Cannot remake himself without suffering

Gnostic Panentheism

My metaphysics is gnostic panentheism, in that all manifested existence is a projection of one supreme consciousness that projects autonomous extensions of itself, each endowed with a locus of consciousness & freewill, & each fractally capable of projecting further sub-extensions (up to a point).
 

These extensions interact with each other freely within the universal thought-space of the supreme mind. This space is nonphysical, closer to what occultists call the spirit realm, Kingdom of Heaven, or higher astral plane. There’s no entropy, limitation, or physics there...


At some point, one or more of these aeonic fragments chose to create a sub-reality with such limitations. It created a demiurge (egregore/thoughtform) by using its own energy (or portion of the astral environment) & programming it with math, geometry, & the laws of physics.


This rigidly programmed astral energy field or thoughtform is identically the etheric plane, which is a precursor matrix (womb of generation) of physicality. Other fragments could bind themselves with this demiurge, thereby being coordinated by its psychic grip into a shared reality. Like personal computers logging into a game server to run a shared game environment.


So here we are in a sub-creation of greater creation, created by sub-creators of the true creator. We’re held in the psychic grip of a massive thoughtform that coordinates our individual “dreams” into a shared collective reality that operates by the illusory laws of physics.


Part of our consciousness is here, experiencing the illusion through illusory bodies. Part of our psyche is outside the etheric matrix, in the astral if not higher realms, like a satellite in orbit while we’re probes on the ground. This is fundamentally an experiment & game.


But due to exposure to this limiting environment that demands survival, compromise, and competition, there's a risk that we internalize such functions & “upload” these illusion-based prerogatives to aspects of us that are nonphysical (like our subconscious & soul). This corrupts the fragment.


Further, our own etheric/astral emanations, per our thoughts, feelings, intentions, and subconscious projections, can contribute to the demiurge and influence the nature/progression of this illusion. Thus we can corrupt it, & it executes that corruption by feeding it back to us.


So the fragments that bound themselves to the demiurge, incarnating into its dominion, many of them have gotten corrupted by it, internalizing its processes as unholy values, which traps them here via their attachment to it. Via feedback loops, their suffering begets suffering.


This environment makes for “fallen” fragments who willingly identify with the illusion-based principle of predation, as well as sub-fragments likely thoughtforms or NPCs, that together with the fallen fragments are now active agents of the corrupted demiurge.


This mess has triggered indirect divine intervention. Indirect means the supreme consciousness (which is beyond creation, as well as within it) doesn’t intervene directly, but delegates intervention to its projected fragments & their subordinates so each gets to “grow.”


This divine intervention employs the incarnation of helper-fragments (from rare spiritual avatars to everyday positive souls) who live within the illusion, helped when possible by telepathic/synchronistic guidance from fragments outside the illusion, all to counter the soporific spell of the demiurge & predation by its minions.


So we’re in a spiritual war now, all taking place within a “fallen” sub-creation within the mind-space of the supreme consciousness.


Our task is to a) disentangle from the illusion & return back to the higher realms, and/or b) gain control of this demiurgic creation & restore harmony here so that it serves the intentions of greater creation outside this illusion rather than serving its own ends to our detriment.

Source: Montalk Telegram

How much of the following do you believe?

1. The Creator of all existence is benevolent and is the ultimate source of goodness, life, wisdom, truth and light.


2. There is also an anti-Creator who is malevolent and the source of evil, death, ignorance, illusion, and darkness.


3. This world is a game-board between these dueling forces and their respective servants.


4. This duality is also active within us, via the opposing natures of our being: one authentic, the other counterfeit.


5. We have been endowed with freewill & individuated consciousness to choose between them.


6. By tapping into our inner god-spark and drawing upon its intrinsic goodness, we can discern and make the right choice.


7. In this way, we can choose righteous thoughts, feelings, and actions.


8. The more we do this, the more we transform and overcome inner/outer darkness.


9. Not only does this make us more attuned with higher benevolent beings who can then better help us, but we in turn become better at helping others.


10. We thereby participate in spiritualizing ourselves & the World.


11. There’s also a higher part of our own psyche (Higher Self) that remains up in the higher nonphysical realm while the lower part temporarily splits off and incarnates here in the physical as a human being.


12. By incarnating, we get to experience life and contribute to the grand interplay between darkness and light.


13. The advantage of physical incarnation is that we may impact the world not only via thoughts and feelings, but also via physical action.


14. Although we are by default unconscious of the Higher Self while here, the Higher Self is conscious of us and acts like a guardian angel to inspire us and guide the trajectory of our lives.


15. What we experience after death is determined by how our being has been impacted by the sum total of our freewill choices.


16. Those who consistently chose darkness and have thoroughly corrupted their essence end up in the gloomy miserable lower nonphysical realms.


17. Those who consistently chose goodness and have nurtured their essence end up reconnecting with their Higher Self, becoming whole again, and returning to their true spiritual home.


18. Those who chose neither sufficiently, end up in a realm that is neither their spiritual home nor the lowest realms.


19. One day, light will fully triumph over darkness, and the Creator will then clear the game-board through a grand reset.


20. A perfect symbol for the Higher Self and the Creator is fire since it provides warmth, protection, illumination, and purifying transformation.
 

Turns out these ideas are at least 3500 years old. They form the core beliefs of Zoroastrianism.

- Tom Montalk on Telegram

Tawai - a voice from the forest - full feature

Tawai is a word the nomadic hunter gatherers of Borneo use to describe the connection they feel to their forest home. In this dreamy, philosophical and sociological look at life, Bruce Parry (of the BBC's Tribe, Amazon & Arctic) embarks on an immersive odyssey to explore the different ways that humans relate to nature and how this influences the way we create our societies. From the forests of the Amazon and Borneo to the River Ganges and Isle of Skye, Tawai is a quest for reconnection, providing a powerful voice from the heart of the forest itself.

And here is where we get to the more "spiritual" element of the AI issue in relation to the globalists

Artificial Intelligence: A Secular Look At The Digital Antichrist

I believe that globalists view AI with such reverence because they think it is a new form of life, or an ultimate form of life - A life that they are creating (as gods create life). And, if you think about it symbolically, this new "life" is actually made in the image of its creators: It has no empathy, no remorse, no guilt, no love. For lack of a better word, it is soulless, much like globalist psychopaths are soulless.

https://www.sott.net/article/471018-Artificial-Intelligence-A-Secular-Look-At-The-Digital-Antichrist

We can see this lack of substantial psychological awareness in many New Age writers and lecturers.

