I could never understand the draw of sci-fi books or movies. It always seemed weird, unrealistic and bottom line not entertaining. Has anyone else noticed that Hollywood seems to only put out new marvel movies or remakes of older movies? Are they running out of creativity?
I think sci-if can be cool, the problem is that so much of it has been weaponized and turned into a sophisticated propaganda tool. In ends up always being about the same transhumanist and Futurist-Luciferian ethic in one way or another.
Naturally, there are some good exceptions, but it’s not like the current Hollywood world is going to do an adaptation of, say, CS Lewis’ Space Trilogy anytime soon lol.
That would be cool though.
It’s partly also why I’m working on several new stories of my own, including “The Little Forests on Mars.” The narratives can be challenged in many creative ways today.
Thanks again David, excellent work. Especially appreciated the 2014 video you provided of Michael Parker - David McGowen interview on, “Weird Scenes Inside Laurel Canyon”. People need to get how how powerful the Military Industrial Media Academic Complex (MIMAC) is in shaping and directing the world. Thx again, and looking forward to your further good works.
Your knowledge of the backstory behind pop culture--the fact that it is carefully engineered psyop, in many ways--is impressive. I just encountered this social media sensation by the name of Hannah Barron. You should check her out, because she seems so inauthentic. She seems like someone trying to play a part. She adopts this really exaggerated Southern accent, and does all these roughneck rural activities to challenge the traditional role of femininity. There is no way this is her real life. She also uses her sexuality to generate clicks. If you read the comments, it seems like people think of her as their friend or even girlfriend. I suspect this is someone promoted by psychological operations teams, to divide the population by giving people a source of contention about what a woman should be, dividing us along this tired meaningless dichotomy of "conservative" vs. "liberal."
Great! I enjoy the poetry in New Lyre too. Do you have any knowledge of the Wheel of Time series? Does it have the creepy origins as the science fiction stories you mention? It seems to be a competing mythology to the Lord of the Rings, and there are rumors that Robert Jordan was a freemason.
Good article except the blame is given to wrong group.
Real “ magicians, shamans, and wizards” are not the ones trying to distort reality or which would prefer we don’t see the truth.
The ones who are doing it is charlatans which pretend to be, institutions like the theosophical society and their proxies, and of course, all the belief/lie based abrahamic religions with their cults of death and blood.
I think you’ll appreciate the coming article, “Slaying Mithra: Esalen, Self-help and the Luciferian Takeover of the West.”
A lot of what is referred to as “magick” in the alchemical, Gnostic and similar traditions is really just the art of changing and shaping people’s realities, their inner worlds, the images and dreams they have etc. A lot of this involves altered states, which aren’t bad in themselves, but can be used in very powerful ways if one isn’t aware of what’s happening inside them or the intentions of those introducing them to such things. When one is fasting, practicing abstinence, dancing, dreaming, walking, having sex, they are naturally in an altered states of different degrees. But what happens when someone comes along and wishes to turn the experience of altered states into a religion itself, one which proposes to initiate you into the deeper secrets of ancient alchemical traditions of magic and higher degree “mysteries” which will finally allow you to discover your deeper “self.”
This is where real discernment becomes important, in my opinion.
For example, in our modern age a lot of this was introduced into the West using Buddhist and Eastern traditions as a proxy and cover. In reality, much of what was passed for Eastern mysticism and various tantric traditions of the East isn’t the real thing, it’s the stuff imported and popularized by very specific groups in the West for very specific purposes.
Again here, much of it is presented under the guise of philosophical discourse, comparative religion and literature (like the Beat poets), but there’s more to the story. The introduction of the Persian Mithras cult into the Roman Empire is another example of the same kind of thing. It’s nothing new. We’re just taking a fresh look at a very old practice.
Alas, the “magicians” we speak of have been very clever in how they’ve sought to introduce people to the world of “altered states” and “magic.” In this light, I’d say you’re not wrong: they aren’t “magicians” so much as tricksters, some crooked, some corrupted, and some outright evil.
She’s almost done. The piece should be completed within a week or two. Will be bringing all the stuff together that I’ve been working on over the last two years.
I have learned that there is hardly any truth left in the books of our past.
All the mayor libraries have been burned long ago.
