Beware the False Words of the Dark Magicians

Words are indeed magic. A few well-chosen words can precipitate a love affair, create or destroy a reputation, or incite an entire population to hatred and warfare. The dark magicians of modern times are well acquainted with the magical power of words. Shady sorcerers such as the Clintons, Cleggs, and Obamas; Salmonds and Sturgeons; Merkels and Camerons - make your own list (though some are more adept at the dark art than others, it must be conceded).

It is our responsibility to be wise to the manipulative tricks of these dark magicians in order to inoculate ourselves against the power of their cunning spells. This requires a basic awareness, at the least, of certain aspects of logic, and developing the ability to spot an attempt to cast a poisonous spell. The curse will most likely manifest as a form of logical fallacy, intended to deceive the gullible and unthinking. Anybody unable to discern a fallacy will be easy meat for the magicians' crafty predations.

I invite you to do your own homework on this one; it is not too complex, and is necessary. I will draw attention to two areas that stand out for me, however.

Beware the 'argument' that does not address the point in question, but instead appeals to the emotions, especially the emotional prejudices, of the reader or listener. In recent times, anybody with the temerity to disagree with any of the Scottish National Party's ill-thought-out policies would probably be dismissed as being 'negative'. Whatever that means, I'm not sure; but nobody wants to be branded 'negative', do they? So, to divert unwanted attention from your rubbish ideas, you have a go at the accuser and their negativity. This is not the discourse of proper discussion or debate. Ad hominem arguments are rife, when a point of view is countered by an attack on the speaker/writer's character or personal traits. 'Well, that's just the sort of thing we'd expect an ignorant, ill-informed person like you to say.' Closely related is the calling of names. Trying to dismiss anyone who questions human-made global warming as a 'climate change denier' is an example. By associating them with people who deny the reality of the holocaust, tarring them with the same brush, and thereby suggesting that they are people who refuse to accept the truth that is staring them in the face, and are happy to see us all burn in hell, is a despicably low and nasty trick.

Secondly, beware the black magic of the false dichotomy. A situation is presented in black-and-white terms, as having only two options, while in reality an entire spectrum of (frequently more intelligent) possibilities exist. The false dichotomy is rife. It happens all the time and, if not spotted, is an excellent way of promoting fear and insecurity in a population. A classic example is Bush's post-9/11 statement that 'If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists.' No, George, a minute's reflection will demonstrate that it's not like that at all; but in the midst of the panic and insecurity of the moment, clear thinking is rare, and it is good enough to do the trick.

I encounter false dichotomies all over the place. If you're against windfarms, you must be in favour of nuclear. No. If you're not in favour of windfarms, you must be in favour of fossil fuels. Nope again. If you're against windfarms, you can't care about the environment. Bullshit. If you criticise socialism, you must be right-wing. If you're not left-wing, you've gotta be right-wing, O.K.? If you're not with Obama, you must be a Tea Party person. This is all false black-and-white bullshit to prevent proper thinking. Don't let others define the parameters for your thought, what's permitted inside the box and what isn't. Use your own open-ended intelligence. But to do so requires constant diligence. Beware, beware. They're out to get your mind.

The image of the Dark Magician for this piece comes from the fascinating Infinite Visions Tarot. The website is well worth checking out. The online text accompanying some of the figures of the Tarot is more incisive than a lot you can come across. And what Infinite Visions says about this particular card is of relevance with regard to the Dark Magicians lurking amongst us today:

'The Dark Magician is the wounded one who has sunk into deep despair, sadness, hopelessness, and may express these emotions through anger and violence......  The enemy lurks closely, searching for your weakness, and for an opportunity to exploit it. Take mental note of situations or events that stand out as being strange..... You may never see or recognise this enemy because the work is done behind the scenes and in the shadows or under the guise of a friend.'            

Beware, beware. Exercise constant diligence. They're out for your mind.......

Image: Infinite Visions Tarot

Rebirth and the Architecture of Mind Control

I have recently engaged in some communication with several old Buddhist friends on the subject of rebirth. I have been surprised to discover that there are some Buddhists out there who cling to a materialist/nihilist view i.e. that consciousness dies along with the physical body. This philosophical standpoint, I would suggest, is incompatible with Buddhist thought and practice, but there we go. I have ended up pointing out that rebirth - or 'continued consciousness', as I would prefer to call it - is actually more 'scientific' than the materialist view. Though I suppose that it depends on what you consider 'science' to be.

