Just wish I could think of a term I liked better than “three transcendents”…

No disagreement here. How wonderful, then, to be able to do this on your own, with no other presence necessary than your own unconscious mind. I believe talking to animals, as you bring up, is a very close analogy to what I described.

>Internal conditioning would be what you appear to be doing, common to that of meditations where the person intentionally conditions themselves to certain reactions through specific actions/poses.

Agreed here too. Conditioning is a large and important part of it, and it is conscious and intentional. I do think there is more involved than that, e.g. rhythmic chanting facilitating an altered state of mind, supernormal mother figure encouraging a certain open and empathetic mood, etc., but conditioning is a very significant element.

There are a few things I want to touch on for the untying the emotional knot. Often, it is simply acting out the internal feelings that provides the ‘untying’ whether it be speaking, gestures, or other acts. Having an non-judgmental ear is also beneficial in this. In my case I most enjoy talking with fellow creatures, even though I know they don’t understand me I know they won’t judge me based on what I’m saying and are really great at providing their full attention – unless they’re cats (jk). In your case it appears that the listening ear is a fictitious one, but none the less it provides that avenue. Another thing is that we’re are often conditioned (via society, family etc.) or condition ourselves in a way that we personally respond to a specific set of actions. i.e. Pavlov’s dog. I’ve learned not long ago about one way I was conditioned. Where one action from another causes a seemingly unrelated reaction from me. Which upon exploring this unusual response discovered it was externally conditioned through family life. Now knowing the source I can now work toward removing this unwanted conditioning. This is an example of external conditioning. Internal conditioning would be what you appear to be doing, common to that of meditations where the person intentionally conditions themselves to certain reactions through specific actions/poses. As these actions/poses are continuously reinforced with a certain state of mind. So later on when that state of mind is wanted that action or pose sets it off. Martial arts would be another good example of this. Where blocking is trained to become instinctive – where a visual cue causes the blocking reaction without consciously thinking about it.

“It is greater in both degree and kind. To sound its depths is indeed to discover something greater than oneself.”

So I don’t think its about something ‘greater’ than yourself, just another part of yourself.

As in my comments on the post with the poll. I don’t particularly see any need for ‘transcendence’ or ‘the next level’ as it implies one thing is better than the other or previous, which I don’t think is the case. Nothing is greater or better, it just is. Each degree having something harmful and beneficial. Not becoming more orderly as each has its own form of chaos. What we perceive as order is just chaos giving way to patterns. So this idea of ‘transcendence’ comes across as saying this pattern is better and greater than this pattern that precedes it. As you cannot have one without the other, I fail to see how there can be ‘transcendence’ since everything is a network or web of interactions, having no hierarchy.