who proposed Evolution was by that act of setting out his theories A MANIFESTATION OF GOD EVOLVING ON EARTH His particular Godlight has been an agent of Mental transmutation for all who read understand and accept the concept of evolution When he arrived at Nant Francon and deduced how it was sculpted by glacial action and set that out NANT FRANCON GLOWED WITH DARWIN S GODLIGHT

In this life I have been so moulded by self motivated learning at Red Hill Remedial School that my whole life s orientation is towards adding to the sum of Meaning through my original works I once had a weird dream of a dinner party where everybody got drunk and threw food at one another I prepared a synopsis at Haymarket station and on the train journey wrote my short story NEXT STOP ,FLEET STREET based upon the dream as the train crossed the Forth Bridge In MY purposeful action in creating that story from what I remembered of the dream somehow the passage of that particular train was an emission of what I call Godlight – my action of narrating a story about drunken people throwing food at the leading character which ONLY I MYSELF could write

Is this how I differ from the common run of people ? Am I mistaken in the belief that absolutely anybody could master short story writing and draw plots from their dreams so that on journeys they would write polished prose and alight jubilant that they had created something entirely original ?

I read the chilling article in the London “Times “ how today s children are doomed to die before their parents of diseases caused by lack of exercise and consumption of junk foods Baroness Greenfield has warned the nation that all the children s brains are being MISWIRED AND CORRUPTED by television and violent video games so that by the time they are adults they will be merely clever animals bereft of all that makes Humans Vessels of God ( and see my story NO FOREIGN SCUM ARE WELCOME IN HEWISBRIDGE which was provoked by her stern warning )

I have argued that my father s generation were the most capable people who have ever lived since they endured the Great Depression and the Second World War to raise their families during the severe Austerity that lasted till 1952 They had imbued their offspring –MY generation –with a Code of Behaviour derived from Christian ethics which had been serviceable and sturdy enough for themselves but has now collapsed because of the way Big Business has taken over the world economy and corrupted absolutely everything in life in the pursuit of Profit If nothing is done immediately teenage children will be dying in their middle age leaving their OWN CHILDREN AS ORPHANS and that next generation will be so incapable of coping with the world of a round 2060 that I foresee the total breakdown of civilisation

The other day I decided to produce cloudy-sky backcloths to go behind model railways I came across a tin of outdoor white paint that had congealed into a gooey mess and decided to see if I could save it by picking up a squodge of the paint and rubbing it (made grey with addition of diluted black ) onto sheets of plywood To my utter delight it worked so well that I joyfully made about 10m of backcloth ! This is the LATERAL THINKING which is the main attribute of a fully developed mind that Edward de Bono explained in his books on the subject He cites such men as Alan Turing father of the computer as lateral thinkers and teaches the subject My FATHER was very offended indeed when I tried to explain lateral thinking

Am I being utterly presumptuous or big-headed simply by writing this Essay about Higher consciousness and drawing from my very own experiences : ? I had gone for a Sunday evening stroll in Townhill Woods to the summit of the shale-bing hill I call Lupin Hill and sat in the twilight appreciating the afterglow I felt supremely thankful for being alive and having the faculty to appreciate the afterglow Even as grey clouds massed over Townhill I gazed at the sky and considered how to reproduce the Form Of Stormclouds .The following day I produced the backcloths

I go through my literary works and appraise both exceedingly tragic stories written when I am depressed and wickedly funny stories but paramountly lyrical descriptions of ordinary things such as FIFTEEN KILOMETRES IN THE FOG which can be appreciated as entirely the result of my fully developed mind that is perhaps expressed best of all in my vivid descriptions of entirely imaginary places ,Though people who remember steam trains are now dying off I trust that my models of steam-era trains (and buildings and bridges etc ) are also intrinsically valuable as uniquely my Endeofacts

Now I turn to my literary works about Alan Moelwyn Wright which systematically describe a parallel universe where at least in Avalonshire Righteousness is cultivated by his Contributionist movement That Righteousness is defined as the promotion of Higher Consciousness in people by all possible means Alan s goal for all in his care is to bring about that passion for self-creation in the Image of God which is what drives me on till I drop dead Now just as PLATO signally failed to set up his Republic in Greek Sicily ,and ROBERT OWEN died a broken man after the collapse of his New Harmony in Indiana am I doomed to die an unfulfilled old man before Civilisation finally collapses ?
Is it therefore entirely presumptuous of me to seek to cultivate Higher Consciousness in my neighbours as Alan Wright strives to live according to his names

The Presence of God Creator who dwells by the Bald White Mountain ?

