YOU Choose Your Path of Ascension

 

You are ascending, and you are doing so at your own pace and in your own ways. You are not all meant to have the same experience of ascension. What would the purpose of that be? You are all extensions of Source Energy and were created to be different lenses, different perspectives, and therefore, you are meant to have different experiences even of the same exact thing. Now, ascension in this universe is happening. Nothing will stop that from occurring. However, everyone gets to take the path that they choose to a higher-dimensional plane of existence.

Some people believe that there must be catastrophic events, collapses of all kinds, millions, if not billions of deaths for ascension to occur, and they can have that experience if they choose it. We are here now to remind you that you get to choose and that no one else is choosing your path for you, not even your higher selves. You are determining with your awakened status what it is that you are going to get, and most of you are not doing it consciously all the time. You still believe that some things are just inevitable. Ascension is inevitable, but your experience of it is completely up to you.

You can have a ride that is filled with ease, with joy, with feelings of freedom, with the experience of creativity, and with abundance flowing to you at all times, or you can struggle. You can swim against the current, go against the grain, or you can go with the flow. You can realize that you are the creator of your reality because you are choosing what you are going to experience by offering a vibration, thinking a thought, feeling a feeling, activating a belief. All you need to do is choose more consciously so you get what you want to experience and what you need to experience at the same time.

Because, yes, you do need to have certain experiences that will allow you to grow, but they can be very personal experiences with the people around you. They don’t have to be global experiences of chaos, calamities, natural disasters, and financial collapses. You are there to usher in your own experience of ascension by being an awakened soul who knows that you get to choose from a wide array of probabilities. Tune in to the one that you like the most. Daydream about it. Choose what kind of experience you want to have of your own ascension, and we guarantee you that you will have something like that or something better.

But you will only get an experience of doom and gloom if you are choosing it consciously or unconsciously. So check-in with yourself and ask yourself what you believe has to happen in order for you and the rest of humanity to ascend. Remember, there isn’t just one Earth. There isn’t just one reality either. There will always be another version of the human collective on whatever Earth you find yourself on in any given moment. So don’t think you have to change everyone else’s mind in order to get the type of ascension that you want. You only ever have to change your own mind, and you have the power to do that, and you always have had it.

We are The Creators. We are a twelfth-dimensional collective of nonphysical beings, and we love you very much.

as channeled by Daniel Scranton at danielscranton.com

Problem Solving 101

 

Shattering Cancer with Resonant Frequencies

 

"The medicine of the future will be music and sound." ~ Edgar Cayce

“If you want to understand the secrets of the universe, then study Frequency, Vibration and Energy.” ~ Nicola Tesla

I'm a music professor, but tonight I'm going to talk about my moonlight activities in the field of science... and how they led to a cancer research lab and an important breakthrough. Over the past eight years, I've had the great pleasure of working with some brilliant and dedicated scientists. They were very open-minded, and we had a common dream: that in the future, children would not have to suffer from cancer or from the terrible side effects of toxic drugs or radiation, because we believed there just had to be a better way.

There had to be a better way, and we think we may have found it. A scientist said, "You're killing more cancer cells than as if you had used radiation." That same scientist went on, "If you had spent millions of dollars developing a new drug that killed this many cancer cells, it would be a home run."

This was an astonishing thing to hear, especially for a music professor who had just completed his first experiments in a cancer lab. But we didn't use any radiation. We didn't use any drugs. So what did we do?

I have here two identical tuning forks, both tuned to the note A, the note an orchestra tunes to. These forks are both made to vibrate 440 times per second. We say their frequency is 440 hertz. If I tap this fork, putting little pulses of energy into it, the second fork will also vibrate in sympathy, and if I silence this fork, we just may hear the other singing its tone. We say that I'm inducing a sympathetic resonant vibration in the second fork. It only works because both forks are tuned to the exact same frequency.

Many of us have seen this very charming young man on the Internet who shatters crystal glasses with his powerful voice. But if you watch him carefully, you'll see that first he taps the glass with his finger and listens. The glass sings its natural resonant pitch. Then he takes a deep breath and sings a loud, long note. He induces a resonant vibration in the crystal glass. The vibration grows larger and larger and larger until the glass is shattered.

On the other end of this scale, we have a giant bridge made out of concrete and steel - a suspension bridge, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Cars, and trucks, and busses are going over it every day. Unfortunately, where they built this bridge, there was a steady wind blowing across it, and one day, this wind induces a small vibration in the bridge, hardly noticeable, but the frequency of the vibration matches the resonant frequency of some part of the bridge, and the vibrations gets larger and larger and larger until the bridge collapses into the river below. A destructive resonant frequency.

So on one end of the scale, we have a giant concrete and steel bridge destroyed by resonance and on the other, we have a small crystal glass, shattered. So maybe we could shatter something even smaller... something really small, something you would need a microscope to see. Maybe we could shatter a living microorganism.

But to do that you'd need some sort of theory to serve as a basis. And we find that basis in a wonderful book called "The Rainbow and the Worm: The Physics of Organisms" by a scientist, Mae Wan Ho. That book makes a very strong case that living organisms and cells are liquid crystals, or in the least, they have many properties of liquid crystals.

Now, we are all familiar with liquid crystals because they are in our laptop, computer screens: LCD display, Liquid Crystal Display. We can change the qualities of the liquid crystals in our computer screen by sending special electronic signals to it. We can change the color and the shape on the screen with these signals. So maybe we could change a biological living liquid crystal with a special electronic signal.

But in order to do that, we would need some kind of device. So we searched the US Patent database, and we found this invention by a physician Dr. James Bare of Albuquerque, New Mexico. It's called Resonant Frequency Therapy Device, and its purpose is to induce a resonant vibration in a living organism or a cell.

There are two really important things about this device. The first is that it uses a very special kind of antenna: they take a hollow glass sphere, they evacuate the air, they put in some helium gas, and when we send in our electronic signals, the helium gas lights up like a fluorescent light. An electrified gas is called a plasma, so this is called a plasma antenna. It has many special properties uniquely suited for this kind of work.

The second important aspect about Dr. Bare's invention is that the output always pulses: it's on, it's off, it's on, and it's off. This is very important, because when you're doing research on the effects of electromagnetic waves on living organisms and cells, if the signal is constantly on, you're in danger of inducing heat in those cells, and heat causes indiscriminate destruction. We don't want that. We want targeted destruction. So, we don't have to worry about heat.

So we go to the biology laboratory. We take Dr. Bare's device and the hunt begins through a microscope for a frequency which will shatter a living microorganism. We have a method of controlling Dr. Bare's device by an input control frequency.

