Woke

“Woke is what happens when a large part of our culture rejects the Judeo-Christian ideals of tolerance, a path to redemption, and forgiveness, and instead embraces a secular religion that demands rigid conformity, celebrates intolerance of dissent, and punishes individualism and intellectual diversity.” John Nolte

Times are a Changin'

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times, they are a changin'.

Exciting times these are: The greatest period of history in this country since the first Revolution. Massive changes to our world are unfolding. The digital tech giants that dominate every aspect of our world are about to be brought to heal with RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) charges leveled at them, likely before the middle of next year. Investigations into Facebook, Twitter, Google, and YouTube will likely lead to tens of billions of dollars of penalties. Amazon will likely lose all of its U.S. government contracts along with a massive class action lawsuit against it from retailers and others who can prove that Amazon Web Services is being used to actively steal intellectual property and customers from everyone else while conducting – with Google's assistance – mass surveillance of individuals and their homes. Serious charges!

By next Fourth of July, President Trump will be able to communicate directly to over 250 million U.S. voters and residents without big tech's interference after abandoning Twitter for a new communications platform, able to see on a Presidential dashboard exactly what the voters are thinking, by location, demographic, and issue. He will be able to poll all citizens qualified by cross-checked Social Security validation on any matter and see their views on a single screen. One-on-One with the Prez. Yep, the times they are a changin'. Good on us.

Global Financial Reset

A major global economic shift is fast approaching. While a reset is not likely to occur until after the reelection of President Trump, the groundwork is being laid for the end of the Central Banking System by the establishment of a new global financial protocol. General Secretary Xi Jinping, President Vladimir Putin, and President Donald Trump, along with a group known as the Elders, have agreed upon and are carrying out a Global Currency Reset that includes asset-backed currencies like gold and silver, some form of sovereign debt jubilee most helpful not only to the USA but to many Third World countries, and miscellaneous other country-specific initiatives. In the near term, before election day 2020, one should also not be surprised to see some sort of a student debt jubilee, some form of health nationalization, and an end to the federal income tax along with the formal nationalization of the Federal Reserve.
 
We are stuck in a situation where we’ve got too many obligations we cannot meet and too many debts that will never be repaid. We have been trying to run the country for the past 15 or 20 years on debt because we can no longer provide the kind of industrial growth that we have been used to. All we have is this massive consumer spending industry in which we have been borrowing from the future to pay our bills today, and we are running out of our ability to borrow more. What is happening is that we are going to lose the ability to support a lot of activities that we have been doing. 
 
It starts with energy and its relationship to banking and our ability to generate the kind of growth we need to keep rolling over debt. The reason debt will never be paid and obligations will never be met is we are not generating that sort of growth. We're just generating frauds and swindles. Frauds and swindles are fun while you are doing them and they seem to produce a lot of paper profits, but after a while, they are found out and have to come to an end. Then you have to do something else. A great deal about our economy and our way of life is false and is going to fail. Then we are going to have to make other arrangements for daily life. It will probably mean we will be organizing our stuff at much more of a local scale.

Most wealth in the world today is both digital and fictional. The Central Banking system has been running a massive fraud operation for a long time in which wealth is literally invented at will by bank owners and transferred digitally across the SWIFT system at face value. As much as 70% of the alleged wealth claimed by the 1% is not backed by tangible assets or proper documentation. This puts national leaders in a very strong position because military force can control who benefits from tangible assets such as land. We may very well finally be at the beginning of an era of peace and prosperity in which the public becomes the primary generator and beneficiary of national wealth.

One of the unforeseen potential benefits of the planned reset will be to sharply reduce transnational crime. A new banking system that does not allow fictional wealth to be created along with radically improving the use of coordinated Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) between the United States and Russia, and also likely including China and Iran, would lead to the eradication of transnational criminal networks, both black collar and white collar. Intelligence and counterintelligence will finally work in service to the public rather than to the worldwide cabal. Such a capability will immediate gut the entrenched criminal network comprised mostly of Russians, Israelis, and Americans who have been heretofore beyond the reach of traditional law enforcement, in large part because of the corruption of the U.S. Congress and the FBI.

You Can Wake Up Now, It's Over

I got such a chuckle out or this October 16, 2019 blog by Melissa Mackenzie (Publisher of The American Spectator) that I had to include it as supplement to my usual notes.

"My goodness, these people are boring. What a snoozefest. What was most interesting, though, is what wasn’t talked about. No Biden corruption. No China. No answer from Elizabeth Warren, the ostensible front-runner, about where the money comes from for her pie-in-the-sky schemes. (Hint: It’s the middle class paying higher taxes. If Democrats refuse to answer, the middle class paying higher taxes is always the answer.)

Here’s some overall impressions, and then I’ll get into the candidates themselves. First, this crew has driven past Bernie (the Squad endorsed him!!!) and gone off into the weeds and rusting buildings of commieland. Trillions of spending was waved off as no big deal. Gun confiscation was enthusiastically embraced. The Democrats are now the party of perpetual war and foreign adventurism, but there was zero mention of one Barack H. Obama. Also notably absent: Code Pink. Where are those ardent, true believers screaming out, “BUSH McHALLIBURTON!!!”?

Second, let’s be honest, though. Who really was paying attention to their insanely extreme domestic and foreign policy plans? Mostly, they were boring. Leaden, even. Nothing quotable. Nothing interesting. This is in stark contrast to the Republicans in 2016. That field was strong. Nearly anyone on that stage could be president and America would be fine. Forget who they were? Let’s just look at the candidates who withdrew before the primary: Rick Perry (governor, Texas — economic miracle), Scott Walker (governor, Wisconsin — economic turnaround), Bobby Jindal (governor, Louisiana — growth), Lindsey Graham (senator, South Carolina — Years of experience, foreign policy and judicial expert), George Pataki (Yuck, but governor, New York.) Any of them could lead the nation better than the doofuses on the stage as the premiere Democrats. President Obama decimated the party for a generation. Not only did Democrats across the country get destroyed but the bench to build future leaders also sat empty. Hopefully, the Republicans are watching and learning. Just kidding. They never learn. Anyway, the lack on the Democrat side is so complete and sad, it’s a little unnerving. None of these people deserve to lead this nation. Let’s discuss why, one by one.

