In business training we do an exercise with people to help them experience why people don’t speak up when something’s unclear or different from the accepted viewpoint.

Start this exercise with the management team (as it helps them see why others may not ask questions) and they then can be supportive of the process. Here’s the exercise.

Have the group of people sitting with access to a pen and paper allow introductions, hellos all the usual things, and then say there’s an introductory exercise that involves drawing, it will take about 10 mins. Say I’ll read out the instructions please follows them as I go. You say the following (or something similar) and the people draw what you are reading out.

Go about describing something relatively ordinary and add in one word (item) that has an unusual name and unlikely to be known but still ordinary sounding enough that can be read confidently and seamlessly with the rest of the words.  For example ask them to draw:

a house, with 2 windows and a door, a fence at the front, a tree on the left hand side, a fen out front, a bird sitting in the tree, a car on the right hand side etc.

Share this description at a pace that people can quite easily draw without being overly detailed within the list of ordinary known things include something that is a real thing but unlikely to be known by the group. In this case we said a fen without saying what it was – just keep listing things.

Most in a group will keep drawing, they may feel momentarily uncomfortable about not quite hearing the word properly, think about stopping the group and asking but not wanting to disturb the flow etc etc.

After doing the listing say that the process is complete and ask people about their drawings. This gives an upper another opportunity for anyone to ask about Finn she killed a few obviously can’t see any little wetlands drawn on properties will stop then allow a moment and ask was that easy did you know everything that was said? Again it can be rare that anyone speaks up.

If there’s still no-body then you can ask how did you all go with the Fen. At this point you can either have a room that is quiet or someone brave enough to say is that what you said I didn’t quite get it what’s a fen?

Occasionally there is a person, in the middle of the drawing exercise, who says excuse me can you repeat that I didn’t get that – what’s a fen? This is a great moment as we know people who have the ability to speak up particularly in front of their peers and show they don’t know something or didn’t hear.

Well a Fen is a low and marshy or frequently flooded area of land so you’d expect to see a little wetland or pond drawn.

The conclusion of the practise is to allow people to open up and see for those who didn’t know it offend was what did they do.

  • Did they believe they heard something different?
  • Did they feel embarrassed to ask because everyone else looked like they knew so they didn’t say anything?

The discussion can go on for a little bit of time showing how easy it is to not ask even when it’s been made clear to stop and ask if something’s uncertain. Then we can move to the reasons of why people do this but that’s the topic for another posting. Here this exercise and discussion after is to create an experience so that we can relate to why things don’t change easily.

This part of the book (chapter 2 the great controversy) shares with us how and why science can be so stifled when an existing theory is presented in a dogmatic way (dogmatic meaning spoken and presented as if true) and where any counter viewpoint is dismissed, made fun of, and or ignored. Wacky group in a schoolyard where one person is ostracised others don’t want to be associated with them for fear it will happen to them as well. Well it’s no different with many adults.

We do have the exception of people who make breakthroughs and if we reflect on the western science and those who’ve made the greatest breakthroughs we’ll see that many of them went through a period of being ridiculed. In today’s science this includes physicists such as Nassim Haramein and those he works with such as sDr. Elizabeth Rauscher, Ph.D. NUCLEAR AND ASTROPHYSICS and the work on the connected Universe and Black Holes https://www.resonancescience.org/about-nassim-haramein

All the more reason for us to be open minded and gain the data for ourselves or have the ability to re look at what’s put in front of us and actually see the information rather than other people’s preset opinions. It’s often true that you find what you’re looking for . So even before looking there is great value in putting aside all that is already known.

Another exercise is that shared by professor Fred Alan Wolf, another physicist, he said imagine for a moment that something that you know that is absolutely true is not true . I remember when I heard this the first time what came to mind immediately was it’s true that when I breathe in the moisture in my lungs allows the oxygen to diffuse (move) into my bloodstream.  So then to take it that I was saying it is absolutely not true that when I breathe the moisture in my lungs allows the oxygen to diffuse into my bloodstream I had to come up with other things that were enabling the oxygen to get into my bloodstream and indeed this became a very interesting exercise I recommend it. Through doing the exercise I realised how many ideas there can be when the brain is enabled to tap in to a wider variety of options. And from this perspective we can have breakthroughs in our understanding or at least in letting other options be considered.

Inside the Earth the second tunnel by Radu Cinamar is highly recommended whether it be from the perspective of asking what if? Or attempting to prove the hollow Earth theory wrong or anything in between. Allowing the information to be heard brings about new concepts, not only of the Earth structure, but also for yourself.