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

                    

Snippets From the West

Part One

The weather proved inclement - a southern English way to say that it rained a lot - so we abandoned notions of mountain walking and did other things instead. One day we visited the Isle of Eigg. One of a cluster of little islands scattered off the coast of western Scotland, and seen particularly well from the mainland near the mighty township of Mallaig, Eigg is interesting for a variety of reasons.

Like the rest of the appropriately-named Small Isles, Eigg is frequently subject to rain, wind, and low cloud: even when the western seaboard of the mainland is clear, the outlines of the Small Isles can sometimes be seen with all but the lowest slopes shrouded in mist. In 1997, however, something unusual happened on the social front on Eigg. There was a community buy-out: the current residents (all 84 of them) pretty much own the island. Since, as noted previously on Pale Green Vortex, much of Highland Scotland still languishes under the control of large landowners and estates, this is something of note. Life on Eigg cannot be easy, and it is with a happy heart that I see a group of people being courageous enough to take their lives into their own hands as far as this.

Community self-sufficiency is at a premium. Eigg provides all its own energy, from a combination of hydro-electric, solar, and wind sources. Even if the official blurb suggests that the islanders have been duped into swallowing the human-produced global warming propaganda, this still strikes me as admirable. Followers of Pale Green Vortex may have concluded that it regards all wind energy as evil. This is not true -quite. There is a world of difference between a few small turbines providing electricity for a local community and an enormous array of huge turbines organised military-like across entire hillsides by giant multinationals. Having said that, Eigg could probably do without its turbines...

As we walked past the scattered settlements on the island with their vegetable gardens (the island is mild, especially in winter, so some edibles do grow well), my mind wandered back to the spring of 1976. Along with my three commune friends, I hitch-hiked from Oxford all the way to Ellon, in north-east Scotland. We had been offered a modest cottage with several acres of land for our dream rural commune project, just outside the township. Ellon is located in the hinterland of Aberdeen, and one day on that Easter weekend I stood on a small hill, with the cruel east wind blowing wet snow into my face. I knew at that moment that I was not ready for this, to devote the remainder of my life to growing turnips on an exposed rise in a remote and forgotten corner of northern Scotland. Neither, it seems, were my colleagues. Within weeks the project had disbanded, each of us going our own separate ways. In some respects at least, the inhabitants of Eigg were doing what I had set out but failed to do. They are a bit of an example for the future; good luck to them.

Part Two

Mountain folk are often goal-focussed: get to the top of Everest even if you don't come back; bag another Munro before sunset; complete another long-distance trail. There is a place for such a style, I suppose, - I know it well myself - but another approach presents itself as sometimes more fitting, more conducive to cognisance and awareness of ones surroundings; more elegant. There is a word from old Scottish for a person who walks differently, a personage one occasionally meets in the modern literature on mountains in Scotland. This is the stravaiger. The dictionary tells us that 'to stravaig' is 'to wander about, especially without a sensible purpose'. The stravaiger is not a hill-bagger, a goal-oriented ticker-of-lists. It is a person who trusts in their spontaneity, their instincts, the natural rhythms and flows in themselves and in the world around them. The true stravaiger might end up spending all afternoon staring into a pool of water, or doing nothing in particular. At heart, the stravaiger is a bit of a Zen person, not to mention a little subversive, presenting a living challenge to the highly-valued notions of achievement and progress that drive the mainstream world. The real trick, I suppose, is to incorporate the ways of the stravaiger into daily life, even that which purports to be linear and progressive.

I was recently introduced to a person of similar ilk to the stravaiger; Slomo. Google him, he's easy to find. A friend sent me a link to the little film on Slomo. He in turn had been sent the link by another friend, who had probably been sent......... Anyway,Slomo was once a big boy in the medical world, but he chucked it all in for a life spent skating along the Californian coast. When skating, he says, he feels close to the divine, and when people see him they recognise him as 'one who got away'. A long time before, an old man had advised him to 'do what you want to', but it took many years for the wisdom of these words to manifest in physical reality. And for him to skate.