 

Joe Biden: (17 minutes) He’s still the leader, no matter what the polling says. He’s stumbling, fumbling, addled, and old. If he loses, I will blame his ill-fitting teeth. They seem to get in the way of his speaking when his brain can form a thought. But Joe is likable. He wasn’t pressed about corruption or his dopey, grifter kid. He is a Democrat after all. What a weak mess for a party leader.

Elizabeth Warren: (23 minutes, oh the media LOVES her) Does this woman have tardive dyskinesia? What the hell? All her weird, jerky movements, twitches. She’s like the crazy grandma. (Hillary was the mean grandma.) Warren, underneath her superior lecturing to dumb college students (you) is just statist, authoritarian (what college prof can handle being questioned these days?), and boring. She is even weaker than Biden, and that takes some doing. I’ll say this: her makeup looked good and she’s bright on the stage compared to the walking dead around her, but bright in that wide-eyed, you’re-freaking-me-out true-believer kinda way.

Bernie: (13 minutes) Oh, where to begin. So, he said some nice things to his followers. It was the first time I’ve seen him be so genuine, and it was heartwarming. Normally, it’s angry Bernie all the time. Bernie should be happy. Every wackadoodle on the stage got 100 percent of their ideas from his USSR-loving communist plans. Commie is mainstream because of Bernie. But he’s not going to win ever. He will be a spoiler again to the womyn, especially Liz Warren.

This is where things get weird. There are these ancient people who are the front-runners. It’s difficult to imagine any of them keeping up with Trump. Warren will schoolmarm him to death. Bernie and Biden will just poop out. Beyond them, the field is wide open. Let’s go with whom the media seems to love most. I’m going to spoil the end and tell you who they hate most, and that’s Tulsi Gabbard, which I’ll explain in a minute. She’s hated by the neocons on the right, too. Back to the miserable middle.

Kamala Harris: (12 minutes) Said, “I’m done.” She was referring to something Very Important Just Ask Her and You Know It’s Important Because She’s Using Her Serious Voice. But the bottom line is that she’s done. She went on some weird tangent wanting Elizabeth Warren to say that she wants President Trump off Twitter. This idea makes the media and Never Trump-ers tingly, but all it sounds like to other people is that she can’t take the heat and should get out of the kitchen. This debate demonstrated just how over she is.

Cory Booker: (11 minutes plus) Sigh. He and his bug eyes need to go. No, you’re not even going to be vice president. Did you know that he’s a vegan? Next.

Pete Buttigieg: (13 minutes) He can be saying something sensible one minute and then sound insane the next. If I had to diagnose a psychopath on the stage (beyond the normal sociopathy of all political candidates), it’d be him. I don’t know what his deal is, but when he looks at the camera it freaks me the heck out. Dude is weird. As I’ve said before, no one with his name is going to be elected. Mayor Pete is going back to Indiana and will be forgotten.

Julián Castro: (8 1/2 minutes) Who? Next.

Amy Klobuchar: (13 minutes) Now here’s the thing about Ms. K: she’s awkward and not very likable but was talking intermittent sense on the stage tonight. I can’t remember what about. Again, everything melted into boredom. Wait, I remember. From her 10 years in the private sector, she remembers capitalism being a good thing but big business still needed to be taxed. Oh right. Never mind.

Andrew Yang: (8 1/2 minutes) Mr. Yang had his moments. He’s actually likable by normal people, which is why the rest of the candidates and the CNN hosts seem to dislike him. He got a little dig in on the Bing search engine, which made people laugh, which woke them up out of their somnolent stupor. Then they went back to sleep again. Everyone dismisses him. He won’t get traction.

I completely forgot about Beto O’Rourke and he got 13 whole minutes to blather. He’s such a dope. As the debates go on, it’s obvious how much of an amateur he is. His perpetual pout makes one want to smack him. Like Abortion Barbie before him, I don’t know how he gets elected in Texas ever again at any level, never mind become president.

Oh yeah, Tom Steyer (7 minutes). Nice tie.

And then we get to Tulsi Gabbard, the woman who receives universal Beltway and media derision but who most normal Americans will like because she’s not insane. She is smart, firm, never wavers in her answers and has the calm assurance of someone who’s been in tougher situations than a stupid debate stage. She held firm on a nuanced abortion position (no late-term abortion, abortion should be legal at the beginning, abortion is a tough choice for a woman). She defended getting troops out of the Middle East. The scorn she receives from the media and Twitter mystifies me. Do these folks not understand where Americans are at right now? I saw someone chortling about her use of the term “regime change,” but, uh, that’s been the American position from Bush I, Clinton, Bush, Bush, Obama, Obama. Trump is trying to undo it. Obama was going for regime change in Syria. Hillary had her regime change moment in Libya. They attempted it in Egypt. Bush changed the Iraq regime. It’s constant meddling. Tulsi bringing it up is like the skunk in the garden party, apparently. Americans are sick of it. She’s on the side of voters, not the Beltway buffoons.

What really ticked the moderators off, though, was when Gabbard called out the New York Times and CNN for calling her a Russian stooge. She was outraged. They cut her off and went to commercial.

If the Democrat primary was normal, Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard would be doing better. But it’s not and primary voters are old and the ones who aren’t old are voting for Bernie.

I remain convinced that Biden has the best chance against Trump. CNN wants Warren, and badly. The media keep getting their preferred candidates. They got Trump. Maybe they’ll succeed with Warren, too.

All in all, a wasted evening. These candidates absolutely stink. It was boring, filled with evasion on taxes and authoritarian impulses across the board. If the Americans watching it didn’t fall asleep during it, the tyrannical ideas should frighten them."

Manifesting Abundance

“And Jesus said unto them,

Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you,

If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.” Matthew 17:20

How do you get exactly what you want in life? BELIEVE. TRUST. Have FAITH.

You have the power within you to attract to yourself all that you could ever want.

We must unplug from our conditioning. Abandon the idea that we are powerless over the circumstances of our lives. Shift out of the group mentality that says we are incapable of manifesting. Group thinking inhibits our natural abilities to co-create our lives as we desire them to be.

