Video & Transcript of the
Inaugural World Transformation Movement
Global Conference in February 2017
Introduction by Genevieve Salter from the WTM Sydney Centre
Welcome everyone to the first global conference of the World Transformation Movement. My name is Genevieve Salter.
The exciting and wonderful purpose of this inaugural conference is to launch the first three WTM Centres outside of our original Centre here in Sydney, Australia.
So this is nothing less than the beginning of the beginning of a whole new transformed world for the human race. And what makes this new transformed world for humans possible is that humanity’s great, heroic journey of accumulating knowledge has finally led to the finding of the biological explanation of the human condition. This fabulous, dreamed-of, psychologically relieving and transforming explanation is presented in Australian biologist Jeremy Griffith’s 2016 book FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition.
As well as those here today, we have attending online Professor Harry Prosen from his home in Wisconsin in the US, Jeremy’s brother Simon Griffith (who’s presently travelling overseas), and other WTM members including members of the three new World Transformation Centres in Africa, Europe and Melbourne. So this is a wonderful gathering.
I might say that all that is required to start a WTM Centre is for someone who has gained an appreciation of this incredible liberating understanding of the human condition to begin sharing his or her interest—and excitement—with their friends, and from there invite others to join their meetings [see WTM FAQ 3.6].
We will now hear from the representatives of these first three WTM Centres to be formed outside Sydney. They are Stefan Rössler from the recently formed WTM Centre in Austria in Europe; Franklin Mukakanga from the new WTM Centre in Zambia, Africa; and Sam Akritidis from the new WTM Centre in Melbourne, Australia.
Just before I introduce Stefan I want to show you the cover of The Australian newspaper today, which shows some of the biggest floods we’ve experienced in Northern Australia. Well, isn’t that so appropriate for the great tsunami of love that these understandings are going to produce on planet Earth—the spring rains anticipated in the Bible that would one day come to water the Earth.
Stefan Rössler from the WTM Austria Centre
Genevieve’s introduction to Stefan:
So now I’d like to introduce Stefan Rössler, who is from Austria in Europe. Stefan has a Bachelor of Arts and Design degree, majoring in Usability and User Interface Design. As well as teaching in several universities in Austria in these subjects, Stefan is the co-founder of two businesses, one for consulting, and one in online services. So we can see that he is an extremely talented and accomplished young man.
Stefan’s speech:
Hi, my name is Stefan Rössler, I’m 31 years old and I’m from Austria. About seven months ago I did a Google search for “Human Conditioning” because I just couldn’t stop thinking about it ever since I’ve read this term in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. And that’s how I came across the information Jeremy and the World Transformation Movement are promoting.
And honestly, when I first read Professor Prosen’s statement about FREEDOM and that it’s the book that saves the world, and when I saw an old man (Jeremy) standing on a cliff, I refused to even start playing the video that was on the homepage back then, because I decided that this is certainly not worth my time.
About two weeks later, while I was still searching the internet for answers, I found this article. I can’t really remember what exactly it was about, but when I was done reading it, I was completely blown away by its explaining power. I thought to myself, who the hell was writing this text, and when I noticed that I had landed on www.humancondition.com again, I realised that it must have been this old guy who was standing on the cliff. I kept reading more and more articles on this page and I started to understand that all these supposed articles were really parts of FREEDOM—the book that saves the world.
I was as sceptical as anyone could be, but everything I read just made so much sense. So I kept on reading and after about two more weeks, I had finished FREEDOM and watched many of the supporting videos on the homepage. I couldn’t believe it—I had finally found what I was looking for all of my life. That is, an explanation for why everything in this world is so fucked up. But not just that—it was an explanation that defends us humans, which was so critical to me because I always knew that no one who has ever lived on this planet was really bad. And as it turns out, the reason for our seemingly bad behaviour was a psychological one. We’re not bad, but man, we’re all completely mad and we’re getting crazier and crazier by the minute. But now, with Jeremy’s explanation, we can finally understand why this was—and still is—happening to us. And best of all, we can stop it right now!
