WHO WILL BE ‘BRAVE’ IN HUXLEY’S NEW WORLD?

By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

Source: Waking Times

“ ‘Science?’….’Yes,’ Mustapha Mond was saying, ‘that’s another item in the cost of stability. It isn’t only art that’s incompatible with happiness; it’s also science. Science is dangerous; we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled…I’m interested in truth, I like science. But truth’s a menace, science is a public danger. As dangerous as it’s been beneficent. It has given us the stablest equilibrium in history…But we can’t allow science to undo its own good work. That’s why we so carefully limit the scope of its researchers…We don’t allow it to deal with any but the most immediate problems of the moment. All other enquiries are most sedulously discouraged…Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness…[but] People still went on talking about truth and beauty as though they were the sovereign goods. Right up to the time of the Nine Years’ War. That made them change their tune all right. What’s the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you? That was when science first began to be controlled – after the Nine Years’ War. People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. We’ve gone on controlling ever since. It hasn’t been very good for truth, of course. But it’s been very good for happiness. One can’t have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for. You’re paying for it, Mr. Watson – paying because you happen to be too much interested in beauty. I was too much interested in truth; I paid too.’ “ ~Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World

Where does one start in discussing the famed fiction novel of Huxley? Although most agree that there is a definite brilliance to the piece, most are also confused as to what was Huxley’s intention in writing the extremely influential dystopic vision. Was it meant to be taken as an exhortation? An inevitable prophecy? Or rather…was it meant as an Open Conspiracy?

What do I mean by an Open Conspiracy?

If we are going to talk about such things our story starts with H.G. Wells, whom Aldous acknowledged he was most certainly influenced by, particularly by Wells’ novels “A Modern Utopia,” “The Sleeper Awakes,” and “Men Like Gods,” when writing his “Brave New World.”

Although Aldous is quoted as referring to Wells as a “horrid, vulgar little man,” (Wells was indeed not a very likeable individual) it was not for reasons one might first assume. Aldous did share a Wellsian perspective in that society should be organised based on a caste system. Perhaps this was one of the reasons Aldous was so fascinated with learning about India’s Hindu religious beliefs and practices, which had coexisted for centuries with a deeply ingrained caste system to which India is still struggling to remove itself from to this day. This is not to say that one caused the other, or that Hinduism has not offered a plethora of great works and insights, but that it had become corrupted and thoroughly intertwined with upholding India’s caste system at some point one cannot deny; that it was used to justify a system of hierarchy from slave to the god-like state of a Brahmin and that British imperialists had always been greatly fascinated by this form of social organization one cannot deny.

Aldous was always interested in the subject of religion, but more so for its uses in behaviourism and mental conditioning achieved through such techniques as entering states of trance where an individual’s suggestibility could be manipulated. Hypnopædia was not just some quirky sci-fi concoction. It is also why Aldous was so interested in the work of Dr. William Sargant, whom Aldous repeatedly refers to in his writings and lectures and who was involved with the Tavistock Institute and MKUltra. More on this in Part two.

These spiritual/religious studies are what shaped the core thesis of Aldous’ book “Doors of Perception” which is considered the instruction manual for what started the counterculture movement. The title is influenced by the poet William Blake who wrote in 1790 in his book “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,”:

if the doors of perception were cleansed then everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern

Another major influence for “Doors of Perception” was again H.G. Wells, from his book “The Door in the Wall,” which examines the contrast between aesthetics and science and the difficulty in choosing between them. The protagonist Lionel Wallace is unable to bridge the gap between his imagination and his rational, scientific side which leads to his death.

Aldous writes in his “Doors of Perception,”:

That humanity at large will ever be able to dispense with Artificial Paradises seems very unlikely…Art and religion, carnivals and saturnalia [ancient Roman pagan festival], dancing and listening to oratory – all these have served, in H.G. Wells’s phrase, as Doors in the Wall…Under a more realistic, a less exclusively verbal system of education than ours, every Angel (in Blake’s sense of that word) would be permitted as a sabbatical treat, would be urged and even, if necessary, compelled to take an occasional trip through some chemical Door in the Wall into the world of transcendental experience. If it terrified him, it would be unfortunate but probably salutary. If it brought him a brief but timeless illumination, so much the better. In either case the Angel might lose a little of the confident insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning and the consciousness of having read all the books…But the man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out…

Aldous was always chasing the perfect drug that would be minimal in its physically destructive effects but would allow an individual to tap into an almost consumer state of a religious/spiritual out-of-body experience, a transcendence that promised a connection with the Infinite, inner peace and enlightenment.

Enlightenment and inner peace in a pill, ready for whenever one needed a short holiday from the “illusion” of reality.

The name Soma, which Aldous used to name his fantasy ideal drug in “Brave New World,” was based off a plant whose juices were used to create the spiritual drink which was described in both the ancient religious practices of the Vedic tradition and Zoroastrianism, which called the plant and spiritual drink by the same name, Soma. Today, it is a mystery as to what plant they were referring to in these texts. Huxley no doubt chased after this dragon the entire latter half of his life, and indeed, psilocybin mushrooms are theorised as one of the potential candidates for what could have been named Soma centuries ago.

It is perhaps here that people are the most confused about the character of Huxley. After all, he was obviously walking the walk so to speak, thus didn’t he truly believe that psychedelics were the path to freedom through enlightenment?

Well, the argument has been made that Huxley’s approach to LSD [and other psychedelics] was essentially oligarchic, that it was to be regarded as a dangerous substance to be sampled only by such fine and visionary minds as his own. That is, those who had the mental strength, the mental stamina to reach enlightenment; those who were too weak to sustain such mental rigours would become the very opposite, and risked falling into the dark pit of complete madness, although this in of itself was perceived by many to be a form of clairvoyance. After all, what is it to be mad in a world that is sickeningly and inhumanely “normal”? This is most certainly how Ken Kesey thought when writing his “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” that madness itself was a form of liberation from the shackles of capitalist societal constraints.

Perhaps madness was the goal, it was after all, much more attainable that the promised enlightenment…

As William Sargant noted in his book “Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Conversion and Brain-Washing” J.F.C. Hecker was studying the dancing mania phenomenon that occurred during the Black Death, which was a social phenomenon that arose in Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries. It involved groups of people who would begin to dance erratically during the Plague, sometimes thousands at a time until they would fall from exhaustion or from injuries. It was thought to have arisen in Aachen, Germany in 1374 and quickly spread throughout Europe with one of the last observations of it occurring in 1518 in Alsace, France.

Hecker observed in his research on the dancing mania that heightened suggestibility had the capability to cause a person to “embrace with equal force, reason and folly, good and evil, diminish the praise of virtue as well as the criminality of vice.

Such a state of mind was likened to the first efforts of the infant mind, Sargant writes “this instinct of imitation when it exists in its highest degree, is also united a loss of all power over the will, which occurs as soon as the impression on the senses has become firmly established, producing a condition like that of small animals when they are fascinated by the look of a serpent.

I wonder if Sargant imagined himself the serpent…

It is no wonder that the Tavistock Institute and the CIA became involved in looking at the effects of LSD and how to influence and control the mind. And perhaps it is no coincidence that Aldous Huxley was in close correspondence with William Sargant to which Sargant even refers to Aldous’ “insights” multiple times in his book “Battle for the Mind.”

Aldous is also quoted in a lecture he delivered to the Tavistock Group, California Medical School in 1961:

There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.

Aldous goes on to state a year later in a lecture titled “The Ultimate Revolution” at UC Berkeley Language Center 1962:

Today we are faced, I think, with the approach of what may be called the ultimate revolution, the final revolution, where man can act directly on the mind-body of his fellows…we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy who have always existed and presumably will always exist to get people to love their servitude. This is the, it seems to me, the ultimate in malevolent revolutions shall we say, and this is a problem which has interested me many years and about which I wrote thirty years ago, a fable, Brave New World, which is an account of society making use of all the devices available and some of the devices which I imagined to be possible making use of them in order to, first of all, to standardize the population, to iron out inconvenient human differences, to create, to say, mass produced models of human beings arranged in some sort of scientific caste system.

Yes, yes we get it. This is all to be taken as “warnings” to the public, a terrible necessity that will come about if over-population is not addressed (as he makes clear in his Brave New World Revisited). With over-population comes over-organization which in turn leads to the scientific advances in technology which we are told by Aldous can only lead to totalitarianism. Thus, population growth and advances in the sciences are the greatest threat to humankind. Wait, that sounds oddly very much like the reasonings of Mustapha Mond, have we come around full circle, what exactly does Aldous agree and disagree with here? Are we to have a scientific dictatorship in order to avoid a totalitarian system in the form of a scientific dictatorship?

In H.G. Wells’ “Open Conspiracy: Blueprints for a World Revolution,” he describes his vision for a Modern Religion:

‘…if religion is to develop unifying and directive power in the present confusion of human affairs it must adapt itself to this forward-looking, individuality-analyzing turn of mind; it must divest itself of its sacred histories…The desire for service, for subordination, for permanent effect, for an escape from the distressful pettiness and mortality of the individual life, is the undying element in every religious system.

The time has come to strip religion right down to that [service and subordination is all Wells wants to keep of the old relic of religion]The explanation of why things are is an unnecessary effortThe essential fact…is the desire for religion and not how it came about…The first sentence in the modern creed must be, not “I believe,” but “I give myself.” ‘

Hmm, is this the same Revolution as Aldous is speaking about? After all, there is a lot of similarity between H.G. Wells’ description of his “Modern Religion” and what Aldous is preaching in his “Doors of Perception,” to which Wells is undoubtedly a large influence. The desire to escape from the distressful pettiness and mortality of the individual life, that the explanation for why one does something is not important, only to be motivated by the desire for release, for a complete catharsis that only the fervour of a “religious,” a “spiritual” experience can bring about.

It is the desire for, not the care for why. To believe is not even acceptable, because to believe pertains to thought, it is merely a matter of surrender, that you give yourself. It is not to act with reason but to be possessed by its very opposite; to be in a state of existence where there are no words, and thus there are no thoughts, just direct sensory feeling.

The ultimate achievement is to completely surrender oneself to the external world, perhaps to a dictatorship without tears…

The reader should be aware that Wells wrote a book titled “The New World Order” in 1940, and is the first that I am aware of to pioneer this now-infamous term. The reader should also be aware that Julian Huxley (Aldous Huxley’s brother) was a co-author of “The Science of Life,” a part of Wells’ trilogy “The Outline of History” (1919), “The Science of Life” (1929), and “The Work, Wealth, and Happiness of Mankind” (1932) to which Wells made no qualms should be regarded as the new Bible. Julian was also a prominent member of the British Eugenics Society, serving as its Vice-President from 1937-1944 and its President from 1959-1962. Interesting life choices from the authors of the “new Bible.”

In addition, Aldous’ grandfather Thomas Huxley (“Charles Darwin’s bulldog”) was the biology teacher of H.G. Wells and was one of the largest influences in Wells’ life, promoting the works of Charles Darwin and Thomas Malthus, for more on this refer to my paper. Although Thomas Huxley lived before the time of the “science” of Eugenics, he was a stout Malthusian and thus one can rather safely say would have been a eugenicist if offered the chance.