When we cultivate the inner conviction to manifest from the world of the unseen into the material world, we need to understand there is a universal divine creative force that is in all things in the universe. There is not a separate God for each individual, each plant, each animal, each mineral. They and we are all one. Therefore, the same God force that is within you and causes you to think and breathe is simultaneously in everyone and everything else as well. It is universal. Thus, there is no place that It is not. Consequently, that which you perceive to be missing from your life also contains the divine energy or universal intelligence that is within you. It has to be there.

If we are Consciousness, and Consciousness is in everything, we are really only bringing into being that which is part of ourselves.

Manifesting, then, becomes the business of doing nothing more than bringing into form a new aspect of yourself. You are not creating something out of nothing. You are learning to align yourself with an aspect of your being that your senses have not known they could activate. This is a very important part of this understanding. You, and that which you want to manifest into your life, are one!

Jung's Stages of Life

With the changes that accompany aging, I increasingly appreciate that our lives are inherently mysterious by nature. In his renowned work, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Carl Jung provided some critical insights into how we each perceive ourselves as we proceed through life. He pointed out that men and women may go through four perceptual stages during a life. These he called the Athlete, the Warrior, the Statesperson, and the Spiritual Person. Sometimes, people remain stuck in the first or second stage while some people leap directly to the fourth stage. Then there are others who bounce back and forth between stages, so the physiology of these stages is not strictly defined, and they may overlap and often branch off depending on circumstances.

The Athlete is that stage in our development when life seems impossible without a mirror and a steady stream of approval to make us feel secure. The stage of the Athlete is the time in our development when we are almost completely identified with our performance, attractiveness, and achievements. Many people outgrow this stage of the Athlete as they make other considerations more significant. Some of us, depending upon our personal circumstances, move in and out of this stage. A few stay in the athlete stage all of their lives.

The reasons behind such behavior, as proposed by Jung himself, are the direct result of the significant physiological changes that we go through during our teenage and early adolescent years. That’s why this particular phase generally occurs when we’re yet to become adults.

The Warrior stage is the time when our ego dominates our lives and we feel compelled to conquer the world to demonstrate our superiority. We see ourselves as important and separate from everyone else. The Warrior stage is filled with anxiety and endless comparison of our success compared to that of others. Trophies, awards, titles, and the accumulation of material objects record our achievements. At the warrior stage, status, and position in life are obsessions. Convincing others of our superiority is the theme of this other-centered time of life in which the ego is the director. Every material success one can dream of is striven for in this Warrior stage. We fight like a warrior to become something better and to feel better. It is this pursuit that usually engages a person until his/her middle age. It eventually shapes our physical, mental and social conditioning, thus labeling us a socially accepted definition of a successful human being.

The third stage of life is the Statesperson stage, where we have largely tamed the ego and shifted our awareness. This phase is perhaps the buffer between the spirit phase and the warrior phase. You can call it the psychological adolescence since it marks a gradual shift from a less mature warrior and athlete stage to a more emotionally mature spiritual stage; much like the way, our adolescent years catapult us into the years of adulthood. In this stage, we realize the emptiness that awaits to haunt us.

The looming questions become: “What have I achieved outside of myself?”; “What did I do for others/society/humanity?”; “Am I something more than what I have gained in all these years?” This shift in mentality usually happens when we become more compassionate towards others. When our soul tires of the material world, it starts contemplating something beyond the world of commercial gains and starts thinking along altruistic lines. As a transition phase, it eventually leads us toward increased spiritualism.

At the Statesperson stage of life we want to know what is important to others. Rather than obsessing completely about our own needs, we begin to ask about the needs of others with genuine interest. The inner drive becomes to serve others. Mother Teresa and Florence Nightingale lived their lives largely at this level.

Authentic freedom cannot be experienced until we learn to tame the ego and move out of self-absorption. When you find yourself upset, anxious or feeling off purpose, ask yourself how much of your emotional state has to do with your assessment of how you are being treated and perceived. When you can let go of your own thoughts about yourself for a long period of time, that is when you are free. Only an ego has hurt feelings. The real, Higher Self you is free of all that.

The Statesperson stage of adulthood is about service and gratefulness for all that shows up in your life. At this level you are very close to your Highest Self. The primary force in your life is no longer the desire to be the most powerful and attractive or to dominate and conquer. You have entered a realm of inner peace. It is always in the service of others, regardless of what you do or what your interests are, that you find the bliss you are seeking.

The ultimate stage of being a successful human being is the Spiritual stage. When you enter this stage of life, regardless of your age or position in life, you recognize your truest essence, the Highest Self. When you know your Highest Self you are on your way to becoming a co-creator of your entire world, learning to manage the circumstances of your life and participating with assurance in the act of creation. You literally become a person who can manifest his or her own destiny.

You become an observer of your world and can freely move into other dimensions of consciousness. The inner infinite energy you begin to recognize is not just in you; it is in all things and all people who are alive now and have ever lived. You begin to know this intimately. You come to realize the spirit that is you is not contained by the physical domain at all. It has no boundaries, no form, no limits to its outer edges. You are aware of the real source of your life, even though you have been conditioned to believe otherwise.

At this stage you are, as Jesus Christ put it, “Being in this world, but not of it.” At this level, you loosen your emotional attachment to what you view as your reality. This detachment is followed by a knowing that the observer within you who is always noticing your surroundings and your thoughts, is, in reality, the source of your physical world. This awareness, along with your willingness to enter this domain, is the beginning of learning to attract to yourself that which you desire and need while you are in a physical body.

Einstein, Don Juan and Kabbalah

We are living in a transitional time in which people are increasingly discovering that the rationality of traditional scientific materialism is no longer satisfying in its explanations. People are sensing that there has got to be more to it than what science is telling us. And to the same degree, orthodox religion is coming up short on delivering what people are looking for; more and more people are turning to mysticism for an understanding of the way things are.

Humanity is on the verge of monumental discovery, about ourselves and the universe we inhabit. Science has progressed to a point where it acknowledges that the elemental aspects of matter do not behave in a predictable manner. Science has encountered the mystical, the indefinable, as perhaps the final explanation to understanding the world, strangely dovetailing with mysticism.