"James Hillman, whose works delve deeply in Jungian archetypes, sees most New Age therapeutic methods as failing to deal with the true complexities of the soul. We can see this lack of substantial psychological awareness in many New Age writers and lecturers. Though such spokespeople may specialize in Hindu and Buddhist terminology relating to the levels of consciousness, few speak with any background knowledge of Western art, literature, poetry, science, philosophy, and how these have contributed to highlighting the further heights and depths of the human situation today.

Many become popular because they speak and write with a reductionist style that brings the complex and disturbing down into canned formulas of what spiritual growth is supposedly all about. Dozens of such New Age authors could bring their works together into one large volume entitled, “How To Become Aware of the Depths of Your Being Without Disturbing the Routine of Your Comfortable Lifestyle.“”

~ Lew Paz

@timeoftransition

Most human beings rarely - if ever - experience contact with the real “I”.

“Esotericism seeks to develop consciousness of the Divine. The problem is that our consciousness is, for the most part, simply a program that runs in our machine. The higher consciousness that is sought in terms of ascension is the real “I” or the soul; it is the theorized permanent point that exists within us throughout many incarnations.

This real “I” is something like an impartial referee whose small voice is mostly obscured in the roar of external events and personality programs. Nevertheless, it is this tiny spark of the real self that is the seed of the possibility of esoteric development.

Most human beings rarely - if ever - experience contact with the real “I”. Yet, the personality pretends that it has achieved this level of consciousness. We should note that an individual who has actually reached such a level of firm contact and expansion of the real “I” will also possess attributes such as the ability to accurately judge the consequences of his or her actions, the constant exercise of his own will, an ability to do - to initiate acausal events - as well as a bearing or attitude that is consistent with itself in all situations and conditions. Most of all, such a person does not lie to himself.

An objective examination of many of those who claim such qualities is sufficient to demolish such pretensions. There is so vast a chasm between the qualities that people ascribe to themselves, and what they can really DO,.

Nevertheless, to establish contact with the higher self, for lack of a better term, this very small seed of the soul connection that exists within us is the object of esoteric science. It seems that the only people who have a real hope of accomplishing this process are those who are “bankrupted” [disillusionment].

In other words, all the beliefs, all the programs, all the lies that have been part of the self from childhood, must collapse or be stripped away.

We are all corrupted by the exterior world of matter - the domain of Non-being and its gravitational lures. Even when experience contradicts what a person believes about him or herself, they are seldom able to make the cause and effect connection because of the serious deficiencies that are programmed into us from birth.

We generally explain our failures as “lack of will”. What people do not realize is that failure is not generally due to a lack of will or desire, but to a lack of BEING. It is only with the development of BEING that we begin to understand the knowledge we have acquired. Only then, with understanding combined with BEING, do we have the ability to Do."

- Laura Knight, The Secret History of the World

@timeoftransition

When art transports us, where do we actually go?

An old Chinese legend tells of the painter Wu Daozi (680-c760), who learned to paint so vividly that he was finally able to step inside his work and vanish into the landscape. Magical though it sounds, this legend iterates the common intuition that artworks are more like portals than ordinary objects: they can transport us into other worlds. When I look at Pieter Bruegel's The Hunters in the Snow (1565), I feel like I was there in the frost-bitten village, rather than the galleries of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. When reading Crime and Punishment (1866), the letters on the page conjure a whole world, and in some sense I am no longer in my living room but right there in Dostoevsky's Russia; the cinema, too, is a gateway to faraway galaxies and past centuries.

Even non-representational works can take hold of us, like the breathing colour fields of Mark Rothko's paintings or the beautiful ambience of Max Richter's music. Sometimes, artworks have such a magnetic pull that we forget the actual world around us and lose our sense of time and place, of other people - and sometimes even of ourselves. The French art critic Denis Diderot (1713-84) called such immersive experiences 'art at its most magical'. Once a painting by Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-89) pulled Diderot inside a pastoral river scene so completely and enjoyably that he compared the experience to a divine mode of existence:

"Where am I at this moment? What is all this surrounding me? I don't know, I can't say. What's lacking? Nothing. What do I want? Nothing. If there is a God, his being must be like this, taking pleasure in himself."

No wonder, then, that there is a certain sense of wistfulness when it all ends, when the lights come up or the last page is turned, and we find ourselves back where we were, forced to carry on with our daily lives.

The idea of artworks as portals to other worlds dates back several centuries, and it has become a commonplace way of talking about our experiences with art. In Pictures and Tears (2001), the art historian James Elkins called it the 'travelling theory' of aesthetic experience. The obvious problem with this theory, however, is that it sounds terribly metaphorical. In reality, I never leave my place in physical space. I'm there in the gallery, the auditorium or on my sofa all along. Try as I might, I cannot enter Bruegel's landscape by touching the canvas, nor can I run into the world of Hamlet by running onto the stage. The artwork allows me only to peer as if from a threshold, where I can see inside but never enter. Here we face what I call the paradox of aesthetic immersion: when I'm immersed in artwork, I seem to go somewhere without going anywhere, and I seem to be in two worlds at once, and yet I'm not properly in either.

So what kind of 'travelling' are we talking about?

Full article: https://www.sott.net/article/463294-When-art-transports-us-where-do-we-actually-go

Post Theory Science

If this isn’t the game changer we always imagined coming, I don't know what is.

I mean, this is so huge that I don’t think we can quickly get our minds around it, that is, if it is even possible to ever get our minds around it.

I mean, quite literally, this is what we always feared: how can we get our minds around something that doesn’t let us know how its own ‘mind’ is working? That we ourselves can't match or follow?

