Enlightenment Reason or Occult Conspiracy?
Daniel Pinchbeck
This article originally appeared in Conscious Choice magazine.
What holds our world together is not only the laws of physics, but language, myth and story. Our narratives create the framework in which our actions and our intentions have meaning, or at least some kind of order. It is very hard for us to live without any coherence at all. It may even be impossible, as our minds immediately begin to weave together some type of fable to support whatever it is we find ourselves doing.
Lately, I find myself switching back and forth between divergent models or myths of reality and seeking to integrate them. One of them is the story of progress and reason, the inheritance of the secular and scientific Enlightenment. The progressive believes that a flawed society can be improved by rational policy and political pressure. The world can be made better for more people, inequities reduced and healthcare guaranteed. Although he has been strategic in his pronouncements, Barack Obama seems the model of a progressive reformer, promoting the type of sensible policies that led to the New Deal and the Great Society.
The other mythic structure that entices me is occult and conspiratorial. According to this story, there is a hidden agenda beneath the façade of chaotic events. This agenda is orchestrated by "them," that group of elite cabals and secret societies, an amalgam of Free Masons, Vatican priests, the descendents of the Nazi scientists brought to the U.S. after World War Two, and so on. To approach this concealed dimension of world affairs, to separate accurate insights from disinformation, is extremely difficult, and perhaps impossible. The quest involves long reading lists of small-press and self-published tomes and many hours on YouTube, watching lectures presented by anxious men in drab conferences. From such unreliable sources, one learns that much alien technology has already been recovered and reverse-engineered, that a New World Order of total social control is being orchestrated, that the Ark of the Covenant is a torsion field generator perhaps hidden in the Pentagon, that shapeshifting reptilians are controlling everything, and other tidbits.
Personally, I don't reject the possibility that there is an occult element in global affairs, a distorting factor that makes true understanding difficult to achieve. During my shamanic work, I encountered spiritual and demonic forces, appearing as visions and voices, but also causing effects that seemed to cross the barrier between the psychic and the physical. According to shamanic traditions, spirits operate across the entire field of our world. Rather than a fine-tuned conspiracy of elite cabals, the true story might be far more muddled, with various factions holding pieces of a puzzle, mired in outmoded rituals and incoherent beliefs, lacking shamanic skills. Many of those involved in these cabals may suffer from guilt and fear the consequences if their shadowy actions are revealed to the public.
Out on the esoteric edge of the cultural imagination, one finds an increasing convergence of thought-streams. The works of Steven Greer, David Wilcock and Richard Hoagland, as well as Nassim Haramein's DVD set, Crossing the Event Horizon (available at theresonanceproject.org) all suggest that, beyond a certain threshold, technological advances may be linked not just to technical knowledge but to our level of consciousness, requiring higher awareness as well as purified intentions in order to function. As Haramein theorizes, the Ark of the Covenant might have been an actual device preserved from antediluvian civilizations, capable of generating extraordinary amounts of energy - enough to open a passage through the Red Sea - but requiring an initiate on the level of Moses to operate it without causing mayhem. Many of these thinkers offer intriguing scenarios in which alchemical or extraterrestrial possibilities could manifest in tangible forms.
Can someone pursue Enlightenment ideals while simultaneously exploring occult conspiracies? If we avoid becoming obsessive or dismissive, it seems possible to hold contrasting myths or models of reality in our minds at the same time. We can study the Mayan Calendar, extraterrestrials and Gnostic cosmology while fighting for social and environmental justice, campaigning for political reform and so on. Whether or not our corrupt system can be changed, we could learn a great deal by joining any valiant effort made in that direction.
For Enlightenment thinkers, the sun symbolized the clear light of reason they adored. The clear light of reason may stream from the sun, but, as the French philosopher Georges Bataille noted, if you turn your gaze upward to look at its source, you find yourself blinded. Those who stare at the sun for too long may go insane. The source of reason in itself produces unreason, blindness and madness. Reason appears to have an innate contradiction at its center. Reason, by itself, may not be enough to get us out of our planetary plight. If spiritual forces operate within our world, then meaningful social change requires, along with political reform, initiatory processes and shamanic practices that could, perhaps, open our minds to new myths of reality.
Image by marirs, courtesy of Creative Commons license.
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Enlightenment ideals and the Occult
a new perspective
"...we are not even close to being capable of overturning the physical laws of nature and reversing the damage form overpopulation by some mind-over-matter-means."
For us to "fix" the damage being done, i feel it requires a knowledge truly beyond our current stage of evolution. Your plight is true from a realistic perspective, yes. But, what if this shift in consciousness is beyond reason, analysis, and scientific anxiety? Who could have predicted electricity? Or the wheel? Or, for that matter, reason and intellect? To understand a force that could possibly "save the planet" from its current state, we have to remove ourselves from the limitations of modern rationality. Perhaps a grander perspective lies in the processes that "open our minds to new myths of reality."
josef
Reply to all here
My point is, it is childish/wishful magical thinking to believe that, "pumping excessive carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is going to eventually cause catastrophic climate change only if I/we believe it, and dwelling on such a negative outcome will in and of itself create such an outcome by *conscious intent*" There are simply certain observable facts about how the Gaian system operates, independent of whether we *believe* them or not.
See http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article1751509.ece
or read Lovelock's book, "The Revenge of Gaia."
I am simply sick and tired of this dangerous meme-complex being spread around that those people who face unpleasant facts are creating these outcomes by conscious intent.
One new ager who I sent this article to claimed she didnt believe in "male science" and thought such *negative ideas* are being spread by malevolent entities - puuleaze! In other words, instead of seeing the painful feelings as a feedback signal from nature that we humans are damaging the planet from our gross exploitation.
Mr. Pinchbeck has basically said that we are going to rather easily slide into a whole new way of life, implying that we are going to solve all the problems before us rather easily. I believe he has also said that the earth seems to be supporting 6.5 billion people rather easily.
Sorry, but the first point is his opinion with no evidence to back it up. The second idea is so far from the facts, one can only call it either gross ignorance of our situation or denial. There is actually now a name for this pov - it's called "Panglossian Disorder"easily found via google.