What we have left is a sup of propaganda allowed by the institutions and that’s it.
The inquisition have sentence people to death for the books they were reading, and governments have continue to censure ever since their establishment.
Universities are the centers of propaganda used to maintain the status quo.
The so called luciferian magicians of freemasonry, are simply, rich psychopath drug addicts, and theirs and their puppeteers reign of fear and deception has come to end.
I am a real devil, “Not the one you are told to believe in” so I understand.
Cynthia, I just finished your book, black sun, and it is brilliant. I thank you and Matt for your excellent scholarship that has filled in so many blanks for me. I now understand much better just how we have been brainwashed for so long as well as how they accomplished this. Thank you both so much, Jack Williams, a more enlightened human.
We create the gods. Jehovah/Satan are the same group of entities that tweaked human DNA to make us into creators of myth. The next phase of human evolution will be embracing the mechanism itself of myth making or we can just succumb to the slavery of AI and data collection in a dead biosphere.
I'm a bit suspicious of conspiracy theories. People just aren't that powerful. Though they like to think they are. For instance look at Putin and his attack on the Ukraine. He thought it would be over in a week. Yet two years later he's still struggling. Something similar is true of the middle eastern situation. If anyone is conspiring at all it is the devil. But you see he has no real existence.
However I do agree that language is central. And the role of poets as witnesses to the truth all important. Do poets conspire? No. We do the exact opposite. People talk of 'confessional poetry'. But in fact all poetry is confessional and always has been. It is through continued confession that the devil is defeated and seen for the paper tiger he in fact is.
Conspiracies can only survive in an atmosphere of secrecy and lies. But the moment you tell one lie everything starts to go wrong for you. The moment you are completely open and honest about every little thing every big thing starts to go right.
To this I would simply say that those who say they don’t believe in any conspiracies are in reality just as radical as those who believe everything is a conspiracy.
What matters is discernment, what are the real conspiracies and what is just nonsense. It’s like anything else in life.
As for the argument about telling lies and it being impossible to maintain them over long periods of time without anyone figuring it out, the podcaster Tim Dillon had a simple reply: you know who doesn’t believe groups of people can maintain big lies across long periods of time? Bad liars!
Second point: at the same time these things are out in the open. If you read H.G. Wells, it’s called an “Open Conspiracy” for a reason. None of this is really hidden. But it’s known that people are in reality only going to allow themselves to see what they can take in. The other stuff people just unsee.
As the saying goes, “when someone tells you what they’re going to do, you should listen.”
But most people don’t listen. In fact, not only do many not listen, many attack those who tell the truth.
Dr. RD Laing talked a lot about this in his work on dysfunctional families, dissociation etc. People learn not to see, to “make believe,” to play “games” etc.
And one can’t blame them. That’s why it’s important to talk about these things responsibly.
Otherwise, on the education front the problem is most people have been conditioned to think bottom up. Few people have the genuine ability to think top down. Modern education, especially with specialization, is very much bottom up.
It’s only if you’re let in to certain disciplines or areas that you’re introduced to serious top-down thinking and decision-making.
To quote Bertrand Russell:
“Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen.”
Bertrand Russell – The Impact of Science on Society (1951)
Again, when people tell you what they’re going to do, you should listen.
However, people don’t listen. I believe we grow by learning to listen. And the truth, as we know, is often hidden in plain sight.
I think most of the time it's muddlement and confusion. Sometimes things work out and then people like to pretend that it was their Machiavellian plotting that achieved it all. This is is surely just arrogance and pride. That's the only real lie.
I also dislike all this concern with large groups of people. I'm pretty sure that all the important things happen at the individual level. Beethoven inscribed one of his symphonies 'from the heart to the heart'. Jesus may have spoken to vast crowds of thousands of people but when he spoke he always addressed each individual as an individual. He spoke to each individual conscience. He was never interested in the numbers game. The mathematics of salvation is that one individual is equal in weight to millions.
Power may be impressive, but it is the opposite of the truth. This necessarily means that it is a lie. Truth transcends the dichotomy between power and powerlessness. What truth has is not power but authority. From the vantage point of transcendent truth the machinations of power are just a game for silly children. It has nothing to do with maturity or wisdom. It is merely the play of shadows on the wall in Plato's cave.
