20 November 2016

The Wetiko Virus


"Built into the very fabric of the system of wetiko is a progressive disincentive for its members to realize the level of depravity into which they have fallen. What keeps us stuck in denial is an inner self-protective mechanism that shields us from the overwhelming awfulness of the shock that would necessarily ensue if we were to consciously experience and shake off the lies that we have been living, a disillusionment that would be too much for most people to bear.
The major obstacle blocking us from seeing through our own self-deception is our unwillingness to consciously experience the pain, shame, guilt, mortification, and trauma of this realization. Part of this realization is dealing with the shock of realizing that we have given away our power to those in positions of power over us who have misused that power; it is quite a shock to realize that those who were supposed to be protecting us were the very ones from whom we most needed protection.
These multilevels of realization literally shatter our self-image, our identity of who we think we are, as well as our sense of belonging to a collective, social fabric. It is truly an unforgettable, soul-shattering moment when we have the courage to look in the mirror and see that we have been "out of our minds," "beside ourselves," having suffered a genuine "break from reality," in the sense that we have been unwittingly supporting the collective madness and have been complicit in our own victimization.
To see the magnitude of the depraved situation we have been faithfully living in and to realize how sick we have become can be so overwhelmingly traumatic that we shun its onset, as this horrifying realization has programmed within it a counter-incentive to fully experience itself. What is required from us is a courage and clarity analogous to that experienced by cult members who with brutal honesty snap out of their collective brainwashing and repudiate the systems of belief in which they were held in thrall.
Realizing our complicity in the collective madness is simultaneously liberating and traumatizing, creating higher orders of freedom while simultaneously inducing a form of PTSD, itself a form of madness.
In other words, to realize how we have been part of the collective madness is truly "shocking" and induces a form of madness, just as trauma can literally cause a fever in a person. The fever is potentially the organism's way of metabofizing and healing the trauma, just as the trauma of seeing how perilously asleep we've been can propel us to wake up. This form of trauma can potentially so "shake us up" that it can snap us out of our fear-based, frozen paralysis of feeling stuck and can mobilize and inspire us into empowered action.
Paradoxically, it is the trauma itself that activates the response in us which potentially leads to its own; creative resolution. In these moments of shock we have the opportunity to break our habitual patterns, see through our implicit assumptions, snap out of our denial, and step out of our programming so as to literally rewire ourselves.
These shocks are like gaps in our awareness that are open doorways to potentially higher orders of freedom. These brief moments in time don't last very long, however, so it is important to expeditiously go through these portals and take advantage of them when they are available. If we don't, there are backup systems in place for dealing with shocks within our psyche that can override this potential opening in our awareness and re-install the ruling, reigning mechanical programming within our wetikoized mind."
~ Paul Levy, Dispelling Wetiko
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"Buffers' are created slowly and gradually. Very many 'buffers' are created artificially through 'education.' Others are created under the hypnotic influence of all surrounding life. A man is surrounded by people who live, speak, think, and feel by means of 'buffers.' Imitating them in their opinions, actions, and words, a man involuntarily creates similar 'buffers' in himself.
'Buffers' make a man's life more easy. It is very hard to live without 'buffers.' But they keep man from the possibility of inner development because 'buffers' are made to lessen shocks and it is only shocks that can lead a man out of the state in which he lives, that is, waken him. 'Buffers' lull a man to sleep, give him the agreeable and peaceful sensation that all will be well, that no contradictions exist and that he can sleep in peace.
'Buffers' are appliances by means of -which a man can always be in the right. 'Buffers' help a man not to feel his conscience….Only a man who fully realizes the difficulty of awakening can understand the necessity of long and hard work in order to awake. Speaking in general, what is necessary to awake a sleeping man? A good shock is necessary. But when a man is fast asleep one shock is not enough. A long period of continual shocks is needed.”
~ Gurdjieff, In Search of the Miraculous