So if I put in, say, 100 hertz, out will come 100 pulses per second. If I put in 200 hertz, I will get 200 pulses. So now we're searching for the magic frequency, and we start with 100 Hz and we look through the microscope to see if anything is happening. We watch for five minutes. Nothing happens. So we try 101 Hz. We look through the scope for five minutes, and nothing happens. So we try 102, 103 and so on.

Over the course of 15 months, we try hundreds and hundreds of frequencies, if not thousands, until we find the magic combination. The answer is you have to have two input frequencies - one low, one high - and the higher frequency must be eleven times the lower. It's what we, musicians, would call the eleventh harmonic. When we add the eleventh harmonic, we begin to shatter microorganisms like a crystal glass.

We photographed organisms being shattered by our electronic signals. For instance, a harmless organism, almost friendly, a little blepharisma. Normally, they're very fast swimmers, but when you approach a frequency to which they are vulnerable, they begin to slow down, then they stop, and then they begin to disintegrate within about three minutes.

So now we know we can destroy a microorganism, and the question comes up, "But can you target a specific organism with a specific frequency?" We have filmed the destruction of hundreds of microorganisms with specific frequencies as evidence.

When we showed these to a cancer researcher, the result was an invitation to spend four months in a cancer research lab trying to shatter cancer cells. First, we attacked pancreatic cancer. After we treat these cells, they change their shape and size, and they begin to grow long, rope-like structures out the sides. They look something like antennas. I call them bio-antennas, for biological antennas. It's as if the cancer cells are trying to tune in to our signal. It also turns out this is the beginning of a process of destruction for cancer cells.

We now know that cancer is vulnerable between the frequencies of 100,000 hertz and 300,000 hertz. So next we attacked leukemia cells. Leukemia cell # 1 tried to grow a copy of itself, but the new cell is shattered into dozens of fragments, scattered across the slide. Leukemia cell # 2 then hyperinflates and also dies. Leukemia cell # 3 then tries to make another cancer cell, but the new cell is shattered and the original cell dies.

But killing a handful of leukemia cells is not enough for a patient. What kind of numbers can we do? In repeated controlled laboratory experiments, independently assayed by the two top experts, we killed an average of 25% to 42% of the leukemia cells, and as high as 60%. We also determined that we slow the growth rate of the cancer by as much as 65%. So, a double effect.

Next we attacked ovarian cancer cells. This is a more distant shot. Here we could see brackets coming up around the cells, showing groups of ovarian cancer cells being destroyed.

We returned to attack pancreatic cancer once more. Under the microscope we watch as we turn on our electronic signals, and the tumors shrink and are broken up. The cells are disconnecting, disaggregating; the opposite of forming a tumor. And some of the cells are destroyed.

In our most recent work, we attacked the deadly organism MRSA which is resistant to many common antibiotics. Thousands of people die every year from MRSA. They have drugs for it, but they have very toxic side effects. We found that our electronic signals could actually eliminate antibiotic resistance in MRSA. Then, by adding a very small amount of a common antibiotic, we were able to kill MRSA and slow its growth rate.

Since I was a 17-year-old high school student with twin interests in both music and science, I never imagined the two would come together in a cancer research lab. I now believe that the future cancer treatment rooms for children will be a very different place. It would be a pleasant place where children gather and make new friends. They probably won't even know they're sick. They'll draw pictures, color in their books, play with their toys, all the while unaware that above them are beautiful blue pinkish plasma lights emanating healing, pulsing electric fields, shattering their cancer, painlessly and non-toxically, one cell at a time.

by Anthony Holland on YouTube at Anthony TEDx on December 22, 2013

Anthony Holland: Associate Professor, Director of Music Technology, Skidmore College. DMA, MM, MM, BM; President: Novobiotronics Inc. [a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable and educational company]. Discovered the ability of Oscillating Pulsed Electric Fields (OPEF) to destroy cancer cells and MRSA in laboratory experiments. Expert in custom digital electronic signal design, synthesis and analysis for biological effects. Member: Bioelectromagnetics Society (BEMS), European Bioelectromagnetics Association (EBEA). Postdoctoral work: Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) Stanford University. Advanced Digital Synthesis and Analysis studies with: Max Mathews (the ' Father of Computer Music'), John Chowning (founding Director of CCRMA, Electronic Composer and Inventor (famed FM Synthesis Patent); Jean-Claude Risset (Electronic Composer and founding Director of the Digital Synthesis Division of the internationally renowned IRCAM center, Paris, France); John Pierce: former Director of Sound Division: Bell Laboratories. In the spirit of ideas worth spreading,

TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

Cancer Vaccine

 

Russia has unveiled a revolutionary cancer vaccine that is free for all citizens. This breakthrough is reported to reduce tumors by up to 80 percent, sending seismic waves across the globe and putting Big Pharma into full panic mode. The innovation challenges the foundations of modern medicine dominated by profit motives.

President Vladimir Putin has declared that healthcare should save lives rather than fatten corporate wallets. By offering the vaccine at no cost, Russia is directly confronting the pharmaceutical industry that has profited immensely from human suffering for decades. This move redefines global healthcare standards and prioritizes people over profits.

The vaccine works through advanced immunotherapy, turning the body's own immune system into a targeted cancer-killing machine. It promises to slow tumor progression and shrink tumors effectively, providing a precise alternative to harsh traditional treatments like chemotherapy and radiation.

This development represents a major blow to the profit-driven medical establishment. Big Pharma's business model, built on expensive ongoing treatments, faces a serious threat from this free access approach. Many who have long questioned corporate control over medicine view this as a significant victory for health freedom.

The announcement carries deep global implications. It positions Russia as a leader in humanitarian medical advancements and applies pressure on Western nations to reconsider their ties to pharmaceutical interests. Other countries may now consider following suit to deliver accessible care to their citizens.

Families affected by cancer stand to gain renewed hope from this vaccine. It has the potential to save lives, restore futures, and spare loved ones from the emotional and financial devastation often associated with the disease.

As production ramps up and independent experts review the results, the world watches closely. Challenges remain, but the rewards of overcoming cancer through innovative and compassionate means could mark the beginning of a new era.

Russia's cancer vaccine is more than a medical achievement. It is a revolution against both the disease and the greed that has turned sickness into a multi-billion dollar industry. The fight against cancer has entered a promising new phase focused on true healing and accessibility.

Reports claim China is moving toward approval of a Russian cancer vaccine that could obliterate the $2.6 trillion Western pharmaceutical industry. This news is sending shockwaves through the medical establishment and highlights the potential collapse of medical monopolies long controlled by Western powers.

The revolutionary vaccine trains the immune system to target and destroy cancer cells. Unlike destructive chemotherapy and radiation, this method promises to eradicate tumors while preserving the patient's health. Originally developed in Russia, with rollout planned for the near future, the treatment is gaining traction as China considers full approval and scaled production.