We're a waste of organic matter and energy. Millennia after Millennia only made it worse, no wonder that the degenerate uman animal is always making stuff up in order to pretend the root of it is not himself.
Then you've been duped more than all of us if you believe that. They so love to hear you utter such dystopian and dark thoughts. There's a lucrative payout by the predators for people willing to push out your message. You may be missing out or are you?
A lot of this seems deeply sinister and distasteful.
However I find it difficult to see the Beatles included in any of this since they seem relatively so innocent. They actually grew to dislike public performances because, as they said, nobody could actually hear the music while they were so busy screaming. They learnt to vastly prefer working in the studio where they were able to concentrate on making the music they loved and introduce many innovations which have been in regular use ever since.
That they actually loved their music and were full of enthusiasm for it can be seen from witnessing their stage performances. You can see that there was a deep rapport between them, and between them and their audience.
In actual fact I find their music better than most of the classical music of our age. Not only because of the intrinsic beauty of the melodies but also because of the harmonic richness of the way those melodies were treated. They may not have been able to read or write music but in every other way they certainly knew their stuff, modulating with ease from one key to another and alternating between major and minor chords, arpeggiating and counterpointing in a way more characteristic of Bach, and making full use of all the modes. And being continually open to new ways of doing things while remaining true to established conventions So that their work always remains musically interesting as well as emotionally varied, in a way that Bob Dylan's never was. Though it succeeded in winning his admiration.
While they were around they raised the level of pop music all around them everywhere to an extent we haven't seen before or since. And there was hardly an aspect of ordinary human life they didn't cover.
This article has nothing to do with the Beatles… I can’t help but suspect your imagination was somewhere else as you read the piece.
That being said, many people who grew up in the 60s have a particular recollection or fondness for the period. So, learning about the “secret history of the 60s,” as journalists Tom O’Neil puts it, tends to leave a lot folks discombobulated, understandably so.
To any of those folks I would simply say: every time we remove an illusion about ourselves, others, and the world, we move closer to the real thing, closer to God and our own deeper story.
We need not be afraid.
Truth is not the enemy, the magicians and their illusions are.
To quote Schiller:
“Beauty in the form of the goddess Calypso has enchanted the valiant son of Ulysses, and, through the power of her charms, she holds him for a long time imprisoned upon her island. For long he believes he is paying homage to an immortal deity, since he lies only in the arms of voluptuousness—but a sublime impression seizes him suddenly in the form of Mentor: He remembers his better destiny, throws himself into the waves, and is free.”
If it helps, imagine ripping yourself from the arms of the goddess Calypso.
It's also worth remembering that other things rely on establishing a trance-like state, including poetry and prayer and meditation. However when in a trance-like state we're at our weakest, so that it is only too easy to introduce unsavoury elements in a rather insidious way. That's why I insist on my prayers and meditations being contentless. In that way they give me a space in which I can work things out for myself, free of indoctrination. Poetry too enables one to critically distance oneself from any possible source of confusion.
I'm sorry. It's just that I'm going through a phase of studying the Beatles more closely than ever I have in the past. I just didn't like seeing them being roped in with all the other rubbish. They really are very different.
I recently watched the official music video for John Lennon's "Imagine" for the first time... I was struck by how obviously it is a commercial for the New World Order. I know that song was created apart from the Beatles; yet when a band is so incredibly influential you have to use a critical eye and ear. Frank Zappa is one of my all time favorites and he was smack in the middle of the Laurel Canyon crowd :(
I still listen to his catalog, but without letting myself get swept away. I keep a safe distance.
You would love David McGowan's Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon. It's quite the revelation, especially for anyone who's experienced the historical decades in question first hand.
One of the more profound ironies pointed out by McGowan is that a lot of what appeared to be Left-wing, hippie, flower power causes were being guided by very hard right-wingers like Frank Zappa and company, who functioned as spiritual mentors of sorts. McGowan takes a closer look at these people, like Zappa whose father had top-secret military clearance working as a chemical weapons expert; Crosby is the descendent of one of the oldest aristocratic families in the United States, the real "blue blood" establishment; Jim Morrison's father was a top-level Naval Officer, like Hubbard and Heinlein as well. In Morrison's case, his father was directly involved in Gulf of Tonkin incident. But the book gives example after example. Seeing the curtain lifted is a wild and captivating read.