What do you think? Tell me while we are still capable of understanding each other’s thought process, before (I’m going sci fi here, not real world), independent thinking is no longer allowed.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/09/are-we-witnessing-the-dawn-of-post-theory-science

A.I. lacks intuition and instinct, as stated in the article. Huge flaw imo. The 'sixth' sense cannot be replaced. In other words: A.I. has no heart consciousness or feeling center, hence the drive of the elite's to lock us into their 'metaverse' and their transhumanist future. The plan will fail because the whole point is the human experience. Our souls don't give a rats ass about tech. I'm not saying that there won't be casualties on the timeline, just that trying to replicate the real META (consciousness) with an A.I. version is stupid in the face of true perfection. Imo the setup already suits the purpose (soul growth) perfectly.

Power vs Force: The inevitable collapse of the New World Order

Those who use force to impose their will on humanity always succumb to power. As history has shown, all totalitarian regimes eventually come crashing down - not on account of some divine intervention, but because each of us is born with inalienable rights that are intrinsic to human creation.

Therefore, it is only a matter of time before the transhumanist force implodes. However, the time it takes for that to happen is dependent on our ability to reduce disorder and increase power. A lower entropy consciousness means more energy available to do work which results in more power, freedom, happiness and love. As our power collectively grows, we create an immovable wall able to repel any and all negative influences and nefarious threats.

https://www.sott.net/article/462424-Power-vs-Force-The-inevitable-collapse-of-the-New-World-Order

Stolen History Series

The official version of human history is a construct of lies. We are in a state of collective amnesia. Let's free ourselves from the artificial matrix that has been imposed on us:

STOLEN HISTORY - LIFTING THE VEIL OF DECEPTION (PART 1 - INTRODUCTION)

STOLEN HISTORY - LIFTING THE VEIL OF DECEPTION PART 2 - THE DESTRUCTION OF THE OLD WORLD

STOLEN HISTORY PART 3 - THE MYSTERY OF THE WORLD'S FAIRS

Ethics professor delivers emotional lesson on vaccine mandates

Dr. Ponesse is being forced by her faculty to be injected immediately by the experimental mRNA gene therapies. She is refusing with painful consequences...

https://www.bitchute.com/video/3a48Z62wlZti/

How powerless they are to hold any opinions other than those which are imposed upon them...

“It is only by obtaining some sort of insight into the psychology of crowds that it can be understood how slight is the action upon them of laws and institutions, how powerless they are to hold any opinions other than those which are imposed upon them, and that it is not with rules based on theories of pure equity that they are to be led, but by seeking what produces an impression on them and what seduces them.”

⁃ Gustav LeBonn

This is the majority of human beings, and they don’t even think... they don’t even ask themselves, “But indeed, why am I here? Why is there an earth? Why are there men? Why do I live?”

"Love to learn, always learn, not waste your time in... well, in filling yourself with useless things or doing useless things. You must do everything with this aim, to enrich your possibilities, develop those you have, acquire new ones, and become as complete, as perfect a human being as you can. That is, even on this line you must take things seriously, not simply pass your time because you are here, and waste it as much as possible because you have to pass it somehow.

That is the attitude of men in general: they come into life, they don’t know why; they know that they will live a certain number of years, they don’t know why; they think that they will have to pass away because everybody passes away, and they again don’t know why; and then, most of the time they are bored because they have nothing in themselves, they are empty beings and there is nothing more boring than emptiness; and so they try to fill this by distraction, they become absolutely useless, and when they reach the end they have wasted their whole existence, all their possibilities — and everything is lost.

This you will see: take a thousand men, out of them at least nine hundred and ninety are in this condition. It happens that they are born in certain circumstances or certain others, and they try, you see, to pass their time as well as they can, to be bored as little as possible, to suffer as little as possible, to have as good a time as possible; and everything is dull, lifeless, useless, stupid, and absolutely without any result.

There, then. This is the majority of human beings, and they don’t even think... they don’t even ask themselves, “But indeed, why am I here? Why is there an earth? Why are there men? Why do I live?” No, all these things are absolutely uninteresting. The only interesting thing is to try to eat well, to have good fun, be nicely distracted, well married, have children, earn money and have all the advantages one can get from the point of view of desires, and above all, above all not think, not reflect, not ask any questions, and avoid all trouble. Yes, and then get out of it like that, without too many catastrophes.

This is the general condition; this is what men call being reasonable. And in this way the world can turn round indefinitely for eternity, it will never progress. And this is why all these are like ants; they come, crawl, die, go away, come back, crawl again, die again, and so on. And it can last for eternities like this. Fortunately, there are some who do the work of all the others, but it’s only these who will make everything change one day.

So the first problem is to know on which side one wants to be: on the side of those who are doing something or the side of those who do nothing; on the side of those who, perhaps, will be able to understand what life is and do what is necessary for this life to culminate in something, or else of those who hardly care to understand anything at all and try to pass their time in having as few botherations as possible. Above all, no botherations! There we are. This is the first choice. After this, there are many others."

- The Mother, Integral Yoga

Time of Transition Telegram

Climate Change and the Time of Transition

In this quote below, Gurdjieff talked about climate change (literally using the same words) almost a century ago, taking a look at the issue from the perspective of cycles, esotericism, and the pursuit of higher Knowledge:

“There are periods in the life of humanity, which generally coincide with the beginning of the fall of cultures and civilizations, when the masses irretrievably lose their reason and begin to destroy everything that has been created by centuries and millenniums of culture.

Such periods of mass madness, often coinciding with geological cataclysms, climatic changes, and similar phenomena of a planetary character, release a very great quantity of the matter of knowledge. This, in its turn, necessitates the work of collecting this matter of knowledge which would otherwise be lost. Thus the work of collecting scattered matter of knowledge frequently coincides with the beginning of the destruction and fall of cultures and civilizations.

This aspect of the question is clear. The crowd neither wants nor seeks knowledge, and the leaders of the crowd, in their own interests, try to strengthen its fear and dislike of everything new and unknown. The slavery in which mankind lives is based upon this fear. It is even difficult to imagine all the horror of this slavery. We do not understand what people are losing.

But in order to understand the cause of this slavery it is enough to see how people live, what constitutes the aim of their existence, the object of their desires, passions, and aspirations, of what they think, of what they talk, what they serve and what they worship….”

- Gurdjieff

More in this article 👇
https://veilofreality.com/2017/09/09/climate-change-and-the-time-of-transition/

Above all, there should be no philosophy

"In order to stifle any revolt in advance, one must not use violence. Methods like those used by Hitler are outdated. You need only develop such powerful collective conditioning that the very idea of revolt will not even cross people’s minds.