I didn’t understand all of this right away, but as soon as I had finished reading FREEDOM, I knew that I would one day fly to Sydney to visit Jeremy and the rest of the WTM. But at the same time I knew that this was more likely to be one of these childish fantasies which I sometimes have but usually don’t pursue. So what I did instead was to sign up on the website and become a member. Then I got an email from Tony Miall—one of the WTM members—letting me know that I can always contact him if I have any questions. And as you can probably imagine, my head was full of questions and so I decided to get in contact and ask about how I could support all of this. Tony invited me to have a video call and said that we can talk about it if I wanted to. I was excited like a young boy and I couldn’t wait to get engaged in all of this. And as it turned out, I needed the next few months to apply the information to my personal situation and use its explaining power to finally make sense of my own life.
What I found was that while both of my parents really love me, they were having a constant battle because of me—my mother always had to defend my idealistic “naive” view of the world over my father’s pragmatic, ‘wanting me to take over the farm’ view. I always knew that I was different and either everyone else was lying and odd or I was just completely crazy. I’d get called naive and people always told me that I’m a dreamer and that it’s about time for me to finally adjust to reality. But I refused to do that and instead I just decided to become a likeable and seemingly well-adjusted person. Then I decided to become very operational, which was pretty easy for me because I knew it wasn’t real—it was just a game. It was a case of “faking it to make it”. But underneath the surface I was getting more and more desperate for answers and I needed to find a meaning in life. I tried one New Age philosophy after the other, and while it would sustain me for a short while, each and every solution was obviously flawed, and I always had to find the next one to keep me going for a little longer. I had reached desperation point and my search became really intense when I finally stumbled upon Jeremy’s explanation and the WTM.
Having said all of this, I want to let you know that I can empathise with everyone who starts understanding this information. Being able to finally make sense of yourself and the world around you is so overwhelming that you’re very likely to get paralysed and not know what to do with it. At least that’s what happened to me—especially after I had understood that really every one of us is living under the duress of the human condition. But it was exactly this time when I asked Monica—another WTM member who helped me through this initial and sometimes confronting digestion phase—that I want to get more involved and help them with what they’re doing.
About two days later she shared an email with me from a 41-year old guy from Zambia called Franklin. Franklin had just finished reading FREEDOM himself and he wanted to get involved too. I can still remember Jeremy’s response to his email. He suggested Franklin comes to the Sydney WTM Centre and see for himself the work that the WTM is doing. When I read this, I knew that it was on! This was my call to action and I immediately wrote an email to Tony and Monica to let them know that I will come to Sydney too. I was overwhelmed by their response when they told me that it was okay to come and I couldn’t believe that all of this was actually happening. I was talking about all of this, the book and the WTM, with Gerald, my best friend at home, and I also talked about it with my girlfriend, my mum and many other people and everyone was totally supportive of me and my seemingly childish dream to fly to Sydney. Nothing could stop me now and so I did my best to coordinate everything at work and all the other things and now I’m here.
It hasn’t even been a week yet, but I can tell you that this is the most wonderful experience I have ever had in my life. Seeing the amazing transforming effects this understanding of the human condition has on people when they digest its significance—how it leads to an integrated, secure state, both within a person and between people—is the ultimate proof that this new world Jeremy has been talking about for more than 40 years is really possible! And it’s the most precious experience someone like me could have ever hoped for.
For all of my life I refused to take pride in anything I did and so it’s for the first time ever that I can say that I’m proud of what I’m doing. What am I doing? I’m starting a WTM Centre in Austria with my best friend Gerald and our childhood friends and everyone else who wants to join us—because we’ve all been excitedly talking about and digesting these understandings of the human condition amongst ourselves, and I am really just their representative in our group’s desire to set up a WTM Centre in Austria. And while this sounds like a big thing, all I’m really doing is talking about Jeremy’s explanations with my friends and family, because I LOVE THEM and for the first time in my life it’s possible for me to show them my love, because that’s how empowering and relieving this understanding of the human condition really is.