That being said, I think that's where it becomes important to point out: this doesn't mean we can't enjoy a song, band or novel. However, anytime one sort of lifts the curtain, some of the magic is undoubtedly lost. That can make one sad or despairing, feeling like one's life has sort of been mislead, but in reality, I think the takeaway is it opens us up to a higher kind of magic and the most visceral and spiritually transcending of all experiences: an experience of the truth. We've been trained and conditioned to think of truth and philosophy as these airy, abstract nothings. People will often argue that philosophy or truth is some abstract thing, but I would argue that the experience of truth is one of the most visceral experiences anyone can have.
It beats even the most dazzling or hypnotizing illusions, in my opinion.
Great and very illuminating article David, many thanks. However, I think we need to get away from all these labels (they like us fighting among ourselves), right, left, up, down or whatever. This traps us in their system.
"The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence" (Krishnamurti)
Even with Krishnamurti, there is a danger of seeing him as a guru, an end in itself. And as you pointed out, as (trainee) observers we can still "get drawn in" while being aware of the pitfalls. Perhaps we have to lose our faith to find it again, and maybe even more than once, to ultimately go beyond that, wherever that might be.
I don’t disagree. The Tao that is spoken is not the true Tao. But the purpose of words, at least as I see it, is not to speak the Truth so much as to point to it.
Consider my words an attempt to point to it and bring some awareness to the question.
At the same time, one can’t help but observe that it’s important to put a name on things. The first step to solving a problem is to put a name on it. The problem we’re pointing to is a very old one, and yet it’s been given little attention (compared to other subjects). Plato gave it a lot of attention in his own time, respecting the role of poets and image-makers, but what he said has been distorted time and time again. This latest piece is in the spirit of an “appel à l’ordre.”
In the spirit of Confucius, chief among the Eastern sages, the West is due for a “Rectification of Names.”
« A superior man, in regard to what he does not know, shows a cautious reserve. If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. When affairs cannot be carried on to success, proprieties and music do not flourish. When proprieties and music do not flourish, punishments will not be properly awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded, the people do not know how to move hand or foot. Therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses may be spoken appropriately, and also that what he speaks may be carried out appropriately. What the superior man requires is just that in his words there may be nothing incorrect. »
— Confucius, Analects, Book XIII, Chapter 3, verses 4–7, Analect 13.3, translated by James Legge[17]
Weird, I was going to say something similar in my post but I edited it back. That all these self-help and counter culture gurus (and I've admired a few) just point us in a particular direction, maybe even the wrong direction. But the journey we take is of our own choosing and it is taken alone. Lovely sentiments on the power of words, their use, restraint in their non-use. Thanks for your thought provoking reply, much appreciated.
I'm afraid the Beatles are the only pop group I know anything about. They are the only ones who seem worth it. If any other group was ever any good that was because of their influence. Even Bob Dylan seems limited compared to them. He seems only to have been able to write protest songs.
The lyrics of Imagine don't survive close inspection. But Lennon's heart was in the right place. And it's that which finds its way into the music. At least all the Beatles' songs were sincere and genuine and heartfelt. I doubt that money or commerce entered into their calculations. But maybe that's because I'm a dreamer...
It was a test, a transition and take a look where it all went from there when they saw the level of power over a whole nation's culture they could have at their fingertips.
In short the Beatles succeeded in raising pop music to the level of the best classical music. Which in our own Godforsaken age classical music itself never did.
(I would have liked to edit my comment but found that I couldn't. So I shall have to content mysejf with craving the reader's indulgence.)
I could never understand the draw of sci-fi books or movies. It always seemed weird, unrealistic and bottom line not entertaining. Has anyone else noticed that Hollywood seems to only put out new marvel movies or remakes of older movies? Are they running out of creativity?
I think sci-if can be cool, the problem is that so much of it has been weaponized and turned into a sophisticated propaganda tool. In ends up always being about the same transhumanist and Futurist-Luciferian ethic in one way or another.
Naturally, there are some good exceptions, but it’s not like the current Hollywood world is going to do an adaptation of, say, CS Lewis’ Space Trilogy anytime soon lol.
That would be cool though.