Or, for you real daring Initiates, (Daniel are you listening?) I suggest you check out the documentary "What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire", which is a bit heavier than Leonardo DiCaprio's "The 11th Hour."
In wine-making, when one introduces yeast into a vat of crushed grapes, the yeast population begins to sky-rocket and expand very quickly as it exploits the huge energy supply (sugar) until it uses up this energy source and begins to die-off in its own waste.
Humans on this planet have done the same thing with fossil fuel. It is not just Peak Oil, it is Peak Everything, as Richard Heinberg would say. The implications are quite grim. Predicting a horrendous Dark Age as a possible outcome IS a reasonable extrapolation of the facts of the case if you take the time to work through the ramifications and implications of the multiple converging crises.
At the very least, we are headed for a collective Dark Night Of The Soul. For a good psychedelic perspective on this, see Chistopher Bache's, "Dark Night, Early Dawn: Seps To A Deep Ecology Of Mind."
It should be noted that I have absolutely NO financial incentive for taking any particular pov. Can Daniel Pinchbeck say the same? To be continued. Warm regards, Joseph
misquotes and untruths
hi josef,
i appreciate the passion you are bringing to this discussion. I am less pleased by your failure to actually take the time to understand my position, which I have stated again and again. Instead, you choose to make projections about what you feel my point of view is, rather than doing the work to understand my perspective for yourself.
If you look at the animated video at www.postmoderntimes.com (or read my book), you will soon realize that I am not Pollyanna-ish in my projections at all. In "2012" I discuss Peak Oil, the Pentagon's plausible strategy in relationship to resource depletion and climate change, and much else. I do not think we will "easily slide into a whole new way of life." I am fully aware that there is a terribly real chance that we will lose control of the planetary situation and make our species extinct, and that we are now facing a critical emergency in which every day matters.
At the same time, it is true that at the moment the planet is supporting 6.5 billion people, even as the earth's life-support systems are starting to buckle. Considering the tremendous waste in our current civilization, it does seem possible that if, starting tomorrow, there was to be a rational allocation of resources and a new global paradigm of sustainability and collaboration, precisely minimizing use of energy and resources, orchestrated intelligently, we would not have to experience a cataclysmic destruction of the human population. There are technologies that could, for instance, begin to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, and a "Marshall Plan" could be developed that would take William McDonogue's "Cradle to Cradle" philosophy and apply it systemically to all human industries. At the same time, the mass media could be repurposed, recognized as a tool that entrains and habituates the human collective to patterns of transforming their environment. In other words, rather than used in an unconscious and destructive way, the mass media could be used as an educational tool to instill a creative and conscious relationship between humans and their environment.
I could go on and on, but hopefully by this point you get my point, which is that it is not "science" or "rationality" that prevents us from stopping imminent disaster, but blockages in human culture, consciousness, and the collecive imagination are making disaster imminent. Human culture and consciousness can, I believe, change very quickly, when people share an intention and decide to work together selflessly for purposes of transformation. Gandhi, to take one of many historical examples, was able to transform the Indian subcontinent as a result of his nonviolent intention. The tiny Beat movement led to the gigantic Hippie upsurge within 5 or so years.
Now we come to the question of intention, and the power of intention. Clearly, if we decide that there is no hope to prevent cataclysm and the human race is done for, we won't feel very motivated or activated to use the time and psychic energy that is currently available to us to do very much. We may even consider ourselves somehow morally superior because we see "the truth" of the imminent destruction, while others still haplessly believe they can make a transformation happen. Personally, I would rather croak during the process of trying to make a transformation to a world-system that I consider good and healthy, then sit on the sidelines with my sense of moral smugness intact, as the world dies around me.
And then, as real data, I have to take into account my own experiences of psychic phenomena, synchronicity, telepathy, and so on, plus the large amount of scientific research that supports the notion that there is an interconnection between the psychic and physical world, which has been validated by the Army and Congress, etc. If this is the case, it is then logically and rationally plausible that my consciousness and intention have an effect on the world that is much greater than the current materialist paradigm allows. It is quite possible that our current science is still in its infancy, and that outside of the "laws of nature" we think we know, the cosmos has other patterns and predilections of which we are not yet aware. That is what my psychic, visionary, and psychedelic experiences have demonstrated to me, repeatedly.
I am glad you brought up Chris Bache's "Dark Night, Early Dawn", as it definitely provides one reasonable projection into how transformation might happen - a rapid "dark age" and then an emergence into a new paradigm.
As for a "financial incentive," I am truly happy to be rewarded and compensated because people find my work to be valuable. So far, almost all the money I make is going into projects such as this one, because I believe that the construction of alternative media and social networks where a new paradigm can be debated and constituted is important and necessary. Creating alternative networks for creative expression and real-world collaboration might help us to escape the worst effects of the possible dark age looming just ahead of us.
We still have time to come to consciousness and work together to salvage the situation - we don't have to be like the yeast in the wine, but we are going to have to awaken in a hurry if we don't want to be crushed in "the winepress of God's anger" as The Book of Revelations puts it.
"Will the transformation."-Rilke
reply to Daniel
I no longer have a copy of 2012 - rented it from the library - but you stated somewhere in that book the idea that we were going to easily ease into a whole new world, or words to that effect. I remember specifically because I was a bit stunned to read it and eagerly read the book to hear the evidence.
I remember also Sting's cover laudation, that he liked it because it has a happy ending, so I must have been correct in my remembering that you indicated somewhere that the possible Transition was going to be rather easy. Again, it was Sting's statement that also motivated to eagerly read the book see your evidence for this.
I didnt see any.
It is not a question of it being all hopeless, it is now a question - like it or not - that we have passed the point of no return in terms of making any such transition without serious global catastrophe, and so, it is now a question of trying to cushion the Crash as best as can be done.
And every single day that goes by that we do not radically change our ways just ensures that the suffering will be that much worse. And keep in mind that it is going to be the poorest and most innocent among us that are going to be the one's who die first and suffer most, just like the people in New Orleans and the people in Iraq.
In other words, we should be in global crisis mode. There should be a sense of urgency several orders of magnitude above where we are now. In fact, it is this lack of a deep sense of urgency that is most disturbing and that is an indicator of how bad the crash is going to turn out to be.
