Still This Love Crap

Have you ever experienced unrequited love? Ever love someone who was so out of your league they didn’t know you existed? Ever been horribly, unfairly, unceremoniously jilted by a lover? Ever love someone for years who treated you like shit most of the time? Ever love someone who turned out to be completely different than the one you thought you fell in love with?

Ever tried to muster up feelings of love for someone or something you did not, could not, love?

And yet still, despite its ephemeral nature—from its meaning, to its translation, to how it is individually experienced—some of our greatest thinkers, philosophers, social critics, poets, not to mention a good chunk of pop culture, still repeats “Love is the answer.”

We should love everyone and especially nature. That’s what’s wrong with the world, they insist, not enough love. And every time I hear this, I roll my eyes, even when it comes from someone I love.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b08njtjg

Most recently I heard it in an interview coming from Wendell Berry (link). How someone so inspiring, who has led such a charmed and wholesome and respectable life, who now at an advanced age seems so wise, could repeat such nonsense confirms for me only one thing: “We don’t see things for what they are, we see them for what we are.”

Love is the answer to the West’s problems, they say, because you take care of what you love. And the younger thinker and social critic Paul Kingsnorth agrees with him.

How lovely.

Now here’s a homework assignment I’d love to give to these fools. Kingsnorth likes to study tribal cultures, which I think is really cool. He likes them because they have a solid home in nature, unlike Westerners. And I agree. So, I think he should ask all those tribal folks their opinions about this ‘love’ solution so many Western thinkers keep harping on about.

My bet is, it doesn’t translate. At all. I bet he’d have to write an entire essay for them about what he means by love in the first place, let alone how he expects that will solve anything.

How do you make someone love you? Or care about you? I have a difficult time imagining a more monumental task. And yet, somehow those who care about nature are tasked with getting those very great many, like the Technocrats and their vast entourages, to not only love it, but to respect it, to care for it, to nurture it even. Seriously?

What a debilitating delusion they are spewing. And not just once or twice out of an understandable desperation. But constantly, for decades now.

Yet to call it out for the obvious shallow fantasy that it is, I become the bitch.

Well then, so be it. Let me play that role for a minute or two right now.

Imagine Mother Nature is your very own mother. Maybe you love your mother, let’s give it the benefit of the doubt. You love her, but your sisters love her more. And your mother and your sisters are screaming at you—“You don’t love me!” “You don’t care about me!” “You are exploiting me and you must stop!”

How will you respond to their shrieks and demands of love and care? Deny your lack of love, perhaps? Maybe yell back that they are all wrong about you? Maybe ask what they mean by that?

You might be so sure of your love that you ask what you can do to prove it?

Maybe Mom replies she wants you to write her a poem professing your loving feelings. So you do. You go even further, and you write 10 poems and throw in a tediously long essay to boot. And you’re very proud of your efforts and you feel you’ve really captured the intense love you have for her.

And she says she likes them, even the tediously long essay. In fact, everyone who loves her also agrees how perfectly you’ve captured those feelings of love through your words. Astonishing.

But, after all, those are just words, and you said to love her is to care for her, so she wants to see some action.

So with the same zeal you wrote the ten poems and tediously long essay you tackle the part where your loving words become caring actions.

You chop wood and carry water for her. You refrain from any negativity in her presence, because she doesn’t like it. You insist that everyone in her company, through shame or coercion or even force, abide by her rules and preferences.

At long last, she is satisfied with your efforts. You can feel the power of her appreciation filling your heart and coursing through your veins.

She tells you, “Child, you are a true master of loving care!”

“Except, you see, there’s so many children over there who don’t love me. And their lack of love for me is upstaging your love. Their lack of love is demonstrably more powerful than your true love. What can you do about this?”

And you reply, “Great Mother, don’t you worry, I can make them love you like I do!”

Really? Can you? What makes you so sure about that?