Thus, we should regard Aldous’ mention of the stylish ‘Malthusian belt’ in his “Brave New World,” under a more somber light perhaps…

And now we are ready to walk through the doors of perception on Aldous himself, the true Huxley behind the projected illusion. We may not find Infinity at the end of this excursion, but we will most certainly be better equipped to tell the difference between Huxley’s self and non-self, between what is real and what is false.

Examining the Methods and Means of COVID Propaganda Dissemination

By Gary Weglarz

Source: Global Research

It is useful to identify and examine the many facets and the all encompassing nature of American/Western propaganda systems in our efforts to better understand why so many people have great difficulty in sorting truth from fiction regarding the “covid pandemic” narratives.  The following outline and commentary are an effort to more clearly identify the ubiquitous nature of Western covid propaganda in order to better understand its impacts on the public mind.

One method of propaganda dissemination during the promotion of the covid narratives has been major medical journals printing false covid related disinformation posing as “science.”  Early in the propaganda operation both The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine had to retract fraudulent articles dismissing the efficacy and falsely inflating the danger of using hydroxychloroquine in treatment of covid patients. (1). MSM widely promoted the fraudulent claims, but of course expressed no interest in their subsequent retractions.

That two of the world’s most widely esteemed medical journals were both guilty of publishing what were essentially disinformation pieces rife with conflicts of interest and essentially constituting what MSM calls “fake news” shines a bright light on the corruption of objective science which has now been captured by powerful monied pharmaceutical and commercial interests.

Print and web based legacy media such as the NYT, WAPO, Guardian, BBC, etc. have all been engaged in credulous daily promotion of the “official” covid narratives. They have done so while refusing to publish counter-narratives even by world renowned scientific experts, and while shaming, demeaning, and ridiculing any who question the “official science” of the CDC and WHO.

The official covid narratives are also promoted daily on all mainstream television news outlets such as CNN, MSNBC, FOX, PBS, BBC, etc. as well as on their web-based presence on platforms such as Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Adding to the seamless nature of public exposure to the official covid propaganda narratives are their constant presence in mainstream print (and web based) specialty and/or alternative media such as  Daily Beast, Politico, TYT, Rolling Stone, Huffington Post, National Geographic, Scientific American. (2)

The radio airways provide yet another means for our ingestion of the endless daily repetition of the official covid propaganda narratives.  These include of course all MSM radio affiliates, ubiquitous talk radio, and of course NPR. (3)

As if one has not been subject to enough official covid propaganda by bedtime, the late night comedians continue the daily onslaught often during their monologues.  A standard format in this aspect of propaganda promotion is that one must have properly ingested one’s daily dose of covid propaganda in order to “get the joke” and thus be able to identify with one’s favorite comedian.  Covid propaganda is simply the background “wallpaper” on the shows of the “hip” late night comedians such as Trevor Noah, Steven Colbert, John Oliver, etc.  

However, propaganda as “humor” sometimes moves beyond simple recitation of official narratives and the shaming of the unvaccinated.  In some cases it engages in the more sinister openly proclaimed dehumanization of the unvaccinated as “other” to be shunned, scorned and even denied medical care as evidenced by the recent monologue comments of late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel. (4)

Sports reporting both web and radio based also act as outlets for official covid narratives, including the shaming of those who question such narratives and/or who refuse to be vaccinated.  This is true of sports pundits for a variety of outlets.  Youtube based sports pundit Rich Eisen recently used his platform to confront Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors basketball team because Green dared to defend the right of one of his team-mates Andrew Wiggins to exercise his freedom to make his own decision on rejecting a vaccine.  Wiggins has since succumbed to pressure and accepted the vaccine. (5)  

Escaping the pernicious presence of the official covid narratives is virtually impossible unless one simply swears off all contact with the major forms of Western media. 

Censorship & Demonization of Dissenting Voices 

To insure proper absorption of the official propaganda narratives a regime of outright censorship has become normalized.  This includes the removal of specific  examples of “offending” material from web based platforms like Youtube, Facebook and Twitter, etc. This sort of open censorship, of even expert scientific opinion, has become part of the so called “new normal.”  Offenders are often put on notice that further such violations of “community standards” for example, will lead to further sanctions.

Youtube interviews with world renowned scientists have been demonetized and/or  removed due to such scientists simply sharing their own scientific opinion.  This is done should that expert opinion differ from the “official narrative” according to the censors employed by Tech platforms. One of the co-inventors of the mRNA vaccine technology Dr. Robert Malone experienced such censorship several months ago. (6)  Three days after being censored and removed from Youtube for expressing his concerns about the safety of vaccines delivered by technology he helped create, Wikipedia suddenly rewrote Dr. Malone’s biography in the process hiding his contribution to the creation of mRNA technology. (7).  One can be forgiven for wondering if this was done by Wikipedia in a nod to Orwell’s 1984 “Party” maxim – “Ignorance is Strength.”

Complete de-platforming on web based social media of well respected voices is also now becoming normative.  A recent example is the complete removal from Youtube of the site of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr’s Children’s Health Defense and Dr. Mercola’s medical site, along with others who challenge the official covid narratives. (8).  Similar removal/de-platforming of medical professionals and scientists on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other web based media have also occurred.  

Another area of web based censorship is the removal of user generated Facebook groups created by those wishing to share their negative post-vaccination reactions with others given the silence and lack of support from within the medical community itself for such individuals. (9).  Multiple such user groups have been banned from Facebook for simply providing a forum for users to share their own personal experiences.

The impact of such overt censorship has been to put all who post material and opinions on platforms like Facebook, Youtube and Twitter to consciously engage in self-censorship in order to not risk being de-platformed.  News and analysis sites like Jimmy Dore, Dark Horse Podcast, Joe Rogan, and many others now openly discuss avoiding using or discussing certain words, phrases, or topics related to the official covid narratives that might lead to “warnings” or de-platforming.  Self censorship has become yet another aspect of our new normal.  

An invisible and too seldom discussed stealth method of the censorship of any of us who are questioning the official covid narratives is the Big Tech use of internet search algorithms designed to suppress or completely hide the existence of the material challenging official narratives.  I find my own Google searches for topics such as “covid vaccine adverse reactions” end up providing endless pages of material  simply censoring out and/or debunking the very idea that such adverse events could be anything but “fake news.” 

I have found that the suppression of any articles questioning the official narratives that isn’t presented as “fake news” is almost virtually complete in my own Google searches.  This means one must know before one searches the actual name of the post you are looking for or of the name of an alternative independent media site like Global Research or OffGuardian, because it appears that Google will now routinely use its algorithms to do everything in its power to avoid taking you to anything but articles and sites supporting the official narratives.

We now live in a world in which MSM outlets across all platforms routinely refuse to publish general articles, opinion pieces, video interviews, or even reference peer reviewed scientific journal articles by world renowned scientists if that material diverges from the official CDC/WHO opinion and stated policy.  One cannot help but note the rather seamless nature of this entire propaganda operation.  It is indeed impressive from a prospective of totalitarian narrative control. 

However, even this massive ability to dominate narrative construction and dissemination appears not to be sufficient in the opinion of those at the helm of the oligarch controlled structures of media power.  Thus independent popular media platforms are subject to what appear to be well orchestrated and coordinated attacks from MSM outlets should they report material that questions or in any way challenges MSM covid reporting. 

A recent example of such attacks was the MSM wide disinformation campaign aimed at popular Youtube personality Joe Rogan who self-reported his own positive Ivermectin experience in treating his covid.  His use of Ivermectin was not only widely panned and demeaned across MSM, but was also routinely intentionally and deceitfully distorted to suggest he had used the “animal version” of the drug scornfully referred to in MSM reports as a “horse dewormer.”  This disinformation was widely disseminated even though Rogan had clearly stated he received the Ivermectin prescription from his own doctor. (10).  

Such MSM attacks are designed to intimidate and although they likely did no significant damage to someone with Rogan’s large audience base, they may certainly cause others in independent media who have smaller audiences to hesitate to share their own similar experiences for fear of such negative repercussions. 

Such attacks by MSM, and censorship by Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, are now normative even when reporting the results of peer reviewed scientific journal articles that suggest possible efficacy of Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine in covid treatment.  Clearly it is not “the science” that MSM is protecting with such attacks, but the official propaganda narrative.

Medical professional organizations, medical licensing boards, hospitals and related entities are now literally threatening doctors with loss of hospital privileges and/or license to practice for simply having and sharing a medical opinion that diverges from the official narratives. (11)

Newsweek reported “a joint statement issued by the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American Board of Family Medicine and the American Board of Pediatrics” pointed out quite clearly exactly what type of “medical opinion” by a practicing physician might endanger his/her license to practice.  “The evidence that we have safe, effective and widely available vaccines against COVID-19 is overwhelming. We are particularly concerned about physicians who use their authority to denigrate vaccination at a time when vaccines continue to demonstrate excellent effectiveness against severe illness, hospitalization and death.” (11)

The need for such an overt threat from these higher levels of the medical establishment makes clear that at least some physicians retain both independence of thought and the moral integrity required to form their own opinion.  However, the issuance of such a ham-handed threat based upon clearly unscientific and unsupported reassurances of “vaccine safety” suggests that these higher echelons of the medical establishment in the United States are now captive to monied interests, thus completely undermining the integrity of American medical practice.

My own medical care is through a large southern California university based consortium.  I recently asked my physician if she would prescribe a prophylactic dose of Ivermectin that I could keep on hand should I begin to develop covid symptoms.  She explained she was not allowed to do so, but that she would forward my request to the consortium’s “infectious disease specialist” who promptly responded that my doctor could not in fact prescribe Ivermectin for me because “the reliable evidence available does not support the use of Ivermectin for treatment or prevention of COVID-19.”  My own research into the available information on Ivermectin suggests this contention is clearly not accurate, but there is of course no recourse to challenge this institutional policy.

I cannot help but reflect on the irony that this same medical practice can and does continue to prescribe statin medications for their patients in spite of the now massive scientific research indicating that “the reliable evidence does not support” statin use for a large percentage of those who will continue to be put on statins, in spite of the many known dangerous side-effects.

Although I have great respect for my own primary care physician, she is literally not allowed to practice medicine independently in treating covid, but must instead seek permission to simply prescribe a globally used medication known to be safe that has clearly shown great efficacy around the world in covid treatment.  Instead the official opinion of the higher-ups controlling my physician’s medical practice appears to be “If you get sick enough show up at the ER, but otherwise we refuse to treat you.” Needless to say even while refusing to issue an Ivermectin script, I continue to receive regular email notices from my medical consortium reminding me to “schedule my covid vaccination.” 

Many doctors are now expressly forbidden from publicly discussing or reporting vaccine adverse reactions, and are forbidden to use their professional expertise in order to treat their own patients should that entail prescribing officially “demonized” medications such as Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.  Why Do So Many Believe the Official COVID Narratives?

Clearly we have never seen such draconian attempts at controlling the treatment options available to physicians and thus to their patients.  Nor have we seen the professional opinions of highly respected front-line acute-care medical providers who actually “treat” covid on a daily basis overtly demeaned in MSM.  Bedside acute-care physicians are thus being thwarted using overt threats to their licensure in order to enforce such “new normal” Orwellian control. 