This is in no way a defense of Streiber who is small potatoes as far as I am concerned. But it IS a reply to your idea that people who are predicting catastrophe and die off are being motivated by malevolent entities, or however you term it. My passion stems directly from the fact that such statements are incredibly reckless and destructive.
I am not engaging in prophecy; I am extrapolating a highly probable sceneraio from known facts and the implications and ramifications of known facts, on a strictly rational-empirical foundation, as are many others. Check out the Die Off webpage for yourself. To be continued in a minute. Warm regards, Josef
sorry
You are not taking the time to actually understand my perspective, but have contorted it to fit your projection. We are not very far apart - please check my comments above again. I do not think we "ease" into a whole new world, and never wrote or said that anywhere - it is completely opposite to my views, in fact. It is extremely annoying to have someone misstate my position, when they can look it up for themselves on the Net or in my work. It shows embarrassing laziness on the part of the writer.
However whatever any website such as Die Off, or scientist such as Lovelock says, "the truth" (or the spectrum of possibilities) may be different than that.
I think you need to be more phenomenologically precise in your approach. At the same time, I would like to know what exactly you are doing in response to this great crisis? Personally, I put almost all of my psychic energy at this point into working on a way through it and out of it.
Also, I do think there are good reasons to hope - and these can be understood rationally and logically, and then acted upon to bring the best outcome toward manifestation. We have 100 trillion cells making up our body, each one with a DNA coil in it that could reach to the moon if pulled straight. Everything about our "reality" is extremely improbable, and quite likely it is more like a story that the cosmic consciousness is writing through us (and potentially with us) than it is some grim narrative of utter collapse and failure.
As Czeslaw Milosz wrote, "Our natural tendency to place the possible in the past leads us often to overlook the acts of our contemporaries, who defy the presumably unmovable order of things." (in 1985, four years before the Berlin Wall became pet rocks for tourists)
"Will the transformation."-Rilke
Continued to Daniel
To reiterate, there is a very, very, very strong probability - almost a certainty - that global catastrophe is unavoidable, and no amount of *conscious intent* is going to change that - we've simply responded too late with too little. In other words, the new ball game is now damage control, and yes, of course, conscious intent can come into play here.
So the point is, it is incredible reckless to continue to give out the false hope that global catastrophe can be avoided. Oh sure, the super-rich will be in a position to ride things out with some ease, but the prospect looks grim for 50 to 75% of the human race. There aint gonna be a happy ending for them.
If looked at from this perspective, isnt it a bit....uummm....grotesquely obscene for power-progressives like...say...Sting or Bono to continue living their ultra-luxurious, high-consumption, high-entropy-generating lifestyles?
Exactly how, Daniel, are we going to impliment the political changes necessary to really respond to what is about to happen if such people are not willing to use their immense media platform to openly, publically denounce the greed and sick values that are at the heart of the transnational-corporate-capitalist system, and denounce our sick way of life, and instead, continue to enjoy a luxurious life of conspicuous consumption that is obtained by gross exploitation and mass murder, all the while posing as *concerned activists* while tacitly supporting the very system that is destroying the planetary ecosystem?
If they were aware of the evidence, wouldnt it behoove them to...uh...set an example?
If you read David Brock's book, "The Republican Noise Machine", you will see the tremendous amount of money - hundreds of millions of dollars - and organization the reactionary power elite in this country have put into achieving media dominance and political power - where is the comparable counter-effort by the power-progressives? sugar daddy Rich Mellon Scaife has himself contributed hundreds of millions of dollars.
Because if there is to be any hope, the vast resources being pissed away in military spending is going to have to be redirected, so who, Daniel, is going to effectively and radically challenge the military-industrial-petroleum-Intelligence-media complex?
I am all for *conscious intent.* But what we need are power-progressives using their vast resources to create a counter-network to the one mentioned in Brock's book. In other words, it will take money and real, material political power.
But wait, aint that Bono praising Bush and Blair? Aint that Bono hanging with the global super-class that he - and Sting are a part of - at the World Economic Forum in Davos? They sure dont seem to have the sense of urgency required to even begin to do what is necessary to cushion the coming Crash.
If the 20 wealthiest power-progressives pooled their resources - they could create a progressive media network that would blow the planetary mind wide open on every front - from the spiritual, psychedelic and transpersonal to the the political, economic and ecological.
But would they openly challenge the plutocratic superclass they are a part of? Would they challenge the established religions, who are completely opposed to any kind of Gnostic revelation.
See, we needed to radically change our entire way of life on this planet like...yesterday. And I do not see any indication of that level of a sense of urgency. And so, my passion came from the fact that your statement on the Strieber show was incredibly destructive and reactionary, and, from the general thrust of your book 2012 - promising a happy ending - that contributes to a grotesque complacency in the face of global catastrophe. And boy oh boy does Sting seem to be partying in a state of grotesque complaceny!
I apologize for not availing myself of your more recent views on these matters - I am glad to see youve changed your mind a bit.
Warm regards, Josef
shmoney
I still think you are
I still think you are distorting the message of my book. Why don't you go back and read it again?
I would also say that the issue is not about Sting or Bono. The issue is about you. I know what I am doing - putting all of my time, energy, heart, and intelligence into trying to help the planetary situation by creating alternative media, using the extraordinary, new tools that are now available to transform consciousness on ths planet, plus putting my thoughts together in the best way that I can. So I am giving it my all. If the shit falls down and everything disintegrates and we all die, I will have the real satisfaction of knowing that I gave myself entirely to the fight.
What about you, josef? What are you doing?
Your negativity is a drain of psychic energy.
Wishes
Daniel, I am frustrated that you have devoted so much of your energy to Josef's opinions on this subject. I agree with you that the negativity exhibited in Josef's comments is draining. Why then get so wrapped up in it? It is interesting that the Streiber interview has been evoked in the last few exchanges as Josef's observations seem to me to be a near-identical replay of that event. Haven't we (the RS community) covered this ground already? I know it is important to correct a distortion, but in my opinion that was handily accomplished in your first reply, certainly by the second. Josef is not responding to your questions. My counsel would be to let it go. Isn't that exactly the practice of what you are espousing: to direct intention toward that which is constructive, productive, "positive"?
