This is an introduction to a new process of dialectical interchange:¹   investigations carried out by the author and selected readers in a reciprocal exchange. This process constitutes a new genre which utilizes the mystical science of maieutic psychagogy via interactive Internet communication.

     These dialectical interchanges are reserved for those who:

1. Make the commitment to study an initial prerequisite essay on dialectic

2. Successfully complete a screening test on the essay

3. Study thoughtfully the essay through which they entered this process and create ten questions or comments on the essay

     Selected readers and the author engage in a real-time interchange using a specially-constructed online intercommunication system.

Participation in Dialectical Interchange

     For most people, the ordinary world-view is not only acceptable but preferable to any other they might consider. But some persons have a genuine desire to go beyond ordinary appearances and attempt to penetrate into the ultimate nature of reality. It is certainly not necessary to engage in this quest for ultimate awareness, and we have no reason to cast aspersions on persons who choose not to engage in this effort.

     So, we must be certain that only those persons who definitely want to practice the search for and love of deeper wisdom, those who want to become true philosophers, are encouraged--or allowed--to participate in these dialectical interchanges.

     Persons can merely read the essays designated as allowing for dialectical interchange, but it will be of no practical benefit to them, because they'll find it impossible to enter effectively into the exercises, meditations, and dialectical investigations involved. They might feel they were participating just by reading and talking, but the lack of personal transformation will soon become evident both to the reader and the author.

     These dialectical interchanges involve a different kind of experience than merely reading an essay and offhandedly commenting on the ideas. Those who cannot enter into the transformative process involved in this series would waste the dynamic of the interchange--and waste their own time as well. The methodology of the dialectical exchange requires new kinds of responses and initiatives: not just reacting or blathering, but creating, thinking, developing, guessing, suggesting possible ideas and procedures, acknowledging what one is feeling, and persistently evaluating one's progress in transformation.

     This introduction can only indicate a small amount of what is required for effective participation in a dialectical interchange:

• Giving up self-importance

• Recognizing and acknowledging that ordinary perception is based on one's world-view (mind-set, concept of reality, view of what life is, view of what's important, belief as to what constitutes knowledge)

• Persistence in self-examination

• The free exchange of ideas and feelings

     If a seeker actively participates in a dialectical interchange, the result is a definite change in his personality. Very few persons honestly want to change; they feel they're quite okay the way they are. To such persons, the dialectical exchanges would seem dangerous and frightening--or utter nonsense.

     Only those seekers who are willing--in fact, eager--to go through the re-training of their psyche to rid themselves of all the false beliefs and moods that keep them from discerning the hidden nature of reality would find such an interchange of value.

This small sample is provided to assist persons get a "feel" for what goes on in a somewhat typical dialectical interchange. It is a first session and shouldn't be construed as representing a pattern that would occur in all interchanges. Each interchange is made up of an entirely unique configuration of ideas, communications, and interactions--as the event unfolds.      This illustration may help prospective participants prepare for a dialectical interchange in the sense of seeing how necessary it is to move out of the cliched, hackneyed, academic, scholastic communication mode as soon as possible. In this sample session, there is only a bit of the sense of an altered mode of interchange; in other interchanges the movement into an altered state of consciousness occurs more markedly and quickly.

If you are definitely committed to participating actively in a dialectical interchange, as herein delineated: Study the prerequisite essay: Plato's Mystical Science: Maieutic Psychagogy Read thoughtfully the essay through which you entered this process and create ten questions or comments on the essay Submit your questions via email to the author      If you successfully complete the screening test and create satisfactory 2 questions, you will be contacted as to the date, time, and Internet location of the next dialectical interchange. Further sepcific instructions on how to participate in the interchange will be provided.

¹ Interchange: To give and receive mutually; exchange

² Satisfactory: perceptive, comprehensive, inciteful