Meanwhile, the demonization of the unvaccinated in MSM using these widely varied methods of propaganda dissemination is now ubiquitous.  There are now two relatively new categories of “human beings” inhabiting planet earth – the righteous and obedient “vaccinated” and the unclean, unworthy and dangerous “unvaccinated.”  This represent the latest in oligarchy’s endless efforts at “divide and conquer.”   

Clearly much appears to be at stake in the opinion of said global oligarchy.  The uber-wealthy and their public representatives seem to be pushing all of their chips to the center of the table as they place massive bets on this covid propaganda campaign.  Those bets are wagered against the credibility of what now amounts to almost all Western institutions.  Given the completely fatuous nature of the official covid narratives one can assume a significant level of desperation must exist among our global elites.  They appear to be dedicated to finding some means, any means, that might allow them to maintain their own power and control in the world.  A world in which a literal “house of cards” global economy, combined with ever greater ecosystem degradation and dis-regulation, is able less and less to ensure their continued future dominance.

Manipulation of Data and Definitions to Support the Propaganda Narratives 

One cannot help but notice the importance of language in any propaganda operation.  Words have meaning, as do those sets of words we call “definitions.”  What are we to make of the WHO changing the definition of “herd immunity” so that herd immunity is no longer achieved through a population being exposed to a pathogen and developing a protective immune response, but rather is now to be understood in terms of “vaccines?”(12) 

The new WHO definition reads: “herd immunity,’ also known as ‘population immunity,’ is a concept used for vaccination, in which a population can be protected from a certain virus if a threshold of vaccination is reached.” (12)  Since when has this EVER been the definition of herd immunity?  Answer, since the WHO changed the definition during the covid propaganda operation. 

In a public presentation the WHO director general explained this Orwellian decision to change the definition using suitably Orwellian double-speak: “Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding to an outbreak, let alone a pandemic.  It is scientifically and ethically problematic.” (12)  

Of course the simple unassailable “reality” here on planet earth is that we have as a species ALWAYS relied historically over endless millennia on the development of herd immunity by surviving whatever pathogen we were collectively exposed to.  It is only at this very moment in time, in the midst of the covid propaganda operation, that it has ever been necessary to “deny” that rather elementary fact of our collective human history.  

Additional examples of changing an official institutionally based definition to support the covid propaganda narratives is the CDC changing its definition of both “immunity” and “vaccine.” (13)

A final example on altering definitions and of data manipulation is the WHO changing how the actual cause of death on death certificates is reported, done clearly in order to inflate covid deaths thus promoting the official “pandemic” narrative. (14) (15). These changes smack of a Three-Stooges level of slapstick absurdity when it comes to simple common sense.  Under the new rules one could have essentially been perfectly healthy one moment, but had just been exposed by proximity to someone with a covid infection the next, or given a false-positive PCR at 45 cycles, and then immediately struck by a bolt of lightening and killed.  Then, by the new definitions, while in defiance of all common sense, the coroner would be given enough wiggle room so that he could still make a case for “death by covid” on one’s death certificate. (16)  “Orwellian” doesn’t quite do justice to this level of unscientific absurdity.

Manipulation of what constitutes a covid ‘case’ has been an essential propaganda tool in creating the “impression” of a pandemic. The pandemic hysteria itself is based more than anything upon fraudulent “false positives” obtained with the PCR test.  MSM quickly shifted early in the propaganda rollout from concern about supposed covid deaths, to focusing more on such false-positive “cases” which they dishonestly portrayed as actual illness. These daily touted “cases” appear to be primarily people registering a false positive on a PCR test given at a grossly inflated and therefore meaningless 35-45 cycles.  

Massive numbers of such false positive or “asymptomatic cases” were thus created out of thin air.  Voila!  Instant proof of a pandemic.  Most of these supposed “cases” were admittedly “asymptomatic,” but not because they had a mild version of the illness. They were most likely asymptomatic because they were not sick at all.  Thus the pandemic narrative has been fueled by simply defining “well people” as “sick people” based upon a known fraudulent testing regime. (17)

How do we know the use of PCR testing at 35-45 cycles was known by authorities to be fraudulent?  Because now that the vaccine program has been rolled out the vaccinated are only given PCR tests at a reasonable 28 cycles, while the unvaccinated continue to be subjected to the fraudulent 35-45 cycle PCR testing. (18). This of course deceptively insures that the unvaccinated continue to generate completely asymptomatic false positives, and can then be made to appear to be driving the spread of the illness.  

Meanwhile the vaccinated are much less likely to test positive given their testing is now, indefensible by any scientific measure, conducted at the lower 28 cycle threshold when compared to the unvaccinated conducted at 35-45 cycles.  The MSM promotion of the “trust the science” phrase has become simply a new addition to Orwellian “double-speak.”  To the Party slogans from Orwell’s book 1984, “War is Peace,” “Love is Hate,” and “Ignorance is Strength,” we can now officially add “Trust The Science.”

Covid death numbers have been even further inflated by the use of false positive PCR tests to label patients who are already terminally ill from other diseases (i.e. cancer, COPD, renal failure, etc) as “covid deaths” in official reporting because they died within 28 days of a meaningless fake ‘false positive’ PCR test.  Even in the complete absence of covid symptoms a hospice patient dying from another illness can be called a “covid” death in official data collection. (19)

Further distortion and manipulation of data in support of the official narratives involves not counting someone as “vaccinated” until 14 days after the “second dose” in two dose vaccines.  Thus someone who dies after the first dose, or within 14 days of the second dose, is “defined” as “unvaccinated” and can be counted fraudulently in that category. (20). This of course further promotes the narrative that it is mainly the “unvaccinated” who are being hospitalized and are dying.  One is hard pressed to imagine a more blatantly corrupt and amoral “public health policy.”  This is a policy which is designed of course to minimize the association between the vaccines and post-vaccination deaths, while simultaneously blaming the unvaccinated as being those who are hospitalized and dying. 

The weekly updated VAERS data from the CDC clearly shows massive numbers of both serious adverse vaccine reactions and deaths though it is known to vastly undercount such events.  However this highly concerning VAERS data is being silently ignored by the CDC itself, the MSM, the political class, and most of the medical establishment. (21). Meanwhile a consistent propaganda theme is one of omission in which the MSM either completely fails to report on such obviously important health data, or dismisses the idea that the VAERS reports themselves justify any further scrutiny.

A party interested in truth rather than in promoting propaganda would surely ask where autopsies are for those who died unexpectedly in close proximity to vaccination.  The MSM in support of the official narrative simply of course never poses such a logical straight forward question, as it would unravel the entire charade.  Clearly if the CDC does not “look for” possible links between vaccinations and unexpected deaths it will certainly be guaranteed “not to find them.”  

One is reminded how NIST proclaimed there were no explosives involved in the demolition of the three World Trade Center buildings, only to have to admit that they NEVER LOOKED for any evidence of explosives.  The CDC is taking the same tack in simply refusing to do autopsies on the many thousands who have died post-vaccination while the MSM pretends any discussion of such deaths is “fake news” by “conspiracy theorists” and “anti-vaxxers.”

Another rather telling mode of propaganda promotion is the complete fabrication out of thin air of “news” that supports the covid narrative. This involves the subsequent spreading of such fabricated stories throughout MSM, and even failing to retract them once they are proven completely false. A recent such fabricated article in the magazine Rolling Stone that was widely repeated throughout MSM is a case in point. (22).  The story was that ERs in Oklahoma were overrun with people over-dosed on the livestock version of Ivermectin, thus denying even gunshot wound victims access to emergency care.  The story was shown to be a complete fabrication.  It was an obvious disinformation piece, yet was credulously repeated throughout MSM.  

This episode in blatant “fake news” propaganda, since it supported the official narratives demonizing Ivermectin, of course aroused no noticeable concern among those who proclaim to find such fake news unacceptable. The MSM pundits and the big tech platforms supposedly devoted to censoring “fake news,” appeared to have no problem with this blatantly fabricated disinformation piece posing as news.  Clearly fake news in support of the propaganda operation is simply standard operating procedure.  Another example of “the new normal.”  

Invisible Psychological Operations 

In a previous article I discussed the implications of Terror Management Theory (TMT) in promoting and assisting the public’s unconscious acceptance of the official covid propaganda. (23)  I continue to think that TMT offers an important window into understanding how the manipulation of our natural fears of death makes us more vulnerable to being propagandized.  It does so by over-riding one’s normal ability to think critically and rationally when such death fears are being repeatedly triggered day after day. 

Reminders of death and our mortality, delivered both consciously and unconsciously, have shown in hundreds of TMT experiments to increase unconscious support for, and greater compliance with, our underlying cultural norms.  This drives the population toward an unconscious position of becoming more trusting of institutional authorities, causing people to engage in more compliant behavior with the dictates of such authorities.

When recalling the initial propaganda images out of China depicting people standing in public places who suddenly simply fell over dead I am reminded of the astute observation made by Daniel Boorstin in his 1962 book “The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America.”  As Boorstin explained, “Strictly speaking, there is no way to unmask an image.  An image, like any other psuedo-event, becomes all the more interesting with our every effort to debunk it.”

Are those being propagandized more likely to believe the images they see with their own eyes?  Or to believe those of us who are trying to “unmask” and “debunk” those images?  The power of such covid propaganda images should not be underestimated, in part because they seamlessly trigger the TMT “death fears” that so effectively short-circuit our ability to think clearly and critically.  Images of people falling over dead, images of piles of bodies, images of hospitals over-run, images of the faceless masked, are immensely powerful propaganda tools because of their deep psychological impacts often experienced not only consciously, but also at quite unconscious levels. 

Lastly, and perhaps the most frightening aspect of these psychological propaganda operations comes from large segments of the population being vulnerable to the covert behavioral modification techniques associated with simply “being connected” in our modern web-based world.  Professor Shoshana Zuboff provides a very detailed and chilling examination of the operant/instrumental conditioning techniques now routinely used by what she terms “surveillance capitalism” in her book “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power” (24)  

Professor Zuboff painstakingly outlines the almost unimaginable extent to which big tech companies like Google, Microsoft and Facebook are surreptitiously capturing (“rendering” as Zuboff calls it) vast amounts of our personal data from literally all electronic web based devices.  However, it is not the loss of privacy that is of greatest concern in her analysis.  Rather, it is the ever increasing ability of big tech companies to compile, aggregate and with ever more powerful AI tools to utilize that data in order to shape and change our behavior through means that are literally beyond our own conscious awareness.  

Behavioral change is accomplished utilizing these ever more powerful AI tools in conjunction with continuously analyzing the behaviors and responses of billions of people across the globe. It is the ability to analyze personal opinions, then provide a new psychological “reward” or “punishment,” and then again measure those opinions, over and over with ever more powerful tools, in close to real-time, that poses the most dangerous threat to our ability to resist propaganda.  This level of “shaping” and “manipulating” the public mind both for the profit of corporations which Zuboff refers to as surveillance capitalism, and in service to the hidden agendas of the State intelligence apparatus, is not part of some future sci-fi world, but is an invisible aspect of our current reality, whether we are aware of that reality or not.