And Josef, your contribution to this exchange suggests to me a reticence to look at your own inner workings in relation to the material you have read/heard. This is not to say that we aren't we hurtling toward catastrophe - it would be reckless and irresponsible to state otherwise when I simply don't know. I know you believe that you know it, that it is cold, hard, irrefutable fact and that if only everyone had read what you read and thought as you thought then we could have hope. I know well that voice: I was raised by a scientist. But, forgive me, you don't know either. Most scientists with a grain of wisdom will acknowledge that the more we understand about the way nature works the more we encounter the vastness of what we don't know. Our relationship to our thoughts, however, is something that we can know. That relationship, in my opinion, profoundly influences our thoughts and subtly alters our perception about such material. Without such understanding, a part of us operates unconsciously, influencing and even determining our thoughts.
Of course, I don't really know if my opinions here are reflective of what is actually moving in either Daniel or Josef, but the images they evoke in me I hope have a value to this discussion.
reply to all
I m trying to keep up with your's and eveyones comments but I am on a library computer, on a timer and with limited time so you'll have to bear with me.
One of the main components of the idea of *conscious intent* in esoteric circles has been called the "Buddha Field." The basic idea is that if a critical mass of humans reach a higher stage of consciousness-development, it will transform the collective consciousess of all of humanity. Arguelles' "Mayan Factor" is an example of this.
I have explored such ideas since 1974 and I am certainly NOT trying to invalidate them. I agree with them, and have certainly acted from such a pov; I simply maintain that they are only half the story and are simply not enough, at this stage of the game.
What I am arguing against is false hope, the idea that such spiritual ideas alone will solve The Situation. Your website and work, and others, is great, but we no longer have the time for the slow drip-drip-drip- of incremental change.
Look around the web. Progressive websites are begging for money. Meanwhile the reactionary, power-elite Machine is overflowing with money and drowns out any counter-messaging - are all of you telling me this is not a huge issue! The Internet is relatively free now, but one can see the plans being made to stop that if you look around.
Bback in the 90's, remember Rushkoff claiming that the tech-savvy GenXer's were going to succeed where the earlier psychedelic-progressive visionaries of the 60's failed. I thought to myself as I read it, "you'll see."
Because it is a fact that reactionary Money and Power are a major factor in the thwarting of the evolution of higher consciousness on this planet. Samuel Huntington - of "Clash of Civilizations" fame wrote a position paper for the Trilateral Commission in 1973 called "The Crisis of Democracy" which advocated the roll-back of the progressive gains of the 60's and the operation to move the country rightward and toward the authoritarian. David Brock chronicles similiar operations implimented at the same time. The result was the Reagan Era.
I remember that time. I remember being a young spiritual idealist who grew up surrounded by magic mushroom-filled cow fields, who in 1974, at age 17, was reading psychedelic manuals by Tim Leary that Joanna Harcourt-Smith had smuggled out of prison for him(she was selling them on the streets of Berkely to raise money for his defense fund).
I remember being turned on to John Lilly's Center of the Cyclone and experientially and experimentally exploring at that time the idea of an intra-galactice network of Consciousness, and further exploring such ideas in Wilson's Cosmic Trigger. I remember the book "Aquarian Conspiracy" was hugely popular in he Consciousnss research circles.
And then the Reagan era blew in and filled the planetary noosphere with incredible levels of psychic toxic waste. Right at the time - 1980 - when humanity really needed to grow up, the Reagan era - because of the influence the US has on the world - dragged the entire planet backward and laid the groundwork for the present Bush insanity.
And yes, I remember how palpable this toxic waste was, how deeply it could be psychically seen and felt. Do you not feel/see the same toxic waste polluting the planetary mind today? And are you really going to tell an old veteran of the Consciousness revolution that media power is not important and that I do not know what I am talking about? To be continued, warm regards, Josef
I Was Wrong, Daniel
That will teach me to quote from memory. You actually qualified your statement with the first five words:
"If this theory is correct, the transformation of our consciousness will lead to the rapid creation, development and dissemination of new institutions and social structures, corresponding to a new level of mind," and you further add that"...this process may well resemble an advance toward a harmonic, perhaps even utopian situation on earth."
So let me say this. Up until a few years ago I would have agreed that this was possible, and I had actually devoted my entire adult life toward the creation of all of the transformational possibilities you document in your book.
But in the past 2 years, as we have found that the climate situation, Peak Oil, collapsing eco-systems, running out of fresh water, massive global loss of topsoil, arable land and rainforest and etc, are all far, far worse than previously thought, I no longer believe that we can avoid a catastrophic collapse from multiple converging vectors.
So no, I do not see the evidence that there is much of a probability for "the rapid creation...of...a...utopian situation on earth." I'd like to, and up until 2 years ago I was still thinking that the probability of this outweighed rhe probability of a catastrophic collapse followed by a Dark Age, but I now think a Dark Age is much more probable. Note I am talking probabilities, not either/or absolutes.
As to"...a new phase of the initiatory journey begun in the 1960's - with the opportunity to avoid tactical mistakes, strident statements and polarizations of the past", I am not sure exactly what you are driving at. You fail to mention that it is routine for progressive movements to be simply starved-out economically.
Anyway, I apologize for taking up your time by creating a communication dysfunction because of my incorrectly remembering how you phrased the above.
And, even though I no longer think we are going to see the emergence of some kind of Golden Age, or however you want to phrase it, I would be more than willing to share whatever knowledge I have about all of this, that I have come across in researching it off and on for 34 years, and operating "as if" all of this is very probable, if you and the rest of the people here want me to and accept my apology for my faulty memory.
Warm regards, Josef
I agree with
Vindication of Vinification
“In wine-making, when one introduces yeast into a vat of crushed grapes, the yeast population begins to sky-rocket and expand very quickly as it exploits the huge energy supply (sugar) until it uses up this energy source and begins to die-off in its own waste.”
This is an absurd analogy, but for the sake of argument, I’ll play along. So we’ve got the “vat of crushed grapes” (i.e. the earth), and the “yeast population” (humanity) exploiting the sugary sweet “energy supply” (our natural resources). Okay...the earth is becoming a vat of wine.