It’s partly also why I’m working on several new stories of my own, including “The Little Forests on Mars.” The narratives can be challenged in many creative ways today.
In this respect, I think we’re fortunate.
I've included some sci-fi in my novels, but only briefly, and very much with my tongue in my cheek. On the whole it's not my favourite genre.
Thanks again David, excellent work. Especially appreciated the 2014 video you provided of Michael Parker - David McGowen interview on, “Weird Scenes Inside Laurel Canyon”. People need to get how how powerful the Military Industrial Media Academic Complex (MIMAC) is in shaping and directing the world. Thx again, and looking forward to your further good works.
Thanks Monty!
Your knowledge of the backstory behind pop culture--the fact that it is carefully engineered psyop, in many ways--is impressive. I just encountered this social media sensation by the name of Hannah Barron. You should check her out, because she seems so inauthentic. She seems like someone trying to play a part. She adopts this really exaggerated Southern accent, and does all these roughneck rural activities to challenge the traditional role of femininity. There is no way this is her real life. She also uses her sexuality to generate clicks. If you read the comments, it seems like people think of her as their friend or even girlfriend. I suspect this is someone promoted by psychological operations teams, to divide the population by giving people a source of contention about what a woman should be, dividing us along this tired meaningless dichotomy of "conservative" vs. "liberal."
This is a wonderful and rich essay! This substack is definitely worth investing in!
Glad you liked it!
There's plenty more coming. I have about 20 articles in the queue waiting to be written or completed.
Great! I enjoy the poetry in New Lyre too. Do you have any knowledge of the Wheel of Time series? Does it have the creepy origins as the science fiction stories you mention? It seems to be a competing mythology to the Lord of the Rings, and there are rumors that Robert Jordan was a freemason.
Good article except the blame is given to wrong group.
Real “ magicians, shamans, and wizards” are not the ones trying to distort reality or which would prefer we don’t see the truth.
The ones who are doing it is charlatans which pretend to be, institutions like the theosophical society and their proxies, and of course, all the belief/lie based abrahamic religions with their cults of death and blood.
I think you’ll appreciate the coming article, “Slaying Mithra: Esalen, Self-help and the Luciferian Takeover of the West.”
A lot of what is referred to as “magick” in the alchemical, Gnostic and similar traditions is really just the art of changing and shaping people’s realities, their inner worlds, the images and dreams they have etc. A lot of this involves altered states, which aren’t bad in themselves, but can be used in very powerful ways if one isn’t aware of what’s happening inside them or the intentions of those introducing them to such things. When one is fasting, practicing abstinence, dancing, dreaming, walking, having sex, they are naturally in an altered states of different degrees. But what happens when someone comes along and wishes to turn the experience of altered states into a religion itself, one which proposes to initiate you into the deeper secrets of ancient alchemical traditions of magic and higher degree “mysteries” which will finally allow you to discover your deeper “self.”
This is where real discernment becomes important, in my opinion.
For example, in our modern age a lot of this was introduced into the West using Buddhist and Eastern traditions as a proxy and cover. In reality, much of what was passed for Eastern mysticism and various tantric traditions of the East isn’t the real thing, it’s the stuff imported and popularized by very specific groups in the West for very specific purposes.
Again here, much of it is presented under the guise of philosophical discourse, comparative religion and literature (like the Beat poets), but there’s more to the story. The introduction of the Persian Mithras cult into the Roman Empire is another example of the same kind of thing. It’s nothing new. We’re just taking a fresh look at a very old practice.
Alas, the “magicians” we speak of have been very clever in how they’ve sought to introduce people to the world of “altered states” and “magic.” In this light, I’d say you’re not wrong: they aren’t “magicians” so much as tricksters, some crooked, some corrupted, and some outright evil.
Looking forward to that Esalen piece! Very direct lineage from the MK ULTRA/LSD scene at Stanford into the Human Potential movement.
Yup!
She’s almost done. The piece should be completed within a week or two. Will be bringing all the stuff together that I’ve been working on over the last two years.
Evil is a condition, a mental one.
If you can survive my pore English and occasional typos
https://mywisdom.substack.com/p/how-to-overcome-and-erase-evil
I have learned that there is hardly any truth left in the books of our past.
All the mayor libraries have been burned long ago.