Already surveillance capitalism has shown the ability to surreptitiously modify and shape human thinking and behavior in marketable ways in pursuit of profit.  These operations are being conducted by the same big tech companies Edward Snowden outed almost a decade ago for their deep cooperation with and connections to the Western intelligence apparatus.  These were intelligence agencies engaged in propaganda operations aimed at Western citizenry. (25)  Much has changed in the world since Snowden shed light on these operations, including the development of ever more powerful AI based programs that capture our personal data, monitor our behavior, AND then shape our behavior beyond our human awareness. 

Zuboff’s book, Snowden’s revelations, and the implications of that convergence deserve a much more thorough detailing and discussion in the future.  However, I will for today end with what I feel is perhaps the most insidious aspect of what is implied through this coalescence of unseen forces.  Which is that we can be both surreptitiously monitored, and our thinking and behavior shaped, in what increasingly approaches close to real-time fashion.  Connected to the ubiquitous “web,” our thoughts and behaviors are no longer our own.  They can be, and are being, manipulated and modified outside of the realm of our conscious awareness.  This is not being done to meet our needs, but rather to meet the agendas of those who comprise a new class of “surveillance capitalists” who work in conjunction with the massive power of the Western intelligence gathering services.

In spite of all the wide-ranging aspects of the covid propaganda promotion I detailed earlier, I don’t think any of them alone or in combination hold as much potential to control and shape public consciousness as the ever more powerful tools of surveillance capitalism combined with the means and methods of the intelligence services.  

It is inconceivable to me that these tools are somehow not in continuous use 24/7, monitoring real-time public responses on web platforms and social media, to our searches, to what we read, to what we share with others, to our comments, spanning everything from new lockdown measures in a particular city, to the loosening of restrictions somewhere else, from responses to various forms of vaccination mandates in one part of the country compared to another, etc. 

No doubt there is consistent monitoring and evaluation examining which AI based interventions are most effective in “tuning, herding, nudging and shaping” (24) our perceptions and behaviors toward the propaganda ends of the oligarchic system of control.   For a very simple unsophisticated example it is child’s play for Facebook using the tools already at its disposal to insure you see nothing but posts from your Facebook “friends” who have gotten the vaccine, and no material from anyone who refused it.  This can be done in an effort to shape your behavior toward the desired end of you “making your own decision” to eventually do what you are being manipulated to do, to get the vaccine.  Why wouldn’t you submit to the vaccine since literally “all of your ‘friends’ are doing so” and since not doing so will put you in the cognitively uncomfortable position of now being in a publicly demonized “out group.”

I fear however that Zuboff’s and Snowden’s revelations portend something much darker and more sinister than my simple and rather obvious example touches upon.  A world in which much of humanity is manipulated, shaped, and controlled in both thought and behavior 24/7 without conscious awareness that this is happening.  Our thoughts someone else’s, but experienced as our own.  We don’t really need more information or another whistleblower like Edward Snowden to know where we stand.  What we do need is a much deeper familiarity and understanding of these hidden tools and processes in order to unmask them, publicize them, and resist their ever growing impacts.

*

Gary Weglarz retired in 2014 from practice as a clinical social worker.  He worked with, and learned from, Alaskan Native peoples who were attempting to heal the damage inflicted by the collective ongoing intergenerational trauma of colonization.  Currently he is engaged in research and writing regarding the relationship between past mass trauma in Western societies, and the subsequent colonial violence that has characterized the behavior of Europe and her colonies. He was actively involved in Central American solidarity efforts throughout the 1990’s, traveling with human rights delegations to Nicaragua, El Salvador and Colombia. 

Notes

(1) https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Giuseppe-Calcaterra/publication/343379182_An_expression_of_concern_on_research_misconduct_during_the_corona_virus_disease-2019_pandemic/links/5f7037c492851c14bc9a53e5/An-expression-of-concern-on-research-misconduct-during-the-corona-virus-disease-2019-pandemic.pdf

(2) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/breakthrough-infections-do-not-mean-covid-vaccines-are-failing/

(3) https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/

 (4) https://nypost.com/2021/09/08/jimmy-kimmel-says-unvaxxed-americans-dont-deserve-icu-beds/

(5) https://www.nbcsports.com/video/rich-eisen-warriors-draymond-green-wrong-about-covid-19-comments

(6) https://www.yahoo.com/now/single-most-qualified-mrna-expert-173600060.html

(7) https://thebl.com/us-news/wikipedia-censors-real-inventor-of-mrna-technology-over-vaccine-warnings.html

(8) https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2021/09/29/youtube-is-banning-prominent-anti-vaccine-activists-and-blocking-all-anti-vaccine-content/

(9) https://twitter.com/peterrowen_/status/1376798789097377792?lang=en

(10) https://www.yahoo.com/now/joe-rogan-considers-suing-cnn-190606533.html

(11) https://www.newsweek.com/medical-boards-threaten-doctors-spreading-covid-misinformation-decertification-1629157

(12) https://www.abc10.com/article/news/verify/verify-changes-who-definition-herd-immunity-not-secret/507-f90c0199-c88e-4c66-8313-b4ae6e2a72ad

(13) https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article254111268.html

(14) https://off-guardian.org/2021/06/02/counting-covids-deceptive-deaths/

(15) https://www.who.int/classifications/icd/Guidelines_Cause_of_Death_COVID-19.pdf

(16) https://cbs12.com/news/local/man-who-died-in-motorcycle-crash-counted-as-covid-19-death-in-florida-report

https://www.globalresearch.ca/anyone-any-disease-alberta-counted-covid-case/5757739

(17) https://off-guardian.org/2021/08/03/repeat-after-me-the-pcr-tests-dont-work/

(18) https://off-guardian.org/2020/12/18/who-finally-admits-pcr-tests-create-false-positives/

(19) https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/questions-over-the-accuracy-of-how-the-state-tracks-covid-deaths/283-0b1b7b6c-695e-4313-92cf-a4cfd7510721

(20) https://www.globalresearch.ca/cdc-allows-hospitals-classify-dead-vaxxed-people-unvaccinated/5757502

(21) https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/vaers-cdc-deaths-injuries-covid-vaccines/?utm_source=salsa&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=9470f062-0cf2-4251-ae09-99ed0c9dbe0d

(22) https://firstdraftnews.org/articles/rolling-stones-botched-ivermectin-story-raises-questions-about-the-nature-of-misinformation/

(23) https://www.globalresearch.ca/why-do-so-many-believe-official-covid-narratives/5752602

(24) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight For A Human Future At The New Frontier Of Power, by Shoshana Zuboff, 2019.

(25) https://theintercept.com/collections/snowden-archive/

WE ARE ALL BEING COOKED IN THE SOUP TOGETHER

By Paul Levy

Source: Waking Times

One of the recurring thought-forms that I hear repeated everywhere during these apocalyptic times is, “We are all in this together.” It is ironic that “we are all in this together,” and yet, our world feels anything but together, as it is in an incredibly polarized and dissociated state. Our species is suffering from what Jung calls a “sickness of dissociation,” which is a state of fragmentation deep within the unconscious itself that has seemingly spilled outside of our skulls and, through psychic forces beyond our conscious awareness, has taken the form of polarizing collective events playing themselves out en masse on the world stage. Our dissociation is not solely pathological, however, but is an expression of a deeper holistic process that is in the act of revealing itself. To quote Jung, “the sickness of dissociation in our world is at the same time a process of recovery, or rather, the climax of a period of pregnancy which heralds the throes of birth. A time of dissociation … is simultaneously an age of rebirth.”[1]

Whenever I hear “We are all in this together,” it reminds me of an amazing paragraph that Jung wrote in the late 1950’s that is as relevant today as it was then. Here is an excerpt: “We are in the soup that is going to be cooked for us, whether we claim to have invented it or not…. We are threatened with universal genocide if we cannot work out the way of salvation by a symbolic death.”[2] In other words, we are fated to suffer an unconscious “literal” death if we don’t consciously go through a “symbolic” death. What does Jung mean by this?

We are all in the soup together, yet we are suffering from a sickness of dissociation, and we are needing to go through a symbolic death experience, while another part of us is being reborn! What is going on here? Is what’s happening in our world meaningless chaos, or is there “something deeper” going on? The short answer: Our species has gotten drafted into an archetypal death/rebirth experience – in symbolically dying to a part of ourselves that is no longer serving us, another part of us is being reborn. As Jung points out, “there are times [and ours seems to be one of them] when the spirit is completely darkened because it needs to be reborn.”[3]

We can deepen our understanding of the archetypal process of death and rebirth that we are living out by shedding light on a prototypical example of death and rebirth – i.e., The Incarnation. Contemplating the West’s prevailing myth of the birth of God as a human being—the Christ event—psychologically, which is to say symbolically (i.e., as if it is a dream of our species) can help us gain some crucial insights into the deeper archetypal process that we are collectively enacting unconsciously on the world stage during these truly apocalyptic times.

The word “apocalypse,” etymologically speaking, refers to something previously hidden being unveiled and brought to light – in other words, something is being revealed to us during these apocalyptic times. Whereas in religious language, the apocalypse has to do with the Incarnation of God and the coming of the Messiah, psychologically speaking, the “apocalypse” means the momentous, world-shattering event of the coming of what Jung calls “the Self” (the wholeness of our personality, i.e., the God within) into conscious realization. Instead of incarnating through one man, however, like God did over two thousand years ago through the individual person of Jesus, the divine is now incarnating through the unconscious psyche of all of humanity. “God,” Jung writes, “wants to become man,” and instead of choosing a pure, guiltless vessel, God has chosen, in Jung’s words, “the creaturely man filled with darkness—the natural man who is tainted with original sin.”[4]

In that same amazing paragraph Jung writes, “Through his further incarnation God becomes a fearful task for man, who must now find ways and means to unite the divine opposites in himself. He is summoned…. Christ has shown how everybody will be crucified upon his destiny, i.e., upon his self, as he was. He did not carry his cross and suffer crucifixion so that we could escape.”[5] In other words, regardless of our outer religious orientation, everyone of us is fated (whether we like it or not) to carry our cross—to consciously bear our shadow and suffer the tension of the opposites within us—just as Christ did. And yet, something that we could not have created via the efforts of our own ego can potentially emerge as a result of consciously bearing this creative tension.

In being “summoned,” like a healer, shaman or artist who is being called by their inner voice and sacred vocation, we are being subpoenaed by a higher power. Whenever the archetype of the Self is constellated, due to the opposites intrinsic to the nature of this experience, we invariably feel a state of extreme conflict within us that is epitomized by the Christian symbol of the cross. Viewed symbolically, Christ on the cross reveals to us that the development and differentiation of consciousness leads to an ever-increasing awareness of a primordial conflict within our soul which necessarily involves a crucifixion of the ego. To understand this conflict psychologically, we could say that the unconscious longs to reach the light of consciousness, while at the same time continually recoils against it, because it would rather remain unconscious. In theological terms, to quote Jung, “God wants to become man, but not quite.”[6]

The Self is made manifest—i.e., real in space and time—through consciously suffering the conflict between the opposites to the point where we begin to experience their synthesis and complementarity. Jung comments, “This condition of the crucifixion, then, is a symbolic expression for the state of extreme conflict, where one simply has to give up, where one no longer knows, where one almost loses one’s mind. Out of that condition grows the thing which is really fought for … the birth of the self.”[7] It is by going through an internal experience of what the historical crucifixion symbolizes that the divine holy and whole-making spirit gets born through us.