To extend things a bit, this wine will likely be bottled and sold, no? My question: Who owns the winery? Similarly, who’s buying the bottle and on what occasion will they imbibe it?
Folks, this why good poetry and artful myth-making is still pertinent, because if we hope to get anywhere, we’ll need to begin by conjuring better metaphors. I think the Ghost of Joseph Campbell would concur. Let's get creative, shall we? Let's.
Integration
First of all I will like to apologize for any grammatical mistakes (English is not my native tongue) I think that mysticism, spirituality and the feeling of transcendence don’t exclude being rational and having a scientific critical approach to our place in the cosmos. The religious aspect of our psyche is inherent to our being. Maybe our brains evolved too fast and the neo-cortex haven’t completed the process of rewiring our brains (reptilian, mammal, neo cortex) and that is what is creating our dissonance or neurosis…It is time to separate the religious from the RELIGIONS. I will call it spirituality to avoid misunderstanding. If leave aside the new-atheist (Dawkins, Hitchens) and we focus in the humanistic, spiritual atheism of the French philosopher André Compte Sponville, maybe we wont feel so “delusional”. And if we read the cosmic pantheism of Teilhard de Chardin, or the Sufi poet Mevlana, maybe we can feel hope that there is still a chance of bringing the mystical back to mainstream religion. Synergy, integration, multidisciplinary, those are words that evoke concepts that can explain what Mr Pinchbeck was mentioning in his article. We are dual, maybe fractal…but even if we were just to accept existentialism as the only rational explanation to our existence, we should accept it, look within us and leave this life with the same dignity as Roy (the main replicant form Blade Runner) showed when he knew he was dying.There are many possibilities and it would be stupid to deny that we live surrounded by mystery and that we are “ruled” and informed by a mediocracy….but who tells us that is not the whales or dolphins or dogs the ones that are the “chosen ones”?, the ones that are destined to upload into the noosphere what it needs to take Gaia (and all its inhabitants) to the next level?...¿our inflated ego?...who knows…As the Indian/Spanish philosopher Salvador Pániker thinks, it is time to accept the mystical as a post-rational phenomenon and to integrate it with our critical thinking civilization. East meets West, Condor flies with eagle, and left hemisphere merges with right…lets update our mental softwareWell is time to disconnect, this hash is way too good………I've seen things you little people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion bright as magnesium... I rode on the back decks of a blinker
Same thing?
You write: "2012-is-going-to-usher-in-a-wonderful-new-age" pov and the scientific, facts that indicate that humanity is headed for global catastrophe. Maybe it´s the same thing. Maybe humanity, the earth and everything in it is only a phase and something unimaginable is next. Just as unimaginable as our universe was before the big bang. The catastrophy would then be the cataclysm for this next phase.
It does seem strange to me that earth with it´s inhabitants would be the end meaning of everything. It´s just not smooth enough for that, you know? Unless eternal life here on earth is the ultimate purpose which would mean that there will be no catastrophy at all. Only perfection.
SugarMag
-
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A funny thing about holding
Continued to all here
Let me hasten to add, I am *old school* psychedelic yoga. I cut my teeth on John Lilly, so I know a bit about testing belief-systems in multidimensional projection space.
But notice that Lilly always asked himself the question, "is what I am experiencing objective reality or am I merely projecting the reified ideals of the race?"
Lilly's injunction is, "In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true within limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the province of the mind there are no limits."
And he posited the same thing for the group/collective mind of humanity.
Anyway, as I say, I am *old school* so besides Lilly, I was quite deeply into, say, R.A.Wilson's "Cosmic Trigger: Final Secret Of The Illuminati" and, say, Leary's "Game Of Life."
So, in reply to a poster above, oh yes, I took to non-locality theories like a duck takes to water. However, and this is the point, it is childish magical thinking to go from there to the idea that we can violate the basic laws by which the Gaian system operates and that there will only be detrimental consequences if we *believe* there will be and therefore *create* these negative outcomes by *conscious intent*.
Somewhere in the multidimensional multiverse there are probably beings that can fabricate material reality via thought-form enginneering (us-in-the-future?), but dude, we aint there yet!
Likewise, I have little doubt that zero-point energy technologies and/or some form of cold fusion energy system is possible, but...we aint there yet, nor are we spiritually evolved eough to handle it wisely.
Of course, there are those who think the *Illuminati* have ZP technology and are withholding it from us (and keep in mind that Alex Jones stole a lot of his ideas from Jim Keith's "Casebook For Alternative 3" , so ideas about an elite about to abandon all us losers on a dying planet as they rocket away with life-extension technologies is an idea that has been around a long time).
However, I think the global power elite have the power they do because of Bigtime Money and the superior organization Big Money can create, not because the Illuminati are performing occult rituals at Bohemian Grove and enering into Magickal Pacts with shape-shifting, 4-d reptilians who control Bush and Cheney. But I'm not dogmatic about it. To be continued. Warm regards, Josef
all well and good, but...
i agree with what you are saying, in general. i have met many people of this kind. vapid, 'white lights and fluffy bunny' sort of spiritualists who want to be like ostriches, burying their heads in the sand to avoid seeing anything negative; in the mistaken belief that if they can't see it, it can't hurt them. i attended a small unity church for a time, for example, that drove me crazy because they didn't like to call it 'death'. they would get very uncomfortable when anyone did so. that person would inevitably be corrected by someone, saying, 'we prefer to call it 'transition'.'
i rarely find this sort of repression -- because that's exactly what it is -- to be helpful. indeed, it is usually quite the opposite.
although i also agree that focusing on nothing but the negative is not helpful either. you can't fix a problem you won't admit you have, and you won't fix a problem you don't think you can. in the words of the old-time song,
'there is a dark and a troubled side of life; but there's a bright and a sunny side too. and though you meet with the darkness and strive, the sunny side you also may view. so keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side; keep on the sunny side of life. it will lighten all the way, it will brighten every day if you keep on the sunny side of life.'