Science has reached its limit in the study of matter; it has been shifting its focus increasingly to that which heretofore has been unseen... energy or 'spirit' - the realm of the mystic. Renowned physicist Max Planck opened the speculative door to God, the nature of God, the possibility that the universe is a unified field, a cohesive fabric, with omnipresent conscious awareness, a conscious energy, as he pondered the origin of energy. "All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force... We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter," said Planck.

What is this matrix of all matter, the quantum field behind all that exists? Is it best to grapple with an understanding of it from a scientific perspective or a mystical one? Are science and mysticism aiming to understand the same thing?

In this brief expose I look at how the mystical discipline of Kabbalah is essentially describing the same thing modern physicists are describing when the world is viewed through a quantum lens. And looking at the perspective of the Toltec tradition of ancient Mexico, each view mirrors the Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan's breakdown of reality into the first and second attentions.

There are two Hebrew words in kabbalistic language that correspond to both quantum and Toltec conclusions. The first is “yaish.” It is an all-encompassing concept, referring to virtually everything in creation - anything that has a beginning or an end, that has spatial coordinates, that has a definition, that is bordered by other things. And it’s not just material reality. Love has a beginning, it has an end. Anybody who has tried to live in the world knows that we live in the world of yaish. Each of us is yaish.

Everything is yaish. But yaish is not everything.

There is only one thing that is not yaish. That thing has no beginning, it has no end; it’s not bordered by anything, it has no definition, it has no spatial coordinates. It is the opposite of yaish, described in Kabbalah as “Ein Sof”, meaning without end. Literally it means nothing. Ein sof has something to do with God, the source of everything of yaish. Everything in the world is made of Ein Sof. Everything in the world is the wave of which Ein Sof is the ocean. And our knowledge of the ocean is largely based on the way it manifests itself in the waves, that is, the yaish. 

96% of the energy in the universe is unseen with no spatial coordinates – this is Source Energy or Ein Sof. Yaish is all form, the 4% of the universe we can see and measure. The quantum terminology corresponding to yaish is the field, with the intention behind the field corresponding to Ein sof.  In the Toltec tradition of don Juan Matus, the world we know day-to-day is referred to as the first attention, with the underlying matrix of reality known as the second attention.  Quantum physics, Kabbalah, and ancient sorcery each draws the same conclusions about the world.  Physicists and mystics and sorcerers are all on the same page in their interpretation of reality.  Approaching from entirely different directions, these disparate endeavors of discovery have reached the same core beliefs by following uniquely different paths of inquiry.  Every path on the mountain, it would seem, though perhaps out of sight from all others, leads, nonetheless, to the same summit; each tradition has a unique story to tell about how one goes about reaching the top, but all stories end the same way. 

There is a great lesson here.  All of us humans, despite our unique differences, all ask the same questions about who we are and our place in the larger scheme of things. In the end, we are the same.  We are One.  If I have a prayer to offer in this regard, it would be this:  

As we exist on the Earth along this timeline, and as we each gather and connect, let us become community. Let us open ourselves to Source Energy, the great ocean of Ein Sof, the intention behind the field, the second attention, and learn from each others’ hearts more about that Source. As the waves, let us look within our being and to each other to become closer to understanding the Source, the matrix from which all things spring. Let us once again claim a path along the way that leads us to become proactive co-creators of wholeness in the wonderful world we live in.

Censoring Media

No matter what the most advanced communication medium that exists is, it will inevitably be used to share bad ideas and hatred. That’s not the fault of the medium, but the fault of the humans who have bad ideas and hatred. Is hatred worsened by Facebook? Of course not; it just brings what has been hidden out into the open. Should we put the Internet on trial for openly parading racism and xenophobia? These behaviors have always been there, going back long before the Internet, just conveniently kept out of sight... until now.

Are we attacking the medium for displaying the message? If so, it’s unproductive, incorrectly shifting blame, and ultimately playing into a sensational fear of technology rather than providing optimism and hope to people of the true promise of technology. What we should be is thankful for all these platforms on the Internet, because what these communication mediums do is reveal to us the truth that has been hidden for too long. You cannot change what you don't know about. If we can address the bad ideas at their core and help people eradicate such hateful practices from their minds, then Facebook won't be used to spread hatred. The medium then becomes used for good rather than bad.

It may be that bringing the dark to light on today's Internet platforms is a clear mark of progress. While bringing dark truths to the surface may be the very reason we are currently facing such increased societal division and conflict, it may also be for this reason that we’re finally seeing what’s always taken place behind the scenes. Now, with awareness of these negative aspects of our culture and the monsters these ideas have spawned, we may collectively feel forced into a war to right these wrongs. Our fear and anger may be being triggered to deal with the social demons that the Internet has revealed.

How long have men raped women in the shadows? How long have businesses and politicians created back-alley deals that exploit the average citizen and turned nations into oligarchies? How long has the black community been unjustly profiled, arrested, and assaulted in America? Thanks to the Internet, we now live in a time where people of color, women, LGBTQ, and those in lower socio-economic brackets are finally able to express their perspectives with the world at large on a more egalitarian basis — to communicate and cooperate, to reveal the truth that’s long been largely unrevealed.

On the flip side, racists, sexists and elitist individuals may also use these mediums to communicate their messages of animus. But now we have proof of their character. We can look at their tweets and emails, screenshot their messages, and bring them to light for justice that is due.

It may seem like a long time coming, but the tide is turning, and the fear of expression being displayed is a normal human reaction — not a technology failure. We should feel fortunate to have communication medium like Facebook. Any platform that allows us to lift up the bold and courageous who wish to reveal the evil that has long been lurking in the shadows should be a good thing. Without the new medium platforms, humanity's dark side may have never shown its face to such a degree, and just remained out of sight as it has throughout the ages, brushed under the carpet as “just the way things are,” leaving us the convenient excuse of “well, I’ve never seen it, so I can’t pass any judgment.”

By exploring what we’ve collectively uploaded online, the diseases that have for too long contributed to societal injustice may be revealed. Mental illness has thrived, thanks to a culture that has allowed racism, misogyny, greed, selfishness, and all forms of hatred to go on for far too long. The last thing we want to do now that everything is exposed to the light is censor these new forms of communication and hide our illnesses once more — losing sight of them and again becoming unable to heal them.