This alliance between Russia and China poses a direct threat to Big Pharma's dominance. The Western industry has thrived on expensive ongoing treatments rather than cures, generating enormous profits from chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and experimental drugs. High mortality rates persist despite the massive spending, raising questions about priorities within the system.

If approved and distributed effectively, possibly without heavy patents, the vaccine could break these monopolies and shift global medical trust eastward. It offers a path to genuine healing instead of perpetual disease management for profit.

Expect intense resistance from entrenched interests. Fact-checkers and media outlets influenced by pharmaceutical lobbies will likely launch smear campaigns, discrediting the Russian science and warning of unverified dangers. Such backlash only underscores the profound threat this poses to the profit-driven model.

For supporters of truth who have long exposed the ties between global elites, Big Pharma, and policies fostering dependency, this breakthrough aligns with deeper concerns about suppressed cures. The vaccine could empower individuals across the globe, freeing them from the control of Western medical cartels and the choice between suffering and financial ruin.

This could mark the beginning of the end for the Big Pharma empire built on lifelong treatments rather than real solutions. Momentum is shifting toward sovereignty in health matters as Eastern innovations challenge the old guard. Dedicated patriots and truth seekers are watching closely as the narrative war escalates and a new era in medicine potentially emerges for the people.

from the Telegram page of Edward Snowden on April 27, and May 2, 2026

Why the Western Worldview Limits Human Potential

 

When considering how to improve modern day society many people gravitate toward political solutions. Others suggest that we need a sort of revolution of consciousness in which people move to a more enlightened state of being. But there is another path that could lead to social progress that is more practical than either politics or enlightenment, and this involves a fundamental shift in the Western worldview away from the materialist dogma that now sits at its core.

In this report, we explore the nature of philosophical materialism and how this paradigm dictates the way we perceive reality and our place within it. We then look at the flaws of this paradigm and how relinquishing it will expand the horizon of human potential, transform our perspective on death, reshape the practice of medicine, alter our views on morality, and make life more meaningful.

A worldview is the lens through which we interpret reality and our place within it. It is composed of a set of ideas and beliefs that dictate how we navigate the challenges of existence and how we relate to ourselves, other people and the world around us. Our worldview sets the bounds on what we believe is possible and it provides answers to fundamental questions such as “What does it mean to be human?”, “What is the ultimate nature of reality”, “Where did we come from?” and “What happens when we die?” And as the philosopher Bernard Kastrup writes:

“One’s worldview is probably the most important aspect of one’s life. After all, our worldviews largely determine, given the circumstances of our lives, whether we are happy or depressed; whether our lives are rich in meaning or desperately vacuous; and whether there is reason for hope.” ~ Bernardo Kastrup, Why Materialism is Baloney

One of the primary elements of the Western worldview is philosophical materialism. This metaphysical theory holds that reality, at its most fundamental level, is composed of inert and lifeless particles of matter. It is from the mechanical interactions of these particles that every phenomenon in the universe – including life and consciousness itself – arises. Or as Chris Carter writes in Science and Psychic Phenomenon:

“Materialism [is] the idea that everything in the universe can ultimately be explained in terms of the fundamental particles and the four forces of physics.” ~ Chris Carter, Science and Psychic Phenomenon

The vast majority of us implicitly accept the basic tenets of materialism and the conclusions that follow from them. For example, most people believe that life and consciousness are by-products of exclusively biological processes and that when the physical body stops functioning life ends and our subjective experience stops.

“Many of us absorb materialist beliefs from the culture without even being aware of it. . .Materialism suffuses the core of our being by a kind of involuntary osmosis. Like a virus, it spreads unnoticed until it’s too late and the infection has already taken a firm hold.” ~ Bernardo Kastrup, Why Materialism is Baloney

While most of us look at the world through the lens of the materialist paradigm, materialism is a deeply flawed theory. In fact, while materialism reached its peak of influence among scientists and philosophers in the mid-20th century it has since experienced a precipitous decline. Or as Robert Koons and George Bealer write:

“It is of course commonly thought that over the course of the last 60 or so years materialism achieved hegemony in academic philosophy. . . It is therefore surprising that an examination of the major philosophers active in this period reveals that a majority, or something approaching a majority, either reject materialism or had serious and specific doubts about its ultimate viability.” ~ Robert Koons and George Bealer, The Waning of Materialism

What are the flaws that make materialism an untenable account of reality? Why have more scientists and philosophers rejected the theory in favor of alternatives? Simply put, materialism cannot account for two of the most important elements of reality – namely consciousness and life itself.

The attempt to account for the emergence of consciousness has proved to be such a challenge within the materialist paradigm that it is known as the hard problem of consciousness. Materialists contend that consciousness is an emergent property, or an epiphenomenon, of brain activity. Or as Kastrup explains, according to materialists: “There is supposedly nothing to consciousness but the movements and interactions of material particles inside a brain, so that consciousness is material brain processes at work.” This assertion, however, is merely a hypothesis and a weak one at that, something Carl Jung recognized nearly a century ago:

“Despite the materialistic tendency to understand the psyche as a mere reflection or imprint of physical and chemical processes, there is not a single proof of this hypothesis.” ~ Carl Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

The materialist’s hypothesis that consciousness is an emergent property of the physical brain violates our understanding of the idea of emergence in complex systems. For a property to be considered an emergent possibility of a complex system, it must be deducible from the properties of the lower-level components of the system. However, there is nothing about neurons, or any other physical components of the brain that allow us to deduce the conscious experience that supposedly emerges from their interactions. Or as Kastrup explains:

“…unless one is prepared to accept magic, the emergent properties of a complex system must be deducible from the properties of the lower-level components of the system. For instance, we can deduce – and even predict – the shape of sand ripples from the properties of grains of sand and wind. We can put it all in a computer program and watch simulated sand ripples form in the computer screen that look exactly like the real thing. But when it comes to consciousness, nothing allows us to deduce the properties of subjective experience – the redness of red, the bitterness of regret, the warmth of fire – from the mass, momentum, spin, charge, or any other property of subatomic particles bouncing around in the brain. This is the hard problem of consciousness.” ~ Bernardo Kastrup, Why Materialism is Baloney

Another problem with materialism is that it cannot account for the origins of life. How can certain configurations of inert, lifeless matter give rise to living and conscious beings? What leads to the shift from dead matter, to living, breathing and thinking matter? Again, materialism fails to offer a coherent answer, or as Kastrup writes:

“Nobody knows today how life could emerge from dead matter. There are dozens of theories and even more loose avenues of speculation, but no one has ever managed to re-create life from dead matter – a process called ‘abiogenesis’ – in a laboratory. Therefore, there is just no proof that life could ever have arisen from nonlife through purely mechanistic means. Yet mechanistic abiogenesis is indispensable for materialism. Without it, materialism would fall apart, for it would fail to explain that which conceived materialism in the first place: human life.” ~ Bernardo Kastrup, Brief Peeks Beyond

Due to the failures of materialism many philosophers and scientists are gravitating towards metaphysical theories that hold consciousness as a primary component of reality. Some philosophers argue that consciousness, or some form of experience, is inherent in all physical entities, a position known as pan-psychism or pan-experientialism. Others suggest that all of reality is a mental phenomenon, and that what we interpret as matter is a manifestation of mind. This position is known as idealism.