where i disagree with you is in your assertion of the original post being of this ilk -- which it is not, to my reading of it. the rather obnoxious ad-hominem approach and tone of the comment is also one that offends, to my sensibilities. ad-hominem is one of the more distateful logical fallacies. if someone smoking 50 cigarettes a day tells you that cigarettes are bad for you, what they say is still true.
i cannot help but agree with daniel when he says you appear to be projecting onto the article something i do not see there at all. i see a hopeful, but not sacharine, examination of something a lot of people are dealing with: the obviousness that something outside of what is being reported is occuring in the world, and the nature of this 'conspiracy'. the legal definition of 'conspiracy' is simply "an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action'. something that rather obviously happens all the time, if you read the news at all.
these days, however, 'conspiracy' has somehow become synonymous with 'not true'...inspite of the fact that it almost seems like conspiracy theories by the dozen are being proven correct over and over these days. the gulf of tonkin being a sham? conspiracy theorists have been harping on that for decades.
obviously, every conspiracy theory cannot be correct. but, simultaneously, some of them might be: indeed some parts of them almost must be, in order to explain the state of the world at this moment. and it is a challenge in the extreme to monitor these sources and remain in a rational place.
conspiracy theories, as they are known today, are sort of the mythology of our culture. many extremely wild ideas have been projected onto the rorschadt of secretive organizations. i have thought about and discussed this very topic many times, and was pleased to find an article discussing it so explicitly. room must be made for more of reality than we perceive with our physical senses.
in fact, science teaches us this very thing. what we can 'perceive' -- i.e. the electromagnetic spectrum -- is calculated to be less than a quarter of the universe. just for starters. other worlds, other realities, are almost certainly coexisting side by side with us. rationality itself begins to tell us this, when confronted with the data.
i do agree that purely 'magical thinking' is a regressive action, going backwards instead of forwards. however, i truly feel the gap between mysticism and science to be one that must be bridged for any real progress to be made.
its getting a little better all the time...but, then, it couldn't get much worse.
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
Yes, I was wrong
dude!
and if you can watch any speech ever given by bush and not genuinely say that there is not certainly some kind of critter crouched behind him with his hand stuffed up his ass like the puppet he is and with a poor comprehension of the english language then maybe the reptiles already have your ass taken care of. The man has single handedly (with help from the hand up his ass) dragged this country into a state of instability and terror with no sign of moral responsibility or remorse. he is projecting the most corrupt leadership the world has ever known, masked with dollar signs and a clever smirk and peppered with dashing cowboy antics.//|:|\\
Life After the Crash
I'm fairly sure that there will be a substantial die off of humans and other lifeforms as a result of overpopulation and exploitation of the earth. However it's our intentions that will determine what type of civilization if any will emerge out of the chaos.
How will people view themselves and their relationship to the earth after the crash? Will we go back to the controlling scientific ways that lead to the destruction of our civilization or will we live in harmony with nature knowing it as sacred?
I believe this is where our intentions will have the greatest impact.
Enligtenment Vs. Endarkenment
I think the "opposing" forces playing off each other, and how we act in response to them, is the way we evolve.
“…there exists no intransigent opposites except in the beliefs of men. Anyone can rip aside the veil of Time. You can discover the future in the past or in your own imagination. Doing this, you win back your consciousness in your inner being. You know then that the universe is a coherent whole and you are indivisible from it.” -Frank Herbert
Are these things opposed?
synchromysticism
Hi Gyrus,
Since writing this, I was reminded again of Robert Anton Wilson's concept of "synchromysticism," which proposes that there is some organizing/underlying consciousness beyond our usual experience of time and space, responsible for correspondences and coordinations that seem otherwise impossible. We will be running a piece on the concept in the next week or two. I am also increasingly persuaded that intention is one of the most important, if not the most important, element in the universe. Perhaps what seems like conspiracies are more like competing intentions which are organizing the space-time "Maya" in different patterns around them?
"Will the transformation."-Rilke
Yeah, synchronicity and
I feel your pain
i have been watching this unfold for about a decade now, myself, and i must say that i sympathize very much with what you are saying. it feels like i am waiting every day for 'the big one', whatever it may end up being. there is a large body of evidence, to my mind, that we are almost at a nexus, or convergence, of 'big ones'; making this 'big one' the biggest ever -- or at least for an extremely long time.
rationality has been a guiding light for me throughout this. it has become increasingly obvious that, as the philosopher ken wilber puts it, 'everyone is right. but, everyone is only partially right.' it is only a sober, cautious journey through this material -- picking up on the common themes running through it all -- that one begins to see, with any clarity, what is going on. disinformation is rampant, as is emotional manipulation and propaganda.
rational thought is indispensable for this very reason. attempting, as much as humanly possible, to distance yourself from your emotional reaction to the material, to examine it objectively and keep an open mind. to be willing to admit, when necessary, that you have previously been wrong; and then to reformulate your world view based upon the new information...rational thought is the key element in this, in my opinion.
i think it is perfectly obvious, for example, that there is, in fact, an 'elite' group of individuals (my current theory revolves around the central banking/military industrial complex. whether they are demon possessed, i can't say. i would like to believe that they are -- that no human would perpetrate what these men have on another human, unless a nefarious influence had infested him. but evidence in that area is, to be kind, sketchy at best); and that this 'elite group' has a completely disproportionate influence on 'the way things are'. these people, whomever they may be, use this disproportionate influence to insure that the 'administration' -- governmental, religious hierarchical, whatever it may be -- in general has a much higher concentration of their supporters than the rest of the populace may reflect. we can see the truth of this in virtually any organization in the world.
however. one way or another, consciousness must be seen to play a role in this as well. rationality can, itself, be seen as a level of cognitive development; and our 'level' of cognitive ability has an unquestionable effect on our 'level' of consciousness. most of the problems listed in the original post, as well as comments i have so far read -- over consumption, commoditization, assignment of biased individuals to positions of power, etc -- are reflections of a level of consciousness. consciousness, for my purposes, i define as level of self-recognition. altruism, per se, i don't believe exists. we always care most for our selves...what changes is what we see our self to be in.