I never dared to even think about something like this, and I can totally understand everyone who thinks this is crazy, but I’m finally able to tell you with 100% clarity that this explanation of human nature is true. Jeremy Griffith has solved the human condition and by doing so we are now in a position to SOLVE EVERY PROBLEM ON EARTH. And not only can I know this with my heart, I can know it with my mind, because what Jeremy has to offer is an explanation and not an idea, or a theory or even a religion. No, this is true and I can feel it with all of my mind AND heart and I cannot wait to fly back home and share this feeling with everyone I know.
It’s on now. We can finally be free and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else or do anything other than be a part of this most wonderful thing in the world—the World Transformation Movement. We can finally leave this cave forever and get out of our prison and ride along with each other on our HIGHWAY TO SUNSHINE!
And if that’s okay, I would like to play a song for you that I’ve written. I have called it Highway to Sunshine.
Highway To Sunshine
All I really want to do now, is leave this cave forever / I want you to come with me now, we’re gonna leave together / All I really wanna do now, is leave this cave forever / You can show me how to do it, let’s get away together / Then we get into my car, refuel it it’ll take us far / Don’t look back on yesterday, ahead of us…
Chorus:
A Highway to Sunshine / Sweepin’ clouds away / A Highway to Sunshine / Now we hear what you say
All we need is break our chains now, and get out of our prison / We can finally take a chance now, for we do know the reason / All we need is break our chains now, and get out of our prison / No one’s free until we all are, we only need to reason / Now we get into my car, refuel it it’ll take us far / Don’t look back on yesterday, ahead of us…
Chorus repeated twice
Yeh now we know what has taken us so long / All our life we were waiting all alone / Deep inside, a dark place we don’t like / Leavin’ now, to finally take the high…
Final Chorus:
A Highway to Sunshine / Sweepin’ clouds away / A Highway to Sunshine / Now we hear what you say / A Highway to Sunshine / Sweepin’ clouds away / A Highway to Sunshine / Now we’re here to stay
Franklin Mukakanga from the WTM Zambia Centre
Genevieve’s introduction to Franklin:
As I mentioned in my Introduction, Franklin Mukakanga is from Zambia in Africa. As you can see from the cover of this 1920 book titled The Ila-Speaking Peoples of Northern Rhodesia (which is now called Zambia), the Ila-speaking people are among the most prominent in the southern region of Zambia—and from amongst the Ila-speaking people, Franklin’s tribe is from the very heart of that region. And I think it’s of some interest that Franklin is actually part of the royal family in the line of succession to the chiefdom of his tribe. He is an Ila prince, and I think once you hear him speak you will realise he is a man of such extraordinary gifts that it’s no wonder he is in line to become chief of his people. Franklin is also the copy creative director of the Zambian branch of the biggest advertising firm in the world, Ogilvy and Mather. He’s had his own radio program in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. He’s a classical pianist, a psychological therapist and was reading college-level English books at the age of 6! A very talented man indeed to be establishing our first WTM Centre in Africa—and he has the right coloured T-shirt on, that’s for sure!
Franklin’s speech:
My name is Franklin Mukakanga of the Ila Tribe of Southwest Zambia. I represent the WTM Centre in Zambia’s capital, Lusaka.
In October 2016 (which is about 3 months ago now), I downloaded FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition from the WTM’s website after coming across an online advertisement offering a free copy. As it turns out, FREEDOM is biologist Jeremy Griffith’s definitive work on the human condition.
Anyway, within 5 weeks I had devoured the book from ‘cover’ to ‘cover’, as well as a lot of his earlier writing, and found his explanation of the human condition not only answered so many questions about us as a species but also explained me as an individual in ways that nothing else had done before—and it did this so thoroughly that it completely rewired my understanding of the world and immediately began stilling my mind and healing my soul.
FREEDOM deals with subjects as diverse as why we as a species are so divisive and destructive; how and why we adopt the way of living that inevitably leads us to being egotistical and hungry for fame and glory; why the sexes are at war; why the different ‘races’ or people groups of the world are so different and interact the way they do; the origin, nature, purposes and roles of religion and science and how they fit into the human journey; the path to reconciliation of ourselves with ourselves and the wider world. This seminal work inspired such a regeneration within me and sparked such hope for humanity’s future that I could not sit on the sidelines and watch humanity hurtle towards self-destruction anymore.