We no longer have an excuse to be naive. Today's technology is to thank for that. Maybe in the past, what we couldn’t see, we couldn’t fight, but now that our eyes have been opened, we can fight. We live in an age where we can no longer hide from our own disorders. We have to either grow up and finally become a mature species that can use its tools responsibly, or we can continue to be at each other's throats and blame technology for our own hypocritical hatred and violence.

Bridging Paradigms

The nature of science is change. Since science is all about discovery with expanding inquiry, the findings of science will always be evolving, supplanting established facts with often contrary new understandings. Unfortunately, much of what the average person understands about science does not stretch much beyond what was taught in school. For most folks, science is a collection of established facts instead of the evolving process that it actually is. As science has expanded, most of us are left behind holding a bag of old facts that have long since been shown to be wrong, and replaced.

For instance, Einstein's mass-energy equation, presented in 1905, remains more than a century later one of the most significant game-changers in the history of physics. While even the most unscientific among us can readily spout Einstein's famous formula, few of us have been able to incorporate how it radically changed our view of the world into our daily lives. We're still stuck in a paradigm of the world that frames everything in terms of scientific materialism, while scientific inquiry and advancement have moved well beyond.

When most of us hold a thing in our hands we agree that the substance of the physical object we see with our eyes and touch with our hands is a material object that is real. Everything we touch is made of atoms, and atoms are real, right?

In 1905, the famous formula that we all acknowledge was one of the greatest discoveries of humankind proves beyond any doubt that atoms are actually not made out of matter, but are made of non-material energy. Our "stuff" is more illusion than real. Einstein said so, and proved it beyond any doubt to the world. In subsequent years the atoms that make up all the stuff in the world have been shown to be comprised of a whole menagerie of subatomic particles with exotic names like quarks, bosons, and fermions. But these aren't made of matter either, but are understood to be more like dynamic vortices of energy by particle physicists.

Our long-held perception going back to even before Sir Isaac Newton that the physical objects we perceive in this world are real is not the current understanding of science. All matter is an illusion. Einstein's unified theory, which attempts to explain the nature and behavior of all matter and energy, redefines the Universe as one indivisible dynamic whole wherein everything we know to exist is entangled and interdependent.

We still cannot say with certainty at any given time what an atom even is. Is it a particle? Or is it a wave? Both and neither is a good answer. At best, all we can say with certainty is that the existence of matter is uncertain. We cannot touch an atom. We can't measure it. We most often cannot find it, though we know where it was; furthermore, we cannot predict exactly where it will be with any certainty. The description that fits best is that atoms are illusory.

Quantum mechanics tells us that the material Universe and everything we think we know about it is actually just a component of (and controlled by) an invisible universal matrix of energy forces that collectively comprise what is known as “the field”. Einstein said that “the field” was “the sole governing agency of matter”. If this seems unapproachable, then consider that as long as you attempt to understand it using “the scientific method”, your inquiry is going to go nowhere because your scientific inquiry is limited to the physical material world. 

Science has always refrained from crossing over to explore elements of the invisible realm and metaphysical notions, quickly passing such matters onto the Church which has never been encumbered by the rigid laws of physical science.

Quantum mechanics undermined science's preoccupation with materialism. Rather than watch scientific materialism disappear in the rear view mirror, we need to stay focused on the holistic world we are becoming increasingly immersed in since Einstein's pivotal finding more than a century ago.

We must abandon old notions and begin to now grasp that our reality is a world where everything interacts and is interdependent with everything else. This is the new “real”. In Carlos Castaneda's work with Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan, the illusory world of everyday life that we see with our eyes is referred to as “the first attention”, while the matrix behind the illusion – the field – is “the second attention”. Throughout his apprenticeship to the old Indian sorcerer, Carlos learned how to move beyond the illusion and be completely present in his awareness in the field. Einstein said more than a century ago, “There is no place... both for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality.”

Einstein's discover is but one instance of many advancements in our understanding about the world. It is foundational, however, to developing a broader understanding of the unseen reality that has been hidden from us by our own narrow focus of scientific materialism. People have largely ignored Einstein's findings for more than a hundred years. Most all of us continue to cling tenaciously to the illusion of a material-based reality, long since shown technically to not exist. Yet, we persist in trying to live a Newtonian existence in an Einsteinian world.

While scientifically advanced nations have had no problem using quantum physics to develop atomic power and nuclear weapons, when it comes to applying its understanding to the everyday world, most of us are still blind to the invisible world. We live in an 'us and them' world of competitive war-based political systems that only serves to intensify separation and divisiveness. Our preoccupation with materialism has led us to be little more than possessed by possessions and consumed by consumerism. Our schools continue to “produce” students who are graded by measuring their achievements, even though all of the knowledge known to humanity is ripe for harvesting by every human at no cost on the Internet. Our healers focus only on the physical character of the body, even though working with the body's energy fields has proven to be far more efficient and effective. Mainstream medicine has a stunning lack of curiosity when it cannot attribute a healing to its conventional ministrations.

Our science has expanded our world. We have not kept pace by applying what we have learned. If we are to survive and thrive into the future, it may become necessary to replace the myopic paradigm of scientific materialism with a more holistic quantum outlook. We have a choice: Begin to act like we are all interconnected and interdependent or continue to act separated and divided. There really may no longer be a choice!

Behind the Curtain

"The noise, the disinformation, the divisive puppet show

are all designed to make sure we pay no attention

to the person behind the curtain.

But guess what?

You are that person behind the curtain!”

Bruce Lipton

Donate Your Life

Nearly a century ago, a 32-year-old aspiring businessman stood on the precipice of ending his life. Failing at everything he attempted, he finally declared bankruptcy, and believed his wife and family would be much better off without him. Before throwing himself into Lake Michigan, a wild notion crossed his mind. It seemed like a waste to throw away his life. Since he was going to end it anyway, why not just donate his life to science? Why not give his life to the world and live it as a scientific experiment?

This eleventh hour epiphany gave this young man named Buckminster Fuller another 55 years in which he went on to become a philosopher and noted inventor, inventing the geodesic dome and the concept of Spaceship Earth.