Confirmatory bias and cognitive dissonance


Confirmatory bias, cognitive dissonance, emote control, and (unconscious) psychological defense from a basic psychological and neurological perspective relating to politics and people identified with/supporting their chosen party/candidate/side and resulting views of the "opposition", affection the "punishment-reward" circuit in the brain, like addicts looking for a "fix":
“A recent imaging study by psychologist Drew Westen and his colleagues at Emory University provides firm support for the existence of emotional reasoning. Just prior to the 2004 Bush-Kerry presidential elections, two groups of subjects were recruited – fifteen ardent Democrats and fifteen ardent Republicans. Each was presented with conflicting and seemingly damaging statements about their candidate, as well as about more neutral targets such as actor Tom Hanks (who, it appears, is a likable guy for people of all political persuasions). Unsurprisingly, when the participants were asked to draw a logical conclusion about a candidate from the other – “wrong” – political party, the participants found a way to arrive at a conclusion that made the candidate look bad, even though logic should have mitigated the particular circumstances and allowed them to reach a different conclusion. Here’s where it gets interesting.
When this “emote control” began to occur, parts of the brain normally involved in reasoning were not activated. Instead, a constellation of activations occurred in the same areas of the brain where punishment, pain, and negative emotions are experienced (that is, in the left insula, lateral frontal cortex, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex). Once a way was found to ignore information that could not be rationally discounted, the neural punishment areas turned off, and the participant received a blast of activation in the circuits involving rewards – akin to the high an addict receives when getting his fix.
In essence, the participants were not about to let facts get in the way of their hot-button decision making and quick buzz of reward. “None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged,” says Westen. “Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones.”
Ultimately, Westen and his colleagues believe that “emotionally biased reasoning leads to the ‘stamping in’ or reinforcement of a defensive belief, associationg the participant’s ‘revisionist’ account of the data with positive emotion or relief and elimination of distress. ‘The result is that partisan beliefs are calcified, and the person can learn very little from new data,'” Westen says. Westen’s remarkable study showed that neural information processing related to what he terms “motivated reasoning” … appears to be qualitatively different from reasoning when a person has no strong emotional stake in the conclusions to be reached.
The study is thus the first to describe the neural processes that underlie political judgment and decision making, as well as to describe processes involving emote control, psychological defense, confirmatory bias, and some forms of cognitive dissonance.”
~ from “Evil Genes” by Barbara Oakley

16 November 2016

The Sheep and the Shepherd.



Two of the primary archetypal plugged-in humans are the sheep and the shepherd.

Are you one of the two?

Both have swallowed the drug and they are the sheep of the phantom matrix.

The Shepherd is a plugged-in human who’s holy grail is FAME and Self Glorification - even if only a handful ever attain it - with the help of today’s social media, every shepherd-wanna-be gets to be sedated by their 15 minutes of fame. 

A watered-down, more “justified” version of this holy grail is “the need for Success”. As long as “Success” is seen, compared and defined through the mirror of the other rather than through one’s own potential and inner sense of worth, value and self knowing, the shepherd will be reaping power over others, plugged in a “fight for ego survival” program, a carefully concealed hostility which is the most constant modality of humans functioning within the marketplace of the matrix. 

One thing the “successful” shepherd is not aware of, is that by achieving the worship and envy of others, by securing superiority and fake Godhood for a moment in time, the shepherd has become in reality dependent upon the other and therefore become the sheep of his swallowed addiction.

The sheep are plugged-in humans who needs someone to worship and someone to debase. The sheep live through the glory of their master and take gratification from this act of worship; the closer they get to their master the more they feel tagged with glory. 

They either gave up their own dreams, didn’t dare to dream them or are feeding their dying fantasies from the delusion that they will one day attain similar glory themselves. 

At the core of this is a sense of self-judgment, self-loathing and unworthiness. 

On the other hand, the sheep look down upon those whom they perceive as inferior to them, and likewise find fulfillment in this act of debasement.

Having seen through the matrix, through the program, through the drug, an Unplugged human’s holy grail becomes FREEDOM. 

Unplugged humans couldn’t give a hoot about being liked, accepted or worshiped. 