Many folk feel uncomfortable with the idea of 'doing what you want to'. Guilty, maybe. Life is meant to be hard, after all, full of knee-jerk self-sacrifice, a catalogue of unfulfilled dreams, disappointments, and unaccomplished ambitions. Not so: this is just a story we tell ourselves. And when Slomo does what he wants to, he is not following passing whims, moods, blind urges; the fad and fancy of the day. He is following the voice of his soul, his inner daimon, name it as you will. To skate is his calling, and I find it inspiring when I come upon the life of anybody who has the courage to follow their deeper instincts and intuitions, to trace the shape of their authentic uniqueness on this wonderful planet. These are indeed the people who have got away. And who have got it right.



              

 

Groupthink

We are in no position to reject relevant reading, whatever the source. A good article:

www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/10853279/sinister-groupthink-powers-the-modern-world.html

Workings of Empire

Here is something for your most serious consideration. Neil Kramer has produced a first-class compilation of various aspects to the workings of Empire. His one page serves as an excellent map, providing the basis for a lifetime of study for the aspiring mystic and seeker of what's really going on in the world. Read, consider, discuss, ruminate and, above all, research......

neilkramer.com/invisible-empire.html




  

All One Big Happy Family, Innit?

Probably not human: Highland frog

During the twilight period of my 'official affiliation' with Buddhism, around twelve years ago, I wrote an article for the magazine of the Buddhist organisation concerned. It was written in the aftermath of 9/11, at a time when I saw no need to question the official version of events that fateful day; nor, indeed, realised that anything other than the story beamed out of televisions and newspapers of the mainstream was possible. The article was called 'I'd rather be a gorilla than a guerilla', the main theme being how little I felt in common, on a deep, visceral level, with certain members of the human race. And how, in certain respects, I felt greater kinship with some non-human beings, even on the level of consciousness. I singled out as an example the gorilla, as an animal closely related genetically to humans, and as an animal with which I felt a personal affinity as a result of the shamanic practice I was undertaking at the time.

The article was, I thought, bold and, within the world of modern Buddhism, potentially controversial and groundbreaking. Without fully recognising the implications of these trains of thought and feeling, I was questioning the discrete nature of different species' identities, suggesting instead a continuum of consciousness. The feedback I received on my radical article was precisely...... zero.

The Gnostics, those western spiritual ancestors contemporary with early Christianity, were forthcoming about this topic. In 'the Tripartite Tractate' the Gnostic mystic writers proclaim there to be, not one, but three different kinds of human. There are the Pneumatics, spiritual souls. Then there are the Psychics, matter-dwelling spirits. Then there are the Hylic, totally devoid of soul, lacking the 'light of epinoia'. All three appear the same, living inside bodies of flesh, sharing the same language, mode of procreation, all with the same DNA etc. But their origin and psychic make-up are seriously different. Three different types of human, dressed up to look the same, but with unique configurations of consciousness, and at their own distinct stage in the 'sacred journey' (call it what you will).

More than once on Pale Green Vortex the words 'psychopath' and 'politician' have appeared in the same sentence. Some readers have considered this uncharitable of me; I'd say that the truth staring us in the face, should we dare to look, is not always pleasant, or what we'd like to see. A more softly-softly but related diagnosis for some people in 'high places' is afforded by the phrase 'narcissistic personality disorder'. I have my reservations about some of these psychological diagnoses, but for now let's go with this one. Narcissistic personality disorder is especially prevalent, it would seem, where visible signs of success, power, and status are prominent, and where admiration is readily forthcoming. Politics, celebrity, academia, medicine, finance, law enforcement, high profile sports. You've got the picture. A person suffering from NPD is likely to exhibit the emotional maturity of a typical 3-5 year old.

You can draw up your own mental list of likely candidates: I've got mine. But hierarchical systems of status, power, and influence will inevitably attract, and be populated by, folk with psychopathic and NPD tendencies. This is the rub, and plain common sense. Bees to the honeypot, and it cannot be any other way. A number of friends of mine have implied at various times that I'm a bit hard on politicians and banksters: we're all the same, really, all trying to create a better world. These friends of mine are in the main intelligent people, articulate and with a decent portfolio of formal qualifications. When asked why, with their apparently impeccable credentials and a wish to improve the world we live in, they haven't made any attempt to climb the political ladder themselves, they are at a loss. The answer's easy. They are decent folk, with a good heart and, unlike the Hylic, with an active soul. They are simply not the kind of people who are going to get into high-profile politics, finance, law, or whatever.

One serious consequence of these ruminations is that our current systems are tailor-made for (and by?) the soulless, the psychopathic. And, what's more, some form of political anarchism is the only political set-up that can in the long term be good for humanity. Even small government doesn't really fit the bill: the bees-to-the-honeypot syndrome dictates that small government will become bigger and bigger as time goes by.