What we have left is a sup of propaganda allowed by the institutions and that’s it.
The inquisition have sentence people to death for the books they were reading, and governments have continue to censure ever since their establishment.
Universities are the centers of propaganda used to maintain the status quo.
The so called luciferian magicians of freemasonry, are simply, rich psychopath drug addicts, and theirs and their puppeteers reign of fear and deception has come to end.
I am a real devil, “Not the one you are told to believe in” so I understand.
https://bocksaga.substack.com/
The only truth is understanding.
I look forward to it
Cynthia, I just finished your book, black sun, and it is brilliant. I thank you and Matt for your excellent scholarship that has filled in so many blanks for me. I now understand much better just how we have been brainwashed for so long as well as how they accomplished this. Thank you both so much, Jack Williams, a more enlightened human.
Technically, this is David’s Substack lol.
That being said, as a close friend of Cynthia and Matt, I fully agree.
Shout out to Cynthia for the cross-post.
Thanks David.
We create the gods. Jehovah/Satan are the same group of entities that tweaked human DNA to make us into creators of myth. The next phase of human evolution will be embracing the mechanism itself of myth making or we can just succumb to the slavery of AI and data collection in a dead biosphere.
I'm a bit suspicious of conspiracy theories. People just aren't that powerful. Though they like to think they are. For instance look at Putin and his attack on the Ukraine. He thought it would be over in a week. Yet two years later he's still struggling. Something similar is true of the middle eastern situation. If anyone is conspiring at all it is the devil. But you see he has no real existence.
However I do agree that language is central. And the role of poets as witnesses to the truth all important. Do poets conspire? No. We do the exact opposite. People talk of 'confessional poetry'. But in fact all poetry is confessional and always has been. It is through continued confession that the devil is defeated and seen for the paper tiger he in fact is.
Conspiracies can only survive in an atmosphere of secrecy and lies. But the moment you tell one lie everything starts to go wrong for you. The moment you are completely open and honest about every little thing every big thing starts to go right.
To this I would simply say that those who say they don’t believe in any conspiracies are in reality just as radical as those who believe everything is a conspiracy.
What matters is discernment, what are the real conspiracies and what is just nonsense. It’s like anything else in life.
As for the argument about telling lies and it being impossible to maintain them over long periods of time without anyone figuring it out, the podcaster Tim Dillon had a simple reply: you know who doesn’t believe groups of people can maintain big lies across long periods of time? Bad liars!
Second point: at the same time these things are out in the open. If you read H.G. Wells, it’s called an “Open Conspiracy” for a reason. None of this is really hidden. But it’s known that people are in reality only going to allow themselves to see what they can take in. The other stuff people just unsee.
As the saying goes, “when someone tells you what they’re going to do, you should listen.”
But most people don’t listen. In fact, not only do many not listen, many attack those who tell the truth.
Dr. RD Laing talked a lot about this in his work on dysfunctional families, dissociation etc. People learn not to see, to “make believe,” to play “games” etc.
And one can’t blame them. That’s why it’s important to talk about these things responsibly.
Otherwise, on the education front the problem is most people have been conditioned to think bottom up. Few people have the genuine ability to think top down. Modern education, especially with specialization, is very much bottom up.
It’s only if you’re let in to certain disciplines or areas that you’re introduced to serious top-down thinking and decision-making.
To quote Bertrand Russell:
“Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen.”
Bertrand Russell – The Impact of Science on Society (1951)
Again, when people tell you what they’re going to do, you should listen.
However, people don’t listen. I believe we grow by learning to listen. And the truth, as we know, is often hidden in plain sight.
I think most of the time it's muddlement and confusion. Sometimes things work out and then people like to pretend that it was their Machiavellian plotting that achieved it all. This is is surely just arrogance and pride. That's the only real lie.
I also dislike all this concern with large groups of people. I'm pretty sure that all the important things happen at the individual level. Beethoven inscribed one of his symphonies 'from the heart to the heart'. Jesus may have spoken to vast crowds of thousands of people but when he spoke he always addressed each individual as an individual. He spoke to each individual conscience. He was never interested in the numbers game. The mathematics of salvation is that one individual is equal in weight to millions.