Ideally, individuals should be conditioned by limiting their innate biological abilities from birth. Then, we would continue the conditioning process by drastically reducing education in order to bring it back to a form of integration into the world of work. 

An uneducated individual has only a limited horizon of thought, and the more his thoughts are confined to mediocre concerns, the less he can rebel. Access to knowledge must be made increasingly difficult and elitist. 

The gulf between people and science must be widened. All subversive content must be removed from information intended for the general public.

Above all, there should be no philosophy. Here again, we must use persuasion and not direct violence: we will massively broadcast entertainment via television that always extols the virtues of the emotional and instinctive. 

We will fill people’s minds with what is futile and fun. It is good to prevent the mind from thinking through incessant music and chatter. 

Sexuality will be placed at the forefront of human interests. As a social tranquilizer, there is nothing better.

In general, we will make sure to banish seriousness from life, to deride anything that is highly valued, and to constantly champion frivolity: so that the euphoria of advertising becomes the standard of human happiness and the model for freedom. 

Conditioning alone will thus produce such integration that the only fear – which must be maintained – will be that of being excluded from the system and therefore no longer able to access the conditions necessary for happiness.

The mass man produced in this way must be treated as what he is: a calf, and he must be kept a close eye on, as a herd should be. Anything that allays his lucidity is good socially, and anything that could awaken it must be ridiculed, stifled, and fought.

 Any doctrine questioning the system must first be designated as subversive and terrorist, and those who support it must then be treated as such.”

- Günther Anders, "L’Obsolescence de l’homme" (Ed. Ivréa), 1956

The Emerging Totalitarian Dystopia: Interview With Professor Mattias Desmet

Few phenomena have had a profound impact on a global level as quickly as the current corona outbreak. In no time, human life has been completely reorganised. I asked Mattias Desmet, Psychotherapist and Professor of Clinical Psychology at Ghent University, how this is possible, what the consequences are, and what we can expect in the future.

Almost a year after the start of the corona crisis, how is the mental health of the population?

MD: For the time being, there are few figures that show the evolution of possible indicators such as the intake of antidepressants and anxiolytics or the number of suicides. But it is especially important to place mental well-being in the corona crisis in its historical continuity. Mental health had been declining for decades. There has long been a steady increase in the number of depression and anxiety problems and the number of suicides. And in recent years there has been an enormous growth in absenteeism due to psychological suffering and burnouts. The year before the corona outbreak, you could feel this malaise growing exponentially. This gave the impression that society was heading for a tipping point where a psychological 'reorganization' of the social system was imperative. This is happening with corona. Initially, we noticed people with little knowledge of the virus conjure up terrible fears, and a real social panic reaction became manifested. This happens especially if there is already a strong latent fear in a person or population.

The psychological dimensions of the current corona crisis are seriously underestimated. A crisis acts as a trauma that takes away an individual's historical sense. The trauma is seen as an isolated event in itself, when in fact it is part of a continuous process. For example, we easily overlook the fact that a significant portion of the population was strangely relieved during the initial lockdown, feeling liberated from stress and anxiety. I regularly heard people say: "Yes these measures are heavy-handed, but at least I can relax a bit." Because the grind of daily life stopped, a calm settled over society. The lockdown often freed people from a psychological rut. This created unconscious support for the lockdown. If the population had not already been exhausted by their life, and especially their jobs, there would never have been support for the lockdown. At least not as a response to a pandemic that is not too bad compared to the major pandemics of the past. You noticed something similar when the first lockdown came to an end. You then regularly heard statements such as "We are not going to start living again like we used to, get stuck in traffic again" and so on. People did not want to go back to the pre-corona normal. If we do not take into account the population's dissatisfaction with its existence, we will not understand this crisis and we will not be able to resolve it. By the way, I now have the impression that the new normal has become a rut again, and I would not be surprised if mental health really starts to deteriorate in the near future. Perhaps especially if it turns out that the vaccine does not provide the magical solution that is expected from it.

Desperate cries of young people regularly appear in the media. How seriously do you take them?

MD: Well, you should know that the lockdowns and the associated measures are completely different for young people than for adults. Unlike a middle-aged adult, the time span of a year for a young person means a period in which one undergoes enormous psychological development, much of which takes place in dialogue with peers. Today's young people are living through this period in isolation, and it may well be that it will have negative consequences for the majority of them. But everything is complex where young people are concerned. For example, those who previously experienced acute social anxiety or social isolation may now feel better because they are no longer the misfits. But in general, the youth is undoubtedly the hardest hit by this corona crisis.

What about anxiety in the adults?

MD: In adults there is also fear, but the object of the fear differs. Some are primarily afraid of the virus itself. There are people living in my street who hardly dare to leave their homes. Others fear the economic consequences of the measures. And still others fear the social changes brought about by the corona measures. They fear the emergence of a totalitarian society. Like me (laughs).

Are the mortality and morbidity rates associated with the coronavirus commensurate with the fearful responses?

MD: Well, sickness and suffering are always bad, but the deleterious effects of the government response are disproportionate to the health risk of the virus. Professionally, I am involved in two research projects on corona. As a result, I have been working fairly intensively with the data. Clearly, the virus mortality rate is quite low. The numbers that the media are announcing are based on, let's say, an overly enthusiastic count. Regardless of any pre-existing medical problems, just about every elderly person who died was added to the list of corona deaths. I personally only know one person who was registered as a corona death. He was a terminal cancer patient who died with rather than from corona. Adding these sorts of deaths to corona deaths increases the numbers and increases anxiety in the population.

Several emergency doctors called me during the second wave. Some told me that their ward was absolutely not overrun with corona patients. Others told me that more than half of the patients in the ICU did not have corona or showed such mild symptoms that they would have been sent home to recover, were they diagnosed with influenza. But given the prevailing panic, this turned out to be impossible. Unfortunately, these doctors wished to remain anonymous, so their message did not reach the media and public opinion. Some of them later also told their story to a journalist from the VRT news network, but unfortunately nothing has come of this to date. And I want to mention that there were other doctors who interpreted the apparent facts in a completely different fashion than portrayed in the conventional narrative.

