About the Research Project

 

Project Background
The research project’s origin dates back to the mid-1970s when Neil Mastellone embarked on a personal journey of deep introspection and self-reflection.  That experience, which continued for almost eight years, led him to the understanding that the bulk of his personal pain and negative circumstances, essentially, were self-induced; the result of his own wrong choices and selfish control.  That realization has appeared true for every individual he interacted closely with during the next thirty years.

 

A Joint-Effort
In 1979, Neil met Jean who became his friend and clairvoyant research assistant.  Jean, since an early age, has had a remarkable ability to accurately "read" (in unusual detail) relevant psychological content stored in a person's aura and subconscious as "memory."  Her contributions to this project have been significant.  Over the years, she has generated and recorded over 1200 clairvoyant psychological readings.  Her readings are in-depth case study profiles that explore a wide-range of problems including a host of mental, emotional, behavioral, and sexual dysfunctions. 

 

Hitting the Road
In 1986, Neil and Jean began to travel extensively with two project-related objectives in mind.  To visit public and college libraries in the Northeast and Southern U.S., searching the book stacks for philosophical, psychological, sociological, and religious explanations of the cause of negative human behavior.  And, to meet individuals with whom Neil might interact with on a one-on-one basis-- freely sharing insights and findings, and listening to their life experience accounts in the hopes of discovering new truths and gaining greater understanding.  

 

Chance Encounters
As years went by, Neil came to spend time and interact deeply with hundreds of individuals, couples, and families.  They freely received information and candidly shared intimate details of their own problems, and experiences.  To help insure objectivity, Neil, at the outset had decided not to charge money for his time, insights, or advice.  This made unusually long, intense, in-depth interactions possible, and resulted in unusually open expressions and exchanges.  Chance encounters would start out casually with a simple hello on a hiking trail, in a library, on a checkout line, in a park, getting the car washed, on a handball court, or having a beer in a bar.  For many, the interactions were short-lived and remained casual and relatively superficial.  However, for some (actually for hundreds!), the interactions were long and lasted weeks, months, or more...and turned serious, personal, and intense.  Neil and his new "friend" would walk, sit, and talk sometimes for six, eight, ten, or more consecutive hours in a single day.  With some friends, it went like that every day for one, two, or, three weeks in a row.  A few friends did this with him for a couple of months, took-off, and returned six months later and resumed for a few more weeks or months before leaving again.  Neil remained open to interacting in this way, willing to drop all semblance of a personal routine for the next twelve years. 

 

Neil's motto during this period became "Follow the Willingness."  As long as a friend was willing to be sincere, and willing to keep digging deep, revealing personal negative facts and personal negative aspects that needed change, he would stay with the process.  It never ceased to amaze him how many random new acquaintances were at a point of personal crisis at the time of the first meeting.  Most new friends, at least at the outset, were not very open or honest.  Nevertheless, after seeing that Neil was sincerely caring about them and their pain, had no hidden agendas, and, was freely offering time, perspectives, and advice that they could use to substantially improve their lives, many became brutally candid about past negative experiences and personal wrong choices.   

 

Credentials
Neil is not a trained therapist and he did not work like one.  He was not a passive, nonjudgmental listener and did not accept people’s statements on face value.  He cared and knew that lies, illusions, rationalizations, justification, avoidance, and denial always made things harder and more painful.  He constantly challenged friends about inconsistencies, vagueness, and anything else that rang to him as being a possible area of avoidance, exaggeration, a lie, or concealment.  He regularly challenged choices that he viewed as being obviously selfish, unloving, dishonest, and irresponsible.  He knew that such choices were hurting the individual and anyone with whom he or she had touched or was currently interacting closely.  Neil would ask probing questions, and encourage the measurement and evaluation of past and present choices (in the light of what the person knew was truly right, actually true, genuinely loving, and lovingly responsible).  

 

No-Fault Living
Neil kept bumping into individuals who seemed driven to do things that they insisted they had no control over.  He knew these people were choosing to make most of their wrong choices subconsciously, and were consciously and irresponsibly denying that they were orchestrating their own destructive urges and acts. The vast majority of the friends he interacted with had long ago consciously distanced themselves from their more meaningful negative choices, feelings, and memories.  Convincing the individuals that they were always in full control of their inner experience, relevant memories, thoughts, feelings, actions, and reactions was usually a frustrating uphill process.

