In a recent journal entry, I wrote:
I deliberately write “control her” because there’s something more profound about this psychic action compared to “changing her” (as in, ‘changing other people’). It is like I have these psychic claws trying to grab on to “her” and wield “her” in “my” image (“my” desires and needs).
Followed by this fun meme. Today (Jan 7, 2025), I realized that my “psychic claws” phrasing was likely influenced by a similar phrase mentioned on the AFT website—psychic tentacles. This article catalogues all those uses:
Richard
Richard has used it exactly once, in the spiritual context:
[..] once ensnared in the psychic tentacles of Divine Healing it is deemed sacrilegious to break free. (link)
That said, he also responded to someone using a similar phrase (see bottom of this article).
Peter
Peter used it to describe what was holding ‘him’ back:
I then became aware that there were tentacles holding ‘me’ back from doing so and that these tentacles were the many psychic tentacles that bound ‘me’ to Humanity at large. (link)
He elaborates further on it elsewhere:
In hindsight, this stage represents a point of no return on the path to freedom as the emotional ties that bind you to humanity – the feelings of malice and sorrow together with their antidotal feelings of love and compassion – are so weakened as to be ineffectual. I once experienced these ties as long tentacles stretching way into the distance behind me – tentacles that stopped me from being free. I also realized that if these tentacles were broken then ‘I’ would be no more. And not only would ‘I’ cease to exist – but even more shocking – nobody would miss ‘me’.
Nobody would grieve ‘my’ passing, for no one really can know ‘me’ because ‘I’ am non-physical and non-substantive. They may think and feel they know ‘me’, as ‘I’ think and feel ‘I’ know other ‘me’s’, but because ‘I’ have no substance in actuality, then it would be impossible for others to even notice ‘my’ demise. If these emotional ties or tentacles were to be broken, ‘my’ final demise would be a very private and solitary experience – followed by oblivion.
What became apparent from this experience was that if these tentacles no longer existed I, this flesh and blood body, would be irrevocably alone in the world. [..] Since this experience these tentacles have become even weaker, as is evidenced by an almost total disappearance of the normal emotional ties that bind ‘me’ to the other ‘me’s’ and the lack of any emotional memories that give substance to a ‘me’ having a past or a future. (link)
Vineeto
The phrase, however, is used most extensively by Vineeto.
All in all, love produces almost visible psychic tentacles that engulf the other and make him or her a commodity of one’s own desire. [..] ‘I’ love the other because he/she makes me happy, because ‘I’ feel less lost, lonely and frightened in his/her presence. ‘I’ care for him/her because he/she is the centre and hero / heroine of my dream and the moment ‘my’ hopes, needs, dreams and expectation are not fulfilled, love turns into disappointment, resentment, retreat or even hate.
[..] Love prevents me from appreciating and meeting the other as a fellow human being because every feeling towards the other, positive or negative, makes me unable to perceive the other as an autonomous human being. Being in love, I create an all-pervasive affective image of the other, consisting of my hopes, needs, fears, dreams and expectations. Only by being an autonomous human being myself can I experience an actual intimacy with my fellow human beings. (link)
The above passage, incidentally, is similar to what I reported in my journal entry above.
Elsewhere, she used it in the context of being thrilled and obsessed (which too is inline with my journal entry, wherein I used the phrase “incredibly glad”):
Isn’t it a wonderful thing to discover a nasty trick of this very cunning entity, and by discovering it disentangle oneself of its tentacles? You move from not objecting to – to agreeing with – to beginning to investigate into – to becoming thrilled and finally obsessed with the journey into your psyche – slowly freeing yourself of the stranglehold the Human Condition has on us! (link)
Here’s the phrase used in the context of the need to belong itself, including the affective ‘connections’ (or ‘bonds’) we form with other people and the dissolution thereof:
‘the ‘need’ to affiliate’ is a sticky business. I remember clearly when I saw Peter for the first time not as an affiliate of any kind but as a separate-from-me fellow human being. In an instant of clear perception, all ‘my’ sticky psychic tentacles that automatically reach out both to objects and to people around me had fallen away. From this particular insight I gained an understanding about what usually happens in interaction with others. I began to see, and unravel, the connections that ‘I’ spun with others, the deals ‘I’ struck, the bargains ‘I’ committed to and the mutual obligations ‘I’ engaged in during my daily interactions with people, particularly those I considered ‘my friends’.
I am reminded of another insight about ‘connectedness’ from my early days of actualism. As I walked into town one day, I noticed a tree at a street corner and with surprise I also noticed that in that moment I did not feel connected with that tree in any way. I was surprised because, by the very absence of connectedness, I became aware of ‘my’ psychic tentacles and how they normally engulfed everything as belonging to ‘my’ milieu – not only this particular tree but most things in my close environment. ‘I’ considered everything as being related to me, either giving reassurance or posing a threat – I either liked it or disliked it, it was part of ‘my’ territory, or it was part of, as No 45 lately called it, ‘my universe’. This meant that whenever anything in ‘my’ territory changed alarm bells rang – I became confused, if not upset, disturbed, hurt, annoyed, resentful, angry or sad.