We are struck by the disappearance of the ability to criticise the consensus and the corona measures, even within the academic world where scientific ideals require critical thinking. How do you explain this?

MD: Make no mistake: at university and in the medical world there are many people who are amazed by what is going on. I have quite a few friends in the medical field who don't accept the conventional narrative. They say "open your eyes, can't you see this virus isn't the plague?" But all too often they don't take the step to say this publicly. Moreover, for each critical voice, thirty others do go along with the story, even if this means that they have to abandon their critical scientific standards.

Is this a sign of cowardice?

MD: In some cases it is. In fact you can distinguish three groups everywhere. The first group does not believe the story and says so publicly. The second group does not believe in the story either, but publicly goes along with it anyway, because, given the social pressure, they dare not do otherwise. And the third group really believes in the dominant narrative and has a real fear of the virus. The latter group is certainly also found at the universities.

It is striking how scientific studies, also in this corona crisis, reveal very diverse results. Based on these results, scientists can defend almost diametrically opposed theories as the only truth. How is this possible?

MD: The research on corona is indeed brimming with contradictions. For example, regarding the effectiveness of face masks or hydroxychloroquine, the success of the Swedish approach, or the effectiveness of the PCR test. Even more curiously, the studies contain a huge number of improbable errors that a normally sane person would not be expected to make. This is still the case in terms of establishing the absolute number of infections, while a schoolchild knows that this means nothing as long as the number of infections detected is not compared with the number of tests taken. Obviously, the more tests you carry out, the more likely your infection rate will increase. Is this so difficult? In addition, it should be kept in mind that the PCR test can yield a large number of false positives, because the technique is widely misused for diagnosis. Together, this means that the inaccuracy of the figures distributed daily by the media is so great that some people understandably suspect a conspiracy, albeit apocryphally, in my opinion.

Again, this phenomenon is better placed in an historical perspective, because the problematic quality of scientific research is not a new issue. In 2005 the so-called "replication crisis" erupted in the sciences. Several committees set up to investigate scientific fraud cases found that scientific research is teeming with errors. Often the stated conclusions are of very dubious value. In the wake of the crisis, several papers appeared with titles that leave little to the imagination. In 2005, John Ioannidis, Professor of Medical Statistics at Stanford, published Why most published research findings are false. In 2016, a different research group wrote about the same topic, in Reproducibility: a Tragedy of Errors published in the medical journal Nature. These are just two examples of the very extensive literature describing this problem. I myself am well aware of the shaky scientific foundation of many research results. In addition to my master's degree in clinical psychology, I earned a master's in statistics. My doctorate dealt with measurement problems in the field of psychology.

How was the criticism received within the scientific world?

MD: Initially it led to a shock wave, after which an attempt was made to resolve the crisis by demanding more transparency and objectivity. But I don't think this solved much. Rather, the cause of the problem lies in a specific kind of science that emerged during the Enlightenment. This science is based on an absolute belief in objectivity. According to the adepts of this view, the world is almost totally objectifiable, measurable, predictable and verifiable. But science itself has shown that this idea is untenable. There are limits to objectivity and, depending on the scientific domain, one is highly likely to encounter these limits. Physics and chemistry are still relatively suitable for measuring. But this is much less successful in other research areas such as economics, biomedical science, or psychology, where an investigator is more likely to discover that a researcher's subjectivity has had a direct influence on his or her observations. And it is precisely this subjective core that scientists have sought to eliminate from scientific debate. Paradoxically - but not surprisingly - this nucleus flourishes in its exile, leading to the complete opposite of the hoped-for result. Namely, a radical lack of objectivity and a proliferation of subjectivity. This problem has persisted even after the replication crisis, it was not resolved in spite of the efforts of critics. As a result, now, 15 years later, in the throes of the corona crisis, we continue to face exactly the same problems.

Are current politicians basing the corona measures on incorrectly established scientific principals?

MD: I think so. Here, too, we see a kind of naive belief in objectivity that turns into its opposite: a serious lack of objectivity with masses of errors and carelessness. Moreover, there is a sinister connection between the emergence of this kind of absolutist science and the process of manipulation and totalitarianisation of society. In her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, the German-American political thinker Hannah Arendt brilliantly describes how this process took place in Nazi Germany, among other places. For example, nascent totalitarian regimes typically fall back on a 'scientific' discourse. They show a great preference for figures and statistics, which quickly degenerate into pure propaganda, characterised by a radical "disregard for the facts". For example, Nazism based its ideology on the superiority of the Aryan race. A whole series of so-called scientific data substantiated their theory. Today we know that this theory had no scientific validity, but scientists at the time used the media to defend the regime's positions. Hannah Arendt describes how these scientists proclaimed questionable scientific credentials, and she uses the word "charlatans" to emphasize this. She also describes how the emergence of this kind of science and its industrial applications was accompanied by an inevitable social change. Classes disappeared and normal social ties deteriorated, with much indefinable fear, anxiety, frustration, and lack of meaning. It is under such circumstances that the masses develop very specific psychological qualities. All fears that haunt society become linked to one 'object' - for example, the Jews - so that the masses enter into a kind of energetic struggle with this object. And onto that process of social conditioning of the masses, a completely new political and constitutional organisation subsequently grafts itself: the totalitarian state.

Today, one perceives a similar phenomenon. There is widespread psychological suffering, lack of meaning, and diminished social ties in society. Then a story comes along that points to a fear object, the virus, after which the population strongly links its fear and discomfort to this dreaded object. Meanwhile, there is a constant call in all media to collectively fight the murderous enemy. The scientists who bring the story to the population are rewarded with tremendous social power in return. Their psychological power is so great that, at their suggestion, the whole of society abruptly renounces a host of social customs and reorganises itself in ways that no one at the beginning of 2020 thought possible.

What do you think will happen now?

MD: The current corona policy temporarily restores some social solidarity and meaning to society. Working together against the virus creates a kind of intoxication, resulting in an enormous narrowing of attention, so that other matters, such as the concern for collateral damage, vanish into the background. However, the United Nations and several scientists warned from the outset that the global collateral damage could generate far more deaths than the virus, for instance from hunger and delayed treatment.