You read them your poems, and they smirk. Then they read your tediously long essay and shrug. You show them your admirable work in fetching wood and carrying water for your Great Mother, and they respond by clear cutting your forest and damming your river.

Then they tell you their favorite joke, laughing all along.

The joke goes like this: There were these three dudes on a yacht. One was an American, another was Russian, and the third one was Mexican. They were all drinking and getting boastful as drunken men like to do.

The Russian said, “In my country, we have so much vodka we can afford to throw it away!” And he takes a full bottle of vodka and throws it into the ocean.

They all laugh harder. So, the Mexican says, “In my country, we have so much tequila we can afford to throw it away!” And he takes a full bottle of tequila and throws it overboard.

And they all laugh harder still. Then the American says, “Well, in my country we have so many . . .

And he picks up the Mexican and throws him overboard.

The Russian and American look at each and howl with laughter. And the American blurts out between guffaws, “Tough love!”

To The Holy Spirit

O Thou, far off and here, whole and broken,
Who in necessity and in bounty wait,
Whose truth is light and dark, mute though spoken,
By Thy wide grace show me Thy narrow gate.

Wendell Berry

Captured!

This is a summary, of sorts, to Jasun Horsley’s thought-provoking work: Prisoner of Infinity: UFOs, Social Engineering and the Psychology of Fragmentation adapted, in my mind, to the song: I’ve Seen All Good People by YES.

All good people . . .

One connection I made (in my own mind at least) early on was to the transhumanist movement, something I’d been researching while looking into autism (a project that got steamrollered by this one). I had looked briefly into Ray Kurzweil and ‘The Singularity,” and planned to cite it in passing in the larger context of SRI and spiritual engineering.”

So satisfied . . .

For all the Eastern spiritual jargon favored by these individuals and institutes, the aims they put forth (in common with those of trans humanism and the Singularity) are really indistinguishable from the aims of Western occultism (and groups like Scientology): namely, the development of superpowers.  In the West, we tend to confuse psychism with spiritual attainment.  Yet from and Eastern point of view, they are seen as at odds with one another—hence the many warnings about ‘siddhis’.”

I’m on my way . . .

“To give an example: One way in which experiences get swept up by a sense of being on a world-saving mission is by trying to get the government (and other people) to see what the aliens are doing.  Scratch the surface of this phantastic narrative and underneath we may find something more mundane and tragic: the frustration and torment of a child, unable to get his parents (or other adults, if the abuse or neglect is by the parents) to see what’s happening to him. The experiencer’s experience then becomes part of a larger, unconscious reenactment, meant to bring about whatever resolution failed to occur when it was most needed.”

Move on to any black square, use me anytime you want . . .

“Implicit in this scenario is the understanding that, to become more than human entails becoming less than human.  Ironically, the same subhuman indifference to other people’s pain—the complete absence of empathy or compassion or conscience—must be extended to the controllers who are performing these horrendous conditioning exercises. Possibly it is even one of their goals, based on an understanding that, the more abhorrent the acts they commit, the more desensitized they will become, the more ‘invulnerable’ and ‘powerful’ they will experience themselves to be.”

For the Queen to use . . .

“Returning to the more solid ground of Industrial Light & Magic Reaganomics; if,as the evidence suggests, none of this is coincidental but is by careful design, then the entire Star Wars phenomenon—which continues to fire people’s most irrational, romantic responses to this day—is very different from what millions of impassioned devotees have hitherto dreamed of, even in their wildest fantasies.  Such innocence may not only be a luxury: It may also be a commodity.  The soul-deep mythic yearning of entire generations, tapped into by the use of images and carefully designed narratives, transmuted into a power source to be harnessed and directed into specific goals of progress, all in service of The Empire.” 

Don’t surround yourself with yourself . . .