Throughout the process of actualism I have become aware of, and incrementally dissolved, my ‘connections’ to things in my close environment and I investigated my affiliations and friendships with people. As you pointed out, most sharing between people consists of commiseration, but as I continued with the actualism practice I had less and less to complain about my own life, which meant I had less and less common misery with people. The wonderful outcome of this ‘unconnectedness’ is that I am more and more able to meet and treat people as fellow human beings – that means I recognize and treat them as what they are instead of relating to them as bit players in ‘my’ game, subjects of ‘my’ moral judgements and demands, projections of ‘my’ fears and desires. (link)
She then goes onto using the phrase in the context of the actualism method itself,
[..] it is absolutely astounding that this one methods works to progressively dismantle all my problems. Whenever I notice an affective reaction to whatever someone says or does – I inquire why that is so – I discover a certain expectation or fear – I inquire why that is so – I notice the nature of my ‘psychic tentacles’ that automatically weave their web – I inquire what is the underlying purpose in having that particular bond – and bingo, brought to the light of awareness, my ‘psychic tentacles’ can no longer hold their grip. (link)
… including the ‘nipping in the bud’ part of the method:
For me, nipping in the bud comes mainly into play when I have already understood the core of the problem and need to entirely erase a persistent visceral habit. For instance when I applied myself to investigating the issue of love, I fairly quickly understood the dream that lays behind the pining feeling of love and awareness revealed the manipulating possessiveness of the feeling of love. However, it took me much longer to detect these feelings the moment they arose and to disempower the emotional feel-good hooks and tentacles before they had a chance to really take hold. Such feelings seem to have a life of their own until ongoing attentiveness and a sustained period of ‘nipping in the bud’ finally cut them dry. (link)
The ‘doer’ as weaver/ controller of tentacles?
During this searching of the AFT website, I came across this interesting exchange from Richard:
RESPONDENT: 3) I’ve become very conscious of how people are enslaved by the need to belong, and how it is impossible to be unconditionally happy and harmless while we harbour this need. Consequently, I’ve begun to withdraw my psychic/ social/ emotional tentacles, replacing emotional demands/dependencies with a friendly, commonsense, ‘live and let live’ attitude most of the time. There is a long way to go along this path, and there are some daunting prospects ahead, but I am emboldened by the results of the first steps.
RICHARD: Further to the ‘live and let live’ attitude … the following may be of assistance:
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘… because there is no ‘I’ in you, there is nobody to worry about anything or correct, improve anything? •
[Richard]: ‘There is no worry, no, but I am not too sure that this is because there is no ‘I’ … it is simply silly to worry as worrying does nothing whatsoever to get an event changed. I correct – and thus improve – what can be corrected … according to a preference for creature comforts and ease of life-style. For example: if I can sit upon a cushion instead of the brick pavers of the patio I will … that is a preference. But if a cushion is not available it does not matter … I thoroughly enjoy being alive at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space irregardless of what is happening. I could be just as happy and harmless on bread and water in solitary confinement in some insalubrious penitentiary … but I would be pretty silly to act or behave in such a way as to occasion that outcome!
The ‘I’ that used to inhabit this body did everything possible that ‘I’ could do to blatantly imitate the actual in that ‘I’ endeavoured to be happy and harmless for as much as is humanly possible. This was achieved by putting everything on a ‘it doesn’t really matter’ basis. That is, ‘I’ would prefer people, things and events to be a particular way, but if it did not turn out like that … it did not really matter for it was only a preference. ‘I’ chose to no longer give other people – or the weather – the power to make ‘me’ angry … or irritated … or even peeved, if that was possible.
It was great fun and very, very rewarding along the way. ‘My’ life became cleaner and clearer and more and more pure as each habitual way of living life was consciously eliminated through constant exposure. Finally ‘I’ invited the actual by letting go of the controls and letting this moment live ‘me’. ‘I’ became the experience of the doing of this business of being alive … no longer the ‘do-er’. Thus ‘my’ days were numbered … ‘I’ could hardly maintain ‘myself’ … soon ‘my’ time would come to an end. An inevitability set in and a thrilling momentum took over … ‘my’ demise became imminent’. (link)
This further bolstered my increasing understanding that the ‘doer’ largely operates by weaving these ‘tentacles’ (or ‘claws’) onto the world at large, which includes ‘itself’ (as in, controlling one’s own feelings). Fascinating stuff to contemplate!