Taking a cue from Bucky, maybe we are given our lives not just to live them, but perhaps to donate them to the world in a grand “experiment of one” to see if we can perhaps advance the world as well as the lives of others around us.

Quantum Compassion

When we hear the word “compassion” we may think of it as a nice sentiment, showing empathy and kindness toward another. In the Buddhist tradition the ideal takes on a much more sophisticated meaning, complementing what we have learned from quantum physics. The Buddhists describe compassion as a loving participation in the world. Some say it is “the practice of enlightenment” itself, something we can cultivate in daily life based on our true understanding of the world and our relationship to it. The Boddhisattva, one dedicated to awakening the heart and mind, understands that love of self and love of others are one and the same. Out of this intuitive understanding that all things are ONE, compassion then represents the supreme expression of human freedom.

Compassion is not only the field but is also the intention we put into the field. The choice that an individual makes out of free will directly impacts not only humanity as a whole, but the entirety of the universe. The reverberation of our actions through time and space is karma. The perception of selflessness associated with Buddhist compassion is actually a divine selfishness where two selves are served simultaneously – the small self of the individual and the greater Self of the collective all.

Compassion is what connects all things. It is this understanding of the relatedness of all things, as well as acting from that relatedness, that may offer the key to our spiritual advancement as individuals and citizens of the universe.

Big Pharma, Big Profits

Guess what the number one killer in America is? Cancer? Nope. Heart Disease? Nope. Number One is the practice of medicine itself. The Nutrition Institute of America found that “the estimated number of iatrogenic deaths – that is, deaths induced inadvertently by a physician or surgeon or by medical treatment or diagnostic procedures – in the U.S. annually is 783,936.” Compare that to just under 700,000 for heart disease and 550,000 for cancer.

Health care should not be on this list at all! Somewhere along the way pharmaceutical companies have diverted the Hippocratic path of medical care from healing to profiteering.

The American public has been hoodwinked into believing that all ailments, whether a transitory affliction or a chronic issue, can be remedied by swallowing a pill. Under our modern allopathic medicinal approach, the causes and cures for disease are the consequence of circumstances that only a medical specialist with years of advanced study can understand.

Health care in the United States is more expensive than anywhere else in the world, yet in terms of actual quality of health care our country is closer to the bottom of industrialized nations. Costs for health care have exploded BECAUSE HEALTH CARE HAS BECOME A FOR-PROFIT BUSINESS. Despite the competent, well-intentioned professionals who administer our nation's health care, we are overshadowed by an ideology where making a profit is more important than healing.

The drug industry is the most profitable industry in the world. In any given year, more profits are earned by the top ten drug companies in the Fortune 500 than the other 490 Fortune 500 companies combined.

More and more people are beginning to awaken and take back control over the myth of big pharma being the best answer. More than half of Americans already visit alternative healing practitioners, using modalities proven to be equally as effective, less expensive, and significantly safer than following the counsel of allopathic physicians that dole out pharmaceuticals for every affliction. Whether it is because of the increasing risk of iatrogenic illnesses or the skyrocketing costs of health care, more of us are claiming control over our medical options.

Last Days of the Banking Scam

The world's two largest bankers are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), created at the end of World War II by 45 Allied nations to create monetary and financial order at the end of the war. Ostensibly, the world Bank provides financial and technical assistance to developing nations and countries recovering from conflict or natural disasters and in cases of humanitarian emergencies, while the IMF monitors global financial systems, exchange rates, and balances of payments.

While virtually every nation on the planet must deal with these banking entities, critics maintain that the primary purpose of the World Bank and IMF is not for the benefit of poor and disadvantaged countries, but for the benefit of big business in the United States. The net effect of their policies and actions since their creation has been to preserve global poverty by keeping developing nations in a state of permanent debt. The credit that is extended (more like, overextended) to Third World nations is a scam in which banks and their preferred crony capital partners reap billions at the expense of the poor.

This occurs by the banks purposefully lending these Third World countries more than they could possibly ever repay, then assuming ownership of key economic resources when they ultimately default on repayment. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, and if the powers that be in the poor nations don't like it or aren't willing to play by the Bankster's rules, they are strong-armed, threatened, or eliminated.

All this is about to come to a grinding halt. The days of easy money that is hard to pay back are coming to an end. The Banksters are soon to be Trumped. Wait for It.

Blessed are the Peacemakers

Since 1948, the United States has spent $15 trillion on its military-industrial complex. If there was such a thing as a million dollar bill, you would have a stack of one million dollar bills reaching nearly a mile high to equal this amount of money. It is a sum greater than all factories, machinery, roads, bridges, water and sewerage systems, airports, railroads, power plants office buildings, shopping centers schools, hospitals, hotels, and houses in the country added together. That will buy a lot of bullets and bombs. It is an amount of money that would have completely revitalized the American infrastructure had it be reallocated to useful domestic purposes.

Certainly there are forces that present a threat to American sovereignty and the American people, but it is hard not to imagine what benefit this kind of investment may have yielded had it not been spent for defense. It is also hard not to imagine that much of this expenditure may have been used for the benefit of those who beat the war drum for profit.

I was a United States Marine, volunteering during a time of the conflict in Viet Nam to serve my country in a time-honored tradition. While I was trained to fight and prepared to use that training against an enemy, I have always preferred to look at my role in military service as that of a peacekeeper. In order to thwart aggression it is generally prudent to carry a big stick and know how to use it, whether you have to whack someone or not. Clearly some of that investment in defense has been appropriate, but it is always questionable whether the expense of American lives is worth it.