“One reason for the appeal of secret societies lies in what might be called the lure of the arcane.  It is a basic human impulse to enjoy secrets, to be included in a special group that has privileged information about any subject that matter to the individual, whether government, finance, sports, the arts, or religion.  In the mid-nineteenth venture Thomas De Quincey wrote: “To be hidden amidst crowds is sublime—to come down hidden amongst crowds from distant generations is double sublime.” De Quince was writing with a degree of cynicism about those who feel they are connected by ‘the grander link of awful truths which, merely to shelter themselves from the hostility of an age unprepared for their reception, must retire, perhaps for generations, behind thick curtains of secrecy.’ Yet his cynicism correctly identified a widespread phenomenon. A venture later C.G. Jung observed that ‘there is no better means of intensifying the treasured feeling of individuality than the possession of a secret which the individual is pledged to guard.  The very beginnings of societal structures reveal the craving for secret organizations..’ This impulse accounts for the self-protective tendency among the young, but also among their seniors, to join teams, clubs, gangs, political parties, professional associations, and other circles.”

The Lure of the Arcane: The Literature of Cult and Conspiracy; Ziolkowski, Theodore. (Only the final quote.). I found both books to be interesting, but only Horsley’s would I recommend as being particularly relevant to current events.

Captured!

Mind-Body-Spirit

Last post I criticized the New Age movement but ended with the intention of offering the attributes of it in my opinion this next post.

Let me begin with just a bit of context—why do I care at all about the New Age movement (aka Positive Psychology, New Thought), and why do I think it should matter to a lot more folks?

In a nutshell, I’m interested in everything about culture creation, but especially those forces driving culture in a certain direction, whatever that direction may be.

That is Globalism currently—the One World Government and Religion as being pushed (or in rare cases, pushed back against) by every major institution around the world today.

Spirituality is the new global religion and for an assessment of what this religion is espousing and who are its leaders, here’s a good start.

Watkins’ Spiritual 100 List for 2021 – Watkins MIND BODY SPIRIT Magazine

1 Pope Francis
2 Dalai Lama
3 Black Lives Matter NEW
4 Eckhart Tolle
5 Desmond Tutu
6 Oprah Winfrey
7 Sadhguru
8 Alice Walker
9 Deepak Chopra
10 David Attenboroug

Love, Forgiveness, Positivity are the Father, Son, Holy Ghost of this religion. (Interesting note: Black Lives Matter just replaced Greta Thunburg from last year at position #3).

I heard a succinct sound bite that describes this religious movement: “The worship of the creation (Gaia) rather than the creator (God).”

Of course, all of these labels and angles are generalizations. It’s a very large, global movement with many working factions.

It is meant as a cohesive force, purportedly, based on a desired global peace. Whether or not this is the true purpose or will be the actual result is a matter of opinion, and I’d love to hear them for anyone who cares to share.

My opinion is: The single thing of real value that this religion has to offer is in its opposition to the philosophy of materialism, that is, that consciousness is an illusion and thought is an epiphenomenon of the brain. In other words—there is an ‘extended consciousness realm’ worthy of exploration that is being largely ignored, and often maligned, by modern Scientism.

The irony is, the famous New Agers on that list would probably not identify with the word ‘opposition’. However, the majority of them would identify with the reality that serious research being done in NDEs (near-death experience), reincarnation, ESP, the mind/body connection, etc. is being suppressed by mainstream science.

This is just a little blog that matters little to anyone. I am no scholar, just a very curious middle aged woman who questions Authority and resents attempts at being corralled by insidious (and often tyrannical) social (economical, political, educational, scientific, religious, etc.) forces.

I wonder why experiences and research concerning the possibility of the non-locality of thought is shoved into the fringe realms where, unfortunately, one also encounters a sky-high wall of phonies and fraudsters (quite a number of them I’d say are on that top 100 list!).

Perhaps it is time the Positive Psychology people started cleaning their own house? Or perhaps the first step is to recognize how dirty it really is?

If you are also a curious wanderer and wonder where much of this controversial science is explored, Skeptiko is at the top of my list.

Hope to hear some thoughts, or suggestions, or even criticisms of my wandering trails.