It is a materialist worldview, focussed on physical appearance rather than on consciousness, that has promoted the great fraud that we're all the same. We look the same, therefore we are all the same. It's almost as if we've been put onto by this one. So don't be suckered. And keep your eyes peeled next time you walk down the high street: you never know who or what might be passing you by.




      

            

Home Sweet Home

I recently engaged in some correspondence with an old friend of mine. He related to me how, for much of his life, he has felt out of place in this world; that he has been born in the wrong place or at the wrong time. This is an experience I am only too familiar with myself. The number of occasions I have been out and about, and felt like an alien, sharing little in common with the other people around me and the goings-on in 'the world at large'. I am a misfit who belongs in the stars, with the cosmos at large, not waiting at a bus stop while a parade of Highland drunks sways past, punctuated by groups of teenage girls laden with cheap clothes from Primark.

I replied to my friend, detailing my familiarity with this most uncomfortable feeling. I continued my letter, however, with two more sobering reflections. One is that this experience of being a misfit is actually based on 'perceptual selectivity'. When I look at the world around me as a whole - the plants, the birds, the sun, the hills, the stars - I feel very much at home and in the right place. It is only when I narrow my focus to the world of less-than-noble activities of average human beings, as Castaneda savagely refers to the mass of humanity, that I take on the guise of an alien visitor.

More to the point still is the reluctant realisation that, in terms of consciousness, I am in precisely the suitable place with precisely the most appropriate people. It cannot be any other way. Everything is, in a sense, completely perfect and as it should be. This is the inescapable and humbling conclusion to arise from seeing that consciousness is primary, the main determinant, and seeks out (or, less romantically, just turns up in) the circumstances with which it is familiar, and/or which it needs for the next stage of its sacred journey.

That consciousness is primary is, for me, a no-brainer. The contrary notion, that consciousness is a product of the material brain, seems to me stupid, as well as being coincidentally highly unscientific. While modern neuroscience is successfully mapping out a wealth of functions in different nooks and crannies of the brain, it has got nowhere in locating the place of origin of consciousness itself. That's because it's not there. Stack against this the plethora of reports suggesting that consciousness has a life of its own, independent of any current physical manifestation. Near Death experiences, verifiable reports of past lives, experiences in meditation and other technologies of non-ordinary states of consciousness, not to mention the testament from many traditions from around the world.

Consciousness is just that: consciousness. To consider that it is produced by the brain is akin to believing that television programmes are produced by a television set. The brain is more like a receiver or transducer of consciousness. This consciousness takes up temporary residence in a particular physical body, heading for the exit door when the time arrives. Only a science that is highly prejudiced and based upon fixed ideology - in this case of 'scientific' materialism - can fail to take this on board.

Consciousness cannot help but end up exactly where it should be - this is implicit in notions of karma and rebirth, for example, and is sound common sense. But this is, for me, a humbling realisation. All the silly stuff, all the apparently ignorant people, the entire parade of the surreal and bizarre at the bus stop, is precisely what I need for my own walk along the sacred path. It is not an accident or a cosmic mistake that I am who I am, where I am. I hereby confess my hubris, arrogance, and superiority. While  part of me does indeed fly through the sky and swim with the moon, there is another part that truly belongs in the muck, the confused, the vicious - and the plain humdrum.

This life of mine on planet Earth can serve a twofold purpose. One is to, for want of a better way of putting it, seed the akashic field, the universal consciousness, with constructive, positive stuff. You may hardly see another person in your everyday life, but if you are really doing your mystical stuff, your life needs no more justification than that. But this life also serves as a great learning opportunity. Everyday living is like boot camp training - as Neil Kramer says, if you can survive planet Earth, you can survive anything. And this perspective adds a new, rich gloss to everyday life. No moment need be wasted: every experience, no matter how apparently trivial, provides an opportunity for growth. Every day presents a myriad of choices. Act from truth or untruth. With a sense of rightness or wrongness. With a caring loving heart, or a cold, sod-you attitude. In the mundane lie marvellous opportunities. And if, as I have often done, you feel that the world is crap, and you don't know why you've ended up in this cesspit, there's only one thing to do: stop sulking, get over it, and get on with it......

Photo: bhmpics