“We are in the midst of a sea change. Receding from view is materialism, whereby physical phenomena are assumed to be primary and consciousness is regarded as secondary. Approaching our sights is a complete reversal of perspective. According to this alternative view, consciousness is primary and the physical is secondary. In other words, materialism is receding and giving way to ideas about reality in which consciousness plays a key role.” ~ I. Baruss and J. Mossbridge, Transcendent Mind: Rethinking the Science of Consciousness

While materialism is declining in influence among those who study the ultimate nature of reality, it remains a core component of the Western worldview. The metaphysical theories which grant consciousness a primary role have not yet infiltrated the cultural zeitgeist. When they do, however, the changes will be radical and re-orient human life in many important ways.

Firstly, this paradigmatic shift will change our view of death. The materialist doctrine has us believe that consciousness is an emergent property of the physical brain and so when the brain stops working, our experience ends, and we cease to exist. However, if we believe that consciousness, or mind, is primary, the possibility of some form of life after death, or at least a continuation of our subjective experience, is no longer out of the realm of possibility. Reports of near-death experiences, which have been studied for decades, offer anecdotal evidence of some form of conscious experience continuing after physical death. Or as Kastrup writes:

“If all reality is in consciousness, then your consciousness is not generated by your body. Therefore, there is no reason to believe that your consciousness will end when your body dies. Your body is simply the outside image of a particular configuration of consciousness that you experience when you are alive. When you die, that configuration – or state – of consciousness will change, perhaps dramatically. . .Now, would we live life differently – perhaps in a less anxious, more present and grounded manner – if we knew that death isn’t the end of consciousness? If the fear of death were no longer viable as an instrument of social control or economic gain, what would be the practical consequences for our culture, economy and society at large?” ~ Bernardo Kastrup, Brief Peeks Beyond

A second change that would accompany the abandonment of materialism relates to the innate capacities of man. Currently, due to materialism’s influence, it is assumed that man’s powers are limited by the laws of Newtonian physics. Action at a distance, which is called psychokinesis, perception without the use of sense organs, or what is called clairvoyance, or the direct communication between minds unaided by the sense organs, which is called telepathy, are viewed as impossible under the materialist paradigm. But if materialism is rejected we are not bound by the physical laws that tell us these phenomena are impossible. Instead, if consciousness is viewed as primary, these so-called paranormal phenomena can no longer be dismissed out of hand, and as Kastrup writes:

“If the a priori basis against parapsychology were to disappear, so that critical resources and people could be committed to it in scales much greater than ever before, what could science discover in this field?” ~ Bernardo Kastrup, Brief Peeks Beyond

A third way the world would change if the materialist dogma was abandoned involves the field of medicine, which is currently dominated by the materialist paradigm. Most doctors view the body as a machine and believe that curing a disease requires interventions that fix its broken parts – be it through surgery or drugs. Many doctors are so tied to the materialist paradigm they even consider mental illnesses, such as depression or anxiety, to arise primarily from problems with the chemical composition of the brain.

“Today’s healthcare systems treat us as biological robots because the materialist metaphysics defines us as such. Consequently, doctors often behave as mechanics, instead of healers.” ~ Bernardo Kastrup, Brief Peeks Beyond

If consciousness is considered fundamental to the nature of reality, rather than a mere epiphenomenon of the brain, our approach to healing would dramatically change. It would no longer be logical to focus exclusively on fixing the physical symptoms of an ailment. Instead, the psyche, or consciousness, would be recognized as a primary force in both the cause and cure of disease and healing would involve changes at the level of the psyche. This idea is already supported by phenomenon such as the nocebo and placebo effects but would be taken even more seriously if panpsychism, pan-experientialism, or idealism entered the cultural zeitgeist. An abandonment of materialism, in other words, would likely give rise to a more integrative approach to medicine, or as Kastrup explains:

“Integrative medicine encompasses a variety of approaches to healthcare focusing on mind-body interaction. Unlike mainstream materialist medicine, which treats a patient’s body as a biological mechanism, integrative medicine seeks to heal the whole being, including – and often starting from – one’s psychic, emotional functions. It is a more holistic approach to healing that, because of the metaphysical bias carried by our culture’s mainstream materialist worldview, has largely been neglected over the past several decades.” ~ Bernardo Kastrup, Brief Peeks Beyond

But perhaps the most profound consequence of transcending materialism would be a resurgence in meaning and a new moral weight placed upon the shoulders of man. Under the materialist doctrine, we are merely transient configurations of matter, and our subjective experience completely vanishes with the end of our physical life – a belief that easily leads to nihilism.

If consciousness is fundamental, the meaning of our life changes. If our subjective experience can somehow continue beyond our physical death, then how we live in the here and now may be far more important than we realize. This possibility adds a cosmic significance to our existence and can motivate us to live in a more virtuous manner in the recognition that our actions, thoughts, and behaviors may have consequences that echo for eternity. This idea is embodied in many of the great religious traditions – for example in the idea of Karma in the Eastern religions or in the Abrahamic concept of divine judgement and the immortality of the soul.

We will conclude with some words from the Nobel prize winning German physicist Max Planck. Planck was one of the originators of quantum mechanics and one of the founders of modern physics. After decades of studying the ultimate nature of reality and probing deeply into the properties of matter, he came to the conclusion that spirit, not matter lies at the foundation of reality.

“As a physicist, and therefore as a man who has spent his whole life in the service of the most down-to-earth science, namely the exploration of matter, no one is going to take me for a starry-eyed dreamer. After all my exploration of the atom, then, let me tell you this: there is no matter as such. All matter arises and exists only by virtue of a force which sets the atomic particles oscillating, and holds them together in that tiniest of solar systems … we must suppose, behind this force, a conscious, intelligent spirit. This spirit is the ultimate origin of matter.” ~ Max Planck, The Nature of Matter

from academyofideas.com on March 30, 3026

Retro-Causality: The Architecture of the Winning Self

 

The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of understanding.