Photo by Du01b0u01a1ng Nhu00e2n on Pexels.com

The Folly of Forgiveness

The single most destructive virtue of Christianity is forgiveness.

In fact, it’s not a virtue at all, it’s a vice. It’s a ready-made excuse for laziness, cowardice, avoidance and self-aggrandizement.

Which is more challenging? Which is more beneficial to society?
A. Forgive those who trespass upon you.
B. Hold them accountable for their actions, or their lack of them.

The New Age movement, the modern outgrowth of our Christian heritage melded with aspects of Eastern religion/philosophy, shares this fundamental folly. You quite literally cannot read a spiritual or New Age text that does not claim something like this:

“Ultimately, make it your goal to move on to forgiveness of yourself and those involved in causing you pain in the past. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that what happened to you was acceptable. It simply means that you are no longer willing to allow a past injury to keep you from living fully and healthfully in the present.” Dr. Christiane Northrup, The Wisdom of Menopause: Creating Physical & Emotional Health During the Change

Nonsense. Forgiveness most certainly DOES mean that you’ve found the offense acceptable—you’ve given them “a pardoning” — look it up!

Forgiveness: “To pardon; to remit, as an offense or debt, to overlook an offense, and treat the offender as not guilty.” Webster’s Dictionary 1905

When a school of philosophy/religion/spirituality (Or individuals!) must change the meaning of words in order to fulfill their mission of manipulation it becomes propaganda and begs the question, “Who benefits?”

It’s not simply forgiving past injury that’s keeping anyone from living healthfully in the present, true peace of mind comes when justice is served. We witness the lack of justice and accountability all around us today, and we have centuries of brainwashing in this particular vice-cum-virtue to thank for that.

Burying the hatchet is rarely a guarantee it stays buried. Life is not a sitcom and taking the easy way out is testament to a lack of virtue, not a grounding in it. “Kiss and make up” solves little. “Turn the other cheek” is a blanket invitation to abusers.

To forgive someone who has not asked for it, nor shows remorse, nor penance, nor changed his ways is not healthy—not for the individual, not for the culture—in the long run.

It might keep you from getting cancer next year, or so the New Age self-helpers keep insisting, but you’ve only kicked the can down the road and made it worse for the perpetrators’ next victims. Good for the guru’s pocketbook and status, not so good for future generations.

The Christian myth that claims those who live in proverbial glass houses should not throw stones is a recipe for granting pardon to serial criminals while demonizing petty theft and other personal, minor infractions.

Everyone might very well be a sinner, but not all sins are created equal.

Holding others’ accountable for their actions is far more difficult than giving them a pardon. It’s exhausting to have standards of behavior and stick to them. It’s miserable to feel the loneliness that comes with not accepting abuse in one’s relationships and surroundings. It sucks to stand up for yourself against the group and especially against loved ones. But battered partners who don’t leave, Stockholm syndrome, normalized corruption, addiction, insanity and suicide are the direct result of a culture obsessed with forgiveness.

Unearned forgiveness is:

*A green light to bad behavior
*Victim-blaming for those who don’t want to, or choose not to, forgive
*Spiritual bypassing
*Ensuring history repeats
*Lowering the morality bar
*Killing the messenger
*Requiring scapegoats (represented by our most celebrated scapegoat, Jesus)
*Requiring lies, whitewashing, spinning of narratives to maintain illusions
*Forcing individuals to fit the will of the power structure rather than forcing the power structure to fit the will of the people

The personal and political spheres overlap—what we tolerate in our own house, we tolerate in the White House. What results is repeat offenders who are eternally tolerated.

The New Age movement has managed to create the worst of two worlds: The magical child thinking and materialism of the West combined with the spiritual hierarchies, self-hypnosis and toxic mysticism of the East.

Photo by Savanna Goldring on Pexels.com

Next post: What I think the New Agers have gotten right.
Whaaa . . . .?!

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