Note: I have imported this entry from my home website and so...some of my comments refer to what I have previously written, or not, on that site.
"I share the belief of many of my contemporaries that the spiritual crisis pervading all spheres of Western industrial society can be remedied only by a change in our world view. We shall have to shift from the materialistic, dualistic belief that people and their environment are separate, toward a new consciousness of an all-encompassing reality, which embraces the experiencing ego, a reality in which people feel their oneness with animate nature and all of creation."
Albert Hofmann (1906 - 2008) scientist and author perhaps best known for having been the first to synthesize, ingest and learn of the psychedelic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Quote from the foreward of his book "LSD : My Problem Child" (1980) This sourced quote can be found at Wikiquote.
It has been nearly a month since I was last able to coalesce my thoughts into a complete entry even though I have made many attempts. Essentially I have been off wandering about through the minds of others without having to leave the cave and in that journey I have found many amazing thoughts, visions and understandings from those other minds that make everything else I have studied make even more sense. Ergo, this entry will probably be just the first of many subsequent parts as I try to fractally piece together these ideas of the others.
Probably...it is apparent due to topics in previous blogs that I am interested in the concept of
"Paradigm" and
"Paradigm Shift", especially in terms of global change. This large scale change...or shift...can be seen by examining the historical, biological and geological past, as well as in how the environment has changed including all life within it in a repetitive cyclic pattern. In this very sporadic quest of mine I have stumbled upon many very intellectual and highly regarded personalities who have understood this process...and my coming upon each of them as I have was of itself a very amazing thing indeed.
As I explore my own ability to write about such shifts I am going to address a few ideas that we often think are typical to conspiracy theory junkies...such as the word
"Propaganda"...a term we tend to scoff at as we believe we might be impervious to such manipulation being enlightened, intellectual...or just smarter than the average bear. So, as I go along I will link, as I already have above, to deeper explanations most commonly and conveniently found in Wikipedia or Wikiquote; however, I am sure I will find other sources along the way as well. Anyway...please excuse me as I necessarily mention words like "Propaganda" as they will be contained in one or more important quotes as we move along.
And...before I travel further...in case you have not followed my own journey up till now, my current soft obsession with paradigms in general was aroused by way of my own thoughts and ideas relative to an alternative methodology of causing the rehabilitation of convicted criminals, as well as my despair at what has been transpiring across the world as a whole. Then...over the past few months I have been listening to the audio book by
Bruce Lipton and
Steve Bhaerman "
"Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future and How to Get There from Here" several times over and continue to glean amazing information each time...all relevant and related to what I plan on creating here.
"Jacques Ellul observes in Propaganda: When dialogue begins, propaganda ends. His theme, that propaganda is not this or that ideology but rather the action and coexistence of all media at once, explains why propaganda is environmental and invisible. The total life of any culture tends to be "propaganda", for this reason. It blankets perception and suppresses awareness, making the counter environments created by the artist indispensable to survival and freedom."
Marshall McLuhan (1911 - 1980) philosopher, futurist, and communications theorist. Quote from page 70 of his book, "From Cliché to Archetype" (1970) as found at Wikiquote.
The quote above might be a bit disconcerting as it is written by Marshal McLuhan about what Jacques Ellul observes within his book. Both McLuhan and Ellul are connected to things I will discuss later on, but this quote above contains several important elements including that pesky word propaganda and all it portends. It also mentions something incredibly interesting...as to how the coexistence of all media of itself is environmental and invisible, cloaks perception and suppresses awareness. These are ideas I have written about in my own way for several years...and spent much more time thinking about then writing.
Here in the cave...if I shut down everything except the computer to write...no television, no music...no other electronics...no whirring ceiling fans or whooshing of chilled air forced from the air conditioner vents...well...it gets quiet and I am better able to think. If the television is on, especially with the news haranguing over and over about the same subject telling me what I need to think and believe as being true...it is almost as if my brain locks up. The density of information sources...the media...with its ever present two opposing sides...stifles the imagination, limits perception and shrinks awareness down to the size of a pea. Basically in this state we lose contact with that other reality...the one that exists when walking through a forest, or along a beach...or just sitting in a quiet room pondering the infinite within.