~ the Kyballion

You know that feeling? The one you get when you're doing everything right on paper and still something underneath whispers that you're moving in the wrong direction? Not a dramatic collapse, not a crisis, just this quiet, persistent sense that the version of you standing here today and the version of you that's actually possible are separated by something you can't quite name.

You've probably filed that feeling under anxiety or tiredness or maybe just being human. The world is very good at teaching you to dismiss it. But what if that ache isn't a malfunction? What if it's the most intelligent signal your entire existence is producing? ...a transmission from the version of yourself that has already won trying to pull you forward?

Thoth, an ancient Egyptian architect of hidden wisdom, spent centuries encoding a framework into his teachings that answers this exact question... not philosophically, not vaguely, but with surgical precision. He understood something about the human mind and its relationship to time, identity, and destiny that most people will spend their entire lives circling without ever landing on. And what I'm about to walk you through today is the core of that framework... what Thoth called the Architecture of the Winning Self, the version of you that doesn't just hope for a better future, but exists in it already, pulling the present-day you toward it like a current beneath still water.

This is not inspiration. This is instruction.

I want to start with something that I can only describe as a productive standstill. I was reading, studying, practicing; I was doing everything the self-development world told me to do... and yet, every morning, I woke up with this bone-level exhaustion that had nothing to do with sleep. It wasn't burnout. It was something stranger. The feeling of running very fast in a direction I hadn't chosen.

I kept going back to Thoth's teachings... not because I was desperate, but because every other framework I encountered felt like it was handing me a better map of the wrong territory. And then I found it buried in what some scholars call the deeper strata of hermetic thought... this idea that completely restructured how I understand human potential.

Thoth taught that time is not a straight line you walk forward on. It's more like a field, a probability field. And within that field, every version of you... past, present, and future... exists simultaneously, casting influence across the spectrum in both directions. Modern physics has been quietly building toward this conclusion for decades. The concept physicists call retro-causality, the idea that future states can influence present conditions, has been explored seriously by researchers at institutions that don't traffic in mysticism. They're finding what Thoth encoded thousands of years ago. Causality isn't a one-way street.

Thoth wasn't just making a cosmological observation. He was handing you a tool. If your future self exists as a real state in the probability field of your life, then that version of you is not a fantasy you have to construct from scratch... it is already present, already real. And the distance between you and it isn't measured in years of hard work... it's measured in alignment.

Think about the last time you made a decision that you immediately knew was wrong... not because logic told you so, but because something deeper recoiled. That's not intuition in the folk sense. According to Thoth's framework, the signal the winning self, the self that has navigated you through to clarity, to freedom, to genuine power, is already influencing your present moment and the recoil you felt was the dissonance between a choice that leads away from it and the magnetic pull that leads toward it.

Someone said, "Some of us are stuck in a hyper-vigilant mindset.” But hyper-vigilance is not a character flaw. It is what happens when someone has been disconnected from the signal of their future self for so long that they've turned survival into identity. The nervous system takes over navigation because the deeper guidance system has gone quiet, buried under years of conditioning, fear, and the noise of a world that profits from your confusion.

Thoth's first instruction is radical in its simplicity.

Stop treating the ache as a problem to solve. Start treating it as a compass to follow. The ache is the signal. The discomfort of your current self rubbing against the gravitational pull of your winning self. You don't fix it by achieving more or thinking harder. You fix it by learning to read the frequency...

because the winning self isn't waiting for you to become perfect. It's waiting for you to stop arguing with the signal.

Here's what Thoth actually laid out. And this is the part that most people who encounter hermetic teachings completely miss... because they're looking for magic and walking right past engineering.

Thoth described what I'm going to call the three layers of self... not as metaphor, but as functional architecture. Understanding all three is what separates people who transform from people who merely grow.

The first layer is the constructed self. This is the version of you that has been assembled by experience, by other people's fears, projected onto you by culture, by repetition. This is the you that answers to your name in a job interview... the you that knows how to perform belonging. The constructed self is not your enemy, but it is not your winning self. It is a costume that became so familiar you forgot you put it on.

The second layer is the observing self. Thoth was explicit about this. There is something in you that watches the constructed self perform without being identical to it. You've touched this layer, asked every time you've caught yourself in the middle of an old reaction and thought why am I doing this again? That was the observing self briefly surfacing.

Meditation traditions across history have been attempting to stabilize access to this layer. Thoth, however, went further. He said, "The observing self is not the destination. It is the doorway."

The third layer, the one Thoth spent the most encrypted attention on, is what I'll call the resonant self. This is the layer that exists outside of linear time entirely. This is the winning self, the version of you operating from full clarity, full alignment, full access to the intelligence that most people only glimpse in their best moments. And crucially, Thoth taught that this layer is not something you build... it is something you uncover. It already exists. The work is not construction. The work is excavation.

Now, here's where the architecture becomes practical because I know some of you are feeling the pull toward abstraction and wondering when this lands somewhere actionable. I've been there. I spent months with Thoth's teachings doing exactly what you might be doing right now, treating these layers as interesting categories rather than lived reality. And then one morning, I remember it was raining. I hadn't slept particularly well. I sat with a decision I'd been avoiding for almost a year. And instead of analyzing it from the constructed self,

I asked a different question... not what's the safest choice or what will people think, but what would the version of me who has already solved this do? And the answer was immediate... not loud, but quiet, the way truth tends to arrive.

That's the practice Thoth was encoding... not visualization, not affirmation, but something older and more precise... the act of consulting the resonant self as though it is real, present, and accessible. Because according to Thoth's framework, it is exactly that.

But here's what Thoth revealed that makes this framework genuinely dangerous to the status quo, and I mean that in the most literal sense. If the resonant self already exists and the constructed self is a learned overlay, then everything the world sells about self-improvement is solving the wrong problem. You are not an unfinished project. You are a covered truth. The difference is everything.

An unfinished project needs adding to. A covered truth needs uncovering. The entire orientation shifts. The questions change. The effort changes. And most importantly, the timeline changes because you are not working towards something that hasn't happened yet. You are removing everything that is standing between you and something that already is.

I personally think this is the most underrated dimension of Thoth's entire body of work. Every other teaching I've encountered in years of studying ancient wisdom traditions treats the future self as aspirational, something you reach toward. Thoth treats it as foundational, something that reaches toward you. That inversion is everything.

Your mind is probably protesting right now. But if it already exists, why is my life not reflecting it? That question is exactly right. And Thoth has an answer. Think about what happens when you try to tune a radio and you're close to the station but not quite locked in. You hear the signal fragments, static moments of clarity, but the interference overwhelms it. That noise isn't coming from the station. It's coming from your position relative to it. Thoth taught that the distance between your current experience and your resonant self is not a distance of time or achievement... it is a distance of interference, specific identifiable interference... and he named the sources.