 

Forward progress was usually impeded by commonly accepted psychiatric and psychological theories and concepts that blatantly or subtly supported the notion that "a person isn’t fully responsible for what he or she intends, thinks, feels or does."  When challenged about their irresponsible stance, many friends (especially those who had spent long periods in conventional therapy) had a ready supply of “good" and "medically supported" reasons why their negative behavior was not their fault or under their control.

 

The "Balance Scale"
Early along the way, Neil developed what he called his “mental balance scale.”  It was a valuable and regularly used interaction tool and guide.  Here's how he used the scale: once it became obvious that a new encounter wasn't going to remain casual, Neil would  " tune-into" and attempt to sense and experience the level and weight of his new friend’s personal pain (something everyone is capable of doing.  Next, he would mentally place his evaluation on one side of the scale; the weight of that pain level sensing often tipped the person's "scale" considerably.  Neil had discovered earlier that the extent of a person’s emotional pain was equal to the extent or intensity of his or her selfish reaction and control that the individual had been indulging in.  He also knew that selfish reactions were destructive responses to wrong choices of a significant person in the individual's life.  In addition, also, that that significant other (the main object of reaction) almost invariably would turn out to be an extremely selfish, controlling, unloving, abusive mother or father.

 

One-on-One
During the early phases of a typical interactive relationship, Neil would encourage honest expression and endeavor to learn from his new friend negative facts and negative past experiences that would account for the amount pain and reaction he was sensing.  He would urge his friend to keep expressing about negative personal choices and experiences, mentally placing these facts and experiences on the other side of the person's scale.  The expressing continued until the negative experiences and reactions matched or nearly matched the level of pain and reaction he kept sensing in the friend.  All through this phase, during which Neil would ask the friend to tell his or her life story--sometimes two or three different times--listening and questions and challenging and urging.  Neil vowed to stay with the exploratory process as long as his friend remained open, honest and willing to be responsible for his or her choices.

 

Getting On Track
The truth is that during most interactions, Neil mostly challenged his friends about choices they had made that they knew and, eventually, acknowledged as not right.  Once a friend became willing to recount about substantial negative facts of his past experience, and accepted responsibility for the negative role that he or she had played in his or her negative past experiences, the person took a huge step toward understanding, healing, and positive change.  Being willing to acknowledge in detail the truth of their selfish reactions, (specifically to whom and why they were reacting so intensely, and how precisely how they had reacted), several friends placed themselves on a road leading to the end of long-term destructive and abusive behaviors.  That trip started with one determined conscious right choice, but it required consistent reaffirming choices every step of the way for them to get out of the deep hole they had dug themselves.  Those willing to make such choices changed themselves in substantial ways.  Many stopped abusing drugs or alcohol, or, gave up dangerous and destructive promiscuous or homosexual activity.  Unfortunately, most friends never went that far.  The overwhelming majority chose to prematurely eject themselves, ending both the exploration process and the personal contact.

 

Blood Ties
When push came to shove, in the face of hard right choices, most friends backed-down and wouldn’t stand-up for what they knew was right mainly because the choice usually meant risking a long-term family connection.  No matter how abusive, negative, or dishonest relationships might have been, family loyalty was frequently placed first over rightness (to all in the family’s detriment).  However, not always family loyalty or fear stopped a friend from moving in an obviously positive and right direction.  Many of Neil's friends, who were making impressive strides, stopped suddenly and reversed direction when it came to a choice that translated into an unselfish giving to someone close who had hurt them.  They deemed the recipient “undeserving.”  Doing what is right, giving to, and expressing love to those close who had hurt us in the past, is one of the biggest challenges facing every selfish person.  Equally difficult challenges are being willing to be wrong when we are wrong, and ending our selfish control.

 

Jean's Important Contributions
It was obvious that exposing friends to core-level subconscious truths about themselves would be of little benefit as long as they were still suppressing, repressing, avoiding, and denying.  Jean’s reports contained key information that the person had been consciously running from and rejecting most of his or her life.  Moreover, lacking a new commitment to honesty, personal responsibility and loving change, the data Jean generated proved to be of little value.  It usually went in one ear and out the other.  By 1991, before Jean was called in to help with a reading, a friend would have to display substantial, confirmable honest expression, plus, a sincere sustained effort at balancing his personal scale.  From then on, Jean was not asked to participate or provide clairvoyant input until a friend's scale had balanced or was nearly balanced.  Then, she was asked to generate a reading, or several readings, that were designed to unearth destructive subconscious data that was underlying a major pattern or problem the friend was struggling with. 