Jung comments, “One shouldn’t evade this conflict by escaping into a premature and anticipated state of redemption, otherwise one provokes it in the outside world. And that is of the devil.”[8] If we don’t deal with the source of the divine conflict within us, it will get projected outside of ourselves and dreamed up in the external world. In other words, in our avoidance of dealing with the conflict within us, we are unwittingly colluding with the darker forces of death and destruction that are playing out in the outer world.

Nature herself does not come to a permanent standstill when confronted with opposites – rather, she uses them to create, out of their very opposition, a synthesis, a new birth. When Christ is nailed to the cross during the crucifixion, it symbolically represents that it is through the experience of being bound and severely limited in the space/time continuum that itself becomes the doorway through which we become introduced to the transcendent part of us that is beyond the physical, i.e., our spiritual nature. In other words, it is in experiencing our finite limitations to the max that becomes a doorway to the infinite part of ourselves.

Nothing so promotes the growth of consciousness as confronting the opposites within ourselves. Holding the tension of the opposites that is inherent in the crucifixion experience invariably liberates us from holding and identifying with our fixed and cherished perspectives. Helping us transcend the notion of a privileged and correct point of view, we become aperspectival in our viewpoint, as we see the relativity of all viewpoints – a way of seeing which coincides with the meta-perspective of the Self.

The essence of the Christian gnosis—the Incarnation of God through humanity—can be best understood as humanity’s creative confrontation with the opposites and their synthesis in the Self. The Self—which Jung equates with Christ—is present in everyone, but typically in an unconscious and unrealized condition. Once we withdraw our projections and fixations upon an external historical or metaphysical figure, however, we can realize that the Self/Christ (or whatever name we call it) lives within us – in Jung’s words, we then “wake up the Christ within.”[9]

Nature herself does not come to a permanent standstill when confronted with opposites – rather, she uses them to create, out of their very opposition, a synthesis, a new birth. When Christ is nailed to the cross during the crucifixion, it symbolically represents that it is through the experience of being bound and severely limited in the space/time continuum that itself becomes the doorway through which we become introduced to the transcendent part of us that is beyond the physical, i.e., our spiritual nature. In other words, it is in experiencing our finite limitations to the max that becomes a doorway to the infinite part of ourselves.

Nothing so promotes the growth of consciousness as confronting the opposites within ourselves. Holding the tension of the opposites that is inherent in the crucifixion experience invariably liberates us from holding and identifying with our fixed and cherished perspectives. Helping us transcend the notion of a privileged and correct point of view, we become aperspectival in our viewpoint, as we see the relativity of all viewpoints – a way of seeing which coincides with the meta-perspective of the Self.

The essence of the Christian gnosis—the Incarnation of God through humanity—can be best understood as humanity’s creative confrontation with the opposites and their synthesis in the Self. The Self—which Jung equates with Christ—is present in everyone, but typically in an unconscious and unrealized condition. Once we withdraw our projections and fixations upon an external historical or metaphysical figure, however, we can realize that the Self/Christ (or whatever name we call it) lives within us – in Jung’s words, we then “wake up the Christ within.”[9]

The cross is the symbol of the suffering Godhead that redeems humanity. This suffering would not have occurred without darker forces seemingly opposed to God. This is to say that the powers of evil play a crucial, mysterious and essential role in the redemption of humanity. Jung continues, “Christ is the model for the human answers and his symbol is the cross, the union of the opposites. This will be the fate of man, and this he must understand if he is to survive at all.”[11]

To quote Trappist monk and author Thomas Merton, “every man is Christ on the Cross, whether he realizes it or not. But we, if we are Christians [and in the deeper symbolic sense we are all “Christians”], must learn to realize it.”[12] Realizing we are Christ on the Cross re-contextualizes our suffering, transforming it from a deeply problematic personal situation to a more universal process in which we have all gotten enlisted. It is important to distinguish our neurotic suffering—which is a result of our unconscious clinging and is totally unproductive—from the suffering which is “sent by God” (as Christian mystics would say) in order to purify us of our obscurations. Our neurotic suffering blocks us from experiencing the divine, while the suffering that is a result of our participation in the archetypal process of crucifixion, through connecting us to the deeper passion that Christ went through, is the doorway introducing us to something beyond ourselves.

Russian philosopher Nicolas Berdyaev writes, “But there was a tendency to forget that the cross had a universal significance and application. The Crucifixion awaits not only the individual man but also society as a whole, a State or a civilization.”[13] In other words, it is not just individuals who are symbolically going through a crucifixion experience, but our global civilization as a whole. The microcosm (the individual) and the macrocosm (the collective), like iterations of the same fractal, are mirrored reflections of each other. The Self (or whatever name we call it) is incarnating through us—both individually and as a species—and it makes all the difference in the world whether we consciously realize this or not.[14]

If we remain unconscious when a living archetypal process is activated within us, this inner process will physically manifest itself externally in the outside world, where, as if by fate, it will get unconsciously dreamed up and acted out in a “literal,” concrete and oftentimes destructive way. Instead of going through an inner symbolic death, for example, we then literally kill each other, as well as, ultimately, ourselves. If we recognize, however, that we are being cast to play a role in a deeper cosmic process, instead of being destined to enact it unconsciously, and hence, destructively, we are able to consciously and creatively “incarnate” this archetypal process as individuation.

We, as a species, to quote Jung, have been “drawn into the cycle of the death and rebirth of the gods.”[15] In other words, having become part of a deeper mythic, archetypal and alchemical process of transformation, we are going through a cosmic death-rebirth experience of a higher order. Jung describes “how the divine process of change manifests itself to our human understanding and how man experiences it – as punishment, torment, death, and transfiguration.”[16] This divinely-sponsored process is subjectively experienced by the human ego as torture.[17] However, if we don’t personalize the experience, identify with it or get stuck in its nightmarish aspect—a great danger—but allow this deeper process to refine us as it needs to, it can lead to a transfiguration of our very being.

Whether consciously or not, we are all in a state of grieving – the world we have known is dying. In addition, our sense of who we think we are—imagining we exist as a separate self, alien to and apart from other separate selves as well as the rest of the universe—is an illusion whose expiration date has now been reached. This illusion is like a non-existent mirage that, if not recognized as illusory, can become reified and thereby become a lethal mirage. Either our illusion expires, or we do. As the poet Rumi would say, we need to “die before we die.”

To step out of the illusion of thinking we exist as a separate self is to recognize—and be born into—our greater identity (whether we call it the Self, Christ, Buddha, etc.), that includes and embraces everything under the sun. The Self—who we actually are—is simultaneously the source and fruit of life itself, enhancing life beyond measure. Connecting with the Self is not only our only hope in these dark times, it’s what everything that is happening in our world is potentially helping us to realize. And yet, the way to ascend to the light of the Higher Self (in Christian terminology, to attain The Resurrected Body)—as Christ himself indicates via his descent to the underworld after his death on the cross—is by journeying through the darkness.

To quote Jung, “God really wants to become man, even if he rends him asunder[18] … because he wants to become man, the uniting of his antinomy must take place in man.”[19] Where else, after all, could the opposites intrinsic to God’s nature (e.g., light and dark, good and evil) attain unity except in the very vessel—humanity—that God has prepared just for this very purpose? Being cooked in the soup together, we are being immersed and baptized into a deeper cosmic process. We are playing a crucial role in the divine drama of incarnation, an insight that renders meaning to our suffering and assists us in discovering our place in the world as well as helping us to find our very selves.

Freedom from Fear: Stop Playing the Government’s Mind Games

By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

Source: The Rutherford Institute

No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.”—Edward R. Murrow, broadcast journalist

America is in the midst of an epidemic of historic proportions.

The contagion being spread like wildfire is turning communities into battlegrounds and setting Americans one against the other.

Normally mild-mannered individuals caught up in the throes of this disease have been transformed into belligerent zealots, while others inclined to pacifism have taken to stockpiling weapons and practicing defensive drills.

This plague on our nation—one that has been spreading like wildfire—is a potent mix of fear coupled with unhealthy doses of paranoia and intolerance, tragic hallmarks of the post-9/11 America in which we live and the constantly shifting crises that keep the populace in a state of high alert.

Everywhere you turn, those on both the left- and right-wing are fomenting distrust and division. You can’t escape it.

We’re being fed a constant diet of fear: fear of a virus, fear of the unmasked, fear of terrorists, fear of illegal immigrants, fear of people who are too religious, fear of people who are not religious enough, fear of extremists, fear of the government, fear of those who fear the government. The list goes on and on.

The strategy is simple yet effective: the best way to control a populace is through fear and discord.

Fear makes people stupid.

Confound them, distract them with mindless news chatter and entertainment, pit them against one another by turning minor disagreements into major skirmishes, and tie them up in knots over matters lacking in national significance.

Most importantly, divide the people into factions, persuade them to see each other as the enemy and keep them screaming at each other so that they drown out all other sounds. In this way, they will never reach consensus about anything and will be too distracted to notice the police state closing in on them until the final crushing curtain falls.

This is how free people enslave themselves and allow tyrants to prevail.

This Machiavellian scheme has so ensnared the nation that few Americans even realize they are being manipulated into adopting an “us” against “them” mindset. Instead, fueled with fear and loathing for phantom opponents, they agree to pour millions of dollars and resources into political elections, militarized police, spy technology, endless wars, COVID-19 mandates, etc., hoping for a guarantee of safety that never comes.

All the while, those in power—bought and paid for by lobbyists and corporations—move their costly agendas forward, and “we the suckers” get saddled with the tax bills and subjected to pat downs, police raids and round-the-clock surveillance.

Turn on the TV or flip open the newspaper on any given day, and you will find yourself accosted by reports of government corruption, corporate malfeasance, militarized police, marauding SWAT teams, and egregious assaults on the rights of the citizenry.

America has already entered a new phase, one in which communities are locked down, employees are forced to choose between keeping their jobs or exercising their freedoms, children are arrested in schools, military veterans are forcibly detained by government agents, and law-abiding Americans are finding their movements tracked, their financial transactions documented and their communications monitored.

These threats are not to be underestimated.

Yet even more dangerous than these violations of our basic rights is the language in which they are couched: the language of fear. It is a language spoken effectively by politicians on both sides of the aisle, shouted by media pundits from their cable TV pulpits, marketed by corporations, and codified into bureaucratic laws that do little to make our lives safer or more secure.

Fear, as history shows, is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government.

So far, these tactics are working.

An atmosphere of fear permeates modern America.

Each successive crisis in recent years (a COVID-19 pandemic, terrorism, etc.)—manufactured or legitimate—has succeeded in reducing the American people to what commentator Dan Sanchez refers to as “herd-minded hundreds of millions [who] will stampede to the State for security, bleating to please, please be shorn of their remaining liberties.”

Sanchez continues:

“I am not terrified of the terrorists; i.e., I am not, myself, terrorized. Rather, I am terrified of the terrorized; terrified of the bovine masses who are so easily manipulated by terrorists, governments, and the terror-amplifying media into allowing our country to slip toward totalitarianism and total war…

“I do not irrationally and disproportionately fear Muslim bomb-wielding jihadists or white, gun-toting nutcases. But I rationally and proportionately fear those who do, and the regimes such terror empowers. History demonstrates that governments are capable of mass murder and enslavement far beyond what rogue militants can muster. Industrial-scale terrorists are the ones who wear ties, chevrons, and badges. But such terrorists are a powerless few without the supine acquiescence of the terrorized many. There is nothing to fear but the fearful themselves…

“Stop swallowing the overblown scaremongering of the government and its corporate media cronies. Stop letting them use hysteria over small menaces to drive you into the arms of tyranny, which is the greatest menace of all.”