They are free from all opinions, expectations and validations from others, including oneself because they are simply aware that such needs are inorganic programs originated from the matrix, especially their own criticizing, self-loathing voice. 

They are aware that true Freedom entails a complete annihilation of the false self-hood that plays within the phantom matrix.

When humans awaken to the glory of their expanded multi dimensional anatomy, they will no longer be invested in power struggle traps, nor enslaved to inorganic preset mental programs, they will instead plug into their inherent power which needs no eye to see it nor another to validate it. Hence one’s power becomes mastery of Self rather than mastery over the other.

UNPLUG.

~ Hoda Fadel




11 November 2016

We were made for these times



My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.

Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.

We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.

What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.



One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these - to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.

Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.
There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.

The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.

By Clarissa Pinkola Estes

American poet, post-trauma specialist and Jungian psychoanalyst, author of Women Who Run With the Wolves.

10 November 2016

It was always an inside job






Renegades of Truth throughout the ages have told you the same over and over again...

“To bring about peace in the world, to stop all wars, there must be a revolution in the individual, in you and me. Economic revolution without this inward revolution is meaningless, for hunger is the result of the maladjustment of economic conditions produced by our psychological states; greed, envy, ill-will and possessiveness. To put and end to this sorrow, to hunger, to war, there must be psychological revolution and few of us are willing to face that.
We will discuss peace, plan legislation, create new leagues, the United Nations and so on; but we will not win peace because we will not give up our position, our authority, our money, our properties, our lives. To rely on others is utterly futile; others cannot bring us peace. No leader is going to gives us peace, no government, no army, no country.
What will bring peace is inward transformation, which will lead to outward action. Inward transformation is not isolation, is not withdrawal from outward action. On the contrary, there can be right action only when there is right thinking and there is no right thinking when there is no self-knowledge. Without knowing yourself, there is no peace.
An Ideal is merely an escape, an avoidance of what is, a contradiction of what is. An ideal prevents direct action upon what is. To have peace, we will have to love, we will have to begin not to live an ideal life but to see things as they are and act upon them, transform them. As long as each one of us is seeking psychological security, the physiological security we need; food, clothing and shelter, is destroyed.
The nationalist [identification with a nation/flag] is a curse because through his very nationalistic, patriotic spirit, he is creating a wall of isolation. He is so identified with his country that he builds a wall against another. What happens when you build a wall against something? That something is constantly beating against your wall. When you resist something, the very resistance indicates that you are in conflict with the other. So nationalism, which is a process of isolation, which is the outcome of the search for power, cannot bring about peace in the world. The man who is a nationalist, [identified with a country] and talks of brotherhood is telling a lie; he is living in a state of contradiction.
What causes war religious, political or economic? Obviously belief, either in nationalism, in an ideology, or in a particular dogma. If we had no belief but goodwill, love and consideration between us, then there would be no wars. But we are fed on beliefs, ideas and dogmas and therefore we breed discontent. The present crisis is of an exceptional nature and we as human beings must either pursue the path of constant conflict and continuous wars, which are the result of our everyday action, or else see the causes of war and turn our back upon them.
Obviously what causes war is the desire for power, position, prestige, money; also the disease called nationalism, worship of a flag; and the disease of organized religion, the worship of dogma. All these are the causes of war; if you as an individual belong to any of the organized religions, if you are greedy for power, if you are envious, patriotic, nationalistic, you are bound to produce a society, which will result in destruction. So again it depends upon you and not on the leaders; not on so-called statesman and all the rest of them.
Some of you will nod your heads and say, “I agree”, and go outside and do exactly the same as you have been doing for the last ten or twenty years. Your agreement is merely verbal and has no significance, for the world’s miseries and wars are not going to be stopped by your casual assent. They will be only stopped when you realize the danger, when you realize your responsibility, when you do not leave it to somebody else. If you realize the suffering, if you see the urgency of immediate action and do not postpone, then you will transform yourself.”
- J. Krishanmurti