The first source he identified is what I'd call borrowed identity. The beliefs about yourself you adopted from people who were themselves lost. Your parents handed you their ceiling. Your culture handed you its permission structure. Your early experiences handed you their interpretations as though they were facts. None of that is yours. All of it is interference. And it's running so deep in your system that it feels like bedrock when it is actually static.

The second source is unprocessed contrast. Thoth was precise about this. Experience doesn't leave wounds by itself. Experience leaves wounds when the lesson inside it hasn't been extracted. Every loss you haven't met, every failure you haven't decoded, every betrayal you're still carrying. These are not just emotional baggage. They are active interference patterns disrupting the signal from your winning self.

The hermetic tradition has always taught that darkness isn't the opposite of light. It's blocked light. Your pain isn't the absence of your winning self. It's the compressed knowledge that unlocks access to it.

And the third source... this one tends to land hard... is premature certainty... the beliefs you've already earned, the conclusions you've already reached, the identity you've built through years of real work and genuine growth. Thoth warned repeatedly in his teachings that the final barrier to the resonant self is often the most sophisticated version of the constructed self because that version feels like truth. It has evidence. It has history. It feels like you. But the winning self doesn't live inside your current understanding of what's possible. It lives past it.

There is a sense that this knowledge is being fenced off, deliberately kept scarce. Whether that's institutional or structural or something else entirely, Thoth's response would be the same... the knowledge doesn't care where it's stored.

The one who is ready will find it, and you are here, which means you are ready.

So what does clearing the interference actually look like in practice? Thoth's answer was not a ritual or a meditation technique, though both can be useful. His answer was a reorientation of question. He taught that most people navigate life asking, "What do I want?" or "What do I need to do next?" These questions root you in the constructed self. They assume the navigator is the costume.

The question that clears interference, according to Thoth, is simpler and more devastating. “Who would I be if none of the interference were real?” ...not who could I become, but who would I be... present tense, already existing, already true.

That question held genuinely and returned to consistently begins to function like a tuning mechanism. The static doesn't disappear overnight, but something shifts. Decisions start to feel different, not easier, necessarily clearer. The ache I described at the beginning changes character. It stops feeling like a wound and starts feeling like a compass bearing.

And here is where Thoth closes the loop in a way that I find quietly breathtaking. He taught that the moment you begin operating from genuine alignment with your resonant self, even partially, even imperfectly, you don't just change your future, you retroactively change the meaning of your past. The failures become foundations. The losses become leverage. The years of confused seeking reveal themselves as the exact preparation required.

Your past isn't behind you. It's being rewritten right now by the direction you choose to face. The winning self is not a destination. It is a direction. And you have been moving toward it longer than you know.

from YouTube @LibraryofThoth on May 8, 2026

Should Government Make All of Our Decisions?

 

When it comes to economic policy, today's Democrat Party looks absolutely nothing like its more moderate 1990s-era forebear. The core belief of the socialist wing of the Democratic Party is this: if you give them all your money and all your freedom, they can make better decisions for you than you ever could. That is what Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) said Tuesday as he outlined the multitude of issues that unite progressives.

What began as an incipient Barack Obama-era trend toward big government has now, during the post-Joe Biden era, emerged as a strong majority sentiment. A Gallup poll last September found that 42 percent of Democrats have a positive view of capitalism, while a whopping 66 percent hold a positive view of socialism. Leading kingmakers in today's Democratic Party are (literal) Soviet Union-honeymooning communists, like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), or leaders of the Democratic Socialists of America, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). And the singular party top dog right now is New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is fond of quoting Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto," speaks of the "warmth of collectivism," and is now implementing city-owned grocery stores across the Big Apple.

Communism is the single deadliest ideology in the history of mankind — responsible, historians estimate, for nearly 100 million deaths. Hold aside, as well, that socialism and communism have resulted in horrific resource scarcity and immeasurable immiseration everywhere they have been attempted. At the most basic level, socialism is simply contrary to human nature. Men have a natural right to the fruits of their labor, provided those fruits do not undermine the common good. And it is natural, contrary to the basic tenets of socialism, to value the flourishing of one's family and tribe over that of the polity — let alone the whole world. As Dennis Prager has often noted, socialism violates two of the 10 Commandments: do not steal, and do not covet.

In an April speech in Austin, Texas, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas argued that progressivism and American constitutionalism are fundamentally incompatible. He's right. It's also true that socialism — real, genuine socialism — is incompatible with the American way of life as it's been experienced for two and a half centuries. That's a fact — and it's a powerful argument to make in this milestone 250th American birthday year, in particular. Republicans should make that argument passionately and with alacrity.

"Senator Bernie Sanders, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, Mayor Mom Donnie and Mayor of New York, Mr. Graham Platner, who is running for Senate in Maine. They are socialists," Sen. Kennedy said. "They believe in a government-run economy. They believe that, my words, not theirs, you should send all your money and all of your freedom to them and they can make decisions for you. I don't believe that."

"I believe in free enterprise. I think free enterprise has done more to lift people out of poverty than all the social programs put together," he continued. "They believe in defunding the police. They will bind all of that. They believe that cops are a bigger problem than criminals. They believe in defunding ICE. They believe that, I know some of them that they think all white people are racist. I know some of them that they think Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head are all racist."

This is what makes the socialists dangerous, not just their policy prescriptions, but their underlying ideology: that they can make better decisions on your behalf than you could. Even if they dress it up in the language of empathy, arguing that by providing you with government healthcare and by taxing the rich they can fund more government programs for you, that doesn't give the individual more options. Instead, it reinforces the idea that government is there to provide for you, that it is better than you, and that it will protect you.

That ideology, in its very essence, is antithetical to the vision of the Founding Fathers, who placed their faith almost entirely in each individual to make decisions for themselves to the best of their ability. That is the exact belief that should guide conservatives today, and it lies in our commitment to free enterprise, self-government, and individual liberty.

by Dmitri Bolt and Josh Hammer at townhall.com on July 8 and 10, 2026

Traversing Timelines

 

Contrary to popular belief, consciousness is not confined to a single linear reality. Existence operates through an interwoven network of timelines, each corresponding to specific vibrational states and patterns of consciousness. Every thought, emotional reaction, spoken word, and action functions as a subtle energetic window, determining which version of reality one gradually aligns with and experiences.

The reality an individual inhabits isn’t random, but reflects their dominant state of being.

Negative emotional states sustained over long periods bind consciousness to lower frequency timelines characterized by conflict, stagnation, confusion, and repetition. This is why it is necessary to shift negative moods quickly and consciously. Not through suppression or denial, but through awareness and redirection. A prolonged state of resentment, fear, bitterness, or hopelessness becomes a magnetic field that continuously selects corresponding realities.