Finally I had the answer to my own, and the world’s, troubled situation. The answer that, though challenging and potentially confronting, as all truth must be, was, at the same time, transforming. I started sharing what I’d learned with my friends, my colleagues, even my children. The lights I saw coming on in their eyes as they grasped the understandings and the deep changes taking place within them and myself as a result of coming into contact with this information inspired me to open a World Transformation Movement Centre in Lusaka. If everyone could get this reconciling understanding, we could restore humanity’s alienated soul and save the human race from destroying itself. I had to do my part!
In working as part of the WTM I am helping to bring true healing and transformation to the world, most especially to Africa, where I live, and which I will talk more about, where the ravages of poverty, HIV and inequality make life a living hell for the vast majority of people; and where the struggle to make sense of our lot leads to such despondency and dysfunction. Knowledge is power. And no knowledge is more powerful than self-knowledge.
With the self-knowledge open to us all through the solution of the human condition, as presented in the work of Jeremy Griffith and the WTM, humanity can stand empowered. Through it there are no more excuses. There is no more blame. There is true understanding. There is release. There is a true awareness of what we all, as diverse members of the human race, bring to the party of life; there is a letting go of emulation and the strife to become what we’re not. There is true, organic growth of the human family because now humanity has a new baseline. In the WTM we call it the Transformed Lifeforce State. It’s not rocket science. It’s just our description for the transformation that this information makes possible. It’s empowering. It allows for authentic, soul-nourishing living.
A soul renaissance is upon us, both in Africa and the rest of the world, and I am excited to be a part it. Join us as we live to save the world.
Just to explain a bit about myself. All my life I was driven by a sense of purpose; to find answers to the riddle of life, both for myself and others, and to help as many people as I could to understand life’s meaning so they could free themselves from the effects of what I now know to be the human condition: depression, addictions, apathy, stagnation and lack of motivation.
I always lived an optimistic, hopeful, bright and joyous life and wanted to infect the world with what I had: a passion for living and discovery and wondrous, ongoing personal growth. Wasn’t this the only way to get through what I saw to be the otherwise drab, dull and dysfunctional thing we called life?
I learned many techniques, psychological tools, technologies and strategies to help bring relief to people, working, over many years, as a life coach and therapist, as well as presenting a radio program that focused on personal development and self-empowerment—all with a view to bringing relief and healing to people everywhere. I wanted every person I came in contact with to recapture the magic of living!
I quickly learned, however, that the arsenal of the techniques, tools, technologies and coping strategies I was employing just weren’t able to go deep enough to truly heal and change people’s circuitry, because they didn’t answer the fundamental questions at the heart of the issue of being human: Why am I at war with myself? Am I a mistake? Why are we as a species such a contradiction—on one hand unbelievably loving and on the other greedily destructive? Am I evil?
I reached a point where I realised that all I was doing was offering Band-Aids where people needed life-saving surgery. In my frustration, after having tried and tried and tried to effect meaningful, lasting change in the best ways I had learned how, I was burned out, so I just quit, telling myself that I would return to it when I found a new way to achieve my goals, not realizing that by quitting then I was simultaneously quitting on myself and nearly giving up the struggle to hold onto my soulful nature.
I got off radio, stopped life-coaching and gave up on offering therapy. While I knew there was still a lot of work to be done as people remained broken and in need of answers, I could not go on offering them things that I knew all ended the same way: things that were powerless to truly effect lasting, transformative change.
During the next two-and-a-half years, looking for something that would make sense of it all, I read many, many books and felt nothing; not challenged, not inspired, not, that was, until I found Jeremy’s work online.
What a relief it was to find such a seminal work by someone who had crossed all the barriers that had prevented so many before him from providing the master key for people-helpers and lovers of humanity everywhere; a key replete with answers that had eluded me (and many more qualified and better educated than myself) all these years!
Finally, when I read FREEDOM, I knew I had found the missing piece that would not only restore me but also enable me to get back in the saddle so that I could get back to doing what I had set out to do all those years ago: to bring true healing through reconciling understanding to the hearts and souls of my fellow human beings, especially back home in Africa, where, as I said, the ravages of poverty, HIV and inequality make life a living hell for the vast majority of people.