Among the legends of the United States Marine Corps, I learned about the exploits and bravery of Smedley Butler, the most decorated Marine in history during his lifetime. Butler was a Marine Corps major general, the highest military rank authorized at the time. During his 34-year career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, in Central America and the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. Toward the end of his life, he spoke disparagingly about war profiteers and with regret about his time fighting wars. In a speech in 1931, later published in a booklet entitled War is a Racket, Butler said: “A racket is something... conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many.” He further declared, “War is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious racket. It is the one... where the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”

Many of the Marines I served with along with other veterans I have met since my time of service shared my commitment to standing up to keep the peace. It was nice to come across a quote from a genuine war hero and admired Marine Corps leader who shared the same sentiment.

the Chalice and the Blade

Early American colonists, by and large, voyaged here to escape the tyranny of European law, dictated by royalty which delegated power at its discretion to nobility, where it ended. Upon reaching the New World, colonists were exposed to a novel idea by the indigenous peoples that the power of leaders must come from the people. Native American culture was roughly egalitarian; resources of each nation were distributed according to need, not social class. The basic unit of government was the clan, most often headed by an older woman. Clans used the land to grow what was needed with no individual ownership of resources. Politically, the clan achieved the greatest harmony and balance when women and men treated each other as equal. It was the older women, the Council of Grandmothers, who were granted true political power within the clan, making all the important decisions and being arbiter of all disputes.

Native American culture perceived Earth, plants, and land as feminine in character. Because older women were closest to the basics of life – growing and preparing of food, childbirth and caring for children, and the domestic work of the clan, men readily acknowledged women's fundamental power. When America's Founding Fathers adopted the political structure of Native American culture, the one thing they conspicuously failed to include in America's constitutional system was the important role of women in the community. As enlightened as the founders were and even though they embodied the feminine in the Declaration of Independence, the idea of actually giving women an equal place of authority and decision-making in society was inconceivable, - clearly the consequence of European bias, not to mention 5000 years of discounting and disempowering the feminine.

If we are to continue as a successful species on the planet it may depend upon how well we can reawaken, revitalize, and reinstate the feminine in our culture and throughout the world. One of the leading figures in the early women's rights movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, observed poignantly, “The world has never yet seen a truly virtuous nation, because in the degradation of women, the very fountains of life are poisoned at the source.” Even our primate cousins, the bonobo chimps, remind us of the natural order of things. Bonobo females bond with each other and effectively curtail all communal bullying by males. It is not that the females dominate the males, but they are able to counterbalance male power with their collective solidarity. Again, it is the feminine which brings balance and peace to society. As our testosterone-driven culture of aggression and domination may finally be running its course, it is a rebalancing by the feminine that may restore America to its original grace.

the Politics of Procreation

by Joel Kotkin, September 5, 2019

Throughout most of history, starting a family was a task that most people either aspired to or dutifully performed. Today, that is increasingly not the case—not only in Europe, Japan, Australia, or North America, but in the world’s most economically dynamic region, East Asia. The trend towards post-familialism, a society in which the family and marriage are no longer central to society, will reshape our politics, economy, and society in the decades ahead.

Since 1960, the percentage of people living alone in the United States—where the percentage of Americans who are mothers is at its lowest in over three decades—has grown from 10 to 30 percent. Similar phenomena can be observed in virtually all wealthy countries; in Scandinavia 40 percent of the population lives alone. In Britain, the number of single parent households was 8 percent in 1970 but has now passed 25 per cent, while the percentage of children born outside marriage has doubled to 40 percent over the past three decades.

Even East Asia is also now seeing the early signs of a breakdown of its once impregnable family structures. In Japan, the harbinger of modern east Asia, the proportion of the population living alone is expected to reach 40 percent by 2040. Nearly 70 percent of China’s adults aged between 18 and 36 are on their own; the country now has 200 million unmarried adults, including 58 million single people between 20 and 40 years of age. The percentage people living alone in China, once virtually nonexistent, has risen to over 15 percent since 1960.

Political Implications

The trend towards post-familialism is already shaping new political divides between two geographies: large cities on one hand, and smaller cities and suburbs on the other. Households living in the central urban cores, notes demographer Wendell Cox, are one third as likely as those in the suburbs and exurbs to have children of school age.

In many big cities, the long dominant bourgeois family model has been increasingly replaced by a preference for single and unattached living. This trend was powerfully influenced by the rise of bohemianism in the twentieth century, which stressed individual empowerment over family obligation. In the United States, more than a quarter of households were single-person households as of 2015. In urban areas like Manhattan, that figure is estimated to be something more like half, the majority of which are headed by women.

Throughout the world, the urban centers that dominate contemporary economy and culture—Beijing, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Sydney, and San Francisco—are becoming “demographic graveyards.” In Beijing and Shanghai, the fertility rate is barely one-third of that needed to replace the current population. Inner London, notes the Office for National Statistics (ONS), has a fertility rate fully one-third lower than the surrounding suburbs. In severely overcrowded Hong Kong, according to one recent survey, two-thirds of women said they did not want an additional or even a first child. The fertility rate in the Chinese territory is now less than half that of 1980.

For progressives, the shift to post-familialism promises almost unlimited power, particularly in urban areas. Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg has noted that the singles, particularly single women, represent the Democratic Party’s largest core constituency, with two-thirds voting for Democrats. As families have fled from the largest cities—particularly their inner cores—the urban electorates have become almost Soviet in their voting patterns, with Democratic majorities upwards of 80 compared to 60 percent as recently as two decades ago. Overall in 2016, 52 percent of married people voted for Trump, while Clinton took 55 percent of the single vote.

Family formation and fertility rates of differing geographies could determine the election in 2020. The 11 states with the lowest fertility rates—including New York, California, and Massachusetts—are all hotbeds of progressivism, and unassailably Democratic. In contrast, all but one of the 25 states with the highest rates of fertility, from South Dakota to Kentucky and Texas, supported Trump and remain dominated by Republicans.

These patterns can be seen in most higher income countries. Brexit, for example, fared poorly in inner London, where fertility rates, particularly among whites, are substantially lower, but was far more popular in the more distant suburbs and smaller cities, where birthrates tend to be higher. Similarly, the growth of the Green Party in Europe, and pro-green sentiment in Australia, has been greatest in the heavily childless core cities, and less marked in the suburbs or smaller towns.

This could change if the next generation demands policies—notably the building of affordable family-friendly housing—that challenge the near-universal progressive embrace by planners of forced densification. As generational researchers Morley Winograd and Mike Hais have pointed out, American millennial attitudes about families and preferred housing types do not differ significantly from those of prior generations, albeit with a greater emphasis on gender equality. A 2012 National Health Statistics Report found that barely six percent of childless American women under 44 were “voluntarily childless.” The vast majority of millennials, meanwhile, want to get married and have children.