Social conditioning of the masses has another curious effect: it causes individuals to psychologically put aside selfish and individual motives. In this way, one can tolerate a Government that takes away some personal pleasures. To give just one example: catering establishments where people worked their entire lives can be closed without much protest. Or also: the population is deprived of performances, festivals and other cultural pleasures. Totalitarian leaders intuitively understand that tormenting the population in a perverse way reinforces the social conditioning even more. I can't fully explain that now, but the process of social conditioning is intrinsically self-destructive. A population affected by this process is capable of enormous atrocities towards others, but also towards itself. It has absolutely no hesitation about sacrificing itself. This explains why, unlike simple dictatorships, a totalitarian state cannot survive. It eventually devours itself completely, as it were. But the process usually takes many human lives.

Do you recognise totalitarian traits in the current crisis and the government response to it?

MD: Definitely. When one steps away from the virus story, one discovers a totalitarian process par excellence. For example, according to Arendt, a pre-totalitarian state cuts through all social ties of the population. Simple dictatorships do that at the political level - they ensure that the opposition cannot unite - but totalitarian states also do this among the population, in the private sphere. Think of the children who - often unintentionally - reported their parents to the government in the totalitarian states of the twentieth century. Totalitarianism is so focused on total control that it automatically creates suspicion among the population, causing people to spy on and denounce each other. People no longer dare to speak out against the majority and are less able to organise themselves due to the restrictions. It is not difficult to recognise such phenomena in today's situation, in addition to many other features of emerging totalitarianism.

What is it that this totalitarian state ultimately wants to achieve?

MD: At first, it doesn't want anything. Its emergence is an automatic process coupled on the one hand with great anxiety on the part of the population and, on the other hand, a naive scientific thinking that considers total knowledge possible. Today there are those who believe that society should no longer be based on political narratives but on scientific facts and figures, thus rolling out the red carpet for rule by technocracy. Their ideal image is what the Dutch philosopher Ad Verbrugge calls "intensive human husbandry". Within a biological-reductionist, virological ideology, continuous biometric monitoring is indicated and people are subjected to continuous preventive medical interventions, such as vaccination campaigns. All this to supposedly optimise public health. And a whole range of medical hygiene measures must be implemented; avoiding touch, wearing face masks, continuously disinfecting hands, vaccination, etc. For the supporters of this ideology, one can never do enough to achieve the ideal of the greatest possible 'health'. A newspaper article appeared in which one could read that the population ought to be made even more afraid. Only then would they stick to the measures recommended by the virologists. In their view, stirring up fear will work to produce good. But when drawing up all these draconian measures, the policymakers forget that people cannot be healthy, either physically or mentally, without sufficient freedom, privacy and the right to self-determination, values that this technocratic totalitarian view totally ignores. Although the Government aspires to enormous health improvement for its society, its actions will ruin the health of society. By the way, this is a basic characteristic of totalitarian thinking according to Hannah Arendt: it ends in the exact opposite of what it originally pursued.

Today, the virus creates the necessary fear on which totalitarianism rests. Will finding a vaccine, and the subsequent vaccination campaign, allay this fear and end this totalitarian flare-up?

MD: A vaccine will not resolve the current impasse. For in truth, this crisis is not a health crisis, it is a profound social and even cultural crisis. By the way, the Government has already announced that the measures will not just disappear after the vaccination. A recent article even stated that it is striking that the countries that are already very advanced with the vaccination campaign - such as Israel and Great Britain - are strangely enough still seriously tightening the measures. Rather, I foresee this scenario: despite all the promising studies, the vaccine will not bring about a solution. And the blindness that social conditioning and totalitarianisation entails will blame those who do not go along with the story and/or refuse to be vaccinated. They will serve as scapegoats. There will be an attempt to try to silence them. And if that succeeds, the dreaded tipping point in the process of totalitarianisation will come: only after it has completely eliminated the opposition will the totalitarian state show its most aggressive form. It then becomes - to use Hannah Arendt's words - a monster eating his own children. In other words, the worst is perhaps yet to come.

What are you thinking about these days?

MD: Totalitarian systems generally all have the same tendencies to methodically isolate and that, in order to guarantee the health of the population, the 'sick' portions of the population will be further isolated and locked up in camps. That idea was actually suggested several times during the corona crisis, but dismissed as "not feasible" due to social resistance. But will that resistance persist if the fear continues to increase? You may suspect me of being overly paranoid, but who would have thought in early 2020 that our society would look like this today? The process of totalitarianisation is based on the hypnotic effect of a story and it can only be broken by another story. Hence, I hope more people will question the supposed danger of the virus and the necessity of current corona measures, and dare to speak publicly about this.

Why is this fear response not occurring with the climate crisis?

MD: The climate crisis may not be suitable as a fear object. It may be too abstract and we cannot associate it with the instant death of a loved one or ourselves. And as an object of fear, it is also less directly related to our medical-biological view of man. Hence, a virus is a privileged object of fear.

What does the current crisis tell us about our relationship with death?

MD: The dominant science perceives the world as a mechanistic interaction of atoms and other elemental particles that collide randomly and produce all kinds of phenomena, including humans. This science makes us desperate and powerless in the face of death. At the same time, life is experienced as a totally meaningless and mechanistic given, but we cling to it as if it is all we have, and we want to eliminate any behaviour that might risk the loss of it. And that is impossible. Paradoxically, radically trying to avoid risks, for example through corona measures, creates the greatest risk of all. Just look at the colossal collateral damage that is being caused.

You perceive the current social evolution as going in a negative direction. How do you see the future?

MD: I am convinced that something beautiful will come out of all this. Materialistic science starts from the idea that the world consists of material particles. Yet precisely this science reveals that matter is a form of consciousness, that there is no certainty, and that the human mind fails to grasp the world. For example, the Danish physicist and Nobel Prize winner Niels Bohr argued that the elementary particles and atoms behave in a radically irrational and illogical way. According to him, they were better understood by using poetry than by using logic.

We will experience something similar on a political level. In the near future, we will perhaps historically be making the most far-reaching attempt to control everything in a technological, rational way. Ultimately, this system will prove itself to not work and show that we need a completely different society and policy. The new system will rely more on respect for what is ultimately elusive to the human mind and on respect for the art and intuition that were central to the religions.