What truly amazed me about the answers provided in Jeremy’s work was just how deep they went for me on a very, very personal level.
As a Bantu, or African, man born and living in a country once colonised by the British, like so many, I had no love for the Caucasian race.
Based on stories I had heard, things I had read; the historical accounts kept alive by so-called ‘Black consciousness’ or ‘Black empowerment’ movements; my own observations of the eroding indigenous culture and death of African languages on the heels of colonialism and the West’s ongoing exploitation of African resources, I had no kind thoughts for ‘bakuwa’ as white people are called in my mother tongue.
I did not hate them. I just hated what they had done and continue to do to my people in the process of bringing us ‘civilisation’.
This led to a deep resentment and to my treating Caucasians with a cool, guarded ambivalence. I was happy if they stayed out of my way and I stayed out of theirs; I never took the initiative to make Caucasian friends and totally lacked that desire or drive that many Africans have to visit Western lands.
I also considered it my sacred duty as an African man to remember and teach others to remember how the bakuwa had screwed us over and how ‘we’ couldn’t and shouldn’t ever trust ‘them.’ Sure, I got to know a few Caucasians who slipped under the radar over the years, but by and large I was not interested in making them my friends.
It was incredible then to read Jeremy’s compassionate, first-principle based explanation of the differences between the races. I learnt that these differences exist because each race has had a different level of exposure to humanity’s psychologically upsetting, but heroic search for self-understanding. And it’s these different degrees of exposure that have directed the ways in which different races behave, both amongst themselves and towards others. Well, when I learnt this, all the negative feelings I had harboured for many, many years about the more ‘upset’ races from more advanced civilisations (such as the Caucasians) immediately melted away.
Jeremy had so fully and accountably explained our racial differences that it healed my inner resentment of ‘colonising Brits’ and by extension, of the Caucasian race and others, cutting like a hot knife through butter. It even made me aware of my own race’s oppression of other races such as the !Kung Bushmen. [F. Essay 28 explains how understanding the human condition ends all prejudices like racism forever.]
From my own experience I can thus say with absolute certainty that, as the word gets out, FREEDOM will provide the key to healing poor or strained ‘race relations’ throughout the world. Basically, this understanding of the human condition will end all prejudices, like racism, forever. It is so exciting to think about what the world is going to be like when this understanding becomes widely known and understood because it is going to bring about a world that is harmonious, healed and transformed, which is the glorious home our species deserves at the end of its journey to self-understanding.
FREEDOM is a phenomenal, far-reaching work whose value, especially at this point in Earth’s history, cannot be overstated, and I am excited about being a part of the WTM’s momentous project and setting up Africa’s first centre to help bring freedom and transformation to the whole world. So, as I say, join us as we live to save the world!
Sam Akritidis from the WTM Melbourne Centre
Genevieve’s introduction to Sam:
So, I’d now like to introduce Sam Akritidis. Sam was born in Melbourne, Australia, and is of Greek origin. He’s a Structural Engineer with an Honours degree from Monash University. He’s also represented Australia in the sport of Lacrosse. Sam is a long-time WTM member and also a long-time friend of us all here at the Sydney WTM Centre.
Sam’s speech:
As Genevieve mentioned, my name is Sam Akritidis, and I was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia.
I just can’t believe this time has come, and that I am here on Earth right now to witness these ideas take hold and culminate into a massive tsunami of love across the world to end all the suffering.
I first became aware of Australian biologist Jeremy Griffith’s thesis on the human condition in 2005, after reading his best-selling book A Species In Denial. From that time on, there has not been a day that I haven’t feasted on all the incredible life-changing explanations captured in Jeremy’s work. It simply, rationally and logically gets to the bottom of every aspect of our behaviour, and provides an unbelievably exciting transforming potential for all of human kind.
Understanding the human condition changes everything. Over the last 12 years I have spent countless hours reading, absorbing and discussing these insights and have thoroughly enjoyed witnessing the relief and transforming positive effects that it has on people’s lives. But now it’s time to make it really happen.