"It is the emergence of mass media which makes possible the use of propaganda techniques on a societal scale. The orchestration of press, radio and television to create a continuous, lasting and total environment renders the influence of propaganda virtually unnoticed precisely because it creates a constant environment. Mass media provides the essential link between the individual and the demands of the technological society."
Jacques Ellul (1912 - 1994) philosopher, law professor, sociologist, theologian, and Christian anarchist. This sourced quote can be found at Wikipedia.
An incredible study is the influence of
Edward Louis Bernays (1891 - 1995) who is considered one of the fathers of the field of public relations. It is intriguing how this nephew of
Sigmund Freud impacted society to this very day, which is revealed in a quote from page 9 of Bernays' book
"Propaganda" (1928):
"Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our lives whether in the sphere of politics or business in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind."
As I said, the influence of propaganda in terms of change is a essential element to what I want to create within this blog of multiple parts and so...I might beat it to death a little to embed its importance. This concept of propaganda is not anything new in history and has been used the world over within various cultures, societies, organizations and civilizations, but even so...humanity and the earth have still moved on...shifted...changed and grown despite the suppression and the veiling of the minds of the masses. Ellul discussed above how this condition provided for "making the counter environments created by the artist indispensable to survival and freedom" and if we replace the word artist with "creatives" things will begin to make more sense as I move on.
"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern."
William Blake (1757 - 1827) poet, painter, and printmaker. Quote from his book "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell." (1793)
Another place where this idea of blanketed perception and suppressed awareness is found, perhaps one of the first written records of it was in
Plato's discussion in the
"Allegory of the Cave" a tale I am quite fond of being a denizen of my own cave. What Plato wrote of is intriguing especially when comparing the concept to life today...how people perceive, at least in the Western world...living very regimented lives as if chained in front of a television screen, a computer monitor, and/or automobile windscreen. It would seem little has changed since circa 400 BCE.
"... Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions -- everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses..."
Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis, known in English as Juvenal, was a Roman poet active in the late 1st and early 2nd century AD, author of the Satires. Quote from Juvenal's, "Satire" 10.77-81 and can be further researched at Wikipedia
As it goes I suppose we..as consciously self-aware human beings eager to experience life can be easily controlled in the process...maybe needfully so...as how chaotic might it be if we weren't? If our minds weren't diverted, our attention distracted, or intelligence suppressed and our awareness limited...then the movers and shakers and shapers would not be able to achieve what they have... Wait... On second thought, it doesn't seem as though they have done such a wonderful job. But anyway...over the many centuries as cultural and societal shifts have begun to engage there has been a certain sort of person who arise from within who seem to assist the masses in making the transformation despite the suppressive environment.
"Civilizations arose in response to some set of challenges of extreme difficulty, when "creative minorities" devised solutions that reoriented their entire society."
This quote is an excerpt from Wikipedia about the views of Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889 - 1975) historian.
In the same regard, Sherry Ruth Anderson, psychologist and Paul H. Ray, sociologist, discuss in their work how
"Cultural Creatives" are now changing the world in which we live. I might speculate then that as the pressure of change becomes intense, as the density of information and propaganda becomes so saturated and as perceived threats become so imposing as to cause near pandemonium...this will somehow...by way of the invisible environment...awaken many to meet the challenge in innovative ways. It is already happening.
In these things...from past to present...there are observable repetitive patterns...not just based upon opinion that manifest time after time as a telltale signaling imminent transformation within populations of human beings...perhaps all life and probably the planet itself if one translates and applies the patterns. But I am not through with this part of the tale...there is more, much more in terms of signs and signals relative to perception and awareness that indicate a shift is on the horizon...a paradigm shift on a global scale.
Another person who has approached the ideas discussed is
Alvin Toffler, writer and futurist, has written several books that in another way has discussed this issue. Wikipedia has a succinct few lines about his book
"Future Shock" (1970)...
"Toffler argues that society is undergoing an enormous structural change, a revolution from an industrial society to a "super-industrial society". This change will overwhelm people, the accelerated rate of technological and social change leaving them disconnected and suffering from "shattering stress and disorientation" - future shocked. Toffler stated that the majority of social problems were symptoms of the future shock. In his discussion of the components of such shock, he also coined the term information overload."