Are we in a paradigm shift today?

MD: Doubtless. This crisis heralds the end of a cultural historical paradigm. Part of the transition has already been made in the sciences. The geniuses who laid the foundations of modern physics, complex and dynamic systems theory, chaos theory and non-Euclidean geometry already understood that there is not one but many different logics, that there is something intrinsically subjective in everything, and that people live in direct resonance with the world around them and all the complexities of nature. Moreover, Man is a being who is dependent on his fellow man in his energetic existence. The physicists have known this for some time, now for the rest of us! We are now witnessing the latest upsurge of the old culture based on control and logical understanding that will demonstrate at breakneck speed what utter failure it brings and its inability to truly organise a society in a decent and humane way.

https://www.sott.net/article/449795-The-Emerging-Totalitarian-Dystopia-Interview-With-Professor-Mattias-Desmet

Interview with Stefan Verstappen - Navigating Dystopia

On the psychology of the conspiracy denier

Tim Foyle
Reporting For Beauty
Sat, 06 Mar 2021 08:17 UTC

Why is it that otherwise perfectly intelligent, thoughtful and rationally minded people baulk at the suggestion that sociopaths are conspiring to manipulate and deceive them? And why will they defend this ill-founded position with such vehemence?

History catalogues the machinations of liars, thieves, bullies and narcissists and their devastating effects. In modern times too, evidence of corruption and extraordinary deceptions abound.

We know, without question, that politicians lie and hide their connections and that corporations routinely display utter contempt for moral norms - that corruption surrounds us.

We know that revolving doors between the corporate and political spheres, the lobbying system, corrupt regulators, the media and judiciary mean that wrongdoing is practically never brought to any semblance of genuine justice.

We know that the press makes noise about these matters occasionally but never pursues them with true vigour.

We know that in the intelligence services and law enforcement wrongdoing on a breathtaking scale is commonplace and that, again, justice is never forthcoming.

We know that governments repeatedly ignore or trample on the rights of the people, and actively abuse and mistreat the people. None of this is controversial.

So exactly what is it that conspiracy deniers refuse to acknowledge with such fervour, righteousness and condescension? Why, against all the evidence, do they sneeringly and contemptuously defend the crumbling illusion that 'the great and good' are up there somewhere, have everything in hand, have only our best interests at heart, and are scrupulous, wise and sincere? That the press serves the people and truth rather than the crooks? That injustice after injustice result from mistakes and oversights, and never from that dread word: conspiracy?

What reasonable person would continue to inhabit such a fantasy world?

The point of disagreement here is only on the matter of scale. Someone who is genuinely curious about the plans of powerful sociopaths won't limit the scope of their curiosity to, for example, one corporation, or one nation. Why would they? Such a person assumes that the same patterns on display locally are likely to be found all the way up the power food chain. But the conspiracy denier insists this is preposterous.

Why?

It is painfully obvious that the pyramidical societal and legal structures that humanity has allowed to develop are exactly the kind of dominance hierarchies that undoubtedly favour the sociopath. A humane being operating with a normal and healthy cooperative mindset has little inclination to take part in the combat necessary to climb a corporate or political ladder.

So what do conspiracy deniers imagine the 70 million or more sociopaths in the world do all day, born into a 'game', in which all the wealth and power are at the top of the pyramid, while the most effective attributes for 'winning' are ruthlessness and amorality? Have they never played Monopoly?

Sociopaths do not choose their worldview consciously, and are simply unable to comprehend why normal people would put themselves at such an incredible disadvantage by limiting themselves with conscientiousness and empathy, which are as beyond the understanding of the sociopath as a world without them are to the humane being.

All the sociopath need do to win in the game is lie publicly whilst conspiring privately. What could be simpler? In 2021, to continue to imagine that the world we inhabit is not largely driven by this dynamic amounts to reckless naiveté bordering on insanity. Where does such an inadvertently destructive impulse originate?

The infant child places an innate trust in those it finds itself with - a trust which is, for the most part, essentially justified. The infant could not survive otherwise.

In a sane and healthy society, this deep instinct would evolve as the psyche developed. As self-awareness, the cognitive and reasoning abilities and scepticism evolved in the individual, this innate trust impulse would continue to be understood as a central need of the psyche. Shared belief systems would exist to consciously evolve and develop this childish impulse in order to place this faith somewhere consciously - in values and beliefs of lasting meaning and worth to the society, the individual, or, ideally, both.

Reverence and respect for tradition, natural forces, ancestors, for reason, truth, beauty, liberty, the innate value of life, or the initiating spirit of all things, might all be considered valid resting places in which to consciously place our trust and faith - as well as those derived from more formalised belief systems.

Regardless of the path taken to evolve and develop a personal faith, it is the bringing of one's own consciousness and cognition to this innate impulse that is relevant here. I believe this is a profound responsibility - to develop and cultivate a mature faith - which many are, understandably, unaware of.

What occurs when there is a childish need within us which has never evolved beyond its original survival function of trusting those in our environment who are, simply, the most powerful; the most present and active? When we have never truly explored our own psyches, and deeply interrogated what we truly believe and why? When our motivation for trusting anything or anyone goes unchallenged? When philosophy is left to the philosophers?

I suggest the answer is simple, and that the evidence of this phenomenon and the havoc it is wreaking is all around us: the innate impulse to trust the mother never evolves, never encounters and engages with its counterbalance of reason (or mature faith), and remains forever on its 'default' infant setting.

While the immature psyche no longer depends on parents for its well-being, the powerful and motivating core tenet I have described remains intact: unchallenged, unconsidered and undeveloped. And, in a world in which stability and security are distant memories, these survival instincts, rather than being well-honed, considered, relevant, discerning and up to date, remain, quite literally, those of a baby. Trust is placed in the biggest, loudest, most present and undeniable force around, because instinct decrees that survival depends on it.

And, in this great 'world nursery', the most omnipresent force is the network of institutions which consistently project an unearned image of power, calm, expertise, concern and stability.