Power may be impressive, but it is the opposite of the truth. This necessarily means that it is a lie. Truth transcends the dichotomy between power and powerlessness. What truth has is not power but authority. From the vantage point of transcendent truth the machinations of power are just a game for silly children. It has nothing to do with maturity or wisdom. It is merely the play of shadows on the wall in Plato's cave.
We're a waste of organic matter and energy. Millennia after Millennia only made it worse, no wonder that the degenerate uman animal is always making stuff up in order to pretend the root of it is not himself.
Then you've been duped more than all of us if you believe that. They so love to hear you utter such dystopian and dark thoughts. There's a lucrative payout by the predators for people willing to push out your message. You may be missing out or are you?
If it were only a belief!
While we persist in pretending we're something we're not the fiction will always prevail and with it our utter misery.
A proper look around should be enough to figure this simple reality.
A lot of this seems deeply sinister and distasteful.
However I find it difficult to see the Beatles included in any of this since they seem relatively so innocent. They actually grew to dislike public performances because, as they said, nobody could actually hear the music while they were so busy screaming. They learnt to vastly prefer working in the studio where they were able to concentrate on making the music they loved and introduce many innovations which have been in regular use ever since.
That they actually loved their music and were full of enthusiasm for it can be seen from witnessing their stage performances. You can see that there was a deep rapport between them, and between them and their audience.
In actual fact I find their music better than most of the classical music of our age. Not only because of the intrinsic beauty of the melodies but also because of the harmonic richness of the way those melodies were treated. They may not have been able to read or write music but in every other way they certainly knew their stuff, modulating with ease from one key to another and alternating between major and minor chords, arpeggiating and counterpointing in a way more characteristic of Bach, and making full use of all the modes. And being continually open to new ways of doing things while remaining true to established conventions So that their work always remains musically interesting as well as emotionally varied, in a way that Bob Dylan's never was. Though it succeeded in winning his admiration.
While they were around they raised the level of pop music all around them everywhere to an extent we haven't seen before or since. And there was hardly an aspect of ordinary human life they didn't cover.
This article has nothing to do with the Beatles… I can’t help but suspect your imagination was somewhere else as you read the piece.
That being said, many people who grew up in the 60s have a particular recollection or fondness for the period. So, learning about the “secret history of the 60s,” as journalists Tom O’Neil puts it, tends to leave a lot folks discombobulated, understandably so.
To any of those folks I would simply say: every time we remove an illusion about ourselves, others, and the world, we move closer to the real thing, closer to God and our own deeper story.
We need not be afraid.
Truth is not the enemy, the magicians and their illusions are.
To quote Schiller:
“Beauty in the form of the goddess Calypso has enchanted the valiant son of Ulysses, and, through the power of her charms, she holds him for a long time imprisoned upon her island. For long he believes he is paying homage to an immortal deity, since he lies only in the arms of voluptuousness—but a sublime impression seizes him suddenly in the form of Mentor: He remembers his better destiny, throws himself into the waves, and is free.”
If it helps, imagine ripping yourself from the arms of the goddess Calypso.
It's also worth remembering that other things rely on establishing a trance-like state, including poetry and prayer and meditation. However when in a trance-like state we're at our weakest, so that it is only too easy to introduce unsavoury elements in a rather insidious way. That's why I insist on my prayers and meditations being contentless. In that way they give me a space in which I can work things out for myself, free of indoctrination. Poetry too enables one to critically distance oneself from any possible source of confusion.
I'm sorry. It's just that I'm going through a phase of studying the Beatles more closely than ever I have in the past. I just didn't like seeing them being roped in with all the other rubbish. They really are very different.
I recently watched the official music video for John Lennon's "Imagine" for the first time... I was struck by how obviously it is a commercial for the New World Order. I know that song was created apart from the Beatles; yet when a band is so incredibly influential you have to use a critical eye and ear. Frank Zappa is one of my all time favorites and he was smack in the middle of the Laurel Canyon crowd :(
I still listen to his catalog, but without letting myself get swept away. I keep a safe distance.
You would love David McGowan's Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon. It's quite the revelation, especially for anyone who's experienced the historical decades in question first hand.