Until recently, I have been working in NSW and now that I have come back to my hometown of Melbourne, where I have many old friends, some of whom are also greatly appreciative of this work—especially Frank Balamatsias who is sitting here beside me—we have decided we just have to establish a WTM Centre in Melbourne. I can’t think of anything more fulfilling to do than to encourage others to explore and understand these insights, and assist them in any way I can to access the relief that they bring to every individual.
I know from experience that the human condition is an incredibly difficult and confronting subject and has been completely off-limits since time immemorial, but there really is nothing to be scared of. The more you work your way into Jeremy’s explanations, the more you see how relieving, redeeming and uplifting understanding the human condition is.
Dismantling the traditional fear and anxiety associated with the subject, by providing a place to openly talk about and discuss the paradigm is something I think is absolutely exciting. There is no subject in the world that is more deserving of a forum and Centre than this compassionate understanding of ourselves.
What an incredible scientific breakthrough Jeremy Griffith has presented. For me his latest book FREEDOM is the bedrock on which humanity’s now optimistic, exciting and free future will be based. Being here today, and being able to contribute in my small way is more significant than anything else I can think of. In my opinion, nothing provides greater benefit to an individual more than this biological understanding of the causes of oppression, pain and upset, and more importantly, nothing else resolves the psychosis-inducing conflict that has been crippling humans for an extremely long time.
For those that live in Melbourne or anywhere in Victoria, please know that Frank and I would love nothing more than to offer our time and support to you in any way we can. The biological work being presented by the WTM on its website at www.humancondition.com is a triumph for science and for the whole of humanity, and it’s bloody exciting.
Concluding remarks from Professor Harry Prosen
Hi Jeremy. I’d like to trace our friendship just a bit (I see many, many friends there, people I’ve known for a long time).
I’ve been part of this development for a long time. Jeremy might not remember very well, but it started when I was (and still am) psychiatric consultant to the Milwaukee Zoo working primarily with primates and primarily with bonobos, and my interest has been on empathy. Jeremy sent around a documentary proposal [2004’s The Human Condition Documentary Proposal], and didn’t send one to me initially, but he sent a great number to workers, keepers and biologists at the zoo, and they all gave me their copies! Shortly after that Jeremy and I talked one day and Jeremy said, ‘What do you think of it?’, and I said, ‘Jeremy, I’m never without it! I carry it in my briefcase.’ It hit me in my depths; I read it, I explained to others, it went into my writings on empathy. And then you and I got to know each other; I think we became very, very close friends—you’re one of my very dearest friends—and we talked about a lot of things. We even argued once in a while, but I never won an argument. You were always right and you still are always right. So I’ve seen us work full of hope, and I always knew, without any kind of doubt, that complete success was and is coming. And I not only saw your giant intellect and ability to write and talk and present so well, during some of our visits you also talked with my children and grandchildren, so my whole family in some sense is related to you and the WTM.
As background, I am not surprised that there are three more centres developing. It was, and is, inevitable. And it is, I don’t know, like lightning has struck and it has spread, with great rain now beginning to come down all over. I don’t want to take too much time but I wanted to say that most of you know that I’ve been a psychological therapist as well for over 50 years, so I wanted to take a moment to say to Franklin and Stefan, you guys should not be disappointed that you had blockages [were stymied in your attempts to understand the world and help others], because one of the great things about Jeremy’s work is that it covers and includes all of the great psychological and biological theorists in the whole world [it explains the virtues and limitations of these great theorists]. I’ve met many of them. Even if you go to Freud and talk about superego and id and whatever other junk, it’s all encompassed without the verbiage in Jeremy’s writing and thinking; he has it all there. It’s there, and it has been absorbed by some, and now it is flooding out to more.
Jeremy is one of the most magnificent people in the world. I can say that without any question and you all know how dearly I love him. He’s a very lovable guy—it’s impossible not to love him!
So, to Franklin and Stefan, we’re so fortunate to have you with us, and to have discovered you, to come aboard and to take us all forward. We are going forward.
