THE APPROACH
The
work of The ™ emphasizes coming to know self as the
Player, the Creative Artist who individualizes through the medium
of a personality. Participants learn to engender a character-self
(personality) congruent with inner knowing.
In much the same way as the lights come up at the beginning of a
professional theatrical performance, light appears as we waken
each morning. The curtain of our eyes opens on the Play in
progress. As we stir in our beds, we step, usually unaware, into
the costume of self. Throughout the scenes of the day, we enact a
grand mixture of comedy, tragedy, and melodrama. We speak in
clichés born of patterned responses. We repeat yesterday’s
dialogue. We replay scenes. Night comes. The lights dim, and the
curtain falls. We exit to sleep, having hung the costume of self
in the wardrobe after yet another performance.
Players are Creative Artists who waken consciously to the Light.
They infuse their life-characters with vital force and make
conscious choices throughout the day about how to play their parts
in the drama of life. The ™ work promotes artistic
self-mastery.
THE LEADERS
The
Artistic Director of the experiential process, and the designer
of the program, is Arleen Lorrance, M.F.A. She has 18 years of
experience as a professional actor and director. She is also a
proficient group facilitator, speaker, and teacher. The Associate
Director, Diane Kennedy Pike, M.A., is also a teacher, speaker,
and group facilitator of long experience.
Both
women have published numerous books in the field of consciousness
and personal growth. They are co-directors of Teleos Institute, a
nonprofit corporation devoted to the individualizing process. It
disseminates the six Love Principles, which enable persons to
function more consciously, effectively, meaningfully and lovingly
in the world.
THE WORK
THE PROGRAM
All participants begin with Act I. Then they may
take Acts II, III, IV, and V in any order. With the approval of
the Director, it is possible to take more than one Act in a
season. Only after completing Acts I through V may one enroll in
Act VI.
Participants are guided, directed, stretched, and
encouraged in their work. Through individualized artistic
training, each learns to develop skills for conscious direction of
the creative process.
During each Act, participants learn techniques for
concentration, contemplation, and meditation. Body work, vocal
exercises, and breathing techniques are practiced in each Act.
Conceptual instruction and review and reflection help facilitate
the emotional and mental integration of the creative exercises.
Such methods are essential for one who desires to live a conscious
and creative life.
Between and after Acts, Players hone their
creative instruments and functionally integrate learning. Cassette
instruction, individual assignments, and coaching are available.
ACT I
WHO AM I?
The first Act offers a basic grounding in the
ability to identify the personality-self, or character, as an
expression of the I AM (the Player, or Higher Self). The primary
focus is on discovering the wonder of the character as a vehicle
that is a perfect representation of the Self.
This Act brings personality patterns into
awareness. It provides practice in staying centered and conscious
while creating the representative personality-self. Participants
develop skills in releasing excess tension and in functioning with
a purpose. Major areas of work include earning the right to
function through the personality you thought yourself to be, and
the creation of a new character.
ACT II
HOW AM I?
Act II encourages the development of concrete
skills for creating an inner and outer environment to enhance the
process of becoming. It focuses on making the body more responsive
to Player direction. There is training for proficiency in
concentration. One learns the liberating art of “public solitude.”
Act II delves more deeply into purpose and
objectives by beginning to delineate concise units of life
experience. Participants learn to function with a sense of truth.
The major work in this Act involves interacting with an outer
source, and then re-creating the character encountered there,
through your own form.
ACT III
WHAT AM I?
Act III presents the Self as the
Power-to-Be-Conscious functioning as an energy system. Players
practice stepping consciously into the energy world. They learn to
register energy frequencies, experience them, and give them
expression through the five chakras of character.
The focus throughout this Act is on empowering
self-expression through the Solar Plexus. Participants learn
techniques of memory recall and re-creation. They engage in
extensive practice with shaping feelings and using them to
motivate expression. They discover they do not simply “have”
feelings and need not feel “caught” in them.
The major projects in this Act highlight the
difference between “feelings” and “emotions.” Players use
combinations of color, texture, movement and music for vivid
Self-expression.
ACT IV
WHY AM I?
Act IV focuses on knowing one’s place in the
Whole. To gain perspective on life, it is important to identify a
Super-Objective. The Super-Objective gives the character’s life
meaning and purpose.
In this Act, participants learn to identify and
honor inner motivating forces. They practice adapting to life,
relationships, and circumstances, rather than accommodating. They
focus on activating the Will. And they learn to establish an
unbroken line that summons and strengthens the inner creative
state.
Major projects include the creation and enactment
of a character from an outside source. It is a character that
holds important insight for the individual’s relationship to the
Whole. Players learn to refine objectives, identify life-units,
and take self to the threshold of consciousness.
ACT V
ON WHAT INSTRUMENT DO I PLAY LIFE’S MUSIC?
In Act V, participants devote themselves to work
with the physical body, the voice, and speech. They learn to
identify and respect the tempo and rhythm of the whole self.
The experiences in this Act are quite diversified.
Players become more expressive by developing plasticity of body
movement and harmonious tempo and rhythm. Work with sounds,
diction, intonation, pauses, accentuation, poetry, and song
expands vocal awareness. Players consciously create three faces of
Self after uncovering the profound subtext in life that gives
birth to diverse character expressions.
ACT VI
I AM
ACT VI offers a synthesis of techniques and
concepts learned during the first five Acts. Participants have
practiced changing character patterns and creating artistic
responses to the now moment. They have worked creatively with the
structure of the personality in the everyday world. They have
experienced what it is to align character expression with energy
frequency registration.
Players are now ready for EMERGENCE into the full
recognition of the I AM in all forms of character expression. The
major work of Act VI is a culmination of this individualized work.
PARTICIPATION
No more than 16 are accepted in an Act. Applicants are received
on a first come, first served basis.
We do not allow the use of drugs, including alcohol, during
™ sessions.
COMMITMENT
We ask everyone to make a disciplined commitment
of concentrated energy and time so there is no distraction from
the focus at hand.
We encourage full participation in all experiences
and require attendance in all the sessions. We assess “full
participation” according to each one’s ability and unfolding
capacity. The work encourages integration. Everyone will work with
the physical body and the vocal instrument as well as the creative
imagination. We focus on the “still center” of knowing and teach
the objective mind to serve consciousness.
The work of The ™ is not a form of
therapy, nor is it to be used that way. It is, rather, an exercise
in creative self-responsibility and self-direction under
perceptive and intuitive guidance. Those who want to express the
full power of Self in the company of other individualizing Beings
will profit greatly from it. We ask that participants attend to
psychological work, and individual personality problems, or
opportunities, in other contexts.
