Transcript of Bill & Cindy McCaugherty’s WTM Canada
West Coast Centre video

 

(To learn more about Bill and Cindy, see www.wtmcanadawestcoast.com)

 

 

Bill McCaugherty: Hi, I’m Bill.

 

Cindy McCaugherty: And I’m Cindy.

 

Bill: We’d like to welcome you to the WTM Canada West Coast website.

 

Cindy: We live on the west coast of BC [British Columbia] on one of the gulf islands and we’d love to meet up or have a chat with others in our region who are interested in discussing the human condition as put forward by Australian biologist Jeremy Griffith in his latest book FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition.

 

Bill: We’re assuming that if you’re watching this video that you’ve likely familiarised yourself, at least somewhat, with Jeremy’s amazing book FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition, and possibly some of the videos and essays on the WTM website as well [www.humancondition.com]. If you haven’t, we encourage you to do so. The Introductory Videos 1 thru 4 and 14 are key. His books, including his latest, FREEDOM, are also available on the website as a free download.

I came across Jeremy’s book FREEDOM approximately 4 years ago rather by accident while surfing online. Because it made some rather grandiose claims—‘The book that saves the world’ and all—I was immediately intrigued and decided to investigate further, albeit with a fair degree of scepticism in tow. If I am to be honest, I initially had to put aside what seemed at first blush to be the site’s religious overtones. After downloading the book though, I began to read what would quickly prove to be the most interesting and exciting information I had ever come across in my life. I was literally blown away. For most of my adult life I had been a knowledge seeker and the big questions of life have always haunted me. For this reason, and perhaps also because of my academic background in science, and my professional background related to root cause analysis and accident investigation, I was able to access the information very easily, and in no time had read the book from cover to cover. It is as if I had found the enlightenment that I had long dreamed of, but never really believed I would have.

In my eagerness to bring this world saving information to others, I was surprised that others not only had much more difficulty hearing this information than I did, but they seemed literally not to want it.

Cindy, as it turned out, was no exception. She suffered from the so-called ‘deaf effect’. She told me the book was poorly written, repetitive and literally incomprehensible. In reality of course, this is simply not true—the book is well written. It is our own psychosis or mental blocks that keep us from hearing these world saving truths.

That being said, since I seemed so convinced and adamant that this was really the information to save the world, Cindy agreed to keep at it. After many weeks of reading the information together, and openly and honestly discussing it, to both our amazement, Cindy began to not only hear the information but gain an understanding at an even deeper level than what I could initially access. Thus began our journey together from ignorance to enlightenment.

It is no small irony that although Cindy and I had been living together under the same roof for more than 30 years, we really in truth did not understand each other at all before coming across the book FREEDOM. In sharp contrast we now have a very deep understanding of each other, and my appreciation for Cindy just simply grows daily.

In so many ways Jeremy’s explanation of the human condition has transformed my life, my relationship with Cindy, and how in general I see others. Although I liked most people, I nonetheless found them perplexing and really not like me at all to be honest. I now see them so differently—I see them for the heroes that they truly are. All of us have had to live our lives in what has been a corrupted and dishonest state, regardless of our true desires; to do what we had to do to survive, within the context of the environment and circumstances we found ourselves. Our lives have not been our own. They have really, in effect, been selflessly dedicated to solving the mystery of the human condition.

Now that the mystery has been solved, and with it, all of our thoughts and actions, be they perceived as good or bad or otherwise, defended at the most fundamental biological level, we can now truly be free of this horrible condition; free to put our past behind us and to build that wonderful new world that we have all longed for; the world that both our hearts and our minds have long desired but knew we could not have.

It is truly wonderful to be able to legitimately leave the human condition afflicted psychological upset, angry and confused state behind, and to live life free of that upset; to truly understand our world and our place in it; to be able to see life’s true purpose and meaning; to safely and legitimately allow my mind to wander into the wonderful new future that awaits us all.

Yes, we can now honestly leave behind all the guilt, shame, anger, judgment, recriminations and obsession with having to prove our self-worth; to truly live life with a much lighter heart and quieter and more peaceful mind. In effect, I am now armed with a genuine—as opposed to manufactured—positive and optimistic outlook on life, completely supported by this information. Rather than just putting on a happy face (which I was simply not good at!), I am now truly happy.

