Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dr. Haha Lung is the author of more than a dozen books on martial arts, including Mind Penetration, Mind Fist, The Nine Halls of Death, Assassin!, Mind Manipulation, Knights of Darkness, Mind Control: The Ancient Art of Psychological Warfare, The Lost Fighting Arts of Vietnam, and with co-author Christopher B. Prowant, Mind Assassins, Ninja Shadowland, and Mental Dominance.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

MIND WARRIOR

CITADEL PRESS

Contents

I. Getting Your Own Act Together.....................................................1Introduction: "Winning on the Only Battlefield"......................................11. The Beast Within (Who Doesn't Like to Do Without!)................................52. Twenty Ways to See What They Don't Want You to See................................453. Who Lies ... and How to Catch Them Doing It!......................................784. The Power of Persuasion...........................................................935. Yu-kami: The Seven "Spirits" of Success...........................................1466. Hannibal's Six "Movers of Men"....................................................1547. Cao Cao's "Nine Strategies".......................................................1668. Kuji-kiri: The Nine Doors to Power................................................1859. Poor Richard's Rich Wisdom........................................................189II: Upstaging Your Enemy.............................................................199Introduction: "How to Create C.H.A.O.S. (and Get Away with It!)".....................19910. Asian Arts of Espionage..........................................................20311. The Slyness of Ssu-ma............................................................25212. Musashi: Taste the Wind, Ride the Wave...........................................28613. By the Blade and by the Book: Omar in Command....................................298Conclusion: "Why You Need to Rock Your World"........................................311Glossary.............................................................................315Table of Authorities.................................................................325

Chapter One

How many times growing up were you told to "Stop acting like an animal"? That's hardly fair since, unlike so many humans, animals all seem to have admirable qualities:

Wolves mate for life.

Elephants create memorials out of the bones of their dead.

Dog is man's best friend-since loyalty is the first and final measure of a friend.

Even from the octopus we can learn to be more pliable and versatile. Indeed, our eight-armed cousin can easily wiggle his way into the tiniest of crevices in pursuit of prey, and hide inside empty clam shells, leaving one of his tentacles wiggling like a worm outside the shell to lure in unsuspecting fish. When threatened, he emits a cloud of dark ink that not only acts like a jet to propel it away from a predator, but also hides the octopus's escape route and/or blinds any enemy close enough to get "inked." And, speaking of camouflage, special skin cells allow the octopus to change color, chameleon- like, helping him blend in with his background and to hide unnoticed on the sea floor.

Of course, we can also learn from animals' short- comings. For example, drop a bumblebee into an open water glass and instead of simply escaping out the top, the bee will buzz around inside the glass, literally bouncing off the walls, until it dies. There's a lesson in there for us-maybe that we should practice thinking outside the box-or glass, as the case may be. And don't forget that aerodynamically it's impossible for the bumblebee to fly-although, evidently someone forgot to tell the bumblebee.

Perhaps it's just Western culture that finds little to admire in our lesser-or should we say differently-evolved finny, furry, and feathered brethren? In Asia, Eastern astrology assigns each newborn a birth sign "beast," thought to control a person's attitudes and influence their activities. These beasts are: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, cock, dog, and pig.

Still in Asia, for the indigenous Caucasian Ainu of Japan, the bear is a sacred totem. Across the Pacific, Native Americans often embraced personal protective animal guardians called "totems." Often such totems watched over the whole tribe.

Curiously, during our development in the womb, we pass through every stage of animal-from fins to fur to, literally, upstanding citizen-as we grow from gamete to zygote to fetus, almost as if Mother Nature is reminding us-literally-where we come from. Would it so pain us then to be as loyal as the dog? As adaptable as the chameleon and the octopus? As faithful to our mate as the wolf? As filial and fane to our brethren as the elephant?

In his Discourses, Machiavelli (1469-1527) advises the aspiring Prince that he must cultivate the fierceness of the lion while tempering it with the cunning of the fox.

Conversely, in Japan the fox is considered an ill omen-analogous to a black cat crossing your path. Still, for good or ill, the cunning of the fox is renowned, at least in myth and metaphor. The following story is told to novice martial arts students desirous of constantly learning new techniques, mistaking quantity for quality:

Fox and Cat meet in a clearing. Fox asks Cat what kind of self- defense moves she knows. Cat shrugs. "I have only one trick. When confronted by danger, I quickly climb a tree." Fox laughs. "I, on the other paw, have studied hundreds of techniques, both my own species and those of other animals. I have hundreds of techniques to choose from!" Just then the two are attacked by a pack of ravenous wolves! Using the single trick she has mastered, Cat instantly scurries up a nearby tree, out of reach of the pack. Uncertain which of his hundreds of techniques to use, unable to decide which would serve him best, the fox ends up being served for dinner.

If there's a moral in all this, it's that we should listen to the advice of our "animal" brain all the time ... but not necessarily follow the advice of our animal brain all the time.

OUR "ANIMAL" BRAIN

Every human being is a problem in search of a solution. -Ashley Montagu

You can't trust your brain. It lies to you constantly. Your brain lies to you because situated literally smack dab in the middle of your head is your midbrain's limbic system. It's here that most of our emotional processing takes place. Author Vance Packard wryly observed that this limbic system controls what he called "The 4 F's":

Fighting Feeding Fleeing and Sex

This limbic system is the older, earlier part of your brain, having evolved earlier than the physically and philosophically "higher" areas of the brain-the cerebrum and the cerebellum. Our midbrain is thus both literally and figuratively "closer" to the body, as it is connected to the spinal cord by way of the medulla oblongata-the mass of nerve tissue at the base of the brain that controls bodily functions such as blood circulation and breathing.

The limbic system is our "E = [Mc.sup.2]" area of the brain where "energy" (thoughts, feelings) is transformed into physical action and symptoms-making us blush when embarrassed, cry when we're sad, and shake, sweat, and feel butterflies in the stomach when we're scared.

With good cause, this midbrain has been referred to as our "reptile brain," since the limbic...