In my view, this is how conspiracy deniers are able to cling to and aggressively defend the utterly illogical fantasy that somehow - above a certain undefined level of the societal hierarchy - corruption, deceit, malevolence and narcissism mysteriously evaporate. That, contrary to the maxim, the more power a person has, the more integrity they will inevitably exhibit. These poor deluded souls essentially believe that where personal experience and prior knowledge cannot fill in the gaps in their worldview - in short, where there is a barred door - mummy and daddy are behind it, working out how best to ensure that their little precious will be comfortable, happy and safe forever.

This is the core, comforting illusion at the root of the conspiracy denier's mindset, the decrepit foundation upon which they build a towering castle of justification from which to pompously jeer at and mock those who see otherwise.

This explains why it is that the conspiracy denier will attack any suggestion that the caregiving archetype is no longer present - that sociopaths are behind the barred door, who hold us all in utter contempt or disregard us completely. The conspiracy denier will attack any such suggestion as viciously as if their survival depended on it - which, in a way, within the makeup of their unconscious and precarious psyche, it does.

Their sense of well-being, of security, of comfort, even of a future at all, is completely (and completely unconsciously) invested in this fantasy. The infant has never matured, and, because they are not conscious of this, other than as a deep attachment to their personal security, they will fiercely attack any threat to this unconscious and central aspect of their worldview.

The tediously common refrain from the conspiracy denier is, 'there couldn't be a conspiracy that big'.

The simple retort to such a self-professed expert on conspiracies is obvious: how big?

The biggest 'medical' corporations in the world can go for decades treating the settling of court cases as mere business expenses, for crimes ranging from the suppressing of adverse test events to multiple murders resulting from undeclared testing to colossal environmental crimes.

Governments perform the vilest and most unthinkable 'experiments' (crimes) on their own people without consequence.

Politicians habitually lie to our faces, without consequence.

And on and on. At what point, exactly, does a conspiracy become so big that 'they' just couldn't get away with it, and why? I suggest it's at the point where the cognitive ability of the conspiracy denier falters, and their unconscious survival instinct kicks in. The point at which the intellect becomes overwhelmed with the scope of events and the instinct is to settle back into the familiar comforting faith known and cultivated since the first moment one's lips found the nipple. The faith that someone else is dealing with it - that where the world becomes unknown to us, a powerful and benevolent human authority exists in which we have only to place our faith unconditionally in order to guarantee eternal emotional security.

This dangerous delusion may be the central factor placing humanity's physical security and future in the hands of sociopaths.

To anyone in the habit of dismissing people who are questioning, investigative and sceptical as tin foil hat wearing, paranoid, science-denying Trump supporters, the question is: what do you believe in? Where have you placed your faith and why? How is it that while no one trusts governments, you appear to trust nascent global governance organisations without question? How is this rational?

If you are placing faith in such organisations, consider that in the modern global age, these organisations, as extraordinarily well presented as they are, are simply grander manifestations of the local versions we know we can't trust. They are not our parents and demonstrate no loyalty to humane values. There is no reason to place any faith whatsoever in any of them.

If you haven't consciously developed a faith or questioned why you believe as you do to some depth, such a position might seem misanthropic, but in truth, it is the opposite. These organisations have not earned your trust with anything other than PR money and glossy lies. True power remains, as ever, with the people.

There is a reason why Buddhists strongly advise the placing of one's faith in the Dharma, or the natural law of life, rather than in persons, and that similar refrains are common in other belief systems.

Power corrupts. And, in the world today, misplaced and unfounded trust could well be one of the greatest sources of power there is.

Massive criminal conspiracies exist. The evidence is overwhelming. The scope of those currently underway is unknown, but there is no reason to imagine, in the new global age, that the sociopathic quest for power or the possession of the resources required to move towards it is diminishing. Certainly not while dissent is mocked and censored into silence by gatekeepers, 'useful idiots', and conspiracy deniers, who are, in fact, directly colluding with the sociopathic agenda through their unrelenting attack on those who would shine a light on wrongdoing.

It is every humane being's urgent responsibility to expose sociopathic agendas wherever they exist - never to attack those who seek to do so.

Now, more than ever, it is time to put away childish things, and childish impulses, and to stand up as adults to protect the future of the actual children who have no choice but to trust us with their lives.

This essay has focussed on what I consider to be the deepest psychological driver of conspiracy denial.

There are certainly others, such as the desire to be accepted; the avoidance of knowledge of, and engagement with, the internal and external shadow; the preservation of a positive and righteous self-image: a generalised version of the 'flying monkey' phenomenon, in which a self-interested and vicious class protect themselves by coalescing around the bully; the subtle unconscious adoption of the sociopathic worldview (e.g. 'humanity is the virus'); outrage addiction/superiority complex/status games; a stunted or unambitious intellect that finds validation through maintaining the status quo; the dissociative protective mechanism of imagining that crimes and horrors committed repeatedly within our lifetime are somehow not happening now, not 'here'; and plain old fashioned laziness and cowardice.

My suggestion is that, to some degree, all of these build on the foundation of the primary cause I've outlined here.

On-the-psychology-of-the-conspiracy-denier

How they all tended, without our knowing it, towards the growth of our being and consciousness

The true sense of the (Divine)  guidance becomes clearer when we can go deep within and see from there more intimately the play of the forces and receive intimations of the Will behind them. The surface mind can get only an imperfect glimpse.

When we are in contact with the Divine or in contact with inner knowledge or vision, we begin to see all the circumstances of our life in the new light and observe how they all tended, without our knowing it, towards the growth of our being and consciousness, towards the work we had to do to be made,- not only what seemed good, fortunate or successful but also the struggles, failures, difficulties, upheavals.

But with each person the guidance works differently according to his nature, the conditions of his life, his cast of consciousness, his stage of development, his need for further experience. We are not automata but conscious beings and our mentality, our will and its decisions, our attitude to life and demand on it, our motives and movements help to determine our course: they may lead to much suffering and evil, but through it all, the guidance makes use of them for our growth in experience and consequently the development of our being and consciousness. 

All advance, by however devious ways, even in spite of what seems a going backwards or going astray, gathering whatever experience, is necessary for the soul's destiny. When we are in close contact with the Divine, a protection can come which helps or directly guides or moves us; it does not throw aside all difficulties, sufferings or dangers, but it carries us through them and out of them - except where for a special purpose there is need of the opposite.

- Sri Aurobindo