Cracking the code of the human condition has been the hard problem, everything else in comparison will be easy. Every other problem in our own lives, the lives of others, and in our world in general has had to take a back seat to solving the riddle of the human condition. With this riddle now solved, we will now be able to move our focus away from defending our upset, corrupted state, to truly solving all of the big problems that face us. World peace here we come!

 

Cindy: As Bill mentioned, my experience in understanding the human condition and being able to digest or ‘hear’ the information took some time and quite a bit of patience and perseverance, especially on Bill’s part.

I have a background in earthen architecture, designing and sometimes helping to build homes from cob, strawbale, rammed-earth etc.—homes I felt contributed positively to the overall health and well-being of the occupants and that integrated respectfully with the surrounding environment. This was all really an attempt to alleviate a growing sense of alarm I was feeling about humans and how destructive we were being. Although I grew up in a caring and loving home that had instilled the goodness of humankind in me, I nevertheless was rapidly losing my faith in humanity. Everywhere I looked humanity seemed to be at the centre of this chaos.

As Bill mentioned, he had come across FREEDOM online and he was just so blown away by everything he was reading, but I was not quite experiencing the same sort of excitement or relief with what he was sharing with me. I just could not seem to get it. Sometimes it felt like the rug had been whipped out from under my feet, disorienting me, and at times like a physical pressure where my heartrate would go up, making me feel anxious.

That’s why I’m so grateful that I had Bill’s, as well as other WTM members’, support as I overcame the deaf effect. This was key in allowing me to safely and slowly confront and understand the essence of my personal, and of course our collective, psychologically upset human condition, the fundamental cause of these alarm bells going off in my mind.

What fuelled my persistence was learning how our biological instincts, or genetically hardwired behaviour, had developed through conscious selection by our early ape ancestors, specifically the females, to become cooperative, loving and selfless. From here, our fully conscious mind emerged, gradually demanding more and more knowledge and understanding of ourselves and the world around us to be satisfied. It was this lack of understanding that was causing us to behave in ways that were in opposition to our loving instincts which we felt as shame, anger, frustration, wrongness, inferiority, egocentricity and so on—these are all psychological effects from the perceived criticism of our instincts. We really had no choice but to deny those instincts, ignore them as best we could and go on this courageous, but corrupting and destructive, journey or battle for knowledge, most specifically self-knowledge.

And what we are witnessing now on the planet, all the upheaval and horror, is the culmination of that 2 million year journey—humans, all of us, every single one of us, all afflicted by this psychologically upset state, wreaking havoc with ourselves, each other, life and the planet.

As Carl Jung suggested, we need to own (or understand) this darkness within to become whole. To own it, we have to understand it. By doing so, by bringing our upset state to the surface and seeing it with the clarity and compassion understanding provides, we begin to heal psychologically, allowing ourselves to come into alignment with our caring, compassionate, loving, selfless instincts; we become sound and secure, fully conscious of the integrative nature of life on this planet. Finally we can become psychologically satisfied and satiated. We can begin to regain our beautifully integrative birthright, fully conscious of who we are, what our 2 million year journey as a species has been about, and what a uniquely and wonderful human expression of life we are. Like the cover of FREEDOM says, this really is ‘the book that saves the world!!’

I’m just so, so, in awe of what Jeremy has done. I really appreciate how he has taken the threads of biology, primatology, anthropology, great works of poetry, music, arts, philosophy, and created this amazing masterpiece! I keep trying to find the words to describe how enormously exciting, satisfying and relieving this breakthrough understanding is! I’m just so full of love and gratitude; and this other really big emotion that I can’t find a name for! It’s like I’ve fallen in love with humanity again, and our future as a species, and all of the wonderful reparations that can begin.

So, I’m here to support the WTM in any way I can; and to support you, in our collective journey as we come back to life. I’m so looking  forward to the future now.

So thanks for coming by and watching this video, and know that we’re here for you. We’ve been where you’re at. This understanding of humanity will support you no matter where you find yourself. You can lean on it hard.