The struggle over urban form is already underway in places such as California, where tech- and real estate-backed groups like the YIMBYs (Yes In My Backyard) embrace extending high-density development into the remaining lower density bastions of middle- and working-class families. Fierce opposition from these neighborhoods, particularly in the San Fransisco and throughout the LA area, has slowed densification drives from the state, at least for now.

These conflicts are also seen in places like Sydney, where groups such a “Save our Suburbs” have worked to slow down densification schemes in some of the area’s bucolic neighborhoods. But this is not really, as some suggest, an anti-urban movement, but one that seeks to preserve  something of the very family-based—and often diverse—middle-density neighborhoods that amazed Jane Jacobs with their “staying power.” In contrast, the new urban paradigm, dominated by the rich and childless, tends to create the same repetitive apartment streetscape, the same shops, the same kinds of people, the same architecture.

Economic Impacts

Post-familialism will drive many of the biggest economic challenges facing many countries. To be sure, a major reduction in childbearing is a blessing in some impoverished parts of the globe, but declining birthrates, and the consequent drop in the workforce, will sap the growth of the higher income countries they depend upon for trade and finance. Already in the United States, workforce growth has slowed to almost one-third of the level in 1970 and is likely to fall even further.

Over time, falling populations in advanced countries will threaten economic growth, both limiting the size of their labor force and undermining the fiscal viability of their own welfare states. As the employment base shrinks, some countries—notably Japan and Germany—have already raised taxes on the existing labor force to pay for the rising tide of older retirees.

Some countries even face an inexorable depopulation reminiscent of early feudal times. In Russia, for example, between 1991 and 2011, a total of about 13 million more people died than were born. Overall, Europe’s population, notes Futurist Frederic Pearce, is destined to fall from 738 million to roughly 482 million by 2100 when the elderly in a shrunken Germany will outnumber children under 15 by as much as four to one.

The demographic decline in East Asia has been, if anything, even more dramatic. Over the past few decades, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore, have seen their fertility  rates fall well below that required to replace their populations. Perhaps the most extreme case is Japan, where this process had started by the 1960s. If the current patterns hold, the island nation’s population, according to Japan’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, will decline from 127 million to under 80 million by 2065.

More important, China’s working age population (those between 15 and 64 years old) peaked in 2011 and is projected to drop by over 200 million by 2050. China will lose 60 million people under 15 years of age by 2050—approximately the population of Italy—while gaining nearly 190 million people 65 and over—approximately the population of Pakistan, the world’s fourth most populous country. By then, China’s ratio of working to retired people is expected to have more than tripled, one of the most rapid transitions in history.

Overall, world population growth could all but end by 2040, suggests Austrian demographer Wolfgang Lutz, and begin to decline as early as 2060. These demographic declines will reshape economic prospects in the twenty-first century. Today, a majority of people live in countries with fertility well below replacement rates. This number will grow to 75 percent by 2050, according to the UN; rapid aging, and a declining workforce, will become increasingly common around the world.

Children and How We Deal with Humanity 
 
Ultimately, the issue facing the high-income world—and increasingly China as well—is how we regard humanity itself. British author Austin Williams describes this question as a conflict between whether humanity represents “the biggest problem on the planet” or the “creators of a better future.”

Like their Medieval predecessors, many environmentalists view climate change as the singular explanation for everything from starvation, wars, and crop failures to hurricanes, floods, or any other unusual weather. As a result, some climate researchers, such as at Sweden’s Lund University, believe population growth, even in the low fertility countries, should be limited. Scientists at Oregon State University have even proposed severe taxes on people who have children, particularly more than one, for  their “carbon legacy.” These notions have been embraced by the UK’s influential Guardian newspaper and such luminaries as Bill McKibben, Paul Ehrlich, and John Holdren, who served as President Obama’s science advisor. If the old clergy attacked sex, the green one focuses on preventing the traditional result from a proverbial roll in the hay.

As the numbers of singles and childless grow, our immediate political future could shift to the left. In Britain, Labour, Conservative, and Liberal Democrats are losing younger, largely childless voters. But the Greens have almost tripled their support since 2014, which is now almost now equaling the Tories among voters 18 to 24. Nor does family orientation seem a factor in European politics; today many of the leaders, virtually all the leaders of the continent (Germany, France, Netherlands) are childless. France’s President Emmanuel Macron even identified child-bearing with ignorance.

Yet, in the long run, the anti-natalists could face an unexpected turnaround. The heirs of the post-familial city are not reproducing themselves, leaving only a digital legacy. The fact that these centers appear to be “post-Christian” may accelerate the pace. Secularism, with its tendency towards identity politics and hyper-individualism, notes author Eric Kaufmann, undermines itself as it fails to “inspire the commitment to generations past and sacrifices for those yet to come.”

In contrast, the more religious, more family-oriented population, living mostly in the suburbs and smaller cities, will reproduce themselves. Kaufmann explains in his important book Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? that those who embrace more traditional religions—which generally favor families—will prevail. The future of Catholicism won’t be shaped by a Pope, whose closest advice comes from liberal bishops in Germany, where the church is now losing nearly 170,000 adherents annually. The new faithful will be those nurtured by the more traditionalist African bishops, who enjoy the fastest church growth.

Ultimately, the believers and families may have the upper hand. By 2050, for example, Islam may constitute a larger faith community in Britain than the Church of England, the state-sanctioned but hardly faith-centered Christian denomination. The family-centric Mormons, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, continues to thrive, while the more “progressive” Protestant faiths lose parishioners. Among Jews, the increasingly strident and politicized Reform movement is demographically stagnant and aging. Today, the Orthodox constitute the majority of Jewish children in the New York metropolitan region, and by 2100, they are projected to become the majority of the Hebraic community in Britain.

“No matter how many communes anybody invents,” the late anthropologist Margaret Mead suggested, “the family always creeps back.” This will prove to be the case in the decades ahead. Greens, progressives, and feminists may seek to weaken this most precious institution, but in the end, they cannot manufacture future generations. As they have done from primitive times, families create the future, in the only way humanity can remain fundamentally human.