most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes.” This much will give you a safe and accurate way to proceed. Here are the words again:
When, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive to these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes;”
Exercises for Days Four through Seven: The rest of this first week will be quite difficult. Do not underestimate the demands its tasks impose upon your concentration, stamina, and intellectual discipline. Devote days four through seven to mastering the rules (by memorizing you will also begin to practice them) by which you both choose and commit yourself to live the present as history.
You will be asked, at first, only to align in contemplation your governing scene with the week’s assigned historical subject. The goal is for both the scene and subject to be revealed through the day’s exercises in their emancipative dimensions. This goal will be framed and eventually brought to completion by inserting yourself into the master narrative you have chosen.
The most difficult task during these days is the following: The rules of this method prescribe precise procedures for converting contemplative juxtapositions (these are designed to strengthen the powers of memory) into the internal mental sound of a single musical note being sung by a human voice. Each note’s timbre, pitch, and duration are fashioned from the application of this method’s logic to your meditations using prescribed elements from the method’s three tables. (This instruction will become second nature to you after a few days’ practice.) You will become intimately acquainted with these tables (and make them your own) during the next four days. This will appear difficult, at first, but I assure you that creating a note’s sound in your mind creates the basis for reciprocity upon which another history can proceed.
A historical method of true virtue is necessary to create love songs out of music that comes to you first in words whose syntax has already betrayed you. It will permit you to sing, in the midst of empire, a universal history that includes your one true love.
Through contemplation, memorization, and meditation, begin to practice this historical method by learning its exercises and absorbing its principles as explained below.
Rules for a Historical Method
Master Narrative :____________________________________
Governing Scene :____________________________________
My master narrative is the history of George Anderson, former slave, born on a plantation near Danville, Virginia in 1817 and interviewed by Marion C. MacRobert for an article in the Trenton, New Jersey State Gazette, published on April 6, 1925. The entire article is included at the end of this method.
Table One: Historical Subjects
List here the four subjects you have chosen for the four weeks of this historical method’s meditative cycle.
I.____________________________________________________
II.____________________________________________________
III.____________________________________________________
IV.____________________________________________________
Note: During the first cycle of your practice, the first week must be devoted to learning the rules of the method. You will not therefore be able, during your first cycle, to undertake a full meditative engagement with your fourth subject. I have found it best, when beginning the method’s complete cycle for the second time, to begin with the first subject and work through the historical subjects in the same order in which they were listed originally. All of us list last the subject in which we place the most hope. For that reason, the fourth subject is the one to which it is important that we bring the most practiced discipline each time we arrive at it.
I have recorded the results of my own practice of this method’s exercises during one cycle to provide you with examples against which you can juxtapose your own. This will allow you, when we meet, to have a reliable way to answer or refuse my good faith. I have not been able to say this to anyone before now (I hope to say it to you in person when we meet): The coerced complicity of presence enforced in every moment by our class’s rule is unbearable. Patriotic constructions of nationality cannot substitute for justice or justify postponement of history’s enlightened dream of natural, universal equality: Freedom is not free when it is used for domination.
Table One: Theo Fales’s Historical Subjects
I. George Anderson, 1817 – 1926 (?)
II. Derek Takes, 1964 –
III. Judith Takes, 1939 – 1999
IV. Theo Fales, 1949 –
Table Two: Truth Statements
When in my vision I came to the end of myself and found other people standing there, it never occurred to me that others would not believe my account of what I saw. I was un-prepared. The truth of vision always appears self-evident. In my relief and joy I made the mistake of demanding from my close friend and colleague there in the church in front of witnesses his account of the equivalent scene from his personal history. The truth I saw in my vision (I was convinced of it then and am convinced of it now) was that every American has his or her own true version of the moment I heard and saw. Another history will be made possible if we say it aloud: Limitless possession in the New World and universal freedom cannot be reconciled.
Speech as persuasion must be used for good. Speech must be grounded in truths the speaker has tested in the body offered in the service of reciprocity. Memorization helps. Memorization assures familiarity with the words when someone speaks of matters held in common by everyone.
In the event history—like empire, like music—happens all at once. This is presence. Meditations on how to act in history occur within historical structures of emergency. The national security state suspends democracy.
The words of our love songs will not mean anything until we find the music with which to make them true. The words with which we collude with empire are used for advantage, not reciprocity.
I have found it useful to memorize seven truths. The application of these truths to the scenes in my mind produces knowledge I hold onto. I hold them in the present with the mental sound of a musical note. This note sounds according to the juxtaposition (early in the morning) of three things: a true master narrative, a historical subject, and a governing scene. Their juxtaposition is arranged and applied in the presence permitted by each day. Presence is