Likewise, elevated states such as gratitude, clarity, self-discipline, creative inspiration, love, and inner stability align consciousness with timelines containing greater coherence, synchronicity, opportunity, and fulfilment. Joy is not merely emotional stimulation; it is a frequency of alignment with the higher dimensions of the self.

Every moment presents countless branching pathways. Every decision alters the trajectory of your life. Every reaction opens or closes potential realities.

The higher self exists beyond the linear framework of space and time and therefore perceives the probable outcomes connected to different choices. Intuition is the communication bridge between the incarnated personality and this higher level of awareness. When an inner knowing repeatedly guides an individual toward a particular direction, person, idea, or action, it is often indicating the timeline most aligned with their evolutionary growth and deepest fulfilment.

Most humans attempt to change reality externally while remaining internally unchanged. This creates friction and delay. The timeline shifts first within consciousness before it fully manifests externally.

One must therefore become disciplined with thought, speech, emotional response, and focus. These are not insignificant psychological events, but the mechanisms of timeline navigation.

from Facebook at Galactic Messages on May 11, 2026

Prepare Spiritually for the Inevitable

 

Prepare spiritually for the changes that are about to occur within your collective, which stands upon the precipice of changes that are unprecedented in your world. Your society is going to be introduced to our presence, and even though we have been helping to prepare you subtly, through channellers, mediums, and other spiritual sources, there is still a large portion of your population who are not ready emotionally for such an event. Their religious dogmas are going to be triggered. You are already seeing some of your political figures labelling us as demons, Nephilim, and fallen angels. There will be much resistance to our public revelation.

What can you do to prepare for this event and the other changes incoming within the next 12-24 months? We urge you to meditate, to connect with your timeless inner selves - that space where you are inwardly free, no matter what is occurring externally. Become more and more familiar with your innate freedom, because some of you are going to need to be the calm amidst the storms that are coming to help guide the rest who lose their equilibrium.

Are there malevolent forces attempting to hijack this event? Absolutely, but worry not. The inevitable is coming and nothing can be done about it. Do not pay attention to negativity, just prepare yourselves on the spiritual level - develop your inner stillness, which is your connecting bridge to union with the divine. The calmer you can be towards the ever-changing nature of the outer world, the more easily you will be able to ride the tumultuous waves that are incoming.

We are giving you this heads up today, as we scan the energetic patterns of the collective. Karmic events are in motion, get ready to be shocked in the coming years. Prepare your nervous systems to expect the unexpected; that way you will not be shaken by what is incoming.

from Galactic Messages on Facebook on May 6, 2026

Term Limits for Career Politicians

 

I spent thirty years in wealth management and investments; testifying as an expert witness in federal and state courts on fiduciary duty; and coaching high school track, football, and rugby. One lesson holds across every one of those arenas: You don’t keep a coach who goes 0-10 every season. You bench him, hire someone who can actually win, and get back to work.

In Washington, we do the opposite. We keep returning the same professional politicians who have turned trillion-dollar deficits into routine line items, open borders into settled policy, and press conferences into self-serving moments trying to get a viral sound bite. Career politicians are not a feature of the republic the Founders designed. They represent a bad habit that we just can’t break.

The men who wrote the Constitution never imagined Congress as a permanent address. The First Congress paid members $6 a day — no annual salary, no pension office, no permanent staff — and sessions lasted a few weeks before members went home to their farms, law offices, and merchant businesses. George Washington retired to Mount Vernon after two terms not because he lacked experience, but because he understood that staying close to the people kept leaders honest. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison followed his example.

The Anti-Federalists pressed hard for rotation in office precisely to prevent a detached ruling class from calcifying around the levers of power. They warned that distant lawmakers would stop serving constituents and start serving themselves. They were visionaries. When annual salaries arrived and Washington became a year-round enterprise in the 19th century, the citizen-legislator gave way to the professional political class. The Founders’ warning became the country’s default operating system.

The track record is easy to follow. During the Biden-Harris years, CPI hit 9.1 percent in June 2022, the highest reading in over forty years and more than enough to qualify as the worst inflation since the Carter administration. A southern border that functioned like a revolving door processed more traffic in some months than entire American cities hold in a year. The Afghanistan withdrawal handed the Taliban an estimated $7.12 billion in U.S.-supplied military equipment, per a congressionally mandated Pentagon report.

I have spent my career working fiduciary duty from both sides of the advisory and litigation table. No board I have ever dealt with would tolerate that level of sustained underperformance for a single fiscal quarter, let alone four years. Yet we keep sending the same names back to Washington and then act surprised when nothing changes.

The financial math highlights the accountability problem. More than half of all sitting members of Congress are millionaires, roughly fourteen times wealthier than the typical American household. They did not build that wealth on a $174,000 annual salary. They built it by learning which subcommittee controls which earmark, which lobbyist cuts the largest campaign check, and how to trade on information that would put a private-sector portfolio manager in front of a federal judge. I have testified as an expert witness in securities disputes where the pattern was identical: When managers are answerable only to themselves, fiduciary duty evaporates.

Congress is not at all different. A congressional stock-trading ban is long overdue — real divestiture, not disclosure theater — but it is a half-measure without term limits. Career politicians need shorter leases.

Critics argue that term limits would strip Congress of institutional knowledge. But the men who wrote the Constitution — farmers, lawyers, and merchants with active day jobs — designed a government that defeated the British Empire and produced both the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, all without a single committee staffer or K Street retainer. “Institutional knowledge” in the modern Congress mostly means knowing which lobbyist to call after a committee vote. Real expertise sits in the Executive Branch and in the private sector, not in the hands of someone who has spent four decades treating a Senate seat as a family heirloom. A citizen-legislator who has signed paychecks understands what it costs when regulation kills a job, because he has written those checks. A citizen-legislator who has coached in a neighborhood knows what crime looks like when it rises, because he knows the kids who live there. Skin in the game counts for more than committee seniority ever will.

Here is the disconnect that should produce genuine outrage: congressional approval has fallen to just 10 percent — barely above its all-time low — with 86 percent of Americans actively disapproving, tying the record high in Gallup’s tracking. Separately, 83 percent of Americans across party lines support congressional term limits, including 78 percent of Democrats and 89 percent of Republicans, per an April 2026 NPR/PBS News/Marist poll. And yet 97 percent of incumbents were re-elected in 2024, up from 94 percent in 2022. That is incumbency, functioning as designed: name recognition, gerrymandered districts, and campaign war chests assembled from the very access-peddling that drives the approval number into the floor. Political scientists call it the “incumbency paradox.” I call it a fiefdom.