As history makes clear, fear leads to fascistic, totalitarian regimes.

It’s a simple enough formula. National crises, global pandemics, reported terrorist attacks, and sporadic shootings leave us in a constant state of fear. Fear prevents us from thinking. The emotional panic that accompanies fear actually shuts down the prefrontal cortex or the rational thinking part of our brains. In other words, when we are consumed by fear, we stop thinking.

A populace that stops thinking for themselves is a populace that is easily led, easily manipulated and easily controlled.

The following are a few of the necessary ingredients for a fascist state:

·       The government is managed by a powerful leader (even if he or she assumes office by way of the electoral process). This is the fascistic leadership principle (or father figure).

·       The government assumes it is not restrained in its power. This is authoritarianism, which eventually evolves into totalitarianism.

·       The government ostensibly operates under a capitalist system while being undergirded by an immense bureaucracy.

·       The government through its politicians emits powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.

·       The government has an obsession with national security while constantly invoking terrifying internal and external enemies.

·       The government establishes a domestic and invasive surveillance system and develops a paramilitary force that is not answerable to the citizenry.

·       The government and its various agencies (federal, state, and local) develop an obsession with crime and punishment. This is overcriminalization.

·       The government becomes increasingly centralized while aligning closely with corporate powers to control all aspects of the country’s social, economic, military, and governmental structures.

·       The government uses militarism as a center point of its economic and taxing structure.

·       The government is increasingly imperialistic in order to maintain the military-industrial corporate forces.

The parallels to modern America are impossible to ignore.

“Every industry is regulated. Every profession is classified and organized,” writes Jeffrey Tucker. “Every good or service is taxed. Endless debt accumulation is preserved. Immense doesn’t begin to describe the bureaucracy. Military preparedness never stops, and war with some evil foreign foe, remains a daily prospect.”

For the final hammer of fascism to fall, it will require the most crucial ingredient: the majority of the people will have to agree that it’s not only expedient but necessary. In times of “crisis,” expediency is upheld as the central principle—that is, in order to keep us safe and secure, the government must militarize the police, strip us of basic constitutional rights and criminalize virtually every form of behavior.

Not only does fear grease the wheels of the transition to fascism by cultivating fearful, controlled, pacified, cowed citizens, but it also embeds itself in our very DNA so that we pass on our fear and compliance to our offspring.

It’s called epigenetic inheritance, the transmission through DNA of traumatic experiences.

For example, neuroscientists have observed how quickly fear can travel through generations of mice DNA. As The Washington Post reports:

In the experiment, researchers taught male mice to fear the smell of cherry blossoms by associating the scent with mild foot shocks. Two weeks later, they bred with females. The resulting pups were raised to adulthood having never been exposed to the smell. Yet when the critters caught a whiff of it for the first time, they suddenly became anxious and fearful. They were even born with more cherry-blossom-detecting neurons in their noses and more brain space devoted to cherry-blossom-smelling.

The conclusion? “A newborn mouse pup, seemingly innocent to the workings of the world, may actually harbor generations’ worth of information passed down by its ancestors.”

Now consider the ramifications of inherited generations of fears and experiences on human beings. As the Post reports, “Studies on humans suggest that children and grandchildren may have felt the epigenetic impact of such traumatic events such as famine, the Holocaust and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.”

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, fear, trauma and compliance can be passed down through the generations.

Fear has been a critical tool in past fascistic regimes, and it now operates in our contemporary world—all of which raises fundamental questions about us as human beings and what we will give up in order to perpetuate the illusions of safety and security.

In the words of psychologist Erich Fromm:

[C]an human nature be changed in such a way that man will forget his longing for freedom, for dignity, for integrity, for love—that is to say, can man forget he is human? Or does human nature have a dynamism which will react to the violation of these basic human needs by attempting to change an inhuman society into a human one?

THE ART OF THE UNDECEIVED

Strong confident woman.

By Gary Z McGee

Source: Waking Times

“Here the ways of men divide. If you wish to strive for peace of soul and happiness, then believe; if you wish to be a disciple of truth, then search.” ~Nietzsche

What does it mean to be undeceived?

To a certain extent, we are always deceived. For we are only human, all too human. But to the extent that we can become aware of deception—both self-deception and the deception of others—being undeceived means being ahead of the curve of the human condition.

First, it means embracing deception as an integral part of life. Then it means being strategically circumspect while creating your own meaning. It means taking everything that you’ve learned into consideration with humility and a good sense of humor. It means becoming so healthy that your very existence is a catalyst for healthy change. It means connecting courage to curiosity. It means taking a leap of courage. It means putting things into proper perspective by using health as a benchmark.

It is, paraphrasing Bruce Lee, “absorbing what is useful, discarding what is not, and adding what is uniquely your own.” Let’s break it down…

Absorb what is useful:

“If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking.” ~Benjamin Franklin

What is useful? Well, if your goal is not only basic survival but also progressive evolution, then what is useful is what is healthy. Contrastingly, what is not useful is what is unhealthy.

So, how do you figure out what is healthy or not? Through logic, reason, and critical thinking. You cannot wish something into being healthy. You cannot simply believe something is healthy and, by your strong faith alone, expect it to be valid. You can only reason through if something is healthy or not. Once you have reasoned a thing to be healthy, you free yourself to absorb what is useful.

Absorbing what is useful is absorbing what is healthy. The path is then clear to question with a good conscience. You become undeceived. In a state of undeception, you are free to wield the question mark sword, the Sword of Truth, and to use it in a way that distinguishes what’s healthy from what’s not.

What is healthy is absorbed as something useful for progressive evolution. What is unhealthy can then be discarded as something useless, so as to avoid an unhealthy society.

Discard what is not useful:

“A fool thinks himself wise, a wise man knows himself to be a fool.” ~William Shakespeare

Discarding what is not useful (what is unhealthy) requires self-discipline. It requires vigilance. Most people don’t even know that they don’t know the difference between healthy and unhealthy. Especially people who have grown up, culturally conditioned and indoctrinated, in a profoundly sick society.

How do you know if you were born into a profoundly sick society?

1.) Any society that pollutes the air it needs to breathe is a profoundly sick society.

2.) Any society that pollutes the water it needs to drink is a profoundly sick society.

3.) Any society that pollutes the food it needs to eat is a profoundly sick society.

4.) Any society that pollutes the minds it needs to evolve with is a profoundly sick society.

You must have the self-discipline to daily question what is healthy and what is not. For health is not a matter of opinion. Health is a benchmark. Without this benchmark, you cannot discern what is useful from what is not useful.

As such, belief and certainty are the greatest obstacles blocking us from being able to discard what is not useful. This is especially dangerous when those beliefs and certainties are derived from the cultural conditioning of a profoundly sick society. Hence the importance of vigilance and strategic prudence.

In order to remain undeceived, we must remain circumspect. The Sword of Truth must be unleashed daily so that it may cut through the red tape of wishful thinking, irrational beliefs, and whimsical certitude.

It is only when our naïve beliefs have been shattered upon the hard concrete of reality that we are free to distinguish between what is healthy and what is not. As we begin to piece things together, we become undeceived. We are liberated to absorb what is useful and discard what is not.

Add what is uniquely your own:

“Small minds discuss people. Average minds discuss events. Great minds discuss ideas.” ~Henry Thomas Buckle

Once you have successfully threshed the chaff (unhealthy/useless) from the grain (healthy/useful), you are free to unleash your creativity. From swords to plowshares, your Sword of Truth becomes a Pen of Truth. With it, you are free to create high art; art that shatters molds, stretches comfort zones, and initiates wake up calls. You become free to prove why the pen will always be mightier than the sword.

Here, still, we must remain vigilant. For even art can become dogmatic. In order not to be deceived, we must always be in a state of questioning what we think we know and weighing it against the nonnegotiable scales of healthy/unhealthy. Should our art become dogmatic, we would be wise to absorb what is useful from it and discard what is not. This way we will always be openminded and openhearted enough to add what is uniquely our own.

Outdated truth must die so that it doesn’t taint the updated truth of the times. God must die so that God can be reborn. Creativity thrives off the ashes of old art. Evolution progresses or stagnates in proportion to how creative we can be after having absorbed what is useful (healthy) and discarding what is not (unhealthy).

The art of being undeceived is more like the juggler’s art than the interrogator’s. It should be flexible and adaptable to meet results which are sudden and unexpected. The undeceived understand that the self is masks all the way down perceiving delusions all the way up, and they have the acumen and the wherewithal to juggle both masks and delusions into a state of high humor and even higher art.

THE UGLINESS (AND HIDDEN BEAUTY) OF REAL AWAKENING

By Gary Z McGee

Source: Waking Times

“In order to be effective truth must penetrate like an arrow—and that is likely to hurt.” ~Wei Wu Wei

The path toward true awakening is painful and bumpy. It’s not pretty. In fact, it can be downright ugly. There are egoic pitfalls. There are soul-snaring brambles. There are existential knots. The way is never clear, until it is. And even then, it usually turns out to be an illusion.

The path is not soft and sweet but jagged and elusive. It is not artificially blissful but authentically painful. The joy of discovery on the one side is deep and can be genuinely ecstatic, but the agony on the other side cuts to the soul and can be devastatingly dismal.

Real awakening is both a reckoning and a wrecking, both an expansion and an annihilation. It is not pretend reconciliation. Authentic awakening is painfully transcendent. It grips the soul by the throat and doesn’t let go. Infinity casts its hook, and you’re taken—hook, line, and sinker—into Growth.

The key is to remain flexible and circumspect. The secret is to somehow find comfort within the discomfort. Easier said than done, sure. But as Spinoza said, “All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.”

Heartbreaking Cognitive dissonance:

“Make no mistake about it – enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.” ~Adyashanti

The Ugliness: psychological discomfort, ignorance, the pain of being wrong.

Cognitive dissonance is a humdinger of a psychosocial malady. It’s a counterintuitive glitch in the matrix, causing us to believe that belief is black and white. It’s not. Belief is relative to the observer. And when the “observer” is a fallible, imperfect, barely evolved, naked ape who’s prone to be mistaken about a great many things, belief can be downright blinding.

Cognitive dissonance is merely the discomfort experienced when two incongruent worldviews clash. It accounts for our hidden fears, our willful ignorance, and our tendency to cling to our comfort zone. It shines a spotlight on our utter inept ability to shine a spotlight. It’s the psychosocial irony of ironies. Indeed. It reveals that we are the fly in the ointment.

The Hidden beauty: clarity, clearness, curiosity, recalibration.

But if we can embrace our cognitive dissonance, if we can reconcile the discomfort of having been wrong, and if we can correct our incorrections, a deep clarity overcomes us. We’re suddenly able to reprogram outdated programming.

An overwhelming relation to Socrates quip “The only thing I know is that I know nothing,” grips us—balls to bones, ovaries to marrow. And our mind opens so wide that the only thing that can fit is everything.