So, along with the blanketing of perception and the suppression of awareness we experience from the propaganda evoked by media, there is the influence of rapid technological and social change and its effect upon the body and mind by way of "shattering stress and disorientation." In the book Toffler notes
"The psychologist Leon Festinger coined the term "cognitive dissonance" to mean the tendency of a person to reject or deny information that challenges his preconceptions. We don't want to hear things that may upset our carefully worked out structure of beliefs." This same stress and disorientation...disconnection and suffering...including cognitive dissonance that is experienced by an individual would be also experienced by larger groups of individuals to include all of humanity.
I can see how all of these things have come to bear in my own life as it is merely a tiny fractal part of the whole. I understand more clearly now my own experience thus far and how the many trials I have created and the resulting pressures have brought about my own shift. In this then it is easier to understand how we each and how we all transform from one age to another, one world to another, one reality to another or one paradigm into another. If one is about 50 years old or more then they have gone from the Atomic Age through the Space Age and then through the Information Age...morphing and melding as new ideas supersede old ways.
There is my own paradox in this as when I was growing up and reading a lot of science fiction books then imagining my own ideas of our future, yet...not much caring for the changes that have led to this current world...living now in that past perceived future. And then there has been my own belief system that has been majorly revised as part of my own awakening, not that I have completely removed the blanket covering my perception or succeeded in raising my awareness any higher than it was before, but I do understand it better than I have. The same sort of experience is being undergone now by many others due to this transition we are in as lifestyles and livelihoods are shattered and destroyed, as many are displaced and another version of reality seeps into their consciousness.
As I write this the news is dominated by the death of Michael Jackson that seems more important then the dramatic world events and political decisions evolving moment by moment as major energy and health care policies are being decided that will effect everyone, as wars without end on multiple fronts are being waged with many still dying, as turmoil progresses in various hotbed cultures across the planet. Now those critical issues take backstage coverage as we see scenes from "Thriller" over and over. It is a repetitive cycle lulling us into complacency...changing our views, manipulating belief...all a part of the current repetitive shift.
Nowadays when I get the opportunity to talk to others I am more guarded about what I say tempering my words so as not to put these persons off... I do try to probe with a few words to see their reaction...if they are accepting of say the term "New Sciences" or "Epigenetics" or just "Consciousness." At a recent social affair, a very casual event that I finally attended after about 10 years of invites...I slowly broached my ideas of rehabilitation to a few very longtime friends with whom I worked closely with once upon a time. It was an interesting experience witnessing their reactions and how they held to their current beliefs as they also were very receptive to these alternative ideas. This all had to do with a shift in how things are done...a radical shift that would itself affect society.
It is hard to let go of what is comfortable...or even what is uncomfortable...and move into the unknown. I suspect as this current shift unfolds the day by day events will keep us all distracted until we finally emerge into something new. It is hard to say for sure what the new paradigm will be, but as I will discuss in the next episode...several people do see what is coming based upon multiple facets; studies, cycles and such. Of course...there are opposing opinions and theories, but is fun to entertain them all...maybe even merge them together...and then try to envision what results.
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck better known as Max Planck (1858-1947), physicist and founder of Quantum Theory. Quote from his "Address on the 25th anniversary of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft," 10/11 January 1936, which can be found at Wikiquote.
Over the years I have written about this cave of mine and in more recent times connected the experience as being a time of my own transformation. Lipton and Bhaerman use the process of how a caterpillar transforms within a cocoon to become a butterfly describing that the DNA of the butterfly is the same as that of the caterpillar. A cocoon...is of course a more natural illustration of a shift than a cave might be...even a better analogy of a paradigm shift. In subsequent blogs I will suggest how the concepts in this first blog have created a global cocoon for humanity...or a cave for the human consciousness...suppressing it until the timing is right. The mystery will be what is to emerge.
Special thanks to my friend
Rob Bryanton, author, composer, sound designer and visionary, of
Imagining the Tenth Dimension for his insight and suggestions for making this a better tale.
Light a Candle...
Chuck