Dear Reader I dare you to expound a better goal for individual people,governments and all Mankind than the cultivation of Higher Consciousness
David Seagrave Dunfermline Library 15-8-2013

Beyond Autistic Identity

As my 72nd birthday approaches,I stand on a figurative mountaintop.The view is vertiginous and I am so high above the common herd that people in the market squares register like gaily costumed ants Though I am acutely short sighted ,from my “dragon s eyrie “ I can clearly see beyond the present day to events after I am dead which if people persist in their habits,will lead to the collapse of our civilisation.

PLATO had classified people into the GOLD caste (the ruling caste ) the SILVER caste (the merchant caste ) and the BRONZE caste (everyone else ) in The Republic Down the ages there have been ways of classifying personality types by such eminent psychologists as H J Eysenck which are in use for example to weed out conscriptees unfit to carry guns A Raymond Cattell from America perfected his 16-Personality-Factor Scale which seems to be a far more reliable way of assessing personalities than any other system .

Mendeleev discovered the Periodic Table of chemical elements Alan Moelwyn Wright is supposed to have set out a Periodic Table of personality types which is compatible with Cattell s classification He declared that unlike chemical elements that CANNOT be transmuted it should be possible for people of any personality type to TRANSMUTE THEMSELVES to “higher types of person” by dint of STERN WILLPOWER and PERSISTENCE at demanding activities of any kind So Alan s Moelwyn Pedagogy is directed at the cultivation of Virtues in all in his care

I am NOT the boy who set sail for Dieppe in September 1960 and about a week later was enormously enriched for my stay in Dieppe unaccompanied by my parents I trust that on my life s journey though I have made many mistakes (and on several occasions been a split second from a fatal accident ) I have transmuted myself through dint of my willpower to become a Short Sighted Dragon of Alan s own mental and moral stature

Since diagnosis with AS I am as conscious of my Asperger differentness as I am of my amputated leg – for most of my waking existence unaware of it just as right now wearing Gripperbreeks I can feel the library floor with my right foot Or indeed be aware that I am wearing glasses I AM VERY AWARE how I differ from the common herd whenever I am in a supermarket or suffer the ubiquitous RACKET imposed on me even in banks .

My Asperger differentness is therefore a total alienation from contemporary “culture “ I had received a brochure advertising the “delights “ in the new county of Falkirkshire all pitched at a mental age of no higher than 14 Is there anything happening in Falkirkshire other than the monthly Toy Fair at Graeme High School where I used to buy up bits for my model trains (and bought NOTHING on my last visit?) Or perhaps a stroll along the Union Canal towpath yes there is! A well preserved reach of the Antonine Wall !

I may be looking at my past through rose tinted glasses but it seems to me as Paul Kingsnorth the environmental writer declares “there has been a scouring out of social value “ In the name of Profit everywhere resembles everywhere else but for a few historic buildings which mark out each town along ancient highways whereas when I hitch hiked along the Great Lands End Road as a young man every market town was excitingly different Oh the magic of discovering monuments like the Monks Lavatorium in Sherborne which had hitherto been merely a smudge of rooftops seen from a passing train ! Then in 1962 I was footloose and free in North Devon my birthplaceland to discover how little had changed in Bideford where I had lived till age five and a half