Soulbreaking Mortal dread:

“What is above knows what is below, what is below does not know what is above.” ~Rene Daumal

The Ugliness: mortality, impermanence, soulbreak.

Existential Angst can be a soul-crippling thing. Death is a precipice; one in which we all share a natural fear of “heights.” Our mortality is a slap in the face to our immortal dreams. We wear our mortal coils like choke chains around our necks, gasping in sheer terror at the impermanence of all things.

But we ignore it at our own detriment. The more we repress our existential angst the uglier it gets. It festers within, eating away at our logic and reasoning. It becomes a blister of suppressed darkness that mercilessly sucks in love and light. It makes us ugly despite the beauty of life.

The Hidden beauty: honesty, adaptability, fearlessness, love.

Truly waking up to our mortality is allowing death to put life into perspective. This is a double-edged sword that cuts as it heals. It cuts with honesty and truth. It heals with the same, but a robustness comes from it, a resilience is born, tantamount to antifragility.

When we shine a light onto our mortal dread, we make an ally of our shadow. Absolute vulnerability trumps naïve invulnerability. Fear is transformed into fuel for the fire (fearlessness) of falling in love with our preciously short life.

Dark Night of the Soul:

“Undifferentiated consciousness, when differentiated, becomes the world.” ~Vedanta

The Ugliness: the existential black hole, ego death, choking on the red pill of truth.

Honestly facing our flaws, our wrongness, and our mortality creates a void. This void is the place where our ego goes to die. Where before, we naively clung to our beliefs and worldview through sheer ignorance, now, our innocence is burned away and the existential black hole opens wide before us, fierce and menacing, and threatening to consume all meaning.

Here, the egoic perspective is in deep crisis. The certainties of life fall apart. The puzzle becomes terribly more puzzling. We choke on the red pill. It gets lodged in our throat. We falsely imagine that all we need is the blue pill to wash it down. But as the ego dies, the soul is being born.

The Hidden beauty: transcendence, nonattachment, Soul initiation.

When we face our wrongness and our mortality with dignity and honor, with humor and honesty, with love and appreciation, we discover our ability to adapt and overcome. Our ego is baptized by the soul, becoming a workhorse for selflessness and growth as opposed to selfishness and comfort.

We transcend egocentric codependence through soulcentric interdependence. We learn how not to take ourselves too seriously. For we see how everything is transitory. All things are fleeting. The be-all-end-all is always beginning and always ending. We have learned the wisdom of practicing detachment as a way to remain connected to everything else.

Crushing Nihilism:

“Only to the extent that we can expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.” ~Pema Chodron

The Ugliness: deconstructed invulnerability, meaninglessness, Master’s Complex.

The higher we rise in our soulwork, the more meaningless the universe becomes. This is a crushing truth for a truth seeker. In our naivete and youthful ignorance, we imagined a universe full of meaning and purpose. We imagined a heavenly blueprint and a loving masterplan. But then we faced our cognitive dissonance and our mortal dread. We experienced ego-death, and it all came unraveled. The unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky, magical thinking center simply could not hold.

We were faced with a decision: remain stuck in comforting deception or discover the heartbreaking truth; remain blissfully ignorant or discover painful knowledge. We chose the latter, and it made all the difference. Nihilism, ennui, meaninglessness was the price we paid, but it was a whetstone we honed our souls against and now we are sharp enough to cut God.

The Hidden beauty: humor, absolute vulnerability, responsibility, meaning creation.

True awakening is a heartbreaking, soul shattering, meaning crushing experience. The wise develop a loving sense of humor regarding the cruelty of the cosmic joke. They smile though their heart is breaking. They laugh though their soul is trembling. They create meaning despite the collapse of meaning.

As Joseph Campbell profoundly stated, “Suddenly you’re ripped into being alive. And life is pain, and life is suffering, and life is horror, but my god you’re alive and it’s spectacular.” Indeed. And it is this spectacular experience that launches us into a state of reverence for the sharpening of suffering greatly.

Sharpness does not just come to a knife. Luster does not just come to a pearl. Crystallization does not just come to a diamond. The knife must be tested. The grit must be rubbed. The coal must be pressurized. Had we not been sharpened, had we not been rubbed, had we not been pressured by a cruel universe, then all we would have is grit, coal, and dullness. But we took the ugliness of our awakening and we transformed it into the beauty of living a life well-lived.

GASLIGHTING: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SHAPING ANOTHER’S REALITY

By Cynthia Chung

Source: Waking Times

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

– Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

We are living in a world where the degree of disinformation and outright lying has reached such a state of affairs that, possibly for the first time ever, we see the majority of the western world starting to question their own and surrounding level of sanity. The increasing frenzied distrust in everything “authoritative” mixed with the desperate incredulity that “everybody couldn’t possibly be in on it!” is slowly rocking many back and forth into a tighter and tighter straight jacket. “Question everything” has become the new motto, but are we capable of answering those questions?

Presently the answer is a resounding no.

The social behaviourist sick joke of having made everyone obsessed with toilet paper of all things during the start of what was believed to be a time of crisis, is an example of how much control they have over that red button labelled “commence initiation of level 4 mass panic”.

And can the people be blamed? After all, if we are being lied to, how can we possibly rally together and point the finger at the root of this tyranny, aren’t we at the point where it is everywhere?

As Goebbels infamously stated,

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State [under fascism].”

And here we find ourselves today, at the brink of fascism. However, we have to first agree to forfeit our civil rights as a collective before fascism can completely dominate. That is, the big lie can only succeed if the majority fails to call it out, for if the majority were to recognise it for what it is, it would truly hold no power.

The Battle for Your Mind

Politicians, Priests, and psychiatrists often face the same problem: how to find the most rapid and permanent means of changing a man’s belief…The problem of the doctor and his nervously ill patient, and that of the religious leader who sets out to gain and hold new converts, has now become the problem of whole groups of nations, who wish not only to confirm certain political beliefs within their boundaries, but to proselytize the outside world.

– William Sargant “Battle of the Mind

It had been commonly thought in the past, and not without basis, that tyranny could only exist on the condition that the people were kept illiterate and ignorant of their oppression. To recognise that one was “oppressed” meant they must first have an idea of what was “freedom”, and if one were allowed the “privilege” to learn how to read, this discovery was inevitable.

If education of the masses could turn the majority of a population literate, it was thought that the higher ideas, the sort of “dangerous ideas” that Mustapha Mond for instance expresses in “The Brave New World”, would quickly organise the masses and revolution against their “controllers” would be inevitable. In other words, knowledge is freedom, and you cannot enslave those who learn how to “think”.

However, it hasn’t exactly played out that way has it?

The greater majority of us are free to read whatever we wish to, in terms of the once “forbidden books”, such as those listed by The Index Librorum Prohibitorum. We can read any of the writings that were banned in “The Brave New World”, notably the works of Shakespeare which were named as absolutely dangerous forms of “knowledge”.

We are now very much free to “educate” ourselves on the very “ideas” that were recognised by tyrants of the past as the “antidote” to a life of slavery. And yet, today, the majority choose not to…

It is recognised, albeit superficially, that who controls the past, controls the present and thereby the future. George Orwell’s book “1984”, hammers this as the essential feature that allows the Big Brother apparatus to maintain absolute control over fear, perception and loyalty to the Party cause, and yet despite its popularity, there still remains a lack of interest in actually informing oneself about the past.

What does it matter anyway, if the past is controlled and rewritten to suit the present? As the Big Brother interrogator O’Brien states to Winston, “We, the Party, control all records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not? [And thus, are free to rewrite it as we choose…]”

Of course, we are not in the same situation as Winston…we are much better off. We can study and learn about the “past” if we so desire, unfortunately, it is a choice that many take for granted.

In fact, many are probably not fully aware that presently there is a battle waging for who will “control the past” in a manner that is closely resembling a form of “memory wipe”.

*  *  *

William Sargant was a British psychiatrist and, one could say, effectively the Father of “mind control” in the West, with connections to British Intelligence and the Tavistock Institute, which would influence the CIA and American military via the program MK Ultra. Sargant was also an advisor for Ewen Cameron’s LSD “blank slate” work at McGill University, funded by the CIA.

Sargant accounts for his reason in studying and using forms of “mind control” on his patients, which were primarily British soldiers that were sent back from the battlefield during WWII with various forms of “psychosis”, as the only way to rehabilitate extreme forms of PTSD.

The other reason, was because the Soviets had apparently become “experts” in the field, and out of a need for national security, the British would thus in turn have to become experts as well…as a matter of self-defence of course.

The work of Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, had succeeded in producing some disturbingly interesting insights into four primary forms of nervous systems in dogs, that were combinations of inhibitory and excitatory temperaments; “strong excitatory”, “balanced”, “passive” and “calm imperturbable”. Pavlov found that depending on the category of nervous system temperament the dog had, this in turn would dictate the form of “conditioning” that would work best to “reprogram behaviour”. The relevance to “human conditioning” was not lost on anyone.

It was feared in the West, that such techniques would not only be used against their soldiers to invoke free-flowing uninhibited confessions to the enemy but that these soldiers could be sent back to their home countries, as zombified assassins and spies that could be set off with a simple code word. At least, these were the thriller stories and movies that were pumped into the population. How horrific indeed! That the enemy could apparently enter what was thought the only sacred ground to be our own…our very “minds”!

However, for those who were actually leading the field in mind control research, such as William Sargant, it was understood that this was not exactly how mind control worked.

For one thing, the issue of “free will” was getting in the way.

No matter the length or degree of electro-shock, insulin “therapy”, tranquilizer cocktails, induced comas, sleep deprivation, starvation etc induced, it was discovered that if the subject had a “strong conviction” and “strong belief” in something, this could not be simply erased, it could not be written over with any arbitrary thing. Rather, the subject would have to have the illusion that their “conditioning” was in fact a “choice”. This was an extremely challenging task, and long term conversions (months to years) were rare.

However, Sargant saw an opening. It was understood that one could not create a new individual from scratch, however, with the right conditioning that was meant to lead to a physical breakdown using abnormal stress (effectively a reboot of the nervous system), one could increase the “suggestibility” markedly in their subjects.

Sargant wrote in his “Battle of the Mind”: 

“Pavlov’s clinical descriptions of the ‘experimental neuroses’ which he could induce in dogs proved, in fact, to have a close correspondence with those war-neuroses which we were investigating at the time.”

In addition, Sargant found that a falsely implanted memory could help induce abnormal stress leading to emotional exhaustion and physical breakdown to invoke “suggestibility”. That is, one didn’t even need to have a “real stress” but an “imagined stress” would work just as effectively.

Sargant goes on to state in his book:

“It is not surprising that the ordinary person, in general, is much more easily indoctrinated than the abnormal…A person is considered ‘ordinary’ or ‘normal’ by the community simply because he accepts most of its social standards and behavioural patterns; which means, in fact, that he is susceptible to suggestion and has been persuaded to go with the majority on most ordinary or extraordinary occasions.”

Sargant then goes over the phenomenon of the London Blitz, which was an eight month period of heavy bombing of London during WWII. During this period, in order to cope and stay “sane”, people rapidly became accustomed to the idea that their neighbours could be and were buried alive in bombed houses around them. The thought was “If I can’t do anything about it what use is it that I trouble myself over it?” The best “coping” was thus found to be those who accepted the new “environment” and just focused on “surviving”, and did not try to resist it.

