The Eugene Halliday Podcast

Episode 29 - Existence of God

Talk given at Parklands (Manchester, UK) on 27th January 1987.  
Beginning with a refutation of dualism, Eugene puts forward a proof for the existence of God.  
"How do we define God as infinitely, powerful, wise, active? We say God is power, form, function. Power, that which pushes itself about; form, that which shapes itself; function or activity, that which causes it to express itself in the actual world of phenomena, Power, Form, Function." 
A transcript is available at www.eugene-halliday.net. 

Episode 28 - Education

Talk given in Liverpool, UK, circa 1960. 
"Can we in-fact put information into a child, other than that which its physical level allows it to do?" 
In short, yes, this can be done...but it is not advisable. If we put information into a child that does not correspond with its physical performance or experience, and that information is, therefore, not put into action, it will operate as a poison within the organism. In trying to educate a child beyond the level at which their body can respond, we are sewing the seeds of future trouble. In fact, the increase in schizophrenia and similar mental disorders that we see today are a consequence of attempting to accelerate mental content beyond the capacity of the body to actualise it. 
Eugene discusses this process and how we can maintain our organism in correspondence with reality. 
A transcript is available at www.eugene-halliday.net. 

Episode 27 - The Buddhist Wheel of Life (Part 2)

Talk given in Manchester, UK. 
Eugene concludes his discussion of the symbology of the Bhavachakra, or Buddhist Wheel of Life. 
A transcript is available at www.eugene-halliday.net. 

Episode 26 - The Buddhist Wheel of Life (Part 1)

Talk given in Manchester, UK. 
Also known as The Bhavachakra, or Wheel of Becoming, the Wheel of Life is a mandala that represents the Buddhist view of the universe. For Buddhists, existence is a cycle of life, death, rebirth and suffering that they seek to escape altogether. 
Eugene discusses the symbology of the Buddhist Wheel of Life. This talk is provided in two parts. 
A transcript is available at www.eugene-halliday.net. 

Episode 25 - The Value of Words

Talk given in Liverpool, UK, circa 1960. 
The words that we use to communicate ideas are imbued with deep significance. Many great thinkers have discerned that 'to think' is 'to formulate'. The words that we use must be in correspondence with our thought processes; if they are not, then we are not able to understand ourselves. 
Precise language is essential for there to be understanding. 
A transcript is available at www.eugene-halliday.net. 

Episode 24 - Apocalypse

Talk given at Parklands (Manchester, UK) on 30th June 1985. 
Eugene discusses the meaning of 'apocalypse' and the general principles underlying writings about the 'end of the world'. 
Throughout recorded human history, governments have formulated rules (laws) in order to keep the masses under control. However, those that make the rules do not intend to restrict themselves by those same rules. Ultimately, all official rules made by government are made to maintain government. People who hold opinions different to those held by governments have frequently been persecuted by the lawmakers, via inquisitions, being burnt at the stake, hanged etc. 
There have always been intelligent people who have recognised that the laws made by the lawmakers were really "statements of the will of the lawmakers to control a situation, and handle people who were not bright enough to make laws for themselves". 'Prophets' who spoke out against the corruption of governments, because they wanted people to evolve towards a more conscious, free-willed, intelligent way of relating, were often put to death. 
Subsequently there came the 'Apocalyptics' who said "if we tell the truth openly, we will be put to death". So, they concealed the true meaning of their visions / revelations by using symbology. Eugene unpacks this symbology and outlines its true meaning for the individual. 
A transcript is available at www.eugene-halliday.net. 

Episode 23 - Dialectics

Talk given in Manchester, UK, on 29th May 1977. 
"...it is always possible to know more and we’ll see that if anyone thinks it’s not possible to know more when you know all there is to know, that person is an idolater. He has come to rest on a formulation of some kind and in so doing he has actually, by his identification with a finite formulation, stopped his own further evolution. The reason for that is that the ultimate reality is a power which is infinite and therefore capable of infinite modulations, of infinite creativity so that you are not seeking in the world to find the solution of a problem which is solvable because there is no finitude about that power." 
Referencing Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato, Hegel and others, Eugene describes the dialectical process, whereby any ordinary man or woman can become a philosopher-king. 
A transcript is available at www.eugene-halliday.net. 

Episode 22 - Nuclear War

Talk given at Parklands (Manchester, UK) in 1984. 
We, a handful of people, are not going to affect world governments who are pursuing control of world raw materials through having a shoot out over the possession of those materials, we can’t stop them. If we go and sit in a square in any town in the rain in the middle of winter with notices saying down with nuclear bombs, they are not going to stop, so we have a problem. 
Given this, what are we going to do about our own process? 
In a wide ranging talk touching on Pythagoras, Leucippus, Democritus, Spinoza and Nietzsche, Eugene describes a framework to help us avoid identification with the finite. 
A transcript is available at www.eugene-halliday.net, which includes all diagrams referenced in the talk. 

Episode 21 - Life is Like a Bowl of Cherries

Talk given at Parklands (Manchester, UK) on 26th February 1978. 
There was a Hassid Rabbi; the most wise man that has ever appeared on this globe. He was so wise all his disciples hung on his lips. When he was dying and getting weaker and weaker his disciples asked, “Oh most worthy and wise rabbi that ever lived, will you please, please tell us, is there some super message that you have not revealed to us? Have you got something tremendously important that you have kept secret, as wise men do, until on your deathbed and not before, you will reveal it?" 
And he looked very seriously at them and then said, “Yes, I have...there is one thing. If you must have a message most important in the whole of my teaching it is this. LIFE IS A BOWL OF CHERRIES.” Saying which he fell back on the pillow. His disciples flashed this throughout the globe, immediately to all the wise men in all the synagogues and schules in Bowdon, Hale, New York, Omsk, Minsk, Tomsk, throughout all the Jewish world. They flashed it by radio and by ‘phone and by telex and by satellite, and they began to meditate and they meditated very fast because he hadn’t long to live. They meditated very hard but they could not find out what it meant. So, they wired back, by the same procedures, radios telephones, telexes, satellites and they came back, “Quick, rush to the rabbi and tell him we have had this most wonderful message but we have not been able to solve its riddle. We cannot understand it. Please ask him what he has to say about it.” So they told him immediately. And, he looked at them and said, “So, you don’t understand, life is like a bowl of cherries. Well, I’m dying and I am so weak, I can hardly say now. So what am I going to say to you if you don’t understand it? Life is not like a bowl of cherries,” and then he died. 
What did the most wise rabbi mean? 
A transcript is available at www.eugene-halliday.net. 

Episode 20 - Geometrical Thinking

Talk given in Liverpool, UK, in the early 1960s. 
There is a very old Chinese statement that says - fire does not burn, water does not wet. The statement has to do with subjectivity and the fact that all we receive from outside is motion and that how we experience this motion depends on our own sensorium and its qualities. As individuals with senses we are interpretative mechanisms. No individual can possibly know anything beyond the limits of its own substance. Stated another way, all a being can know are the modifications of its own substance and any change occurring in a being other than a change initiated by the will of that being itself, is interpreted as coming from outside. 
Every stimulus that comes to us, from whatever source, can tell us nothing about the source of that stimulus. All we can ever know is what we become aware of inside ourselves as a result of that stimulus. “All that comes to us is motion and how we receive that motion in our substance determines what we believe about the external world.” Therefore, no individual can know the essence of another. All it can know is the perimeter stimulation of it. “When we consider then, any being whatever, in so far as it is circumscribed and we study the form of it, and the substantial formal relations within it, we are thinking geometrically.” 
A transcript is available at www.eugene-halliday.net.