a quick-and-dirty layout of the map i use here (i do not claim to have invented this. see the writings of the above-mentioined ken wilber, for one example of the vast debate in this area, if you are interested): a very selfish person sees himself only in his body and ideals. a 'family' person sees himself in his body and ideals, and those of his family. a 'patriotic' person sees himself in his body and ideals, his family's, and the rest of the people and ideals in his self-identified country. etc, etc, etc.
as we mature, as the interconnectedness of reality becomes more and more apparent, we begin to see ourselves in more and more of what we look at. this changes our behavior, inevitably.
and this, ultimately, will be the thing that saves us, if we are to be saved. it is only by working together, with a sense of camaraderie and co-dependence -- coupled with the ability to rationally assess our situation and react to it appropriately, rather than be bogged down with overly emotional sentimentalism, or just plain avoidance -- that we will begin to be able to survive the coming disasters.
i don't know if the tipping point will be reached tomorrow, or a decade from now; but, rest assured, a tipping point is coming. but, if it spurs a greater sense of unity and cooperation, then it may end up being the best thing that ever happened to our species.
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
The Next Myth: Working Together
What Daniel describes as myth could also be seen as, for lack of a better term, "projection," though I don't much care for the word. What I mean by "projection" is a psychological process that occurs within us when we listen to another or otherwise absorb information. I most often see this in acting class: someone says something and that stirs something in me. I initially see what is moving in me as pertaining to the subject, the idea, the feeling that person is expressing. But I can also see what stirs as something that I am creating, what we've called in class a "ghost" or a "voice" that is speaking within me, that can come from a thousand different places but that is particular to me, to my history, my relationships, my feelings, my life.
I hear ghosts and voices in the posts here on Reality Sandwich as well, both in my own writing and what I imagine to be in others. In fact, I believe that every post - every expression, including what I am writing now - cannot be separated by the voice that has moved me to speak with these particular words. That voice, though stimulated by another, might have little to do with Daniel, with a fellow commenter, sometimes even with the subject matter being discussed. I would describe my voice here as being the "there's something implicit happening here that should be explicit" voice, but I might be only scratching the surface. I've learned that it takes diligent investigation, coupled with a developed intuition to see with clarity where we end and the "material," the topic we are discussing, investigating, wrestling with, begins.
This last thought is perhaps related to Daniel's statement above that "Reason, by itself, may not be enough to get us out of our planetary plight" and speaks to the relevance of my little discourse to this discussion.
The information that we come across, whether it be the prognostications of planetary catastrophe, the assertions of nefarious occult forces, the charismatic promise of Barack Obama, all are met by our voices and our ghosts and initiates an alchemical melding between that information and our own psychology. I think it is a false conceit to suggest that this can be prevented. In fact, it's probably a key element of our creativity. It is possible to become conscious of these occurrences, of their ubiquity, role and potency in the creation of our thoughts. In my experience it is then that we can operate in concert with these voices/projections/ghosts; molding them, being informed by them and channeling them with intention and care to create the narratives, the myths that we desire and to confront the nightmares we avoid.
It is also, to my mind, fundamental to addressing and confronting all of our myriad ecological and societal woes. If the challenges prove to be as monumental as evidence suggests, it will likely require a global effort of the entire species, working with highly developed collaborative social technologies in order to organize, discover and execute solutions. Developing deep awareness of our own "voices" is a lynchpin - perhaps a requirement - in such a collaborative effort. That is a narrative, a story, that I am very much interested in having unfold.
Nice
You're much more articulate about it than i am, but i feel much the same phenomena as you-There is a narrative that the information reciever projects upon information recieved.
So maybe an answer to helping people dream better is to help them tell themselves more advantageous stories about their personal reality.
yes, i concur
becoming aware of these disparate 'voices within' is among the key methods of spiritual/conscious development. there are a lot of ideas we espouse that, when questioned methodologicaly, we find we don't actually believe in at all. we overheard someone say it at some point, it trickled and tumbled around in the ol' brain until we forgot who said it in the first place, and then took root -- all without us being really aware of it.
later, when in a similar situation, we find ourselves repeating it. or, at the least, hearing it repeated in our head. without an awareness of this process, it becomes easy to become controlled by others. the thoughts in your head are less often 'yours' than most would ever believe. but it takes an effort and willingness to look within -- honestly and candidly; the bravery to question, and the courage to admit being wrong.
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
science and the ufo
Idealy there need not be a contradiction between studying something like David Wilcock's ufo/alien material and adhering to rational science.
The problem seems to be that rational science is not pursuing the subject. Terence Mckenna says -
'..in looking at the effect, not asking the question what it is, but what does it do - you very quickly see what flying saucers are doing - what they are doing is eroding the faith in science, they are an antidote to the scientific paradigm that has evolved over the past 400 years and which has led us to the brink of global catastrophe. So the notion being developed here is - within the structure of the human psyche there is something like a (governman?) something like a monitering circuit which when a society begins to evolve in a pathalogical or lethal direction - phenomena can be induced not by the egos of men and women, not by their institutions but by the overmind - the collectivity of the human species - phenomena can be induced which are so corrosive to the ideaoligies currently in place, that their underpinnings are cut away, their validity is called into question, and their programs for social development and control are invalidated and destroyed'
It's as if rational science is threatened by the ufo phenomena, therefore does not pursue it.
The same goes for the media with regard to Stephen Greer's The Disclosure Project. The investigative journalists do not seem to be pursuing these stories, maybe for the same psychological reasons. I was quite shocked to hear Stephen Hawking's dismissal of ufo sightings in this video - http://deoxy.org/video/xjBIsp8mS-c
'On the other hand we don't seem to be have been visited by aliens. I am discounting reports of ufos - why would they appear only to cranks and wierdos.'
This seems typical of the closed-minded attitude of the established scientific community torward anything that does not fit with their views.
There have been many ufo sightings, by airline pilots, astronauts, milatary personnel, are they all cranks and wierdos?
For instance in the Stephenville incident-
http://www.realitysandwich.com/broadcasting_third_kind
Dozens of people around Stephenville said they saw mystery lights in the sky. Lee Roy Gaitan, a constable, said he noticed a strange light outside his home near Stephenville. I suppose this constable must have been a wierdo. Dozens of others out in the area, including a pilot, a teacher and business owners, reported seeing the same thing.