My dictionary defines science as 'the study, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of the nature and behaviour of phenomena in the physical and natural world.' I have no argument with this definition. My point about 'rebirth' is that there is no empirical evidence, despite vast amounts of 'experimental investigation', for the termination of consciousness with physical death. The materialist/nihilist view will assume that consciousness is produced and created by the brain - it does not, I believe, have any other choice. Millions upon millions of pounds have, over recent decades, been lavished on brain research. Nowadays, neuroscience knows a lot about the functioning of the brain: which bits are involved in this disease and that condition; which bits are activated by music, by meditation; which parts connect and contact each other under various circumstances; and the rest. Yet, despite this torrent of research, orthodox science is no closer now than it was twenty years ago to the Holy Grail of its research: the location of consciousness itself. However and wherever they look, our scientists just can't find the location point of consciousness in the brain. The only logical conclusion to draw is that they can't find it because it's not there at all. They're looking in the wrong place.

Set against this the wealth of reliable material available on consciousness as a faculty that can function outside and independent of the brain. Verifiable memories of past lives, near-death and out-of-the-body experiences, and more besides. The materialist/nihilistic view doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny whatsoever.

So what's going on, then? The notion of 'science' has been hijacked by a certain philosophy or ideology in order to make its ridiculous tenets appear more credible. The belief systems of materialism have conjoined the concepts 'science' and 'materialism' for the benefit of the popular consciousness, creating the misnomer 'scientific materialism'. The aim being to deceive people into thinking that 'materialism' is scientific, and everything else is accordingly airy-fairy, namby-pamby superstition. This is a massive manipulation of perception, a largely successful piece of mass mind control. This is the way that things are done. Scientific materialism, which is really a dogma, blind to the whole spectrum of evidence and empiricism central to real scientific enquiry, is presented as the truth, the only truth. It's actually an enormous con trick.

The subject of the nature of consciousness as introduced by the nihilism/rebirth question is not a matter of purely academic curiosity. Its implications are far-reaching. If the consciousness disappears in a puff with the dissolution of the physical body, there's really not a lot of point in anything. We may decide to live ethically, in order to render this life a bit more bearable for ourselves and others, but that's about it. If, however, consciousness extends beyond, taking up temporary residence in this particular physical body as just one small step in a much bigger journey, then whatever happens here takes on far greater significance. What I do now - what I seed consciousness with - will have an influence into a future stretching out to I don't know where.

To make it personal: I have turned up in a fairly favourable rebirth this time round. I don't need to work sixteen hours a day to obtain the means of physical survival. I have access to information, and sufficient personal freedom to follow up most things that I want to. My health does not present an insurmountable obstacle to most activities I may wish to pursue. I have been granted the opportunity to really chip away effectively, to make serious inroads into some quite basic psychological/emotional habits, which do no favours to me or to others. Any real difference I can make now will benefit an indefinite number of  future lifetimes, both for 'my' consciousness and for whatever other energetic configurations may interface with 'mine'. Conversely, I can just fritter away this lifetime. If so, I can expect my obstructive habits to come back and hit me even harder next time round.

'Empire is an ethos that seeks to control humankind by restricting it to a lower state of being' (Neil Kramer, Invisible Empire, May 22nd 2014). Restricting us to a lower state of being: a major feature of mainstream western civilisation as it has rolled itself out over the centuries. In particular, it has been concerned to take out of the public domain any knowledge of dimensions/existence outside the immediate physical, material world. In other words, it has taken materialism, scientific or not, as its preferred ideology for the masses. Its propagation has been a long, protracted matter, and one which continues to this day.

I used to regard the centuries-long battle of Christianity against the indigenous, 'pagan' people whenever it encountered them during its conquest of Europe, the Americas, and elsewhere, as a matter of conflicting belief systems. A long, bloody, and bitter moral (or immoral) crusade for what the Christians believed was right. This is, I suppose, the 'official', exoteric, version of events: a great struggle about who's got the Truth. More recently, I've come to see that it's deeper and far more sinister than this. It's not a question of 'Truth', of 'right versus wrong'. It's a matter of manipulation, power, and control. Taking access to higher dimensions of reality out of the discourse and experience of ordinary folk has been a number one priority in wresting control. Self-empowerment is to be denied the general populace, since it poses the prime threat to effective control over their lives. Firstly, people are granted access (often fake) to anything beyond the material only through a carefully-managed hierarchy of priests. Then they are denied all knowledge and access whatsoever, through philosophies and belief-systems that assert materialism and nihilism (these belief systems trickling down into everyday behaviour and attitudes, influencing the most trivial and mundane affairs). In the end, scientific materialism is revealed as a tool of Empire, of those who would have control over the rest of us by restricting us to a lower state of being. Our philosophies are not a matter of purely - or mainly - academic interest, intellectual ping-pong, and cerebral entertainment. They are a matter of life and death. Or life after death.....

Photo: wakeup-world