 

The "Stage"
 As the years went on, the number of encounters mounted, as did the number of Jean’s readings.  Neil and Jean became observers of what seemed a “play of life” set on a stage in which actor after actor would appear, tell his or her story, identify key personal and family negatives, to varying degrees make attempts at positive change, then, usually abruptly exit--making room for the next actor to appear.  Types of friends seemed to show up in chunks or related groups (i.e. one mentally ill type after another for weeks at a time, then one substance abuser after another, one homosexual after another, so on).  Concentrated periods of interaction with certain dysfunctional types, allowed for common patterns and common reactions to be identified.  Challenging facts and candid admissions kept piling up that consistently shattered conventional and popular psychiatric and psychological theories.  Unplanned interactions and resulting insights and observations drew Neil and Jean into viewing a variety of common negative behaviors up close.  People and their reports took the project down many different negative roads.  Eventually, however, each of the roads led back to a common place of origin: Selfish reaction to unloving, abusive parents.  At bottom, willfulness and selfish control rooted in knowing defiance of what each person knew was loving, true and right. 

 

The Subjects (Friends and Co-Experimenters)
 The ages, sex, and socio-economic-educational levels varied, as did the problems and modes of acting-out.  Some friends suffered obvious mental and emotional disorders.  Others had a drug, alcohol, violence, or legal problem.  Several were homeless and living way out on the edge.  Most friends, however, were mainstream types with families, friends, jobs, hobbies, and mortgages.  A few held substantial positions of responsibility and were well-financed.  Most were much more unstable than they first appeared.  A huge number had sexual problems; either they were promiscuous, having had a multitude of essentially dishonest encounters that lacked genuine feeling or even the slightest degree of intimacy, or, they had emotionally closed-down and withdrawn from sex altogether.  Some friends admitted to having been hospitalized for mental and emotional disorders (a few were hospitalized more than once).  Others, by any reasonable person’s evaluation, were obviously displaying severe dysfunctional symptoms, yet, had never sought, or had received, professional diagnosis or treatment.  Many substance abusers and homosexuals fell into this latter group.  Actually, all of the alcoholics, drug addicts, and gays, lesbians, and bisexuals whom Neil came to interact deeply with, were strikingly reactive and deceptively unstable.  All had showed a wide range of dysfunctional symptoms and were enacting typical incest survivor patterns and reactions.  Most eventually admitted to being incest survivors.  Whether extremely angry or fearful, functioning successfully in society or unable to cope, their accounts of early childhood and teenage feelings and experiences seemed consistently and chillingly similar.  Most could keep their negative characteristics hidden during the initial contacts, but, once Neil began questioning and probing for the truth about them and their experience, their true inner state would start surfacing.   

 

Life Scripts
The “canned scripts” that most friends used to tell Neil about themselves, their key relationships, and past experiences would not do--not if Neil and they were to get to the true source of their pain and dysfunction.  One of the early interactive tasks involved convincing a friend that the kind of therapy he or she may have experienced in the past, that is, unobtrusive, passive, non-judgmental, was essentially designed (to the person's detriment) to keep him or her in full control of the truth-seeking, truth-expression process.  The legal system surrounding child abuse, although designed to protect children and insure that medical professionals, social workers, and teachers report signs of child abuse, works to keep children from freely expressing because many fear that their parents may be arrested and imprisoned without receiving effective rehabilitation.

 

Most friends readily saw the value and importance of breaking their lock on vital personal and family truths.  Once they put aside highly edited and controlled life scripts, (which invariably caste their parents as "loving" and themselves as a victim of circumstances or other people’s wrong choices), they opened a door to a flood of relevant negative facts—especially, negative parent-related facts.  Those facts led to seeing a variety of selfish reactions to not having been loved at home.  Those reactions made up a substantial part of the negative truth about them and were what urgently needed change.  Unfortunately, the most important of these negative realities—memories, agreements, pattern-ideas, intense feelings and core intentions—were still being enacted subconsciously.   

 

Acknowledgements
Thanks to all of the friends we met along the way who willingly shared intimate details of their lives with us.  Special thanks to the relatives and old friends who lent financial support to keep us and the research project going, after personal funds were exhausted. 

 

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Upfront Press is a publishing venture formed to diffuse our important research information as widely as possible.  It is organized as a "social corporation" in the state of New Mexico.
                                                                                                                             

Neil and Jean Mastellone

 
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