The point is whether these lights were from an alien craft or not, many 'normal' people saw an 'unidentified flying object'.
Jimmy Carter witnessed a ufo - just because he was the president of the united states does not necessarily mean he is a crank and a wierdo.
My feeling is that people like Stephen Hawking become elevated as a kind of 'god' of the established scientific 'religion' and people who question them are at best ridiculed.
I like science and I like the way it is honest and rational. But I think that many(even most?) scientists are not really entirely honest or rational, they just like to think they are, not examining their own contradictions, projections and prejuidices. If they were more honest I think a lot of psychadelic/shamanist material would be examined more thouroughly.
Add to this the notion that we can embrace more than one 'mode' of reality and also the notion that we can never be entirely certain of anything.
noosphere
Who knows, perhaps in the next few years, mainstream science and the media will start to lean toward the 'conspiracy theories' with renewed interest.
If this were to happen I wonder how it would affect the collective consciousness of man as reflected from projects such as The Global Consciousness Project.
'The overwhelming anecdotal evidence of shared dreams and shared trips, etc., should have made a dent on the materialist model, but it hasn't yet. The Global Consciousness Project at Princeton is also discovering evidence for a "noosphere," a mental envelope around the earth, by documenting fluctuations in random number generators set up at 50 cities around the planet. On days of major world events, they get significant statistical deviations from normal patterns of randomness. On 9/11, these deviations peaked several hours after the planes hit the buildings, but the deviations began an hour or two before the first Tower was hit. The Project may be charting the birth of a global consciousness aware of major events before they actually happen. I suspect, in the new paradigm, we will recognize that human consciousness and the Earth, together, constitute a single sentient and evolving organism.'
http://www.dailygrail.com/node/7
I guess it would be very interesting if in the next few years, the patterns of randomness were to deviate significantly, the prelude to some great event? Science and myth, science and shamanism, science and the mystic agreeing at last.
:::Original Culture::
~Aydra Jenson~
. . ..Keeper of the StarSix. http://starsixprofile.blogspot.com. . .
. . .
Observing different reactions to these topics is fascinating and overwhelming at best, but applying our rational intellect and intuitions to them is perhaps the only way to truly unfold a New World Myth into being.
. . .
Consider that there really is no such thing as a 'fact' or 'truth' and that it is all simply fabricated 'fables' and 'myths'. What you choose to resonate with becomes 'your truth' and the more people agree with it the more of a universal impact it has.
. . .
Which is why perhaps, if you take the side of the optimist even in this seemingly hopeless situation of the world- maybe some kind of solution WILL show up- even at the last possible moment. However, if we side with the Dark Forces and let their negative programs intoxicate us- hope fades.
. . .
I'll admit its exciting and confusing to educate myself on occult topics through the lens of an optimist, but I find clues leading towards success in the future through them. Shamanism is perhaps our medicine to heal and reverse these occult programs by reeling us through all the dark stuff only to eventually unveil the light- the question is, can you hold on for the entire ride.
. . .
"We can study the Mayan Calendar, extraterrestrials and Gnostic cosmology while fighting for social and environmental justice, campaigning for political reform and so on."
. . .
I love this statement because it is so balanced, I think balance is really what were after here (right brain, left brain). In suggestion to becoming blinded by staring too long into the sun- I would say that sun-gazing is absolutely necessary in this time, it activates our psyche and consciousness, while opening us physically. However, one must learn to filter the direct light by positioning their hand over the sun in the right way and letting the light come in by way of the negative space, like peering through a lens. It actually helps you to open your eyes wider.
. . .
Also, in response to Josef...I liked this line:"In wine-making, when one introduces yeast into a vat of crushed grapes, the yeast population begins to sky-rocket and expand very quickly as it exploits the huge energy supply (sugar) until it uses up this energy source and begins to die-off in its own waste"
. . .
This is a great analogy, however, in any fermentation process there is always a yeast or 'living culture' which begins the alchemy. Consider that perhaps that Original Culture is what we are being called by and those who listen and act with the right intent can be part of this 'living culture' which aids in the birth of a new 'vat', a new process of creation.
. . .
I believe there is a shaft miles below the great pyramid holding part of the technology we need to make the shift. Dark Forces know about it too- but they can't access it. Partly because they haven't the technology, but mostly because they haven't the consciousness and would not know how to use it correctly if they did. Perhaps this is part of the timeless story of the Arc of the Covenant- which I'll admit I don't know too much about but will put it on the list.
. . .
What I feel I might know- is that our ancestors left us everything we need to win this heroic battle, even if it only means leaving a positive imprint or frequency for the next race of planet earth and beyond. We only must be willing to attain our highest potential in this life, open to creating our own imaginative realities and fables, grateful for the light of the sun and each breath we take.
. . .
May the Original Forces be with you.
~AYDRA J~
Smell the bouquet
"In wine-making, when one introduces yeast into a vat of crushed grapes, the yeast population begins to sky-rocket and expand very quickly as it exploits the huge energy supply (sugar) until it uses up this energy source and begins to die-off in its own waste"
Sounds a lot like the 60's, no? Hippies became yuppies and are now conceivably dying in a consumerist wasteland. Let the wine breathe, people!
"We are all provided for" - C.S. Lewis
Hippies became yuppies...
reason
why enlightenment, why reason, why us humans seem to be floundering as we bring up complex issues, there is no conspiracy, that is a myth.There is only what is not in plane sight.If our imaginations run wild in the public arena, if we are hashing out the stories and the subtext , we are not engaging in conspiracy theory, if we ask what does "Mary had a little lamb", really mean, or what was its origin, this is no conspiracy.The meaning of the word, means to breathe, can we breathe? If i ask can i breathe a word, am i some conspiracy buff? nuff?
What is occult, what isn't occult? if knowledge is hidden, where is it hidden? why does the word occult mean hidden knowledge?
"Can someone pursue
"Can someone pursue Enlightenment ideals while simultaneously exploring occult conspiracies?"
What kind of a question is that?
Can someone walk and chew gum at the same time?
Can someone read Shakespeare while Spongebob is on the tube?
Can someone be paranoid AND pronoid?