The sharpest objection deserves more than a dismissal: If voters keep sending these people back, what makes term limits anything but anti-democratic? The objection has the most force in the House, where two-year terms are the Constitution’s tightest leash on federal power. But a 97-percent incumbency rate measures structural capture.

Gerrymandered districts reduce most House races to a party primary dominated by organized money and base-voter turnout, not the broader electorate. Campaign war chests built over decades lock out credible challengers before a single vote is cast. Term limits remove the monopoly that turns the vote into a formality. The Anti-Federalists, who argued hardest for a directly democratic House, also argued the loudest for mandatory rotation in office. They understood that competitive elections — not just elections — are the mechanism of democratic accountability.

The structural fix is not complicated: three terms in the House, two in the Senate. The American people already impose limits on the presidency through the 22nd Amendment. Extending that logic to the Legislative Branch is constitutional logic applied consistently. Pair that with a trading ban that carries real enforcement and real penalties, and with trimmed congressional staff and tighter per diem budgets that force members to maintain genuine roots in the districts they claim to represent. None of this solves every policy failure. What it does is stop rewarding the people responsible for the largest share of those failures.

The professional political class will fight term limits with every procedural maneuver they have perfected over decades. They have a strong incentive to do so. The Founders were not democrats in the modern sense; they were republicans who feared self-perpetuating elites at least as much as they feared unchecked majorities.

My oldest son graduated from West Point and proudly serves our country. My younger boys are working their way through college. I coached their teams and served as scoutmaster because I believe that discipline and accountability still mean something, that the people responsible for outcomes should bear the weight of failing them. The same principle applies to the people we send to Washington. Bench the pros. Let citizens back on the field.

by Jay Rogers at americanthinker.com on May 30, 2026

When You're Thirsty, It's Too Late to Dig a Well

 

We experience life on multiple levels, reflecting the complex nature of life, our species' social and cognitive foundations, and the complex interactions of our senses, awareness, emotions, intuition and our ability to return to the past in memory and leap forward in time in anticipation.

I often refer to tacit knowledge gained through the accumulation of direct experience in the tactile, real world. Experiential knowledge/skills cannot be acquired by "book learning" or the purely intellectual processes of formalizing a model or system; this type of knowledge can only be acquired by doing, making mistakes, seeking to correct them, and pushing ourselves to expand our skills by pursuing tasks beyond the boundaries of what we already know how to do.

Author Michael Polanyi summarized the nature of tacit knowledge in seven words: "We know more than we can tell." We can't explain exactly how we came to "know how to fix this" or the steps we took to diagnose and solve the problem, as it's an intuitive right-hemisphere type of knowledge, not a linear, formalized left-hemisphere type of knowledge.

Both types are useful and work together without our awareness, until we're asked to explain something like "how did you learn to write?" This question can't be answered neatly because writing is thinking, and engages both our intuitive, tacit-knowledge capabilities and our linear analytic capabilities.

If we say "writing boils down to the rules of grammar and the definitions of words," this linear description misses the most important attributes of writing, which is the thinking that finds expression in what we call "voice," the writer's expression of their unique experiential knowledge/skills.

When AI tools "clean up" text, they homogenize/dilute the "voice" and the tacit knowledge that created it.

Improvisation is an example of what I'm describing. Learning to play a classic improvisation note for note is one thing - an advancement in skill - but that doesn't give the student the ability to improvise on their own. Learning to improvise as an expression of "voice" is far more demanding and experiential in nature - it cannot be formalized, for the formalization ("follow these rules to create an improvisation") isn't an authentic expression, it's just instantiating a formal program, an ultra-processed simulation of authentic improvisation.

Which brings us to recession and revolution: how we experience these socio-economic-political upheavals is different from how we understand them as formal models.

To those who lose their jobs or see their income drop precipitously, the experience of a deep recession is disorienting and distressing. Our world collapses around us, one piece at a time, and then altogether. We may feel trapped, and feel there's no way out. Our experience may not offer much guidance on how best to respond to financial stresses beyond our control.

The intellectualized explanation that capitalism generates prosperity by its very nature isn't helpful. Neither is looking at charts of interest rates and unemployment rates, or other abstract models that "explain" recession as the result of system dynamics: excesses of debt and speculation, rising inflation, and so on.

The disconcerting experience of navigating a decline or collapse in income and the dominoes that fall as a result cannot be "solved" by abstract models and systems. We can understand that our crisis is caused by larger forces, but that doesn't help us extricate ourselves from the downward financial and emotional spiral.

The same is true of experiencing revolution: technological, financial, political, social or cultural, or a mix of these revolutionary forces. In the present, we're each experiencing some exposure to the AI revolution, and there's no clear historical guide that can be formalized with any utility or accuracy for those experiencing the downsides of the revolution.

If deception, deceit, artifice and exploitation are the primary tools of those in power, human nature kicks in and demands some version of a truthful accounting of the parasitic elite pulling the levers in a Hall of Mirrors. This can manifest as formal processes — a truth commission or judicial proceedings - or as a tumultuous free-for-all of retribution and the settling of scores.

Formal models and systems help us understand the dynamics at work beneath the surface, but they're not guides to how we experience tumultuous disruptions in our own lives. Our experiences may be shared in part, but they are inherently as unique as our own life experiences.

From the start, my "job" here has been to explore and illuminate both worlds, the abstract realm of models, ideas and system dynamics, and the personal living-in-the-real-world experiences of navigating disruptive, non-linear eras. The abstract realm gives us a context in which we can locate our own experience, and illuminates dynamics that we can either avoid or slip-stream in our own responses.

But the experimentation, risk and potential ruin fall on us as individuals and households. These are not abstractions, these are often chaotic experiences with unpredictable outcomes.

No one individual can experience every variation of challenge and crisis, but many of us have experienced quite a few, from serious bodily injury to mental health crises to being broke to moving to a new place where you know no one to starting a business to changing careers to run-ins with authorities to situations where "doing the right thing" means sacrificing one's own interests - the list of potential challenges and crises arising in our own lives in tumultuous times is almost endless.

In the realm of experience, I promote self-reliance and formulating Plans A, B and C which can be summarized as setting a goal of acquiring tacit knowledge and skills and thinking through what options we have or can start creating before it's too late.

The Chinese proverb “When you're thirsty, it's too late to dig a well” summarizes an experiential approach to the challenges many of us will encounter should recession and/or some form of revolution upend our lives--and our Plan A.

Self-awareness is a critical component of tacit knowledge and skills. Being aware of the limits of o ur knowledge and experience - knowing what we don't know - and trusting our own intuition are both "skills" that can't be taught or learned by rote. It's the doing that teaches us what's most valuable - starting with humility and a willingness tp fail and persevere.

from the blog of Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com on May 4, 2026