I observed youths with the tiny music-players like hearing aids plugged into their ears on a bus and questioned a young mechanic about these devices They were entirely lost to the world,these youths and on that journey would not have spotted landmarks in time for them to alight from that ,the last bus from Glasgow to Dunfermline I recalled a SF story of my boyhood about a world where most people had deliberately lost touch with reality by “dream-tanks “ where in trances they acted out being beautiful and famous ( Is this the plot of Huxley s Brave New World ?) Last Sunday I went for a stroll to the former shale bing I call Lupin Hill just 15 minutes walk through Townhill Woods and dense undergrowth where a century ago there was a coal mine and fantasised how someone from 1913 might have felt as he stepped through time to find this amazing wilderness where once there was deafening racket and belching smoke The afterglow lingered and I felt supremely grateful that I am an Englishman and I have the faculty to appreciate such simple joys as that afterglow

In my other essay CULTIVATION OF HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS I expound the idea that the destiny for absolutely everybody is to grow into a Hand of God by the exercise of STERN WILLPOWER I write about the Evolution of Higher Consciousness and Darwin s role as indeed a Messenger of God equal to Socrates and Christ by his formulation of the idea of evolution I now declare that we on the autistic spectrum MAY HAVE BEEN CREATED THE WAY WE ARE expressly to work as a synergy to disseminate a Counter-Culture or Moral revolution which would galvanise NT people into developing all their latent abilities in order to adapt and survive in a world where inevitable catastrophes would bring about a severe population crash Perhaps even render huge areas effectively uninhabitable for foreseeable centuries

I ask if it is entirely presumptuous of me ,David Seagrave a quite undistinguished Englishman to have expounded through Alan Wright s voice ,a path to transmutation of every soul into the state I call Dragonhood (see my essay : Tadpoles ,Frogs and Dragons ) The lucky endowment of AS ,being moulded by Red Hill School s self motivated learning and the paradoxes of the “Hither Green Row “ and the accident near Stafford all synerge to give rise to the present moment where I on my figurative mountaintop stand supremely grateful and ready to throw a mental ladder down to the marketsquares so people can climb to my dizzy height and in doing so grow into Dragonhood Who will lend me a light omnibus and driver ? Who in the market squares wants to accompany me up a lofty mountain on a bright Sunday to discover the presence of God within themselves ?

In my self-created Dragonhood do I soar far beyond autistic identity ?
David Seagrave Dunfermline Library 16 – 8-2013

Saturday, August 3, 2013

seen a light?

Comedy billed as not for the easily offended usually fairly certainly means not for me. I'm ever so'seeeeeerious, ya see, with a sick world of injustice always at the forefront of thought, and seriously down on all the ethicality of everyone who has an emotionally cruel sense of humour, which is indistinguishable from being an emotionally destructive person seriously. 1980s alternative comedy was just a fashion statement for blatant bullying and violence, for delight in destroying everything anyone cares about.

But there is a very real practical question around how referring to injustices in comedy sometimes helps the serious impact against them. Like the old Berlin Wall graffiti "Jump over and join the party". Like Life of Brian. When is comedy that refers to injustices ever constructive? Ever not just a further kicking in suffering's face?

When it is open to thinking about. When it is not an act of bullying aggro with a socially intimidating effect. The way all that distressingly aggressive 1980s alternative comedy fired up all that is ugliest in peer groups, is why it failed to get across the serious political messages it sometimes hoped to.

Fringe stand-up performer Abigoliah Schamaun makes you think, because every time she crashes through an offence barrier she actually pauses and reflects on it, checks out how the audience feels with it. It gives the whole question of offence a significantly different feel. It is more survivable for the audience, and each time you wonder whether it is more justified for the performer, because you are not just getting hammered by it, passively. For usually that aspie unfriendly helpless position, take whatever I throw at you and like it, is the relationship an audience who feel ever so super-cool really have towards a comic who wants to make them sick. An audience who have the fairness of their own feelings acknowledged are in a stronger feeling, better feeling, less pushed around, position.

Seriously don't want that light bulb she eats to be real, or she won't be performing for long. No audience can pass on the reason for doing it, because there isn't one.

Maurice Frank