One of the more profound ironies pointed out by McGowan is that a lot of what appeared to be Left-wing, hippie, flower power causes were being guided by very hard right-wingers like Frank Zappa and company, who functioned as spiritual mentors of sorts. McGowan takes a closer look at these people, like Zappa whose father had top-secret military clearance working as a chemical weapons expert; Crosby is the descendent of one of the oldest aristocratic families in the United States, the real "blue blood" establishment; Jim Morrison's father was a top-level Naval Officer, like Hubbard and Heinlein as well. In Morrison's case, his father was directly involved in Gulf of Tonkin incident. But the book gives example after example. Seeing the curtain lifted is a wild and captivating read.
That being said, I think that's where it becomes important to point out: this doesn't mean we can't enjoy a song, band or novel. However, anytime one sort of lifts the curtain, some of the magic is undoubtedly lost. That can make one sad or despairing, feeling like one's life has sort of been mislead, but in reality, I think the takeaway is it opens us up to a higher kind of magic and the most visceral and spiritually transcending of all experiences: an experience of the truth. We've been trained and conditioned to think of truth and philosophy as these airy, abstract nothings. People will often argue that philosophy or truth is some abstract thing, but I would argue that the experience of truth is one of the most visceral experiences anyone can have.
It beats even the most dazzling or hypnotizing illusions, in my opinion.
Great and very illuminating article David, many thanks. However, I think we need to get away from all these labels (they like us fighting among ourselves), right, left, up, down or whatever. This traps us in their system.
"The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence" (Krishnamurti)
Even with Krishnamurti, there is a danger of seeing him as a guru, an end in itself. And as you pointed out, as (trainee) observers we can still "get drawn in" while being aware of the pitfalls. Perhaps we have to lose our faith to find it again, and maybe even more than once, to ultimately go beyond that, wherever that might be.
I don’t disagree. The Tao that is spoken is not the true Tao. But the purpose of words, at least as I see it, is not to speak the Truth so much as to point to it.
Consider my words an attempt to point to it and bring some awareness to the question.
At the same time, one can’t help but observe that it’s important to put a name on things. The first step to solving a problem is to put a name on it. The problem we’re pointing to is a very old one, and yet it’s been given little attention (compared to other subjects). Plato gave it a lot of attention in his own time, respecting the role of poets and image-makers, but what he said has been distorted time and time again. This latest piece is in the spirit of an “appel à l’ordre.”
In the spirit of Confucius, chief among the Eastern sages, the West is due for a “Rectification of Names.”
« A superior man, in regard to what he does not know, shows a cautious reserve. If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. When affairs cannot be carried on to success, proprieties and music do not flourish. When proprieties and music do not flourish, punishments will not be properly awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded, the people do not know how to move hand or foot. Therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses may be spoken appropriately, and also that what he speaks may be carried out appropriately. What the superior man requires is just that in his words there may be nothing incorrect. »
— Confucius, Analects, Book XIII, Chapter 3, verses 4–7, Analect 13.3, translated by James Legge[17]
Shout out to the Eastern sages.
Weird, I was going to say something similar in my post but I edited it back. That all these self-help and counter culture gurus (and I've admired a few) just point us in a particular direction, maybe even the wrong direction. But the journey we take is of our own choosing and it is taken alone. Lovely sentiments on the power of words, their use, restraint in their non-use. Thanks for your thought provoking reply, much appreciated.
Couldn't agree more. One of the reasons I follow your work 👍
I'm afraid the Beatles are the only pop group I know anything about. They are the only ones who seem worth it. If any other group was ever any good that was because of their influence. Even Bob Dylan seems limited compared to them. He seems only to have been able to write protest songs.
The lyrics of Imagine don't survive close inspection. But Lennon's heart was in the right place. And it's that which finds its way into the music. At least all the Beatles' songs were sincere and genuine and heartfelt. I doubt that money or commerce entered into their calculations. But maybe that's because I'm a dreamer...
It was a test, a transition and take a look where it all went from there when they saw the level of power over a whole nation's culture they could have at their fingertips.
In short the Beatles succeeded in raising pop music to the level of the best classical music. Which in our own Godforsaken age classical music itself never did.
(I would have liked to edit my comment but found that I couldn't. So I shall have to content mysejf with craving the reader's indulgence.)
I'm in no way convinced that the Beatles measure up to Bach. No sir!
You should listen to them. They're pretty good. Not as good as Bach, obviously. But still pretty good.