Sargant remarks that it is this “adaptability” to a changing environment which is part of the “survival” instinct and is very strong in the “healthy” and “normal” individual who can learn to cope and thus continues to be “functional” despite an ever changing environment.

It was thus our deeply programmed “survival instinct” that was found to be the key to the suggestibility of our minds. That the best “survivors” made for the best “brain-washing” in a sense.

Sargant quotes Hecker’s work, who was studying the dancing mania phenomenon that occurred during the Black Death, where Hecker observed that heightened suggestibility had the capability to cause a person to “embrace with equal force, reason and folly, good and evil, diminish the praise of virtue as well as the criminality of vice.”

And that such a state of mind was likened to the first efforts of the infant mind “this instinct of imitation when it exists in its highest degree, is also united a loss of all power over the will, which occurs as soon as the impression on the senses has become firmly established, producing a condition like that of small animals when they are fascinated by the look of a serpent.

I wonder if Sargant imagined himself the serpent…

Sargant does finally admit:

“This does not mean that all persons can be genuinely indoctrinated by such means. Some will give only temporary submission to the demands made on them, and fight again when strength of body and mind returns. Others are saved by the supervention of madness. Or the will to resist may give way, but not the intellect itself.”

But he comforts himself as a response to this stubborn resistance that “As mentioned in a previous context, the stake, the gallows, the firing squad, the prison, or the madhouse, are usually available for the failures.”

How to Resist the Deconstruction of Your Mind

He whom the gods wish to destroy, they first of all drive mad.

– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “The Masque of Pandora

For those who have not seen the 1944 psychological thriller “Gaslight” directed by George Cukor, I would highly recommend you do so since there is an invaluable lesson contained within, that is especially applicable to what I suspect many of us are experiencing nowadays.

The story starts with a 14 year old Paula (played by Ingrid Bergman) who is being taken to Italy after her Aunt Alice Alquist, a famous opera singer and caretaker of Paula, is found murdered in her home in London. Paula is the one who found the body, and horror stricken is never her old self again. Her Aunt was the only family Paula had left in her life. The decision is made to send her away from London to Italy to continue her studies to become a world-renowned opera singer like her Aunt Alice.

Years go by, Paula lives a very sheltered life and a heavy somberness is always present within her, she can never seem to feel any kind of happiness. During her singing studies she meets a mysterious man (her piano accompanist during her lessons) and falls deeply in love with him. However, she knows hardly anything about the man named Gregory.

Paula agrees to marry Gregory after a two week romance and is quickly convinced to move back into her Aunt’s house in London that was left abandoned all these years. As soon as she enters the house, the haunting of the night of the murder revisits her and she is consumed with panic and fear. Gregory tries to calm her and talks about the house needing just a little bit of air and sun, and then Paula comes across a letter written to her Aunt from a Sergis Bauer which confirms that he was in contact with Alice just a few days before her murder. At this finding, Gregory becomes bizarrely agitated and grabs the letter from Paula. He quickly tries to justify his anger blaming the letter for upsetting her. Gregory then decides to lock all of her Aunt’s belongings in the attic, to apparently spare Paula any further anguish.

It is at this point that Gregory starts to change his behaviour dramatically. Always under the pretext for “Paula’s sake”, everything that is considered “upsetting” to Paula must be removed from her presence. And thus quickly the house is turned into a form of prison. Paula is told it is for her best not to leave the house unaccompanied, not to have visitors and that self-isolation is the best remedy for her “anxieties” which are getting worst. Paula is never strictly forbidden at the beginning but rather is told that she should obey these restrictions for her own good.

Before a walk, he gives as a gift a beautiful heirloom brooch that belonged to his mother. Because the pin needs replacing, he instructs Paula to keep it in her handbag, and then says rather out of context, “Don’t forget where you put it now Paula, I don’t want you losing it.” Paula remarks thinking the warning absurd, “Of course I won’t forget!” When they return from their walk, Gregory asks for the brooch, Paula searches in her handbag but it is not there.

It continues on like this, with Gregory giving warnings and reminders, seemingly to help Paula with her “forgetfulness” and “anxieties”. Paula starts to question her own judgement and sanity as these events become more and more frequent. She has no one else to talk to but Gregory, who is the only witness to these apparent mishaps. It gets to a point where completely nonsensical behaviour is being attributed to Paula by Gregory. A painting is found missing on the wall one night. Gregory talks to Paula like she is a 5 year child and asks her to put it back. Paula insists she does not know who took it down. After her persistent passionate insistence that it was not her, she walks up the stairs almost like she were in a dream state and pulls the painting from behind a statue. Gregory asks why she lied, but Paula insists that she only thought to look there because that is where it was found the last two times this occurred.

For weeks now, Paula thinks she has been seeing things, the gas lights of the house dimming for no reason, she also hears footsteps above her bedroom. No one else seems to take notice. Paula is also told by Gregory that he found out that her mother, who passed away when she was very young, had actually gone insane and died in an asylum.

Despite Paula being reduced to a condition of an ongoing stupor, she decides one night to make a stand and regain control over her life. Paula is invited, by one of her Aunt Alice’s close friends Lady Dalroy, to attend a high society evening with musical performances. Recall that Paula’s life gravitated around music before her encounter with Gregory. Music was her life. Paula gets magnificently dressed up for the evening and on her way out tells Gregory that she is going to this event. Gregory tries to convince her that she is not well enough to attend such a social gathering, when Paula calmly insists that she is going and that this woman was a dear friend of her Aunt, Gregory answers that he refuses to accompany her (in those days that was a big deal). Paula accepts this and walks with a solid dignity, undeterred towards the horse carriage. In a very telling scene, Gregory is left momentarily by himself and panic stricken, his eyes bulging he snaps his cigar case shut and runs after Paula. He laughingly calls to her, “Paula, you did not think I was serious? I had no idea that this party meant so much to you. Wait, I will get ready.” As he is getting ready in front of the mirror, a devilish smirk appears.

Paula and Gregory show up to Lady Dalroy’s house late, the pianist is in the middle of the 1st movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata #8 in C minor. They quickly are escorted to two empty seats. Paula is immediately immersed in the piece, and Gregory can see his control is slipping. After only a few minutes, he goes to look at his pocket watch but it is not in his pocket. He whispers into Paula’s ear, “My watch is missing”. Immediately, Paula looks like she is going to be sick. Gregory takes her handbag and Paula looks in horror as he pulls out his pocket watch, insinuating that Paula had put it there. She immediately starts losing control and has a very public emotional breakdown. Gregory takes her away, as he remarks to Lady Dalroy that this is why he didn’t want Paula coming in the first place.

When they arrive home, Paula has by now completely succumbed to the thought that she is indeed completely insane. Gregory says that it would be best if they go away somewhere for an indefinite period of time. We later find out that Gregory is intending on committing her to an asylum. Paula agrees to leave London with Gregory and leaves her fate entirely in his hands.

In the case of Paula it is clear. She has been suspecting that Gregory has something to do with her “situation” but he has very artfully created an environment where Paula herself doubts whether this is a matter of unfathomable villainy or whether she is indeed going mad.

It is rather because she is not mad that she doubts herself, because there is seemingly no reason for why Gregory would put so much time and energy into making it look like she were mad, or at least so it first appears. But what if the purpose to her believing in her madness was simply a matter of who is in control?

Paula almost succeeds in gaining the upper-hand in this power-struggle, the evening she decided to go out on her own no matter what Gregory insisted was in her best interest. If she would have held her ground at Lady Dalroy’s house and simply replied, “I have no idea why your stupid watch ended up in my handbag and I could care less. Now stop interrupting this performance, you are making a scene!” Gregory’s spell would have been broken as simple as that. If he were to complain to others about the situation, they would also respond, “Who cares man, why are you so obsessed about your damn watch?”

We find ourselves today in a very similar situation to Paula. And the voice of Gregory is represented by the narrative of false news and the apocalyptic social behaviourist programming in our forms of entertainment. The things most people voluntarily subject themselves to on a daily, if not hourly, basis. Socially conditioning them, like a pack of salivating Pavlovian dogs, to think it is just a matter of time before the world ends and with a ring of their master’s bell…be at each other’s throats.

Paula ends up being saved in the end by a man named Joseph Cotten (a detective), who took notice and quickly discerned that something was amiss. In the end Gregory is arrested. It is revealed that Gregory is in fact Sergis Bauer. That he killed Alice Alquist and that he has returned to the scene of the crime after all these years in search for the famous jewels of the opera singer. The jewels were in fact rather worthless from the standpoint that they were too famous to be sold, however, Gregory never intended on selling these jewels but rather had become obsessed with the desire to merely possess them.

That is, it is Gregory who has been entirely mad all this time.

A Gregory is absolutely dangerous. He would have been the end of Paula if nothing had intervened. However, the power that Gregory held was conditional to the degree that Paula allowed it to control her. Paula’s extreme deconstruction was thus entirely dependent on her choice to let the voice of Gregory in. That is, a Gregory is only dangerous if we allow ourselves to sleep walk into the nightmare he has constructed for us.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone,
“it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – – that’s all.”

– Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass

MASS PSYCHOSIS – HOW AN ENTIRE POPULATION BECOMES MENTALLY ILL

By Dylan Charles

Source: Waking Times

“Mass psychosis is an epidemic of madness and it occurs when a large portion of reality loses touch with reality and descends into illusions.”

When most people hear the term mass psychosis they think that it applies to everyone else but themselves. In the reality we’re sharing, however, we are all heavily influenced by the same negative forces, which have been assaulting the public psyche for decades now, and have only become increasingly more scientific and efficient in their ability to covertly influence the subconscious mind.

We are all targets in a war that aims to kill the mind, and cut it off from the ability to engage in rational thought and logical, reasonable discourse.

“Logic can be met with logic, while illogic cannot. It confuses those who think straight.”

In my quest to understand what is happening to people as a result of the mass-conditioning, mind-control and indoctrination oozing from every seam of our society, I’ve found that in order to root these forces out of your own mind, you can equip yourself with the same tools used against you, namely the reprogramming of the subconscious mind.

With the situation we are in now, we cannot expect for the current trends in media, propaganda and censorship to change in our favor any time soon. If we don’t turn the light of truth onto our own lives, we risk being swept away with the herd, going along just to be part of a tribe that only keeps you unhealthy, dysfunctional and afraid.

The following presentation does a helpful job of distilling the historical and philosophical understanding of what mass psychosis is, and how it manifests in our world as the most devastating social disasters and tragedies.

As a self-mastery coach, I help individuals ferret out the delusions that have been constructed in their own lives by their personal history and by the cultural influences hounding us to conform and join in the panic. They want us to lose touch with reality, therefore, we have to fight back by seizing total control of our own minds, bodies and behaviors.

Totalitarianism is on our door step. It is the obliteration of the individual. Your weapon in this war is your unique individuality, and when you step fully into this possibility, you become, simply, ungovernable and unencumbered by the forces tearing this society apart. If you’d like help in seeing how these forces are compelling you to sabotage your own life and never pursue the path of self mastery, contact me here. I love helping people remember who they really are amongst this insane backdrop of mass psychosis.